Movie Review Scare Package 2: Rad Chad's Revenge

Scare Package 2: Rad Chad's Revenge 

Directed by Aaron B. Koontz

Written by Anthology 

Starring Zoe Graham, Jeremy King, Rich Sommer, Shakira Ja'nai Paye

Release Date December 22nd, 2022

Scare Package 2: Rad Chad's Revenge is an anthology horror comedy that takes the framing device of a Saw movie and uses it as a hanger for a series of short films deconstructing horror tropes. Overseen by director Aaron B. Koontz, it's a chaotic package of hits and misses, good ideas and bad ideas, and, most importantly, wildly inventive strangeness. There is a particular charm to the low budget aesthetic, one that painstakingly recalls 80s horror movies, and Saw, of course, and that charm worked on me, for the most part. 

A group of friends has gathered for the funeral of the late, great Rad Chad (Jeremy Buckley), horror movie lover and video store owner. Chad died from having a demon nearly explode his face with a punch. His funeral is attended by the 'Final Girl' of the original Scare Package, Jessie (Zoe Graham), her new girlfriend, Kimmie (Shakira Ja'Nai Paye), and Jessie's mother (Kelly Maroney), and several other faces familiar from the previous Scare Package film. 

In the midst of the mourning of Rad Chad, the guests find themselves incapacitated by gas and kidnapped. Trapped in some eerie basement, the group finds out via exposition video tape that they are to be part of Rad Chad's game of death. Much like a Saw movie trap, they've all been poisoned and must look for clues, escape room style to find the cure. But first, the must watch a short horror movie which may or may not contain clues for their survival. 

Click here for my review at Horror.Media 

Movie Review Women Talking

Women Talking (2022) 

Directed by Sarah Polley 

Written by Sarah Polley 

Starring Jessie Buckley, Claire Foy, Frances McDormand, Rooney Mara, Ben Whishaw 

Release Date December 23rd, 2022 

Published December 22nd, 2022

Women Talking is directed by Sarah Polley with a script Polley adapted from a book by Marion Toews. The story is set inside a cloistered Mennonite community in 2010. After having endured sexual and physical abuse from the men in their colony for years, the newest assault has the women of the community questioning what to do to stop this from happening again. 8 women are assigned the task of determining what must be done, either staying and fighting the men or leaving and never returning, risking what they've been raised to believe would be God's wrath, eternal damnation. 

Regardless of the risks involved, a decision must be made and over the course of Women Talking we here the reasoning behind what must be done, staying and fighting or leaving. Each comes with its own peril. Fighting the men is going to be violent and result in grave harm or perhaps death. Leaving meanwhile, risks losing a place in the kingdom of heaven plus the fact that the women have no idea where they will go if they leave. 

That last bit is critical but you have to think about it for yourself. A less talked about aspect of abuse is economic or circumstantial abuse. This is abuse that occurs when one partner renders another partner helpless via their circumstances, physical, financial, et cetera. Essentially, because these women are cut off from the outside world, cut off from resources, they are left with no choice but to rely on their male partners. Leaving is a possibility but it comes with a grave uncertainty as to where to go and what will happen next. 

Add to that fact that these are women with small children or elderly women who've spent their whole lives in this community and it dawns on you just how massive this decision these women are making truly is. The competing emotions of anger, resentment, fear, uncertainty, the desire to be free of abuse and the years of indoctrinated servitude, these women are doing far more than just talking, they are facing a monolithic challenge. 

Among the eight women chosen to make this impossible decision are Ona (Rooney Mara), a rape survivor who became pregnant from her assault. Salome (Claire Foy), also a recent survivor who is eager to stay and fight. Mariche, a mother of several children who has suffered repeated abuse from her husband. Mariche wants to stay and cope with the problems though her coping seems to involve changing absolutely nothing about their circumstances. 

Click here for my full length review at Viva.Media 

Movie Review The Old Town Girls

The Old Town Girls (2022) 

Directed by Shen Yu 

Written by Yujie Qiu, Shen Yu 

Starring Regina Wan, Li Gengxi, Jue Hwang

Release Date December 23rd, 2022 

Published December 22nd, 2022 

The Old Town Girls begins in a disjointed note. Co-writer and Director Shen Yu throws you immediately into chaos. Three adults are searching for two missing teenage daughters. One insists that they need to find the supposed kidnappers of their daughters to deliver a large ransom. One of the father's decides that waiting around isn't worth it and decides they should go to the police. At the police station with the intent of filing a missing persons report. That's when everything breaks down and suddenly we are thrown back in time. 

With little in the way of context clues we must determine that we are now a few weeks in the past, prior to the events of the opening scene. The two young women who are missing in the opening scene, presumed kidnapped, are High Schoolers and loosely they are friends. Shu Qing (Li Gengxi) is a desperately shy young woman, an outcast both at school and at home. In a heartbreaking scene, we watch as she arrives to her modest home only to be told by her step-mother that she needs to stay out while grandparents are there. Shu Qing is not there granddaughter and they don't want to dine with a stranger. Ouch. 

Click here for my full length review at Geeks.media 

Movie Review All the Beauty and the Bloodshed

All the Beauty and the Bloodshed (2022) 

Directed by Laura Poitras 

Written by Documentary 

Starring Nan Goldin 

Release Date November 23rd, 2022 

Published December 21st, 2022 

All the Beauty and the Bloodshed is a powerful and haunting exploration of the work and life of a remarkable artist. The bold and brilliant Nan Goldin made her first impact on art culture in the 1980s with her sensational art piece, A Ballad of Sexual Dependency. That multimedia experience included explicit and deeply personal photographs depicting the many relationships in Goldin's circle, including brutally honest explorations of her own relationship. Though some told Nan Goldin that photographers don't photograph themselves or their own lives, she defied them and became a cult legend. 

Defiance is a strong quality in Nan Goldin. Defying conventional, suburban expectations of her life was a hallmark of Goldin's childhood. Following the all too early death of her older sister, Nan Goldin defied her parents by continuing to ask questions about why her sister died so young. And, later in Goldin's life, she became defiant of the corporate art world by leading a protest against one of the corporations that funded many of the biggest and most well-known museums around the world. 

The owners of Purdue Pharma, the Sackler Family, donated millions to museums around the world, including ones that were home to the work of Nan Goldin. Goldin however, never afraid to bite the hand that supposedly fed her, started a protest movement aimed specifically at getting the Sackler family name off of the walls of world of art. Why? Because Nan Goldin was a rare survivor of the opioid crisis, one who came out the other side of her addiction with her voice intact. 

Thousands of people have died from overdose and illness related to the Sackler family's pharmaceutical products, Oxycontin and Fentanyl. Over the years, the callous and cold-hearted statements made by the Sackler family regarding their deadly products have come to light and Nan Goldin uses those statements as part of her art and protest movement called "PAIN." PAIN targeted what they call 'Toxic Philanthropy,' essentially the uber-rich who use philanthropy to cover up for their unethical, immoral and or illegal business practices. 

Find my full length review at Geeks.Media 

Movie Review Stars at Noon

Stars at Noon (2022) 

Directed by Claire Denis

Written by Claire Denis, Lea Mysius, Andrew Litvack 

Starring Margaret Qualley, Joe Alwyn, Benny Safdie 

Release Date October 14th, 2022 

Published ? 

In the hands of any other director, Stars at Noon would be a taught, fraught, political-spy thriller filled with car chases, action, and excitement. In the hands of Claire Denis however, Stars at Noon is languid, sexy, dripping with sweat, and far from anything you would expect from  spy thriller. The film stars Margaret Qualley as a wannabe journalist caught up in the political unrest of Central America. Joe Alwyn co-stars as the ostensible spy in this spy story, an Englishman caught between American and Central American interests. 

