Tag: movies
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Venom: Let There Be Carnage (2021 review)
4 outta 5 Venom: Let There Be Carnage noticeably improves upon its predecessor by leaning into how ridiculously crazy the concept is. Tonally it bounces all over the place, much like how the lead character is bouncing off the walls arguing with himself. Somewhat surprisingly, there is a genuinely effective thematic core here about toxic…
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Venom (2018 review)
3 outta 5 Venom is a movie that could easily be called dumb, cheesy and corny. But that is not necessarily bad. Cheesy is still be enjoyable even as the horror movie serious elements clash mostly with the comedy elements. This is a bit strange because director Ruben Fleischer deftly mixed horror and comedy in…
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Saturday Night
4 outta 5 Saturday Night is an entertaining bit of mythmaking about the first time that NBC’s comedy institution Saturday Night Live went on the air (before it added Live to the title). It is a bit of an obscure topic for an entire movie, even though the show remains popular to this day, and…
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The 4:30 Movie
4 outta 5 The 4:30 Movie by writer/director Kevin Smith is him cobbling together well worn thematic bits from his previous films but in an entertaining way. This is pretty much Smith’s third film adapting his rise from QuickStop convenience store to filmmaker after Zack and Miri Make a Porno and Clerks III so it’s…
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Joker: Folie à Deux
3 outta 5 Joker: Folie à Deux is an even stranger sequel to an already strange film. While the first film is heavily influenced by the classic work of Martin Scorsese, this goes more in an unexpected direction. It is sort of a musical, but not really because a lot is mumble singing and none…
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Joker (2019 review)
4 outta 5 The DC Comics superhero movies have been a bit of a mixed bag of an extended universe of interconnected movies. DC Comics latest film, Joker, shuns being a part of a universe and stands apart as a dark, disturbing, character piece about the origin of the Batman villain. Its influences are not…
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Wolves
4 outta 5 Wolfs is a zippy movie from writer/director Jon Watts, the director of the last three Spider-Man films, and he brings a similar pace here. There is even a bit where a young man is parkour running across the rooftops, so he doesn’t entirely let the whole Spider-Man vibe drop. In his Spider-Man…
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Transformers One
4 outta 5 After several “live action” installments of the Transformers franchise, the series returns to its animated roots with Transformers One. However, there was so much CGI animation in the series’ previous films, that it’s hard to make much of a distinction between live action and animation by now. Which isn’t a bad thing.…
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Uglies
2 outta 5 Uglies is a YA novel adaptation that really doesn’t offer anything particularly good. It feels cobbled together from other sci-fi dystopian franchises and that bubble burst a few years ago. The central hook, that people in a dystopian future society undergo mandatory, mind-controlling cosmetic surgery, feels basic. Even the action, such as…
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Young Woman and the Sea
4 outta 5 Young Woman and the Sea is a stirring sports drama that is inspired by the true story of a woman from 100 years ago who swam the English Channel, a feat that was an incredible display of athletic endurance. The film is affably performed and features impressive swimming scenes as the audience…
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