Movie Review Hustle

Hustle 

Directed by Jeremiah Zagar

Written by Taylor Materne, Will Fetters

Starring Adam Sandler, Queen Latifah, Ben Foster, Anthony Edwards, Robert Duvall

Released June 3rd, 2022

Hustle stars Adam Sandler as Stanley Sugarman, a scout for the NBA’s Philadelphia 76ers. It’s Stanley’s job to travel around the world and find the next great European player. On a trip to Spain, he finds that player. Bo Cruz, played by NBA star Juancho Hernangomez, is tall and fast and has a terrific jump shot. Spotting Bo playing streetball late one one night, Stanley recognizes his talent even as he was playing basketball in work boots. 

Believing that Bo is the next great player, the one to take the 76ers to the next level, Stanley has to convince the higher ups. This means convincing his long time rival, Vince Merrick (Ben Foster), the talentless son of the late owner (Robert Duvall), to take a chance. When Vince says no and tells Stanley to forget about Bo, Stanley risks his job and financial security to bring Bo to America on his own dime. Putting him up in a hotel, Stanley has to try and get the kid into the NBA draft while keeping Vince in the dark.

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

Movie Review The Black Phone

The Black Phone

Directed by Scott Derrickson 

Written by Scott Derrickson, C.Robert Cargill

Starring Ethan Hawke, Mason Thames, Madeleine McGraw, Jeremy Davies

Release Date June 24th, 2022

The Black Phone is a terrifically terrifying tale. Directed by arguably the best horror movie director working today, Scott Derrickson, The Black Phone delivers both an incredibly rich story and a legitimately scary horror movie. Featuring one of the best performances of Ethan Hawke’s extraordinary career, The Black Phone is far more than a one man show. Scott Derrickson has thought of everything in The Black Phone and takes care to cast the movie perfectly while pacing it to near perfection as well. 

The Black Phone stars Mason Thames as Finney and Madeleine McGraw as Finney’s little sister, Gwen. Together they have navigated losing their mother to mental illness and suicide and their father to his ongoing alcoholism and self loathing. The once loving dad, exceptionally played by Jeremy Davies, has become belligerent and abusive. Brother and sister navigate around his moods amid the outside chaos caused by a recent spate of abductions in their Colorado neighborhood.

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

Movie Review Elvis

Elvis 

Directed by Baz Luhrmann

Written by Baz Luhrmann, Sam Bromell, Craig Pearce, Jeremy Doner

Starring Austin Butler, Tom Hanks

Release Date June 24th, 2022

I am a huge fan of director Baz Luhrmann. I find his brand of colorful, whirling, swirling romance to be a heady and exciting mix. Luhrmann is an undeniable artist. That fact makes reviewing his new movie, Elvis, such a chore. I don’t like having to write negatively about a director I admire as much as I admire Baz Luhrmann. But, sadly, Elvis is far too undercooked, far too chaotic, and far too much for me to recommend. 

Elvis is a pseudo-biopic of the legendary King of Rock N’Roll, Elvis Presley, played by newcomer Austin Butler. The actual star of Elvis however, is a fat suit wearing, comically accented Tom Hanks as Elvis’s snaky guru and manager, Col. Tom Parker. The film loosely tells Elvis’s story through the unreliable prism of Parker’s self-aggrandizing narration. This becomes confusing as Parker appears to narrate scenes he wasn’t present for or scenes that are deeply critical of his actions, which muddy his apparent motivation.

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

Movie Review Thor Love and Thunder

Thor Love and Thunder

Directed by Taika Waititi

Written by Taika Waititi

Starring Chris Hemsworth, Christian Bale, Tessa Thompson, Natalie Portman, Russell Crowe

Release Date July 8th, 2022

What is it about the Guardians of the Galaxy that no director other than James Gunn can get the voice of the Guardians right? The Guardians of the Galaxy show up in the opening act of Thor Love and Thunder and they appear, for some inexplicable reason, like off brand versions of the characters we love. I had the same feeling about the Guardians of the Galaxy as they were directed by the Russo Brothers in Avengers Infinity War and Avengers Endgame, the Guardians just never sounded right. 