The film begins with our protagonist referred to only as Journalist. We eventually hear her called Ms. Johnson but that's merely an indication of Denis' disinterest such mundane matters as peoples names. Identity is less important than getting to what is more interesting to Claire Denis, the politics of sex, the sexual marketplace, and the place her female characters occupy in that odd marketplace. In this case, Qualley's journalist has been placed in a unique position. 

After having written an article critical of the regime in charge, the Journalist has had her passport taken away and her journalistic credentials revoked. This places her at the whim of men who might be able to help her in exchange for her body. That's the case with a local official who took her passport and broke her phone and still demands sex from her. That would be the case for another high ranking official were he not impotent, though his willingness to help her is now waning. 

The journalist's relationship to the English spy also begins in a transactional fashion. The pair meet at a hotel bar. The spy mistakes the journalist for a sex worker and, being desperate for American currency, she doesn't disabuse him of this notion. She needs money to try and get back to the United States, a task that gets ever more difficult as the story progresses. The hook up with the spy initially seems like a one off but when she finds herself in even deeper trouble she seeks him out again only to find that he may be in even more trouble than she is. 

My telling of the plot is actually more concise than Denis' presentation. For Denis, the book on which this script is based is a hanger from which she can explore other ideas, visual and sexual ideas, power dynamics, and other things that capture her fleeting interests. Yes, there is ostensibly a thriller plot unfolding with our protagonists attempting to flee from the corrupt elements of government attempting to arrest the spy. 

Find my full length review at Geeks.Media 

Movie Review Corsage

Corsage (2022) 

Directed by Marie Kreutzer 

Written by Marie Kreutzer 

Starring Vicky Krieps, Florian Teichtmeister, Katharina Lorenz 

Release Date December 23rd, 2022 

Published December 20th, 2022 

Corsage stars Vicky Krieps as Empress Elisabeth of Austria. Obsessed with her looks and dismissive of royal duties, Empress Elisabeth cuts a strangely bad ass figure in Corsage. She's not quite punk rock but she's in the rebellious metaphorical realm. She was a Queen but, according to this movie, one who chafed hard against the crown her entire life. She was a devoted mother whose motherhood was taken from her by royal decree as she became disengaged from her children who were essentially brainwashed by royal formality with only a little of their mother's true spirit mixed in. 

We meet Empress Elisabeth as she is doing her royal duty. This means being trussed up in the tightest corset possible in order to meet a public obsessed with her weight, her looks, and her outfits. We watch with mouths agape as catty fellow royals and richies snarkily comment on her appearance in the most passive aggressive fashion before she steals back a modicum of self worth by faking her way out of the needless, thankless task of glad-handing. 

 Faking a fainting spell, Empress Elisabeth returns home to the comfort of her gaggle of servants, stylists and sycophantic family members. Most prominent in her circle are Elisabeth's closest friend, Countess Marie Festetics (Katharina Lorenz), Lady in Waiting Ida Ferenczy (Jeanne Werner) and her hairdresser, Fanny (Alma Hasun). With these women and her private servants, Elisabeth expresses her loathing of her royal duties and the various ways she subverts her station. 

Corsage unfolds as series of set pieces that give us a glimpse of Elisabeth's agonizing chafing against her station and the few desires she is able to indulge. One specific indulgence is a male friend whom she desires but is more than likely... not her type. Then there is another potential lover, George "Bay" Middleton, the Queen's favorite horse trainer. The two have remarkable chemistry but Bay seems to recognize how dangerous an affair with Elisabeth may be while she obliviously flirts and pouts. 

Drama surrounding Elisabeth's children involves the shifting allegiances of her son Rudolf. At once Rudolf warns his mother about indulging her flirtation with Middleton and then he turns around and becomes her biggest supporter, as he also launches a bit of a scandal with his rumored affair. Elisabeth's youngest daughter repeatedly antagonizes her mother over her improprieties in a subplot that doesn't really go anywhere but going nowhere is kind of the heart of Corsage. 

Writer-Director Marie Kreutzer is a skilled storyteller with a knack for knowing where to linger and where to surprise the audience. A good example are the highly charged scenes between Elisabeth and her husband, Emperor Franz Joseph (Florian Teichtmeister). The marriage is fraught with various dramas from Elisabeth's desire to be involved in state affairs, to her unwillingness to participate in the boring rituals of royal life. Naturally, both struggle with fidelity even as Elisabeth does make attempts to connect with her husband. 

As mentioned earlier, vultures surrounding the royal family consistently made Elisabeth's looks into a topic for scandal and speculation. Corsage examines those issues by not examining them at all. Rather, Kreutzer's script and Vicky Krieps' performance bring these issues forward in how Elisabeth dressed and her remarkably extreme approach to weight loss. The title, Corsage refers to the original use of that word, which described what we came to call a corset, the bodice of a woman's dress. Elisabeth was obsessed with the corsage she wore, wearing it as tightly as possible, painfully tight. 

It was an expression of her anxiety over her weight and a message to those in her court who thought to criticize her appearance. By showing off her extremely small waist, she hoped to head off criticism of her appearance. Sadly, then many began to speculate that she was sickly and pale, or even dying due to her extreme vanity. She truly could not win. Elisabeth's diet is another extreme demonstrated in Corsage in a scene where her dinner consists of a thin slice of an orange. Not the whole orange sliced, one thin slice from an orange. 

Find my full length review at Geeks.Media. 

Horror of 2022

Let's rank the Horror Movies of 2022!

Rank	Item
1	Pearl
2	Nocturna Side A and Side B
3	We're All Going to the World's Fair
4	Godforsaken
5	Hatching
6	The Yellow Wallpaper
7	X
8	Men
9	Nope
10	Barbarian
11	Resurrection
12	Terrifier 2
13	Hellraiser
14	Orphan First Kill
15	Christmas Bloody Christmas
16	The Fireplace Adult Swim Yule Log Secret Movie
17	Studio 666
18	Kicking Blood
19	Fall
20	The Black Phone
21	All Jacked Up and Full of Worms
22	The Mean One
23	Violent Night
24	The Scary of 61st
25	Bodies Bodies Bodies
26	Children of Sin
27	Halloween Ends
28	The Invitation
29	Surrogate
30	Room 203
31	The Long Night
32	The Free Fall
33	The Legend of La Llorona
34	Rucker
35	The Curse of La Patasola
36	Texas Chainsaw Massacre

Movie Review Avatar The way of Water

Avatar The way of Water (2022) 

Directed by James Cameron 

Written by James Cameron, Rick Jaffa, Amanda Silver

Starring Sam Worthington, Stephen Lang, Sigourney Weaver, Kate Winslet, Zoe Saldana 

Release Date December 16th, 2022 

Published December 19th, 2022 

It's not that Avatar The Way of Water is a bad movie, far from it, this is an incredibly accomplished movie. I just don't care. I can't get emotionally invested in the Avatar franchise. James Cameron's obsession with replacing human actors with CG creations leaves me cold. Without a human face to connect to, I'm left adrift amid the spectacle of Avatar The Way of Water. I can appreciate the technical accomplishment but I can't enjoy Avatar The Way of Water the way I have enjoyed so many more worthy, thoughtful. human movies such as Aftersun or Everything Everywhere All at Once, or even Women Talking, a movie that is more poignant than enjoyable but you get what I am saying. 

Where Avatar is a massive technical achievement, it's not a great movie. It's a machine tooled product and no matter how well made that product is, it's inert, it is as compelling as a really great looking appliance. I appreciate the beauty of a streamlined refrigerator with a neat LED readout and connection to my smartphone, but it's not something I am going to think about much beyond my purchase of it. Eventually, it recedes into the scenery, leaving no lasting memory. That's Avatar the Way of Water in a nutshell. 

