watchable

Quirky, kind of fun English film about three couples living in a backyard bunker after the apocalypse when things get crazy. It was billed as a "horror comedy", which typically…

This film is pretty good. A lot of Stephen King adaptations are terrible, even ones of good books, but this one about a writer being held captive by a psychotic…

Decent enough African supernatural thriller about a couple who hire the daughter of their deceased housekeeper who makes weird traditional foods and practices whatever the old tribal religion is, and…

Odd movie starts like a horror flick and becomes a neo-noir crime thriller with minor horror elements. Gay couple agree to ferry drugs by swallowing them wrapped in condoms to…

Irish monster movie about people trapped on a farm with the monstrous results of a genetic experiment to make cows breed grow. Takes a while to get going but actually…

Julianne Moore in the sort of supernatural/horror thriller that Julianne Moore occasionally stars in, about a "split personality" case that seems to be manifesting the personalities of dead people. If…

Pretty charming action comedy buddy picture starring Nic Cage as a not-entirely-flattering version of himself, sucked into working for the CIA while staying as the houseguest of a rich guy…

A pretty amusing entry in the "Purge" movies. A Black family moves to Beverly Hills on purge night, unaware that the father who seems to have struck it rich has…

An alright thriller. A gorgeous couple leaves the city to await the destruction of the earth by an asteroid in a remote Tennessee backwoods campsite. Things get complicated as other…

A young Liana Liberato punches way above her weight in a heavy but decent family drama about the emotional fallout on her family from her abuse by a predator. Probably…

Decently ok Kiwi horror film about a neurotic hiker who falls in with a bunch of other hikers in the remove wilderness and starts making everybody crazy with paranoia about…

A not-bad horror-ish, sci-fi-ish movie that plays like an ok episode of a long-form sci-fi TV show. During a solar storm that knocked out cell reception and causes auroras in…

Ok, this movie couldn't have seemed less promising: "A woman running from her past is trapped between a zombie outbreak and warring militia groups." Great. But it turns out, this…

This film set low expectations and then came through kinda better than expected. The synopsis, "Lifelong best friends, Maddy and V, find themselves at a remote ski lodge where a…

Has anybody not seen this yet? Reasonably entertaining calculatedly blockbuster-y scifi/action, the latest of many remakes and reinterpretations of one of the most prominently and repeatedly remade sci-fi stories, and the only one that retains the name, if departing completely from many of the key themes and details, of Richard Matheson's original novel (even if it will never replace any of the other adaptations under different names, particularly my favorite Vincent Price vehicle"The Last Man On Earth"and its spiritual descendant, if only extremely indirect remake,"Night Of The Living Dead", in my heart.) Will Smith's likability keeps it watchable, even occasionally rewatchable, despite some over-the-top moments, tough suspensions of disbelief, and fridge logic. The many scenes of an unpopulated and overgrown Manhattan are a treat—and only improved by Wikipedia's recounting of Will Smith saying the Manhattan street closures necessary to do them resulted in"the most middle fingers I've ever gotten in my career"—and the slow development of the action is well done. The rubbery"monsters", slightly less so, but they do serve their purpose. Still, best to wait a very long time after seeing"28 Days Later"before you watch it. (Note: according to Wikipedia, the DVD included an alternate ending that kept superficially closer to Matheson's novel, and also would have provided an explanation for some of what in the final release was fridge logic; it didn't do well with test audiences, who were perhaps unaccustomed to the subtlety of the writing of someone who went on to write The Twilight Zone's"Nightmare At 20,000 Feet"and Star Trek's"The Enemy Within", and was completely rewritten at the last minute. WP also says Ridley Scott was at one point slated to direct—now that's a movie I'd really like to have seen,I look forward to the day I can tell an AI,"Show me 'I Am Legend', but directed by Ridley Scott"—as were Guillermo Del Toro and Michael Bay.) Also, the monsters' guttural screams and grunts were recorded by Faith No More's Mike Patton, adding another entry to the list of things I think Mike Patton overdid. Incidentally there's a pretty decent review focusing on the differences between the several adaptations of"I Am Legend", specifically contrasting this"conservative"one with the themes of the more morally ambiguous original novel, in an academic"Journal of Religion & Film"of all things: .