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An error has ocurred. Please try againIn the case of sequels, they are placed next to their predecessors, everything else is by year of release.
Not all sequels are included, only the one's held in high regard on the horror market.
If you just want a well respected all round horror film: ctrl+F and type ' critic's choice '
Follow me on Insta: @nealoade and Twitter @NRGKO1
Sequels are included in my own description of the films, which can only be viewed in list mode.
If you just want a well respected all round horror film: ctrl+F and type ' critic's choice '
Follow me on insta: @nealoade and Twitter @NRGKO1
In the case of sequels, they are placed next to their predecessors, everything else is by year of release.
Not all sequels are included, only the one's held in high regard on the horror market.
If you just want a well respected all round horror film: ctrl+F and type ' critic's choice '
Follow me on insta: @nealoade and Twitter @NRGKO1
Reviews
Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City (2021)
At least they played some of the games first
The makers of this film do seem to have a surface level knowledge of the characters and events in the Resident Evil canon, but not a lot of interest or ability in making that canon work on film.
The completely frustrating thing about Resident Evil games, particularly the early Resident Evil games, is that they're actually very good. Not just on a gameplay level (tank controls are not for everyone, of course), but the stories are good. Seriously. And if you play them, it's not a thing you miss. They are straight-forward and unsubtle, but good - even in their old age. You would not know it looking at Paul W. S. Anderson's movies or the Netflix series, or this movie, but they really honestly are. There is so much intrigue and conspiracy, the characters are colourful and well formed, and the levels of unfolding mystery expand elegantly before you in the beautiful and striking environments in which and through which the story builds.
I'm joining the choir here but the question is why is nobody making these games into movies? There have been three separate adaptions of this franchise but I can say with absolute conviction, and correctness, that this franchise has never been adapted for the screen. A movie based on the Resident Evil games has never been attempted and Resident Evil: Welcome To Raccoon City is the latest movie in line to not attempt this. Why do they keep doing it? I just don't know. Even more flummoxing here is the amount of nods to Resident Evil in this film is indicative of somebody who has played and enjoyed the games. Why didn't you make a movie of them then? Here's an analogy (pun intended, more on that later): these RE movies are like candy. Resident Evil games are like a big fat fresh raspberry, okay? Stay with me on this. Juicy, off the vine, full of sugar yes, but natural sugars and generally quite good for you. You love them, you love raspberries. Some big company sees you love raspberries and they say "hey! I see you love raspberries, well I've made this". They hand you bag of candy. The name on the bag is "Raspberries", you eat one, it's okay, it tastes a bit like raspberries. "That's alright" you tell them, and you ask "how did you get it to taste like raspberries?" and they tell you "we used castoreum to give it that sweet flavour, which we extract from the anal glands of beavers." At which point, you really have to ask "why didn't you just use raspberries?"
I feel like this every time I watch this stuff. I put on my clown wig and my clown paint and I hope for something real and I get beaver anal glands all up in my mouth, as per my analogy above.
I will say this in RE:WTRC's defense, it does at least approach everything with a sense of fun. Paul Anderson's films did not do this. He made an action franchise about how his mid-talent actor wife is a superhero and demanded we take it seriously as if it was an Andrei Tarkovsky movie. That franchise didn't crack a smile once. This movie is a little more wacky and self-aware and that's good. It might tell you a story about a person's superpowered wife but it doesn't believe in it. It doesn't stare you in the eye and demand you believe this story about its superpowered wife. Thank God for that.
It's worth a watch I guess. It's fun enough but it is a B-Movie despite the big name distributors like Sony. In all cases it feels like a fan made YouTube movie made by talented rank amateurs with not enough ability or experience to create something truly impactful. I'm okay with that, I like that kind of thing but don't go in expecting anything more.
I liked this film well enough but it's just a zombie movie. Great soundtrack and some of the zombie effects are very good, CGI is alright. They do a good job of rebuilding some of the environments from the Resident Evil 2 remake. Lisa Trevor fights a bunch of lickers as well, which is something I never thought I'd see. It's surprisingly well paced for a movie that tries to cover the first four games (1, 2, 3, and Code:Veronica) in just under two hours. That's all I can give it.
Fargo: The Tragedy of the Commons (2023)
The last great episode of a great TV Show
FULL SEASON REVIEW, NO SPOILERS
"This is the first episode!" I hear you say. Yes this is the first episode of season 5 and if the rest of this season had managed deliver on this episode's promise you'd be reading a different review from me with probably a higher score.
I love Fargo, I loved Season 4 and still do (obviously I love the other 3 incredible seasons). I love the movie, I love the weird little offshoots of its cult status, like Kumiko Treasure Hunter and I even watch the pilot of the unaired sequel series starring Edie Falco as Margaret Gunderson (played masterfully in the original film by Frances McDormand) from time to time. That pilot is MUCH worse than any episodes in this season if you were wondering, but the benefit is it's only an hour of failure instead of 10 hours.
Fargo (1996) is a movie that explores a lot of philosophical ground, key amongst them: the relationship between the brutal real world with the fragile ego of human beings. So many plot conflicts begin in this franchise with a character's mistaken belief that they are something which they are not, and when they open the doors to that world they think they want so badly, they discover within an unspeakable, unfathomable, almost supernatural evil which devours them and everything around them whole.
Fargo's showrunner Noah Hawley understands this concept and the many others visited by the original Coen Bros. Classic. He's successfully retold them and recontextualised them, built them up further and dug even deeper with real deftness and intelligence for 4 whole seasons up until now.