Avatar The Way of Water is set nearly 20 decades after the first film. The story finds the Sully family, headed up by former human turned Na'vi leader, Jake Sully thriving in their forest home until the 'sky people' return. The sky people have come back to Pandora not to retrieve more 'unobtainium' but rather to conquer Pandora and make it the new Earth. That's the background story anyway, the main story involves reviving the late Col. Miles Quaritch (Stephen Lang), by placing his memories into a Na'vi Avatar and sending him to kill the biggest threat to humanity's plan, Jake Sully. 

Thinking that he can protect the Na'vi best by leaving, Jake packs up his family, including his wife, Neytiri (Zoe Saldana), sons, Netayam (Jamie Flatters) and Lo'ak (Britain Dalton), and daughter Tuk (Trinity Jo-Li Bliss). Also joining the Sully's will be their adopted daughter, Kiri (Sigourney Weaver), the miracle child of the late Dr. Grace Augustine (Also Sigourney Weaver). The fewer questions asked about Kiri's origin story, the better, I'm pretty sure not even James Cameron could explain it. 

The Sully's run off to live with the water dwelling people of Pandora, led by Tonowari (Cliff Curtis) and his wife, Ronal (Kate Winslet). Here, the Sully's will learn to swim and to live off of the bounty of the ocean. They will be treated as outcasts while slowly earning their place in the tribe and blah, blah, blah. There is nothing new here, every inch of this portion of the movie is a trope from other fish out of water movies about new people in new situations. 

Find my full length review at Geeks.Media. 

Movie Review Nellie and Nadine

Nellie and Nadine (2022) 

Directed by Magnus Gertten 

Written by Documentary 

Starring Nadine Hwang, Nelly Mousset-Vos, Sylvia Bianchi 

Release Date December 16th, 2022 

Published December 16th, 2022 

The miracles that needed to occur to create the love story of Nadine Hwang and Nelly Mousset-Vos are incalculable. First, an Asian woman needed to find herself in Paris around the time of the start of World War 2. She needs to join the French resistance and be betrayed by a friend and sent to a concentration camp. At the same time, an Opera singer in Brussels has to also join the resistance and also be betrayed, after saving countless lives, and end up at that same concentration camp, Ravensbruck. 

They then must meet, fall in love, and survive the concentration camp. They end up being separated as they are being liberated from the camp with each settling back where they were, Nadine in France and Nelly in Brussels. They must exchange letters, and agree to meet and get back together, upending the lives of Nelly's family, including a teenage daughter, and they must move to Venezuela, a place where there was  community of LGBTQ people waiting for them. 

It's all entirely improbable but it happened. The new documentary, Nelly and Nadine from the remarkable documentary filmmaker, Magnus Gertten has brought this story to the world and in doing so he's rescued one remarkable piece of world history and a landmark love story in the history of LGBTQ people. It's astonishing, beautiful, heart-rending, and inspiring. That this isn't already an Oscar winning movie is shocking, it's something that has future Best Picture winner written all over it. 

For years, the documentation of this immaculate love story languished in an attic on the French countryside. Remember the teenage daughter I mentioned earlier, Nelly's daughter, she wasn't her mother's biggest fan. Thus, the family history wasn't merely uncelebrated, it went unmentioned. That woman's daughter, now grown and mother herself, Sylvie Bianchi, recalls knowing and loving her grandmother Nelly, visiting her home in Venezuela, but Nadine was only known as grandma Nelly's roommate. 

Little did Sylvie know, that after her grandmother passed and her things were brought back to Belgium, there was an entire lifetime of history sitting in a box that was deemed to emotionally painful to open up and examine. So, how did this story finally find the light? That's where the amazing Magnus Gertten comes in. While working on a project to identify women in some super 8 footage he'd found of women liberated from concentration camps, he stumbled over Nelly and Nadine, at first unaware that they were connected. 

Find my complete review at Pride.Media 

Movie Review Babylon

Babylon (2022) 

Directed by Damian Chazelle 

Written by Damian Chazelle 

Starring Margot Robbe, Brad Pitt, 

Release Date December 25th, 2022 

Published December 12th, 2022 

Babylon is an outright disaster. From minute one to minute last, this careening, gross, nightmare of Hollywood decadence never finds its feet. The point, I assume. is for the movie to be dizzying and disorienting, but it's a little too effective at evoking that feeling. It's nice to be on wild ride but Babylon rarely relents to let you catch your breath. That might be okay if we were more invested in the characters caught up in this tornado of activity but these characters are too thin and stock for us to cling to them amid the storm. 

Babylon stars Margot Robbe as Nellie LaRoy, an ambitious young actress, eager to be the biggest star in the world while also being the biggest personality in every room. We meet Nellie at a party where she comes bursting in, in search of cocaine. Nellie finds what she's looking for with the aid of Manny Torres (Diego Calva), an assistant to the Hollywood heavyweight who is throwing this massive party. The party happens to have an entire room full of cocaine which Nellie gobbles up quickly and with abandon. 

Urging Manny to abandon his job, tending to the party guests, Nellie gets him enjoying the cocaine as well and the two develop a quick friendship, though it's clear that Manny is smitten. Circumstances part the new friends as the wild party finds a woman dying from an overdose that requires Manny to move her body, and a large elephant whose appearance gives cover to the body being smuggled out the back door of the expansive party. 

The dead girl is fortuitous for Nellie as the young woman was supposed to play a big role in a movie the following day. Nellie is spotted at the party and tapped to take the dead girl's place. Working on no sleep, running on pure adrenalin and cocaine, Nellie nails the part with her incredible talent for crying on command. This is a silent movie breakthrough for Nellie as the camera clearly loves her while the lack of lines needing to be memorized or performed, means her deep New Jersey accent is covered up. 

Meanwhile, Manny is tasked with tending to the needs of Hollywood's top leading man, Jack Conrad (Brad Pitt). After driving the drunken Conrad home, and watching him nearly die in a pool accident, Manny is invited to help Conrad get to the set of his newest blockbuster that same day. This means maybe an hour of sleep before a 16 hour day on set. Even with the exhaustion, the stars in Manny's eyes drive him to become essential to the finishing of the picture. 

It's Manny who gets the task or renting a new camera after several other cameras were destroyed in the midst of the epic filming of fight scenes involving Roman soldiers. Manny saves the day and his career as a Hollywood Producer, Director, and all around go-to guy begins. Naturally, this will bring him back into the orbit of Nellie though it appears that any romance between the two just isn't in the cards. Manny and Nellie appear to be star-crossed for life. 

The middle portion of the three hour car wreck that is Babylon, deals with the arrival of the talking picture in Hollywood. Nellie and Jack's careers are devastated by sound. For Nellie, having to memorize lines, being unable to move around under the strictures of a new sounds set up, and her New Jersey accent, stunt her career just as she was becoming a big star. Jack meanwhile, doesn't know how to project his star power with his voice. Suddenly, the period piece romances that had been his bread and butter, seem silly with his modern American accent. 

Manny, on the other hand, appears to thrive. He becomes a big deal at the studio where he works. He's a director and a producer and he oversees several film projects at once. Among his best work is making a star of a little known trumpet player. Sidney Palmer (Jovan Adepo) was seen at the party where the film opened and from there was hired to score some silent films. With Manny in charge, and sound pictures becoming a massive hit, Sidney becomes a superstar on the big screen, though not without some compromises that he's not all that comfortable with. 

