Movie Review Imitation of Life

Imitation of Life (1934) 

Directed by John M. Stahl 

Written by William Hurlbut, Preston Sturges 

Starring Claudette Colbert, Louise Beavers, Fredi Washington, Rochelle Hudson 

Release Date November 26, 1934

Published January 10th, 2023 

The 1934 mother-daughter drama, Imitation of Life has joined the Criterion Collection. On January 10th, 2023, Criterion released newly remastered 4K version of Imitation of Life featuring a new introduction to the film by film and cultural historian, Imogen Sara Smith and a new interview with author Miriam J. Petty, author of "Stealing the Show: African American Performers and Audiences in 1930s Hollywood." That book is a deep dive on the careers of Imitation of Life stars Louise Beavers and Fredi Washington and their unique paths to Hollywood as black women in 1930s Hollywood. 

If I may be blunt, Ms. Petty's book is perhaps more relevant and vital than the movie Imitation of Life which is little more than a minor melodrama with solid performances, muted and neutered by the racism of the time. Certainly, the filmmakers can be commended for trying to tackle racial issues at a time when such virulent racism was inflaming the country, but Imitation of Life really never gains much momentum, likely because of that rampant racism. 

Instead of the woke, for the time, racial dynamic of Imitation of Life, what we really have is a story of mothers and daughters and the sacrifices two mothers make to give their daughters a better life than the ones they've led. Colette Colbert stars as Bea Pullman, mother of Jessie, and recent widower. Bea is struggling to find time to raise her daughter while also keeping her husband's business alive long enough to keep a roof over her head. 

Bea's life is changed forever by complete chance. While she's trying to get her daughter ready to go to the babysitter so she can get to work, Bea is visited by Delilah Johnson (Louise Beavers). Delilah is looking for work and was following up on ad in the newspaper. Since she's here, she asks Bea for work and though Bea insists she can't afford to hire Delilah, Delilah persists, saying she will work in exchange for room and board for herself and her young daughter, Peota. 

Bea relents and soon the household is humming with activity including Delilah's incredible pancakes which pair well with Bea's family syrup business. In fact, the Delilah's pancakes are so good that Bea takes a huge leap and opens a restaurant. Using her charm and savvy, Bea finagles a deal for the restaurant space, furniture, and equipment and within months, Aunt Delilah's Pancakes are the talk of the town. The next step takes the pancakes national and makes both Bea and Delilah wealthy, though Delilah insists on remaining Bea's cook.

Find my full length review at Geeks.Media 

Movie Review My Father Muhammad Ali

My Father Muhammad Ali (2023) 

Directed by Tom Denucci, Chad A. Verdi 

Written by Documentary

Starring Muhammad Ali Jr. 

Release Date January 13th, 2023 

Published January 9th, 2023 

As much as I did follow the life of the legendary Muhammad Ali, I was somehow unaware that he had a son. And yet, indeed, the greatest boxer of all time did have a son and he did name that son, Muhammad Ali Jr. How is it possible that he was not part of the story of Muhammad Ali's life? How did it happen that even people like me, people who think they know Muhammad Ali's life story, never knew that he had a son that he named after himself? It's a weird and harrowing story. 

Muhammad Ali Jr. was born in 1971, at the height of his father's return to the world stage. Ali had just come out of jail for having refused to go to Vietnam and was fresh off of the first fight against Joe Frazier, billed as The Fight of the Century. Muhammad Ali wasn't around for much of the early part of his son's life as he was training and fighting in the midst of the greatest run of his boxing career. That's not an excuse. I have no idea what kind of Father Muhammad Ali was, only that I know he was a very busy man in the early 1970s/ 

From the time Muhammad Ali Jr was born through most of his life, he was not much known. According to the new documentary My Father, Muhammad Ali, his teenage years were spent with his mother's parents while his mother and famous father toured the world. In High School, Muhammad Ali Jr. fell into drugs and spent a number of years battling addiction and being estranged from his famous family. He had a family of his own. a couple of daughters from a couple of moms and struggled until not long after his father passed away in 2016. 

At some nebulous point following his father's death, Jr beat his addiction and started to use the Ali name to garner attention. This may or may not have been at the behest of a friend, and former New York City Police Officer, named Richard Blum. Together they star in this unusual documentary that follows Muhammad Ali Jr today as he tries to start a boxing-based charity alongside his supposed best friend. The notion of this 'best friend' taking advantage of Ali Jr. hangs thick over My Father, Muhammad Ali. 

Part of what makes My Father, Muhammad Ali so strange is the odd structure employed by directors Tom Denucci and Chad A. Verdi. The film opens with them introducing Dr. Monica O'Neal, a psychologist known for her appearances on reality television, as much as for her work as a Harvard graduate and psychologist. She made her name profiling the 'psychology of Bravo,' with special attention to the various cast of Real Housewives of insert large city here. 

That's not intended to impugn her integrity as a doctor, it's just what she's known for, your opinion of Real Housewives characters or series, is entirely up to you. Dr. O'Neal is here to examine/interview Muhammad Ali Jr. but that doesn't really happen. What does happen is a series of odd encounters wherein Muhammad Ali Jr. lovingly recalls his father and talks about some of the troubles in his life in relatively vague terms. The film teases talking about Muhammad Ali Jr's daddy issues, but he continues to go back to what a great man and father his legendary father was. O'Neal meanwhile, doesn't make much of an impression. 

Find my full length review at Geeks.Media 

Movie Review On Sacred Ground

On Sacred Ground (2023) 

Directed by Josh Trickell, Rebecca Harrell Trickell

Written by Josh Trickell, Rebecca Harrell Trickell, William Mapother 

Starring William Mapother, Amy Smart, Frances Fisher 

Release Date January 13th, 2023 

Published January 6th, 2023 

On Sacred Ground tells a very unique story. Long time character actor William Mapother stars in On Sacred Ground as a reporter with a very specific right wing perspective. He's long been suspicious of environmental terrorists and his reporting on that subject catches the eye of a right wing news outlet. This right wing news outlet, working in league with oil company lobbyists, seeks to hire Mapother's Daniel McKinney to cover the story of an oil pipeline that is the subject of Native American protests. 

The story that news organization and the oil company are pushing is that the Native American activists are violent, eco-terrorists who are disrupting a safe and legal oil pipeline and causing the kind of environmental crisis that they claim to be protesting against. The propaganda has Daniel on the side of the oil company, a perspective furthered when he arrives at the site of the pipeline protest where he witnesses a particularly emotional and physical protest in progress. 

Access to the site is controlled by an oil company representative named Elliott (David Arquette). Elliott claims that the violence of the protests is not coming from the army of mercenaries hired as security by the oil company or the lines of Police Officers also on the side of the oil company. No, according to Elliott the supposedly non-violent, mostly Native American protesters are the ones throwing rocks, threatening Police and Security and doing damage to oil company property. 

What Elliott and Daniel's new newspaper boss, Ricky (Frances Fisher), did not expect was for Daniel to embed himself with the protesters. Thinking he can uncover the violence among the protesters, Daniel goes to their camp and finds himself drafted in as a volunteer in a very well organized and trained group of protesters. The protesters bring Daniel in, show him their training in non-violent protest and place him on the front line of that non-violent protest where he witnesses what has really been happening. 

The story of On Sacred Ground is based on the story of a group of military veterans who joined the ranks of Native American protesters Standing Rock in North Dakota. This group of veterans were brought together by a fellow veteran, Wesley Clark Jr., son of General Wesley Clark, a former Democrat Presidential candidate. He went to Standing Rock at the behest of a friend and found Native American protesters being brutalized by what he called a private army employed by the company behind the Dakota Access Pipeline. 

Find my full length review at Swamp.Media 

Movie Review New Gods Yang Jian

New Gods Yang Jian (2023) 

 Directed bv Ji Zhou 

Written by Muchuan 

Starring Su Ling Chan, David Chen 

Release Date January 20th, 2023

Published January 19th, 2023

New Gods Yang Jian is a gorgeously animated feature film adventure from China. Directed by Ji Zhou, New Gods Yang Jian soars from one adventurous sequence to the next paying homage to classic Asian cinema of the past while carving its own path. The animation house, Light Chaser Animation has crafted a second film in their New Gods series that is more than the equal of the 2021 original that was a massive box office hit. 

