Vivarium (2020) - Movie Review

Everyone deserves safety and security in their lives. But there is such a thing as too much of it. We tend to function best with a certain degree of monotony to our everyday routines: A house to exist in, a bed to sleep in, a couch to sit on, a TV to wile away the hours with, a kitchen to cook in, a table with chairs to sit and eat at; y’know, standard suburban living. However, that same blanket of monotony can also smother. It can be a crushing and constant reminder that no matter what you may have done before you arrived, this is it. This is the life you have, every single hour of every single day, for however much you left to live.

The Art Of Self-Defense (2019) - Movie Review

There are few things that can immediately bring out the fragility in a self-supposed alpha like daring to utter the phrase ‘toxic masculinity’ in their presence. Bonus points if their rebuttal to the sheer idea of the concept involves some combination of ‘beta’, ‘cuck’ and ‘soy’.

Even as someone who has discussed the topic in past reviews, in particular my look at Only The Brave, I keep getting the feeling that there’s far too many out there unable to see or even comprehend the distinct between masculinity at its best and at its worst. For its best, the archetypal protector and provider has his place and as tempered by genuine human empathy and compassion, it remains a true showing of strength. For its worst… well, let’s get into this film.

Black Christmas (2019) - Movie Review

The original Black Christmas is one of the classic slashers, a film that helped mould the genre into what it remains to this day. It even has the prestige of being a slasher that influenced another seminal classic in the genre with Halloween, both operating with the same type of inhumane beast as the killer. Black X-Mas, the 2006 remake, went so far in missing the point of what made the original work that it devolved into a movie about killers who were brother and sister as well as father and daughter. No information right into all kinds of TMI; it really says something when it came out in the midst of the U.S. remakes of Japanese horror movie craze, and it still stands as one of the most misguided remakes of its time.

Need For Speed (2014) - Movie Review

Even with Hollywood as it is today, reaching for anything and everything to turn into the next big blockbuster, there is still a major stigma attached to one source material for adaptations: Video games. Maybe it’s because of the inherent nature of games to be less about the plot and more about the interactive experience, maybe it’s because the majority of video game movies are absolute garbage (with the exceptions of the original Mortal Kombat, Prince Of Persia and maybe Hitman), or maybe it’s both. Regardless, there is a heavy expectation whenever one is released that it will be bad, made even heavier if the source material is less focused on plot than its neighbours. Today’s film is just such an occasion.