Why am I opening my review of Thor Love and Thunder by wondering about the off-brand version of the Guardians of the Galaxy? Probably because Thor Love and Thunder didn’t give me anything more memorable than this Guardians tangent. Thor Love and Thunder is deeply mediocre compared to the lively, exciting and well crafted Thor Ragnorak. Thor Love and Thunder fails to figure out how to balance heavy drama involving Christian Bale’s villainous Gorr The God Butcher and Thor’s mostly comic adventure.

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

Movie Review Crimes of the Future

Crimes of the Future 

Directed by David Cronenberg 

Written by David Cronenberg

Starring Viggo Mortensen, Lea Seydoux, Kristen Stewart

Release Date September 8th, 2022 

Crimes of the Future is yet another example of David Cronenberg’s favorite theme, bodily autonomy, the right of people to do what they want with their own bodies. In his 1975 feature, Shivers, Cronenberg examined how outside forces take bodily autonomy away from individuals by force. In Crimes of the Future, the sides are a little more even. In this strange Cronenbergian universe, the war between those who want bodily autonomy and those who want government control over how humanity is evolving has reached a boiling point. 

Caught in the middle of this ideological war is performance artist Saul Tenser (Viggo Mortensen) and his performance partner, a former surgeon named Caprice (Lea Seydoux). Together this duo performs an act in which Saul is operated on by Caprice and has an organ removed. Something the film calls accelerated evolution has led to Saul being able to grow new organs which may or may not have a function. He, and everyone else in this strange future, have also evolved to no longer feel physical pain. Saul and Caprice's art is a live surgery followed by Saul tattooing the new organ and displaying it all for the paying crowd.

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

Movie Review The Forgiven

The Forgiven 

Directed by John Michael McDonagh

Written by John Michael McDonagh

Starring Jessica Chastain, Ralph Fiennes, Matt Smith, Caleb Landry Jones, Christopher Abbott

Release Date July 1st, 2022

The Forgiven was made as a combination of the rich people ennui of The Great Gatsby and a moralist critique of the shiftless 1% wasting away on their vast fortunes while callously victimizing the disenfranchised. The film comes up short on both accounts. Written and Directed by John Michael McDonaugh, The Forgiven is sweaty, tired and unfocused outside a few genuinely emotional moments involving a grieving father and the man who killed his son. 

The Forgiven stars Ralph Fiennes and Jessica Chastain as a deeply bored and drifting apart married couple. He’s a doctor and she’s a children’s book author. As a couple they have plenty of money but very little joy. As we meet David and Jo Henninger they are traveling through Morocco and on their way to a distant location in the African desert. There, a long time friend of the couple, Richard (Matt Smith) and his partner Dally (Caleb Landry Jones), are throwing an old school bacchanal of rich people excess.

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

Movie Review Marcel The Shell With Shoes On

Marcel the Shell With Shoes On

Directed by Dean Fleischer Camp

Written by Dean Fleischer Camp, Jenny Slate, Nick Paley

Starring Jenny Slate, Rosa Salazar, Thomas Mann

Released June 24th, 2022 

Marcel the Shell with Shoes On bursts forth from the imagination of Jenny Slate and her creative partner, Dean Fleischer Camp. The story of a lonely little shell with shoes on and the documentary filmmaker who briefly lives with the shell and makes a movie about him, Marcel the shell with Shoes On is a wildly inventive and genuinely lovely movie. Vibrant, strange and endlessly beautiful, Marcel the Shell with Shoes on is one of the reasons we love going to the movies. 

Marcel, voiced by co-creator Jenny Slate, has lived a lifetime in the last two years. It’s been that long since most of Marcel’s family of fellow shells disappeared. Since then, it has only been Marcel and his grandmother, Connie (Isabella Rossellini). Together, they’ve invented ways to survive on their own as one person after another moves into and out of their suburban, multi-bedroom home. What was once the home of a loving couple has become a permanent Air B & B.