The show has, in my opinion, had a representation problem when it comes to genuine women's voices and female appeal. Missing out on the nature of femininity and its strengths being explored is a missed opportunity, considering the original movie very well represents gender nuance of both the masculine and the feminine at once (more on that in a minute). Putting the girls at centre stage should have been a cakewalk for this series, but it failed and its failures in handling this with the same nuance as the masculine only serves to highlight what an oversight this was to miss and what an afterthought great Fargo characters like Marge Gunderson and Molly Solverson must be in Hawley's canon. Hell, the most three dimensional character in Season 5, though he's not very well realised (no one is this season), is Roy Tillman, Jon Hamm's misogynist-in-chief. He gets much of the screen time, almost all of the action and shines brighter than any other character in the story. That's not a hallmark of a well implemented examination of womanhood. I'm not even sure this season passed the Bechdel test.
Going back to Marge Gunderson - Frances McDormand's hero in Fargo (1996) - she stands out as a direct contrast to William H. Macy's Jerry Lundergaard, a man who believes himself capable of committing a heinous crime for money, only to find that the realities of crime and criminals is far beyond his naive small town reckoning. On first glance, homely Marge Gunderson shares this gentle naiveté but, unlike Jerry, when she finally comes face to face with evil she doesn't cosy up to it. She opens fire immediately. Why? In my opinion, it is because she is not a man. She doesn't have a head filled with movie heroes, pulp novels and the constant demand to reinforce one's character through the unrealistic and largely fiction-based frameworks of manhood. There's a line in this series that does allude to this (I'm paraphrasing here): "when the end comes, it's not a shootout, it's getting your throat cut at a traffic stop". That IS what every day violence looks like, that IS the nature of the beast. Margaret Gunderson understands this because she is cop AND because she's a woman. She is placed by stereotypes of her gender very high on the vulnerability scale. So, when she sees evil, unlike Jerry who arrogantly believes himself equal to it (it would hurt his ego too much to confront the truth that he is not equal to it, that he is also vulnerable), Marge Gunderson shoots it with no question and with only the amount of hesitation required by the law which she serves. Her feminine "weakness" is the strength that wins the day, granting her clarity of mind when the hour that should have spelled her death came. No such nuance in this series, just girls kicking ass!! Woo!!
There's some great talent in this season, Jennifer Jason Leigh is marvelous and underwritten, Juno Temple is perfect for Fargo but her character is falling into, dare I say it, Mary Sue territory. I don't say that because she's a bad-ass who kicks ass, I actually buy that and it's showcased very well in this episode's heartstopping final scene, but she's not given any flaws to make her a really interesting, really juicy role. She's 2D and it's a waste of Temple's talent. It's a waste of everyone's talent, every single actor is really great in this season. I'm looking forward to more things starring Joe Keery as well, he's proving to be an actor who reliably delivers no matter the role.
All in all Fargo the series has been in decline since Season One but with a 10/10 benchmark like that, it leaves a lot of room for error and a lot of good grace. That good grace has run out now. Going into this as potentially the last Fargo series, I expected to be left wanting more, but ultimately if this season is the level we're at now then I'm really glad for this to be the last. A lukewarm end to one of the greatest, most cleverly written dramas of all time.
Are You Afraid of the Dark?: The Tale of the Dark Music (1992)
Ruined my damn life
Thanks for this one 'Are You Afraid Of The Dark?' writers, I nearly died of heart failure watching this when I was 7. I will NEVER forget this tale of a haunted basement cupboard that spews out 6 foot doll women to lure you in, and haunted fairgrounds run by skeletons that suck you in like a vacuum when you try to escape. Jesus.
I'm in my damn 30s now, I'm a seasoned horror fan and I struggled to get through this episode. What on Earth did that basement want? Why did it eat people? These questions of mine that I have had since 1990-something will never be resolved and it's the fear of the unknown that really sets the dread in, and makes for a good horror experience, especially for children and young adults.
I will be gently encouraging my young nieces to watch this show with me some Halloween down the line but I think I'll skip this episode because goddamn, these midnight society kids do not hold back. Still terrifying.
Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019)
Another reboot that spits on its own legacy
So this is a Godzilla movie where the US Army saves the world from those pesky, evil environmentalists by using their fabulous, home-grown USA nuclear bombs. Am I the only Godzilla fan who sees the problem here? Again, I find myself asking this question, just like we all did in 2016 with Paul Feig's Ghostbusters: WHY make a movie reboot if you actively dislike the subject matter?
The monster/Kaiju genre lends itself well to meaningless "turn your brain off" action, and I stress that it is absolutely optional to include metaphor, allegory, or any deeper level of meaning as a reward for audience members willing to pay the film more attention than it seems to deserve. Not all Godzilla films from Toho have opted to do this either, of course. However, Godzilla: King of The Monsters opts to take what little political messaging the previous movies may have communicated and literally drop a nuclear bomb on it.
It's a well known fact that Ishiro Honda's 1954 Godzilla film is an unshrouded and frankly rather polite metaphor about the use of nuclear warheads on Japan in 1945, in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It can be argued that there are no innocents in war, and you can evidence this from the Pearl Harbor attack, the horrendous treatment POWs recieved at the hands of the Japanese Empire, and the awful acts that the Empire committed in China before and during WWII. However, Honda posits, there are innocents AFTER war. In the months and years that followed, the deathtoll which the Little Boy and Fat Man bombs acrued on that day of impact actually doubled, from approx. 200,000 people to approx. 400,000 as the many horrifying effects of radiation exposure set in.
