Movie Review Firestarter

Firestarter 

Directed by Keith Thomas

Written by Scott Teems

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

Released May 13th, 2022

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

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

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

Movie Review On the Count of Three

On the Count of Three

Directed by Jerrod Carmichael

Written by Ari Katcher, Ryan Welch

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

Released May 13th, 2022

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

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

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

Movie Review Senior Year

Senior Year

Directed by Alex Hardcastle

Written by Andrew Knauer, Arthur Pielli, Brandon Scott Jones

Starring Rebel Wilson, Angourie Rice, Sam Richardson

Released May 13th, 2022 

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

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

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

Movie Review Tankhouse

Tankhouse

Directed by Noam Tomaschoff

Written by Noam Tomaschoff, Chelsea Frei

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

Released May 9th, 2022

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

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

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

Movie Review Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness

Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness

Directed by Sam Raimi

Written by Michael Waldron

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

Released May 6th, 2022

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

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

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

Documentary Review Box of Rain

Box of Rain

Directed by Lonnie Frazier

Written by Lonnie Frazier

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

Released May 10th, 2022

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

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

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

Documentary Review Facing Nolan

Facing Nolan 

Directed by Bradley Jackson

Written by Bradley Jackson

Starring Nolan Ryan 

Released March 12th, 2022

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

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

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

Classic Movie Review Harold and Maude

Harold and Maude 

Directed by Hal Ashby

Written by Colin Higgins

Starring Ruth Gordon, Bud Cort, Charles Tyner

Released December 20th, 1971

Well, I did it, I watched Harold & Maude for the first time and the magic is lost on me. I think I get it, the message, no one can tell you who to love or how to love or how to live. It makes sense, and it’s a fine message. And Hal Ashby is a very good director. Harold & Maude is a great looking movie, it’s filled with quirky characters and a strong anti-establishment attitude that I do admire. However, other, quirkier, aspects of the movie simply left me cold. 

Harold & Maude stars Bud Cort as Harold, a depressed young man in his early 20’s who fills his days by attending funerals and faking his death by suicide. Harold is a deeply morbid young man. His strained relationship with his mother, Mrs Chasen (Vivian Pickles), has reached a bizarre breaking point. Basically, Harold is repeatedly faking his suicide death specifically to provoke his mother. Mrs Chasen, meanwhile, appears entirely unfazed by Harold’s performances, aside from when he bloodied her bathroom.

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

Classic Movie Review Shivers

Shivers 

Directed by David Cronenberg

Written by Written by David Cronenberg

Starring Paul Hampton, Lynn Lowry, Barbara Steele 

Released October 10th, 1975 

Director David Cronenberg’s debut feature, Shivers, is about the loss of bodily autonomy. It’s about what happens when an outside force enacts itself upon someone and robs them of their agency. Sure, in this case, it’s a slug like parasite but the meaning, at least in a modern context, could not be more symbolic of governmental interference. Given that bodily autonomy is a top headline in the battle over abortion in America today, it’s an interesting time to look at Cronenberg’s 45 plus year old take on the idea behind Shivers. 

The symbols of conformity are what we first recognize in the opening scenes of Shivers. A disembodied, soothing, oily voiceover tells us about the self-contained amenities of an island apartment complex called Starliner Towers. It’s the picture of perfection. There is no need to ever leave as the building has doctors, dentists, grocery stores and pharmacies. All of that plus the serenity of living more than an hour away from the teeming masses in urban centers. Naturally, Cronenberg is here to splash blood all over this multi-dwelling Eden.

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

Movie Review Benediction

Benediction

Directed by Terence Davies

Written by Terence Davies 

Starring Jack Lowden, Peter Capaldi, Simon Russell Beale

Release Date June 3rd, 2022 

Benediction is a movie that is indirectly about empathy. Creating empathy is what director Terence Davies intends but the film has a main character who defies our desire to empathize with him. Siegfried Sassoon, the famed ‘War Poet,’ whose work aimed to expose the human cost of war, isn’t interested in our empathy. Sassoon's arc in Benediction is from nearly dying a martyr, to bitterness, and finally to a man seeking the illusion of comfort in religious salvation.

Benediction is directly about the life of Siegfried Sassoon. And Benedictionis indirectly about how Terence Davies builds the case for Sassoon’s late in life search for salvation. Having spent his life as a disillusioned hedonist and then a self-closeted homosexual, you might think that the Catholic Church is the last place Siegfried Sassoon might turn. That is unless you see Benediction which makes the case for how a lifetime of bitterness pushed Siegfried toward spiritual salvation as a last resort.

