In Which I Briefly Review Movies

[909]

Wonder Woman 1984 (2020), directed by Patty Jenkins

Reason for Watching: I don't really need to fill this section out for once. It's obvious why.

Alright, so everyone was talking about how disappointing Wonder Woman 1984 was, and I do agree even though at the same time I don't think it's a bad movie. It's just not very good. Wonder Woman 1984 is obviously the story of Wonder Woman (Gal Gadot), who is living in 1984 for the duration of this film. No shit, right. She now works at the Smithsonian, with her friend Barbara (Kristen Wiig). At some point, the museum is asked by the FBI to identify some stolen artifiacts, one of which is called the Dreamstone. The Dreamstone, as it turns out, actually does grant wishes. Steve Trevor (Chris Pine) is wished into being, and it also turns out that Barbara wishes some things of her own into being. One day, a failing businessman named Max Lord (Pedro Pascal) goes into the museum and sees the stone. Through Barbara, he is able to steal the stone and make it part of himself. His goal, basically, is to control the world through the powers given to him by this artifact. The thing is, these wishes have a cost. Or, you know, something.

This movie goes on for what seems like literally forever, which is probably the largest problem I have with it. In addition, that first act with minimal action stretches on for about an hour. It's not good viewing. But, man, how could a movie with Wonder Woman have such superficial use of the character and an inability to show anything that the character is actually good at doing. I understand why WB rushed to premiere this now. Word of mouth might have killed the fucking thing from jump. In some ways it already has. Movies like these usually come out and I usually hear about them for a long time, but because this went straight to streaming, or perhaps because of the quality or lack thereof, I've heard little.

This is of course not even close to as good as the first movie, and most of its strengths lie in Pedro Pascal's Trump-like character, who is on screen too much even though he's pretty good. It isn't that there aren't good things about this movie. They just aren't cohesively woven together with Wonder Woman herself. The third act is good in the sense that they did a pretty good job pulling everything together that they did a bad job of writing. Also, the overarching story of the film actually does work. It is bad to lie, bad to steal, and sends a message to some people that the gratification of all your wishes may not turn out all that well. There is a good script to be written around those tenets in the constraints of a superhero movie. This is just not one of those scripts.

I almost don't feel like saying anything about how stupid the whole rape controversy is, but I guess I have to because the internet went crazy about it and it would be weird not to say anything. It's dumb. This is supposed to be an 80s homage movie in some respect. The body swap is one of those homages. I don't remotely see this the same way that other people do, and I'm gonna leave it at that. At the end of the day, that's just something people talk about and focus on when they know a movie isn't that good. The fact is, a Wonder Woman movie should have been about Wonder Woman, she should have been in the film more, and she should have kicked more ass. Simple as that, no further analysis needed.

5/10

2020 Films Ranked

Spoiler

1. Bad Education
2. The Invisible Man
3. Bad Boys for Life
4. The Banker
5. The Gentlemen
6. Birds of Prey
7. Uncorked
8. Extraction
9. Big Time Adolescence
10. Sergio
11. The Lovebirds
12. Sonic the Hedgehog
13. The Call of the Wild
14. 7500
15. Come to Daddy
16. An American Pickle
17. Wonder Woman 1984
18. Lost Girls
19. Underwater
20. The Rhythm Section
21. The Last Full Measure
22. Spenser Confidential
23. Like a Boss
24. The Grudge
25. Dolittle
26. Fantasy Island

 

[909]

Greyhound (2020), directed by Aaron Schneider

Reason for Watching: While I still need to get through 2018 and 2019 movies, I have an Apple subscription that's going to end soon and I needed to watch this.

As the commercials last year told you, this is a movie where an American destroyer is trying to navigate a convoy through waters populated by U-boats. The destroyer featured throughout the movie is USS Keeling, which goes by the call sign of Greyhound. Greyhound, as you probably also realize from the commercials, is captained by Tom Hanks. I really don't ever remember hearing his characters name at any point. I don't need to say much of shit from here as everyone knows I want to shorten these fucking things. There's German U-boats out there destroying the convoy and Tom Hanks has to stop them. The end.

This kind of simple movie is an easy watch, an easy review, and easy everything else. There's a level of authenticity that I expect and at the same time I expect to be entertained throughout and not feel like turning off the movie. I have another similar movie on my list to watch rather soon, so it'll be interesting to compare. There is one thing though. This kind of movie that doesn't take place on real water, where everything is done by CGI? I don't know how I feel about that. I understand that it has to be done that way for budgetary and practical reasons. It's just weird. You can tell they weren't on real water. Regardless of that, I liked this movie. It hit the right spot, and it's really short, so the movie never feels like it's lagging or taking up time with unnecessary scenes. The only character who matters is the captain, and everyone else merely fills their role as crew. That's fine. Just don't expect a layered movie or anything like that.

7/10

2020 Films Ranked

Spoiler

1. Bad Education
2. The Invisible Man
3. Bad Boys for Life
4. The Banker
5. The Gentlemen
6. Greyhound
7. Birds of Prey
8. Uncorked
9. Extraction
10. Big Time Adolescence
11. Sergio
12. The Lovebirds
13. Sonic the Hedgehog
14. The Call of the Wild
15. 7500
16. Come to Daddy
17. An American Pickle
18. Wonder Woman 1984
19. Lost Girls
20. Underwater
21. The Rhythm Section
22. The Last Full Measure
23. Spenser Confidential
24. Like a Boss
25. The Grudge
26. Dolittle
27. Fantasy Island

 

[909]

The Mustang (2019), directed by Laure de Clermont-Tonnerre

Reason for Watching: This is leaving HBO Max, but that's not the only reason. There seems to be an increasing amount of movies centered around horses and the training of them. All the ones I have seen are pretty good but I hope that there isn't a complete deluge of them.

The Mustang is a film that slow burns the reasons why its subject is incarcerated and how long they're incarcerated for. The film centers around Roman Coleman (Matthias Schoenaerts), a man imprisoned in Nevada for...I won't say. The man has a very short temper. He knows how short his temper is and as a result has refused all avenues of rehabilitation. One day, while shoveling horse shit outside, he sees a horse that's placed in a pen clearly marked for a dangerous one. He goes inside and is told by Myles (Bruce Dern) to get the fuck out of there. Myles is a rancher who assigns prisoners to train wild mustangs. Each prisoner is given a horse to train for 12 weeks, and the horse will be sold at auction. Roman is not in this program yet, but with the help of Henry (Jason Mitchell), he can learn how to do the job properly. Unfortunately, Roman has a terrible cellmate who threatens Roman's pregnant daughter, who hates Roman for reasons I don't want to get into. Anyway, I think this is a good movie and you should watch it.

Why is this a good movie? Well, it isn't as good as the other two horse related movies to come out recently (Lean on Pete and The Rider), but it brings an entirely unique look to the equation. The Mustang also packs a decent sized emotional punch because the director is effective in steering emotions rather than blatantly manipulating them. A good example is in how you know this guy is a piece of shit and you still want things to go well. Not just for him, but for the horse. This isn't a redemption story and I find that Roman isn't redeemed at all by any of his actions other than letting the horse go. He is a violent guy who needs help. This isn't a complicated film, it's rather simplistic and I was surprised that things panned out so well. The director, after all, is French. The lead is Belgian. Yet this story is uniquely American and feels as such.

The Mustang isn't a very long movie, and that's part of why I decided to watch it last night after having watched basketball. Because it isn't such a long movie, it feels more accessible than others. The prison drama aspect of the story also works as glue that holds the training sequences and horse bonding together. All the actors are pretty good here too but that's hardly shocking.

7.5/10

2019 Films Ranked

Spoiler

1. Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
2. Parasite
3. 1917
4. Midsommar
5. Ad Astra
6. The Lighthouse
7. Waves
8. The Farewell
9. Knives Out
10. Uncut Gems
11. Atlantics
12. Booksmart
13. Avengers: Endgame
14. Queen & Slim
15. Toy Story 4
16. Joker
17. Dolemite Is My Name
18. A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood
19. John Wick: Chapter 3 - Parabellum
20. The Two Popes
21. Clemency (had some stuff happen, couldn't review)
22. Us
23. Ford v. Ferrari
24. Gloria Bell
25. The Beach Bum
26. Just Mercy
27. The Art of Self-Defense
28. Dark Waters
29. El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie
30. Arctic
31. Spider-Man: Far From Home
32. Rocketman
33. High Flying Bird
34. The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind
35. Paddleton
36. The Peanut Butter Falcon
37. The Mustang
38. Honey Boy
39. Doctor Sleep
40. Hustlers
41. Wild Rose
42. Richard Jewell
43. Blinded by the Light
44. Captain Marvel
45. Jojo Rabbit
46. Shazam
47. Ready or Not
48. Native Son
49. See You Yesterday
50. A Vigilante
51. Late Night
52. Crawl
53. Long Shot
54. It: Chapter Two
55. Hotel Mumbai
56. Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark
57. Zombieland: Double Tap
58. Harriet
59. American Woman
60. Hobbs & Shaw
61. Official Secrets
62. Always Be My Maybe
63. Cold Pursuit
64. The Laundromat
65. Where'd You Go, Bernadette
66. Shaft
67. Happy Death Day 2U
68. Ma
69. Terminator: Dark Fate
70. Greta
71. Brittany Runs a Marathon
72. Annabelle Comes Home
73. Jumanji: The Next Level
74. Aladdin
75. Triple Frontier
76. Fighting with My Family
77. Godzilla: King of the Monsters
78. Little Woods
79. Pokemon: Detective Pikachu
80. Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile
81. Brexit
82. The Dirt
83. Velvet Buzzsaw
84. Stuber
85. Little
86. Alita: Battle Angel
87. The Hole in the Ground
88. The Good Liar
89. The Wind
90. The Current War: Director's Cut
91. The Kid
92. The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part
93. Good Boys
94. The Upside
95. The Aeronauts
96. The Lion King
97. Dumbo
98. The Hummingbird Project
99. Escape Room
100. 47 Meters Down: Uncaged
101. The Wedding Guest
102. Brian Banks
103. In the Tall Grass
104. Tolkien
105. The Dead Don't Die
106. Captive State
107. The Highwaymen
108. Bombshell
109. Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker
110. Pet Sematary
111. The Intruder
112. Child's Play
113. 21 Bridges
114. Gemini Man
115. Brightburn
116. Never Grow Old
117. All Is True
118. Rambo: Last Blood
119. In the Shadow of the Moon
120. Charlie's Angels
121. Trial by Fire
122. Midway
123. Angel Has Fallen
124. Black and Blue
125. Yesterday
126. Anna
127. What Men Want
128. Them That Follow
129. Wounds
130. Unicorn Store
131. The Curse of La Llorona
132. Miss Bala
133. Men in Black: International
134. Murder Mystery
135. Donnybrook
136. The Red Sea Diving Resort
137. The Perfection
138. Hellboy
139. Seberg
140. Glass
141. Dark Phoenix
142. Tyler Perry's A Madea Family Funeral
143. Point Blank
144. The Kitchen
145. The Hustle
146. The Best of Enemies
147. The Prodigy
148. Polar
149. Serenity

 

[909]

The Little Things (2021), directed by John Lee Hancock

Reason for Watching: This won't be on HBO Max all that long. Even if it was, this is still the kind of movie I like to watch although it may suck. I should also point out that I don't think Denzel Washington is going to be in all that many films going forward from here. Didn't realize that he's nearly in his late 60s.

Even though I'm sure a lot of people are going to watch this, if you are and you haven't yet, I recommend to stop reading. The point of this movie is likely easily discernable from the trailers. The Little Things is set in 1990 even though the filmmaker is genuinely terrible at adhering to the time period and I don't understand how. I guess as a result I would call this a somewhat poorly made film. The Little Things is the story of a serial killer, but first we start in Bakersfield. Joe Deacon (Denzel Washington) is a deputy sheriff who has been given the boot from LAPD over past deeds. He is sent back to Los Angeles in order to get something done for an upcoming court case. While there, there has been another murder he believes is related to a series of cases he has been working. The lead detective is Jim Baxter (Rami Malek), and with the help of Deacon, whether allowed or wanted or needed, their job is to find said serial killer and put his ass to pasture.

The serial killer is played by Jared Leto, who may or may not actually be the serial killer. This movie is pretty slow, but I liked the deliberate pace and Leto's performance. That being said, I have no qualifications to say if Leto's Golden Globe nomination was deserved. I didn't watch enough of...anything that was released during the eligibility period. Once I can get back to a theater I plan to resume regular activity or near regular activity. This movie is as much about finding the killer as it is whatever happened to Deacon to make him this obsessed with the case. In that, The Little Things is a generic film. In most ways it's a generic film. The story is alright, but the moments are all accompanied by a bland score that doesn't match with the events on screen.

When you have a film that doesn't pop, what I hope for is for almost everything to meet my standards and for the most part I think that's true in this case. Leto's performance is properly weird though. He's a strange fuck in any case, but that's what you need in a movie like this one. Also, I don't really care for Hancock as a filmmaker even though The Little Things is better than his last effort, The Highwaymen. His style seems to be to specifically make movies that don't jump at you. They pick a lane and they stay there. To be honest, if Leto wasn't being a weird fuck in this one, I'm not too sure this would have been very watchable. There is a moment though where they make you think that maybe Denzel's character is the murderer after all. They don't follow up on that even though it would have made some sense. In any case, this is a movie that does have one message about these kinds of cases. The police pick someone and try to make the case fit. I think that's the point. The mystery here is good even though a lot of the blocks leading to the end of the film aren't extremely interesting at first thought.

