Movie Review Mafia Mamma

Mafia Mamma (2023) 

Directed by Catherine Hardwicke 

Written by Michael J. Feldman, Debbie Jhoon

Starring Toni Collette, Monica Bellucci 

Release Date April 14th, 2023 

Published April 17th, 2023 

There is something just off about Mafia Mamma. This a movie where the lead murders a man by repeatedly jamming her high heel into a man's groin and then his to the point where it's noted that pieces of the man's scrotum were found in his eye socket. And yet, it's also a film that tonally is intended to be a comedy about a woman finding her confidence for the first time, leaving her husband, beating empty-nest syndrome, and seeking the things that maker her happy rather than worrying about others. Not surprisingly, the Girlboss finding her feet story clashes with the scrotum in the eye story. 

Mafia Mamma stars Toni Collette as Kristen, a deeply put-upon working mom. As we join the story, Kristen is fretting over the fact that her beloved son, Domenick (Tommy Rodger) is leaving for college. The empty syndrome is strong with Kristen, she's a mess. It's set to be the first time that she and her musician husband, Paul (Tim Daish) have been alone together in 18 years. Naturally, that won't last as Paul is immediately revealed as cheating on Kristen. He's not gone from the movie but this latest humiliation is the catalyst for the rest of the story. 

Kristen's grandfather was, until recently, the head of an Italian crime family, something Kristen was not aware of. Kristen's mother had escaped the mafia life years earlier and Don Grandpa had allowed this so as to keep Kristen safe from his enemies. Now that he's dead however, the crime family belongs to Kristen. Yes, apparently you can inherit a mafia family. Technically, Kristen has inherited an Italian Vineyard that happens to be a mob front, but regardless. Wanting to escape her cheating husband, Kristen accepts an invitation to her grandfather's funeral. 

At the funeral, Kristen is nearly killed as a rival family aims to take advantage of the Don's death. It will be up to Kristen, under the guidance of her grandfather's consigliere, Bianca (Monica Bellucci) to attempt to broke peace with this other family. To say that Kristen is not prepared to be a Mob leader is the entire comic premise of the film. Kristen works in pharmaceutical sales for her day job so, yeah, being a mob boss is not in her typical skill set. Though one could draw a comparison between Pharmaceutical companies and the Mob, this movie isn't smart enough to make that joke. 

Instead, we watch Kristen compile an accidental body count. Her tete a tete with a fellow mob boss ends in death, I mentioned the scrotum in the eye guy, and there are several more gruesome, bloody deaths and stabbings in Mafia Mamma. The filmmakers appear to want to be true to the reality of this scenario, the idea that Kristen would be a very unlikely and comically underprepared mob boss and the reality that being in the mob is grim and bloody business that very often ends in a lot of death. A lot of gruesome, bloody death. 

Find my full length review at Geeks.Media

Movie Review: Gringa

Gringa (2023) 

Directed by Marny Eng, E.J Foerster 

Written by Patrick Hasburgh 

Starring Steve Zahn, Judy Greer, Jess Gabor, Roselyn Sanchez

Release Date April 21st, 2023 

Published April 18th, 2023 

Gringa stars Jess Gabor as Marge, an awkward teenager struggling in school and on the soccer field. Marge's mom, Margie (Judy Greer), is a busy but not quite successful real estate agent. Though she loves her daughter, the two see little of each other as Margie hustles to give them a life. Everything changes when Margie is killed in a tragic car accident. Facing the prospect of moving to Arizona with her stern and unyielding grandparents, Marge decides to set her own path. 

Having learned that her former soccer star and current deadbeat dad, Jackson (Steve Zahn), is living in a beachfront shack in small village in Mexico, Marge decides to sneak across the border for an impromptu reunion. What she finds is a debauched alcoholic who when he isn't asleep is usually drunk or surfing. Dad also coaches Girl's Soccer in town, an obligation he gave himself in order to win the attention of Elsa (Roselyn Sanchez), a local bar owner, way out of Jackson's league, but who can't fully resist his charm. 

The dramatic father-daughter reunion is sad but also deeply awkward. Neither knows how to take the other. Jackson is sympathetic to the death of Margie, he did love her once, but he's also a stunted man-child so his sympathies only go so far. Marge herself is rightfully bitter toward the father who abandoned her. These early scenes have a strong emotional charge as Jess Gabor and Steve Zahn wrestle with the complicated emotions at play. These are the strongest moments of Gringa. 