Research is still being performed to this day on the children of those survivors and in all cases has noted an uptick in physical and learning disorders in those children. Thus, Godzilla was born - a hulking and indescribable monster who would not be believed by the international community unless seen with their own eyes. It's not easy to see the effects of radiation poisoning (and the research on generational impact of this new technology did not exist), however it is easy to see a gigantic Gorilla-Whale stomping over Japan. Godzilla was a cry-out to the world for help, an escape from the confusing nuance of reality in post-war Japan and an utterly exciting and entertaining piece of cinema to boot. In Godzilla: King of the Monsters though, the nuclear bomb finally gets its redemption arc. About time!
Later in Godzilla's life came a film called Godzilla vs. Hedorah (1972) aka Godzilla vs. The Smog Monster, and it was Roger Ebert's favourite entry into the series. It's a much more overt political statement where the corporate world's use of plastics, oil and gas result in a living creature emerging from the sea that toxifies everything it touches and devours any land resources it finds, adding to its destructive power. It's an obvious message, and one that was portrayed so strongly and unapologetically that the director, Yoshimitsu Banno, was fired immediately from Toho despite it being his first foray into the Godzilla franchise.
So that brings us back to the plot here in this film where the army uses a nuclear bomb to defeat an environmental group. Admittedly the group's goal is to fix pollution by destroying the world (???), but the writers could have easily, I don't know, not written this subplot at all? Particularly because it is so contrived and poorly justified, that it seems like a lot of effort has gone into thinking up this scenario of Military Industrial Complex vs. Civilian environmentalist group, while also making sure the good ol' MIC is well and truly the benevolent victim here.
When you attempt to dig deeper into this film, which isn't really necessary, what you find there is so cynical, nasty and vindictive that a more intelligent screenwriter would have omitted it completely, and the situation is made all the more insulting by the fact that they dedicated this film, for some insane reason, to the memory of Godzilla vs. Hedorah director Yoshimitsu Banno (d. 2017).
It gets a 5/10 from me because lots of monster do big monster smash thing and I like big monster smash thing. The CGI is good, there's some really fulfilling, nicely set-up visuals for which they've cranked up the brightness, unlike Gareth Edwards' 2014 Godzilla, where you couldn't see a darn thing. Hate the writers though. It's a movie that seems to be the product of a nationalistic tantrum, which is embarrassing for them, and it spits on everything that came before it as well as everyone who dedicated their whole careers in some cases to handcrafting those movies between the years of 1954-1995.
The Banshees of Inisherin (2022)
A small film about how we hurt each other
And probably the greatest movie about depression, real depression, ever made. I don't use the term "real depression" to minimise anyone's experiences, rather to point out the fact that depression in movies is so often drinking too much, getting behind the wheel and screaming, fighting with your loved ones and screaming or drunkenly fighting a stranger (and screaming).
Depression looks like a dramatic argument between Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence in these films, in an LA mansion, reaching its climax as J-Law wades into the mansion's swimming pool with a Lana Del Rey song playing, a far-away look in her eye, and still wearing her $20,000 ballgown. These are the tropes we recognise for mental health issues when used to move a plot forward but, on a human level, what does this kind of stuff really communicate to anyone beyond "sadness is temporary but here comes the happy ending"? And, be honest with your own experiences here, is any of that even true? Really, if you ask me, it reduces our ability to cope with the real, boring, day-to-day grind of sadness that can hang about like a bad, wet fart. It hurts to be in this place, and more for seeing that, in fact, the glamour and drama of these situations which we thought we'd recognise, we actually don't. The sad places we go alone are completely unfamiliar, unstructured and totally alienating. For us non-movie characters it's just ugly, dirty, unsanitary pain sometimes with no climax, apex or resolution and, if you're incredibly unlucky, no end. When was the last time you were rescued by a wise, benevolent old person of infinite wisdom who delivered in a few punchy sentences the exact re-evaluation you needed to bring your life forward? Not many times, I'd warrant, if ever. Perhaps it's because you're not sexy, or rich enough. Perhaps it's because you're dull.
This is what I read into 'The Banshees of Inisherin'. In lieu of this wise old friend who aids you are more people who hurt you and in different ways. And what's more, these same people are people you might hurt, both of you without even realising it most of the time. Sometimes when we really need help it's not unusual at all to realise that we are fighting this fight completely alone, even if we are not alone in our lives. There may be people around you with their own problems who can't afford the time to spend with yours, or people with their own experiences and pains who do not understand yours at all. There may even be people who share your experiences and are hurting just like you, but are in too much pain to avoid hurting you and others around them.
This is Martin McDonagh's great tragedy of the human condition with 'Banshees', when there's a world full of people who are spoiling to hurt others on purpose, we all sometimes end up in the same place as them, no matter how good we may try to be. Pain, however, is ubiquitous and unites us all.
To quote the film: "From some things there's no moving on, and I think that's a good thing."
Andor (2022)
A triumph
FULL SERIES 1 REVIEW: This is, by far, far and away, Star Wars' finest moment in a long time. While it doesn't do much innovating, this surprisingly straight political thriller with highly emotive themes, tight characters and even tighter dialogue is the best Star Wars offer since the original trilogy came out and fused Buck Rogers with Kurosawa, changing cinema and audience tastes forever.