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

Movie Review Bob's Burgers The Movie

Bob's Burgers The Movie 

Directed by Loren Bouchard, Bernard Derriman

Written by Loren Bouchard, Nora Smith 

Starring H. Jon Benjamin, Dan Mintz, Eugene Mirman, Kristen Schaal, John Roberts, Kevin Kline

Released May 27th, 2022

Loren Bouchard’s animated series, Bob’s Burgers, has been a consistent delight for 11 seasons on Fox. Now, Bouchard has brought the fun to the big screen in Bob’s Burgers The Movie. And while, we must admit, a Bob’s Burgers movie is deeply inessential, that doesn’t stop it from being funny and endearing. Those familiar voices and the quirky characters they bring to life would be hilarious in any context even as a big screen effort isn't necessary. 

The Bob’s Burgers Movie tells a harrowing story for our beloved Belcher Family. Bob (H Jon Benjamin), is frantically preparing a burger to take to a meeting with a bank manager. The family is behind on an important loan and he hopes a burger will grease the wheels a little for an extension. Linda (John Roberts) is her usual optimistic self, she’s convinced that everything will work out just fine with the bank. 

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

Movie Review Top Gun Maverick

Top Gun Maverick

Directed by Joseph Kosinski 

Written by Ehren Kruger, Eric Warren Singer, Christopher McQuarrie

Starring Tom Cruise, Val Kilmer, Miles Teller, Jennifer Connelly, Jon Hamm, Glen Powell

Released May 27th, 2022

I walked into Top Gun Maverick highly skeptical. My experience of the original Top Gun was as an overly polished, jingoistic, cold war era male fantasy. Despite Tom Cruise’s magnetic performance and Anthony Edwards’ terrifically funny performance, I was not a fan of Top Gun. So imagine my surprise when the sequel Top Gun Maverick began getting terrific reviews from critics that I greatly admired. It didn’t completely cure my skepticism but it created a modest optimism. 

That modest optimism was then met and exceeded when I finally saw Top Gun Maverick. This is one terrific action movie. High flying suspense, incredible camera and stunt work, flawless special effects, everything you’d hope for on a more than 150 million dollar budget. But what really surprised me was the strong characters. The original was a shallow examination of cocky flyboys and the women trying to save them from themselves. This film smartly spends time with Peter ‘Maverick’ Mitchell and reveals his vulnerability, his empathy, and humanity.

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

Movie Review Prometheus

Prometheus

Directed by Ridley Scott

Written by Joe Spaihts, Damon Lindelof

Starring Noomi Rapace, Michael Fassbender, Guy Pearce, Idris Elba, Charlize Theron

Released June 1st, 2012

I really liked Prometheus when I watched it in theaters for the first time. I was bowled over by the technical virtuosity of Prometheus and the wonderful performances of stars Noomi Rapace and Michael Fassbender. Unfortunately, upon revisiting Prometheus I discovered the emptiness of Prometheus. The hedging of bets over the existence of God versus the proof of science is the realm of the coward.

On first blush, Prometheus seems like a bold exercise in questioning where we came from and who we are as a people. The film offers a pair of scientists as the lead performers in Noomi Rapace as Shaw and Logan Marshall Green as Holloway. Rapace's scientist is also a woman of faith whose ever-present cross is also a reminder of her father and a longing to see him and her mother again someday. Green's Holloway is more pragmatic. Following the discovery of alien drawings in different caves around the globe has led him to believe that human beings were engineered by aliens and he aims to find them and ask them why, thus solving the great question of why we're here.

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

Movie Review Bloody Oranges

Bloody Oranges

Directed by Jean-Christophe Meurisse

Written by Jean-Christophe Meurisse 

Starring Olivier Saladin, Lorella Cravotta, Alexandre Steiger 

Released July 8th, 2021

Bloody Oranges promises a subversive good time and mostly delivers. This French black comedy is at times bleak, other times surreal, and always strangely intriguing. Directed by Jean Christophe Meurisse, Bloody Oranges has shock value that is matched by an oddball group of characters whose stories you can't help but get caught up in. Some of these people are despicable villains and some are naïve innocents caught up in a system that doesn’t care about basic human decency. 

The story begins at a Dance Contest. A group of judges are debating who should win the grand prize. Eventually, the group settles on a lovely elderly couple named Laurence (Lorella Cravotta) and Olivier (Olivier Saladin). The couple is delighted to win and excited to have a chance at real prize money at the next regional contest. The couple desperately wants the prize money as their bank is about to foreclose on their home.

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

Movie Review Men

Men 

Directed by Alex Garland 

Written by Alex Garland 

Starring Jessie Buckley, Rory Kinnear 

Released June 1st, 2022

Alex Garland is a remarkable director. From the flawlessly composed shots to the immaculate production design, to the unsettling storytelling, Garland has a most unique sensibility. For his latest effort, Men, starring Jessie Buckley, Garland’s craftsmanship is as exceptional as his story is layered and disturbing. Examining misogyny, both external and internalized, as only he sees it, Garland has delivered a film that is more than the equal of his first two extraordinary films. 

