Last Seen Alive (2022) - Movie Review

The latest B-movie product starring Gerard Butler starts out with a decent enough idea. Will (Butler) and his wife Lisa (Jaimie Alexander) pull into a gas station, and while Will is filling up the car, Lisa… disappears. With nothing to go on, and a lot of hard scepticism in his way, Will sets out to find her. For an action-thriller, it’s a very Neesonsploitation premise, but the framing leans more into the ‘thriller’ side of that genre heading. A loved one vanishing (heh) into thin air, not having a clue where they went and not getting any help; even on paper, it sounds exhausting, so surely, it’s gotta work on the big screen, right? Well, it’s not as if this is the first time an American version of The Vanishing didn’t work out.

Fences (2017) - Movie Review

After yesterday’s parade of posing, it’s nice to actually sit down with a proper king of cool for today’s film. Specifically, the man, the legend and the recently dwindling star that is Denzel Washington. His notoriety as an actor is properly set in stone through his work with Spike Lee and the Scott brothers, but his more recent work is somewhat less compelling. Denzel and director Antoine Fuqua have brought each other much adoration in the past through Training Day, but between the somewhat middling The Equalizer and the outright disappointment of The Magnificent Seven retooling, he hasn’t been at his best of late. Knowing the extremely presentist mindset of today in terms of pop culture, it’s not much of a stretch to say that this guy’s legacy could be in jeopardy in the minds of current filmgoers. Hopefully, today’s film will present a possible resurgence. This is Fences.