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

Movie Review Prey

Prey 

Directed by Dan Trachtenberg

Written by Patrick Alson 

Starring Amber Midthunder, Dakota Beavers, Michelle Thrush 

Release Date August 5th, 2022

When it’s good, the Predator franchise is arguably the best action movie franchise going. As my proof of that claim, I give you the new Predatorprequel Prey. Debuting on Hulu, Prey is a gorgeous looking movie that also happens to be a badass, blood and guts action movie. Everything you’ve enjoyed about the Predator franchise, aside from Arnold Schwarzenegger, can be found in Prey making it a must see for fans of the franchise and just a really terrific action movie. 

Prey stars Amber Midthunder as Naru, a young Comanche woman in 1718 who dreams of being a hunter like her late father. Being a young woman she is underestimated by everyone, including her older brother, Taabe (Dakota Beavers), a beloved young warrior and leader in the tribe. When what they believe is a lion begins to lurk near their settlement, Taabe is part of the hunting party to catch and kill the beast. Naturally, Naru tags along in hopes of getting her chance to prove herself as a hunter.

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

Movie Review Sharp Stick

Sharp Stick

Directed by Lena Dunham

Written by Lena Dunham

Starring Kristine Froseth, Jon Bernthal, Scott Speedman, Lena Dunham

Release Date July 29th, 2022

Sharp Stick is an utterly bizarre and deeply off-putting new movie from writer-director Lena Dunham. Now, before you start on the assumption that I am one of those people who hate anything related to Lena Dunham, I assure you that is not the case. I, like most others, found Dunham through her HBO series Girls, and I have been a fan of her sharp, and offbeat work since that series began and ended. 

I’ve been eagerly awaiting Dunham’s next project as Girls showed a lot of potential for the growth of her talent as a writer. I’ve also not paid much attention to her social media where I am told she’s made many unfortunate statements that I am not eager to investigate. Bottom line, I didn’t go into Sharp Stick with a negative opinion of Dunham but I did come away with a very negative opinion of this film.

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

Movie Review Vengeance

Vengeance 

Directed by B.J Novak 

Written by B.J Novak 

Starring B.J Novak, Boyd Holbrook, Issa Rae, Ashton Kutcher

Released July 29th, 2022

Vengeance stars B.J Novak as a feckless writer bouncing from one meaningless hook up to another while dreaming of being a podcast star. He claims that he wants to tell the story of America but his naked ambition is clear to everyone but him. Novak’s Ben Manolowitz’s life is turned upside down when he gets a call in the middle of the night telling him that his girlfriend has died. 

This is a curious phone call because, as I mentioned, Ben’s not a guy who goes for commitment. He doesn’t have a ‘girlfriend,’ he has a series of meaningless sexual encounters that pass the time when he isn’t working. The man on the phone, Ty Shaw (Boyd Holbrook), however, is convinced that Ben was his sister, Abilene's (Lio Tipton) boyfriend. Abilene has been found dead of an apparent overdose somewhere in West Texas.

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

Movie Review Nope

Nope 

Directed by Jordan Peele

Written by Jordan Peele 

Starring Keke Palmer, Daniel Kaluuya, Steven Yeun, Michael Wincott

Release Dated July 22nd, 2022 

A shoe stands on its end, the toe pointing into the air. It’s an evocative image, shoes don’t do that. But a shoe does do that in the new Jordan Peele horror thriller Nope. Come to think of it, the sight of a shoe in such an unnatural position is the kind of image that might cause one to say ‘Nope’ while slowly backing away from whatever might be the cause of this image. It’s not just a shoe though, there’s a well placed drop of blood on that shoe as well that offers another disturbing aspect to this sight. Then the context for the shoe comes fully into frame and… 

I am not going to spoil this for you, I promise. I am going to do a little tap dancing to get through this so bear with me. I want you to see Nope because it is so unique and thrilling. So, trust me when I tell you that nothing I write in this review will reveal anything important regarding the surprises and shocks of Nope. And trust me again when I tell you that those shocks and surprises are worth every penny of your ticket price.

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

Movie Review Alone Together

Alone Together

Directed by Katie Holmes 

Written by Katie Holmes

Starring Katie Holmes, Jim Sturgess

Release Date July 22nd, 2022

There have been a few pandemic movies but not in the sense of a thriller or expose of the incompetence that caused the pandemic. Rather, so far, filmmakers have preferred telling more human stories than going after the bigger stories that will require a more complex take. The latest small scale pandemic story comes from actor-director, Katie Holmes. 

