Girl (2021) - Movie Review

We’re in niche mode for this review, as I’m once again deciding to review a film purely because I make it a habit of keeping note of any and all names attached to the things I watch. And this is a particularly ‘me’ iteration of that mindset, as I basically grew up on the work of actor and now-writer/director Chad Faust through his role in The 4400. I got into it a bit when I looked at Project Power, but suffice to say, I loved the hell out of that show as a kid and still love it plenty to this day, and his role as the sleeper agent turned superpowered shaman Kyle Baldwin is a big part of that. Naturally, seeing him step into the director’s chair caught my attention, although I can easily see why the film itself might not have the same effect on others.

Let Him Go (2020) - Movie Review

Kevin Costner and Diane Lane play a husband-and-wife who live on a ranch in rural Americana. Let’s see how far I get in this review before I start bringing up how crap it was last time this happened on film… dammit. Okay, after Costner genuinely blew me away in Molly’s Game, I’m making it a point to stop completely disregarding the man’s abilities, and even in objectively bad productions like Serenity, Lane still manages to deliver. And to their credit, they are the main anchors that keep the story of this film together… but even that comes with some drawbacks.

Relaxer (2020) - Movie Review

This film doesn’t seem like much when explaining the plot as it is. Set in the final days of 1999, it’s the story of Abbie (Joshua Burge), who is given a challenge by his brother Cam (David Dastmalchian): Get past level 256 in Pac-Man. He is not allowed to leave his apartment, or even his couch, until it’s completed. For the entirety of the film’s run time, we never leave this apartment or Abbie’s side. I know that the prevalence of Twitch streamers nowadays somewhat makes the idea of watching someone else play video games for hours on end seem plausible, but does that make this watchable? Well, in the hands of writer/director/editor Joel Potrykus, more so than you’d think.

Unsane (2018) - Movie Review

 

There’s a specific type of discomfort that comes out of watching a film like this. It’s the discomfort in knowing when someone is actually telling the truth but everyone else insists that they’re not. The feeling that makes you want to put your hands through the screen into the film’s reality and just start yelling that this person is right, that things are happening to them, or at the very least give assurance that they’re aren’t as crazy as everyone wants that person to believe.

The Book Of Henry (2017) - Movie Review

The plot: Suburban kid Henry (Jaeden Lieberher) is a child genius, often making contraptions with his brother Peter (Jacob Tremblay) and balancing out his mother (Naomi Watts)’s budget. However, when he discovers that his next-door neighbour Christina (Maddie Ziegler) is being abused by her step-father (Dean Norris), he decides that something must be done. Something that the adults seem unable to do because of the step-father’s standing in the community. He decides that there’s only one choice: The step-father has to die.