5.5/10

 

[909]

Tigertail (2020), directed by Alan Yang

Reason for Watching: This movie got praise from some circles, but this being a Netflix movie and all, the praise never manifested into anything.

It's funny how Netflix decides which movies to push and which ones they decide to let go by the wayside and pretend like they never existed. Their algorithm or some bullshit, but I don't want to hear it anymore. I'm not entirely sure where to start here though. Pin-Jui (Tzi Ma) was once a young man who lived in Taiwan. When he lived in Taiwan, he was made to hide from the authorities because he wasn't registered properly after the death of his father. In any case, while in the field, he meets a young girl, Yuan. After we get to that meeting, Pin-Jui ages into a young adult who has reconnected with Yuan after a long time spent apart. Pin-Jui thinks that his economic status is too low for his relationship with Yuan to be of any significance. While this relationship is ongoing, Pin-Jui works in a factory with his mother.

One day, while doing the kind of manual labor you expect from a factory in the 1970's, the boss of the factory approaches Pin-Jui. He has heard that Pin-Jui dreams of going to America. Well, it turns out that this boss has a daughter who also wants to go to America and is in need of taking care of. Now I'll stop with this part and cut to Pin-Jui as an older man. Pin-Jui is now divorced, having returned from Taiwan after the funeral of his mother. His daughter Angela has some problems, namely with his inability to open up and be a supportive father. This movie, basically, is what it's like to be an immigrant who has to do a lot of things that they just don't want to. And, besides that, one's inability to deal with the past they've left behind in hopes of success.

While the conclusion of Tigertail is somewhat obvious all along, and as a result the events don't have the most intrigue in the world, I felt like this was a good story that was told very well. The filmmaker does a strong job of laying out Pin-Jui's early life in a way that properly explains how Pin-Jui became the person that you see when things flash to the present. He does things out of obligation There are other things the filmmaker does not do so well. Angela's character just has too many details that aren't filled in. It's also strange that there's only one completely fleshed out character even though the story is largely about that one person. About halfway through, things expand to be about two people, but it doesn't feel like the other character(Angela) is given similar shrift. That's all I'm really trying to say here. It's the difference between a good film and a great film.

I'm also bothered that people big up movies like Crazy Rich Asians instead of this kind of movie. Tigertail is about something important. Also, another thing that I liked was the attempt to make the film look period accurate both in terms of setting and filming style. This was not a movie set in 1990 that had LED shit floating around in random places. I also feel this is a film that respects the perspective of a lot of people who have not had stories similar to their life told on screen. Best of all, this made me feel something.

7/10

2020 Films Ranked

Spoiler

1. Bad Education
2. The Invisible Man
3. Bad Boys for Life
4. Tigertail
5. The Banker
6. The Gentlemen
7. Greyhound
8. Birds of Prey
9. Uncorked
10. Extraction
11. Big Time Adolescence
12. Sergio
13. The Lovebirds
14. Sonic the Hedgehog
15. The Call of the Wild
16. 7500
17. Come to Daddy
18. An American Pickle
19. Wonder Woman 1984
20. Lost Girls
21. Underwater
22. The Rhythm Section
23. The Last Full Measure
24. Spenser Confidential
25. Like a Boss
26. The Grudge
27. Dolittle
28. Fantasy Island

 

[909]

Low Tide (2019), directed by Kevin McMullin

Reason for Watching: Well, I have to watch Motherless Brooklyn this week. But before that, I want to watch something that's much shorter and to the point. Its also been a while since I watched a straight up small budget indie movie.

I did a little bit of reading here and saw that Low Tide wasn't merely a low budget movie, but that the budget was under one million dollars. Anyway, Low Tide is the story of teenagers who are getting older, but they're getting into some bad shit. You've seen this kind of movie before. Alan (Keean Johnson) and his friends Red (Alex Neustaedter) and Smitty (Daniel Zolghadri) are robbing a house when our story begins. Things go well until the people arrive home in the middle of said burglary. Smitty has to jump off the second floor and destroys his ankle in the process, but everyone gets away with some decent loot. One of these guys meets a girl the next day, then Alan's younger brother Peter (Jaeden Martell) has to take the spot of Smitty in the next robbery because Smitty's no longer useful. They find some really cool shit that's valuable and destroys everyone's friendship, and a local cop (Shea Whigham) has to find out what's going on.

Like I said, you've seen this kind of movie before. I don't think this has a ton of cinematic value as a result of that and the film's lack of length. It's just a standard coming of age while doing bad shit kind of movie. I fucking just literally watched one of these movies last year. I'd have watched more if I'd stayed more committed to this project. I'm not trying to be a hater or some shit, but there's an absolutely massive amount of these kinds of movies and they all go down similar paths. Nothing about this one is particularly original, nor does it have the kind of depth that would lead me to write more about the movie.

5.5/10

2019 Films Ranked

Spoiler

1. Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
2. Parasite
3. 1917
4. Midsommar
5. Ad Astra
6. The Lighthouse
7. Waves
8. The Farewell
9. Knives Out
10. Uncut Gems
11. Atlantics
12. Booksmart
13. Avengers: Endgame
14. Queen & Slim
15. Toy Story 4
16. Joker
17. Dolemite Is My Name
18. A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood
19. John Wick: Chapter 3 - Parabellum
20. The Two Popes
21. Clemency (had some stuff happen, couldn't review)
22. Us
23. Ford v. Ferrari
24. Gloria Bell
25. The Beach Bum
26. Just Mercy
27. The Art of Self-Defense
28. Dark Waters
29. El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie
30. Arctic
31. Spider-Man: Far From Home
32. Rocketman
33. High Flying Bird
34. The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind
35. Paddleton
36. The Peanut Butter Falcon
37. The Mustang
38. Honey Boy
39. Doctor Sleep
40. Hustlers
41. Wild Rose
42. Richard Jewell
43. Blinded by the Light
44. Captain Marvel
45. Jojo Rabbit
46. Shazam
47. Ready or Not
48. Native Son
49. See You Yesterday
50. A Vigilante
51. Late Night
52. Crawl
53. Long Shot
54. It: Chapter Two
55. Hotel Mumbai
56. Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark
57. Zombieland: Double Tap
58. Harriet
59. American Woman
60. Hobbs & Shaw
61. Official Secrets
62. Always Be My Maybe
63. Cold Pursuit
64. The Laundromat
65. Where'd You Go, Bernadette
66. Shaft
67. Happy Death Day 2U
68. Ma
69. Terminator: Dark Fate
70. Greta
71. Brittany Runs a Marathon
72. Annabelle Comes Home
73. Jumanji: The Next Level
74. Aladdin
75. Triple Frontier
76. Fighting with My Family
77. Godzilla: King of the Monsters
78. Little Woods
79. Pokemon: Detective Pikachu
80. Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile
81. Brexit
82. The Dirt
83. Velvet Buzzsaw
84. Stuber
85. Little
86. Alita: Battle Angel
87. The Hole in the Ground
88. The Good Liar
89. The Wind
90. The Current War: Director's Cut
91. The Kid
92. The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part
93. Good Boys
94. The Upside
95. The Aeronauts
96. The Lion King
97. Low Tide
98. Dumbo
99. The Hummingbird Project
100. Escape Room
101. 47 Meters Down: Uncaged
102. The Wedding Guest
103. Brian Banks
104. In the Tall Grass
105. Tolkien
106. The Dead Don't Die
107. Captive State
108. The Highwaymen
109. Bombshell
110. Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker
111. Pet Sematary
112. The Intruder
113. Child's Play
114. 21 Bridges
115. Gemini Man
116. Brightburn
117. Never Grow Old
118. All Is True
119. Rambo: Last Blood
120. In the Shadow of the Moon
121. Charlie's Angels
122. Trial by Fire
123. Midway
124. Angel Has Fallen
125. Black and Blue
126. Yesterday
127. Anna
128. What Men Want
129. Them That Follow
130. Wounds
131. Unicorn Store
132. The Curse of La Llorona
133. Miss Bala
134. Men in Black: International
135. Murder Mystery
136. Donnybrook
137. The Red Sea Diving Resort
138. The Perfection
139. Hellboy
140. Seberg
141. Glass
142. Dark Phoenix
143. Tyler Perry's A Madea Family Funeral
144. Point Blank
145. The Kitchen
146. The Hustle
147. The Best of Enemies
148. The Prodigy
149. Polar
150. Serenity

 

[909]

Judas and the Black Messiah (2021), directed by Shaka King

Reason for Watching: I drew it out until literally the last hour of the last day. I've been feeling terrible lately and I guess that's why I pushed watching this off for so long, like with so many other movies and shit. Maybe when things reopen I'll feel more like myself.

With a title like Judas and the Black Messiah, you damn sure better bring something to the table. And this film does. Judas and the Black Messiah is the story of Fred Hampton (Daniel Kaaluya), the chairman of the Illinois Black Panther Party. To be specific, this is also the story of how one FBI informant, Bill O'Neal (Lakeith Stanfield) infiltrated the Party and helped take Fred Hampton down. The film begins with Bill impersonating an FBI agent and using a fake badge in order to steal cars. In the process, Bill gets arrested and turned over to the FBI as a result of their own investigations. Roy Mitchell (Jesse Plemons) comes to manage Bill and agrees to have Bill's charges dropped if he works undercover for him, doing things that...are really bad. This is a true story and Bill eventually turned out to kill himself, but that isn't shown here. The short of it is that Bill is merely one of the tools that the FBI used to take down groups they wrongly perceived to be threatening the American way of life. Over the course of the film you learn what the rest of those tools are, and what Fred Hampton and the Black Panthers were all about.

I really prefer not to be overly verbose anymore, especially when I feel as I currently do. That being said there's plenty to be verbose about as it pertains to the film and if you want to read something written in that fashion, it isn't hard to find. This is another film that shows a classic case of how the federal government handles those they don't agree with. These things were more prevalent when Hoover and Nixon were around, but they haven't gone away in recent years. Look at how they handle racist groups who they do agree with, which is to say that they don't handle them at all. It isn't just the story that matters here, the film is driven by its two lead performances. I'm not breaking any news here when I point out that Kaaluya is already winning awards for his performance here. They are deserved. It's not easy to fill the shoes of a revolutionary and perform in a matter that seems to be fitting of them. I can only think of a few other times that I've seen it. Benicio del Toro did it in Che, to name one.

Now all that being said, while this is a movie about racism this is also not a movie that plays games with the events. You do see one Black Panther start executing police in a rage after they've killed another member, one of the many whom the police kill and/or abuse throughout the film. The story of Hampton is also rounded out by that of his girlfriend, pregnant with his child and present at Hampton's greatest moments. I'm a little past the point of being angered by stories like these though. I'm in the camp of wanting there to be something done about it, and donating to groups that want to do something about it, rather than to just be mad about it. This is a hell of a story though, and the way the director tells it is really fitting. The director makes a very inspired decision not to completely round off Stanfield's character, and it works. As he builds up towards feeling more and more like a revolutionary himself, it's so good. Here's the thing though. There are a lot more stories to tell about the Black Panther Party and I unfortunately get the feeling that the existence of this movie, the manner in which it had to be released, and how much everyone liked the movie may lead to the film industry thinking no further efforts are needed. I hope that doesn't happen because this is gripping material.

Another thing I was thinking during this film, is that it seems like the country apparatus is invested in making people forget that the Civil Rights Movement literally just happened and was never carried out entirely to its conclusion. This stuff happened when all your parents were alive. George Floyd literally just happened. There are things that have changed but there are things that have not. They killed the most prominent civil rights leaders because they would have been alive to spread their message. Martin Luther King could have been 79 when Obama was elected. Think about that shit. I'm going off on a tangent here but this comes into my mind sometimes.

Of course, this movie isn't perfect and has some historical issues and that's why I gave this score. I don't really feel like explaining any of that stuff though, if you want to know just look it up or ask me what I mean or some shit.

8/10

 

[909]

The Way Back (2020), directed by Gavin O'Connor

Reason for Watching: This is leaving HBO Max, but it was the last movie I was scheduled to see in theaters before I decided that I shouldn't go because of COVID. And we're still here.

This movie would have been worth seeing earlier, but like I just said, I didn't fuck with theaters once this was more obviously going to be a long lasting problem. In one of Ben Affleck's best performances in a while, he plays Jack Cunningham. Jack is an alcoholic blue collar kind of guy separate from his wife Angela (Janina Gavankar), in some part due to things under his control and others that aren't. He goes over to his sister's house on Thanksgiving, which is where we learn both the extent of his alcoholism and the concern his family has over it. Oddly, it just so happens that he was a star basketball player in his high school past. His high school is in need of a new coach as the previous one has just had a heart attack, so they called Jack. Despite his alcoholism, Jack accepts the position and gets to work. His assistant coach is Dan (Al Madrigal), who gets him up to speed on the attributes of the team, which isn't a good one. They've only won one game and have six varsity players. Of course, what really matters here? How much this guy drinks, if he can quit, and how he'll be able to keep things together for his team. And, you know, what happened to him?

