Arctic (2019) - Movie Review

Maybe it’s because of my own origins as a YouTuber, but I always get a kick out of seeing someone from that sector of the Internet making it onto the big screen. It doesn’t always turn out for the best, and there’s definitely something to be said about YouTube stars getting brought into productions just for name value, but as someone who has also been trying to turn my extended hobby into something legitimate (stop laughing), it fills me with a sense of comradery. And this film is part of that legacy, coming from writer/director Joe Penna, AKA MysteryGuitarMan, one of the old guard of the YouTube scene and someone who has been chipping away at the short film grindstone for a while now. His feature-length debut, if nothing else, shows him as a cinematic creative who knows his shit.

Playing With Fire (2019) - Movie Review

Over the last few weeks, I’ve covered some films that have gotten a pretty heavy reaction out of yours truly. Such is the nature of the year-end round-up, as catching up with I missed earlier in the year has brought to some truly fantastic films and some real shockers. Part of me is wondering if my verging-on-burnout mindset over this month is artificially heightening my initial reception, like I’ve been giving certain features either too much or too little credit. Well, thankfully we have this film, which is quite bad but it’s not the excruciating variety that I’ve been subjecting myself to of late. Oh, rest assured, it still sucks, but it’s the most inoffensive suckage I’ve reviewed in a while.

Serenity (2019) - Movie Review

I’m not going to beat around the bush on this one: This film is fucking insane. I see no point in writing a poncy introduction to lead into that simple fact because this is an oh-so-very special kind of insane. The kind that only comes into being through just the right mixture of all the wrong elements in all the right places. The kind that makes the audience just how much of the film is meant to be taken seriously, if it’s meant to be taken seriously at all. The kind that turns a merely bad film into the stuff of bad film legend. It is the frontrunner for Best Worst Movie Of 2019, and if something else comes out that can challenge it, I fear I might end up in a padded cell just for looking at it.

Pain And Glory (2019) - Movie Review

In an effort to keep my writing from getting too stale, which during this time of year is especially on my mind, I try and look at different films through different lenses. Sometimes, it’s as a fan of the film’s pre-existing franchise; sometimes, it’s by latching onto a single detail in the production that I feel explains everything else around it; and sometimes, it’s just me working through my own lack of interest and squeezing my brain for anything to write about. But more than anything else, the main thing I go into every single film I review on here, and hell, pretty much every film I’ve ever watched, is through the perspective of therapy. A form of art that has the potential to help me, and other audiences, deal with some kind of personal shit. Enter this film, where that perspective comes screaming into the forefront.

The Good Liar (2019) - Movie Review

I should really be a lot more sceptical about anything with Bill Condon’s name attached to it. And not just because he’s the director responsible for the Beauty & The Beast remake, either. Looking through the man’s entire body of work, it is remarkably all over the damn place. Working on the scripts for Chicago and The Greatest Showman, directing both halves of the finale to the Twilight Saga, and then there’s his work a few years ago with Mr.Holmes; there’s a lot of range in that sample, and it’s getting to the point where I genuinely don’t know whether anything he’s touched will be good or bad. Still, teaming back up with the writer and lead actor of Mr. Holmes gives this film some hope, so fingers crossed.

Playmobil: The Movie (2019) - Movie Review

One of the main things that keeps me going whenever I’m covering less-than-ideal features on this blog is the notion that, regardless of anything else, bad movies tend to give me plenty of material to write about. No matter how unpleasant a film may be to sit through in the moment, there’s always the chance for written catharsis afterwards. However, there is such a thing as giving me too much material. I mean, this is a family film made to cash in on the success of the LEGO movies, itself based on a counterpart to the LEGO toy system. I get the feeling that any remarks I have about how cheap this thing is will only be playing into the obvious, but trust me, there’s a whole lot else that’s wrong with this thing.

The Man Who Killed Hitler And Then The Bigfoot (2019) - Movie Review

I love movies like this. Well, to be more accurate, I love movie titles like this. The ones that are direct and to the point about what they’re about, or that are so outright bizarre that they stick in the mind regardless of the film’s actual content, or the rare instance of both at the same time. However, the title itself is accurate in terms of content, its tone is another story. Whatever you think this movie is going to be like, you’re probably on the wrong track.