New Gods Yang Jian tells the story of a bounty hunter living at the bottom of the economic ladder. As we join the story, Yang Jian and his crew barely have enough fuel to keep their flying boat in the air. They need to capture a fugitive soon or they are out of business. Yang Jian isn't too worried however, he has mystical powers that will help in finding the man they are currently after. This sequence serves the purpose of introducing us to Yang and his mystical fighting powers that he uses to overcome a sizable demon while capturing his human target and turning him over the authorities. 

With that established, we can get on to the real plot. Back on Yang Jian's flying boat is his next client. Wanluo is searching for someone she claims is her little brother. Chenxiang is a thief and a murderer. We are introduced to him as he uses a group of criminals to cover for him while he steals something mystical from a temple beneath a bank that they other criminals are robbing. It's part of a spree Chenxiang is on to steal the components of an ancient mystical weapon, the Golden Lotus Lamp or The Lamp of Universal Contentment. 

Find my full length review at Geeks.Media 

Movie Review Night Moves

Night Moves (1975) 

Directed by Arthur Penn

Written by Alan Sharp 

Starring Gene Hackman, Melanie Griffith 

Release Date July 2nd, 1975

Published ? 

Night Moves is a hidden gem of 1970s neo-noir. The film stars the legendary Gene Hackman as private detective Harry Moseby. Harry is married to Ellen (Susan Clark), a fact that has a surprising prominence despite not having anything to do with the main mystery at hand in Night Moves. Director Arthur Penn cleverly smuggles a domestic drama into a missing person mystery and it's kind of great. Harry Moseby's well-founded trust issues are a significant part of how this movie plays out. 

Harry Moseby has just been given a tip about a potentially lucrative gig. A former Hollywood actress, B-Movie gal, Arlene Iverson (Janet Ward), is looking to hire someone to find her daughter, Delly (Melanie Griffith), an aspiring young actress. As unusual as Arlene is, Harry takes her money and the job and sets about his search. The trail begins with a movie studio mechanic named Quentin (James Woods). Quentin was believed to have dated Delly despite her being only 16 years old. 

Quentin points Harry in the direction of a man who had beaten him up on the set of a movie, a stunt man named Marv Ellman (Anthony Costello). Through Marv the story travels to Florida where Arlene's ex-husband, Tom Iverson (John Crawford), Delly's stepfather, lives and operates a tourist attraction, taking people out on a glass bottom boat or flying them around the area. Also with Tom is his new girlfriend, Paula (Jennifer Warren). 

Indeed, Delly is there, and she doesn't want to go home. The case appears to be closed; all Harry has to do is take Delly back to Los Angeles. If only it were that simple. Things get complicated when Harry has a brief flirtation with Paula and, while tooling around in the glass bottom boat, Harry, Delly and Paula find a dead body. At the bottom of the ocean, they spot a crashed plane with the corpse of the pilot inside. This finally causes Delly to finally go home but, again, the story doesn't end there. 

Find my full length review at Geeks.Media 

Movie Review Out of Exile

Out of Exile (2023) 

Directed by Kyle Kauwika Harris 

Written by Kyle Kauwika Harris 

Starring Adam Hampton, Ryan Merriman, Peter Greene 

Release Date January 20th, 2023 

Published January 19th, 2023 

Out of Exile may not look like much but it's a really solid action movie. Yes, it features a crime story that you've seen before. It's undoubtedly derivative. That said, writer-director Kyle Kauwika Harris infuses the film with a strong personality and perspective. The violence of Out of Exile has a strong purpose. When someone gets shot it means something in this story. A lot of low budget action movies make the mistake of being gratuitous, characters tend to survive gunshot wounds with an almost supernatural level of good luck. That's not so of Out of Exile. 

Out of Exile stars Adam Hampton as Gabriel. Gabriel is fresh out of prison and in need of work. Having come from a long line of criminals, Gabriel's fate is seemingly sealed and a return to crime is almost immediate. With little waiting around, the movie jumps right into a heist that goes wrong very quickly. Gabriel, along with his brother, Wesley (Kyle Jacob Henry), and their partner, Chava (Oliver Rayon), are hitting an armored car. In the midst of the heist the guard carrying the money gets shot and killed. They get away with the money but the killing drives a wedge between the brothers that threatens everything. 

Running parallel to the crime story is the story of Gabriel's estranged daughter, Dawn (Hayley McFarland). Working as a waitress at a diner and not wanting any of her father's money or time, Dawn is attempting to escape an abusive relationship. Naturally, a man of violence such as Gabriel is not going to leave his daughter to such peril. That plot has an important role to play late in Out of Exile and I won't spoil it. Again, it's not something you haven't seen before, it's just well done enough here to make it better than many other, similar movies. 

Find my full length review at Geeks.Media. 

Movie Review Invaders from Mars

Invaders from Mars (1953)

Directed by William Cameron Menzies 

Written by William Cameron Menzies  

Starring Jimmy Hunt, Helena Carter, Arthur Franz 

Release Date April 9th, 1953 

Published January 20th, 2023 

A young boy awakens the middle of the night to see a bright green flying saucer. It's the kind of thing that has fired the imagination of sci-fi writers and directors for years and it's the opening scene of the 1953 film, Invaders from Mars. Children in movies like this are not to be believed until it is too late. This time, things are a little bit different. Having been shaken by his son's story, George MacLean (Leif Erickson) decides to go and see for himself what his son thinks he saw. When he doesn't return home, George's wife calls the cops. Then the cops disappear. 

The George MacLean that comes back from this brief disappearance is not the same. Gone is the jovial, thoughtful and loving father. Returned is a cruel, abusive, and bitter man. The cops also come back but not the same as they were. They have a conspiratorial conversation with George that unsettles both his wife and his son. Actor Leif Erickson does a wonderful job in this scene of giving us a completely different version of the man we just met. The haunted eyes and desperate shift in nature echoes from his every expression. 

Rather ingeniously given when the movie is made, Invaders from Mars communicates its sci-fi horror story using a very simple visual device, sand. Behind the home of our main character, David MacLean (Jimmy Hunt), is a sandy beach where the aliens he saw have landed and buried their ship. Through visual cues we know that the aliens have made the sand into a trap. The sand captures anyone who gets too close. When they come out of the sand, they are not the same. They have a mark on the back of their necks, a bloody X shape. 

The sparse sets and stock footage and photos of Invaders from Mars are exceptionally well integrated. It's quite clear that writer-director William Cameron Menzie cared about making a good movie despite the limitations of his budget. It's exciting to watch, so many directors of similar 1950s science fiction didn't take nearly as much care in their integration of such things. Shaggy backdrops, shoddy early forms of green screen, and other such things are cheesy hallmarks of the era, charming in their way. That said, it's nice to see a director take such great care in one of these B-pictures. 

The repeated motifs of Invaders from Mars include blank walls in every interior scene, spotlights, everywhere operated by army men, and stock footage, lots of military stock footage. It's all exceptionally well-integrated however, giving the film a strong verisimilitude for something so seemingly cheap. I adore this. :Lengthy shots of rolling tanks are matched with sound design that make you believe those tanks are in the same viciniy as our main characters. It's so good. 

Find my full length review at Geeks.Media 

Movie Review: Missing

Missing (2023) 

Directed by Nick Johnson, Will Merrick 

Written by Sev Ohanian, Aneesh Chaganty 

Starring Storm Reid, Nia Long, Ken Leung 

Release Date January 20th, 2023 

Published January 23rd, 2023 

Missing captures our modern true crime obsession in a way that few films ever had. Every true crime fan dreams of doing what the main character of Missing does, diving down a rabbit hole of information on your way to solving a mystery. Of course, the main character of Missing has more motivation than your average true crime fan, but that doesn't change the nature of our excitement, all true crime fans want to investigate leads and follow threads to answers in the way that June (Storm Reid) does in missing, whether it's our family member that is missing or some stranger. 