I found this to be a rather straight forward movie in that all my questions were answered in a manner I found both informative and effective. That's all you can really ask for. Then, what you hope for is an authentic feeling performance and that's what Affleck brought to the table. In fact I'm surprised that his performance wasn't nominated for anything which must mean there were a lot of good performances I haven't yet watched. Which is to say that I've watched absolutely fuck all from last year and it's gonna take some damn time to do it. And obviously at this rate it's going to take a lot of time. I've just got to power through the way I used to. I will say that I'm not the biggest fan of the way this movie ends, because it's typical of a movie like to build someone up for a fall and have that fall come spectacularly. But what if there was no fall? Well, it just isn't as common for that to happen and everyone says those kinds of movies suck.

Anyway, you also can tell that Affleck was an alcoholic himself and put a lot of himself into this project. It just isn't as easy to portray this role unless that's the case. The Way Back also feels like an indie movie, so it's strange that it isn't. The thing is, I also feel like one of these movies could do without someone's addiction being explained in any way at all to this extent. A lot of people become addicted to things for a lot less reason than Affleck's character here.

Also, my list for 2020 is going to be a lot smaller than some of the other ones, and that might be the case going forward as well. I'm not going to have the same amount of time to watch trash.

7/10

2020 Films Ranked

Spoiler

1. Bad Education
2. The Invisible Man
3. Bad Boys for Life
4. Tigertail
5. The Way Back
6. The Banker
7. The Gentlemen
8. Greyhound
9. Birds of Prey
10. Uncorked
11. Extraction
12. Big Time Adolescence
13. Sergio
14. The Lovebirds
15. Sonic the Hedgehog
16. The Call of the Wild
17. 7500
18. Come to Daddy
19. An American Pickle
20. Wonder Woman 1984
21. Lost Girls
22. Underwater
23. The Rhythm Section
24. The Last Full Measure
25. Spenser Confidential
26. Like a Boss
27. The Grudge
28. Dolittle
29. Fantasy Island

 

[SFH]

The Little Things (2021), directed by John Lee Hancock

Reason for Watching: This won't be on HBO Max all that long. Even if it was, this is still the kind of movie I like to watch although it may suck. I should also point out that I don't think Denzel Washington is going to be in all that many films going forward from here. Didn't realize that he's nearly in his late 60s.

Even though I'm sure a lot of people are going to watch this, if you are and you haven't yet, I recommend to stop reading. The point of this movie is likely easily discernable from the trailers. The Little Things is set in 1990 even though the filmmaker is genuinely terrible at adhering to the time period and I don't understand how. I guess as a result I would call this a somewhat poorly made film. The Little Things is the story of a serial killer, but first we start in Bakersfield. Joe Deacon (Denzel Washington) is a deputy sheriff who has been given the boot from LAPD over past deeds. He is sent back to Los Angeles in order to get something done for an upcoming court case. While there, there has been another murder he believes is related to a series of cases he has been working. The lead detective is Jim Baxter (Rami Malek), and with the help of Deacon, whether allowed or wanted or needed, their job is to find said serial killer and put his ass to pasture.

The serial killer is played by Jared Leto, who may or may not actually be the serial killer. This movie is pretty slow, but I liked the deliberate pace and Leto's performance. That being said, I have no qualifications to say if Leto's Golden Globe nomination was deserved. I didn't watch enough of...anything that was released during the eligibility period. Once I can get back to a theater I plan to resume regular activity or near regular activity. This movie is as much about finding the killer as it is whatever happened to Deacon to make him this obsessed with the case. In that, The Little Things is a generic film. In most ways it's a generic film. The story is alright, but the moments are all accompanied by a bland score that doesn't match with the events on screen.

When you have a film that doesn't pop, what I hope for is for almost everything to meet my standards and for the most part I think that's true in this case. Leto's performance is properly weird though. He's a strange fuck in any case, but that's what you need in a movie like this one. Also, I don't really care for Hancock as a filmmaker even though The Little Things is better than his last effort, The Highwaymen. His style seems to be to specifically make movies that don't jump at you. They pick a lane and they stay there. To be honest, if Leto wasn't being a weird fuck in this one, I'm not too sure this would have been very watchable. There is a moment though where they make you think that maybe Denzel's character is the murderer after all. They don't follow up on that even though it would have made some sense. In any case, this is a movie that does have one message about these kinds of cases. The police pick someone and try to make the case fit. I think that's the point. The mystery here is good even though a lot of the blocks leading to the end of the film aren't extremely interesting at first thought.

6.5/10

Movie would have been better served as a limited 8 episode series, in my opinion.

 

[909]

Diane (2019), directed by Kent Jones

Reason for Watching: This movie won a few awards at festivals and has a very high Metascore. I wanted to see if reality matched up to said scores. I think it does not.

Diane is a story that surprisingly spans quite a long time, yet the span remains indeterminate as the director did not care to make it more clear. Obviously, the movie title means this story is about Diane (Mary Kay Place). Diane is an older woman, and at the start of the film her cousin Donna (Deirdre O'Connell) is dying from cervical cancer. Diane's son Brian (Jake Lacy) is simultaneously in the process of killing himself with drugs. Yet, there's still more to the story in that there's a reason all these things are happening, and it seems like Diane carries great shame in her life. The movie goes over a long span of time in the sense that the director is entirely willing to jump ahead years. This takes place particularly after Donna dies. Brian matures from drug addict to hardcore Christian, pissing his mom off along the way in his misplaced self-righteousness.

That's basically what this movie brings to the table. I don't understand why Diane gets great reviews, but I do understand why it gets good ones even though I only think the film is merely alright. There are good things here though. I think more than most, this film properly shows what it feels like to get old for most people. Most people cover themselves in their shame and guilt for the things that they've done, or what they've failed to do. You can see it in people this age all the time, they aren't good at hiding their emotions. The problem with the film is that it introduces elements and characters that simply aren't resolved along the way, which makes some of these events feel more pointless than others. This is a good performance by the lead actress but obviously I'm heavily in the minority with my feelings towards this film. Just look at the Metascore page:

Diane critic reviews

Metacritic aggregates music, game, tv, and movie reviews from the leading critics. Only Metacritic.com uses METASCORES, which let you know at a glance how each item was reviewed.

www.metacritic.com

I think ultimately, what really hurts the film and keeps it from being better than decent is that Diane's relationship with her son takes up so much space in the second half of the movie when the roles are reversed. By that I mean, when she's down in the dumps and he isn't. The movie isn't as interesting when Diane isn't around all her friends, who die over the course of these events and in some cases much too soon.

All this being said, I think the biggest achievement here is that I pulled myself out of a rut and watched movies two days in a row for the first time in a month. If I do it three days in a row, that would be the first time since early September. I have to pull myself together and do this, and I didn't realize I was in a rut mentally for this long. I also think that in order to do this, I'm going to watch Gotti.

6.5/10

2019 Films Ranked

Spoiler

1. Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
2. Parasite
3. 1917
4. Midsommar
5. Ad Astra
6. The Lighthouse
7. Waves
8. The Farewell
9. Knives Out
10. Uncut Gems
11. Atlantics
12. Booksmart
13. Avengers: Endgame
14. Queen & Slim
15. Toy Story 4
16. Joker
17. Dolemite Is My Name
18. A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood
19. John Wick: Chapter 3 - Parabellum
20. The Two Popes
21. Clemency (had some stuff happen, couldn't review)
22. Us
23. Ford v. Ferrari
24. Gloria Bell
25. The Beach Bum
26. Just Mercy
27. The Art of Self-Defense
28. Dark Waters
29. El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie
30. Arctic
31. Spider-Man: Far From Home
32. Rocketman
33. High Flying Bird
34. The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind
35. Paddleton
36. The Peanut Butter Falcon
37. The Mustang
38. Honey Boy
39. Doctor Sleep
40. Hustlers
41. Wild Rose
42. Richard Jewell
43. Blinded by the Light
44. Captain Marvel
45. Jojo Rabbit
46. Shazam
47. Ready or Not
48. Native Son
49. See You Yesterday
50. A Vigilante
51. Late Night
52. Crawl
53. Long Shot
54. It: Chapter Two
55. Hotel Mumbai
56. Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark
57. Zombieland: Double Tap
58. Harriet
59. American Woman
60. Hobbs & Shaw
61. Official Secrets
62. Always Be My Maybe
63. Cold Pursuit
64. The Laundromat
65. Where'd You Go, Bernadette
66. Shaft
67. Happy Death Day 2U
68. Ma
69. Terminator: Dark Fate
70. Greta
71. Brittany Runs a Marathon
72. Annabelle Comes Home
73. Diane
74. Jumanji: The Next Level
75. Aladdin
76. Triple Frontier
77. Fighting with My Family
78. Godzilla: King of the Monsters
79. Little Woods
80. Pokemon: Detective Pikachu
81. Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile
82. Brexit
83. The Dirt
84. Velvet Buzzsaw
85. Stuber
86. Little
87. Alita: Battle Angel
88. The Hole in the Ground
89. The Good Liar
90. The Wind
91. The Current War: Director's Cut
92. The Kid
93. The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part
94. Good Boys
95. The Upside
96. The Aeronauts
97. The Lion King
98. Low Tide
99. Dumbo
100. The Hummingbird Project
101. Escape Room
102. 47 Meters Down: Uncaged
103. The Wedding Guest
104. Brian Banks
105. In the Tall Grass
106. Tolkien
107. The Dead Don't Die
108. Captive State
109. The Highwaymen
110. Bombshell
111. Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker
112. Pet Sematary
113. The Intruder
114. Child's Play
115. 21 Bridges
116. Gemini Man
117. Brightburn
118. Never Grow Old
119. All Is True
120. Rambo: Last Blood
121. In the Shadow of the Moon
122. Charlie's Angels
123. Trial by Fire
124. Midway
125. Angel Has Fallen
126. Black and Blue
127. Yesterday
128. Anna
129. What Men Want
130. Them That Follow
131. Wounds
132. Unicorn Store
133. The Curse of La Llorona
134. Miss Bala
135. Men in Black: International
136. Murder Mystery
137. Donnybrook
138. The Red Sea Diving Resort
139. The Perfection
140. Hellboy
141. Seberg
142. Glass
143. Dark Phoenix
144. Tyler Perry's A Madea Family Funeral
145. Point Blank
146. The Kitchen
147. The Hustle
148. The Best of Enemies
149. The Prodigy
150. Polar
151. Serenity

 

[909]

Gotti (2018), directed by Kevin Connolly

Reason for Watching: I have to.

It's hard to write a review of such a disjointed, inexplicable piece of shit kind of movie. This thing is all over the place and filled with F-level actors. Where do I start? I guess I'll start with what I could understand. John Gotti (John Travolta) is shown in so many different timelines during this film, and during the first half, it is hard to keep track of all of them. Here's what matters though, I guess. Gotti makes it up to the top, he gets taken down, and for some reason his son takes up half the screen time in this movie. These are some of the worst characters and performances ever put to screen, but the editing and production of this movie is even worse. I chatted about this movie a lot and had a lot to say so I was left without words when writing this last night and finished it this afternoon. This is one of the worst produced movies that I've ever seen, and there's absolutely no denying this in any aspect. The poor casting is particularly of note.

That all being said, I do think that John Travolta actually tried to make something of this movie despite the fact that he shouldn't have been in it. The other pieces of the movie let him down more than he let the movie down. To that extent I also have large complaints. The guy who played Angelo didn't even try to do an accent and was generally extremely terrible. He's not the only one though. The actor who plays John Jr. is so bad that I don't even want to say his name. This guy should never get to work again in the film industry. I don't think I've ever seen a worse performance, and man, I know I already said this, but so much of the movie focused on this goof. Why? Nobody who would watch something like this gives a fuck about Gotti's family. Not only that, but people who would watch this are looking for a mob movie that features a lot of people getting killed. That isn't here either.

More than anything else, Gotti is a film that features the art of showing you all the things you don't care to see while not showing you any of the things you'd want to know. And in the rare, singular occasion that they do, they just don't have the ability of actors required to make the scene mean anything at all. They don't have the editing or production capability to do it either. This movie doesn't really deserve this much attention for me but I feel obligated to give it. This movie isn't quite the WORST MOVIE EVER like some people were saying, but it was pretty fucking bad and I can't believe there was a PR campaign designed to make people feel otherwise.

