The Black Phone (2022) - Movie Review

Ethan Hawke is one of my favourite actors working today. While he certainly has the skill to back up that kind of acclaim, my love for the guy’s work comes mainly out of how insanely eclectic he is. The Northman, Cut Throat City, The Truth, Stockholm, Valerian And The City Of A Thousand Planets, The Magnificent Seven, Predestination, Boyhood; not only is the man up for pretty much anything a director could possibly throw at him, but he’s also willing to go into unexpected international corners to spread the love around. So when news hit of him being cast as the villain in a horror flick, hell yeah, I was on board for that… but while Hawke certainly delivered, it’s a testament to just how good this film is that he ends up being at the lower end of this film’s positives.

The Northman (2022) - Movie Review

After two certified winners with The VVitch and The Lighthouse, writer/director Robert Eggers has cracked his artistic ambitions wide open with his latest. Shedding his New England aesthetics like a snakeskin, he now sets the stage for an epic historical revenge myth, co-written by himself and Icelandic scribe Sjón and itself based on the Scandinavian legend of Amleth. Yes, for the classics nerds amongst my readership, this is the same legend that inspired fellow classics nerd William Shakespeare in the creation of Hamlet. This film is the culmination of just about every storytelling idea and mood Eggers has been chipping away at over his career thus far, and what results from that is a production that redefines the word ‘visceral’.

The Guilty (2021) - Movie Review

 

 

Okay, I want to give Antoine Fuqua another chance, after how baffling his last production turned out. And as easy as it is to completely write this off as unnecessary because it’s an American remake of a European film (and of a film that I have reviewed previously), I can actually see the merit in remaking this specific feature.

The whole point of the original film was its sound design, with the plot revolving around the lead character being on the phone for the entire run time, so having all that sound be in a language I speak naturally means I can focus more on hearing that sound design rather than divvying up time between that and reading it (yeah, yeah, “lazy Westerners hate subtitles”, so cry the people being a lot more ableist than they realise; save the elitism for another time, 'kay?). There’s also how (and this is admittedly information I didn’t know about when I reviewed the original) the whole idea for this story came from director/co-writer Gustav Möller watching a YouTube video recording of a 911 call. So it’s basically being re-translated back into where it first came from; this could legitimately have a chance at working.

Cut Throat City (2020) - Movie Review

The RZA earned his stripes as a cinematic storyteller long before he ever picked up the camera. That’s what made the first wave of Wu-Tang albums so fucking good: They all felt like mini-movies devoted to a single sense. The hard-body kung-fu of 36 Chambers, the stoner horror of Tical, the outsider comedy of ODB’s solo debut, the Godfather-tier Mafioso yarn of Only Built 4 Cuban Linx, the thinking man’s chambara of Liquid Swords, the blaxploitation of Ironman, even the panoramic victory lap of Wu-Tang Forever; the RZA did what any director does and surrounded himself with capable writers and actors who wound up influencing the entire genre around them in one fell swoop.

Which is why the RZA’s first step into visual cinema with The Man With The Iron Fists, as fire as the soundtrack was, felt like a misstep. It was too raw (read: unrefined) and felt more like fan worship of the genre it sits in than him putting his own boot print on it. And when he followed that up with a directing spot on Iron Fist (AKA the worst of the Netflix Marvel series), him being in that chair just felt like a bad idea. Maybe his own ability to control the maestro stayed in the vocal booth. But I decided to relent and give his latest a try, and man, am I glad I did.