Reviews

I've always been fascinated with this story. Perhaps not as obsessed with it as the entire country was while it was happening, but nevertheless, any time a new film or doc pops up that explores the story I tend to B-line for it. Listed as a "miniseries," the 2013 adaptation had been combined into one long film by the time I came across it. Perhaps it would have played better in two parts because the way I watched it, the film dragged along at a snail's pace and they managed to make an exciting story dull. I was also confused by their choice to play fast and loose with how things actually happen, when in reality the true story is sensational enough and requires very little embellishment. I'm an Emile Hirsch fan, and as usual he turns in an excellent performance, as does Holliday Grainger. While they never quite rise to the level of Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway, they both service the characters well and make an adequate "modern day" Bonnie & Clyde. In the long run, they aren't enough to keep this version from falling flat. Perhaps if it had been made by a film studio rather than a combination of television channels it could have soared, but instead it crashes under the weight of not having the funds to tell the story like it deserves. For a more compelling adventure into the story, consider The Highwaymen which tells the story from the point of view of the law officials tasked with catching the notorious outlaws. It is a much more satisfying look in the minds of the Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow.

When it first aired, I gave up on The Walking Dead after season 7. I really felt like the show had peaked with the Negan cliffhanger, and once that had resolved, the show started spiraling downhill at a remarkable rate. I know I'm not the only that felt that way too. Flash forward eight years, and I thought I would go back through the entire series and finish. I can confirm that the show is an entirely different ballgame when you get to binge it. When we were forced to wait a week (or sometimes even months) for another episode only to have been shown that they were STILL preparing for war, they made it very easy to abandon ship. When no waiting was involved, the series became much better and a simpler choice to see it through. Now that I've watched the entire series I can say that it did still continue its downhill slope past the previously mentioned cliffhanger. The pacing became slower with each season and there just wasn't any way for them to top a villain like Negan. It still showed plenty of brilliance with some of the individual episodes and performances, but it just never rose to the level of its early seasons again. It was no wonder that Andrew Lincoln opted to bail. Thankfully Danai Gurira did shortly after too. I loved Michonne but only as a secondary character. Not the main protagonist. In all actuality, none of the characters were able to ascend to that level in a satisfactory manner. Norman Reedus came close but even Daryl was much better served in doses. Overall, I would highly recommend binging the series if you are going to give it a go. It is more captivating that way and held on to its legacy much easier. A lot less boring too! For that reason, I bumped my rating from a 5 to 7.

I didn't have any relationship with the novel going into this. I'd never even heard of it. I love Emily Blunt and the trailer hooked me so I did some digging and discovered it had an absolutely stacked cast! Tate Taylor does an excellent job of spinning this complex narrative that has many moving parts. The film style reminded me a bit of Memento, only I found it much more interesting. The suspense build captivated me from the start and kept me hooked throughout the entire film. The previously mentioned cast are all fantastic and but for a subtle flash that was about two seconds midway through the film, I doubt I would have figured out the twist ahead of time. Instead, that micro clue helped me develop a theory that turned out to be exactly what happened in the end. That didn't detract from the movie in anyway...quite the contrary. Trying to solve the mystery is at least half the fun of watching this type of suspense film. Overall, this was one of the better movies I've seen in a long time and I'm sort of surprised it took me this long to discover it.

I'm a monster movie fan down to my core. The trailer for Wolf Man hooked me right away, though not enough to justify movie theatre prices. I opted to wait until it hit streaming and as soon as the rental price became manageable I watched it immediately. Unfortunately, I will be echoing what a lot of other reviews on this app have already stated. It isn't a bad movie, but it isn't particularly good either. The film never quite rises to the excitement and anticipation I felt watching the trailer. Perhaps this particular type of story has been done to death. Leigh Whannell had much more success with a less exciting monster in The Invisible Man, so it is hard to point the finger at him. If we dug deeper, we would likely find that he had a passion for that story and this was more the studio trying to catch that same lightning in a bottle with material he didn't care as much about. Julia Garner is a very talented actor but she felt like the wrong person for this movie. Perhaps she wanted to break out of the "indie" project corner she's been painted into, but she seems out of place. Overall, the movie is good but not great and I'm really glad I didn't pay to see it in the movie theatre. If Werewolf content is what you seek, I would recommend giving Joe Johnston's The Wolfman a go. It is far more entertaining and has a much better ensemble of actors.