In Missing, June is a typically self-involved teenager who is constantly mortified by how uncool her mother, Grace (Nia Long), is. Mom is always asking her Siri to make calls for her, even while she's already on a call. Mom and June's relationship is strained as Grace is a working single mom juggling her daughter, work, and a new boyfriend, Kevin (Ken Leung), while planning a vacation to Columbia. June is of little help, she's only thinking of the partying she's going to do while Mom and Kevin are out of town. 

Over the course of five days, Mom checks in rarely, which is unusual, while June parties. Then, when it's time for June to meet Mom and Kevin at the airport, she's left standing there for hours. Mom doesn't come home. Returning to her house, June calls the authorities and falls down a rabbit hole while investigating her mother's whereabouts. In the course of investigating her mother's disappearance from afar, she connects with a man named Javi (Joachim De Almeida), who lives in Columbia and who agrees to investigate on her behalf for a mere $8.00 per request. 

Meanwhile, at home, Grace breaks into Kevin's email and begins to discover things about his past, his criminal record, and the many, many, women in Kevin's past who claim that he's stolen money from them. There's also a woman, referred to only as 'babycakes,' who has recently gone missing after trading messages with Kevin. This can't be a coincidence but the movie has a few more twists and turns in play when it comes to Kevin, some you won't be able to predict so easily. 

Missing doesn't quite have the skillful presentation of its predecessor, Searching. That film used the medium of internet based sleuthing in service of a much better story. The story of Missing isn't bad but it's far more deeply convoluted than that of Searching. Where that movie had a relative clarity to its logical storytelling, Missing falls short. If you start pulling threads on Missing the story frays with far too much ease. The main plot is rather silly with characters making choices that don't make a lot of sense. 

Find my full length review at Geeks.Media. 

Movie Review Hexed

Hexed (1993) 

Directed by Alan Taylor 

Written by Alan Taylor

Starring Arye Gross, Adrienne Shelly, Claudia Christian 

Release Date January 22nd, 1993

Published January 23rd, 2023 

Hexed is among the strangest and most disjointed films I've ever seen, and I've seen a lot of movies in my more than 23 years of writing about movies. Hexed stars Arye Gross as a hotel worker who lies constantly and everyone hates him. Everyone except for the one woman that the script requires to tolerate how awful he is. A cruel and unforgiving universe required in 1993 that a brilliant actress, writer and director attempt to do the impossible and try to make Gross seem likable. Sadly, even the prodigious talent of the much loved late Adrienne Shelly can't work such impossible magic. 

Matt Welsh is such an awful, disgusting, gross human being that when he's bullied by someone ostensibly more obnoxious than him, you kind of feel like he deserves it. That Matt is our designated protagonist is a cruel taunt. The poster has promised comedy but the movie we are trapped inside once we've committed ourselves to watching it, is distinctly unfunny and borders on incomprehensible as it ping pongs this ungodly protagonist from one unfunny bit to the next. 

The plot, such as it is, has ubiquitous supermodel known as Hexina coming to stay at the hotel where Matt is one of the desk clerks. This is a problem for Matt as he has claimed to have not only known Hexina, but dated her. When she arrives and doesn't know who he is, Matt is surely to be humiliated and belittled once more. Matt needs to concoct a plan to save himself and he gets one when a man calls to speak to Hexina and Matt intercepts the phone call. 

As luck would have it, Hexina is set to meet this man who she has never seen before. Matt figures, if he impersonates the unseen man, he can go on a date with Hexina and everyone at the hotel will think that Matt really does know her. His plan works as he's able to steal a car from a hotel patron and pick up the supermodel in full view of his most bitter detractor, Simon (Michael E. Knight). Meanwhile, as awful as Matt is, Hexina is only worse because she is a crazed murderer. 

Hexina has only come to this backwater hotel because someone is blackmailing her. This person wants to trade their blackmail item for sex and Hexina thinks that Matt is this person. After, indeed, having a terrifyingly unfortunate and problematic sex scene with Matt, Hexina tries to kill him. After he explains how he had sex with her under false pretenses, and highly questionable consent, Hexina makes him take her to the man she was intended to meet. Once there, Hexina shoots the man in the head and drafts Matt to be her co-conspirator. 

All of this is intended to be funny. Hexed is a comedy. It's a 'dark comedy,' allegedly, but that is no excuse for all of the ugly, nasty, gross, unfunny nonsense that makes up Hexed. Hexed is a bizarre example of just how weird the early 1990s truly were. The early 1990s were bursting with bizarre sexual politics and a fetishistic dedication to presenting the most masturbatory of male fantasies as movie plotlines. That was the case with Body of Evidence, which released one week prior to Hexed, and that is also the case with Hexed. 

Find my full length review at Geeks.Media 

Movie Review Come Find Me

Come Find Me (2023) 

Directed by Daniel Poliner 

Written by Daniel Poliner 

Starring Victoria Cartagena, Sol Miranda, Tovah Feldshuh 

Release Date January 10th, 2023 

Published January 3rd, 2023 

Come Find Me is based off of a short film that writer-director Daniel Poliner had made a few years back. That film starred Sol Miranda, beloved character actress from The Unbreakable Kimmie Schmidt, among other shows, as a principal at a struggling New York City middle school. Wanting to give Miranda a larger platform to show off her skills, Poliner expanded the original short film by adding in the story of the daughter of his original main character, here played by Victoria Cartegena. 

It's a lovely motivation to want to do something to showcase a talent you respect but the result is a deeply confounding drama that shifts in time and space so often as to completely lose the point and purpose of the story. The characters seem to know what's going but they don't do very well to let those of us in the audience in on what is happening. Come Find Me is filled with what appears to be ideas about mothers and daughters, domestic abuse, confronting death, and other such ideas but none of the ideas make much sense as the movie descends into a series of repeated scenes that I think were shifting in time, maybe? 

Come Find Me opens on Christina (Victoria Cartegena), a lawyer on the verge of making partner but questioning her future. Christina is back home in New York City for a big case involving a bank. Meanwhile, she's also plagued by something happening back in California where a pro-bono client is being stalked by an ex-boyfriend and has just found out that she's pregnant. Victoria is also pregnant and is rather ambivalent about that fact. She's in a new relationship with a fellow lawyer back in California and worried about what being pregnant might do to this new relationship and her future as a lawyer. 

Also, while Victoria is in New York, she's avoiding her mother, Gloria (Miranda). Gloria is a very involved mom, a long-time teacher and now principal who gets very involved in the lives of her students. This, in the past, caused a rift between mother and daughter after Gloria had Christina attend private school instead of the struggling middle school where she worked. Christina would have preferred to be close to her mom during this time. 

As Christina is struggling through a case that could make her career, she's also dealing with her mother's finances, much to her mother's disdain. It's all very dramatic and weighing on Christina's conscience as she's also waiting for word on what is happening with her pregnancy. This all comes to a head at the end of the first act of Come Find Me which then abruptly shifts to two years in the future and becomes a movie about Gloria and not Christina. 

Find my full length review at Geeks.Media 

Documentary Review Lost Angel The Genius of Judee Sill

Lost Angel The Genius of Judee Sill 

Directed  by Andy Brown and Brian Lindstrom 

Written by Documentary 

Starring Judy Sill, David Crosby, Linda Ronstadt. 

Judee Sill is one of the great lost legends of music history. Hers is a story of tragedy, overcoming tragedy and returning to tragedy. Is it a typical rock n'roll rise and fall? Certainly not. The new documentary, Lost Angel The Genius of Judee Sill proves that Judee Sill's rise and fall was anything but typical. It's an incredible story of a young woman who fell to drugs and sex work to support her habit. Who then fought her way through to become a beloved and respected writer and musician before tragedy brought her back to Earth. 

The opening moments of Lost Angel The Genius of Judee Sill find the band Fleet Foxes performing Sill's song, The Kiss, in a full stadium of enrapt fans. The lead singer, Robin Pecknold, tells the fans that the band are huge fans of Judee Sill and they can hear why as they perform the song beautifully. As they play we begin to edit toward Judee herself, alone at a piano performing the song, even more lovely and extraordinary. 