Harper (Jessie Buckley) just wants a little peace and quiet. She’s rented a large cottage in the English countryside for a quiet place to recover from the end of her marriage. Bluntly speaking, Harper’s husband, James, played by Paapa Essiedu, took his own life after Harper told him she was divorcing him. James pulled no punches in telling Harper that he was going to kill himself if she divorced him, and then he did it.

Find my full length review at Horror.com, linked here.

Classic Movie Review La Stada

La Strada

Directed by Federico Fellini

Written by Federico Fellini, Tullio Pinelli, Ennio Flaiano

Starring Giulietta Masina, Anthony Quinn, Richard Baseheart

Release Date September 6th, 1954

On June 13th, 2022, Martin Scorsese and The Film Foundation Restoration Screening Room hosted a free online screening of Federico Fellini’s remarkable 1954 romantic tragedy, La Strada. It’s the second free online restoration screening for Scorsese and The Film Foundation and they are going to be doing this once a month for anyone who loves classic films fully restored to their glory by The Film Foundation. And thanks to The Film Foundation, La Strada is another Fellini movie off of my bucket list of classics. 

La Strada begins on a tragedy and ends on a tragedy. In the beginning of the story we find our protagonist, Gelsomina (Giulieta Masina), idly gathering sticks on the beach. Gelsomina is called home for some terrible news. Gelsomina’s sister has died in some far off town. The man who had left with her sister so many years ago, Zampano (Anthony Quinn), a sideshow performer, is now back at her family home requesting the company of Gelsomina to take her sister’s place. He’s given Gelsomina’s mother 10,000 lire for her.

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

Movie Review Cha Cha Real Smooth

Cha Cha Real Smooth 

Directed by Cooper Raiff

Written by Cooper Raiff

Starring Cooper Raiff, Dakota Johnson, Leslie Mann

Release Date June 17th, 2022 

Cha Cha Real Smooth is a sweet, smart and insightful comedy about what makes us, us. It’s a film about learning about yourself, knowing yourself, and understanding yourself and others. That’s a rather broad idea but under the clever and caring direction of Cooper Raiff it never feels broad, it feels specific to the terrific characters that he and his remarkable cast have created. It’s a lived in and warm and curious story with a wealth of empathy and a dollop of heartache. 

Cooper Raiff wrote, directs and stars in Cha Cha Real Smooth as Andrew, an underachieving recent college graduate. Andrew has hopes and dreams and a romantic soul. He also has no idea who he is or what he really wants to do with his life. What he knows innately however, is how to make other people feel special. As seen throughout a scene set at a bat mitzvah, when Andrew sets his mind to it, he has an instinct for making other people feel included and special.

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

Classic Movie Review Tokyo Story

Tokyo Story

Directed by Yasujirō Ozu

Written by Kogo Nada, Yasujirō Ozu 

Starring Setsuko Hara, Chishu Ryu, Kyoko Kagawa

Released November 3rd, 1953

It’s a very simple, basic notion of transition in film. And yet, it’s still quite brilliant when you think about it. I’m talking about one edit in the 1953 movie, Tokyo Story by director Yasujiro Ozu. The edit comes at approximately 6 minutes and 40 seconds into the film. In the scene prior to the edit, an elderly Japanese couple is packing bags that they will take with them when they travel to see their grown children in the big city. The scene is gentle and pleasant, beautifully underscored by Takanobu Saito’s elegant score. 

There is not a lot of exposition dialogue, just enough to tell us that the couple is traveling via train to see their kids. Visually however, Ozu tells us more than you might realize. The elderly couple is dressed traditionally, their home is spare and rustic. There is a serene atmosphere surrounding the home. The doddering couple are sweet together, you can sense their bond and, through how they interact with each other, you get a sense of people who have spent long lives together.

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

Movie Review Jurassic World Dominion

Jurassic World Dominion

Directed by Colin Trevorrow

Written by Colin Trevorrow, Emily Carmichael 

Starring Chris Pratt, Sam Neill, Laura Dern, Jeff Goldblum, Bryce Dallas Howard

Release Date June 10th, 2022

Jurassic World Dominion boils down to a series of chase scenes that happen to have CG dinosaurs in them. As a film critic I face a challenge in attempting to give you anymore information that you need about this movie. There is simply nothing else here aside from chase scenes and that awful kind of modern nostalgia. You know the kind I am talking about? That kind of nostalgia where it feels like the movie is constantly nudging you in the ribs and asking you if you remember that thing you liked from that other movie? There it is, there is that thing you liked. 

As I have to meet a particular number of words in order to publish this review, let’s talk plot. There isn’t one. Okay, fine there is kind of a plot. But I am being very generous. Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard are living in the woods with Maisey, the genetically engineered child of that rich guy from that other Jurassic movie or whatever. They are trying to keep her from being kidnapped and they fail miserably because she gets kidnapped. They go to save her and blah blah blah. (Editor, does Blah Blah Blah add to my word count?)

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