AND THERE WASN'T EVEN A HAIR ON HIS PRICK

2/10

2018 Films Ranked

Spoiler

1. Roma
2. The Rider
3. A Star Is Born
4. First Reformed
5. The Favourite
6. You Were Never Really Here
7. Widows
8. First Man
9. BlacKkKlansman
10. Blindspotting
11. Leave No Trace
12. Black Panther
13. If Beale Street Could Talk
14. The Sisters Brothers
15. Hereditary
16. A Private War
17. Avengers: Infinity War
18. Wildlife
19. Stan & Ollie
20. Green Book
21. Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse
22. Mission: Impossible - Fallout
23. A Prayer Before Dawn
24. The Ballad of Buster Scruggs
25. Annihilation
26. Capernaum
27. Private Life
28. Happy as Lazzaro
29. Cold War
30. Climax
31. Can You Ever Forgive Me?
32. Mid90s
33. Lean on Pete
34. On My Skin
35. Eighth Grade
36. Sorry to Bother You
37. Suspiria
38. The Endless
39. At Eternity's Gate
40. The Death of Stalin
41. A Quiet Place
42. Vice
43. The Old Man & the Gun
44. The Night Comes for Us
45. The Guilty
46. Border
47. Dogman
48. Don't Worry, He Won't Get Far on Foot
49. Vox Lux
50. Bad Times at the El Royale
51. The Other Side of the Wind
52. Searching
53. Calibre
54. A Simple Favor
55. The Kindergarten Teacher
56. The Hate U Give
57. Unsane
58. Disobedience
59. Destroyer
60. Boy Erased
61. Bumblebee
62. Thoroughbreds
63. Mary Poppins Returns
64. Creed II
65. Hold the Dark
66. The Land of Steady Habits
67. Halloween
68. American Animals
69. The 12th Man
70. Upgrade
71. We the Animals
72. The Wife
73. Chappaquiddick
74. What They Had
75. Ant-Man and the Wasp
76. Skate Kitchen
77. The Miseducation of Cameron Post
78. Blockers
79. Beirut
80. Black '47
81. Roxanne Roxanne
82. Solo: A Star Wars Story
83. Tully
84. Mary Queen of Scots
85. Aquaman
86. Ideal Home
87. Outlaw King
88. Overlord
89. Ready Player One
90. Ben Is Back
91. Monsters and Men
92. Colette
93. The Mule
94. On the Basis of Sex
95. Bohemian Rhapsody
96. White Boy Rick
97. Papillon
98. Gemini
99. Sicario 2: Day of the Soldado
100. All About Nina
101. Ocean's Eight
102. Alpha
103. Come Sunday
104. Game Night
105. Borg vs. McEnroe
106. Instant Family
107. The Front Runner
108. The Predator
109. Apostle
110. The Oath
111. Uncle Drew
112. The Cured
113. The Commuter
114. The Angel
115. Tag
116. Beautiful Boy
117. The Nun
118. Operation Finale
119. The Equalizer 2
120. The Spy Who Dumped Me
121. Cargo
122. Yardie
123. Boundaries
124. Bird Box
125. 12 Strong
126. Venom
127. Skyscraper
128. The Meg
129. Assassination Nation
130. Never Goin' Back
131. Adrift
132. Crazy Rich Asians
133. Backstabbing for Beginners
134. The Girl in the Spider's Web
135. Gringo
136. The House with a Clock in Its Walls
137. 22 July
138. Tomb Raider
139. Rampage
140. Hotel Artemis
141. Arizona
142. Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom
143. The Little Stranger
144. 7 Days in Entebbe
145. Night School
146. The 15:17 To Paris
147. Den of Thieves
148. The Catcher Was a Spy
149. Peppermint
150. Mile 22
151. The First Purge
152. Hunter Killer
153. The Hurricane Heist
154. The Cloverfield Paradox
155. Breaking In
156. Slice
157. Extinction
158. Hot Summer Nights
159. Welcome to Marwen
160. Second Act
161. How It Ends
162. Mute
163. Kin
164. Hell Fest
165. Action Point
166. Proud Mary
167. Robin Hood
168. Traffik
169. Tau
170. Winchester
171. Woman Walks Ahead
172. The Happytime Murders
173. The Outsider
174. Life Itself
175. Slender Man
176. Gotti
177. Holmes & Watson

 

[909]

The Standoff at Sparrow Creek (2019), directed by Henry Dunham

Reason for Watching: Due to time constraints, tonight I needed to watch something shorter. This is short and seems like it fits my needs in terms of being light material.

It turns out The Standoff at Sparrow Creek was not light material. It also turned out that I guess I didn't want light material after all? The Standoff at Sparrow Creek is a rare story, one of a militia. The main character is Gannon (James Badge Dale), a former police officer. One night he's eating, and he hears automatic gun shots and explosions. Afterwards, he turns on a police radio, and he hears that there's a gunman who fired on a funeral, and that the suspect has fled on foot. Gannon subsequently contacts someone, and is contacted and told to meet at a nearby warehouse. This is when you realize Gannon is in a militia. At this warehouse, in their armory they discover that one of the rifles is missing, as is some body armor and grenades. So, one of these guys shot up a police funeral and unleashed a ton of rounds. There are seven of them. Who is it?

The one we know it isn't, is Gannon. We were shown what he was doing while this shooting was going on. Ford (Chris Mulkey) seems to be the leader of this militia. He's the oldest guy there, and he wants Gannon to start interrogating people. Obviously, Ford isn't going to be interrogated himself, and neither will Gannon. Hubbel (Gene Jones) is the other one who will not be. Not that he's reliable or anything, he's just hobbled and incapable of doing something like this. That leaves Morris, Keating, and Noah. Morris (Happy Anderson) has apparently told Gannon in the past that he wants to see cops dead. He's also extremely surly and very much looks like someone who would do this. Keating (Robert Aramayo) is basically a mute who fits the archetype of a school shooter. Lastly, Noah...is an undercover police officer. Gannon does not want Noah to die. But, one of these guys is supposed to.

This is a pretty good debut film, you know. I'm surprised that this movie had this kind of content. You know, I've always wondered why there weren't more movies about militias and the harmful effect they have on society. I also thought that while the end scenario of this film was implausible, at the same time the writer/director is right that a militia would close ranks and do a lot of bad shit. Bad shit could really mean a lot of things in this case, more than I care to mention. I do appreciate that this film isn't nakedly political and about the daily workings of a militia and their beliefs. Instead, they know one of their own guys did something bad, and they want to find out who did it so they can turn them in or kill them. Of course, ones feelings on this movie may have a lot to do with their feelings on how said aspects of the militia were handled.

The actors performances also do a great deal towards making this work, because I feel like if I actually took time to sit here and think about it, the premise of the movie might fall apart a little bit. The ending is also not the best thing I've ever seen. Regardless, I think this is a good film. It's short and to the point, and it isn't terribly predictable so I felt engaged the entire time. This also shows a major issue with our militia problem. When you take down one of these groups, especially now? There might be a reaction by all of them. Would it shock you?

7/10

2019 Films Ranked

Spoiler

1. Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
2. Parasite
3. 1917
4. Midsommar
5. Ad Astra
6. The Lighthouse
7. Waves
8. The Farewell
9. Knives Out
10. Uncut Gems
11. Atlantics
12. Booksmart
13. Avengers: Endgame
14. Queen & Slim
15. Toy Story 4
16. Joker
17. Dolemite Is My Name
18. A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood
19. John Wick: Chapter 3 - Parabellum
20. The Two Popes
21. Clemency (had some stuff happen, couldn't review)
22. Us
23. Ford v. Ferrari
24. Gloria Bell
25. The Beach Bum
26. Just Mercy
27. The Art of Self-Defense
28. Dark Waters
29. El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie
30. Arctic
31. Spider-Man: Far From Home
32. Rocketman
33. High Flying Bird
34. The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind
35. Paddleton
36. The Peanut Butter Falcon
37. The Mustang
38. Honey Boy
39. Doctor Sleep
40. Hustlers
41. Wild Rose
42. Richard Jewell
43. Blinded by the Light
44. The Standoff at Sparrow Creek
45. Captain Marvel
46. Jojo Rabbit
47. Shazam
48. Ready or Not
49. Native Son
50. See You Yesterday
51. A Vigilante
52. Late Night
53. Crawl
54. Long Shot
55. It: Chapter Two
56. Hotel Mumbai
57. Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark
58. Zombieland: Double Tap
59. Harriet
60. American Woman
61. Hobbs & Shaw
62. Official Secrets
63. Always Be My Maybe
64. Cold Pursuit
65. The Laundromat
66. Where'd You Go, Bernadette
67. Shaft
68. Happy Death Day 2U
69. Ma
70. Terminator: Dark Fate
71. Greta
72. Brittany Runs a Marathon
73. Annabelle Comes Home
74. Diane
75. Jumanji: The Next Level
76. Aladdin
77. Triple Frontier
78. Fighting with My Family
79. Godzilla: King of the Monsters
80. Little Woods
81. Pokemon: Detective Pikachu
82. Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile
83. Brexit
84. The Dirt
85. Velvet Buzzsaw
86. Stuber
87. Little
88. Alita: Battle Angel
89. The Hole in the Ground
90. The Good Liar
91. The Wind
92. The Current War: Director's Cut
93. The Kid
94. The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part
95. Good Boys
96. The Upside
97. The Aeronauts
98. The Lion King
99. Low Tide
100. Dumbo
101. The Hummingbird Project
102. Escape Room
103. 47 Meters Down: Uncaged
104. The Wedding Guest
105. Brian Banks
106. In the Tall Grass
107. Tolkien
108. The Dead Don't Die
109. Captive State
110. The Highwaymen
111. Bombshell
112. Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker
113. Pet Sematary
114. The Intruder
115. Child's Play
116. 21 Bridges
117. Gemini Man
118. Brightburn
119. Never Grow Old
120. All Is True
121. Rambo: Last Blood
122. In the Shadow of the Moon
123. Charlie's Angels
124. Trial by Fire
125. Midway
126. Angel Has Fallen
127. Black and Blue
128. Yesterday
129. Anna
130. What Men Want
131. Them That Follow
132. Wounds
133. Unicorn Store
134. The Curse of La Llorona
135. Miss Bala
136. Men in Black: International
137. Murder Mystery
138. Donnybrook
139. The Red Sea Diving Resort
140. The Perfection
141. Hellboy
142. Seberg
143. Glass
144. Dark Phoenix
145. Tyler Perry's A Madea Family Funeral
146. Point Blank
147. The Kitchen
148. The Hustle
149. The Best of Enemies
150. The Prodigy
151. Polar
152. Serenity

 

[AA484]

I just read that the guy who played Angelo Ruggiero won a Primetime Emmy for Murder One and played Mose on Deadwood(!) so either he was severely miscast for this role or was mailing it in for a paycheck and just didn't give a shit.

 

[Spaceman Spiff]

The Standoff at Sparrow Creek sounds like the title to a Choose Your Own Adventure book.

 

[909]

The Kill Team (2019), directed by Dan Krauss

Reason for Watching: Short war movie. Need to learn to create time earlier in the day and manage my time better to allow myself to watch longer movies.

There are a lot of first time features made by people who've specialized in making documentaries. I wonder if they all have the problems this film does. The Kill Team has a lot of the ingredients a movie like this needs, but it doesn't have the lead actor or director to really pull things together and create a great movie. I should talk about what this actually is. The Kill Team is the story of a kill team in Afghanistan, the name of the movie making obvious implications as to what these people are doing. The lead here is Andrew Briggman (Nat Wolff), who is seemingly one of the new guys and lowest on the totem pole in his platoon. When the film starts, they're led by a Sgt. Wallace, who is killed by an IED while everyone's goofing off in a village. After his death, in comes a new leader, Sgt. Deeks (Alexander Skarsgard). Deeks tells this platoon that they're going to raid the villages and try to find people who have killed these soldiers with IED's. And by raid the villages, he means that it's time to start executing people so they can get some information. Briggman is not into this, and there's your movie.

The biggest problem here is that the actor playing Briggman just does not have the ability to portray the emotions needed in a movie like this. The director also doesn't help matters by consistently relying on the old cliche where a troubled young man has to take a very long time before being pushed into a decision he doesn't want to make. It's odd because Krauss directed the documentary about these guys! It's also strange because Briggman's platoonmates project their performances a lot better than the lead, and I'm wondering why that doesn't carry over into all the characters. For whatever reason it just doesn't. We're supposed to feel sorry for Briggman, but the actor can't pull it off. He is just a guy.

When it comes to movies like these, I think they need to be portrayed as true to reality as possible. As a result I thought this movie took the easy way out with the murdering. I know that this sounds bad, but yes, you do need to show what these soldiers actually do to people. If you want to make a movie about a murdering psychopath corrupting young men, you have to go there. The Kill Team also completely fails to show the thoughts of Deeks' commanding officer, and in fact they don't show any commanding officers whatsoever. These things happen, and the film is too zoomed into this platoon to really flesh out everything. It's a bummer. Anyway, this is pretty much a standard ass movie and a story like this should be better than that.

