May 7, 2024

Talk to Me

Rating: 3 of 5 Cursed hands
Wasn’t sure going in, teenagers doing stupid things with cursed objects is overdone, and seldom well done. And, certainly the start of the movie is thick with it, gotta bite your lip and not yell “you stupid kids!” Kids keep poking at the evil until it pokes back hard, and gets pretty chilling. Nothing really unexpected, although they try to hint at a deeper plot, it never really gets fleshed out.

May 6, 2024

When Evil Lurks

Rating: 5 of 5 apple ice creams
Another demonic possession movie? Yawn. But… Not so fast! This is scary. It’s also introspective, and explores human reactions to unknown horrors. Being an Argentinian film, many things which are simply not done in American Horror (or you’d risk an adult-only rating) are free game. That means all bets are off, and scenes you’d expect are just tense, get horrific in an instant. Not for the squeemish, and keep that cuddle blanket close.

April 6, 2024

Warriors of Future

Rating: 3 of 5 stars
A Hong Kong film about, yes, a future dystopia. Something about alien plants that are very nasty, and grow very, very large. Vehicle/robot/aliens are really well designed and crafted (or generated). Tons of action, even more than in a typical Mission Impossible, I’m betting. Only downside are annoying stereotypical characters and situations.

March 28, 2024

Vesper

Rating: 2 of 5 stars
Another dystopian future flick. This one centers around a teenager with biohacking skills. Visually impressive, but very slow moving. Not terrible, just kinda boring. For an indie film, the visuals are all the more impressive, just a shame the story doesn’t keep up.

March 28, 2024

Damsel

Rating: 2 of 5 stranger things
A very pretty film, but slow moving and very predictible. I expected better writing, given the cast. But, strong women characters are a refreshing take on the whole knights and dragons genre.

March 11, 2024

Poor Things

Rating: 4 of 5 stars
A very different film, totally unexpected. Amazing performances, which go so far as to change how you view the actors, given how fully they committed to their roles. Mostly a “coming of age” story, but from a interesting perspective.

March 11, 2024

The Giver

Rating: 3 of 5 stars
Interesting take on a dystopian future. The population is basically drugged into a calm stupor, so there’s no conflict or war or feelings. One person is chosen as the holder of all past knowledge. We get to be there as the next Giver gets his training, and finds out what’s actually going on, and decides to shake it all up. I liked that it definitely had different ideas than a lot of other takes on the same overall premise.

March 6, 2024

Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom

Rating: 0 of 5 glowing seahorses
I’d read this reviews that this sucked, but we all like Mamoa, and watched the others, and gave it a go with very low expectations. Well… it sucked. It sucked with a suckiness that can only happen when a studio with deep pockets wants to spend zero on creative effort, tons on blue screen effects, and just make bank. Acting was atrocious by every single actor. The writing was worse than some LLM generated nonsense (maybe that was intentional?

February 17, 2024

Strays

Rating: 0 of 5 dick jokes
We’ll keep it short. Absolutely terrible adolecent trash. 90 minutes of dick and sex jokes, using so much gratuitous profanity that anyone young enough to be entertained, shouldn’t see it.

February 17, 2024

Love and Monsters

Rating: 4 of 5 very large bugs
An action film, with a bit of humor tossed in, and a little bit of drama. Basically a post-apocalyptic tale where Earth’s non-mammal wildlife has mutated, and clans have formed to survive a very hostile environment. But one young man with a lack of skills decides to make a journey for love. Expected a throwaway time waster, but actually rather enjoyed it. The special effects were way better than expected, and the writing was OK.