Manny's fortunes turn on his attempts to save Nellie's career. As her career flounders, Nellie tries and fails to get clean, getting off cocaine and alcohol, but she's quickly sucked back into her addictions as she struggles in the sound era. Her career is officially flushed following an incident at the home of William Randolph Hearst where Nellie clashes with Hearst's mistress, Marion Davies, and refuses to allow the famed newspaper magnate to grope her. How this scene ends is weird and gross, and a strong referendum as to whether you are willing to buy in on director Damian Chazelle's odd vision of Babylon. 

For me, I was out of Babylon just minutes into the start of the movie. One of the first things to happen in Babylon is an elephant pooping in epic fashion all over a poor day laborer. The metaphor is clear, the little people in Hollywood, the ones who make life possible for the rich, famous and powerful, are getting pooped on. In this case, that's not just a metaphor. A few short scenes later we're forced to confront a man with a fetish for being urinated on. And to make sure we cover all of our grossest bases, the Hearst mansion scene ends with vomiting that would make Mr. Creosote blush. 

Find my full length review at Geeks.Media. 

Movie Review The Almond and the Seahorse

The Almond and the Seahorse (2022) 

Directed by Celyn Jones, Tom Stern

Written by Celyn Jones, Kaite O'Reilly

Starring Rebel Wilson, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Celyn Jones, Tryne Dyrholm 

Release Date December 16th, 2022 

Published December 15th, 2022 

The Almond and the Seahorse stars Rebel Wilson in a rare dramatic role. Wilson is Sarah, an archaeologist who is married to Joe (Celyn), a gregarious house husband. At least, that's what you assume if you don't know what The Almond and the Seahorse is really about. You see, Joe isn't merely unemployed, he's not staying home by choice. Joe had a brain tumor that has caused irreparable damage to his memory which slips away more and more as each day passes. 

Sarah has tried to care for Joe using medication and list-making, and tapes that remind him of who he is and why he can't leave home or what might happen if he left home unsupervised. Eventually however, Sarah will be forced to admit that she can no longer care for Joe on her own. Joe is going to have to go to a facility that can care for him as his memory continues to deteriorate. Sarah thus is dealing with losing Joe both emotionally and physically as he forgets who she is and is no longer under her care. 

Running concurrent to Sarah and Joe's story is that of Toni (Charlotte Gainsbourg) and Gwen (Tryne Dyrholm), a long term couple who have lived with Gwen's traumatic brain injury from a car accident for more than 15 years. Recently, Gwen has begun to no longer recognize Toni who has begun to show her age. For Gwen, she's not left the day of their accident and thus Toni has slowly become a stranger to her as she no longer recognizes her as her wife. 

Like Joe, Gwen has reached a point in her growing memory loss that she can no longer live at home. She's become a danger to herself who wakes up in the morning thinking a stranger is in her bed. Gwen and Joe will each be living at a hospital facility overseen by Dr. Falmer (Meera Syal), a loving and thoughtful woman who does nearly as much to help Sarah and Toni as she does for Joe and Gwen. The people left behind in the wake of those losing their memories are suffering nearly as much and need nearly as much care. 

The title, The Almond and the Seahorse, is a reference to the shapes that make up the parts of the brain that retain memory. Beyond that, the title reflects the strange and jarring storytelling, seemingly disconnected moments that seem like reality but have an uncanny quality because one person in the scene sees reality a little differently than another character. Joe, for one, thinks Sarah is the one who is having delusions and acting strangely. He doesn't remember his tumor or recognize that he's changed in any way since the tumor was removed. 

Gwen, more frighteningly, wakes up each morning screaming for her wife and unable to recognize that Toni is standing in front of her. Imagine what that must be like, waking in fear every morning and taking most of the day to recover from that. Each day becomes more of a struggle for Toni to reach her wife, calm her, soothe her, and then losing her all over again by the end of the day. It's heartbreaking to imagine and Charlotte Gainsbourg and Tryne Dyrholm bring that heartbreak to devastating light in The Almond and the Seahorse. 

If the film isn't fully successful it's because there is a rather rote quality to the drama. A sort of surface level presentation of the material that limits your emotional involvement. So much of the film is obsessed with the upturning of day to day routine for these two couples that the film fails to build out beyond the surface to illustrate the full breadth of what has been lost here. We empathize with these characters but only on a basic level. Our empathy is limited by not getting to know these characters as the movie focuses the showier parts of their story, the dramatic loss of memory and the bigger emotional displays that come with that. 

There is a focus, unfortunately, in The Almond and the Seahorse, on the more showy, actorly aspects of memory loss in these movie characters. Celyn Jones especially, in his role in front of and behind the camera, favors Joe's broader expressions of his memory loss. We get little grounding in who Joe was and what we are left with is the struggle as expressed in the broad enacting of trauma and the growing emptiness behind Joe's eyes. Jones is a fine actor but, I needed more than his big performance to connect me to this character beyond a basic sense of empathy. 

As for Rebel Wilson, in her first major dramatic leading role, she's overmatched here. Stripped of her sense of humor, Wilson seems not to know what to do with herself in any given scene. I'm thinking specifically of a scene in a library where she's left the ringer on her phone on and it continuously interrupts the quiet of the library. The scene is pointless, it has no purpose. It's the kind of scene in any other Rebel Wilson movie where she would do some kind of bit, a physical or verbal gag. Since however, this is a drama and not a Pitch Perfect movie, Wilson is left to being awkwardly apologetic. Why did this scene exist? 

Click here for my full length review at Geeks.Media 

Movie Review Aftersun

Aftersun (2022) 

Directed by Charlotte Wells 

Written by Charlotte Wells 

Starring Paul Mescal, Frankie Corio, Celia Rowlson-Hall 

Release Date October 21st, 2022 

Published December 14th, 2022 

Aftersun is a quiet and thoughtful meditation on the struggles of growing up as both a child and a young parent. Paul Mescal stars in the film as Calum Paterson, the father of Sophie (Frankie Corio), a precocious young woman. Together, father and daughter are taking a holiday in Turkey, some time in the late 90s. It's unclear why Dad chose this location or whether he could even afford such a vacation, his work back home in England seems unstable, at best, based on a few snatches of dialogue throughout the film. 

First time director Charlotte Wells takes a fly on the wall approach to Aftersun which gives the storytelling a strongly authentic feel. Father and daughter talk but the drama of the story is in what is not said. It comes from the moments when Calum, clearly struggling with his mental health, likely depression, does everything he can not to let on to his daughter that something is wrong. He already feels guilty for not being around more, he and Sophie's mother have split up, and he's struggling with being young and not knowing how to be a father. 

The film story evolves through a series of set pieces, seemingly mundane moments of father-daughter bonding. Swimming, sun tanning, dinners, video games, even a little pool hustling, dad and daughter have an unconventional relationship. Calum is a loving father, he takes his fatherly authority seriously but he's also young, inexperienced, and rather clueless about how to be a dad to a growing young woman. He's filled with love but also fear, confusion, and mild ambivalence. He's fighting internally over whether Sophie could be happier without him. 

What happens with Calum is a bit of a mystery. We know that this vacation occurred in the pre-internet past. No cell phones or email. We know, from flash forwards to an older Sophie, played by Celia Rowlson-Hall, that Calum was, at the very least, absent from his daughter's life some time after this vacation. And we know from a series of brief dream sequences that there is antipathy between father and daughter though what that antipathy extends from, we don't know, we assume it comes from his absence. 

Charlotte Wells is deliberately vague about Calum's motivations and what his intentions are after having spent this week on vacation with his daughter. The temptation is to assume that he may have committed suicide but there is no direct indication that this is what occurred. Aftersun subtly and brilliantly leaves bread crumbs that could lead in that direction but the movie isn't about setting you up for a big gut punch, this is an observant human drama where you will have to discern for yourself what the outcome may be. 