5/10

2019 Films Ranked

Spoiler

1. Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
2. Parasite
3. 1917
4. Midsommar
5. Ad Astra
6. The Lighthouse
7. Waves
8. The Farewell
9. Knives Out
10. Uncut Gems
11. Atlantics
12. Booksmart
13. Avengers: Endgame
14. Queen & Slim
15. Toy Story 4
16. Joker
17. Dolemite Is My Name
18. A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood
19. John Wick: Chapter 3 - Parabellum
20. The Two Popes
21. Clemency (had some stuff happen, couldn't review)
22. Us
23. Ford v. Ferrari
24. Gloria Bell
25. The Beach Bum
26. Just Mercy
27. The Art of Self-Defense
28. Dark Waters
29. El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie
30. Arctic
31. Spider-Man: Far From Home
32. Rocketman
33. High Flying Bird
34. The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind
35. Paddleton
36. The Peanut Butter Falcon
37. The Mustang
38. Honey Boy
39. Doctor Sleep
40. Hustlers
41. Wild Rose
42. Richard Jewell
43. Blinded by the Light
44. The Standoff at Sparrow Creek
45. Captain Marvel
46. Jojo Rabbit
47. Shazam
48. Ready or Not
49. Native Son
50. See You Yesterday
51. A Vigilante
52. Late Night
53. Crawl
54. Long Shot
55. It: Chapter Two
56. Hotel Mumbai
57. Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark
58. Zombieland: Double Tap
59. Harriet
60. American Woman
61. Hobbs & Shaw
62. Official Secrets
63. Always Be My Maybe
64. Cold Pursuit
65. The Laundromat
66. Where'd You Go, Bernadette
67. Shaft
68. Happy Death Day 2U
69. Ma
70. Terminator: Dark Fate
71. Greta
72. Brittany Runs a Marathon
73. Annabelle Comes Home
74. Diane
75. Jumanji: The Next Level
76. Aladdin
77. Triple Frontier
78. Fighting with My Family
79. Godzilla: King of the Monsters
80. Little Woods
81. Pokemon: Detective Pikachu
82. Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile
83. Brexit
84. The Dirt
85. Velvet Buzzsaw
86. Stuber
87. Little
88. Alita: Battle Angel
89. The Hole in the Ground
90. The Good Liar
91. The Wind
92. The Current War: Director's Cut
93. The Kid
94. The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part
95. Good Boys
96. The Upside
97. The Aeronauts
98. The Lion King
99. Low Tide
100. Dumbo
101. The Hummingbird Project
102. Escape Room
103. 47 Meters Down: Uncaged
104. The Wedding Guest
105. Brian Banks
106. In the Tall Grass
107. Tolkien
108. The Dead Don't Die
109. Captive State
110. The Kill Team
111. The Highwaymen
112. Bombshell
113. Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker
114. Pet Sematary
115. The Intruder
116. Child's Play
117. 21 Bridges
118. Gemini Man
119. Brightburn
120. Never Grow Old
121. All Is True
122. Rambo: Last Blood
123. In the Shadow of the Moon
124. Charlie's Angels
125. Trial by Fire
126. Midway
127. Angel Has Fallen
128. Black and Blue
129. Yesterday
130. Anna
131. What Men Want
132. Them That Follow
133. Wounds
134. Unicorn Store
135. The Curse of La Llorona
136. Miss Bala
137. Men in Black: International
138. Murder Mystery
139. Donnybrook
140. The Red Sea Diving Resort
141. The Perfection
142. Hellboy
143. Seberg
144. Glass
145. Dark Phoenix
146. Tyler Perry's A Madea Family Funeral
147. Point Blank
148. The Kitchen
149. The Hustle
150. The Best of Enemies
151. The Prodigy
152. Polar
153. Serenity

 

[909]

The Man Who Killed Hitler and Then the Bigfoot (2019), directed by Robert D. Krzykowski

Reason for Watching: Unlike some of the other short movies I watch due to poor time management, this is one I actually wanted to see and had planned to watch all day. The title speaks for itself.

It's a rarity that I say this, but this is a movie that should have been really good and for very specific reasons it just wasn't. The title should speak enough for itself, but the words 'The Man' are of the utmost pertinence here. The Man Who Killed Hitler and Then the Bigfoot is about Calvin Barr (Sam Elliott), someone who does both those things exactly the way the movie says. When we meet him, it's 1987 and he lives at home with his dog. One night he's at a bar, and gets jumped by three guys who he summarily beats up despite his old age. Throughout the movie, we're treated to flashbacks where he kills Hitler, and where he prepares to kill Bigfoot, all of which the general public doesn't know about. The problem is that he did not kill Bigfoot the way that he thinks he did. Bigfoot, it turns out, has caused a virus that could lead to the end of the world as such a small amount of people are naturally immune to it. Calvin's job is to go kill Bigfoot again. For real this time.

Unfortunately, this is a movie too much about the man and not enough about him killing Hitler and Bigfoot, but for a time this is still a good film despite that. That is, until he kills Bigfoot for real and I have to sit here for 20 minutes watching his funeral, a flashback to a wedding proposal he never made, and his return after said funeral. Shouldn't have buried a coffin without a body. The shit with his lost love really sucked the life out of this and prevented the movie from being what it could have been. The scenes in Nazi occupied territory are good, but there aren't enough of them and not enough explanation as to how he was able to do this. But, again, this is a movie about the man and not as much those other things.

Overall, it takes some balls to make a movie like this and expect people to be happy about the end result. I can see why this wasn't given a real release or picked up by any decent sized studio. I just don't know how someone makes a movie about a guy who kills Hitler and Bigfoot and has the movie turn out like this does. Everything at the end is like the height of cheesy. I couldn't make it up if I tried because I can't believe someone would make that. Maybe that's how you get Sam Elliott to be in a movie like this or some shit. Either way, if you want to watch this, take a pass. I don't ever read people's reviews before watching a movie or I would have. I did dig watching dude go kill Bigfoot and all that though.

4.5/10

2019 Films Ranked

Spoiler

1. Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
2. Parasite
3. 1917
4. Midsommar
5. Ad Astra
6. The Lighthouse
7. Waves
8. The Farewell
9. Knives Out
10. Uncut Gems
11. Atlantics
12. Booksmart
13. Avengers: Endgame
14. Queen & Slim
15. Toy Story 4
16. Joker
17. Dolemite Is My Name
18. A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood
19. John Wick: Chapter 3 - Parabellum
20. The Two Popes
21. Clemency (had some stuff happen, couldn't review)
22. Us
23. Ford v. Ferrari
24. Gloria Bell
25. The Beach Bum
26. Just Mercy
27. The Art of Self-Defense
28. Dark Waters
29. El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie
30. Arctic
31. Spider-Man: Far From Home
32. Rocketman
33. High Flying Bird
34. The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind
35. Paddleton
36. The Peanut Butter Falcon
37. The Mustang
38. Honey Boy
39. Doctor Sleep
40. Hustlers
41. Wild Rose
42. Richard Jewell
43. Blinded by the Light
44. The Standoff at Sparrow Creek
45. Captain Marvel
46. Jojo Rabbit
47. Shazam
48. Ready or Not
49. Native Son
50. See You Yesterday
51. A Vigilante
52. Late Night
53. Crawl
54. Long Shot
55. It: Chapter Two
56. Hotel Mumbai
57. Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark
58. Zombieland: Double Tap
59. Harriet
60. American Woman
61. Hobbs & Shaw
62. Official Secrets
63. Always Be My Maybe
64. Cold Pursuit
65. The Laundromat
66. Where'd You Go, Bernadette
67. Shaft
68. Happy Death Day 2U
69. Ma
70. Terminator: Dark Fate
71. Greta
72. Brittany Runs a Marathon
73. Annabelle Comes Home
74. Diane
75. Jumanji: The Next Level
76. Aladdin
77. Triple Frontier
78. Fighting with My Family
79. Godzilla: King of the Monsters
80. Little Woods
81. Pokemon: Detective Pikachu
82. Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile
83. Brexit
84. The Dirt
85. Velvet Buzzsaw
86. Stuber
87. Little
88. Alita: Battle Angel
89. The Hole in the Ground
90. The Good Liar
91. The Wind
92. The Current War: Director's Cut
93. The Kid
94. The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part
95. Good Boys
96. The Upside
97. The Aeronauts
98. The Lion King
99. Low Tide
100. Dumbo
101. The Hummingbird Project
102. Escape Room
103. 47 Meters Down: Uncaged
104. The Wedding Guest
105. Brian Banks
106. In the Tall Grass
107. Tolkien
108. The Dead Don't Die
109. Captive State
110. The Kill Team
111. The Highwaymen
112. Bombshell
113. Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker
114. Pet Sematary
115. The Intruder
116. Child's Play
117. 21 Bridges
118. Gemini Man
119. Brightburn
120. Never Grow Old
121. All Is True
122. Rambo: Last Blood
123. In the Shadow of the Moon
124. Charlie's Angels
125. The Man Who Killed Hitler and Then the Bigfoot
126. Trial by Fire
127. Midway
128. Angel Has Fallen
129. Black and Blue
130. Yesterday
131. Anna
132. What Men Want
133. Them That Follow
134. Wounds
135. Unicorn Store
136. The Curse of La Llorona
137. Miss Bala
138. Men in Black: International
139. Murder Mystery
140. Donnybrook
141. The Red Sea Diving Resort
142. The Perfection
143. Hellboy
144. Seberg
145. Glass
146. Dark Phoenix
147. Tyler Perry's A Madea Family Funeral
148. Point Blank
149. The Kitchen
150. The Hustle
151. The Best of Enemies
152. The Prodigy
153. Polar
154. Serenity

 

[909]

The Day Shall Come (2019), directed by Chris Morris

Reason for Watching: I had some busted guts going on and decided it was in my best interest to not watch something that long. Gonna watch something like an hour longer tomorrow though. I'm not apologizing for the movies I watch or anything because I have different tastes than a lot of people, and I know I need to hurry up and watch some of these as quickly as I can.

I wouldn't go so far as to call this good now that I've seen it. This is a satire but it's a satire that didn't leave me feeling very good at the end of the movie, and it didn't give me laughs while I was watching it either. I feel like this is a genre that just doesn't always do it for me, and this is one of those too. Moses Al Shabazz (Marchant Davis) is a poor man in Miami who leads a very small religious commune, called the Star of Six. Moses has four other followers, one of them is his wife Venus (Danielle Brooks), and the names of the other three are straight up not mentioned. His daughter lives there too. This commune revers Allah, Black Santa, Toussaint Louverture, Jesus, Mohammed, and Melchizedek. Like I said, this is supposed to be a satire and at least at the beginning of the film a lot of this stuff is actually funny. Moses wants a black uprising, and he's been prescribed medication for psychotic behavior that he does not take.

Now comes the part where things don't work. An FBI agent named Kendra (Anna Kendrick) has seen some streamed sermons of Moses, and she wants to make a career move in the world. There's also a scene with the agents setting someone up to put in prison, and yeah. Again, this aspect just completely falls flat with me. Moses is set to be evicted by his landlord, and based on these sermons, Kendra sends a pedophile named Reza (Kayvan Novak) in there to make contact. Reza is told to say that he has a relative affiliated with the Islamic State, and this relative is willing to supply money and firearms. Moses only wants farm equipment and a horse, but after being pushed into it, he decides to take some guns too. This escalates into the FBI wanting Moses to take something more dangerous, then framing him, etc.

With a movie like this, I feel like both halves need to be in sync with each other and flow from one to the next, but the FBI half of this was just terrible. There were other people in this besides Anna Kendrick, but I don't care to mention them. It wasn't good. A movie like this one just has to remain even throughout, and when it doesn't, it doesn't do it for me. There are a lot of jokes in this too, but they don't stick the landing and you know what it's like when that happens. Of course, the other half of the movie is good as I said. I thought all the characters involved with the commune were engaging and felt worthwhile even though their behavior was so far beyond normal human activity. It's okay that some of these people are batshit, it isn't okay when the jokes don't land. That's pretty much my only real gripe here even though it's an absolutely massive one. A satire without laughs just doesn't go down that easy. If only they'd just did a good job with the cops.

5.5/10

2019 Films Ranked

Spoiler

1. Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
2. Parasite
3. 1917
4. Midsommar
5. Ad Astra
6. The Lighthouse
7. Waves
8. The Farewell
9. Knives Out
10. Uncut Gems
11. Atlantics
12. Booksmart
13. Avengers: Endgame
14. Queen & Slim
15. Toy Story 4
16. Joker
17. Dolemite Is My Name
18. A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood
19. John Wick: Chapter 3 - Parabellum
20. The Two Popes
21. Clemency (had some stuff happen, couldn't review)
22. Us
23. Ford v. Ferrari
24. Gloria Bell
25. The Beach Bum
26. Just Mercy
27. The Art of Self-Defense
28. Dark Waters
29. El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie
30. Arctic
31. Spider-Man: Far From Home
32. Rocketman
33. High Flying Bird
34. The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind
35. Paddleton
36. The Peanut Butter Falcon
37. The Mustang
38. Honey Boy
39. Doctor Sleep
40. Hustlers
41. Wild Rose
42. Richard Jewell
43. Blinded by the Light
44. The Standoff at Sparrow Creek
45. Captain Marvel
46. Jojo Rabbit
47. Shazam
48. Ready or Not
49. Native Son
50. See You Yesterday
51. A Vigilante
52. Late Night
53. Crawl
54. Long Shot
55. It: Chapter Two
56. Hotel Mumbai
57. Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark
58. Zombieland: Double Tap
59. Harriet
60. American Woman
61. Hobbs & Shaw
62. Official Secrets
63. Always Be My Maybe
64. Cold Pursuit
65. The Laundromat
66. Where'd You Go, Bernadette
67. Shaft
68. Happy Death Day 2U
69. Ma
70. Terminator: Dark Fate
71. Greta
72. Brittany Runs a Marathon
73. Annabelle Comes Home
74. Diane
75. Jumanji: The Next Level
76. Aladdin
77. Triple Frontier
78. Fighting with My Family
79. Godzilla: King of the Monsters
80. Little Woods
81. Pokemon: Detective Pikachu
82. Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile
83. Brexit
84. The Dirt
85. Velvet Buzzsaw
86. Stuber
87. Little
88. Alita: Battle Angel
89. The Hole in the Ground
90. The Good Liar
91. The Wind
92. The Current War: Director's Cut
93. The Kid
94. The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part
95. Good Boys
96. The Upside
97. The Aeronauts
98. The Lion King
99. Low Tide
100. Dumbo
101. The Hummingbird Project
102. Escape Room
103. 47 Meters Down: Uncaged
104. The Wedding Guest
105. Brian Banks
106. In the Tall Grass
107. The Day Shall Come
108. Tolkien
109. The Dead Don't Die
110. Captive State
111. The Kill Team
112. The Highwaymen
113. Bombshell
114. Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker
115. Pet Sematary
116. The Intruder
117. Child's Play
118. 21 Bridges
119. Gemini Man
120. Brightburn
121. Never Grow Old
122. All Is True
123. Rambo: Last Blood
124. In the Shadow of the Moon
125. Charlie's Angels
126. The Man Who Killed Hitler and Then the Bigfoot
127. Trial by Fire
128. Midway
129. Angel Has Fallen
130. Black and Blue
131. Yesterday
132. Anna
133. What Men Want
134. Them That Follow
135. Wounds
136. Unicorn Store
137. The Curse of La Llorona
138. Miss Bala
139. Men in Black: International
140. Murder Mystery
141. Donnybrook
142. The Red Sea Diving Resort
143. The Perfection
144. Hellboy
145. Seberg
146. Glass
147. Dark Phoenix
148. Tyler Perry's A Madea Family Funeral
149. Point Blank
150. The Kitchen
151. The Hustle
152. The Best of Enemies
153. The Prodigy
154. Polar
155. Serenity

 

[909]

Little Monsters (2019), directed by Abe Forsythe

Reason for Watching: I had to watch something after getting vaccinated and it seemed fitting in some way to watch a zombie movie. After all, there are some fucking morons who think that when you get one of these, you'll turn into one.