It's quite a start to a powerful story and helps to underline the legacy and influence that Judee has had among musicians. Judee Sill's immortality is secured by the way musicians found her, brought her songs forward, played them live and shared them with fans. She only had two records, and one unfinished EP, but her music is simply too lovely and thoughtful to be forgotten. The documentary captures this influence beautifully while continuing to tell a mostly linear story of Judee's life. 

At an early age she lost her loving father and her struggles with her mother and a likely abusive step-father, led to Judee leaving home at 16 where she got into crime. Judee actually made headlines in the mid 1960s as part of a band of teenage thieves. This criminal path led, eventually, to drugs, heroin specifically, and a near death experience. Judee became a sex worker in her late teens and her story could have ended as thousands of others had, had it not been for music. 

Judee Sill had an innate talent for poetry and latent ability to play a number of instruments. In a mostly unlikely development, given her skinny frame and thin fingers, Judee played stand up bass before taking up an acoustic guitar and the piano. She was a fast learner at writing music, starting with turning her poetry into lyrics. The people around her said however, that it was her ambition to be a star that truly drove Judee. 

The narrative developed though not openly discussed in the documentary, is one of a person who wanted to show the world. Judee Sill grew up feeling unloved and unappreciated and wanted the love, the adulation, and the validation that being a recording star could bring. And  her ambition helped her to find success with relative quickness. By 1970, not long after having survived drugs and sex work, Judee Sill was on stage at the famed Troubadour in Los Angeles. 

Soon after she was recording with The Turtles, J.D Souther, and Linda Ronstadt. There was a love triangle with Judee and Souther and Linda Ronstadt that is touched on briefly in the movie. More on that later. She landed a record deal with then rising star executive, David Geffen and joined his roster at Asylum Records that included Souther, Ronstadt, and Jackson Browne among its impressive lineup. Sadly, success on the charts was elusive even as critics and fellow artists adored Judee Sill. 

Find my full length review at Beat.Media 

Movie Review Megan is Missing

Megan is Missing (2011) 

Directed by Michael Goi 

Written by Michael Goi 

Starring Amber Perkins, Rachel Quinn, Dean Waite 

Release Date May 3rd, 2011 

Published January 23rd, 2023 

In 2020 the execrable horror movie, Megan is Missing became a viral sensation when people on Tik Tok began uploading reactions to the movie. The fame didn't last and the movie dropped back into a very deserved obscurity. So why am I talking about it now? It's one of the movies about missing people that we decided to revisit on the Everyone's a Critic Movie Review Podcast dedicated to movies about Missing people. The movie Missing is, obviously, the inspiration for this. I decided to add Megan is Missing to the show because I was already revolted by its virality in 2020, even without having watched it for myself. 

That's not fair of me though, right? I should see a film if I am going to claim to be revolted by it. So, now I can officially call Megan is Missing revolting. Written and directed by a criminal named Michael Goi, Megan is Missing is a poorly made found footage movie that has all the quality of a Tommy Wiseau directed snuff film. Part Eli Roth at his most woman-hating and part marketing pitch gone horribly wrong, Megan is Missing is an ugly, misogynistic, and deeply gross movie that reflects poorly on everyone involved in its creation. 

Megan is Missing stars Amber Perkins as unpopular High School girl, Amy Herman. Amy's life would be non-stop torment at school if she weren't friends with the most popular girl in school, Megan (Rachel Quinn). The two girls have been friends most of their lives despite their very different paths through life. Amy is portrayed as a goody two shoes that everyone hates for not drinking, smoking and sexing at all times like the rest of them. Megan, on the other hand, seems to find all the time in the world for bad decisions. 

Apparently, whenever Megan isn't with Amy, she's having sex, drinking and using drugs. Oh, and the two girls are supposedly 14 years old. So that's a fun detail. The plot kicks in, after an interminable amount of time spent watching adults try and figure out how the kids of the early 2000s talk, and failing, when Megan meets a man named Josh through an online chat. Josh claims to be kid from another nearby High School and that his webcam doesn't work, hence why Megan can't see him. The two begin a flirtation that ends when he invites Megan to meet him behind a local diner. She's never seen again. 

Heartbroken by the disappearance of her closest, only, friend, Amy begins talking to Josh in an attempt to find Megan. At first, he's trying to flirt with her before he becomes confrontational and then threatening. She cuts off contact but, while she's out recording her personal video diary, we see someone, we assume 'Josh,' stalking her. Then, Amy is taken and the final act of Megan is Missing is us watching a canonically 14 year old girl be tortured, sexually assaulted and murdered by suffocation after being buried alive. SPOILER ALERT. 

Megan is Missing doesn't have any discretion about its storytelling so it doesn't deserve my discretion in my plot description. Why did anyone think this was ever okay to put on film? Of course, sexual assault, rape, it's brutally violent and it can happen to anyone. We all know that, we don't need a horror movie to show us that even a seemingly average 14 year old girl can be the victim of a sex crime. Making a movie of this sex crime is just exploitation, nothing more. 

Megan is Missing is not a cautionary tale, it's a product intended to be sold. It's a product that includes the worst crimes imaginable as a marketing hook. Director, and I use that term loosely, he's not talented enough to be a real 'director, but it's what we have to work with her, Michael is a creepy pervert who hides behind the idea that he's done a service to society by showing us how young girls can be targeted online by strangers, assaulted and murdered. As if that's something that is unknown. 

Michael Goi acts if he's doing us a favor with Megan is Missing. The reality is, he's just some pervert whose put his particularly disturbing imagination on the big screen. Michael Goi isn't a director, he's a guy who shouldn't be allowed within 100 yards of a school. The sexual assault and murder of 14 year old girls is not the subject for your sick fantasies and financial gain Michael. Michael Goi and whatever studio backed this god-awful movie should be ashamed of themselves. 

The moment of Megan is Missing that went viral was a moment in the movie referred to as Photo #1. It's a photo of the kidnapped Megan in her underwear, her hands and head suspended in a board. On her head is a device that holds her eyes and mouth open. It's a shocking visual, there's no doubt about that, but why was it created? What does this add to your movie? If it's just for shock value then you have proved my point about how truly ugly and disturbed this movie is. 

Megan is Missing is the only feature film that Michael Goi has directed in his career and there is a good reason for that, it's terrible. It's not just morally indefensible as an exploitation of teen girls, it's just simply not well crafted. The acting is stilted and false, not merely for coming from amateur, non-actors but for coming from a director who doesn't appear to know how to properly direct actors. Much of the dialogue appears improvised, poorly, and shots appear composed haphazardly to evoke other, similar, found footage movies. 

The lasting memory of Megan is Missing is knowing that people dedicated time and effort to letting Michael Goi explore his ugly fetishes disguised as a feature film. That Goi has been a successful television director for many years might appear to defy my notion of him as a filmmaker but, realistically, television is a far more controlled environment than low budget filmmaking. Layers of people have to approve of something before it appears on a television project. Goi had only a handful of people to answer to on Megan is Missing and you can see the result. There's a reason he's no longer a feature filmmaker, Megan is Missing is a thesis statement on why he needs the oversight of a heavy handed television production. 

Movie Review The Devil Conspiracy

The Devil Conspiracy (2023) 

Directed by Nathan Frankowski 

Written by Ed Allen 

Starring Alice Orr-Ewing, Joe Doyle, Eveline Hall, Peter Mensah, Joe Anderson 

Release Date January 13th, 2023

Published January 12th, 2023 

What The Devil Conspiracy lacks in polish it makes up for in energy. This action movie that retreads the war between the Archangel Michael and the fallen angel, Lucifer, aka Satan, rarely slows down. The film is filled with energetic action and lively interplay over big incidents involving kidnapped women, genetic manipulation, and the return of Satan to the living world via the womb of an unwilling mother. It's... a lot. And not all of it is good. But, I didn't mind the lesser aspect of The Devil Conspiracy because the pace is so fast. 