Aftersun is a gorgeous film, the locations are lovely but also fitting of a man who can't afford luxury but appears to be spending all that he has for what luxury he can get. The father-daughter dynamic is lovely with Frankie Corio delivering a charming performance, never too precocious, never beyond her years. She's observant, and she does act as an audience avatar, trying hard to understand her loving yet inscrutable father, but she's mostly just a kid who loves her dad. 

Click here for my full length review at Geeks.Media. 

Documentary Review Call Me Miss Cleo

Call Me Miss Cleo (2022) 

Directed by Jennifer Brea, Celia Aniskovich

Written by Documentary

Starring Miss Cleo 

Release Date December 15th, 2022 (HBO Max) 

Published December 14th, 2022 

Call Me Miss Cleo is high level cringe. This is a rare documentary where the filmmakers and the subjects appear equally delusional about the subject they are discussing. In this case, the subject is late former fake TV psychic, Miss Cleo, real name Youree Dell Harris. In the 1990s, Harris invented the character of Miss Cleo while working as a playwright and performer in Los Angeles at the Langston Hughes Theater. Then, she left for Florida where the character of Miss Cleo became a full on persona that Harris adopted and claimed was real. 

Picked up by a pair of con artists operating a fake psychic hotline, Miss Cleo jumped off the screen. She was a charismatic pitch woman whose staged phone calls which involved her seeming to read the minds of callers and giving them important information and advice, became not merely a local sensation, she was quickly a nationwide phenomenon. Late night television become Miss Cleo's home and her broad, FAKE Jamaican accent cut through the detritus of her infomercial competition to garner a loyal following. 

Behind the scenes, Miss Cleo would remain in character at all times despite rarely, if ever, taking a live call from one of the millions of desperate people who called her psychic hotline. Instead of Miss Cleo, callers to the Psychic Readers Network would end up talking to an underpaid, completely unlicensed, part time worker whose job it was to keep people on the phone for 5 minutes, regardless of what the person was calling about it. 

In the strongest portion of Call Me Miss Cleo, the documentary brings forward the people who answered calls to the Psychic Readers Network who express regret over their role in bilking desperate people looking for Miss Cleo's sage, Jamaican Shaman, view of their future. Most people who called were desperate, sad, lonely individuals who could not afford these calls but hoped against hope that a look into their future might solve their problems. People who likely needed real help from mental health professionals were instead consoled and lied to by part time employees pretending to be avatars of a fake Jamaican Shaman and Psychic. 

Then, as quickly as Miss Cleo became a cultural phenomenon, she was gone. Lawsuits filed against the con artists who employed Miss Cleo and the part time fake psychics on the 800 number she shilled for, led to the end of the Psychic Readers Network. As for Miss Cleo, she managed to escape the lawsuit. Legal documentation exists that legally defines Miss Cleo as little more than a mascot for the 800 number, a pitch woman and actress hired to perpetuate a brand. And yet, Miss Cleo never stopped living as Miss Cleo, Jamaican accented psychic. 

Here is where the documentary, Call Me Miss Cleo, takes a turn into cringe territory. Interviews with friends of Miss Cleo work very hard to rehab her image from con artist to beloved and supportive friend and real psychic. Miss Cleo's closest friends maintain to this day, several years after Cleo herself passed away at the relatively young age of 54, that she was an actual psychic. Cleo lived the gimmick to the end and found a circle of friends who enabled her to live this lie to the last days of her life. 

The presentation of these interviews with Miss Cleo's friends contains a strong indication that the filmmakers are joining in an effort to rehabilitate Miss Cleo's reputation. The final act of Call Me Miss Cleo is a loving appreciation of Miss Cleo, her coming out as Gay, and her support of the LGBTQ community. These are wonderful things and they should be embraced and celebrated but while the documentary does that, we also lose the perspective that this was a delusional person who pretended to be Jamaican psychic until the day she died. 

Making things extra cringe, is how Miss Cleo's circle of friends is entirely made up of white people. I don't feel I can say this with the kind of authority that a black critic could, but it needs to be said. The final act portrays Miss Cleo's circle as having their very own 'Magical Negro' in real life. Miss Cleo pretended to be a sage Jamaican psychic and her friends all accepted and furthered that delusion. The documentary doesn't portray this as strange or wrong, but rather as kind of wholesome and perfectly normal. 

I feel like the documentary should be slightly critical about this fact. Perhaps the question should be asked as to why this group of people felt it was appropriate to further this woman's delusion. These people appear to genuinely care about Miss Cleo but that doesn't make this situation normal. Really nothing about this is normal. Miss Cleo created a reputation that was built upon stealing from poor desperate people and finished her life not ashamed or repentant, but instead remaining in character, alleviating her guilt by keeping up the lie in every moment of her life. 

Click here for my full length review at Geeks.Media. 

Movie Review: One Fine Morning

One Fine Morning (2022) 

Directed by Mia Hansen Love 

Written by Mia Hansen Love 

Starring Lea Seydoux, Pascal Gregory, Melvil Poupaud, Nicole Garcia 

Release Date December 9th, 2022 

Published December 13th, 2022 

One Fine Morning stars Lea Seydoux as Sandra, a lonely, French, single mom. Sandra's days center on her lovely daughter and visiting her ailing father, Georg. Sandra's father is slowly slipping away following a stroke. He can no longer care for himself and much of the movie is about him being shuffled from one care center to another as Sandra, her sister, and her mother, try to find a place that will take good care of Georg in his final years.

Sandra's story shifts when she runs into an old friend at the park with her daughter. Clement (Melvil Poupaud), was a friend of Sandra's late husband. The two always had chemistry but she was married and so was he. He still is married but that doesn't stop him from openly flirting with Sandra. For her part, Sandra welcomes the flirting and more. Despite some reservations, Sandra welcomes Clement to her bed and the two begin a fraught affair. 

Meanwhile, Sandra is helping to pack up the life of her father. The once great man, a professor of literature, defined by the books he loved, can no longer remember the stories that made him who he was. In a lovely monologue, Sandra explains to her young daughter why her grandfather's books meant so much to him. It's one of the most emotional and lovely moments in any film in 2022. I can't do it justice by trying to repeat it, just see this movies. 

One Fine Morning is not the kind of movie that lingers on scenes, it's a movie that lingers in feeling. Director Mia Hansen Love crafts an emotional world and the movie lives in these feelings, this airy, open, often raw, emotional spaces. The story may appear stagnant to the impatient observer, but Hansen-Love and her cast are slowly carrying you along on an emotional wave, one that doesn't crash so much as it crests lovingly, caressing the beaches of bigger meanings and emotional truth. 

Find my complete review at Geeks.Media. 

Movie Review Spoiler Alert

Spoiler Alert (2022) 

Directed by Michael Showalter 

Written by Michael Showalter

Starring Jim Parsons, Ben Aldridge, Sally Field, Bill Irwin 

Release Date December 9th, 2022 

Published December 12th, 2022 

Spoiler Alert stars former Big Bang Theory star Jim Parsons as television critic Michael Ausiello. Michael lives for TV having grown up in a broken home and watching daytime soap operas with his mother. As we join Michael's story, it's 2004, and Michael is deeply neurotic, laden with anxiety and insecurities, and generally working endless hours to avoid life. Then, a friend drags him out to a bar for a night out. As Michael very unnaturally wears a Yankees cap, it's jock night at the bar, he manages to lock eyes with Kit (Ben Aldridge), and sparks fly. 

