Movie Review Firestarter

Firestarter 

Directed by Keith Thomas

Written by Scott Teems

Starring Zac Efron, Ryan Kiera Armstrong, Sydney Lemmon, Kurtwood Smith

Released May 13th, 2022

The remake of Firestarter is the result of what I call, I.P mining. The idea is to take a relatively memorable property from the past, attach a young movie star, and rake in the profits. That’s the goal anyway. Whether the re-makers of Firestarter will profit from their I.P mining is something only time and box office will tell. What I can tell you about the makers of Firestarter 2022 is that their movie recycling is more akin to composting. It stinks.

Firestarter 2022 stars Ryan Kiera Armstrong as Charlie, a child with dangerous powers. Charlie can move things with her mind. She can read people's minds. Most dangerously, Charlie has pyro-kinesis which means she can create fire with her mind. Charlie got her powers from her parents. As college students, Andy (Zac Efron) and Victoria (Sidney Lemmon) participated in a government sponsored experiment. The experiment gave both Andy and Victoria a powerful form of E.S.P.

Find my full length review at Geeks.Media, linked here. 

Movie Review On the Count of Three

On the Count of Three

Directed by Jerrod Carmichael

Written by Ari Katcher, Ryan Welch

Starring Jerrod Carmichael, Christopher Abbott, Tiffany Haddish, J.B Smoove

Released May 13th, 2022

Mental health experts will tell you that suicidal people will seem happier right before they take their life. It doesn’t always happen that way, but in most cases euphoria sets in once death is certain. The dark dramatic comedy, On the Count of Three, from star and director Jerrod Carmichael, pictures suicide from a different perspective. On the Count of Three is a suicide comedy, a dark comedy, of course, and it captures the kind of feelings mental health experts see in suicidal patients. 

On the Count of Three follows lifelong friends Val (Jerrod Carmichael) and Kevin (Michael Abbott) on their last day on Earth. Val and Kevin have made a suicide pact. The two plan to kill each other after they’ve spent the day settling affairs and taking revenge on one man in particular whom they blame for their pain. Both men were products of abuse at the hands of a trusted professional. The experience shaped the rest of their lives. Val sulked into a life of routine menial work. Kevin drifted toward crime.

Find my full length review at Geeks.Media, linked here. 

Movie Review Senior Year

Senior Year

Directed by Alex Hardcastle

Written by Andrew Knauer, Arthur Pielli, Brandon Scott Jones

Starring Rebel Wilson, Angourie Rice, Sam Richardson

Released May 13th, 2022 

Senior Year stars Rebel Wilson as Stephanie Conway. As a teenager, in the late 1990s, Stephanie went from nerdy freshman to the most popular girl in school through sheer determination. The height of her popularity came as the head cheerleader for the Bulldogettes and she’d choreographed an incredible new routine. Unfortunately, Stephanie’s rise created an enemy in Tiffany (Zoe Chao), a fellow cheerleader who decides to sabotage the cheer routine. 

With Tiffany’s intervention, a big jump in which two cheerleaders were to catch a falling Stephanie resulted in Stephanie hitting the gym floor head first, leaving Stephanie in a coma. For the next 20 years, Stephanie remained in a coma while her devoted dad, Jim (Chris Parnell), kept watch and her High School best friends, Seth (Sam Richardson) and Martha (Mary Holland) grew up but stayed connected with their friend via yearly Birthday visits to the hospital.

Find my full length review at Geeks.Media, linked here. 

Movie Review Tankhouse

Tankhouse

Directed by Noam Tomaschoff

Written by Noam Tomaschoff, Chelsea Frei

Starring Tara Holt, Richard Kind, Stephen Friedrich, Christopher Lloyd

Released May 9th, 2022

Tankhouse is a comic romp within the weird world of grown up theater kids. The film stars Stephen Friedrich as Tucker and Tara Holt as his lover and muse, Sandrene. Together the couple hopes to change theater presentation forever with their immersive style of drama. Things get off to a good start but go bad very quickly. During their very first immersive theater presentation, a member of the very small audience dies. The woman was very old and seemed to happily participate in the immersive experience but regardless, her death gets Tucker and Sandrene blackballed from New York Theater by Tucker’s beloved mentor, Buford (Christopher Lloyd). 

Though Buford is behind getting Tucker and Sandrene tossed out of the theater world, he nevertheless is able to offer Tucker advice. He tells him to go out into the world and find out what theater really means to him. Buford relates a story, re-told in a delightfully strange animated segment, about how he taught theater in the jungles of Siberia. If you know why that’s funny, then you know. I’m not going to explain it. Tucker needs to go out into the world and find his Siberian jungle.

Find my full length review at Geeks.Media, linked here. 

Movie Review Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness

Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness

Directed by Sam Raimi

Written by Michael Waldron

Starring Benedict Cumberbatch, Elizabeth Olsen, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Rachel McAdams

Released May 6th, 2022

Doctor Strange in The Multiverse of Madness is by far the worst movie in the modern Marvel Cinematic Universe. Multiverse of Madness gets off on the wrong foot from the opening scene and gets worse and worse with every turn of the plot and obvious failure of logic. Haphazardly assembled by director Sam Raimi, Multiverse of Madness piles bad special effects on top of bad storytelling while good performances suffocate under the weight of those failures. 

Right off the bat, the direction and editing of Doctor Strange in The Multiverse of Madness is completely on fire, not in a good way. The edits and camerawork bounce around in a dizzying fashion that may be intentional but comes off as amateurish in execution. There is little rhyme or reason for the fast cuts and jarring camera moves and they come off as clumsy and haphazard rather than intentionally disorienting.

Find my full length review at Geeks.Media, linked here. 

Documentary Review Box of Rain

Box of Rain

Directed by Lonnie Frazier

Written by Lonnie Frazier

Starring The Grateful Dead, Elizabeth Abel-Talbott, Kerry L. Condon

Released May 10th, 2022

Box of Rain is an emotional journey through the connection of The Grateful Dead and their incredibly unique and dedicated fandom. Shot through the prism of director Lonnie Frazier’s own emotional connection to the band, forged in the wake of a devastating sexual assault, Box of Rainreflects on a loving and supportive fandom that is like few others in modern popular culture, music or otherwise. 

Lonnie Frazier was a teenager who accepted a ride home from a group of boys she’d known for years from School. She had no reason to suspect that these boys she’d known so well would change her life with their horrific actions. Lonnie Frazier was raped on the way home from a party and it created scars that have lasted a lifetime. Desperately seeking some form of comfort and stability, Lonnie Frazier found something in the music and community surrounding the band The Grateful Dead.

Find my full length review at Geeks.Media, linked here.

Documentary Review Facing Nolan

Facing Nolan 

Directed by Bradley Jackson

Written by Bradley Jackson

Starring Nolan Ryan 

Released March 12th, 2022

After captivating audiences at the South by Southwest Film Festival earlier this year, the documentary Facing Nolan is headed to theater screens nationwide. Directed by Bradley Jackson, director of The Man Who Never Cried, Facing Nolan chronicles the iconic career of Baseball Hall of Famer, Nolan Ryan from his rise to fame in the late 1960's to his fireballing final years with the Texas Rangers.

Nolan Ryan was born in Refugio, Texas in 1947, one of six kids. He began playing amateur baseball at Alvin High School in the early 1960's. He was an immediate standout. In 1962, when Nolan was merely a sophomore in High School, a scout for the New York Mets saw him pitch and declared that Nolan had the best arm he'd ever seen. Nolan would go on to be drafted by the Mets in 1965.

Find my full length review at Unbalanced.Media, linked here.