They Cloned Tyrone (2023) - Movie Review

After co-writing Creed II, and getting thrown into the unholy soup that is the script for Space Jam: A New Legacy, writer Juel Taylor has made his directorial debut with one of the better Blaxploitation flips I’ve seen in a minute. Where remakes of the old guard like Shaft and Superfly felt the need to modernise the genre’s aesthetics (which only brought into question why they’d even bother getting involved in that genre in the first place), this actually sticks to its identifiable qualities, albeit with some updating on the cultural references like Obama and Bitcoin. The moody, shadowy cinematography from DP Ken Seng, the Terrace Martin-esque funk soundtrack from Desmond Murray and Pierre Charles (those basslines are just *chef’s kiss*), the frankly amazing costume design across the board; this looks really damn good.

Smoking Causes Coughing (2023) - Movie Review

Look, I need something lighter after the last film. Something short, something funny, something weird, and hopefully, something not as heavy as Martin Scorsese calling out genocide. So I decided to check this out mainly because of its oddball title, oddball poster, and oddball premise of a team of French superheroes named Benzene, Methanol, Nicotine, Mercury, and Ammonia, otherwise known as the Tobacco Force.

Where it gets weirder is that the central idea of this film (I think?) is indicative of why I decided to watch it in the first place.

White Noise (2022) - Movie Review

Up to this point, writer/director Noah Baumbach has operated in the chattier sectors of American indie cinema. We’ve look at three of his films on this blog already, and they have all involved intimate and unvarnished looks at families with a shared interest (or even disinterest) in the arts. And despite a couple disagreements here and there in the film craft or the framing of their central ideas, I’ve come to look forward to seeing new films from the guy. So you can imagine my surprise when his new film is a major switch-up from his usual wheelhouse.

Nope (2022) - Movie Review

One of the more oft-repeated phrases about the nature of comedy is that it is more-or-less a matter of ‘tragedy + time’. After enough time has passed since an awful event, that is when it is possible to see the more humourous side of something that, in the moment, would’ve been too shocking to exhume such mirth from. But I’m not sure that is really the case, at least nowadays. We collectively have so much access to visual and auditory information, and have subsequently learnt to digest it at such a rate, that we have surpassed the idea that the passing of time has anything to do with the ability to make light of tragic events. I first got that impression when I heard my first joke about Michael Jackson’s death, which was on the same day it broke the news cycle; unless the bracket of time is measured in mere minutes or hours, that doesn’t appear to be accurate anymore.

Instead, I’d argue that it’s a matter of distance rather than time. Temporal distance can be a part of that, sure, but as far as turning something horrible into the kind of material that someone would willingly indulge in, it can be a cinch when there’s enough distance between the subject and the observer. If it happened to a stranger, or someone you know more by reputation than through any personal contact, making light of it is far easier to do than if, say, it happened to someone you know more personally or, more pointedly, if it happened to you.

Now, why am I bringing this up when talking about this film in particular? Am I making the same mistake that the Golden Globes made back in 2017? Well, hopefully not. Rather, I’m getting into this for two other reasons. One, because whenever I get to discussing Peele’s films, my writing turns out a lot denser than usual, so I’m just setting the tone as best I can. And two, because what truly makes this film horrifying is in how it examines that subject/observer relationship, both when it comes to our entertainment and our everyday lives.

Everything Everywhere All At Once (2022) - Movie Review

At the tail-end of 2016, I reviewed a film called Swiss Army Man. It remains one of the most surreal features I’ve ever covered on this blog, and I loved the absolute hell out of it… although, by its own admission, it’s most certainly not going to work for all audiences. It’s a cult film made by decidedly cult filmmakers, and considering it found its way mainly into the more arthouse cinemas in my area, Daniels (the writing/directing team of Dan Kwan and Daniel Scheinert) seemed destined to stay on the fringe. Then their latest collaboration was released, to the most mainstream cinema local to me, and is seemingly adored by everyone. And what makes that fact even more astounding is that this film that has caught on like wildfire? It’s not even that much of a change-up from what these guys usually get up to.

The Lighthouse (2020) - Movie Review

I didn’t know what to expect from the sophomore release of Robert Eggers, who gave us the quite fantastic The Witch a few years ago. I don’t even think it’s possible to expect anything from this, either from the viewpoint of someone trying to pick something to watch or as someone in the cinema seat with their ticket in hand. It legit got to a point, around the point of this film’s final reel, that I found myself giving in to the weirdness. I stopped trying to rationalise what I was seeing and just let it all wash over me… and then I made the trip back home. Time for another deep dive as I try and put down on paper why this film is so fucking brilliant.