Initially, it's just a hook up, Kit claims to prefer the occasional fling. However, both men start to catch feelings rather quickly and a romance begins to bloom. The only thing standing in their way are their equally formidable emotional hurdles. For Michael, this includes a host of things he must talk to a therapist about. As for Kit, he has not told his parents, Marilyn and Bob (Sally Field and Bill Irwin), that he's gay. Michael's mom is... a lot, and telling her could be an ordeal. 

Another obstacle is Michael's crippling addiction to the cartoon The Smurfs. In a very funny early subplot, Michael comes up with absurd reasons to keep from having Kit over to his apartment. This is because Michael has one of the foremost collections of Smurfs memorabilia on the East Coast and he's rightfully concerned that Kit might find this fetish for little blue people off-putting. It's actually a kind of perfect test for their relationship. If Kit can accept Michael at his most Smurf-y, he can accept him for anything. 

The lovely romantic comedy portion of Spoiler Alert lasts longer than you might expect. That's because anyone who has read Michael Ausiello's best seller, Spoiler Alert: The Hero Dies at the End, knows that Kit develops cancer and the rest of the story is about Michael and Kit repairing their troubled romance just as Kit is dealing with stage four rectal cancer. So many movies don't know what do when the outcome is already so well known, there is a tendency for movies like this to spin their wheels. Spoiler Alert, thankfully, is carried by a wonderful cast and a quirky sense of romance and humor. 

Jim Parsons is working hard to escape the shadow of his beloved TV persona, Sheldon Cooper from The Big Bang Theory. Roles such as this are a very strong step in the right direction. Though similar to Sheldon in that Michael is a big bag of tics and untended neuroses, it's a much less mannered and far more human performance in Spoiler Alert. Parsons is working a lot of actorly muscles that he never trained on his hit sitcom, reaching moments of genuine romance, sexuality, and humor that his television persona was built without. 

That Parsons never misses a beat in Spoiler Alert is a testament to the actorly range we are only now experiencing following his twelve seasons on a hit TV series. His romance with Ben Aldridge's Kit is wonderfully realized. The two men have a strong romantic chemistry that is true to both of their hang ups and anxieties while fostering their connection wit honesty, romance and intimacy. I adored this couple and the ups and downs of their too short romance, cut short by tragedy, are deeply endearing. 

Click here for my full length review at Geeks.Media 

Movie Review The Adult Swim Yule Log

The Fireplace (2022) 

Directed by Casper Kelly

Written by Casper Kelly 

Starring Andrea Laing, Justin Miles 

Release Date December 11th, 2022, on Adult Swim, Debut on HBO Max December 12th, 2022 

Published December 12th, 2022 

Cartoon Network's Adult Swim has become a hub of alternative comedy for more than a decade. The Adult Swim brand has brought such weird and ambitious projects as The Greatest Event in Television History, where big stars re-enacted the opening theme songs of 80s TV series, and most famously the viral sensation, Too Many Cooks. That massive hit arrived on Adult Swim seemingly at random late one weekend and by the following day was an internet sensation. 

Now, Adult Swim is set for another viral triumph that seemed to have come out of nowhere. Once again teaming with the man behind Too Many Cooks, writer and director Casper Kelly, Adult Swim debuted their annual Yule Log presentation immediately following the season six finale of the hit cartoon series Rick and Morty. But this was no mere Yule Log. Instead, what starts as a warm and welcoming fire in a lovely fireplace begins to morph into a horror movie. 

After just a few minutes of a typical static shot of Yule Log, a voice can be heard. A cleaning lady has entered the room and her cleaning brings her to walk in front of the Yule Log camera, though she remains mostly out of frame. She's carrying on an animated conversation about her night's work as we remain staring at the fire. Suddenly, as she changes to listening loudly to music on headphones, another figure enters the room, a hulking brute of a man followed by the voice of someone who seems to be this man's mother. 

The hulking brute brutally murders the cleaning lady. We only know this from her screams and the horrific sound design. The camera remains on the fireplace, and it appears the whole movie might stay in this static shot with the sound design and dialogue acting almost like a terrifying radio play. The scene ends with the arrival of a couple who is renting this cottage where the fireplace is located. The murderers quickly retreat, dragging the body of the cleaning lady into a nearby room, just as the couple enters, far too involved in their conversation to see if anything is out of place. Mother was cleaning as her son was committing his heinous murder. 

All of this happens with the camera pointed at the Yule Log. It's accomplished almost completely through sound design and the occasional sight of legs moving past the camera. Director Casper Kelly deftly and ingeniously uses the tools of filmmaking to craft the early horror here and it sets a brilliant tone for the rest of the movie which will capitalize on sound design and camera work throughout to create so much horror fun. 

After the opening sequence we meet our main characters, Andrea Lang and Justin Miles portray a married couple who have rented this cabin for the weekend. The reason the camera has been set up and is capturing the Yule Log is because Justin's job is as a Yule Log YouTuber. He does other stuff as well, but it is a fun reason for him to be capturing the action of the movie. He's filming the Yule Log but also wants film his proposal, he's asking Andrea to marry him. 

They are interrupted by the local sheriff who says there was a murder nearby. Of greater concern to the sheriff, however, is the Yule Log. It seems that Justin took the log from a sacred tree, a former hanging tree, and the tree may be cursed. Where this plot thread goes, I will leave you to discover. Writer-director Casper Kelly makes sure that the Yule Log has a very literal role to play in the brilliantly absurd and often genuinely scary events of this Yule Log presentation. 

Click here for my full length review at Horror.Media

Movie Review Christmas Bloody Christmas

Christmas Bloody Christmas (2022) 

Directed by Joe Begos

Written by Joe Begos 

Starring Riley Dandy, Sam Delich, Abraham Benrubi, Jonah Ray 

Release Date December 9th, 2022 

Published December 12th, 2022 

Christmas horror movies are really having a moment in 2022. Three high profile Christmas themed horror movies have been released to theaters in just the first two weeks of December. One of them is a high profile star affair, Violent Night, while another is an open ripoff of a famed children's franchise, The Mean One. The third Christmas themed horror of December 2022, however is by far the best of the trio. Christmas Bloody Christmas is a wildly over the top, high concept horror movie with high grade gore and sex to spare. 

Riley Dandy stars in Christmas Bloody Christmas as Tori Tooms, the ultimate cool chick. Tori owns a record store, loves heavy metal, and claims she can drink any man under the table. She's a manic pixie dream rock chick. I'm being sarcastic, but only a little. Riley Dandy is soooo good in this movie that she makes this dream girl into an awesome character. Did I absolutely go for this fantasy woman, yes, but only because Riley Dandy commits to the character so very deeply. 

It's Christmas Eve as our story begins and Tori is closing shop for the night on her killer retro record store. She's planning on hooking up with some guy on Tinder until her employee, Robbie (Sam Delich) convinces her to go out drinking with him instead. The banter between Tori and Robbie is charged, flirtatious, combative and quite funny. These two probably should not be hooking up under any circumstances, this would definitely be a mess the next day, but tonight, who knows. 

As the night kicks off, the pair drop by a toy store where two of their friends, a couple, Jay and Lahna (Jonah Ray and Dora Madison), are planning to have sex amid all the trappings of a toy store at Christmas. These many Christmas decorations include large amounts of fake snow, all the colored lights and stockings you would want and one creepy, animatronic Santa Claus. Unfortunately for all of these characters, this Santa does more than just repeat 'Merry Christmas.' 

In a backstory delivered by exposition TV News channel, we learn that these animatronic Santa's that have been delivered to toy stores across the country have been coming to life. It turns out, each was part of a failed experiment to create animatronic soldiers to be sent into violent conflicts. These unstoppable killing machines have, for some reason, been converted into Santa Claus robots and now, for unknown reasons, they've started to come to life and kill. 