What a disappointment! I loved Ti West's work with X. I thought it was fresh, inventive and very cleverly executed. Much like Jewel when she stopped living in her van, it seems that hitting the mainstream led to the inevitable decline in his work. Maxxxine is dull, uninspired and the payoff is the blandest of all! Where X featured a low budget and mostly unknown cast, Maxxxine seems to have enjoyed the full backing of Hollywood which automatically dropped it down a notch in my estimation. As soon as recognizable actors started showing up I knew West sold out and we were doomed. It was actually the slow start to the film and nothing really happening that accomplished that first, but you get my point. Mia Goth does a fine job, though with significantly less to work with this time around. I was really looking forward to this and now it has me second guessing whether to even watch Pearl. I imagine I still will but it has been awhile since I've seen such a huge drop in quality from one to film to the next so I don't expect much anymore. Your best bet would be to watch X and end it there.

I remember seeing the original in the theater several times. I was and remain a big fan. Twisters isn't a bad movie; it just doesn't bring anything new to the table. I wouldn't call it a sequel or a reboot. Even the visual effects, which you would expect to be noticeably improved 29 years after the original, seemed to be about the same. That is pretty much a metaphor for the entire movie. Daisy Edgar-Jones does a serviceable job as the heroine of the film, but she is nowhere near as engaging as Helen Hunt. Glen Powell, on the other hand, was much more interesting than Bill Paxton. He oozes charisma and while the script doesn't give him much to do, he fills in the blanks admirably. Admittedly I was never enamored with Paxton like the rest of the world seems to be and thought his acting in the original was pretty bad. Not Titanic bad, but still pretty awful. The real stars of the film, the tornadoes, are good but not terrifying like their 1996 counterparts (especially in the theater) and were never engaging enough to keep my mind from wandering. Overall, the movie is just kind of there, and while it isn't a terrible way to spend a few hours, I would highly recommend using that time to revisit the OG.

Anyone who truly loves The Wizard of Oz can't be a big fan of Wicked. I enjoyed the Gregory Maguire novel because of the lore, but there is no question there are timeline issues with the way they tried to line up the stories. When I heard they were adapting it as a musical I was interested to see how they would pull that off with the source material being so dark. The short answer is they didn't. They opted to "Disneyfy" it instead, which was actually a brilliant business decision. By appealing to that audience, it has made dump trucks full of money on Broadway during its 22-year run, and the show will likely never close...at least not anytime soon. I saw the National Tour a few years ago and it was about what I had come to expect from the average Stephen Schwartz musical. His formula tends to be several outstanding songs contained within a clunky storyline that has serious structure issues. As brilliant as he is, Schwartz has never written a complete score that is entirely cohesive, and the man definitely has problems finding great book writers to collaborate with. Wicked is no exception.

I finally forced myself to watch it the other day, and I would sum up the film adaptation in the same manner that you would describe the Great and Powerful Wizard himself. A lot of smoke and mirrors to mask a mediocre movie plagued by awful pacing, and a clunky plot with mostly uninspired performances. They cleverly disguise these shortcomings with the end of the film. Defying Gravity is a phenomenal song, and John Chu shoots it beautifully, with the end result being that it sticks the landing so well, you almost forget how mid the rest of the movie was. This is a device that many musicals employ. Cynthia Erivo's performance is bland, forgettable and worst of all she lacks energy. My favorite song in the score is The Wizard and I and Erivo does virtually nothing with it, making it much less exciting than on stage. She does sing well as you would expect but tends to fall into the trap that most pop singers who dip their toes into the waters of musical theatre do. Too much riffing! Ariana Grande fairs much better. She is excellent as Glinda, but it was hard to tell if that was the actor or the role being so well written. I felt the same about the actor I saw playing the role on stage. I will say that Grande's diction was immaculate which made me wonder why all of her pop albums sound like she is singing with a mouthful of marbles? The real stars of this movie are Paul Tazewell's costumes and Nathan Crowley's production design. Both are outstanding! Overall, this movie isn't great, and their decision to split it into two parts is nothing more than a quick cash grab intent on separating consumers from their hard-earned money. I would recommend that you go see it onstage instead. I still have problems with it but the show is infinitely more watchable in that medium.