Find my full length review at Geeks.Media 

Movie Review Renfield

Renfield (2023) 

Directed by Chris McKay

Written by Ryan Ridley 

Starring Nicolas Cage, Nicholas Hoult, Awkwafina, Ben Schwartz 

Release Date April 14th, 2023 

Published April 13th, 2023 

Nicolas Cage as Dracula. That's the main selling point of the new action-horror-comedy, Renfield. Sure, the title centers on Dracula's 'Familiar,' his super-powered assistant, Renfield, played by Nicholas Hoult, but this is about Cage. You can't hire an actor as flamboyant, brilliant, and charismatic as Cage to play a character as iconic as Count Dracula and expect audiences to care about anything else. And yet, the movie is called Renfield and it is about the journey of Renfield from being enthralled by Dracula to his desire for freedom and becoming a hero. 

Renfield has been at the side of Count Dracula for nearly a decade. Thanks to powers bestowed on him as Dracula's 'Familiar,' Renfield as superhero strength and speed but only after he eats a bug. Eww. These powers give him the ability to stealthily capture victims to deliver to Dracula so that the Count can suck their blood. As the movie explains, several decades ago, Dracula was nearly killed, almost burned alive, until Renfield saved him. This however, left Dracula in a terrible state. He needs a large supply of victims in order to restore himself to full power. 

Now living in the basement of a dilapidated hospital in the outskirts of New Orleans, Renfield's conscience has started to take hold. Instead of innocent victims, Renfield has begun stalking baddies, criminals and just plain jerks as food for his master. One place where he's begun finding victims is in a support group for people in toxic relationships. Renfield has taken to capturing the people that these victims talk about in group and feeding these toxic people to Dracula. Unfortunately, Dracula has sensed Renfield's newfound conscience and demands innocent victims. 

Find my full length review at Geeks.Media 

Movie Review The Pope's Exorcist

The Pope's Exorcist (2023) 

Directed by Julius Avery

Written by Michael Petroni, Evan Spiliotopoulos 

Starring Russell Crowe, Daniel Zovatto, Alex Essoe, Franco Nero 

Release Date April 14th, 2023 

Published April 15th, 2023 

The Pope's Exorcist is a very silly movie that doesn't know it's a very silly movie. That makes it one of my favorite movies of 2023 so far. I love a good unironic bad movie. The makers of The Pope's Exorcist appear to be earnestly attempting to entertain and failing by being as mediocre and misconceived as possible. It's as if we know that the movie is doomed but the people making it are entirely clueless and we can't warn them, we can only marvel at the bad decisions that led them to so earnestly and obviously fail at their intended goal. 

From the moment that star Russell Crowe. now fully into his Orson Welles, Frozen Peas period, sits himself on a little Vespa, The Pope's Exorcist is doomed to induce snarky giggles. Who thought that having him on a scooter for the entire movie was a good idea? From there however, it's all downhill. The Pope's Exorcist appears to have been a failed script for a cop drama that was reworked into being about an exorcist who works for the pope. 

Crowe's Father Amorth is your classic Cop who plays by his own rules, occasionally working outside the law to get his suspect. The Pope, played by Franco Nero, is the Chief who does what he can to keep the heat off of his rogue cop because despite his flaws, he gets the job done. Then there is a Papal Internal Affairs panel that threatens to take away Father Amorth's badge if he doesn't start, I don't know, exorcising demons inside the boundaries of Papal law? Maybe. 

Naturally, the next big case for Father Amorth will put him to his biggest test as he uncovers corruption inside the church. In this case, the truth of the Spanish Inquisition is hidden in the bowels of an Abbey that belongs to a troubled family. Alex Essoe plays a mother of two, a teenager played by Laurel Marsden, and her silent little brother, Henry )Peter DeSouza-Feighoney), who remains deeply traumatized after nearly dying in the accident that killed his father. 

This trauma makes the boy susceptible to a demon when his family moves to this Spanish Abbey with plans to fix it up and flip it. The demon escapes a tomb in the basement, possesses Henry and calls for Father Amorth to fight, but not before he helps introduce another cop movie trope in this not-a-cop movie. Through Henry's possession, we meet a rookie Priest on his first case, Father Esquibel, played by Daniel Zovatto. When he proves to be no match for the demon, he takes on the role of Father Amorth's rookie partner. 

Find my full length review at Geeks.Media

Why is there a Coach YouTube Channel?