That's the premise and from there unfolds a standard slasher film with Santa seeking and destroying anyone who gets his attention. Naturally, this includes our hero, Tori, and Robbie and whether or not they can survive Santa is the crux of the story. Naturally, this will include an inept response from local small town cops and no shortage of failed attempts to kill Santa followed by Santa making an improbable and terrifying comeback. 

Click here for my full length review at Geeks.Media. 

Classic Movie Review I'm No Angel

I'm No Angel (1933) 

Directed by Wesley Ruggles 

Written by Mae West, Harlan Thompson, Lowell Brentano 

Starring Mae West, Cary Grant, Gregory Ratoff 

Release Date October 6th, 1933 

Published December 12th. 2022 

I'm in love. Somehow, I had managed to spend my time as a film critic missing out on the career of Mae West. I was always aware of her, I had seen clips from her films, and I'd heard her famous quotes, but I'd never watched one of her movies until now. The latest presentation of The Film Foundation is Mae West's 1933 romantic comedy, I'm No Angel. One of the earliest films in the career of the legendary Cary Grant, I'm No Angel is a breezy, delightful comedy of music, sex, and unending wit. 

Mae West stars in I'm No Angel as circus performer Tira. Though her act mainly consists of a sexy song and a boyfriend in the crowd lifting wallets, Tira nevertheless is a star. When her boyfriend gets in trouble with the cops, Tira is implicated and is forced to agree to become a lion tamer. She even goes so far as agreeing to put her beautiful head inside a lion's mouth in exchange for the circus manager, Big Bill Barton (Edward Arnold), paying for her lawyer/ 

The lion tamer act is a huge hit and takes her to New York City. There she becomes a sensation and earns the attention of several rich and prominent men. One of those men is Jack Clayton (Cary Grant), who becomes so smitten that it appears they are headed down the aisle. The marriage, however, causes Tira to give up the lion tamer act, angering Big Bill. Big Bill instructs Tira's ex, Slick Wiley (Ralf Harold) to ruin the marriage plan. He succeeds in running off Jack, but that's not the end of the story. 

Rather than go away quietly, Tira instructs her lawyer, Benny Pinkowitz (Gregory Ratoff), to sue Jack for Breach of Promise. This leads to a court scene that is a wonderfully comic set piece. Here West's Tira takes over the cross examination of witnesses questioning her character and typical of her wit, she bowls them over with her charm. As Tira delights the jury, the movie breezes along toward a wonderfully satisfying conclusion. 

I'm no Angel was directed by Wesly Ruggles but much of the movie has been credited to West in the years since. West has a screenwriting credit, alongside two other screenwriters, and it's quite clear that she is in full control of how she's presented. Ruggles may be pointing the camera, but it is West who commands the screen. Her broad accent, her lovely smile, and that unending confidence radiates star power like few actors in movie history. It's clear she's the brains and the beauty behind the whole operation of I'm No Angel. 

I'm No Angel is also notable for being a pre-Hayes Code comedy. This means that West is free to be a fully realized sexual being. While much of the movie is about disproving the number of men she has slept with, that doesn't mean she acts with any shame. Tira's past is her past, she doesn't feel bad at all about her past, nor should she. Society, even today, demands shame of women if they choose to be open and honest about sexual desire, West was and is a rarity in film history, a woman in full control of her sexuality, intelligence, persona, and power. 

Click here for my full-length review 

Movie Review Empire of Light

Empire of Light (2022) 

Directed by Sam Mendes 

Written by Sam Mendes 

Starring Olivia Coleman, Michael Ward, Colin Firth, Toby Jones, Tom Brooke 

Release Date December 9th, 2022 

Empire of Light stars Olivia Coleman as Hilary Small, a cinema employee in a seaside English town. Hilary's life is a drab routine of taking tickets and having sex with her married boss, Mr. Ellis (Colin Firth), though he has no plans to leave his wife. Hilary's life is changed forever with the arrival of a new employee at the cinema. Stephen (Michael Ward) is a handsome young man whom Hilary instantly falls in lust with. However, since he's so young, she assumes he will have more interest in one of her younger co-workers. 

Much to her surprise, Michael takes to Hilary right away. The two have a terrific conversation which lead to Hilary showing Michael her favorite secret spot in the Cinema. The gorgeous art-deco cinema used to have more than 2 screens. A third screening area, which also included a dance floor and lounge, has been left to rot. Hilary likes to go there and smell the sea air from the lounge seats. It's also become a de-facto smoking spot for the employees. 

At first, the banter between Hilary and Stephen is just friendly but it soon takes on a flirtatious air. As their bond deepens via their conversations, Hilary gains the courage to stand up to Mr. Ellis and end their affair. This however, is a tenuous decision as Hilary harbors a dark secret. Mr. Ellis brought Hilary back after she had a mental breakdown a year ago. He's essentially her sponsor, the reason she's able to work and not be in a hospital. 

The burgeoning romance between Hilary and Michael is threatened as Hilary's mental illness returns to the fore and her relationship with Mr. Ellis sours further. Meanwhile, the cinema has earned a remarkable opportunity. The cinema will play host to the premiere of the movie Chariots of Fire, a film that went on to win the Academy Award for Best Picture in 1981. The premiere will be attended by celebrities and politicians and would be a huge boost for business. 

Meanwhile, in the background, racial issues are also coming to the fore. Hilary witnesses Michael being harassed by skinheads, his life threatened. Later, a race riot breaks out and Michael's life is once again placed in peril as is the cinema itself which gets caught up in the brief, violent white nationalist uprising. It seems that even society itself is conspiring to keep Michael and Hilary from being together. The dramatic crux then of Empire of Light is whether or not the central couple can overcome the personal and societal roadblocks in front of their unlikely romance. 

Olivia Coleman is a radiant actress of limitless talent. That said, the part of Hilary is a tad broad and leans into an actors worst instincts. Director Alan Ball allows a little too much room for Hilary's mental illness to be played broadly. A scene where Hilary has fully reached the end of her rope goes off the rails and Coleman's hysterics in the scene don't feel legitimate, they play like someone's broad idea of a mental breakdown. 

Hilary's mental illness and the raging racial tensions that also play throughout Empire of Light don't work well together. They feel like two different movies grated together. Then there is an overarching notion of the magic of the movies which has promise but never really gains momentum. A big part of the movie unfolds when Hilary actually takes the opportunity to watch a movie and has a very special experience. This feels completely apart from the rest of the movie as well. The choice of movie is perhaps meaningful, but the idea is underdeveloped. 

Find my full length review at Geeks.Media. 

Movie Review Living

Living (2022) 

Directed by Oliver Hermanus 

Written by Kazuo Ishiguro 

Starring Bill Nighy, Aimee Lou Wood, Alex Sharp, Tom Burke 

Release Date December 25th, 2022 

Published December 9th, 2022 

Living stars Bill Nighy as Mr. Williams. His name is kept very formal as a reflection of how he's lived his entire life by the standards of formality. Mr. Williams is the head of a non-descript Public Works office in a big English city, never identified. He's known among his employees as a quiet yet authoritative man. He manages the office efficiently, never makes waves and just tries to keep his part of this bureaucracy from gaining any kind of attention. 

Mr. Williams' arrival at work everyday is like clockwork, as is his end of the day routine. He rides the train to and from work but stays apart from his employees so as to maintain his authority. He appears to have done this job all his life without ever making much of any impact. Stacks of papers top every desk, each a request that Public Works kicks from one part of bureaucracy to another, as if their product were making sure nothing ever changes. 

