Archives: Movie Reviews

Surprisingly alright buddy road trip pick that isn't really the stupid slapstick comedy it looks like it's going to be. Episodic slice of life as pair of travelers are thrown together, and get in and out of various trouble on their way actoss the southwest. Jason Mantouzakis does his usual thing, but somehow manages not to be overbearing.

Apparently this is a Coen Brothers film. And visually, it looks as good as any. Doesn't appear to have a plot, other than "The Coen Brothers love 1940s Hollywood" and "There are star cameos in this movie". Maybe other film industry folks liked this.

Very decent realist postapocalyptic drama. A couple tries to cope quarantined in their home after dirty bombs are set off in LA. Unfortunately the last 10 minutes or so try for a weak "twist" that proves anticlimactic, but a pretty enjoyable film up until that.

Donal Logue covers "Psych" without the "fake psychic" gag.

Apparently this series got roasted by critics, and for the first few episodes it's easy to understand why. Josh Gad and Billy Crystal as themselves in this behind-the-scenes look at the production of a comedy show — well-trodden ground, for sure, and firmly in the very long shadow of the "Larry Sanders" show. But as the season goes on, Gad and Crystal's relationship is given some extra depth beyond the "mismatched partners" trope, and their obvious chemistry carries things well enough that I enjoyed it, and was sorry there wasn't a second season. Strong credit for watchability also goes to the comic performance of Stephnie Weir as their neurotic, confused producer.

Once again Rob Zombie shows that if he could write as well as he can direct, he'd be the horror equivalent of Quentin Tarantino. This movie is visually gorgeous in many places. Just bring a walkman. Basically an excuse to string together a bunch of episodic vignettes of grotesque violence.

Anarchy: "Escape From New York" with less charisma.

Spike Lee does a horror movie, after a fashion, as well as his best impression of a European art filmmaker, in this remake of 1973's "Ganja and Hess". After a scuffle, a well-to-do doctor returns from the dead with a thirst for blood, plot gets tough to follow after that. Ok, I guess, considering I've never liked a Spike Lee movie. Definitely looks good visually without seeming too try-hard on that front. If this had been someone's first-time outing I'd have been impressed; from a very experienced director I say "meh". Great soundtrack, though.

Actually, not a bad teen screamer, in some ways, although I do wish the trend of naming horror movies by coming up with a "horror" adjective that has nothing to do with the plot would stop. Visiting his dad in a resort town on a lake for the summer, a teen suspects his neighbor is possessed by a witch that makes people forget their small children, and then eats them. One of those movies that seems like it might have been made from a Young Adult novel, but, among the definitely best and most well-made of them. Some effective horror direction & cinematography and decent effects & creature design do the trick. Netflix reposted it and I got tricked into watching it again because it had been a while, and I didn't regret it, and wound up watching the whole thing.

Gorgeous journalists investigating the disappearance of an American in a remote polish village find a demonic shrine in a mysterious fog patch in the woods, spend the rest of the film being chased by angry villagers in religious garb and hallucinating monsters. Meh. Likable primarily because the lead actress looks just like this hot waitress who worked at the Mecca Cafe when I was 25.

couple sailing across the pacific wind up adrift for a month and a half. Considering how much I usually like these kinds of survival stories, meh. Somehow this one didn't speak to me.

I spent the first half of this movie convinced that Lars von Trier had finally descended into sheer pointless brutality. And, granted, even after it drastically changes character into a completely different film by the end, and has spent a lot of time on digressions about the meaning of art, I'm still not sure "Human Centipede 2" would have been any different, if it had had the scantest of art-house pretensions and a couple of philosophical digressions. But, damn, LvT is still an incredibly talented director, and by the end, Matt Dillon's repulsive, unsympathetic performance starts to look like the role of his career. Leave it to LvT to once again, as he did with the totally unenjoyable masterpiece Antichrist, show that cinematic greatness and entertainment are not necessarily related even in passing. I just hope he'll stop trying to prove that morality isn't necessarily related either—I feel like the…

beautifully-shot move about women living in the wilderness as "wives" and "daughters" of a cult leader. Slow-moving. Didn't really follow it. Gorgeous cinematography, though, and spectacular natural locations. Can't imagine where this was shot. Alaska? (Turns out, Ireland.)

