Movie Review Blonde

Blonde (2022)

Directed by Andrew Dominik 

Written by Andrew Dominik 

Starring Ana De Armas, Adrian Brody 

Release Date September 23rd, 2022 

Netflix 

You know what might be nice for us all as a culture? If perhaps we could stop propping up the corpse of Marilyn Monroe for the world to gawk at. Wouldn't that be nice? I realize, for many in Hollywood, especially those at Netflix, profiting off of the life and times of one of the world's most famous people is a cottage industry but it's getting very sad and ugly now and I for one would like to see it come to an end. Really, there is no better ending to this ugly period of Marilyn-sploitation than the deeply troubled and off-putting, Blonde. 

From the reductive and pretentious title to writer-director Andrew Dominik's forceful attempts at artiness, Blonde is a miserable and stultifying film experience. Now, I want to be kind, for a moment, Ana de Armas, is working wonders trying to make this movie work. Sadly, the makers of Blonde are determined to drown de Armas' elegant talent in a lot of visual nonsense while exploiting her naked form as much as possible. Yes, some will argue that exploitation is the point and that Marilyn was THE subject when it comes to the concept of the Male Gaze, but Blonde only pretends toward the idea of examining any ideas related to how men informed the life and demise of Marilyn Monroe.

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

Movie Review See How They Run

See How They Run (2022)

Directed by Tom George 

Written by Mark Chappell

Starring Sam Rockwell, Saorise Ronan, Adrian Brody, David Oyelowo, Harris Dickinson 

Release Date September 16th, 2022 

Loosely based on the work of Agatha Christie 

See How They Run is a delightful mystery comedy. The film starring the duo of Sam Rockwell and Saorise Ronan has a distinctly British sensibility that is at once dignified and broadly comic and physical. The film tells the story of a murder amidst a murder mystery on the stage. A famous acting troupe on London's famed West End is presenting the latest adaptation of an Agatha Christie drawing room murder mystery when a visitor from America winds up a corpse on the stage. 

Adrian Brody plays the murdered man, a Hollywood director named Leo Kopernick. Leo is an abrasive, loudmouthed ladies man who has rubbed just about everyone the wrong way since he's arrived at the playhouse. Leo was brought over by producer John Woolf (Reese Shearsmith), to help with the film adaptation the play The Mousetrap. written by the legendary Agatha Christie. When Leo is murdered backstage and his body is dumped on the stage in the midst of the play, just about anyone might have wanted to kill him.

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

Movie Review Splice

Splice (2010) 

Directed by Vincenzo Natali 

Written by Vincenzo Natali, Doug Taylor

Starring Adrian Brody, Sarah Polley

Release Date June 4th, 2010 

Published Published June 4th, 2010 

I have had my share of odd experiences at the movies but the experience of the sci-fi flick “Splice” starring Sarah Polley and Oscar winner Adrien Brody ranks high on the weird meter. What begins as a moody and strangely fascinating sci-fi story about the morality and consequences of gene manipulations becomes, in its third act, a remarkable train wreck of a movie.

Clive (Brody) and Elsa (Polley) are two of the most brilliant genetic researchers in the country; their work has been featured on the front pages of national magazines. As we meet them they are creating a hybrid animal with no face or body parts but a mix of proteins with almost unlimited potential in the fight against disease.

With the success of the animal hybrid Elsa and Clive believe the next logical step is a human/animal hybrid. The pharmaceutical company funding the research shoots down that idea but if that rejection stopped Clive and Elsa we wouldn't have much of a movie. Clive and Elsa push forward and successfully combine animal and human. The result of this experiment is Dren, played by Abigail Chu as a child and Delphine Cheneac as a grown up. With her unique gene combo the transition from child to grown up is greatly accelerated.

The scenes of Dren's creation and growth are strangely fascinating and oddly humorous as Polley's Elsa becomes a surrogate mommy to Dren and treats it as one would a real human child. Brody's Clive is more reserved and skeptical, keeping a scientific distance. When this dynamic changes in the second half the tension amps up in surprising ways before finally reaching a second act climax that will leave jaws on the floor.

I will not spoil it for you. Really, you have to see it for yourself. The things that happen in the final act of “Splice” are plot wise, somewhat predictable. The outside the plot stuff, the character touches if you will, are where “Splice” goes from sci-fi weird to goofball, off the charts whacked.

The third act and the final moments of “Splice” are so completely idiotic and so easily foretold that on principle I can't recommend “Splice.” That said, there is a big part of me that not only wants you to see “Splice” but to also film your reaction as you see the developments in the final act. For all the problems of “Splice,” there is a ballsy quality that one cannot help but admire and marvel at.

“Splice” is not a good movie; it's far too predictable and the characters far too dopey for it to be any good. It is, however, bad in fun ways and shocking in the most memorable and disturbing ways. The critic in me says skip it but my twisted sense of humor says run to theaters and see this astonishingly odd movie.