For her second time behind the camera as a director, Katie Holmes settled on a relatively small scale story. Alone Together finds Holmes starring alongside Jim Sturgess as strangers stranded at the same Air B’n B just as the pandemic was beginning to overtake New York City. Holmes certainly isn’t taking it easy for her first directorial effort. Despite the small scale story, Holmes takes on the challenge of directing and starring in Alone Together, which is not as easy as Holmes makes it seem in this charming film.

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

Movie Review Spin Me Round

Spin Me Round 

Directed by Jeff Baena 

Written by Jeff Baena

Starring Alison Brie, Aubrey Plaza 

Release Date August 19th, 2022 

Spin Me Round is a bizarre movie. The comedy starring the lovely Allison Brie and the brilliant Aubrey Plaza has a ridiculous amount of promise and falls short. The idea behind the narrative is a good one, and with Brie and Plaza, along with supporting ringers such as Tim Heidecker and Molly Shannon, Spin Me Round should have been a no-brainer indie comedy sensation. Instead, director Jeff Baena throws in one twist too many and leaves one MAJOR plot thread dangling, leaving Spin Me Round to spin its wheels. 

Spin Me Round tells the story of Amber (Allison Brie). Amber has been the manager of an Italian themed chain restaurant for most of her working life. She did try to leave and start her own restaurant but it didn’t work out. Thankfully, her old boss, played in a completely wasted cameo by Lil Rel Howery, brought her back and she seems content to work there for the foreseeable future.

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

Movie Review Bodies Bodies Bodies

Bodies Bodies Bodies 

Directed by Halina Reijn

Written by Sarah Delappe 

Starring Amandla Stenberg, Maria Bakalova, Rachel Sennott, Pete Davidson

Release Date August 5th, 2022

Bodies Bodies Bodies is a mixed bag. At once a horror whodunnit and a snappy send up of Gen-z, Bodies Bodies Bodies has a tricky tone to pull off and I don’t think it quite threaded the needle. The movie wants laughs and scares in equal measure and while it earns both, the whole is never as good as the parts. In the end Bodies Bodies Bodies is quite effective but not as effective as it needs to be. 

Bodies Bodies Bodies stars Amandla Stenberg and Maria Bakalova as a young couple traveling to a hurricane party. Stenberg is Sophie and Bakalova is Bee, and what Bee doesn’t know is that they have not actually been invited to this party. This is despite the fact that the party is being put on by Sophie’s oldest and closest friend, David (Pete Davidson). Sophie has dropped out of the lives of her closest friends while she was in rehab and while getting clean, she met Bee and fell in love.

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

Movie Review Get Away if You Can

Get Away if You Can 

Directed by Dominique Braun, Terrence Martin

Written by Dominique Braun, Terrence Martin

Starring Ed Harris, Dominique Brau, Terrence Martin

Release Date August 19th, 2022 

Imagine being trapped on a boat in the middle of the ocean, no land in sight. Now imagine it’s you and the most insufferable, bickering married couple you can imagine. That’s the equivalent experience of watching the new movie Get Away if You Can. A romantic boat trip intended to save a marriage becomes a slog from one boring encounter to the next, and from one obnoxious argument to another. 

Get Away if You Can was written by, directed, and stars Dominique Braun and Riley Smith as the married couple. She’s from Brazil, he comes from a wealthy family in the boat business, headed up by his domineering father, played by Ed Harris. While he is deeply in love with his wife, the man’s family is opposed to his wife. The man’s father is fully convinced that the wife is a golddigger who is out to get her son’s fortune after Dad kicks off.

