Barbarian (2022) - Movie Review

I don’t want to write about this film.

Not because it’s bad or boring or gave me nothing to work with for a review; y’know, the usual reasons. This is a very good movie, so far from boring that it’s unbelievable, and I have a shit-ton of thoughts on it.

No, the reason I don’t want to write about it is because this is one of those special films that is at its most effective when you go into it knowing as little about it as possible. I went into this with only the initial trailer to go on, which thankfully was more interested in drumming up interest than actually showing the content directly, and what I ultimately got was one of the most buckwild experiences I’ve had with a film all year. This is Malignant levels of nutty filmmaking, and might even go further than that film did in sheer unpredictability.

I’m in a bit of a bind here. Like with any other new film I enjoyed watching, I want to get into all the things about this that I loved seeing… but doing so runs the risk of spoiling the potential experience for the very people I desperately want to convince to check this thing out. I’ve likely gotten into this before, but the literal last thing I want to do with any of these write-ups is to ruin a film for someone else, no matter how much we may disagree on the film itself. I’m not here to dictate or denigrate anyone else’s tastes; I just want to share my thoughts and maybe get someone else to see something they mightn’t have otherwise.

With that in mind, I can either plaster a big fat spoiler warning at the top of this review and carry on as normal… or I can try and put some of that Moonage Daydream inspiration to work and see if I can successfully get into what makes this film so goddamn amazing, but without directly spelling it out. I mean, one of my recent write-up subjects for FilmInk (the fantastic One Piece Film: Red) came to me with a literal list of things not to spoil in the review proper, and I reckon that review turned out good with those stipulations, so let’s see how we go. Wish me luck.

Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2022) - Movie Review

Okay.

So there’s the original Texas Chain Saw Massacre that came out in 1974, then there was the sequel, then there was Leatherface: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre III, then The Next Generation, then the 2003 remake of the original, then the prequel to that remake, then Texas Chainsaw 3D, then the 2017 movie also called Leatherface that was a prequel to the original (or possibly another prequel to the remake of the original), and now we have a new film that came out on Netflix last month that’s just called Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

Everybody got that?

In The Heights (2021) - Movie Review

It’s kind of astounding just how much progress director Jon M. Chu has made in just a few short years. Not that long ago, he was making shit like Jem And The Holograms and adding to the increasingly diminished returns of the Step Up sequels. But then Crazy Rich Asians happened and… something must’ve just clicked in his head. I bring this up because his latest has a fair bit in common with CRA, namely in how it’s drenched in a very specific cultural aesthetic and identity; I’m guessing he’s sticking with what he now knows he can work with. But where it gets really crazy is that he has somehow managed to get past even CRA’s genuine visual splendour, and made an even greater film in the process.

The Forty-Year-Old Version (2020) - Movie Review

Normally, this is the kind of title (not even the film itself, just the title) that would get on my nerves because, let’s be honest, trying to bank on the popularity of The 40-Year-Old Virgin is quite an odd choice, even in a year dominated by odd choices on both sides of the screen. And yet, I have no vitriol about this one as it’s quite fitting for the film it’s attached to. The whole point at the heart of the Judd Apatow film (and a lot of what he’d make afterwards) is that there’s no age limit on ‘growing up’ as we understand it; late-bloomer doesn’t just apply to people in their late-teens or even 20s. With the docu-drama vision writer/director/producer/star Radha Blank gives here, it’s certainly in that same spirit, and it shine because of it.

Vampires Vs. The Bronx (2020) - Movie Review

Well, this should be fun. An Attack The Block style bit of genre cinema doubling as social commentary, with a group of kids from the Bronx defending their neighbourhood against invading vampires. As much as short attention spans lead people to think that political touches in horror movies is some kind of new phenomena (or worse, retroactively trying to re-write the intent behind the classics of old), this looks a great fit on paper and works even better in execution… but I’d be lying if I said it was an absolute success.

The Last Black Man In San Francisco (2020) - Movie Review

Fucking hell, this is gorgeous. I know that I usually reserve that kind of nuanced, thought-provoking statement for later on in the review, saving this space for some long-winded wind-up to introduce the film, but there really is no other way to preface just how beautiful this thing looks. The feature debut of Joe Talbot, who has been brewing this film along with star Jimmie Fails for years now (dating back to before they even knew how to film shit in the first place), this is one of those Sex, Lies, And Videotape situations where, if not actively told this was a debut, you’d think it’s the work of someone with at least a decade of produced experience under his belt. But nope; Talbot is just that damn good.