Movie Reviews » Just, Don't

Debbie Does Demons

I think this is a softcore porno that somehow wound up on Tubi. Some sort of horror-themed nonsense about a ouija board summoning a 300-year-old witch is a pretext for showing a lot of unnaturally large tits and trashy people talking about screwing, in the lowest-possible home-movie production quality.

I mean, yeah, if you resurrected a busty 300-year-old witch with a ouija board, I'm sure the first thing she would do is stand in the shower caressing her own body, right? That's the level this thing operates on.

I lasted about 45 minutes before turning it off, but truthfully that was only because I was distracted for a lot of that time by looking up naked photos of one of the actresses on the internet.

| Permanent URL: https://michaelkupietz.com?p=31766  |  Share this  |  Embed link  |  Webmentions are: on
Movie Reviews » Bad but I liked it

Alice and the Vampire Queen

Hokey C-grade but fun flick that plays like a forgotten vampire TV show pilot. A gorgeous ex-con, down on her luck, gets hired as a chef for private club catering to a clan of vampires and has episodic adventures in between making steak tartare for everyone in the whole damn place every night.

I dunno, I kinda found it entertaining. Not in a way I'd recommend, though.

| Permanent URL: https://michaelkupietz.com?p=31764  |  Share this  |  Embed link  |  Webmentions are: on
Movie Reviews » Bad but I liked it

Lillith

This is one of the best awful movies I've ever seen. A jilted college student summons a succubus to get revenge on her ex-boyfriend, and then can't stop her from rampaging. An absolutely amateur, zero budget, probably student-run production. But—I liked it! The actors really commit, and it had odd moments of cheeky humor that worked in much the same way as your friend saying something cheeky might work.

And it stayed in its lane: tt didn't get overambitious, it seemed to know it wasn't working with much and did what it could with what little it had. The sum total was that it was kind of charming how bad it was.

| Permanent URL: https://michaelkupietz.com?p=31762  |  Share this  |  Embed link  |  Webmentions are: on
Movie Reviews » Different, At Least

Lifechanger

Not-as-bad-as-it-should be little indie horror with a fairly original premise: with no explanation, just a statement that it is so, a shapeshifting serial killer must repeatedly kill people and assuming their forms and memories, leaving their desiccated bodies hidden at a remote farm. He falls in love with a young woman and repeatedly tries to insinuate himself into her life, dealing the whole time with the rate at which the bodies he assumes decay.

Not terrible, for what it is. Not that good, but I'll call it "watchable" because it really should have been so much worse.

| Permanent URL: https://michaelkupietz.com?p=31758  |  Share this  |  Embed link  |  Webmentions are: on
WP Error: Empty Term.

Interlopers

High-concept British zombie film takes a talky, philosophical approach with the idea that a "zombie virus" infeecting people is actually elevating them to "second generation" life forms, with a desire to eliminate the first generation, only with far less action and many more dark scenes full of quiet conversation than that concept might lead to expect.

| Permanent URL: https://michaelkupietz.com?p=31756  |  Share this  |  Embed link  |  Webmentions are: on
Blog Posts » featured movie reviews

Spider-Man — Homecoming

It's a Marvel superhero movie.That generally says it all, in my experience.

Somehow these big Marvel superhero movies remind me of Michael Jackson's adult career: get a bunch of big-name luminaries together with a big budget to expertly craft something that screams "blockbuster", and yet still, somehow, manages to be less than the sum of its parts—the writing just isn't exceptional, it's formula dressed up with big names and glitzy production. . And everybody for some reason thinks it's great, except me.

Basically watchable, for a special-effects superhero action blockbuster. But for as much talent was involved in making this movie, that's a crime.

| Permanent URL: https://michaelkupietz.com?p=31749  |  Share this  |  Embed link  |  Webmentions are: on
WP Error: Empty Term.

Lookout

Nothing special, but a somewhat fun little indie sci-fi/horror flick about a gorgeous ranger stationed alone at a remote fire lookout tower for a month when otherworldly things start happening.

| Permanent URL: https://michaelkupietz.com?p=31708  |  Share this  |  Embed link  |  Webmentions are: on
WP Error: Empty Term.