Let's be realistic about Disney's Star Wars output thus far; it has been rambling, fumbling, confused and wildly varying in quality. We've had the good (The Mandalorian, The Force Awakens, Rogue One), the bad (Rise of Skywalker), the ugly (Last Jedi, which still nobody agrees on, but for the record I would be more inclined to lump in with the bad) and also the unbearably middle of the road (Solo, Boba, Obi-Wan). Dave Filoni is still doing his thing, which is great, but that's good content made by virtue of Disney leaving him alone to do it, which isn't really much of a feather in their cap.
I will admit that I am nevertheless a long-time defender of Disney's "good points", which I feel feature vaguely in the background of all of their Star Wars output somewhere, beyond the "do I only like this because I'm trying to like this because it's Star Wars?" element.
Despite also being a fan of more high brow content than Star Wars, when I heard about Andor, a grounded espionage thriller in the vein of House of Cards set before A New Hope with Mon Mothma as one of its main characters, I laughed at the concept. This, from the studio who brought us the line "Somehow, Palpatine returned" and almost brought us "He lost the star wars", as well as the clunky and unnatural plotting/dialogue of Obi-Wan and Book of Boba. I sat down to watch this with rubber gloves on, ready to cringe.
I watched. I didn't cringe. I heard an inspiring monologue or two, still no cringing. I was touched by the frailty and nuance of the human relationships on both sides of the fence, still no cringe. I watched an exciting action set-piece followed by a breathless escape with a mysterious stranger leading to untold dangers, and I began to think "next episode they'll mess it up completely and nose-dive again, just like Obi-Wan did, just like their trilogy did, just like they did with Book of Boba after The Mandalorian".
It is with great enthusiasm that I report to you today that the cringe NEVER arrived. This is an excellent show, top to bottom, which continuously ups its stakes and expands on Star Wars in every way its adult fans wanted (less Jedi order, more seedy underbelly). It also delivers completely on its premise, a sprawling and emotionally written political thriller set in the Star Wars universe that plays out like a love-letter to liberty and makes you feel a part of something bigger.
Another point I particularly admire this show for is this: it's the first Star Wars property EVER to get the Imperials right. We got a bit of this from Favreau's Mandalorian and Filoni's animated shows, but Lucas never delved into it much as the empire in his trilogy were a means to an ends and didn't really require justification beyond the Emperor is evil and he's their employer. However, now we're 40 years on (Earth time) and it won't do to just say "these guys are evil because they are". "WHY are they evil?" is a question we had for the sequel trilogy's First Order, but it was never answered. "They just are", says Abrams as he pulls up fully staffed Star Destroyers which have been buried underground. "How did those people get on the ships, J. J.?" we ask desperately at the end of Episode IX. "They just are" he replies again, and rolls the credits. Tony Gilroy and his team don't treat you like you're an idiot and resist the lazy urge to make Imperial soldiers and white collar workers into evil, hollow caricatures who simply smash planets, speak in smug English accents and don't really have any discernable motives as individuals. Here the Imperials are a combination of many things: vulnerable, frightened, angry, badly influenced and yes, bigoted and evil. Finally we have real people, with real motivations who run the empire for Palpatine and commit his terrible deeds with self-justified zeal.
Andor is an intelligent series, it's bold, heady and high-quality on all fronts, arriving just at a time when all I was expecting from Disney Star Wars was lukewarm dross. To conclude, I hope there'll be more Star Wars content for kids as that was always Lucas' primary vision, but in Andor, a Star Wars made 100% for grown-ups has finally arrived and it is absolutely marvelous.
Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (2022)
Good, surprisingly UNCLEAN fun
Marvel movies. They're not a "you love them or you hate them" kind of deal. In fact, it's the opposite - they're tailor made to be as broadly appealing and instantly gratifying as possible (not a criticism, somebody's got to do it, why not superhero movies) and this is no exception but it's also one of those rare entries in the franchise where the creative lead has been allowed to shrug off, in small doses, their restraints and let loose.
Everyone knows Marvel shines brightest when it does this, both on the screen and on the page. As for the silver screen, your James Gunn movies, Taika Waititi, and now your Sam Raimi entries are where the weirdness that endears us is given the driver's seat and you end up with a guaranteed good time at the movies.
For 'Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness' Feige has given Sam Raimi space to do what Avi Arad stupidly would not, to make a Sam Raimi movie. A kinetic, wild ride with boundless energy and a sense of fun.
The script is pretty poor, cringe inducing in places but it's not what you're here for and it's not what I'm here for either. Fact is, Marvel Comics properties exist in a world where traveling through dimensions is facilitated by a pug the size of a hippopotamus named Lockjaw so if you're here looking for insight then you really must be an idiot. As a creator, the whole breadth of human imagination is your toy in these bombastic comic-book worlds so why not just have some fun with it and get weird? This mission statement is perfect for Sam Raimi, who started his career as a trend bucking maverick, a true punk rocker of a film director, tragically wasted later on as a studio director, making diluted studio movies, perhaps from an unfounded lack of trust in his ability to stay with the brief. It's ironic that a franchise known for towing the lines of mediocrity and mass appeal has given him the chance to just be who he is. And thank God.
In summary, it's the most Sam Raimi movie I've seen since Army of Darkness, he's used all his trademarks, and a few more tricks here and there that he's picked up from being reined in by Hollywood. It's visually stunning in several places, really stunning. There's some horror that lands firmly on its feet in Raimi's hands, and is adapted gracefully to suit this franchise's previous and evolving tone. There's plenty of high action fantasy that strides along with glossy, irresistible confidence. The jokes all land, and they're not (unlike some other Marvel movies) egregious. Bruce Campbell is in it and he punches himself in the face. Give Raimi more of these movies. It's wonderful to see him back in control and better than ever. Worth the price of admission, and worth a rewatch or two.