Heretic is fantastic! I am a big fan of the suspense and horror genre. At this stage in the game, it seems like they've tried everything, so it is very rare that a new one comes along that doesn't fall into a pattern of tired clichés that are simply recycled from other movies. Heretic does have its share of those, but the film somehow manages to make it feel fresh. Some of the great movies of the genre accomplish their best tension by staying in a confined space, like Saw or 10 Cloverfield Lane. Heretic makes good use of its tiny house setting. There are many times where the movie feels more like a play on a unit set rather than a multi-million dollar movie. Hugh Grant does impeccable work! He takes full advantage of Scott Beck and Bryan Woods' clever script and works their obsessive religious dialogue, like the seasoned veteran he is, to achieve maximum creepiness. The best villains always know how to make their point of view come across very intelligently and almost persuade the audience to agree with their twisted logic. Considering he is basically a grouchy old curmudgeon these days I doubt it was a stretch for him to get his psychopath on. Sophie Thatcher and Chloe East also turn in excellent performances making their heroines more intelligent than the average mice stuck in a maze. I knew I would like this movie from the first time I saw the trailer and I'm thrilled to report that Scott Beck and Bryan Woods delivered one of the best suspense movies I've seen in recent memory.

Since I started reviewing things on IMDB, there have been several series I've come across that required a lot of fortitude for me to finish. I'm usually pretty stubborn about that sort of thing so across the board, I stuck with it and saw each of them through (sometimes) to the bitter end. As it turns out, I finally met my match with The Flash. My review is not dissimilar to countless others I've read on this app. The series starts out strong. Grant Gustin is the perfect Flash! They surround him with a group of excellent supporting characters that all have well developed plot lines. Much like I've mentioned with numerous shows, the age of 23 episodes per season was the undoing of many potentially great series. That is just too much content to cram down an audience's throat each year. The Flash was no different. Somewhere around the beginning of Season Four, I started to lose interest. The series had become formulaic, mundane and they started turning it into a star vehicle for Iris. In the past I've taken breaks and gone back to finish the show; however, every time I tried to pick up The Flash again, I just couldn't do it. I was over it. The series had a lot of potential and I have no doubt that if they only had to come up with ten episodes per season then it would have been much more interesting over time. Instead it petered out and will only stick in my memory as the first series that I couldn't finish because I was just too bored and valued my time more. If James Gunn is smart he will collapse Gustin into the DCEU, because he is the perfect Flash and deserves to play the role on a grander stage out from underneath the cloud of the CW and Iris West-Allen.

It is well documented that as a Stephen King superfan, I don't think much of the vast majority of screen adaptations of his work. I've written often about it, so I won't waste time here other than to say that the only ones that have worked for me are the films void of anything supernatural like Stand By Me and The Shawshank Redemption. With that in mind, I recently reread Gerald's Game for the first time since it was published and figured it was time to check out the Netflix adaptation. Imagine my surprise when it turned out to easily be among the best King adaptations of all time. Mike Flanagan made many wise choices about how to slim it down in order to fixate on the primary characters and more importantly, squeeze it into a svelte hour and forty run time. This is especially good news for Bruce Greenwood. I've always liked his work, but I wondered why they spent so much money on a great actor that would have very little bearing on the plot. Enter Flanagan who smartly decided to have Gerald be one of the primary voices in her head rather than her college roommate from the novel. This helped Flanagan utilize one of his greatest assets to his fullest potential. I am a big fan of Carla Gugino and thought she was the perfect choice for the role. This is primarily her story and she made full use of her vast array of talent throughout, both as the woman trapped and the other voice inside her head. I was equally surprised and relieved that they leaned into the subject matter rather than shy away from it. While this topic often makes us uncomfortable, it is entirely necessary to this particular story and removing or watering it down would have only served to gut the message. My only minor complaint is directed at King himself. I've never been satisfied with his resolution of The Moonlight Man from the novel and this adaptation kept it the same. Perhaps it was important to King that Jesse have a positive resolution, or perhaps his family urged him to end it happily for once. Nevertheless, I've always felt that It was a copout, when it could have been left to the reader to decide if he was real or not. Overall, this is an outstanding adaptation of a great novel and it gave me hope that it was still possible for some of his other work.

