Freaky (2020) - Movie Review

Over the last handful of years, once he stopped contributing to the perpetually diminishing returns of the Paranormal Activity series, writer/director Christopher Landon has been establishing himself as one of the better horror-comedy filmmakers working today. We can argue about the merits of Scouts’ Guide To The Zombie Apocalypse until the actual apocalypse rolls up, but his recent trend of ‘___ but it’s a slasher flick’ high-concept features has proven quite effective, between the Groundhog Day flip in Happy Death Day and the booster shots of Back To The Future Part II in its sequel. And that trend carries with his latest, a slasher makeover of the classic body-swap comedy Freaky Friday.

The Crime Boss (Arkansas) (2020) - Movie Review

Merely seeing an actor’s body of work isn’t always enough to predict the kind of stories they’ll want to tell if they step behind the camera. Watching Jordan Peele’s sitcom and sketch-com work doesn’t exactly feel like the lead-up to becoming the man currently leading the charge for black horror in the mainstream. Ben Stiller’s frequently-frothy leading man roles feel a bit out of step with his penchant for tearing the entertainment industry several new ones as a director. And in the case of today’s film, seeing Clark Duke as the nerdy Jacob in Hot Tub Time Machine 2 (the only close-to-watchable part of that entire flick) certainly didn’t prepare me for his first step into writing/producing/directing to be this Southern-fried trailer park neo-noir.

Seberg (2020) - Movie Review

I don’t think there’s a single actress working today who could take this role other than Kristen Stewart. As much as the white liberal populace could quite easily take a shine to stories like that of the real-life philanthropist and actress Jean Seberg, the narrative of a white woman implanting herself into the protests and struggles of the Black Panther Party isn’t something just anyone could pull off. With how high-profile Stewart has grown of late, and how endearingly riot grrl her public persona has become, her status as one of the mainstream's favourite social subversives makes her ripe for this kind of story. And thankfully, through thick and thin, she manages to pull it off.

Hacksaw Ridge (2016) - Movie Review

In no uncertain terms, I don’t have the will nor the intestinal fortitude to ever consider joining the military. I’m a proper soft lefty that sees all life as sacred and not worth ending over what are usually rather petty squabbles, and the very thought of killing another person for any reason makes me incredibly uneasy. However, that doesn’t mean that I hold any ill will towards those who fight in my place. I may have my issues with the higher-ups who send them out, usually for the reasons why certain governments see fit to get involved in war, but I have nothing but respect for those who do the fighting themselves. Not that cinema seems to share that respect, though, as more times than not, modern military cinema goes for the murky and moralistic approach that is meant to make us question just whose lives are being affected, be it through death or otherwise. So, with noted firebrand Mel Gibson returning to the director’s chair, how does today’s war film turn out?

Unfinished Business (2015) - Movie Review

I’ve seen my fair share of vacant cinemas before; back when I first started this compulsion, and had a lot more time on my hands, I’d be watching films whenever I could… even when other people weren’t. This would usually mean that I’d get maybe a couple of others in the cinema with me on occasion. This time, however, was a first: I was literally the only person in that theatre. Now, normally this would be ideal, because it means that if the film is particularly rancid than I could just do my own RiffTrax to keep my sanity in check… what little of it there is left. Unfortunately, this tactic doesn’t work so well when you’re going to see a comedy, the only steadfastly riff-proof genre out there (not even World War II documentaries fall into this category). Take this into consideration along with the fact that today’s film is starring the still-present Vince Vaughn for reasons that entirely escape me, and the bar for this is already set pretty low. Time to see if this can spring past it or somehow dig itself even deeper.