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

Movie Review Mack & Rita

Mack & Rita 

Directed by Katie Aselton

Written by Madeline Walter, Paul Welsh

Starring Diane Keaton, Elizabeth Lail, Taylour Paige, Loretta Devine

Release Date August 12th, 2022

I’ve been struggling with this silly review of this very silly movie for a couple of days. Why? Because I like Diane Keaton and I don’t enjoy hating her movies. Diane Keaton is a classy actress with a wealth of talent and style who was great… in the 1970s. Ever since the late 90s something has possessed Diane Keaton to make some of the most unwatchable movies of the past 30 years. Movies such as Because I Said So, Mad Money, Town & Country, The Family Stone, Poms, The Book Club, Hanging Up, And So It Goes, are some of the most dull and insulting movies I have ever seen. 

Naturally, I’ve been told over and over and over again that Diane Keaton simply doesn’t make the kinds of movies that would appeal to my male, 40 something year old sensibilities. That’s true, but in my professional standing, a film critic of more than 20 years of experience, I feel I am still quite qualified to judge the work before me and the work before me is desperate, cringe-inducing, and often quite unintentionally sad. Keaton goes for laughs in these movies and I just end up feeling sorry for her.

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

Movie Review Where the Crawdads Sing

Where the Crawdads Sing 

Directed by Olivia Newman

Written by Lucy Alibar

Starring Daisy Edgar Jones, Harris Dickinson, David Straithairn

Release Date July 15th, 2022

Where the Crawdads Sing is too cowardly to be the kind of unconventional movie it could be. The story of a young woman raising herself in a South Carolina Swamp, Where the Crawdads Sing has an intriguing idea at heart but fails to capitalize on that idea. Instead, the film, and, I am told, the book, fall back on a conventional courtroom story to carry the drama. There is nothing wrong with a good courtroom mystery but it needs to be better than your average episode of Law & Order television episode or it needs to be scrapped. Crawdads fails that test. 

Where the Crawdads Sing tells the story of Kya Clark, played as a child by Jojo Regina and Leslie France, and played as an adult by Daisy Edgar Jones, is known as ‘The Marsh Girl." The judgmental nickname is given to Kya by residents of the town closest to her swamp home. Kya’s family each left the marsh years ago, a series of leavings that are covered in a well crafted montage, while Kya chose to stay. At first, Kya stayed to care for her alcoholic father, played by Garret Dillahunt. Eventually, Kya just came to love the marsh and after finding ways to care for herself, she stayed.

Find my full length review linked here. 

Movie Review Emily the Criminal

Emily the Criminal 

Directed by John Patton Ford

Written by John Patton Ford

Starring Aubrey Plaza 

Release Date August 12th, 2022 

Emily the Criminal stars the always appealing Aubrey Plaza as the title character. Emily works as a food delivery drone for a catering company. Her life is generally uneventful. She’d wanted to be an artist when growing up but life got in the way of her dreams. Now, she struggles to get by while watching friends climb corporate ladders and live lavish lifestyles and her frustration grows. 

Naturally, the rest of Emily the Criminal is about how Emily’s life is changed, for better and for worse. She becomes a criminal, she starts a romance, and major incidents reveal who she really is. Believe me, I am not slagging off this plot, it’s solid and not remotely as rote or predictable as I made it out to be. That said, the plot is the hanger on which rests a dynamic dramatic and romantic performance from Aubrey Plaza.

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

Movie Review Fall

Fall 

Directed by Scott Mann

Written by Scott Mann, Jonathan Frank 

Starring Grace Caroline Currey, Virginia Gardner, Mason Gooding, Jeffrey Dean Morgan

Release Date August 12th, 2022

Well, it’s official, I am afraid of heights. Watching the new movie Fall, the story of two extreme climbers going to the top of the tallest TV tower in Texas, confirmed something I had kind of already known about myself. I’d had a minor panic attack while at the top of the former Sears Tower in Chicago about 10 years ago and I am pretty sure it came from just looking out of a window at the vastness of the City of Chicago and quickly growing dizzy. 

The movie Fall confirms the diagnosis. Watching this movie I nearly passed out on two occasions and had to stop watching for a few minutes after one particularly harrowing look down from the top of the tower. Say what you will about some aspects of Fall, once the movie arrives at the top of the television tower in the midst of a vast desert, the terror is no joke. Fall is a movie you watch through your fingers and yell at in your mind as you root for the characters to take tighter grips and not lean over the edge so much.

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