'Glee' with zombies. For real. Very nearly embarrassing enough to actually be entertaining.

Anyone who has ever worked a dreadfully dull, bottom-rung office Admin Assistant job for uncaring, disrespectful employers will already be familiar with this movie, and ask themselves why they relived it, and nothing more than that, by watching this. How they got that great actress who played Ruth on Ozark to sign on to this plotless tedium is beyond me.

Madeline Brewer (OITNB, Handmaid's Tale, Cam) seems to only pick somehow above-average, if not great, projects. This movie about a hiker stumbling on a couple of rednecks living in the wilds off the Appalachian trail was much more decent than I expected. Rather than being a run-of-the-mill thriller, it actually had a story to tell. Not a great story, but a good one, and more of one than a lot of movies nowadays.

Like seeing pretty girls be tortured? Then you'll probably like this film. Don't like seeing pretty girls be tortured? Then you won't. There's some religious or supernatural claptrap it's wrapped in, but it's not important. I wasn't at all suprised to discover this is a remake of a French horror movie, the surest sign of a terrible horror movie. The french culture seems to have an immaculate grasp of so many art forms, and they compensate for it with a complete, total inability to figure out how to write a good horror movie plot.

Teenagers getting picked off in the woods by zombie-type people infected with a disease... but, that said, surprisingly good, fairly original. Felt like an early-80s classic, and an ok one, not a rip-off by someone raised on those movies who loves them a little too much and thinks that's enough, as these sorts of movies often are. A pleasant surprise.

Empty, banal torture/capitivity porn. Male victim this time, english moors this time. Yawn.

I didn't know what drew Katie Asleton or Lake Bell to this very standard captivity/stalking-through-the-woods fare (directed by Aselton) but it's only that casting that makes it slightly watchable.

Here's a twist... A pretty crappy thriller that actually sucks until a pretty good twist ending. Young girl moves into an apartment complex in LA, where the neighbors turn out to be just a little bit possessive & controlling.

Overdubbed polish film with only its slightly odd, foreign tone and charming cast to set it apart from the usual psycho-picks-off-campers-in-the-woods flick.

Strange, seems like a BBC production. Someone described it as "The Goonies meets Silent Hill", which seems about right. Campy and melodramatic, kind of feels like the '70s Dr Who to me, in the ways that it strangely just somehow didn't grab me.

Surprisingly not bad for what it is. Nerdy guys are invited to pledge a frat, the hazing turns into captivity/torture porn. But, on the best end of that. I actually sort of enjoyed it, a real feat for this kind of movie.

What starts off like a cheezy tv movie slowly turns into a very decent hitchcockian thriller. An illegal immigrant maid hired by a family in the Hamptons suspects the son has drunkenly hit-and-run a pedestrian, and it all goes to shit.

I was in the mood for some light fare so I tried this Keanu Reeves thriller. Had I known it was an Eli Roth film I wouldn't have bothered, there's "light" and there's "tissue-paper thin". Typically shallow and pointless Eli Roth torture porn fare, this time without even gore, and even more fridge logic than usual. Basically, the Small Faces to "Funny Games"'s Rolling Stones. Two teen girls take Keanu Reeves hostage in his home, seduce then torture him, for no reason other than it's an Eli Roth movie and someone out there thinks that's entertaining enough that they got name actors to participate. I wish Eli Roth would find another line of work.

Ok, bonus points for inventing a new genre. Instead of the Rom-Com, this is a Rom-Hor (Rom-Zom?). Requiring tremendous suspension of disbelief and chock full of fridge logic and tropes made up for the sole purpose of driving the plot along, this horror-romance has a zombie regaining consciousness for no stated reason, and falling in love with a live human after absorbing memories of her by eating her boyfriend's brain. You know, it's utterly ridiculous, and I kinda enjoyed it, because it commits so hard to being what it is. Somehow they got John Malkovich for this, too, as the hard-nosed general who refuses to believe, until, in the climax, he comes to understand that a zombie can learn to love.

You can virtually hear someone watching "The Hunger Games" and thinking, "There's got to be a way I can come up with a franchise that is this same thing, except I get paid for it."