April 16, 2022

The Night House

Rating: 3 of 5 Brandys
At its heart, a cookie cutter psychological haunted house tale. A woman is living alone in a house her recently dead husband built. As she deals with his death, and starting to pack his things away, she starts discovering mysterious things. Oh, and she hears some voices, and sees some visions. But, could it just be her heavy drinking? Grief? Insanity? Yeah, all elements we’ve seen a lot in other films like this.

April 16, 2022

All the Old Knives

Rating: Incomplete
Are you totally amped up from work/drugs/anxiety? Do you need a nap? Give this flick a try. As the preview suggested, a bit like “My Dinner with Andre´“. Except rather than fascinating stories told by a charismatic storyteller, it’s two attractive ex-lovers and ex-CIA, one of whom might have been a mole that helped bad things to happen. So you get some very quiet chat, a flashback of more quiet and boring things, more almost inaudible chat, then back to introductions of characters you can’t possibly remember (unless you’re taking notes).

April 10, 2022

Color Out Of Space

Rating: 3-1/2 of 5 colors
It’s an adaptation of a H. P. Lovecraft story about a prismatic meteor that falls to earth, effecting every living thing around it in bizarre and horrific ways. Nicholas Cage movies are always a gamble. He has been in some really terrible movies, and he doesn’t seem to pick really good movies. Expectations were low, but this was a wonderfully stylish, visually captivating, horrific film. The use of color as a character was brilliantly portrayed, the story moved at a great pace, and the whole feeling was ominous.

April 8, 2022

Agnes

Rating: 1 of 5 bad habits
Quite disappointing. Watched it because we were fans of Molly C. Quinn from Castle. Even the posters are misleading, although sometimes it’s fine to be surprised at the actual movie, this time, not so much. I’ll keep this spoiler-free. A creepy convent, quirky nuns, priests investigating a possession (because only men in the church can do this, as we well know), and the senior priest has a quasi-mysterious past. The church “executive staff” are mean spirited, with a sense of evil about them.

April 2, 2022

The Bubble

Rating: 2 of 5 nose swabs
The movie with the cute pre-launch campaign, and the delightful Karen Gillan. Nothing deep here, just a fun romp about a very bad movie being made during the pandemic. Lots of cameos (mostly uncredited) of some big or moderately big names, and it’s better than Cliff Beasts 6 would have turned out. I laughed, especially early on, but it just didn’t gel into a overall fun film. And like an SNL skit, went on a bit longer than it should.

March 27, 2022

The Deep House

Rating: 4 of 5 submersed haunted mansions
Two “Youtubers” (so you already want evil to befall them) visit abandoned buildings hoping to get enough views to make money. After some cursory setup, they’re taken to a lake with an intact house at its bottom.Scary shit ensues. Cool concept, going through the house underwater, so floating things can float (how is that metal candelabra floating???). Nothing is moldy or decayed, why? Scary shit, that’s why.Did I mention it’s scary?

March 20, 2022

Alien Invasion (2005)

Rating: 4 of 5 CGI Alien bugs
A made for TV movie, staring Bruce Campbell and Renee O’Connor. Exactly what I expected, a total cheesefest, about on par with an episode of Xena. Defeated humans with no will to fight, human collaborators that corral and punish the slave humans, nasty aliens with big guns. A by-the-book plot, really bad special effects, even worse acting. Some seriously horrible wigs and fake beards. Clothes that look mostly like fuzzy polyester rugs.

March 19, 2022

West Side Story

Rating: 4 of 5 unnecessary remakes It’s West Side Story. Same as the 1961 movie. Maybe a bit more explicitly violent. Slightly updated, but it takes place in the 50’s, so not much to update. Really not sure why it needed remaking. It’s good, just like the 1961 version was.

March 16, 2022

The Adam Project

Rating: 4 of 5 evil tech stereotypes Ryan Reynolds movies all have a common thread. Reynolds is going to be a wise-ass, mostly playing the same character. But, he’s so good at it, usually you don’t mind. OK, this one has time travel, a wise-ass younger version of Adam, a dead parent, an evil corporate exec. All in all, this could have been a huge train-wreck. But, it wasn’t. It was funny and entertaining.

March 9, 2022

CODA

Rating: 5 of 5 boxes of Kleenex
Absolutely wonderful performances by the entire cast, a realistic and poignant storyline, a great soundtrack. I laughed, I cried, I loved the entire film. This is what good storytelling is all about.