The story opens on a skeptical young American student, Laura (Alice Orr-Ewing), who is studying biblical art in Italy. Laura doesn't believe in the bible and feels she has a more rational explanation of the biblical artwork she studies. So, in order to teach the young American a lesson, fate intercedes to make her the vessel for Satan to return to Earth. After being invited to see some legendary works of art at a famed museum by her friend, Father Marconi (Joe Doyle), Laura is kidnapped after seeing her friend murdered trying to save the legendary Shroud of Turin from being stolen. 

The murderous thieves are part of a cult centered on the science of genetics and Satan's return to Earth. The cult members believe that if they have the blood of Jesus Christ, like that supposedly found on the Shroud, they could clone Jesus and combine his DNA with that of Lucifer to give him the chance to rule on Earth. Standing in their way is the Archangel Michael, first glimpsed in a prologue by Peter Mensah, when he condemned Satan to hell centuries ago. 

Find my full length review at Geeks.Media linked here

Movie Review Plane

Plane (2023) 

Directed by Jean Francois Richet 

Written by Charles Cumming, J.P Davis 

Starring Gerard Butler, Mike Colter, Tony Goldwyn 

Release Date January 13th, 2023 

Published January 13th, 2023

Plane stars Gerard Butler as Brodie Torrance, a commercial pilot on a fateful plane flight. Brodie is piloting a flight from Malaysia to Tokyo with plans for himself to go on from there to Hawaii to meet his daughter. Of course, this is a movie, we know that meeting will not happen as planned. Nope, Brodie Torrance is in for a rough flight, one that begins with bad weather, his plane being struck by lightning, a narrowly avoided crash, and a kidnapping of his relatively small number of passengers plus crew members. 

After surviving his plane having lost its electronics and much of its fuel, Brodie Torrance has to navigate a jungle on an unknown island where criminals and mercenaries have taken up residence and use any foreign visitors as currency on a worldwide kidnapping market. Somehow, with no radio or cell service, Brodie must rescue his passengers and get them safely off of the island. He's joined by a former soldier and current arrestee for murder, Louis Gaspare (Mike Colter), who was being extradited for his alleged crime until the plane went down. Now, he's Brodie's only ally. 

Meanwhile, at the headquarters of the generically named airline, the CEO has called in a fixer. Tony Goldwyn lights up the movie Plane with a charismatic if rather rote performance as Scarsdale, a man who can make things happen for the right price. Scarsdale is the boss of a group of mercenaries for hire who work outside the law to fix P.R problems for major corporations around the globe. That might sound unethical but these guys are the true heroes of Plane as they swoop in to perform the rescue that Brodie and Louis get started. 

As for the baddies, they are a group of nameless, generic, terrorists, vaguely racist caricatures, living in squalor and using human beings as currency. They exist to shoot guns at the good guys and die unmourned deaths. That they perform this task well or not is not important, they are fodder for a Hollywood action movie and could just as easily be replaced by CGI aliens or robots and have the exact same impact on the story. 

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

Movie Review Skinamarink

Skinamarink (2023) 

Directed by Kyle Edward Ball 

Written by Kyle Edward Ball 

Starring Lucas Paul, Dali Rose 

Release Date January 13th, 2023 

Published ? 

Skinamarink is some kind of endurance test for the modern attention span. This buzzy Canadian horror film tests the patience of audiences via a series of stylish cuts, whispered dialogue, and intriguing ideas that go absolutely nowhere. I have a theory; I think Kyle Edward Ball is an excellent filmmaker who decided that he wanted to test audiences. Thus, he made a movie that is artfully crafted but intentionally nonsensical. Skinamarink is really a taunt and how you react to that taunt is how you react to Skinamarink. 

Providing a plot description for Skinamarink is... really not that hard. Two kids are trapped in their home and their parents are either not home or acting strange and actively staying hidden. Kevi n and Kaylee are four-year-old siblings who have awakened in the middle of the night. They can't find their parents and it appears, to them, that their home no longer has doors or windows through which they might escape. These very young children have some basic survival skills, they eat cereal and watch cartoons on TV and generally listen for whatever instruction an adult, be it their parents or some demonically possessed voice gives them. 

All the while, as Kevin and Kaylee pass the time, occasionally searching for mom or dad or investigating various intriguing noises, the camera cuts from one piece of architecture to another. The camera will sit static for a length of time, perhaps something moves in the frame, mostly you, the audience, simply search around the frame looking for something to happen and then nothing does happen. This is intentional, you assume, because it must be setting up for when something in the frame does finally happen, when something does finally move. 

This goes on for nearly 100 minutes. From time to time, you catch a snatch of dialogue. Early on, you hear the father, apparently on the phone, talking about how someone may have been injured and taken to the hospital. Was it mom? Was it another, unseen sibling? We will never know, and dad is never actually seen on screen, as far as I can remember. Mom is seen, briefly, I think. The movie plays with darkness in an interesting way as it mirrors the way the human mind tries to make sense of something it can only kind of see. 

Find my full length review at Horror.Media linked here. 

Movie Review House Party

House Party (2023) 

Directed by Calmatic 

Written by Stephen Glover, Jamal Olori 

Starring Jacob Latimore, Tosin Cole, Lebron James 

Release Date January 13th, 2023 

Published January 16th, 2023 

House Party barely qualifies to be called a movie. This rough assemblage of logic free, brain free scenes are in frame, mostly but that's about the nicest thing I can say. Mostly, House party is a gloopy, sloppy, slippery pile of nostalgia and absurdity that might be called occasionally amusing if any of the amusing moments had anything to do with the movie and not the collective goodwill people like myself have for the original House Party, a loose, silly, fun flick with endless amounts of charm. 

The charm free remake meanwhile, stars Jacob Latimore as Kevin, a single father, struggling with money and needing a place for him and his daughter to live. Kevin's parents are selling their home and leaving town, and Kevin is about to be homeless. Needing a quick windfall, he's hopeful that a party he's promoting with his irresponsible best friend, Damon, pronounced DUH-mon. That qualifies as a joke in the world of House Party 2023, the way the name Damon can be pronounced in different ways. 

Naturally, the party is cancelled thanks to Damon's irresponsible behavior. The pair need a new venue for the party and fast. That's when they get a truly terrible idea. Kevin and Damon work for a cleaning company when they aren't promoting parties and the house they happen to be cleaning on this day is a pretty great house. It's a massive mansion with plenty of space. It also happens to be the home of NBA legend, MVP, and future Hall of Famer, Lebron James. 

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

Movie Review Back to the Wharf

Back to the Wharf (2023) 

Directed by Xialfeng Li 

Written by Xin Yu 

Starring Yu Zhang, Jia Song, Yanhui Wang 

Release Date January 17th, 2023 

Published January 10th, 2023 

Back to the Wharf is a noir crime thriller about the impact that one moment in life can have. It's about how a crime can reverberate through time with unimaginable impact. Directed by Xiaofeng Li, from a script by Xin Yu, Back to the Wharf is haunting, sad, and incredibly absorbing. It features performances by Yu Zhang, Jia Song, and Yanhui Wang that are absolutely superb. A first rate cast, tremendous writing and direction and an excellent story make Back to the Wharf a January release gem, a great way to start 2023. 

A teenage boys life is changed forever when he finds out that the college scholarship he thought he had secured is given to another student. Looking to confront that other student, who happens to be a close friend, our protagonist finds himself entering the wrong home. There, he is confronted by the homeowner who assumes he is there to commit a robbery. This leads to a fight wherein the homeowner ends up dead. Well, not right away, there is another part to this story that our protagonist isn't aware of, one that compounds the tragedy. 

In the immediate aftermath of the death, our protagonist, played as an adult by Yu Zhang, has fled his hometown, blown off college, and taken on the job of a laborer, far from home. When his mother dies, he must return home and confront the past, including his deeply distant father, now a powerful public official with deep ties to the criminal empire run by our protagonists former High School friend. The father has already moved on from his wife's death and has plans to retire and leave the country to escape the corruption he's become a party to. 