Fragment (2024)

A gorgeous programmer living in a remote desert home with her husband begins to hallucinate creepy things. Then there's some sort of satanic ritual, and then we see her absolutely fine. And that's it. It's atmospheric, but just makes no sense.

| Permanent URL: https://michaelkupietz.com?p=31691  |  Share this  |  Embed link  |  Webmentions are: on
Movie Reviews » watchable

Paul Blart, Mall Cop

This is not a very good movie, but, I will say, it's about ten times better than I expected it to be. I never like Kevin James nor the track record of Adam Sandler's production company, that made this, but rather than being the truly stupid pile of garbage I expected, it's actually—once it gets going, which takes quite a while—a moderately watchable B-grade action comedy, if you don't go into it expecting more than that.

I'm really surprised. Never imagined I'd think anywhere nearly that highly of it.

| Permanent URL: https://michaelkupietz.com?p=31685  |  Share this  |  Embed link  |  Webmentions are: on
Movie Reviews » watchable

The Morning Show (series)

Decent drama about the politics behind a morning news show and the network that puts it on. It's not top-flight entertainment like "The Larry Sanders Show", nor is it a classic behind-the-scenes drama series with memorable characters like "Mad Men" or "The Sopranos"—and it sure isn't even anywhere near in the same league as "Network"—but the acting is good, and the writing is fairly gripping, every time a season ended I wanted it to go on.

| Permanent URL: https://michaelkupietz.com?p=31683  |  Share this  |  Embed link  |  Webmentions are: on
Movie Reviews » Honorable Mention

Threads

Truly harrowing story about the buildup to and aftermath of a nuclear strike on Sheffield, England, following the intertwined lives of several people caught in the attack. This unflinchingly grim take on the short, medium, and eventual long-term personal and social toll of a nuclear strike was, incredibly, originally a TV movie. Like "Testament", another movie on a similar theme that I often mention in the same breath, it is absolutely unsparing. It's a very rough watch but an undeniable classic, and order of magnitude better movie than the contrived, soap-operatic pseudo-relevant "The Day After".

I'm writing this quite some time after last having seen it as I've just realized I somehow have never reviewed it. This movie is a pretty big favorite of mine. I'm not sure I can put it up with my very biggest favorites, but it's damn close.

| Permanent URL: https://michaelkupietz.com?p=31680  |  Share this  |  Embed link  |  Webmentions are: on
WP Error: Empty Term.

The Days Ahead

Decent anthology film showing three stories about survivors after a nuclear strike in modern-day England. It ain't "Threads" (an amazing movie I have somehow, incomprehensibly, not reviewed) but it was watchable.

| Permanent URL: https://michaelkupietz.com?p=31677  |  Share this  |  Embed link  |  Webmentions are: on
WP Error: Empty Term.

The Grey

Tough-as-nails Liam Neeson Liam Neesons around, this time around the Alaskan wilderness as the tough-as-nails leader of a band of tough-as-nails Alaskan workers stranded after a plane crash. Hunted by wolves and bears, dealing with cold and exhaustion, and somehow they manage to take one of my favorite genres—the man-against-nature survival flick—and tough-as-nails it into being completely uninteresting.

An attempt at a poetic ending falls flat as it ends with an anticlimax of Neeson about to fight a wolf one-on-one, and reciting Shakespeare: "Once more into the fray"... and, roll credits without showing the fight or how the story ends. What kind of a viewer they think wants to watch a whole movie of Liam Neeson Liam Neesoning, but then would rather see him quote Shakespeare in the end than fight a wolf, is beyond me. Especiale as he'd just gone to the trouble of duct-taping broken airplane liquor…

| Permanent URL: https://michaelkupietz.com?p=31673  |  Share this  |  Embed link  |  Webmentions are: on
WP Error: Empty Term.

Severance (series, season 2)

Quirky conspiracy-style sci-fi thriller about employees of a company who are psychologically "severed" so their lives outside of and at work have no knowledge of each other. The first season of Severance was plotted so nicely, I was surprised when it ended on a cliffhanger to discover it was a series and not a miniseries drawing to an ending in 8 episodes.

The second season unfortunately tries to be grander in scope, by moving much more of the action out of the office and to a wide-ranging variety of other locations, but succeeds only in being flabbier in terms of storytelling, talkier, slower-moving, and harder to follow, seemingly less interested in worldbuilding and than in contrived "intrigue".

