Thanksgiving (2023) - Movie Review

For as much shit as I’ve given Eli Roth over the years, I freely admit that I was actually looking forward to him releasing this film. The fake Grindhouse trailer that inspired this remains, for me at least, his greatest cinematic artwork. It’s a prime example of his bloodsplattered sense of humour, but without the annoying and/or smug underpinnings that keep getting in the way of the fun in his feature productions. I have a deep love for all things connected to Rodriguez and Tarantino’s Grindhouse project, including the fake trailers and the films that eventually spawned from most of them. I may understand Edgar Wright’s stance on making his Don’t trailer into a full film, but a man can still dream.

The Marvels (2023) - Movie Review

Judging the current state of the MCU, this film could go either way. And I’m not even factoring in the myriad of behind-the-scenes issues the franchise has run into in recent years, from Jonathan Majors going to court, to recurring audience fatigue from the extent of the MCU assembly line, to how said assembly line has grown so big that they are now running into the issue of losing in competition with themselves, given how the second season of Loki basically eclipsed this film’s release.

No, I’m just talking in regards to what Phase Five has already given us this year alone. On one hand, there’s Quantumania, a clearly derivative and bizarrely uninteresting entry that felt very made-by-committee. And on the other, there’s GOTG Vol. 3, which succeeds because it is the product of a singular vision, giving the overarching franchise a booster shot of individual creativity that seems to be increasingly lacking post-Phase Three. James Gunn isn’t the only auteur to work on the MCU (Taika Waititi, Ryan Coogler, and Sam Raimi definitely fit into that category), but Vol. 3 (in my opinion) benefited the most from having that kind of distinguishable artistic voice behind it. That Gunn has now jumped over to heading DC Films has been taken as a sign that the kind of identifiable uniqueness that Vol. 3 showed amongst its contemporaries isn’t likely to repeated by Marvel any time soon.

With all that in mind, I wasn’t sure what to expect from this. I mean, I liked the first Captain Marvel (although I’m starting to chalk that up to being familiar with Brie Larson as an actor long before that film became a talking point, which I’d wager a guess isn’t the case for the Johnny-hate-latelys that have been on her arse since), but I am also starting to run a bit ragged on the MCU myself. It’s been heading towards the continuity threshold for a while now, where everything is so interconnected that it can feel unapproachable unless you’ve done all the homework beforehand, this film being no different. Along with the first Captain Marvel, this also has ties to WandaVision, Ms. Marvel, Secret Invasion, and to a lesser extent Thor: Love And Thunder and Hawkeye. I’ll admit that I haven’t seen all of the lead-in material, and quite frankly I’ve felt less inclined to keep up with it all as the years go on, but I’m still willing to give this film a chance. And frankly, I’m glad I did.

Smoking Causes Coughing (2023) - Movie Review

Look, I need something lighter after the last film. Something short, something funny, something weird, and hopefully, something not as heavy as Martin Scorsese calling out genocide. So I decided to check this out mainly because of its oddball title, oddball poster, and oddball premise of a team of French superheroes named Benzene, Methanol, Nicotine, Mercury, and Ammonia, otherwise known as the Tobacco Force.

Where it gets weirder is that the central idea of this film (I think?) is indicative of why I decided to watch it in the first place.

Killers Of The Flower Moon (2023) - Movie Review

After what happened when I looked at The Irishman, I don’t want to belabour the point about having issues with films with longer run times. Or, to be more accurate, I don’t want to spend most of this review bitching about my attention span issues as if that’s the fault of the filmmakers. I’ll admit that there are nuances to the binge-watching vs. epic film argument that both sides tend to leave out, but after putting a near-three-hour film at the top of my favourite films list for last year (not to mention finally getting around to the Extended Editions of the Lord Of The Rings trilogy earlier this year), I want to give this film an honest chance that isn’t hindered by my own twitchiness. Or my ongoing indifference towards most Westerns.

The Wrath Of Becky (2023) - Movie Review

When I looked at Becky in 2020, it made for one of the more pleasant surprises in a year that desperately needed as many as it could muster. However, I can’t say I was expecting much else to come from it. So you can imagine how quickly I prioritised checking out its sequel once I discovered its existence. I mean, sure, it’s written and directed by the same duo behind The Open House, one of the most pointless Netflix originals in the history of the platform, but as I got into in that first review, a teenaged vigilante laying waste to neo-Nazis is a pretty damn difficult idea to fuck up. Even on accident, this should allow for some cathartic joy, and thankfully, it offers just that.

Trolls Band Together (2023) - Movie Review

This feels like a step backwards for this franchise. After expanding beyond pop music into all sorts of different genres in Trolls World Tour, going back to just pop music feels like it's making the film's world smaller, which isn't ideal if they're going to even bother making another one to begin with. That they likely did it just so that they could cash in on boy band nostalgia, with star Justin Timberlake’s history with NSYNC being both figuratively and literally invoked in this film, doesn’t help.

But hey, my first interaction with this franchise involved plenty of scepticism, and not only did I like the first film, I liked the second one even more so. Well, while I still had fun with this latest entry, I am definitely starting to wonder if this was all that necessary.

The Wonderful Story Of Henry Sugar And Three More (2023) - Movie Review

Not content with merely releasing one film this year that explains just about every structural and thematic quirk in all of his other films with Asteroid City, Wes Anderson also put out a series of four short films on Netflix, adapted from short stories written by Roald Dahl: The Wonderful Story Of Henry Sugar, The Swan, The Rat Catcher, and Poison. And y’know what? I could review each of these individually and call that two days of my month-long blogathon done, but fuck it; let’s review all four of the buggers in one go.