Nomadland (2021) - Movie Review

Wanting to just say “Fuck it”, pack into a van, and go anywhere other than here is a rather common thought nowadays. Even as a functional introvert, I feel as if recent events have been testing my willingness to spend most of my waking hours indoors. So with indie filmmaker and soon-to-be MCU inductee Chloé Zhao’s latest feature, there’s definite timeliness to be gotten out of watching Fern (Frances McDormand) roam America in her RV, and wishing one could do the same in these days of lockdown. Only what’s being tapped into is at once removed from the here and now (taking place in the wake of the global financial crisis), but also informed by events that have been steadily growing worse in the interim.

Cosmic Sin (2021) - Movie Review

With some movies that I write about on here, I worry about falling into a common trap with people writing about media: Explaining the plot. Specifically, just reiterating what happens without adding any of my own observations into the mix. As I’m still regaining my sea legs after my break, I’ve been worrying about this with my last couple reviews. But thankfully, there is no chance of that happening with this one. Mainly because reciting every detail of the plot would require me to understand what in the blue-crystal fuck was going on in it.

Chaos Walking (2021) - Movie Review

I love Patrick Ness’ writing. While I freely admit that I haven’t read his novels, I still have a great affection for the man’s art based purely on his work for the big and small screen. I mentioned in my review for it how much I dug his approach to storytelling with A Monster Calls, and for as little attention as it got, his work on the Doctor Who spin-off Class had quite a few moments of true inspiration within its stunted 8-episode run. At a time when young-adult storytelling has gone from strength to strength in the mainstream, the way Ness approaches incredibly morbid topics like grief, trauma, and loss, has already revealed him to be in the upper echelon of that grouping. So, when news hit that his Chaos Walking trilogy of books were going to get the cinematic treatment, with Ness himself co-writing the script, I was ready for him to impress yet again. What I actually got, though, is… not that.

Boonie Bears: The Wild Life (2021) - Movie Review

The Boonie Bears franchise has been going strong since 2012, with ten separate TV series totalling up to 676 episodes, and eight films with The Wild Life serving as the ninth. And up until I saw this film listed at my local cinema, I had no idea this even existed. I went into this about as blind as any other talking animal movie I’ve reviewed on here, and considering that sub-genre has basically become my nemesis over this blog’s lifespan, I can’t say I was expecting much. I don’t know if this has more to do with lowered expectations, lack of other options with the constant schedule shuffling, or if this film is genuinely good but… yeah, I had way more fun with this than I ever could have anticipated.

The Marksman (2021) - Movie Review

Yep. It’s another Liam Neeson movie. Only a couple months after the last one. But what ultimately made me check it out was how, upon reading up on it, I learnt that this isn’t just the latest Neesonsploitation flick. It is also an attempt to crossbreed the overused-set-of-skills of a modern Neeson B-movie… with a Clint Eastwood movie.

Shadow In The Cloud (2021) - Movie Review

Much like with Ava late last year, I was initially debating whether I’d even deign to watch this movie at all, let alone review it, and for largely the same reason: The abusive history of the guy who wrote it. Only this isn’t a niche example like Matthew Newton, as Max Landis has had people distancing themselves from him as early as 2012’s Chronicle, his first feature-length script.

Considering it and American Ultra are the only good movies with his name attached to them (and even then, it’s the presentation that makes those two memorable, not necessarily the writing), there’s other reasons to be sceptical about this one… but again, like with Ava, I don’t see disregarding the work of women in the industry off the back of one toxic guy to be all that helpful a move, although to her credit, director and co-writer (we’ll get to that) Roseanne Liang gets why audiences might distance themselves from this film based on his involvement. I, however, am not going to advocate for that. Instead, I’m going to declare proudly that this is a fantastic film that is more than worth checking out.

Blackbird (2021) - Movie Review

Well… after a much longer (and unannounced; apologies for that) break than anticipated, I’m already wishing I took a bit more care regarding the film I'd come back with. I mean, a film all about voluntary euthanasia isn't exactly the cheeriest material I could have picked for my return. But after so much inactivity, I’ll take anything I can get my hands on, and to this film’s credit, I certainly don’t feel like I wasted my time watching it.