Eternals (2021)
I can't believe this passed so many people by
I often like Marvel movies, I rarely love them, but I loved this one.
The cast is excellent and the characters, for once in a MCU film, are actually nuanced. Amongst the Eternals team of good guys are people who are good, people who seem good but are secretly bad, people who are bad for good reasons and people who are good for bad reasons, and are driven by self-obsession and choosing to appear good to grow their egos. While there are plenty of good/evil revelations, it's not always in service of the plot that these characters are the way that they are (i.e. Morally grey), it's just what this movie chooses to do: to present natural human relationships and tensions amongst characters who are not at all human, and I think it achieves this very well. It takes an hour to establish it, but it does so successfully, which already places it a million miles away from the constant black and white, good-evil dichotomy that almost all previous MCU films opt for.
That first hour it spends mulling over characters, I didn't find it flat or dull as a lot of reviewers have said. I enjoyed seeing the Eternals romp around the Aztec capital Tenochtitlan during Hernan Cortez' invasion, telling the Epic of Gilgamesh to people inside the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, it was really riveting stuff to see these unusual and not often shown histories portrayed through the mega-blockbuster CGI billion dollar budget lens of the Comic Book Movie. I found that much more exciting than the usual MCU flying laser fights in the sky that people seem to love so much.
There's plenty of the latter in this still (laser fights in the sky) and there's plenty of horrible CGI as well, but for every design flaw or jarring bad effect, there's a breathtaker just around the corner. Eternals loses its gentle momentum at the start of the third act, but for a minute it was a resilient, off-kilter alternative history science fiction with an ensemble cast that really walked on its own two feet, and that's incredibly tough for an unknown entity in a mass production franchise. Especially one that opts to throw out the rule book like this movie does.
It's interesting seeing Zhao take on this type of stuff after her surprise hit with Nomadland (also a listless and free spirited film) and I found Eternals to be an interesting addition to her so far decent filmography, and a very interesting addition to the MCU. There is clearly no fear to shake things up with the franchise, which will be the key to its continued longevity. I respect that, and even though I've largely disliked the post-Infinity War phase, Eternals has made me feel excited for what's to come.
I wish more people enjoyed this film, I would hate to see more formulaic origin movies like Shang-Chi, or to see the MCU tumble into becoming a joyless member-berry, nostalgia bait machine.
Star Wars Rebels: Secret Cargo (2017)
I'll tell you one person who loved this episode
JJ Abrams.
Cos he stole the conclusion of this episode for his conclusion of Episode IX.
It's a great Rebels episode, from the best of Rebels' four seasons.
The Grudge (2019)
God give me strength
This is the extended compilation of all your least favourite horror movie moments. Enjoy classic hits such as "who's there?", "Come on out, this isn't funny!", and "but he/she was right here a second ago!?" all over again.
The Ju-On movies are easily in the top 10
of most effective ghost movies, this movie adopts that pedigree and refuses to put any work in at any point to earn it. It cannibalises bits from not only all of its "Grudge" predecessors, but from every American PG-13 popcorn horror flick for the last 20 years. The result is weaponised tedium that could be described as horrifying but not for any of the right reasons.
It's a movie about a cop investigating a spooky brown and beige old house amongst the incessant brown and beige pallettes of nowheresville USA, and occasionally the story's progress is interrupted by a man/woman/child in heavy and completely indistinct zombie make-up suddenly shouting into the camera. This, of course, must be followed in every single case with a sequence involving the main character looking around the empty rooms nearby for a ghost which has disappeared for now and won't show up again for another 10 minutes because "that's what horror films do, right?"
I was amazed to see the director has had a horror credit to his filmography before this and I will be very careful to avoid that film, especially knowing that the product of his experience on that first horror movie of his was this absolute slog through nothing at all worthwhile.
No substance, no tension, no scares, no original anything. A real "I wish I could get that wasted time back" film. Avoid.
Dune (2021)
Yes
Yes. Big yes. Give us the second part Villeneuve. Not to do the whole "you just don't get it, man" to people who don't like it, but the Dune fans are backing this 100%. This is it. It's Dune. The movie. I can barely believe it.
Renegade (2019)
A Cult Film
Notice that almost all the positive reviews are 10/10. That's because this is a cult film. And it's a cult film because the people who this film is made for are in a cult.
Star Wars: The Clone Wars: Victory and Death (2020)
I'm not crying, YOU'RE CRYING
Very, very good indeed. Dave Filoni has engineered a spectacular climax for his excellent series, and at the same time engineered it so that it grants the flawed prequels a vindication.
I hope they put him to work on fixing that damned sequel trilogy next. He'd do another amazing job.
Completely moving. I haven't felt this much emotion from a Sci Fi/Fantasy property since Return of the King. Well done Filoni, and well done Disney. Now THIS is podracing. (Sorry, I had to)
Unbroken (2014)
Not a fun film
Absolute respect to Louis Zamperini who by all accounts has a story so ridiculously packed with misfortune, luck and mountains to climb that many have speculated if it's really possible to create a film about this man, who died at the grand age of 97 in the same year of this film's release. I'm going to exercise all of my self restraint and not make the obvious joke about him dying of boredom watching this film.