Another disappointing movie from when I was younger that just doesn't stand the test of time. Much like Ace Ventura, this movie was a vehicle for Jim Carrey to show off his unbridled craziness wrapped around a thinly veiled plot. Unlike Ace Ventura, it just isn't that funny. It feels like the entire movie is just trying too hard and it falls short in every way. Its primary virtue was giving the world Cameron Diaz. It's not like she is the greatest actor in the history of cinema but she did tend to choose good projects throughout her career and was one of the most bankable stars for a long period of time. Overall, I would skip this one in favor of Carrey's other 1994 offering Dumb and Dumber, which in my humble opinion, is one of the best comedies of all time.

Robert Eggers knows how to bring the audience to the brink of a heart attack better than anyone I can think of. I wouldn't call his films scary. However, they are some of the tensest of any movies I've ever seen. He masters the tension build through excellent storytelling, always fantastic scores and great cinematography. It always builds to an excellent climax that makes you feel like you could pass out at any moment. I am a relatively new fan of Eggers, having started to explore his filmography after enjoying Nosferatu immensely. I felt The Witch was the best place to start, and I wasn't disappointed. The cast all turn in excellent performances with minimal dialogue that they make the most of. The ending of the film is absolutely haunting and seemed perfect for the culmination of this story. Overall, the movie is excellent but not for the faint of heart.

Not exactly what I expected but if I'm being honest I didn't really know what to expect. The trailer hooked me when it was about to be released in the theater but I knew it was the kind of movie that I would wait until it hit streaming to see. Saturday Night is a ton of fun! They chose the cast very carefully and every one of them nails their performance! Jason Reitman employs an Aaron Sorkin style of shooting to brilliantly capture the chaos that ensued during the evening leading up to the very first episode of Saturday Night Live. Whoever decided that this story would make an excellent film deserves a raise. In my opinion, it doesn't really matter that it didn't make a ton of money. It was still important to make this movie so that we were finally given a window into what goes into one of the most beloved weekend traditions of our lifetime. There are so many standouts that it is difficult to narrow them down, but obviously Gabriel LaBelle is brilliant. Special nods go to Rachel Sennott, Cory Michael Smith and Dylan O'Brien who were fantastic as well. This movie won't change your life or anything but much like almost everyone, I grew up loving Saturday Night Live, and this was a much needed injection of nostalgia for my soul!

I Know What You Did Last Summer is a true product of the 90s horror boom. Coming just one year after Kevin Williamson's rousing success with Scream, this take on an urban legend doesn't disappoint. The cast features four of the "it" stars of their day. Jennifer Love Hewitt was the perfect choice for a scream queen. Sure she isn't the greatest actor that has ever been on screen but very few horror films require that of their heroines. Her character is much less capable of facing her aggressor than Sidney Prescott or Laurie Strode, opting instead to let the dude save the day. However, Hewitt possessed the requisite star power and other assets (cough) that made her the perfect choice for the horror genre. The script is sufficiently tense and the "Fisherman" character certainly carved out his own place of distinction in slasher villain history. The other three leads were no slouches in bringing the bankable Hollywood prowess either. Sarah Michelle Gellar was my high school movie star crush and Ryan Phillippe was one of my favorite actors growing up as well. Also, Freddie Prinze Jr was there. There's no question that Kevin Williamson is one of the great horror writers of our time and revisiting this years later was just as much fun as the first time I saw it when it came out.