They also start to show the first sign of tired storytelling: bringing in romantic relationships for "drama", as, for instance, the company inexplicably lets an "innie" (an employee's at-work personality) meet…

| Permanent URL: https://michaelkupietz.com?p=31661  |  Share this  |  Embed link  |  Webmentions are: on
Movie Reviews » Je nais se quois

You, Me and the Apocalypse (series)

Kind of an offbeat British/American comedy about an eclectic assortment of characters who become involved with each other in the days before humanity is due to be wiped out by a comet. Jenne Fischer, Rob Lowe, Diana Rigg. I enjoyed it, it was more clever and entertaining than it should have been, and I was disappointed when the first season ended on a cliffhanger and it wasn't picked up for a second.

| Permanent URL: https://michaelkupietz.com?p=31659  |  Share this  |  Embed link  |  Webmentions are: on
Movie Reviews » watchable

The Fix

Alright sci-fi action thriller about a spectacularly gorgeous model (Grace Van Dien, great-granddaughter of Robert Mitchum) who ingests an experimental drug, intended to protect humanity from the increasingly toxic atmosphere, that causes her to undergo strange mutations. Soon the scientists are after her. There's guys with guns, lots of running and jumping.

Surprisingly not bad. Visually well-done, high production values without going too far over the top, and adequate acting to pull it off. Deserves better than the 4.7 stars it has on IMDB, at any rate.

| Permanent URL: https://michaelkupietz.com?p=31639  |  Share this  |  Embed link  |  Webmentions are: on
Movie Reviews » Different, At Least

Life Cycle

A programmer living in isolation invents an artificially intelligent and thoroughly fake-looking but oddly expressive (thanks to some skilled puppetry) head, and charges it to learn to humanize itself. It then spends the movie slowly going insane. Was actually kind of decent for the first half given the conceit, with some decent takes on familiar "What is human, anyway" tropes—the head wakes him up thinking it saw a face in the closet, which he explains is due to its having successfully inherited the human cognitive ability to recognize faces, even when there isn't really one, a neat idea—although by the second half it kind of runs out of steam and feels kind of perfunctory by the conclusion. Ultimately I can't say I liked it it, which is disappointing, because for a while it was definitely heading that way (no pun intended).

| Permanent URL: https://michaelkupietz.com?p=31634  |  Share this  |  Embed link  |  Webmentions are: on
Movie Reviews » Je nais se quois

Tin Can

Weirdly OK sci fi flick. In pandemic times, a scientist wakes up imprisoned in a life support unit, and spends the movie wandering a medical-facility-cum-military-installation, uncovering the truth about what's happening to her. Little dialogue and almost no plot, but, visually well done enough to be sort of interesting, I guess, and with touches of fairly disturbing body horror. I didn't hate it, and might actually watch it again at some point to pay a little closer attention.

| Permanent URL: https://michaelkupietz.com?p=31632  |  Share this  |  Embed link  |  Webmentions are: on
Movie Reviews » Just, Don't

Hackers

I really wanted to like this movie. This was recommended to me by a few people in Indieweb when it was October '25 movie of the month for their Indieweb Movie Club blog carnival, hosted by the estimable Benji.

So, it is with some degree of disappointment that I found, not being a child of the '90s and having no sentimental attachment to the excesses of that era (I have the '70s for that, thank you, although I generally don't steer unwitting friends of other generations towards it with any promise that the cheese I happen to love is going to hold any reward for them) that I found this to be an vapid and unredeemable pile of glossy Hollywood garbage.

This movie appears to have been written by a screenwriter who read an article about "hacking" in Newsweek…

| Permanent URL: https://michaelkupietz.com?p=31623  |  Share this  |  Embed link  |  Webmentions are: on
Movie Reviews » Bad but I like that it exists

From Beyond

Scientist invents a machine that lets him see extradimensional creatures, and it turns out, let them see him. Another cheezy attempt at Lovecraft, this time with way more '80s fashions than any other I've seen, and the requisite over-the-top latex monster applicances. I always feel affection for these because these low-budget Lovecraft efforts always seem to try harder than anybody else to rise to the material, even if they fail. At least they're aiming high.

| Permanent URL: https://michaelkupietz.com?p=31603  |  Share this  |  Embed link  |  Webmentions are: on
Movie Reviews » Trash

Undateable (series)

As hackneyed and unfunny as a sitcom can be. Chris D'Elia, who, despite whatever else may be said about him, is at least often a funny actor, is absolutely wasted in this. Turned it off during the third episode. I'm not sitting through 9 more episodes of this.