The first issue is the run-time, at 2 and a half hours of Prisoner of War Camp with no letting up is a real slog. Seriously, The Deer Hunter is less of a slog than this and that's similar material, and for over 3 hours. I was going to deep dive on my issues but after such a long film, I'm just gonna save us both time and talk more generally on the film as a whole.
There's just a lot to take in when you're depicting inhuman events that really happened. These events you expect to see shown in a human way, ramped up to 11 at just the right time, but instead 'Unbroken' looks like a fever dream that is populated by actors who seem unclear on what they're doing.
I say this for two reasons. The Fever Dream - I'm not sure how to put this but - there is seemingly no weather in this film (it only rains when it impacts the plot, the rest is glowing sunshine), which gives the very real events depicted an unsuited uncanny valley/Truman Show vibe.
As for the supporting cast, I didn't get a solid sense of characterisation from anyone other than Louis Zamperini, and I found some of the acting to be misdirected, which left me wondering if nuances in the script were at times, lost.
This was a Christmas movie, and I think I know why. Jolie approaches the material with all the bible-thumping zeal of an Evangelist. "Repent!" she cries, "Repent!" as she lays yet another misdeed onto the laundry list of misdeeds visited upon Zamperini.
Compare this to films like 127 Hours, which while not the same scale of misery, it interspersed its more gruelling scenes of horror and fear amongst the beautiful ones of a life that lead up to those awful moments - pacing. It was effective because it highlighted parallels between "then" and "now" in the film that were poignant, it gave you a break and it heightened the emotion via contrasting it. That process is non-existent in this film.
I hate to say it but I think the problem with this film is one related to class. This movie was not made to entertain, it smacks of that sombre Puritan vibe of American Thankgiving, "sorry for the killing but thanks for this turkey which we killed because we killed all of you". Jolie may feel the need to repent at Christmas time, being a highly monied individual, from a highly monied family, but Mrs. Gary Nobody who works six days a week in Tesco or Walmart and only has Christmas Day off to spend with the kids, doesn't need such a self-flaggelating experience as the one delivered by Unbroken.
Star Wars: Episode IX - The Rise of Skywalker (2019)
Complete, Utter Nonsense
Watching this movie was like reading a 10 year old's narrative fiction project. I at first believed this to be due to incompetence, after all, Hanlon's Razor says 'Do not attribute malice to that which can be explained by stupidity'.
At the very least, one thing you expect from a movie, no matter how poor, is to use any one of the common narrative structures ; such as stories having a beginning, middle and an end. Another device: Characters will have arcs and overcome obstacles in logical ways, leading them to being capable of defeating the "Big Bad", in a logical way.
This is, instead, a movie where all of this is removed in favour of "things" happening. Someone turns around after a "thing" and says "what's this thing", only for someone else to reply "well, it's this, this and this thing", but there's no tangible reference or link to anything like those things in this movie, or in its two preceding films. Then they move on to the next "thing" which is as abstractly plucked from nothing as the "thing" the movie wasted your time with 10 minutes ago.
You may be thinking "what a pretentious review for a dumb Sci-Fi film", and fair enough, but please bear this in mind: the man who formulated most of the accepted theories on story/character as a whole was an American professor in the 50s called Joseph Campbell. He was a personal friend of George Lucas, and by Lucas's own admission, his theories drove the narratives of Ep. I - VI. Luke Skywalker's story is a textbook execution of a well established theory from Campbell called "The Hero's Journey". 'The Last Jedi' and its ending of Luke Skywalker's character arc, despised as it was, is a perfect inversion of "The Hero's Journey".
Considering this is of the same franchise, and considering how widely used it is by ALL fiction writers, it's surely likely that Campbell's theory is going to have come up in at least some of the script treatments and consultations with Lucas. If not, surely Kathleen Kennedy having worked on some of the most well-regarded blockbuster films of the 80s onwards, including multiple films with Lucas AND Spielberg; surely she has some ability to recognise these things as fundamental to a storytelling process. But they're not there.
Maybe she wanted to break the mold and experiment, but, when you experiment, don't you tend to switch one thing for another (as per 'The Last Jedi')? Rather than to remove it completely, especially if that thing is related to structure, the very glue which holds the narrative together.
Star Wars 9 fans will tell you, presumably through piles of Marshmallow Fluff that they're scooping into their mouths with their bare hands whilst sitting on the floor amongst their crayons, "You just don't get it man, you have to read the novelisation. You have to have played Fortnight so you can see the clip they released there about how the Emperor actually came back (this is real, by the way). You have to read the Art-book. (Also real)"
I've seen this before in another industry and, more than likely if you're a Star Wars fan, so have you. Where else have we been sold a product that should be full and complete, only for the complete experience to be split into mandatory "optional" extras? Video Games. This is the first film to rely on DLC to complete its plot, and for me as a fan of cinema, whether that is accidental or intentional, this is abhorrent.
This cynically capitalist approach to the ancient art of story-telling, mankind's next great achievement after creating language itself, your birthright as a human being, has to end before it becomes profitable, and the norm. Sequels aside, Cinema should not tell stories that cannot stand on their own two feet and I absolutely condemn J.J. Abrams and Disney, with prejudice, for turning the final episode of Star Wars into a 2 hour trailer for DLC content (Novels and Art Books), and sponsorship deals (Fortnight). Again, I stress, these are not peripheral details , these are key plot points that, in their absence, renders the "things" that make up this film completely intangible, bizarre nonsense.
