What Did Jack Do? (2020) - Movie Review

I honestly never thought I’d be able to do this on this blog. I always assumed that the window in which I could watch and review new David Lynch movies had past me by. But then this little number showed up on Netflix, a former art gallery exclusive from 2017 (these reviews are dated by Australian release/access date, hence why I’m getting away with calling this ‘new’), and there’s not a herd of wild horses that could stop me from grabbing this chance with both hands. And he doesn’t seem to have lost a touch of his weirdness after all this time.

Richard Jewell (2020) - Movie Review

I find myself in a bit of an awkward position with this one. This is another one of those situations where, while watching the film and as I left the cinema, I found myself quite liking what I just saw, even if I could definitely see some flaws with it. But in-between that point and sitting down to write this review, that opinion has… changed. It has soured. It has gotten to the stage where I feel like I have some fire in my belly about this film, who made it, and what purpose it ultimately serves. Not gonna lie, I’m going for the throat with this one because I am not happy.

The Call Of The Wild (2020) - Movie Review

Every so often, I find myself sitting in front of this word processor and realising that what I have to say, or at the very least the bulk of what I have to say, could just as easily be said by anyone. It’s the kind of plain-faced, right-in-your-face facet of the production at hand that is so blindly obvious, I almost feel like a rube for even bringing it up. I’m not so conceited that I see what I have to contribute in these reviews as anything tremendously vital, but I at least try to bring the one thing that no-one else can lay claim to to the table: My own perspective. Unfortunately, I doubt that means much in this case, since what I have to report back about this film is something just about anyone could point out. So let’s get that out of the way first: Wow, this is some bad CGI.

Brahms: The Boy II (2020) - Movie Review

2016’s The Boy has gotten a bit of critical re-evaluation since its release. I am likely never going to understand why people would like something this hacky and undercooked, but I’m not so far up my own arse as to try and get between someone and actually liking something. Getting into a proper grievance about shit like that is one of the pettiest things a person can engage in, and I certainly don’t want to encourage it.

But with that said, yeah, I’m not a big fan of that film, nor of the film’s director William Brent Bell. I have made statements to the tune of him being an absolute hack and one of the most non-essential filmmakers in the modern horror scene, and even pitted him against fellow schlockmeister John R. Leonetti for the title of worst horror director working today. And for that… I honestly want to apologise. Because with Bell’s latest, he isn’t in competition with Leonetti anymore. He has straight-up won that fight.

Emma (2020) - Movie Review

There is nothing worse than writing about a film’s inefficiencies, and in the process only highlighting those same inefficiencies in your own writing. Like writing about something not being funny, while you yourself aren’t making people laugh either, or describing a dull event that itself reads like the literate version of paint drying. And as I find myself trying to muster up things to write about in regards to this movie… yeah, I am honestly worried that I’m just going to bore my dear readers to tears in trying to express how much I didn’t engage with this particular work.

Part of me just wants to write the whole thing off and just… not write about it. But that would put this film in a category outside of pretty much every other film I’ve written about on here, and while it’s not nearly that bad, it’s certainly not that special either.

The Lighthouse (2020) - Movie Review

I didn’t know what to expect from the sophomore release of Robert Eggers, who gave us the quite fantastic The Witch a few years ago. I don’t even think it’s possible to expect anything from this, either from the viewpoint of someone trying to pick something to watch or as someone in the cinema seat with their ticket in hand. It legit got to a point, around the point of this film’s final reel, that I found myself giving in to the weirdness. I stopped trying to rationalise what I was seeing and just let it all wash over me… and then I made the trip back home. Time for another deep dive as I try and put down on paper why this film is so fucking brilliant.

Sonic The Hedgehog (2020) - Movie Review

I don’t get Sonic The Hedgehog. No, I’m not talking about the ravenous fanbase, or even having a dig at the games themselves (although it must be said that the Sonic games aren’t the kind to do things small; when they’re bad, they’re really bad); I’m talking strictly in terms of the character himself. He’s a blue anthropomorphic hedgehog who can run faster than anything else, and he has a really cocky attitude. That’s pretty much it. I don’t claim to be the biggest Sonic afficionado out there, but I’ve gone through enough Let’s Play osmosis to have seen the games and, even considering the competition, this has to be one of the trickiest games to give the big-screen treatment. A trick that these filmmakers just didn’t seem to get right.