| Permanent URL: https://michaelkupietz.com?p=31601  |  Share this  |  Embed link  |  Webmentions are: on
Movie Reviews » watchable

American Gods (series, season 1)

Gritty fantasy show based on a Nail Gaiman about ancient gods fighting it out in modern-day American with the "new gods" of commercialism and technology. A very strong start to this Bryan Fuller adaptation, including a smattering of topnotch actors and some really well-cast cameos, disappointingly doesn't pan out as the season wears on. Never worse than good, the show nonetheless loses the first few episodes' tight plotting and gritty tone, gets talkier and more meandering, as what I hoped would be a tight miniseries turns out to be an ongoing series and kind of loses momentum. Tubi's run frustratingly only includes season 1 for now, ending on a cliffhanger, and worse, I understand Bryan Fuller left after that season and subsequent seasons aren't as positively reviewed. Color me all around kind of disappointed. It started really strong. If this had been a solid 6 or maybe 8 episodes of…

| Permanent URL: https://michaelkupietz.com?p=31595  |  Share this  |  Embed link  |  Webmentions are: on
Movie Reviews » watchable

Spun

Gritty (for Hollywood) tale of a day in the life of speed freaks. I suppose this movie is alright. Despite being cast full of actors I don't like much (Jason Schwartzman, John Leguizamo, Brittany Murphy, Mickey Rourke) it pretty much catches them all at their relative best, doing a pretty good job at bringing full lives to the kind of sketchy characters we've all seen out of the corner of our eyes once in a while, and mostly avoided interacting with. The Hollywood attempt at "gritty" is better than most such. Also, short cameos from the always disturbing Peter Stormare and Debby Harry as a tough-as-nails lesbian liven things up.

I watched this once before, long ago, and recalled liking it, and though it's up and down I came out of it once again thinking I kinda liked it.

| Permanent URL: https://michaelkupietz.com?p=31587  |  Share this  |  Embed link  |  Webmentions are: on
Movie Reviews » watchable

Magellan

Another in a long line of "first contact" films that owe a debt to "2001: A Space Odyssey", but a decent entry in the arena. A lone astronaut on a 10-year-mission to find what's been broadcasting mysterious signals from Neptune. Not bad, it was an alright watch even if conceptually a touch derivative.

Amusingly, "Neptune" appears to have been filmed at Pyramid Lake.

| Permanent URL: https://michaelkupietz.com?p=31585  |  Share this  |  Embed link  |  Webmentions are: on
WP Error: Empty Term.

Mr. Earth

Swing and a miss. A random man is picked to represent Earth before a tribunal of aliens evaluating whether to destroy it. Better-made than I expected, but, the first half hour is just standard divorced-dad-tries-relate-to-his-teen-daughter family drama, which goes on a little too long, until he is finally abducted from a comping trip, after which, literally everything goes on much too long. This is much too talky to be considered sci-fi, but it's not interesting talk. It's just turgid "dramatic" galactic chuffery like a Marvel Comics writer might have written for some cosmic saga, except, without the punchy succinctness. It just goes on, and on, and on, and on... you can't care about anything because nothing ever happens to care about without the characters talking for so long that you lose interest. And then, when the main plot is over, the movie continues another half hour, with him home on…

| Permanent URL: https://michaelkupietz.com?p=31583  |  Share this  |  Embed link  |  Webmentions are: on
Movie Reviews » Je nais se quois

Jules

Odd, fun little sci-fi/light comedy about an alien landing in an old man's flower garden in Pennsyvania. Ben Kingsley, Jane Curtin, and Harriet Sansom Harris, still a heavy hitter in sci-fi over 30 years after she freaked us out on the X-Files episode "Eve", play a bunch of old coots who nobody listens to, caring for a space visitor who doesn't talk but manages to express some strange things he needs to get his craft off the ground again. Pretty well done, pleasantly quirky, and a fun watch. I liked it.

| Permanent URL: https://michaelkupietz.com?p=31581  |  Share this  |  Embed link  |  Webmentions are: on
WP Error: Empty Term.

Don’t Turn Out The Lights

A bunch of kids on their way to a music festival are trapped when there RV breaks down on a wooded stretch of road, a bunch of random hallucinatory things happen that kill them one by one, and no explanation is ever given. Great.

| Permanent URL: https://michaelkupietz.com?p=31579  |  Share this  |  Embed link  |  Webmentions are: on