It's true that this formula has been done to death. However, there is something about the story that keeps bringing me back for each new incarnation. It is possible that technology and special effects keep evolving so the creature design keeps improving every time they roll one of these out. And in my opinion, the Xenomorph is one of the coolest creatures in the history of the horror genre. For whatever reason, I keep watching and enjoying these movies every time they make a new one. Alien: Romulus is a tale of two films. It starts off incredibly strong and is captivating until the moment the first Xenomorph is hatched, and then it begins to go downhill from there. The movie just seemed to lose steam and fall back on to a storyline that we've seen done to death. Even the new twist they tried to put on the ending wasn't that interesting to me and the special effects took a major step back. It was as if they had run out of money by the time they were ready to begin work on the final creature. I just wasn't into that direction anyway and it made the movie longer than it should have been. Overall, the movie is relatively entertaining with a good star and a mostly well executed narrative. It just couldn't sustain itself for the long haul.

I've been excited to see this ever since I heard it was happening! The trailer only made my anticipation that much greater. I'm a huge vampire fan and this looked to be a hopeful return to form from a genre that has grown stale and often obnoxious. The film lived up to my hype and much more! Not only is it the best vampire movie I've seen in years, but it is one of the most perfect all around movies I've witnessed in a long time. I'm new to Robert Eggers. I haven't seen any of his celebrated filmography but you can bet I will watch it all now. His vision for this movie was masterful and he carefully selected each shot so as to tell the most provocative story possible. He succeeded on every front. Even Count Orlok's new look, which I was skeptical of at first, made sense in the world that he created. Had he tried to emulate the original silent film's design, it just wouldn't have worked with his more realistic take on the story. Bill Skarsgård may well be the premier character actor of our time. He embodies every character he takes on to the full extent and the things he is able to do with his voice are astonishing. The rest of the cast is marvelous! Nicholas Hoult is always good and Lily-Rose Depp is fantastic in her breakout role. I've always enjoyed Willem Dafoe and while he isn't bad in the role of alternate universe Van Helsing, it didn't really seem like he belonged here. That is a miniscule complaint as he is still successful and considering Robert Eggers seems to really like working with him, he can get what he wants if the result is him being more comfortable to create when he has a friend on set. Which it clearly was! It is a rare thing these days for me to be completely satisfied when leaving a movie theater but Eggers and his gang of vampire hunters really hit a homerun with this one and gave me hope for the future of cinema!

I desperately wanted this movie to be good. When I first saw the trailer I was very excited about it. I love vampires and the story of Dracula above all! It seemed like a very clever idea to more thoroughly explore his voyage from Transylvania to London, which has only ever been a footnote in other treatments of the story. Unfortunately André Øvredal made the cardinal mistake that plagues many suspense/horror films nowadays by showing us way too much of the creature way too early. This was a theme he went all in with and continued throughout the entire movie. The best suspense lies in allowing the audience to use our imagination to develop the fear of what it might be. When you choose to beat us over the head with something tangible instead, we are reduced to contemplating how good the CGI is rather than fearing what may come around the corner at any moment. Perhaps the most famous example of this is what Steven Spielberg was forced to do with Jaws. The result was one of the most suspenseful and terrifying movies ever made. The happiest of accidents! The Last Voyage of the Demeter does have a strong cast, and the premise was enough to keep me engaged but I couldn't help but leave the movie feeling they had squandered a great opportunity to bring something fresh to a story that has been told over and over for decades.

Southpaw had all of the tools it needed to be a great boxing film. Antoine Fuqua is a fantastic director, Jake Gyllenhaal is always good and the writers did an excellent job with the premise setting itself apart from other similar movies. Unfortunately, the film never soars to the heights that it should. It often felt like a "paint by the numbers" boxing flick. Everything felt rushed. Hope's downfall and his resurgence came and went so quickly that it seemed forced and as though they were trying to manipulate us into feeling something. If they had taken more care with the beginning we would have been more easily moved by the triumph of the finish. Fortunately, it has a strong ending and particularly great performances from Oona Laurence and Forest Whitaker. They along with the previously mentioned Gyllenhaal and Fuqua made it enjoyable. I just wish it would have lived up to the great choice in premise, director and cast.