I didn't think this was guaranteed to be a good movie or anything of the sort, so I can say that I'm not surprised it wasn't. And I think that's okay given my feelings at the time I watched it. Dave (Alexander England) is a washed up musician caught in a horrible relationship with his girlfriend. This relationship lasts for about two minutes of the film, featuring a montage where the two argue constantly before a break up. As a result, he's forced to stay with his sister Tess (Kat Stewart) and her five year old son Felix. Dave is so down on life to the point where even time with children is nothing but a misery for him. The first night he gets to his sister's house, he decides that he's going to show his ex-girlfriend how much he likes kids and all that shit. It doesn't work. So, Dave is stuck at his sister's house for the time being.

Shortly after Dave's arrival, it is time for Felix to have a field trip. He had previously met Felix's teacher Miss Caroline (Lupita Nyong'o) and is attracted to her for a lot of reasons, but she has a ring on her finger. So, probably not gonna happen for him. Anyway, on the way to this field trip, there's a military base. At this military base, there has been an accident leading to zombies. The zombies go down the road to the site of this field trip, and bad shit happens. The twist on this version of the usual story is that there's kids to be protected, I guess.

I left out some things that didn't seem to matter very much to me, but Josh Gad is in this movie and he's always terrible. Little Monsters relies too much on bad humor and just doesn't have the juice to make the whole thing work. Most of the bad humor involves him, but some of the things before the field trip don't and mostly revolve around Dave's character, and those really aren't so good anyway. So what we have here is a movie where the actress is so far beyond the other people in the film that it just doesn't quite work. I do see however that only one of the critics on Metacritic rated this film as lowly as I'm going to. I feel like just because a great actress does a great job, that doesn't make this not a bad movie. This is supposed to be a horror movie that gives the audience laughs, but it doesn't do that. The humor is like shit for mid-00's teenagers. The concept should also have turned out better.

4.5/10

2019 Films Ranked

Spoiler

1. Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
2. Parasite
3. 1917
4. Midsommar
5. Ad Astra
6. The Lighthouse
7. Waves
8. The Farewell
9. Knives Out
10. Uncut Gems
11. Atlantics
12. Booksmart
13. Avengers: Endgame
14. Queen & Slim
15. Toy Story 4
16. Joker
17. Dolemite Is My Name
18. A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood
19. John Wick: Chapter 3 - Parabellum
20. The Two Popes
21. Clemency (had some stuff happen, couldn't review)
22. Us
23. Ford v. Ferrari
24. Gloria Bell
25. The Beach Bum
26. Just Mercy
27. The Art of Self-Defense
28. Dark Waters
29. El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie
30. Arctic
31. Spider-Man: Far From Home
32. Rocketman
33. High Flying Bird
34. The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind
35. Paddleton
36. The Peanut Butter Falcon
37. The Mustang
38. Honey Boy
39. Doctor Sleep
40. Hustlers
41. Wild Rose
42. Richard Jewell
43. Blinded by the Light
44. The Standoff at Sparrow Creek
45. Captain Marvel
46. Jojo Rabbit
47. Shazam
48. Ready or Not
49. Native Son
50. See You Yesterday
51. A Vigilante
52. Late Night
53. Crawl
54. Long Shot
55. It: Chapter Two
56. Hotel Mumbai
57. Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark
58. Zombieland: Double Tap
59. Harriet
60. American Woman
61. Hobbs & Shaw
62. Official Secrets
63. Always Be My Maybe
64. Cold Pursuit
65. The Laundromat
66. Where'd You Go, Bernadette
67. Shaft
68. Happy Death Day 2U
69. Ma
70. Terminator: Dark Fate
71. Greta
72. Brittany Runs a Marathon
73. Annabelle Comes Home
74. Diane
75. Jumanji: The Next Level
76. Aladdin
77. Triple Frontier
78. Fighting with My Family
79. Godzilla: King of the Monsters
80. Little Woods
81. Pokemon: Detective Pikachu
82. Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile
83. Brexit
84. The Dirt
85. Velvet Buzzsaw
86. Stuber
87. Little
88. Alita: Battle Angel
89. The Hole in the Ground
90. The Good Liar
91. The Wind
92. The Current War: Director's Cut
93. The Kid
94. The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part
95. Good Boys
96. The Upside
97. The Aeronauts
98. The Lion King
99. Low Tide
100. Dumbo
101. The Hummingbird Project
102. Escape Room
103. 47 Meters Down: Uncaged
104. The Wedding Guest
105. Brian Banks
106. In the Tall Grass
107. The Day Shall Come
108. Tolkien
109. The Dead Don't Die
110. Captive State
111. The Kill Team
112. The Highwaymen
113. Bombshell
114. Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker
115. Pet Sematary
116. The Intruder
117. Child's Play
118. 21 Bridges
119. Gemini Man
120. Brightburn
121. Never Grow Old
122. All Is True
123. Rambo: Last Blood
124. In the Shadow of the Moon
125. Charlie's Angels
126. The Man Who Killed Hitler and Then the Bigfoot
127. Trial by Fire
128. Midway
129. Little Monsters
130. Angel Has Fallen
131. Black and Blue
132. Yesterday
133. Anna
134. What Men Want
135. Them That Follow
136. Wounds
137. Unicorn Store
138. The Curse of La Llorona
139. Miss Bala
140. Men in Black: International
141. Murder Mystery
142. Donnybrook
143. The Red Sea Diving Resort
144. The Perfection
145. Hellboy
146. Seberg
147. Glass
148. Dark Phoenix
149. Tyler Perry's A Madea Family Funeral
150. Point Blank
151. The Kitchen
152. The Hustle
153. The Best of Enemies
154. The Prodigy
155. Polar
156. Serenity

 

[Brocklock]

I was baffled by the positive reception for that movie. I thought the movie Cooties did a similar thing but in a much better way while having some likable characters. Lupita N'Yongo is really good, but when she isn't on screen I found the humor of the movie to be some of the most irritating and unfunny in recent memory. Josh Gad and the Dave guy were both so obnoxious.

 

[909]

Burning (2018), directed by Lee Chang-dong

Reason for Watching: This is leaving Netflix. If you were ever gonna watch it, you need to do it now. Besides, I knew I'd be able to clear time for some long shit like this soon.

It has come to my attention that there are disputes over what the ending of this movie is supposed to be. In this case I have to take the David Chase approach. Do people really need everything to be spelled out for them now? Do you really need to know anyway? Jong-su (Yoo Ah-in) is in Seoul at the beginning of the film, and he runs into a former classmate, Hae-mi (Jeon Jong-seo). When he runs into her, she suggests that they have a date, but even though Jong-su initially doesn't remember her, she comes around. After this date, she tells Jong-su that she's going to Africa, and wants him to help feed her cat while she's gone. That's what he does. In the meantime, his father has gotten in a legal entanglement that has led Jong-su to have to move to his father's farm in Paju. Apparently his father assaulted someone. But in keeping with my new method I'm gonna cut to the chase. When Hae-mi comes back, she comes back with Ben (Steven Yeun), who she befriended at the airport. This guy Ben? He's weird.

Firstly, if you think the greenhouses Ben references are actually supposed to be greenhouses, you're dumb as a pile of shit. It's pretty clear that the 'greenhouses' he talks about are women, and by abandoned he means they're abandoned by the world. Just to make clear this is the only part I'm saying people are dumb if they can't figure out. He tells Jong-su all this stuff because he correctly thinks that Jong-su is stupid and doesn't understand the world. He's brazen because of that, and it manifests in the way he agrees to meet Jong-su at the end of the film, thinking he can play more games with him. The point of the storyline with Jong-su's father, and Jong-su talking about burning his mom's clothes, that's supposed to show you Jong-su's temper is hereditary. Now that being said, I'm not sure if Hae-mi wanted Ben to kill her or not. That's the one thing I find to be left unanswered. Jong-su called her a whore, and she was already sounding suicidal to begin with. Then we see Ben in the process of treating another woman the same as he did Hae-mi, and her acquiescence to it. Why else is he with someone who has no other friends, and she's crying while he puts her makeup on? It speaks for itself. There is however that line where he says "I thought you brought Hae-mi." This seems to have led people to believe all sorts of things, but I'm sticking with my belief that Ben just kills women who've been broken down by society.

The suspense of waiting for things to happen in this movie is crazy. The director keeps you on the string for the entire time and gives away absolutely nothing. By the way, the director has explained some of the mysteries in the film. At the same time he has also muddied the waters because clearly he likes to fuck with people. You know what, that's alright. There are two other moments in the movie that I find really poignant. The North Korean propaganda, it feels like this is supposed to make someone more naturally angry because they have to hear this all the time. Then, you think about it a little more, and it shows how detached Jong-su is from Ben, how different their lives are, and all that stuff. In a lot of ways Jong-su is like a North Korean. Ben couldn't be more different. And, I guess that's why Ben fucks with Jong-su and plays these games with him, and that's why Jong-su finds it so easy to believe Ben did something wrong, and why Jong-su would kill Ben. The fact is that you ain't gonna get easy answers. Maybe Ben is a sex trafficker and that's why he has all this money. But I should point out that the director has supposedly said that it can be one of two things. Either Jong-su is just delusional, or Ben is a serial killer. And that's all I really need to know.

9/10

Spoiler

1. Roma
2. The Rider
3. A Star Is Born
4. First Reformed
5. The Favourite
6. You Were Never Really Here
7. Burning
8. Widows
9. First Man
10. BlacKkKlansman
11. Blindspotting
12. Leave No Trace
13. Black Panther
14. If Beale Street Could Talk
15. The Sisters Brothers
16. Hereditary
17. A Private War
18. Avengers: Infinity War
19. Wildlife
20. Stan & Ollie
21. Green Book
22. Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse
23. Mission: Impossible - Fallout
24. A Prayer Before Dawn
25. The Ballad of Buster Scruggs
26. Annihilation
27. Capernaum
28. Private Life
29. Happy as Lazzaro
30. Cold War
31. Climax
32. Can You Ever Forgive Me?
33. Mid90s
34. Lean on Pete
35. On My Skin
36. Eighth Grade
37. Sorry to Bother You
38. Suspiria
39. The Endless
40. At Eternity's Gate
41. The Death of Stalin
42. A Quiet Place
43. Vice
44. The Old Man & the Gun
45. The Night Comes for Us
46. The Guilty
47. Border
48. Dogman
49. Don't Worry, He Won't Get Far on Foot
50. Vox Lux
51. Bad Times at the El Royale
52. The Other Side of the Wind
53. Searching
54. Calibre
55. A Simple Favor
56. The Kindergarten Teacher
57. The Hate U Give
58. Unsane
59. Disobedience
60. Destroyer
61. Boy Erased
62. Bumblebee
63. Thoroughbreds
64. Mary Poppins Returns
65. Creed II
66. Hold the Dark
67. The Land of Steady Habits
68. Halloween
69. American Animals
70. The 12th Man
71. Upgrade
72. We the Animals
73. The Wife
74. Chappaquiddick
75. What They Had
76. Ant-Man and the Wasp
77. Skate Kitchen
78. The Miseducation of Cameron Post
79. Blockers
80. Beirut
81. Black '47
82. Roxanne Roxanne
83. Solo: A Star Wars Story
84. Tully
85. Mary Queen of Scots
86. Aquaman
87. Ideal Home
88. Outlaw King
89. Overlord
90. Ready Player One
91. Ben Is Back
92. Monsters and Men
93. Colette
94. The Mule
95. On the Basis of Sex
96. Bohemian Rhapsody
97. White Boy Rick
98. Papillon
99. Gemini
100. Sicario 2: Day of the Soldado
101. All About Nina
102. Ocean's Eight
103. Alpha
104. Come Sunday
105. Game Night
106. Borg vs. McEnroe
107. Instant Family
108. The Front Runner
109. The Predator
110. Apostle
111. The Oath
112. Uncle Drew
113. The Cured
114. The Commuter
115. The Angel
116. Tag
117. Beautiful Boy
118. The Nun
119. Operation Finale
120. The Equalizer 2
121. The Spy Who Dumped Me
122. Cargo
123. Yardie
124. Boundaries
125. Bird Box
126. 12 Strong
127. Venom
128. Skyscraper
129. The Meg
130. Assassination Nation
131. Never Goin' Back
132. Adrift
133. Crazy Rich Asians
134. Backstabbing for Beginners
135. The Girl in the Spider's Web
136. Gringo
137. The House with a Clock in Its Walls
138. 22 July
139. Tomb Raider
140. Rampage
141. Hotel Artemis
142. Arizona
143. Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom
144. The Little Stranger
145. 7 Days in Entebbe
146. Night School
147. The 15:17 To Paris
148. Den of Thieves
149. The Catcher Was a Spy
150. Peppermint
151. Mile 22
152. The First Purge
153. Hunter Killer
154. The Hurricane Heist
155. The Cloverfield Paradox
156. Breaking In
157. Slice
158. Extinction
159. Hot Summer Nights
160. Welcome to Marwen
161. Second Act
162. How It Ends
163. Mute
164. Kin
165. Hell Fest
166. Action Point
167. Proud Mary
168. Robin Hood
169. Traffik
170. Tau
171. Winchester
172. Woman Walks Ahead
173. The Happytime Murders
174. The Outsider
175. Life Itself
176. Slender Man
177. Gotti
178. Holmes & Watson