Martin Scorcese pointed out that the Marvel Films are less of a medium for telling human stories and more of a theme park attraction. Those movies offer much more than 'Rise of Skywalker', and if that statement is to be taken as fact, then this film, judged as a single entity, is nothing more than a series of flashing lights and a collage of famous faces.
28 Days Later... (2002)
The Second Best Zombie Movie Of All Time
Danny Boyle's flexibility as director is just so consistently surprising. You know what his next film after this was? After this, 'The Beach', 'Trainspotting' and 'Shallow Grave' before it? 'Millions', the Frank Cottrell Boyce penned kids book about a 7 year old finding a million pounds in a duffel bag. I don't always like his films, but I must hand it to the man, there aren't many spaces he can't fill.
The direction here looks a little dated now, it feels very guerilla, very DIY from the offset (it wasn't, it had a healthy budget from Fox on their pseudo indie-label Fox Searchlight Pictures). The rawness works in the film's favour most of the time and is entirely appropriate given the genre.
Perfectly contrasting this, there are moments in this movie that are so well timed and so well framed that they are nothing short of iconic. They gleam like diamonds in all of the gloom, and are so satisfyingly on the nose that they're almost Expressionist. They give the viewer more than a moment's pause and Boyle shows great instincts on when to let run what other people might dismiss as B-roll footage. A girl running down a dark hallway in a ballgown, a body falling down a tenement staircase, a sole plane flying over a forest after all civilization is supposedly dead, and let's not forget what we all came for in 2003, a man in hospital scrubs wandering an empty, abandoned London. The latter was nothing short of movie magic in those days, when fully rendered CGI environments were a thing reserved only for the absolute biggest of Hollywood blockbuster movies.
Writer Alex Garland had at this point half proven himself to be a contender with 'The Beach' novel and screenplay, and he must have been hungry for another win. Where 'The Beach' was grounded in reality, specifically the experience of being young, dumb and full of cumbersome desire to travel and find oneself, descending then into flight of fancy, '28 Days Later...' takes people out of their world and into one Garland built himself, utterly horrific as it is. His dialogue takes a back-step in favour of a more tense and realistic silence (for practical reasons), which leaves him to play with and plot bigger scenarios and ultimately bigger themes. What he delivered was brutal, very concise and utterly convincing.
Performances are just great really, across the board. Brendan Gleeson plays against type very nicely, Naomie Harris plays to type very well, a 26 year old Cillian Murphy acts his freaking socks off, and the film is gracefully cradled towards it's ending with the measured and self-assuredness of the always wonderful Christopher Eccleston, who stands guard like Nero, on the doorstop of his home town as it burns to crisp behind him.
My goodness. It is a good film, and yes! You were right! The First Best Zombie Movie of all time IS George A. Romero's 'Dawn of the Dead'! Thank you and goodnight. '28 Days Later...' is a very close second.
Land of the Dead (2005)
The Master of the Undead Loses his Touch
Simply put, 'Land of the Dead' just doesn't achieve where the previous three entries in the fabulous 'Living Dead' series shone, even with double the budget. The script, again penned by Romero who had previously managed 3 intelligent scripts of the same kind, is drivel in the places where it isn't cliche-driven.
There are still some very interesting elements to it, in concept at least. Particularly of note is the racially charged dynamic between social climber 'Cholo' (John Leguizamo) and his employer 'Kaufman' (Dennis Hopper), which could have been a savage critique on the pervasiveness and meaninglessness of Social Class had it been left to breathe, however it's knocked to the sideline in favour of ... very little. These two, by the way, are far above the standard of the acting set by the rest of the cast. Hopper hams it up, even by Hopper's standard, but that's fine, and Leguizamo, God bless him, unsung hero of the Hollywood action genre, is the only person who takes his role really seriously. He's great, of course.
The world that 'Land' begins to build is essentially similar to 'Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome', which works quite nicely for it and follows well from Romero's repeated motifs of previous entries. The world of the zombies, as their cognitive development continues from 'Day', is also set up as a parallel. They begin to work well together contrasting the struggle and chaos of human society at the end of the world.
All of this is discarded within the first 40 minutes. It builds a world it forgets to finish, then it forgets to build tension and forgets to build up to anything. The climax, which despite all the intrigue that Romero traded it for, amounts to 'people running away', is filmed in a car park, is laughable in it's best moments and completely, frustratingly unsatisfying in it's worst. This, from the man who once devised set piece after set piece using only a location, a character, and a mood, which delivered heart-pounding thrills with the precision of surgeon's blade. Not to mention the solid allegorical meaning he somehow managed to hammer into every spare moment of his older output.
It was sad to see and hard to watch, but not nearly as difficult as his next two entries (especially his dire 'Survival of the Dead', which was tragically his last offering to the world before he greeted his old friend, Death). Give 'Land' a look, if you're a fan and want to finish the series, but for God's sake, finish it here. Truthfully though, you'd be better served by some the many, many Romero knock-offs that his Grade-A horror movie output inspired. They were much more fun, and packed a bigger, more authentic punch.
Mirrormask (2005)
Just a horrible, poorly executed film
What Mirrormask tries to do is tread over ground that its "Fantasy" (I use the term loosely but not derogatory) forebears have done many times. The innocence of a child finding solace during/after trauma in the world of imagination. Human spirit something something, but wait INHERENT DARKNESS something something, ultimate acceptance of trauma and moving on something something.
