Endings, Beginnings (2020) - Movie Review

This is gonna be a case of ‘careful what I wish for’ for me as… to be honest, on the day I’m writing this review, I’m not exactly in the best of moods. I know that my general worries about lockdown and COVID and all that fun stuff have been seeping more and more into my writings (both here and in my write-ups for FilmInk), but between that and some personal shit that just happened to occur earlier today for me… I need something light. Something simple. Something I can turn on for some basic comfort. And in fairness, that is what I got. Unfortunately, that’s all that I got.

Adrift (2018) - Movie Review

The plot: While journeying by boat from Tahiti to San Diego, Tami (Shailene Woodley) and Richard (Sam Claflin) end up in the middle of Hurricane Raymond and both their boat and themselves end up bearing the brunt of it. As Tami tries to get the boat back into working order, and caring for Richard's post-wreck injuries, she must find a way to get to dry land before the sea claims them.

Snowden (2016) - Movie Review

As a whole, 2016 has been a primarily emotional year for cinema, more so than any of the last few. From the heavy fan reactions to Ghostbusters and the DC cinematic canon, to the emphasis on pathos in some of the higher-profile releases of the year, filmmakers have been aiming mostly at the heart all year. Hell, just look at my current list of the year’s films that I’ve seen: The top is populated with films that focus intently on traits associated with the best of humanity like family, courage and community (albeit rather sexual community), while the bottom is populated by trash that exhibits the worst of humanity like sexism, racism and ableism. It is this need for more emotionally potent, yet relevant, cinema that is pretty much my only rationalisation for why this film exists at this point in time.

After last year’s as-close-as-we’ll-ever-get-to-the-subject documentary Citizenfour, I thought that details concerning the most infamous whistle-blower in recent memory would have been tapped out already. Then again, we’re in Oscar season and these sorts of stories are prime material for that brand of filmmaking, so it isn’t all too surprising that this exists, especially considering who made it. So, on top of delivering as a film in its own right, this biopic now has to prove its right to exist alongside a fairly in-depth feature that’s not even two years old.

The Divergent Series: Allegiant (2016) - Movie Review

Looks like we have another addition to the series that never ceases to make no sense… except the battlefield has shifted this time around. While the previous films hadn’t gotten that hot a reception with critics, I would’ve considered those as an honorary critical disagreement as it seemed like I was the only one who could see these films as the absolute nonsense that they were. Everyone was going on about how derivative they were (and they most certainly are) and how they’re mediocre at best. And then along came this film and suddenly everyone felt the same growing feeling of confusion as me. Must be a way to balance out what happened with me and Melissa McCarthy. So, now when I endlessly bitch about continuity errors and exhibit the kind of ephemera retention that makes Trekkies blush, I won’t be the only guy doing it this time. It’s the hate that brings people together. So, without further ado, let’s get into this whopping 12%-er and see if my expectations were met from last time, in that this somehow makes everything even more confusing.

Insurgent (2015) - Movie Review

With the severe case of sequelitis Hollywood has been suffering from, getting to sequels/remakes of films I’ve already reviewed is inevitable. Of course, there’s two sides to that coin and I’ll end up seeing follow-ups to both the good and the bad. This time around, we are very much in the latter with the sequel to what I listed as the worst movie of 2014: Divergent. Now, this is a listing that I question from time to time, considering it beat out utter trash like the Annie remake and God’s Not Dead for that coveted placement, but out of sheer incompetence in creating a world for the story to exist in, I feel it more than deserves that spot. I usually go back to older films for a refresher in cases like this… but screw that noise, let’s just get into this thing already.