 

[909]

Nobody (2021), directed by Ilya Naishuller

Reason for Watching: Did I go back to the theater last night? Yes. Yes I fucking did.

I told some here that this would be the first movie I saw when I went back, and I meant that shit. You're telling me there's an action movie with Saul Goodman doing the shit? I'm there. Hutch (Bob Odenkirk) is a regular fuck, doing nothing in life but be bored every day like everyone else. He has two children with his wife Becca (Connie Nielsen) and he works at a metal fabrication company doing office work. It seems boring. It is boring. The movie makes clear his weekly routine is the exact same shit all the time. One night, someone decides that they're going to rob Hutch's house. His son tackles one of the intruders, but Hutch is scared and decides that he should just let the thieves leave. He lets them leave even when one punches his son in the face. He also knows that the gun wasn't loaded even though it was pointed at his face, and he decided to do that regardless. Anyway, Hutch is tired of taking people's shit. He's coming to get what's his, and if anyone's in his way? He's going to stop taking their shit too. And he has secrets.

While pretty much everything in Nobody is predictable, there aren't a lot of movies where RZA and Christopher Lloyd play someone's sidekicks. There aren't a lot of movies where the action scenes are approached in such a pleasing way. Another thing the film does is to ensure that nobody really cares about the villain by not showing them too much. But at the same time this is what it is. It's a violent action movie that makes sure to please the audience and keep anyone from thinking about it too much. This is obviously trying to be a John Wick kind of movie, and it kind of works to that end. It's also its own thing though. Eventful things are condensed into very short video montages. To me, this is a big problem. It is enough of a problem I would rather not talk about it.

Something also worth mentioning is that these movies try to pull off "regular dude becomes action hero" and it almost never works because the actor is already too awesome to buy as being regular. That's not the case here. Hutch is basically a regular 9 to 5 cuck. This is seen throughout the film. His expository lines being given in speeches to henchmen he doesn't yet realize are dead is pretty funny. The way his wife doesn't care much about him at all is funny. The way the cops respond to his house being robbed is funny. That being said I think the film would really have been boosted if he was some regular fuck who got tired of shit and started killing people. The CIA angle is a bit overdone. Also, please bear in mind with my score that I have been trying to be a tougher grader. This was good though.

6.5/10

2021 Films Ranked

Spoiler

1. Judas and the Black Messiah
2. Nobody
3. The Little Things

 

[909]

Godzilla vs. Kong (2021), directed by Adam Wingard

Reason for Watching: Just look at the title. I don't even need to say it.

One thing I was thinking about this movie as I was watching it, was that it's a good thing the theater was closed for months prior to this. Why? I'm a professional at avoiding promotional material as long as I'm not sitting in there. Obviously, the twist towards the end wouldn't have had the same impact if I'd known about it. Of course I am referring to Mechagodzilla. But before that, we have almost a whole movie. This film is set five years after the last Godzilla flick, where he cleaned up the world from some of the Titan trash that was out there killing people. Anyway, we start with Kong being monitored while inside of a giant dome on Skull Island, the habitat he was previously in has been removed by Monarch, and it is what it is. Apparently there's one remaining Skull Island native, and she is a little girl named Jia. Her adoptive mother is Dr. Andrews (Rebecca Hall), whose name I don't recall being mentioned in the film at any point whatsoever. It turns out Jia can communicate with Kong using sign language.

The other side of the film, of course, focuses on Godzilla. At least until a point where it all jumbles together. Bernie (Brian Tyree Henry) is an employee at Apex Cybernetics, which turns out to be a company whose CEO (Demian Bichir) turns out to be like Lex Luthor. But anyway, before that point, Bernie is trying to gather information for an Alex Jones-like podcast he runs. Unfortunately, while gathering said information, Godzilla shows up at Apex and goes on a rampage. This leads to the girl from the last movie, whose name is Madison (Millie Bobby Brown), trying to get in contact with Bernie because he knows some shit. Look, the human parts of these movies are always awful. I don't need to tell you that. The short version is that Godzilla always wants to get rid of the other huge monsters on the planet. Dr. Andrews and a Dr. Lind (Alexander Skarsgard) are being manipulated into finding a power source through the use of Kong. Said power source, obviously, will power Mechagodzilla. But you don't know that until you see Mechagodzilla. So there.

Like I said, the human parts of these movies are always terrible, but the battles in this movie are absolutely not bad in the least. They're probably the best in any of the American versions of Godzilla or King Kong. With the exception of Colossal, this is what I want from a monster movie. I don't want the human shit to make very much sense. It is there to serve the battles solely. In Godzilla vs. Kong, they do that. They do it well. The only thing that doesn't really fit in is when they restart Kong's heart or whatever the fuck. The rest, I honestly feel like I don't even pay much attention to it. My mind starts to wander. I also think that Godzilla vs. Kong is the perfect movie to end the pandemic. What I mean by that is that the film is perfect escapism. It seems like something I needed rather than something I wanted. There have been no new movies like this for such a long time.

The most important things here are as such. Obviously, the last few sentences I said. Then the next most important thing is that someone makes more Godzilla movies and more King Kong movies. Fortunately it does seem clear we will absolutely never get a remake of the first King Kong movie ever again. That ship sailed. Godzilla vs. Kong also somehow made money even considering the situation we're now in. That being said, if this movie wasn't already in the can, I have read that it wouldn't even have been made after King of the Monsters. Another important thing here is that I feel like this flick will be very easy to watch numerous times. We also have a rarity in that the human characters aren't too annoying here even though they're given as terrible a script as these movies ever have had. I'm referring to the dialogue here moreso than the plot, which like I said, I don't have a problem with. I'm also glad to see the Hollow Earth theory brought into play here. I mean, I know that Hollow Earth is bullshit. But it's still the interesting kind of bullshit and I'm cool with it. On the bad side I feel like if you didn't watch all the movies leading to this one, and there were three of them, you would be absolutely lost to sea. Most of the time Marvel ain't even that bad about it. I just can't hate a movie with Mechagodzilla in it though. I enjoyed it greatly.

7/10

2021 Films Ranked

Spoiler

1. Judas and the Black Messiah
2. Godzilla vs. Kong
3. Nobody
4. The Little Things

 

[909]

Profile (2021), directed by Timur Bekmambetov

Reason for Watching: I think I'm going to go back to keeping up the same pace once some of these pandemic releases are out of the way. But we'll see. Anyway this would be worth watching anyway because it features the computer screen gimmick.

As already stated, this film follows the computer screen gimmick, which means all the "action" in this movie takes place on a screen, in this case on someone's iMac. Amy (Valene Kane) is a reporter hired to investigate the recruitment of young women by ISIS. She is spurred on to do this after the death of a young woman who joined ISIS out of nowhere and was stoned to death when attempting to leave, but there are also monetary factors in wanting to engage with this story. We begin Profile with Any creating a Facebook profile under the name of Melody Nelson. She immediately starts befriending jihadis and sharing their videos, which leads to her being contacted by Bilel (Shazad Latif). Bilel is in ISIS. Bilel, obviously, wants her to come to Syria at some point to join him the way a lot of other European women have done. Amy, on the other hand, wants to use Bilel for her story. To a point, that is. As it turns out, when it comes to your personal relationships, the grass is greenest where you water it. And although in this case I find it to be entirely unrealistic, she is...watering Bilel's grass?

Like I said, I found this movie to be very unrealistic in that it portrays this lady to have lost her sense of composure and her moral compass. I just really do not find that to be the case with a lot of independent women in the Western world. I think the inability to portray Amy as being detached from the situation is a problem and I don't agree with it at all. In addition to that, the movie is rather predictable. You can see a lot of things coming. Yes, she is going to leave London and fly to Amsterdam. Yes, Bilel is going to use Amy's videos at some point in order to threaten her. All of this is obvious. Regardless, I did laugh at the fatwa video because how could a journalist not have seen this coming? I just don't see it and I think a journalist would be much safer in protecting their identity. Ultimately, the portrayal of the lead character really dings up the film.

I can also see now why this film wasn't released for a full three years after its premiere in Berlin. Not only is the story not easily digestible, but the material isn't palatable to a Western audience and a lot of people have a hard time watching things about ISIS anyway. The story is also not entirely satisfying as even though a fatwa is declared against Amy, we do not see the end ramifications of the publication of her story. I'm not saying that I wanted to see a fatwa carried out, but I want to know what happened to the terror cell. We don't know what happened though. The trailer also makes it seem like the Islamic State attacks her at some point and that doesn't happen. There's also a point where Amy uses her iMac to put on Orange Cassidy's theme music because she's confused. Way too on the nose there. This isn't a terrible movie or some shit, but it just exists and doesn't do that much for me. The fake Bilal death is good though. I also just realized I gave The Little Things a 6.5 when it was supposed to be a 5.5.

5/10

2021 Films Ranked

Spoiler

1. Judas and the Black Messiah
2. Godzilla vs. Kong
3. Nobody
4. The Little Things
5. Profile

 

[909]

Mortal Kombat (2021), directed by Simon McQuoid

Reason for Watching: I need to spell it out?

Alright, so I put off watching this for as long as possible because of some of the bad reviews. I didn't want to see something get ruined when I had looked forward to it so much, or had my own ideas of what this should be. I think this did miss the mark in some respects. We begin way in the past, with someone who is obviously going to turn out to be Scorpion (Hiroyuki Sanada) being killed by someone who is obviously supposed to be Sub-Zero (Joe Taslim). Sub-Zero thought he killed Scorpion's whole family, but he didn't know there was a baby hidden underneath the floor. Of course, we flash way forward to the general Mortal Kombat scenario. Outworld has won ten Mortal Kombat tournaments, and if allowed to win a tenth, they may invade Earthrealm. Shang Tsung (Chin Han) is the leader of this charge. Standing in his way are Jax (Mehcad Brooks), Sonya Blade (Jessica McNamee), Kano (Josh Lawson), Liu Kang (Ludi Lin), Kung Lao (Max Huang), and Cole Young (Lewis Tan). But who the fuck is Cole Young and why do we need another character in a series that already has so many of them?

The Cole Young thing is ultimately a drag on a movie that really isn't so good that it can afford to support those kinds of drags. Unfortunately I'm not sure how much I actually liked the film. There's that, and then there's this feeling I have that it really shouldn't be so complicated to make this kind of movie. What I want from a movie like this one is for it to be like Bloodsport. The problem is that will never happen, and because of that I don't really know what to say. I also thought the filmmakers knew that was what people wanted. Mortal Kombat does have positives but for me they do not quite outweigh the negatives. A movie should not have to carry the burden of such a wooden performance in the lead role. He's boring. Sonya is boring. Jax is sidelined for too long. There is no Mortal Kombat tournament. Other than Kano, there's nobody who has any punch in these roles. Pun not intended. What I'm trying to say here is that we have a bunch of Dean Malenko type characters when this movie needs Eddie Guerrero's.

You know, if not for the charisma issues, I would have liked this a lot. The positives are pretty much every character I didn't mention. The fatalities are great, the violence is strong, and the overall tone is nearly as goofy as it should be. The movie is also almost all action and there's very little downtime even though the film is clearly setting up a sequel that will feature an actual Mortal Kombat tournament. However, for that not to be in the first film of said franchise attempt is just absolutely unforgivable. I can't justify it. In a year, I won't be able to tell anyone anything that happened here and that's a very big problem. Even though I did like a fair amount of the characters, Kano is the only one with any screen presence. Considering he's a second tier character that's yet another of a long list of problems this film has. This also didn't top the original, and the more I write about it the more I get annoyed by the time I spent watching this.

