Chaos Walking (2021) - Movie Review

I love Patrick Ness’ writing. While I freely admit that I haven’t read his novels, I still have a great affection for the man’s art based purely on his work for the big and small screen. I mentioned in my review for it how much I dug his approach to storytelling with A Monster Calls, and for as little attention as it got, his work on the Doctor Who spin-off Class had quite a few moments of true inspiration within its stunted 8-episode run. At a time when young-adult storytelling has gone from strength to strength in the mainstream, the way Ness approaches incredibly morbid topics like grief, trauma, and loss, has already revealed him to be in the upper echelon of that grouping. So, when news hit that his Chaos Walking trilogy of books were going to get the cinematic treatment, with Ness himself co-writing the script, I was ready for him to impress yet again. What I actually got, though, is… not that.

Boonie Bears: The Wild Life (2021) - Movie Review

The Boonie Bears franchise has been going strong since 2012, with ten separate TV series totalling up to 676 episodes, and eight films with The Wild Life serving as the ninth. And up until I saw this film listed at my local cinema, I had no idea this even existed. I went into this about as blind as any other talking animal movie I’ve reviewed on here, and considering that sub-genre has basically become my nemesis over this blog’s lifespan, I can’t say I was expecting much. I don’t know if this has more to do with lowered expectations, lack of other options with the constant schedule shuffling, or if this film is genuinely good but… yeah, I had way more fun with this than I ever could have anticipated.

The Marksman (2021) - Movie Review

Yep. It’s another Liam Neeson movie. Only a couple months after the last one. But what ultimately made me check it out was how, upon reading up on it, I learnt that this isn’t just the latest Neesonsploitation flick. It is also an attempt to crossbreed the overused-set-of-skills of a modern Neeson B-movie… with a Clint Eastwood movie.

Shadow In The Cloud (2021) - Movie Review

Much like with Ava late last year, I was initially debating whether I’d even deign to watch this movie at all, let alone review it, and for largely the same reason: The abusive history of the guy who wrote it. Only this isn’t a niche example like Matthew Newton, as Max Landis has had people distancing themselves from him as early as 2012’s Chronicle, his first feature-length script.

Considering it and American Ultra are the only good movies with his name attached to them (and even then, it’s the presentation that makes those two memorable, not necessarily the writing), there’s other reasons to be sceptical about this one… but again, like with Ava, I don’t see disregarding the work of women in the industry off the back of one toxic guy to be all that helpful a move, although to her credit, director and co-writer (we’ll get to that) Roseanne Liang gets why audiences might distance themselves from this film based on his involvement. I, however, am not going to advocate for that. Instead, I’m going to declare proudly that this is a fantastic film that is more than worth checking out.

Blackbird (2021) - Movie Review

Well… after a much longer (and unannounced; apologies for that) break than anticipated, I’m already wishing I took a bit more care regarding the film I'd come back with. I mean, a film all about voluntary euthanasia isn't exactly the cheeriest material I could have picked for my return. But after so much inactivity, I’ll take anything I can get my hands on, and to this film’s credit, I certainly don’t feel like I wasted my time watching it.

Buddy Games (2021) - Movie Review

Time to do a bit of recalibrating for this one because, if I judged this film solely on the basis of good taste and common sense, we’re not going to get anywhere with this thing. This kind of uber-macho, “let’s do dumb shit to prove our MAYUN-liness” reeks of critic-trapping, like it actively wants to be judged by politically-correct standards just so the chuckleheads who made it can point and laugh at people taking this ‘too seriously’. And in all honesty… yeah, there’s a place for this kind of meathead comedy in the world: The Jackass films more than proved that point long before this, and for as much love as it didn’t get, I still think the movie Tag is a fun and inventive take on the action-thriller formula. So, rather than act all shocked at how tasteless this all is, let’s instead judge it by its own standards as a bro comedy… and how it still fails from that perspective.

Why I'm Not Reviewing Music (2021)

Yep. We’re doing this again. And I’ll be honest, the decision to make this into my second official boycott is a fairly recent one. Even with all the controversy this film has garnered over the past couple months, I was still willing to at least let the film stand on its own terms and not just the marketing or the… interesting takes of the writer/director on social media. I mean, I went to bat for Cuties last year on the basis of its own garbage marketing; for all I know, this could be another example of a good film cast under a poor light.

But the more I thought about it, and the more I really took in everything that was leading up to this release… I just couldn’t do it. Even if I went for the cheapest theatrical session I could find, I still don’t feel right gambling my money on the prospect of this being decent. And since I made a big point of reviewing more films than ever in 2020, I figure it’d be worth getting into those signs so I can try and make a decent case for why this is going to be a major exception to my usual ‘watch anything I can get my hands on’ methodology.