The plot is one of those pointless exercises in trying to please everyone at once a la Bridge Over Terabithia. It says to child viewers of its fantasy elements 'this is real' while slyly saying to their parents 'this isn't real, but it's actually a very clever allegory, you see?'. It's not particularly clever. The script is pretty 2-dimensional and the characterisation for supporting characters is reduced to basically nothing beyond 'Mum', 'Dad', 'Baddie', 'Goodie'.
The CGI, upon which the film is heavily reliant, was dated in 2005 and wouldn't look out of place on a PlayStation 1. This, by the way, is a shocking exercise in arrogance, given that this is supposed to be a spiritual sequel to Labyrinth, which is a spiritual sequel to The Dark Crystal, both of which were a masterclass in handmade and hand operated Special Effects. One would expect a film that comes from Jim Henson's production company to at least utilise what that company is famous for excelling at. Nope, not Mirrormask.
SFX aside, the visuals, in all honesty, are atrocious and dull, save for a wide colour palette. I expected this to be the most striking and memorable element, having come from the imagination of Neil Gaiman, who is not only an accomplished fantasy writer, but also author of one of the best and most visually impressive fantasy comic series' of all time (Sandman). However the aesthetic, while original, is headache inducing and frustratingly uninteresting.
I'm seeing a lot of the word 'unwatchable' in the reviews and I would like to add my voice to say, not only unwatchable, but also irrelevant, pointless, derivative and most importantly: s**t.
Per un pugno di dollari (1964)
A loving tribute to one of the cinema's greats, by one of cinema's greats
Existing outside of Italy's famous and influential 'Giallo' films ('Giallo' being Italian for Yellow, like the colour of the pages on old pulp detective novels that were considered equivalents), was this great trend of ripping othere people's movies off and just making them more Italian. This could be in the form of sequels, such as Lucio Fulci's unofficial Dawn of the Dead sequel Zombi 2 (aka Zombie Flesh Eaters), or it's an outright remake such as this.
This is, in essence, EXACTLY the same film as Akira Kurasawa's 'Yojimbo', just in colour, in English, set in Mexico and starring Clint Eastwood. That doesn't take anything away from what makes a Leone film special; the respect for landscape; the sweating, hulking tension; the flying bullets and near misses; the flying bullets and confimed hits and have you thinking 'this is the end', only for there to be one last blood-dripping, fury-driven revenge set-piece to come.
There's something magical in the ambitious over-reaching of Italian film-makers of this era, and few had as much talent, ambition and vision as Leone.
Bonafide classic, and great, great fun.
Ghostbusters (2016)
Who was this movie made for?
Great supporting cast, check. SNL alumini in the lead roles as per the originals, check. So what went wrong?
Summary: 'The Heat' and 'Spy' meets 'Scooby-Doo'. Something nobody asked for, ever. Fails on all fronts as a 'Ghostbusters' movie. Not-specific-to-plot spoilers ahead.
The initial backlash against this movie was ugly and predictable. It recieved furious ire for its all female cast (Bill Murray's idea in a throwaway interview comment). But then came damn near offensive cash-grab trailers, stating '30 years later' as if it was a sequel, not a reboot. You can't really hold Paul Feig responsible, that kind of playing it safe has 'studio intereference' written all over it.
The act of totally rebooting Ghostbusters, imho, IS the first issue. If you're starting a franchise new, you best make damn sure you got the chops to back it up. The script of Ghostbusters: ATC does not have the chops. It's Paul Feig-level snappy, sure. The jokes are focussed, well delivered and occasionally quite funny. However there's glaring pacing issues. Our heroes suddenly jump from four newly unemployed nobodies who have an idea, a building, a hearse and some experimental equipment that they've salvaged from their university jobs, to their first ghostbusting job, which they suddenly roll up in a fully customised Ecto-1, equipped with uniforms and FOUR fully developed proton packs. This is like 10 seconds later (actual time, not film time). This, again, could be studio interference, but there are plenty of examples of lazy writing in the movie to make one uncertain.
Paul Feig has claimed to care very deeply about this film, but it's obvious that he cares very little for Ghostbusters, even going so far as to throw Bull Murray's cameo character out of window, killing him. In a better film, this could have been a wonderfully tongue-in-cheek moment.
In THIS film, where Proton Packs are guns, not conductive wands, the ghosts have a brightly coloured glow about them, a la the Scooby Doo movies and one of the ghosts is an actual, honest to goodness dragon - you've got to wonder about the processes that he took in making a Ghostbusters that fans would actually be able to recognise. Paul Feig didn't bother. Had he bothered, it might have countered the violent reaction that so many 'fans' had, and often have, to the inevitable growth and change in a franchise.
Also, there's a matinee in the background of one scene advertising "Bruce Lee's Fists of Fury". FISTS of Fury? Seriously?
And when you have a comedy actor in their prime like Kate McKinnon on your books, is there any need to dress her in funny goggles and give her a funny voice. Her character was jarring to watch, as was Chris Hemsworth's. Perfect examples of comedy for people who repeatedly post Minion memes on Facebook and eat exclusively chicken dippers because they're 'fussy about food'.
Final negative point, the music is just truly disgusting. The remade theme tune, the live band in the film, the score/OST itself, all deserve to be recategorised into a new genre: sub-music.
On the plus side, Slimer looks great, Leslie Jones nails the "everyman" role, literally EVERYONE from the originals returns in some form or another, Andy Garcia is hilarious as the useless mayor, and some of it, particularly the opening and the third act, IS spooky fun, just not Ghostbusters spooky fun.