At his mother's funeral, the depth of differences between father and son are made plain. After our protagonist meets his father's new family, including not only a new wife but also a son, the father tells his eldest son "Your upbringing was a failure; I needed another son." That gut punch would be enough to level any man. Thus our protagonist looks to leave town as soon as possible. His plans hit a bump in the road when he meets a former High School classmate, played by Jia Song, who makes it her mission to keep him from leaving. 

The love story between our troubled protagonist and the girl who has loved him secretly since they were kids provides a big beating heart for this otherwise grim story. Jia Song is wonderful in Back to the Wharf. Her performance steals the entire movie for a time. Her performance is filled with surprises and her character's actions are rarely predictable. She is determined to turn our protagonists life around with the sheer force of her love and care and Song is brilliant at making that seem like a reasonable thing to do. 

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

Movie Review Body of Evidence

Body of Evidence (1993) 

Directed by Uli Edel 

Written by Brad Mirman 

Starring Madonna, Willem Dafoe, Ann Archer, Joe Mantegna 

Release Date January 15th, 1993

Published January 16th, 1993

Body of Evidence is a movie so lurid and sleazy it has a scent. I imagined while watching this 'erotic' thriller that Body of Evidence carried the scent of unwashed bedsheets, body odor, and bad cologne. And maybe a hint of Scotch. Body of Evidence would make a make a poor advertisement for Smell-O-Vision, that's for sure. Watching Madonna and Willem Dafoe in various states of extraordinary nakedness, at the height of their beauty and uniqueness respectively, may not seem so bad until you watch the way director Uli Edel captures this image and makes you feel guilty for even considering enjoying it. 

That Body of Evidence was released to the popcorn munching masses in 1993 is indicative of where we were as a society. In 1993 it was somehow acceptable for filmmakers, almost exclusively male, to spend millions of dollars bringing their very specific masturbatory fantasies to the big screen. Today, we somehow have come around on the idea of good taste. At the very least, we now discourage men from having hard-ons in public places. But first, we had to hit bottom and the 90s was certainly a bottom. With Basic Instinct and Body of Evidence, the 90s were a horny, sweaty, free for all that's not nearly as much fun as it sounds. 

Now, before anyone assumes I am some kind of scold or prude or whatever, I assure you that's not the case. I'm sex positive. I think sex can be a natural, zesty enterprise. My point is not to shame anyone, be confident in what you enjoy as long as you aren't hurting anyone. My point is only that there is a place for horniness and it is not a mainstream movie theater. Pornography is just fine with me, but it belongs in private. I don't think society is asking too much by asking that we don't look at pornography in public. 

And make no mistake, Body of Evidence is and was pornography. Willem Dafoe has stated that the sexual activity in the film is real. Specifically, a scene of oral sex on top of a parked vehicle in a parking garage simply could not be faked for the camera. And that's fine, if you are watching at home, alone or with a willing partner. In public, it's weird and creepy. I told my co-host M.J, from the podcast that inspired this review, the all new Everyone's a Critic 1993 podcast, that this film was released in theaters, and they were floored. M.J is 18 years old. 

Ostensibly, Body of Evidence is the story of a woman named Rebecca who is arrested for murder. Willem Dafoe is her crusading lawyer, Frank. Together they fight to prove Rebecca's innocence and in the process they fall in love. It's a truly inspiring story overcoming the odds, finding a true partner, and allowing love to win the day. Okay, yeah, no, Body of Evidence is actually just a porno movie that is occasionally interrupted by the dumbest episode of Law & Order. 

Rebecca is accused of sexing her boyfriend to death. The prosecuting attorney, Robert (Joe Mantegna) actually says in court "She is a beautiful woman. But when this trial is over, you will see her no differently than a gun, or a knife, or any other instrument used as a weapon." The man Rebecca was sexing at the time was in his 60s and suffered from a heart problem. He'd also just changed his will to leave everything to Rebecca. There is also the fact that his nasal spray was spiked with cocaine. That might also have caused a problem. 

Despite this being a courtroom drama, no one seems to know how a court case works. There is a lot shouting objection and lots of shaming Rebecca for enjoying having sex. And that's pretty much it. The prosecutor tries to make the case that she tried to sex other men to an early grave but what the movie fails to understand is that having consensual sex is not illegal and having a heart problem while having very athletic sex, is still not murder. The courtroom nonsense relies greatly on the idea that men aren't capable of saying no to sex therefore she killed them with sex. You know what no one does? Dust for fingerprints on the nasal spray bottle to see who other than the dead man might have touched it. But there I go bringing logic to where it is certainly not welcome. 

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

Movie Review The Old Way

The Old Way (2023) 

Directed by Brett Donawho 

Written by Carl W. Lucas 

Starring Nicolas Cage, Ryan Kiera Armstrong, Shiloh Fernandez, Noah Le Gros 

Release Date January 6th, 2023

Published January 10th, 2023 

The Old Way stars Nicolas Cage as former gunfighter Colton Briggs. A well known and much feared outlaw in his day, Colton is now domesticated. He has a wife, Ruth (Kerry Knuppe), and a daughter, Brooke (Ryan Kiera Armstrong), and a dry good store in town. He's become an upstanding citizen so naturally, his past is coming back to haunt him. Enter a group of bandits led by James McCallister (Noah Le Gros). McCallister and his gang are on the run from the law when they happen upon the Briggs' home while Colton is away at work. 

Through a fluke of fate, the home that the bad guys want to hole up in for a night is that of the man that killeed McCallister's father and uncle right in front of him more than a decade ago. Though he's well aware of Briggs' reputation as the coldest of cold blooded killers, McCallister and his goons, Boots (Shiloh Fernandez), Big Mike (Abraham Benrubi), and Eustice (Clint Howard), set about torturing and murdering Ruth with McCallister hoping that her murder will bring Briggs out of outlaw retirement. 

Indeed, this does provide motivation for Colton to dust off his long black coat and revolvers but there is a potential impediment to Colton's roaring rampage of revenge. Colton's daughter is still alive. She was with Colton at his story when her mother died. Thus Colton must decide what to do with his little girl while pursuing his outlaw revenge. Lucky for him, Brooke has a lot more of her father in her than he might imagine. Brooke doesn't cry over her mom's death, she picks up a shotgun. 

That's a good set up for a western story. Sadly, as that story plays out in The Old Way, it never gains much life. What's lacking in The Old Way is something to really set the story apart from other similar stories. You might reasonably assume that casting the wildly charismatic and unpredictable Nicolas Cage might provide that unique quality but you'd be mistaken. Unfortunately, Nicolas Cage delivers one of the most by the numbers performances of his career in The Old Way. 

Find my full length review at Geeks.Media. 

Movie Review A Man Called Otto

A Man Called Otto (2023) 

Directed by Marc Forster 

Written by David Magee 

Starring Tom Hanks, Mariana Trevino, Rachel Keller, Truman Hanks, Manuel Garcia Rulfo 

Release Date January 6th, 2023 

Published January 6th, 2023 

A Man Called Otto hits an emotional sweet spot for me. It made me cry in both sadness and in joy. This is a movie I was incredibly skeptical about. The trailer was an irritation, it made Tom Hanks into some kind of Archie Bunker character in a modern sitcom. Thankfully, that's not what A Man Called Otto really is. Instead, the film, directed by the brilliant Marc Forster, is a study of grief, aging and loss tinged with romance, sentimentality and a sense of humor. That sense of humor starts with casting purportedly the nicest man in Hollywood, Tom Hanks, as a grouchy curmudgeon who treats others with a deep and abiding contempt. 

Tom Hanks is Otto Anderson and six months ago, his beloved wife, Sonya, passed away. His grief has turned Otto into a depressive hermit who lives only by the routine of punishing minor offenses committed by his neighbors in a tiny gated community. Outside of that, he's simply waiting to die. Well, actually, he's not waiting. One of the first things we see Otto doing is gathering the materials needed to hang himself. That's when fate intervenes in the form of new neighbors, one of whom, Marisol (Mariana Trevino), seems intent on making Otto her friend. 

