Movie Review Thelma

Thelma (2024) 

Directed by Josh Margolin 

Written by Josh Margolin 

Starring June Squibb, Richard Roundtree, Fred Hechinger, Parker Posey, Clark Gregg 

Release Date June 21st 

Published June 25th, 2024

Thelma stars June Squibb as our title character, a loving, supportive grandmother living alone in a Los Angeles suburb. Thelma lost her beloved husband of more than 60 years just two years prior to the start of this story. It's the first time in her life that she has lived alone and she's started to enjoy the independence, even at the age of 93. Her main lifeline is her grandson, Daniel (Fred Hechinger), who visits regularly and takes her places she needs to go. He's also teaching her to use the internet, though she has little use for that. 

The plot of Thelma kicks in when Thelma receives a call from Daniel. He's been in an accident and needs her help. The call is cut off and a man claiming to be a Police Officer tells Thelma that to get Daniel out of jail and cared for safely, she must mail $10,000 dollars to a P.O Box in Van Nuys. When she can't get in touch with Daniel, she assumes that the call was real, it did sound like Daniel on the phone, so Thelma gathers up the money hidden around her home and mails it off, all while talking to her daughter, Gail (Parker Posey), and her son-in-law, Alan (Clark Gregg) who are so overcome with worry that they don't even ask about the money.

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

Movie Review Kraven The Hunter

Kraven the Hunter 

Directed by J.C Chandor 

Written by RIchard Wenk, Art Marcum, Matt Holloway 

Starring Aaron Taylor Johnson, Fred Hechinger, Ariana DeBose, Russell Crowe 

Released December 13th, 2024

Published December 13th, 2024 

Kraven the Hunter has me wondering if Hollywood has somehow discovered a Mel Brooks-The Producers style scheme where a flop can actually be a moneymaker. I don’t know how that would work in the film space but it’s the only way I can conceive of how movie studios can release movies as bad as Kraven the Hunter, movies that are almost guaranteed to lose money, and simply move on to the next movie without everyone involved losing their jobs. And when you consider that this is the studio behind Madame Web and Morbius, suddenly my theory becomes at least a little bit plausible. 

Kraven the Hunter is a bafflingly silly proposition. A kid named Sergey, the son of a famed gangster played by Russell Crowe, is mauled by a lion while on a safari vacation in Africa and is rescued by a mysterious potion that, mixed with the lion’s own blood, gives Sergey super-human strength, speed, agility, and instincts. The potion is a gift from a stranger named Calypso, whose grandmother, and I truly cringe to write this, is a voodoo priestess. Best not to unpack that.

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

Movie Review Nickel Boys

Nickel Boys 

Directed by RaMell Ross 

Written by RaMell Ross, Joslyn Barnes 

Starring Ethan Herisse, Brandon Wilson, Aunjanue Ellis, Hamish Linklater, Fred Hechinger

Release Date December 13th, 2024

Published December 16th, 2024 

The experience of Nickel Boys begins quite jarringly. If you don’t know that the film is shot in first person, from the perspective of the main character, it takes a few minutes to acclimate. When the perspective then moves to a second lead character, the film once again forces you to find your bearings. Smartly, and compassionately for an often distracted modern audience, director RaMell Ross introduces the shift in perspective via showing a scene for a second time from this new perspective. It’s a simple yet incredibly smart way to apply a unique way of presenting a movie. And it is this simple and effective approach that provides the foundation for what becomes an incredible movie. 

Nickel Boys follows the lives of two young men who meet while being held at a reform school that acts more like a prison for teens. We are first introduced to Elwood ‘El’ Curtis (Ethan Herisse), a smart and politically active young man living in Florida in the early 1960s. El has a bright future ahead of him as one of his teachers has helped him secure acceptance into a historically black college. His tuition is free, all he has to do is get there and that’s where things go wrong. After accepting a ride from a well dressed man in a nice car, El is arrested when it’s revealed that the man is a car thief.

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

Movie Review Butcher's Crossing

Butcher's Crossing (2023) 

Directed by Gabe Polsky 

Written by Gabe Polsky, Liam Satre Meloy 

Starring Nicolas Cage, Fred Hechinger, Xander Berkley 

Release Date October 20th, 2023 

Published ? 

I think, to be as fair as possible to Butcher's Crossing, this movie isn't for me. Butcher's Crossing is a slow, agonizingly dry piece of historical fiction. It's an interesting story, how a few people managed to savage an entire species to near extinction while nearly getting themselves killed but you have to be willing to go on this rather dreary journey. It does have its temptations, this journey. The main temptation being star Nicholas Cage with a fully shaved dome and a touch of the crazy eyes. Beyond that though, the appeal of Butcher's Crossing is limited to obsessive fans of the history of the American west. 

A naïve and ill-prepared Harvard drop out arrives at a fort in the west in early 1800s. Will Andrews (Fred Hechinger) is a rich kid with a little of dad's money and a desire to see what the American west looks like. He's traveled to this place to meet a man who worked for his father years ago. Will hopes that this man will allow him to join one of his buffalo hunting parties as a sort of hunting tourist. The man turns him down and sends him on his way. Not one for giving up, Will seeks out a man in a saloon with a big reputation. 

Miller (Nicolas Cage) is a well known buffalo hunter with a taste for blood and a gleam in his eye. Miller can see this wimp coming a mile away and he smells the kids money. Miller just happens to harbor a desire to no longer work for the hunting companies in this town, he wants to branch out on his own and all he needs is a bank roll. Miller also claims to know where he can find a seemingly endless supply of Buffalo that could be harvested, skinned and provide more money than any local hunter could possibly dream of. 

Naturally, the dimwitted Harvard drop out is won over by the charismatic hunter. Once they hire a skinner, (Jeremy Bobb), they are on their way to a valley no one but Miller believes exists. After seeming to get lost, they actually find the valley and indeed, they find a herd of buffalo unlike any that's been harvested before. It's large and for some reason, despite Miller picking them off repeatedly with a rifle, most of the herd doesn't try to leave the valley, making them easy to hunt to an almost ludicrous degree. The hunters will harvest more buffalo than they could possible skin and return to their outpost and Miller's mania for killing buffalo will eventually risk all of their lives in the harsh conditions of the Colorado territory. 

Find my full length review at Geeks.Media