Naturally, the life of Mr. Williams is about to change drastically. In an uncharacteristic moment, Mr. Williams rises from his desk one day and announces that he will be leaving early. We will come to find out that this is do to a doctor's appointment. At this appointment, Mr. Williams is told that he has maybe six months to live. The following day, Mr. Williams' clockwork arrival at work doesn't happen. He tells no one and simply doesn't show up. 

Instead, Mr. Williams has removed his life savings from his bank and has traveled to a seaside location in order to find someone who can teach him how to live. Encountering a drifter cum author, Mr. Sutherland (Tom Burke), Mr. Williams tries out a night of debauched partying and what happens from there will reveal a great deal about both Mr. Williams and Mr. Sutherland. This sequence is lovely and sad and brilliantly revealing. It's a bravura sequence in a terrific movie. 

Two more characters exist in this story and their story underlines the story of Mr. Williams. Alex Sharp plays Mr. Wakeling, a new man in Mr. Williams' department.  The name ,Mr. Wakeling, it's as if his name is intended to demonstrate that he lingers in the wake of others, carried along by the tide. Not a bad metaphor for a for a young man at the start of a new and confusing journey. Sharp gives Mr. Wakeling a wide-eyed eagerness that soon mellows into a healthy competence at his job and a general good nature. 

Mr. Wakeling stands out as he is immediately taken with a fellow co-worker, Miss Harris (Aimee Lou Wood). Miss Harris has also caught Mr. Williams' eye though it's not a creepy infatuation. Mr. Williams admires the life he's witnessed from Miss Harris, her positive attitude and warmth. She makes the office a little brighter and in her he sees someone else who might be able to help teach him what it is like to be alive after having spent so many years merely functioning. 

That's the magic of Living. Bill Nighy's performance is about learning to live and choosing the people who can guide you on that journey. It's a somber reminder of the ways you make an impression on people whether you are aware of it or not. Miss Harris made the world a little brighter without knowing she did it and, even from his cloistered space a functioning cog in a bureaucratic wheel, Mr. Williams noticed it, admired it, and comes to praise it with hopes of learning more from it. 

That's a beautiful idea and it is well explored in the patient and thoughtful direction of Oliver Hermanus and the insightful script of Kazuo Ishiguro. Hermanus adopts a look for Living early on that evokes 1950s Hollywood, and the work of director Nicholas Ray, that incredibly humanistic director, brilliantly known for his interior dramas. Like Ray, Hermanus uses interiors to reveal his characters. For instance, Mr. Williams' well dressed and mannered persona juxtaposed against the rowdy, grimy, seaside pubs, home to the debauched and delightful, Mr. Sutherland's of the world. 

Click here for my full length review at Geeks.Media 

Movie Review The Mean One

The Mean One (2022) 

Directed by Steven LaMorte

Written by Steven LaMorte, Flip Kobler 

Starring Krystle Martin, David Howard Thornton, Chase Mullins 

Release Date December 9th, 2022 

Published December 8th, 2022 

The Mean One is a fully unauthorized horror parody of The Grinch that skirts the law by never actually saying the word 'Grinch.' How willing you are to accept this is a strong measure of how you will take this movie. The film takes the concept of How the Grinch Stole Christmas and turns The Grinch into a monster who accidentally murder's Cindy Lou's mom while he steals Christmas. Thus a begins a long term effort to destroy Christmas by killing anyone who exhibits even the faintest form of Christmas cheer. 

The Mean One, aka The Grinch, is played by Terrifier 2 star David Howard Thornton who essays yet another brilliantly physical and silent performance. He's a truly incredible physical performer, even as much of his performance in this very silly film is a parody of Jim Carrey's 2000's live action Grinch, crossed with a little bit of Art the Clown. It's mimicry but, at times, it's quite darkly funny mimicry. Thornton is the best thing about this very silly, extremely low budget horror flick. 

As mentioned, The Mean One proceeds from an accidental murder. Cindy Lou, played as an adult Krystle Martin, interrupts The Grinch as he is stealing Christmas. Her mother enters the scene to protect her daughter and accidentally dies. Years later, The Grinch has been stealing Christmas from this small town, and killing to do so, while Cindy and her father fled the town. Returning years later to sell their home, they find a town that has banned Christmas and harbors The Grinch as a deep dark secret. 

Find my full length review at Horror.Media 

Movie Review The Whale

The Whale (2022) 

Directed by Darren Aronofsky 

Written by Samuel D. Hunter 

Starring Brendan Fraser, Hong Chau, Sadie Sink, Samantha Morton 

Release Date December 9th, 2022 

Published December 7th, 2022 

One of the biggest anxieties in my life is having food on my face. It's a fear of humiliation, I get triggered by being embarrassed. Logically, intellectually, I know this is not something worthy of serious concern and that it is an unavoidable fact of life, food on your face is normal, wipe it off and move on. But, my brain won't let it be that simple. Thinking of this aspect of my anxiety has me triggered. My eyes are welling up and I can sense that if I linger further in this space, I will become quite inconsolable. 

I've rarely seen this type of emotional reaction, this type of triggered anxiety in a movie. It's quite difficult to capture this kind of internalized emotional struggle, the rigorous internal battle to stop yourself from crying over something not worthy of crying about. The Whale comes the closest I have seen in some time of seeing this kind of emotional turmoil, a roiling mass of embarrassment and shame, on screen. Brendan Fraser's Charlie captures this feeling in all of its internalized horror. If only the rest of the movie were capable of capturing anything remotely as genuine. 

Charlie is a dangerously obese man who gets by as a literature professor at an online college. The shame over his weight causes him to conduct his classes with his camera on, using only his voice to instruct his class. Charlie's only friend is his caregiver, Liz (Hong Chau). They were friends before she became his caregiver. In fact, Liz is intrinsically linked to Charlie's past. She was connected to Charlie's late boyfriend, a man whose death changed both of their lives. 

Throughout The Whale we will slowly unpack Charlie's backstory as a man who was once married and had a daughter, Ellie (Sadie Sink), who he would like to reconnect with. Charlie was pushed out of Ellie's life after he fell in love with one of his male students and embarked on a new life with this man. Ellie doesn't know that Charlie had wanted to be in her life but wasn't allowed to be. She only knows that he appeared to choose being with this man over being her dad and she harbors a deep, and justifiable resentment. 

Much of the plot of The Whale centers on Charlie trying to reconnect with Ellie before his weight problem, and his unwillingness to get help for it at a hospital, takes his life. Ellie, however, proves to be far more difficult to reconnect with than he imagined. Ellie's bitterness has hardened into an almost sociopathic cruelty. Despite Charlie's attempts at dressing up her cruelty as a kind of blunt curiosity, Ellie is rarely anything less than bitter to a toxic degree. 

This toxicity is explored in her relationship to a strange young man named Thomas (Ty Simpkins), who is insinuating himself into Charlie's life. Thomas claims to be a missionary from an extreme offshoot of Mormonism called New Life. He goes door to door with literature and, after meeting Charlie, and seeming to save his life, Thomas makes it his mission to save Charlie's soul before his weight kills him. Thomas is harboring a deep, dark secret that Ellie will spend some time drawing out of him. 

This is the portion of The Whale that is the most poorly developed. The idea appears to be to establish Ellie's empathy and care, qualities that she has worked hard to hide. How they choose to portray this is strange, misguided, and simply doesn't track with what we see on screen. In fact, it takes a late monologue from Charlie to explain that what Ellie did was kind and helpful. Realistically, it appeared she was trying once again to do something cruel, and it happened to turn out well. 

Find my full-length review at Geeks.Media.