There is a strangely magical quality to A Man Called Otto in how fate constantly conspires to interrupt Otto's attempts at killing himself. It's comical how many times Otto comes close to ending his life only to have someone intervene at the last moment, unwittingly causing Otto stick around. And that's the arc, Otto battling with a universe that seems intent on keeping him alive regardless of his desire to go to the afterlife to be with his wife. One of those intervening to keep Otto around is a homeless cat who takes to Otto and may or may not be magical manifestation of his late wife. 

That's purely my interpretation of A Man Called Otto. Most other critics seem to be treating the film as a straightforward story about a jerk who hates everyone and is trying to kill himself. Me, I see a magical story about fate and a man eager to defy the forces of good around him. I found that to be a very sweet and funny story, dark, yes, but only in the sense that the character is in a dark place emotionally and the light seems to actively try to find him. Your mileage will vary on whether you buy into my take on the movie or decide to take it merely at face value. 

Mariana Trevino is a complete delight. Her Marisol is a ball of joy bounding into Otto's life unaware of his troubles and yet determined to save him all the same. She's Magic Pixie Dream Best Friend, a sweetheart bursting with empathy and cheer. Even in the moments where Otto inflicts some genuine hurt on her via his bad attitude, she always bounces back and her resilience is inspired. In the hands of a lesser performer, the character of Marisol could just be a function to move the plot but in the hands of Mariana Trevino, the character takes on wonderful dimensions as she draws Otto toward revealing his pain and beginning to heal. 

Find my full length review at Geeks.Media 

Movie Review Megan

Megan (2023) 

Directed by Gerald Johnstone 

Written by Akela Cooper 

Starring Allison Williams, Violet McGraw, Amie Donald. Ronny Chieng 

Release Date January 6th, 2023 

Published January 6th, 2023 

Megan stars Allison Williams as Jenna, a roboticist with a knack for creating robots. Jenna's first creation is a Furbie style toy that can learn and carry on unique conversations, far beyond the canned responses of other similar toys. However, Jenna's big goal is to create a fully autonomous, learning, thinking and talking robot. In fact, we even see her misappropriating funds from her employer in a failed attempt to create Megan, a fully autonomous robot. 

Meanwhile, as Jenna is recovering from an 'explosive' failure, her life is being upended on the other side of the country. In Oregon, Jenna's sister, brother in-law, and niece, have been in a car accident. The parents of Cady (Violet McGraw) have died in the accident leaving the care of their daughter to Jenna. Never mind that Jenna is ill-equipped for being a parent, she's stuck with the kid and a failed robot and a deadline to try and make a new product in less than a day. 

In order to facilitate the plot of Megan, having Cady around inspires Jenna to revisit her failed Megan experiment. This time, it doesn't explode and when Jenna shows off the new Megan to her boss, David (Ronny Chieng), he compares Megan to the creation of the automobile. In order to get Megan working and demonstrate her capabilities, Jenna pairs Megan with Cady and the creepy robot becomes Cady's new best friend and primary caretaker. You can probably imagine why that's not a good thing. 

This is, of course, a horror movie. Thus, Megan is a horror movie villain whose particular villainy is explored in the second act followed by a third act showdown. The makers of Megan are not trying to reinvent the wheel. Thus, you can likely predict the nasty twists and turns of the second act as Megan destroys those who pose a threat to her new best friend Cady. Victims line up to be victims and are dispatched thusly. I will say, at least one of the murders, involving a power washer of all things, is unique, but there is nothing surprising happening and not much in the way of tension either. 

Click here for my full length review at Horror.Media 

Movie Review Leprechaun

Leprechaun (1993) 

Directed by Mark Jones

Written by Mark Jones 

Starring Warwick Davis, Jennifer Aniston, Ken Olandt, Mark Holton 

Release Date January 8th 1993 

Published January 9th, 2023 

Reflecting the movie Leprechaun 30 years later, it's a movie that should not exist. To steal phrase from a popular podcast, 'How did this Get Made?' How did a filmmaker look at a box of Lucky Charms and think to himself: Leprechaun horror movie. The existence of Leprechaun is perplexing enough but then, when you actually watch the movie, the questions only grow. This bizarre amalgamation of horror tropes, looney tunes gags, and endless continuity errors is undeniably entertaining but not for many of the reasons the filmmakers intended. 

Leprechaun begins on the sight of our titular anti-hero, the Leprechaun (Warwick Davis), savoring his pot of gold. Then, smash cut to a limousine somewhere in North Dakota. Inside the limo is Dan O'Grady (Shay Duffin), fresh from a trip to Ireland and flush with new found money. It seems that Mr. O'Grady, at some point unseen by us, captured and robbed the Leprechaun of his precious gold. Unfortunately for Dan and his beloved wife, Mrs. O'Grady (Pamela Mant), the Leprechaun wasn't keen on this idea and has followed Dan back to America for revenge. 

Cut to 10 years later. Dan O'Grady is gone after having trapped the Leprechaun in a crate in his basement with the aid of a four leaf clover, the kryptonite of the Leprechaun world. A father and daughter, J.D and Tory Redding, John Sanderford and Jennifer Aniston, are moving into the former home of the O'Grady's. Through a series of coincidences involving the unusual trio of young men hired to paint their new home, the titular Leprechaun escapes and goes on a rampage in search of his lost gold. 

Leprechaun began life as a straight ahead horror movie. Writer-Director Mark Jones admits that he looked at a box of Lucky Charms and that's where the idea came from. What with Halloween and Christmas having successfully launched horror franchises, why not St. Patrick's Day? That kind of mercenary logic is how you get something as strange and memorable as Leprechaun. This was 100% not a passion project for anyone, it was strictly a means to creating a cheap, repeatable holiday horror franchise. 

The only element that no one could have predicted was how much actor Warwick Davis would take to his Leprechaun character. The beloved star of Willow appears to delight in the role of a murderous Leprechaun. Davis is having a blast in this big broad character and it's hard not to enjoy just how much he is enjoying the nonsense he's involved in. Little of what he does or that the character is capable of makes any lick of sense, but Davis performs all the nonsense with such relish you can't help but have a little fun. 

Click here for my full length review at Horror.Media 

Classic Movie Review Giant

Giant (1956) 

Directed by George Stevens 

Written by Fred Guiol, Ivan Moffat

Starring Elizabeth Taylor, Rock Hudson, James Dean, Carroll Baker 

Release Date November 24th. 1956 

Published January 8th, 2023 

The latest presentation of The Film Foundation is the 1956 epic, Giant, starring Elizabeth Taylor, Rock Hudson, and James Dean. It's the story of money and privilege on the growing Texas prairie of 1956, a time when cattle and oil battled for land and financial supremacy. And a rare moment where a woman confronted the sexism of the time to demand her place in the world. It's also a 3 hour plus movie that takes a while to get to a place where something genuinely interesting takes place. 

The story kicks in when Jordan 'Bick' Benedict, travels to Maryland to purchase an expensive horse. The rich man selling the horse happens to have a beautiful daughter, Leslie (Elizabeth Taylor), who challenges him and within days of his arrival, becomes his wife. The two return to Texas where Bick's sister, Luz (Carroll Baker) is less than welcoming of her new sister in-law. Their conflict plays out quickly with Luz's death bringing an end to the brief chapter. 

Luz's death precipitates a rivalry between Bick and Luz's favorite ranch hand, Jett Rink (James Dean), who refuses to take Bick's money. Instead, he takes a piece of Bick's land that is believed to be relatively worthless. This being Texas however, the property is soon found to be valuable, bursting with oil. This furthers the rivalry between Jet and Bick, though that really takes a while to develop. Just as soon as Jet is pumping oil, the film jumps more than a decade into the future. 

I am embarrassed to say this, but it is true, I was bored throughout Giant. I recognize the large story being told and the skillful way in which George Stevens captures it all, but the story failed to grab me. I just couldn't stay interested in the sexless, chemistry free relationship of Elizabeth Taylor and Rock Hudson. They have three kids, but they have the romantic chemistry of acquaintances who happen to be married. The separate beds they sleep in are a sign of the times in 1956 but they are also, unintentionally symbolic of Hudson and Taylor's lack of bedroom compatibility. 