4.5/10

2021 Films Ranked

Spoiler

1. Judas and the Black Messiah
2. Godzilla vs. Kong
3. Nobody
4. The Little Things
5. Profile
6. Mortal Kombat

 

[909]

THIS WASN'T EVEN IN THE FUCKIN MOVIE HOW DO YOU DO THIS

 

[Brocklock]

I absolutely love that the phrase "Who the fuck is Cole Young?" has appeared in most of the reviews I've read for the 2021 MK.

The lack of theme song really turned me off. It pains me to say it, but I realize the 1995 Mortal Kombat is not a masterpiece and it's not one of the greatest films ever made. But, the soundtrack gave it so much extra oomph and atmosphere that this was lacking. Not even just the techno. The song playing during the Goro vs Art fight was so cool and ominous sounding and gave Goro extra character.

I feel the lack of imagination in the sets held it back a little for me at least. The first movie filmed a lot of scenes in Thailand which gave it an extra layer of elegance that this movie didn't have. Some of the scenery in the original looked gorgeous and featured a lot of beautiful landmarks. This felt like a lot of the fights were in a warehouse somewhere.

One more thing about Kano that is an indictment of how bad the original script must of been, is that actor Josh Lawson actually improvised pretty much all of his dialogue. So all of the funny lines from him weren't even in the original script.

 

[909]

Wrath of Man (2021), directed by Guy Ritchie

The reason for watching section doesn't really work for new movies. Anyway, I've deliberately not watched a few of Guy Ritchie's movies because I don't want to do so just yet, but I'm always up for one of these.

In this case I think Wrath of Man would have to be Ritchie's darkest movie. The humor is mostly gone from this feature, other than when Post Malone showed up on screen and everyone laughed. Anyway, here we have a film that begins with an armored truck robbery. Some guys kill the two guards who were inside the truck, then they shoot someone offscreen, and that's how we begin the film. It's a good start. It feels like something that I need to watch. It's something I did watch. After this robbery, we kick forward a few weeks into the aftermath. Patrick Hill (Jason Statham) starts working for the armored truck company, which is called Fortico. He has an interview with Terry (Eddie Marsan), who hires him and summarily passes him off to Bullet (Holt McCallany), who calls Patrick 'H'. So I will call him H from now on. Anyway, Bullet is like H's mentor, and he barely passes the exams showing that he's worthy, but now he's part of the job.

H seems to not get along with his fellow employees, but those problems don't last very long. Early in H's employment at Fortico, Bullet gets taken hostage and the kidnappers want everything in the truck. Instead H savagely executes all of them. Now I was intrigued. Things start going much better for him at work, but there are problems. Andy Garcia randomly shows up and clearly he knows something about H that we don't. And then, there's H sleeping with his coworker. After doing so, he pulls a gun on her and asks her some questions. What he really wants to know is if she's working inside job type heists with some kind of organization. She says that she's not. H knows that someone is. And from there, we have our movie.

I can say with some certainty that this is the best movie I've seen in theaters for quite a while, and that's a good thing because I was really hoping for that. It isn't for everyone though. Like I said, this movie is really, really dark. The flashbacks do present some problems in that they all lead to the same event, but I thought as a whole it was well done. They explained how the truck was robbed, how H came to be in this position, and I thought it was all well handled. I'm not a big fan of the soldiers being left behind gimmick, but I can accept it in a movie like this one a lot more than in others. It is a bad trope though and I am getting tired of it.

At the end of the day, it's a good movie and one that I liked quite a bit. The action is good at the end, and this doesn't have an overload of twists the way Ritchie sometimes does. It's all pretty straight forward and that's that. This is one of those movies that's supposed to bring something to the table, and then it actually does it and leaves me satisfied. Even still this is weird for me because Ritchie's last movie was one of the last ones I saw on a huge screen, and then I did it again just last night...and yeah, it's weird. It seems most people liked The Gentlemen more and in some part that's obviously due to the humor, but sometimes these kinds of dark revenge stories really hit the spot. But did I just say too much about what this actually is? Yes. Although, this is more about the total picture than it is the revenge itself. It's good.

7/10

2021 Films Ranked

Spoiler

1. Judas and the Black Messiah
2. Wrath of Man
3. Godzilla vs. Kong
4. Nobody
5. The Little Things
6. Profile
7. Mortal Kombat

 

[909]

Those Who Wish Me Dead (2021), directed by Taylor Sheridan

You know what I was thinking when I realized what the premise of Those Who Wish Me Dead was? I was left to think about the Entourage episode where they're filming Smoke Jumpers and the Werner Herzog ripoff guy went buck fucking wild on Vinny Chase. Then I was thinking that this was a movie about an actual smoke jumper that was completely the opposite of what the movie within a television show was supposed to be. This is also a movie that's so casual with the names of characters that it might as well be an episode of Entourage where they have cameos of actors playing a different character. I honestly didn't know more than three or four of these names until...right this moment.

Hannah (Angelina Jolie) is a smokejumper who has very recently failed at her job. At least, that's how she sees it. She was unable to prevent the deaths of three young kids and another smokejumper, for which she blames herself and nothing will change her mind to believe otherwise. Now she has been posted on a fire lookout tower, deep in the woods of Montana. It appears she will spend her summer there all alone. I've always wanted to go to Montana but not to do that. At the same time, over in Florida, two guys are pretending to be fire marshals and blowing up somebody's house. It turns out that Jack (Aidan Gillen) and Patrick (Nicholas Hoult) are assassins, and they are now going to be targeting Owen (Jake Weber). Owen realizes this from the news report about the explosion and decides to flee. His former brother-in-law Ethan (Jon Bernthal) works as a sheriff in Montana, and Owen is going to take his son Connor (Finn Little) there in an attempt to hide. I think you can see how this comes together.

Unlike most of Sheridan's other work, this has no cinematic depth whatsoever. I need to watch some of the other stuff before rushing to judgment, but this is a total departure from form. It just doesn't have that extra punch, even when featuring someone like Aiden Gillen when he's always good in this kind of role. Some of the CGI, particularly at the start of the movie, is not so good. I have noticed this in a few pandemic era releases and I'm assuming that's the reason why. It also feels like there may have been quite a few scenes left on the cutting room floor for an assortment of reasons. Namely among them is that clearly people didn't go out to watch the movie and as such it shouldn't be longer. While I'm not entirely certain there were scenes cut from the movie, it sure feels like it to the point where I can't come to a different conclusion.

All that being said, I do appreciate the performance of the assassins. I also like that there's no grand explanation as for why they want to kill this guy and his son other than that he revealed corruption and they assume he told his son about it before they shot him up. Then you throw in the assassins starting a forest fire in an attempt to prevent people from noticing that they're there, and it all works out pretty good in those respects. Of course, the big problem here is that this is just "a movie". You know what I mean by that, right? It's decent, it isn't bad, but it isn't that good either. It exists. However, Those Who Wish Me Dead features some good scenes, two good characters, and some fire stuff that isn't all too common in movies anymore. I do think that it's possible my issues with this are as a result of this not being Sheridan's best stuff, and my expectations of his work are pretty high because he's made some interesting material. It's fair to say I didn't expect this. This movie also ends really fucking quickly which is something that people may like, and it's something people may not. You decide.

p.s. this also feels a lot of ways like a poor man's version of Dante's Peak, which I loved and have watched at least 50 times. Critics savaged that motherfucker too.

6/10

2021 Films Ranked

Spoiler

1. Judas and the Black Messiah
2. Wrath of Man
3. Godzilla vs. Kong
4. Nobody
5. Those Who Wish Me Dead
6. The Little Things
7. Profile
8. Mortal Kombat

 

[909]

A Quiet Place Part II (2021), directed by Jim Halpert

I made a comment after I watched the first movie. I said that I thought the sequel would be better than the first one, which was already pretty good. It turned out I was wrong and that they were both equally as strong. I don't know if I need to explain too much here.

A Quiet Place Part II begins with a flashback to when the aliens first came to Earth. Everyone is alive and as they should be, and during a little league game everyone sees a flaming object in the sky hurtling towards Earth. I guess that confirms the origin of these creatures. Anyway, everyone has to run and this is an amazing scene I'm better off not explaining because I can't do it justice. So, we kick forward to the way things are now. Lee (John Krasinski) is dead. Evelyn (Emily Blunt) now must take care of three children by herself. Regan (Millicent Simmonds) is still reeling from the death of her father, which happened immediately prior to the events of this film. Marcus (Noah Jupe), and Evelyn's baby...well, they're a lot younger. They are in much more need of guidance. The three from the first film all know that they have to leave their farm, but they don't know what to do. They see a fire on the horizon, so they're going to head there. In the process of doing so, Marcus has his foot caught in a bear trap, which leads to a chase. After said chase, they come across Emmett (Cillian Murphy), one of Lee's friends. And well, he doesn't really want them there. So what are they gonna do?

The key that makes this film, probably more than anything else, is that we know Krasinski is willing to kill off characters for the purposes of the story. He killed his own character. So, that's hanging in the back of the mind when I'm watching this and I think I'm not the only one. Unfortunately in the case of this film, we are clearly leading to a sequel to the film, and as a result there's a lack of resolution in the final minutes. That's not my favorite thing in the world as I'd have preferred some finality here. Another key thing here is that this is a film I feel cannot be watched at home. It just wouldn't be the same. I know that because of how it felt watching the first entry. There are also some excellent jump scares here. I don't remember the last time I was that surprised by a jump scare.

A Quiet Place Part II is a lot more intense than the first film, but that doesn't mean it's better. I think it's the same. That being said, Cillian Murphy fits really well into the cast, and the scene at the marina is excellent. There are also dual storylines that both go really well in tandem with each other. Now, that being said. There are moments here where I felt like it would have been appropriate to pile on the misery, to take some risks with the audience and take a chance with the characters. Maybe Marcus should have lost his leg. Maybe he will in the third film. But, that didn't happen here even though something like that probably should. That's what keeps this from being better than the first movie. So, to be clear. It is more intense but less risky with the story.

7.5/10

2021 Films Ranked

Spoiler

1. Judas and the Black Messiah
2. A Quiet Place Part II
3. Wrath of Man
4. Godzilla vs. Kong
5. Nobody
6. Those Who Wish Me Dead
7. The Little Things
8. Profile
9. Mortal Kombat

 

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Cruella (2021), directed by Craig Gillespie

I'm gonna be honest here. It would be very hard to screw up a movie like this one. With that knowledge in mind, there are still some changes made to the 101 Dalmatians story here. Namely that it seems Cruella (Emma Stone) will not be a dog murderer. This film is about her origin story, if you think there needed to be one. I don't, but still. Estella (Emma Stone) was once a child, she was capable of being very mean and this brought her mother Catherine (Emily Beecham) to at times call her Cruella. Eventually, Estella gets kicked out of school, which leads Catherine to decide they need to move to London. While doing so, Catherine stops at a party to ask a "friend" for financial help. In the process of that, Estella sees her mother pushed off a cliff by a trio of attacking Dalmatians. It goes without saying that Catherine died. Estella becomes an orphan, she meets Horace and Jasper, and she dyes her hair as well so people no longer make fun of her.

The story fast forwards from there, with Jasper (Joel Fry), Horace (Paul Walter Hauser), and Estella as adults. They steal everything they can in order to live, until one day Jasper decides to pull off a con to get Estella her dream job. At least they think it will lead to that. Instead it doesn't, for a while anyway. One night, Estella gets drunk and demolishes one of the window displays, but this leads to her getting the job she actually wants. She wants to work for the Baroness (Emma Thompson), who is actually like Cruella de Vil. Needless to say some of this performance is funny even though it's over the top. What Estella really needs to know, is what happened to her mom. In the beginning of the film, you can see that it's the Baroness who kills Catherine. What about when Estella finds out?

I feel like Cruella walks too fine a line here. I said it would be hard to screw up this movie, but it comes awfully close. It also bastardizes the character from the cartoon, but I don't really have a problem with that because the cartoon character is absolutely ridiculous. The film just should not be this close to being screwed up. The biggest problem here is that the movie is too long and it revels in its length. There are quite a few scenes here that could have been chopped, but they weren't. Another problem is that there's an even better movie hidden here if they didn't have to market it to children and could make whatever they wanted.

Regardless of what I just said, the positives greatly outweighed the negatives. Emma Stone and Emma Thompson are great here. They're both over the top, but not in a way that's obnoxious. It remains funny. The henchmen are also nowhere near as shit as you'd think in a movie like this one. They're actually good. I also thought the movie was as far all over the place as I would have wanted it to be. All that being said I could see why someone would detest this movie. Should the movie exist? I don't know. I kind of think not. I think it's time to make original movies instead of continuing to revive old intellectual property. I assume because this was a good time, they will revive far more old stuff. That's not a positive.

6.5/10

2021 Films Ranked

Spoiler

1. Judas and the Black Messiah
2. A Quiet Place Part II
3. Wrath of Man
4. Godzilla vs. Kong
5. Nobody
6. Cruella
7. Those Who Wish Me Dead
8. The Little Things
9. Profile
10. Mortal Kombat