It is a very rare occasion that I find a show that lives up to all of the hype but Friday Night Lights fits the bill. It took me a long time to give it a chance because I tend to assume if everyone loves something that much that I probably won't. It is fantastic from start to finish! There are those that will say the series floundered in its latter seasons, but I think it adapted to the inevitable loss of students (cast members) to graduation better than than the average high school drama. The show manages to stay grounded and realistic throughout its run with only a few missteps into ridiculous storylines. The cast are all excellent and the new players that get introduced in seasons four and five do a wonderful job of endearing themselves to the audience despite coming into the game deep in the second half. Of course the largest kudos go to Kyle Chandler and Connie Britton whose performances provide the grounding force behind Friday Night Lights longevity. They are exceptional! Special nods go to Taylor Kitsch who is phenomenal throughout the entire series and Brad Leland who had the biggest and best character arc...especially considering where Buddy Garrity started in the Pilot. I loved this show and I'm as surprised as anyone would be to hear me say that.

The subject matter behind Killers of the Flower Moon carries a very important message that I believe everyone should learn about. Unfortunately, the film is overindulgent and takes too long to convey this, leaving little hope that the audience will still be invested by the time the lesson is complete. You can't really claim to be a Scorsese fan and be bothered by long run times. That is where his bread is buttered. However, his past films were so engaging and the storytelling so well thought out that it never bothered me before this one. Even The Irishman, which was an hour longer than this, kept me invested in the story and characters more easily. Killers of the Flower Moon took me no less than four breaks to complete and that shines a light on the numerous problems the movie has. I like all of the actors, and they are fantastic as usual, but even with Leonardo DiCaprio, Robert DeNiro and Lily Gladstone's excellent performances, the narrative is bland and doesn't really become interesting until Jesse Plemons FBI agent shows up and they start getting to the bottom of the conspiracy. The inexplicable choice to end the movie in a radio broadcast style was contrived and made no sense other than to give the director a gratuitous cameo. I guess this was so he could look us in the eye and bash us over the head with the message he was trying to convey? That wouldn't have been necessary if he had done a better job with the previous three hour setup. There is still plenty to celebrate. As I mentioned, the story itself is important and serves as a valuable history lesson. The indigenous representation was also an important milestone, though Hollywood shot a mulligan once again by giving Lily Gladstone every award but the big one. Overall, the movie is decent but nowhere near Scorsese's usual standard and it tries way too hard to be important, when it could have achieved that by just telling the story in an effective way rather than sniffing its own farts in order to win awards.

I remember thinking early in its run that the House of Cards creators pushed Frank Underwood into the White House too early. If they really wanted longevity the creatives would have held to the formula that made the first season outstanding and taken their time getting him into the Oval Office. Instead they chose to fast track it which created a series of outlandish and frankly unbelievable scenarios that only served to damage the legitimacy it had spent thirteen episodes building. Having said that, the show was still compelling through much of its run which is a credit to Kevin Spacey, Robin Wright and an excellent supporting cast. When the proverbial s**t hit the fan with Spacey's S. A. allegations the intelligent thing to do would have been to bow out gracefully. There was no need to drag us through the terrible sixth season for any other reason than trying to cling to a dying entity and make a quick buck. Even before that decision was made the series was showing signs of fatigue and ending it after season five would have been the wise choice. This is Hollywood we are talking about so naturally they couldn't get the dollar signs out of their eyes and went the route of destroying its legacy by reimagining their vision into a star vehicle for Claire...which failed miserably. One of the reviews I read summed it up perfectly by intimating that House of Cards wouldn't have worked as well without Claire, and the same truth should be told about Francis. Unfortunately, as a result of this, a series with one of the best starts in the past decade went quietly into the night with a whimper rather than the roar it deserved when it first premiered.