Then, there is James Dean, a legend who died young and left a blazing legacy. The James Dean of Giant is a creepy weirdo, a wiry, weird little troll of a man. He's supposedly the villain of the picture but he's so rarely on screen in the first two hours of Giant that he hardly registers beyond his deeply mannered and strange performance. The intention appears to be to make Jett Rink the big bad guy of the movie, but he doesn't really do much aside from some of the hammiest drunk acting I've ever seen in a movie. 

Find my full length review at Geeks.Media. 

Movie Review Firenado

Firenado (2022) 

Directed by Rhys Frake Waterfield, Scott Jeffrey 

Written by Tom Joliffe 

Starring Sian Altman, Nicola Wright, Stephen Staley

Release Date January 3rd, 2023 

Published December 29th, 2022 

Firenado is as dopey and low rent as that title indicates. It's also kind of fun, as that title implies. The story goes that a group of weather scientists figured out a new way to study tornados with the ultimate goal of controlling a tornado. Finding a tornado in a remote area, the group lets loose their technology only to accidentally grow the tornado beyond their control. Naturally, because the movie is called Firenardo, the out of control and over-powered tornado passes over the top of a gas station. 

While pressing the boundaries of credibility, the gas pumps light the tornado on fire and the tornado grows further out of control. Our group of scientists, including Anna (Sian Altman), a student learning about meteorology, Helena (Nicola Wright) an assistant to the professor in charge of the experiment, Professor Devlin (Toby Wynn Davies). There is another guy there too, but he doesn't matter much. He's a brief comic relief character who is offed quickly amid the early destruction of the tornado. 

There is a secondary plot in Firenado because apparently stopping a tornado that is on fire is not enough for one movie. Thus, we get a heist plot. A group of criminal's plans to enact a heist in the midst of the storm. Unaware that the tornado they are planning to use for cover has become a firenado, the criminals attack a safe house where an accountant, Pierce Moore (Daniel Godfrey), is hiding out with millions of dollars. 

Somehow, the scientists are also on their way to this safe house. The scientists are working their way across the countryside warning people to run from the Firenado with minimal success. They happen to arrive at the safe house just as the criminals do and a shootout ensues, somehow, until the firenado catches up. Then we get a chase scene and another multi-million dollar safe house and a burgeoning romance between Pierce and Anna and it's... a lot. It's a lot. 

You might be surprised to know that a fire tornado, or Firenado, is a real thing. Not the way it happens in this movie, obviously, but they do happen. It's rare but, most often they occur related to atmospheric conditions surrounding forest fires. There is little, really no chance that a tornado hitting a gas station will lead to a 'Firenado,' as happens in this movie. That said, of course, this movie is not based on any real danger. Instead, Firenado is a very silly B-movie looking to capitalize on the already dated trend of placing odd things inside of Tornados like Sharks, Ghosts, Dinosaurs, and Cars. 

Find my full length review at Geeks.Media 

Movie Review Armageddon Time

Armageddon Time (2002) 

Directed by James Gray 

Written by James Gray 

Starring Anthony Hopkins, Anne Hathaway, Jeremy Strong 

Release Date November 4th, 2022 

Published November 10th, 2022 

Armageddon Time  stars Michael Banks Repeta as Paul, a young man in 1980 New York City attending public school. Paul comes from a Jewish background but his family has hidden that behind the name Graf. At school, Paul is unremarkable, a minor rebel who mocks his teacher. He finds a friend in Johnny (Jaylin Webb), a fellow outcast, a young black kid whose been held back at least once. Johnny is in trouble a lot, mostly because his teacher just assumes Johnny is the one causing trouble. 

At home, Paul has a loving, if somewhat angry family. Paul has somehow convinced himself that his family is rich though we can clearly see that there are middle class at best. Regardless, Paul takes liberties with his parents, especially by ordering take out even after his mother, Anne Hathaway, has cooked an expansive dinner for their entire family. His father, played by Jeremy Strong, is loving but can be overbearing and outright abusive. 

That abusive side comes out when Paul finds trouble at school. With Johnny, Paul is caught smoking marijuana in the school bathroom. Paul's father finds out and give his son a frightening beating with a belt in a scene that director James Gray is smart not to romanticize. Many of Gray's generation, my generation, as well, tend to act as if a father who beat their kids was a 'disciplinarian' and not an abuser. Gray and Jeremy Strong give the father character in Armageddon Time a more complex rendering as a man who loves his kids but also feels at a loss at how to care for them. It's clear he was also beaten as a child and he sees it as the only way forward as a parent. 

Paul gets pulled out of his public school and placed in a rich private school with the help of his benevolent and loving grandfather, played by Anthony Hopkins. At this rich private school Paul runs in the same circle as the sons of the Trump family. When they see Paul talking with Johnny at the gates of the school, their sneering racism causes Paul to pull away from his friend. At the urging of his grandfather, Paul tries to repair his friendship but his plan to do so only causes more problems. 

At his new school, the line between white and black, the privileged and the less than privileged, is brought into stark contrast when Maryanne Trump (Jessica Chastain in cameo), visits the school and delivers a speech. The speech is like a message directly to Paul, and thus to us, about where you stand and who you stand for. Will you be part of the future she proposes led by the rich elite, or stand with those in need of help. 

I think... honestly, I am not entirely sure what James Gray is going for overall. There are elements of class warfare, and something being said about white-privilege and the racial divide. That said, what point James Grey is trying to make is undermined by his storytelling choices. The lasting memory of Armageddon Time is that of a young black kid acting as a functionary in the coming of age of a young white kid. The young black kid has no life, no dimension, he exists to teach a lesson to our main character. 

Find my full length review at Geeks.Media. 

Classic Movie Review The Adventures of Baron Munchausen

The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (1989)

Directed by Terry Gilliam 

Written by Charles McKeown, Terry Gilliam 

Starring John Neville, Sarah Polley, Eric Idle, Robin Williams 

Release Date March 10th, 1989 

Published January 3rd, 2023 

Terry Gilliam's delirious, chaotic, and fantastic, The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, is now part of the Criterion Collection. Released in 1989, this wildly over the top, sensory overload inducing film remains, 34 years after release, as alive and full of imagination as ever. Even as special effects and cinematography have evolved past the somewhat aged looking Munchausen, Gilliam's dedication to practical effects gives his masterpiece a timeless look. 

The story of The Adventures of Baron Munchausen begins on the stage where an acting troupe is acting out the supposedly fictitious adventures of Baron Munchausen. The story kicks into gear when the real Baron Munchausen (John Neville), charges the stage and demands to be allowed to tell the story of his adventures correctly. Thus, the Baron launches into a fantastical story about his conflict with the Grand Turk, one that began with a reasonable wager and ended with the Baron and his men leaving with all of the wealth of the empire. 

The Baron's remarkable and vivid tale is interrupted when that same Grand Turk and his army begin to bombard the English city where this tale had been told. Caught off guard, it appears that the English are to be overrun by the Turks until the Baron makes a big movie, creates for himself an airship on which he will fly across the galaxy to gather his servants to help fight the Turks. Stowing away on the Baron's airship is Sally Salt (Sarah Polley), a plucky youngster who is one of the few who believes that the Baron's fantasies are real. 

And boy are they real as, indeed, the Baron takes Sally to the Moon where The King of the Moon (Robin Williams), imprisons them. There they are able to recover The Baron's top assistant, played by Eric Idle. Naturally, there is an amazing escape that leads to another remarkable adventure that includes a brief bit of romance wherein The Baron is smitten with the wife of a dangerous bandit king. Uma Thurman is luminous as the Queen while the inimitable Oliver Reed chews the very large and practically crafted sets. 

The Adventures of Baron Munchausen is a wildly imaginative masterwork. It's pure chaos but in the best possible way. The flights of fantasy and the visual delights never rest while the extraordinary cast provides even more color with big, broad, and hilarious performances. Star John Neville grounds the story with elegant dignity and roguish charm, while Sarah Polley never succumbs to the cliches of a plucky child sidekick. Her Sally is an urgent part of the plot as she plays the part of the Baron's conscience. 

Find my full length review at Geeks.Media.