There are any number of curious items to be found on God's own internet. Many of those items can be found on YouTube. For example, did you know that the late television series Coach, which aired on ABC for 8 seasons, ending in 1997, now has an 'official' YouTube channel? I bet you didn't know that. Heck, I bet that star Craig T. Nelson and the executives at Disney, proud owners of ABC and by extension, Coach, have no idea that there is an 'Official' Coach YouTube channel. 

I'm putting the word 'official' in quotes because the lack of Disney branding seems to indicate that this is not, in fact, an official channel for this long dead television series. That, plus the fact that the channel claims Jolly ol' England as its home, seems to indicate that this channel is, at the very least, an anomaly in the history of the long forgotten, hardly mourned college football comedy. So perplexed at the existence of this Coach YouTube account, I had to sit down and look at it and purge it from my consciousness on this page, in this very article. 

Despite my obvious snarkiness, I actually grew up watching and enjoying Coach. Craig T. Nelson was never a natural comedian. Rather, he was a perfect straight man, an ideal stalwart in a sea of weirdos. Actors Jerry Van Dyke, brother of Dick Van Dyke, and future Spongebob Squarepants Starfish star, Bill Fagerbakke, would bring him their weirdness and he would react like a normal person who was slowly being driven insane by the bizarre foibles of the people around him. In his personal life he had a strained romantic relationship fraught with the kind of believable relatable personality conflicts you might imagine a Boomer like Coach would have. \

Click here for my full length article. 

Movie Review: The Lost Weekend

The Lost Weekend (1945)

Directed by Billy Wilder

Written by Charles Brackett, Billy Wilder

Starring Ray Milland, Jane Wyman 

Release Date November 29th, 1945

Published April 2nd, 2023 

Billy Wilder's 1945 film The Lost Weekend is the classic on this week's Everyone's a Critic Movie Review Podcast, available wherever you listen to Podcasts. We chose it for the theme of addiction which is also central to the new movie, A Good Person starring Florence Pugh and Morgan Freeman and directed by Zach Braff. Listen to the next Everyone's a Critic Movie Review Podcast where myself and my co-hosts, Bob and Jeff, talk about both of these movies and their unique takes on addiction. 

What do we know about Don Birnam, the main protagonist of Billy Wilder's 1945 drama, The Lost Weekend? He's approximately 32 years old, the age of actor Ray Milland when he made The Lost Weekend. He's a failed writer who lives in New York City. He's been living off of the kindness of his brother Wick (Phillip Terry) since he came to New York as a much younger man. And, most importantly, according to the story playing out, Don Birnam is a borderline suicidal alcoholic. 

Don also has a loving and deeply devoted girlfriend in Helen St. James, played by Jane Wyman. Why she's so devoted to him is a bit of a mystery. He's not a particularly kind or charming man when we meet him. So what is it? Perhaps she sees that he has the potential to be a good man? That's about as far as I can stretch to find a good justification for the kind of devotion Helen demonstrates to Don. She risks everything to save him and he rewards her by seeking other women as a means of seeking his next drink. 

Alcoholism, as conceived by Billy Wilder, is much akin to demonic possession in modern horror movies. The possessed person is crazed and unable to act for themselves. We see occasional glimpses of their real selves but, for the most part, they are controlled by the demon and seeking whatever mystifying goal the demon always fails to spell out. Indeed, in The Lost Weekend, if alcohol were an actual demon, what is its endgame? What does alcohol hope to accomplish? Don's death? 

What does removing Don's agency and responsibility for his actions mean for the story being told? Again, as portrayed by Milland, and directed by Wilder, Don's alcoholism is the result of the demon drink and seemingly not choices made by Don himself. Perhaps the first drinks were his choice but more than a decade into his alcoholism, the addiction Don demonstrates is one where he must consume or die. Milland's wild-eyed mania is that of a man out of control and yet, only he can win back such control over himself. 

The end of The Lost Weekend comes after Don has pawned off Helen's expensive coat to recover a gun he'd pawned off before in order to buy alcohol. He's demonstrated earlier, in an exchange with Helen and Wick, that he had considered suicide and shows them the bullets to a gun he'd pawned in order to buy more booze. With the gun retrieved Don sets about his dark task only to have Helen arrive just in time. As the two struggle, Don's favorite bartender shows up to return his lost typewriter. 

Seeing as fate has interceded, Don gives Helen the gun and takes up his typewriter. Throwing a cigarette into a glass of gin, rendering it undrinkable, Don sits at his typewriter inspired to write down everything that has happened to him in this lost weekend, starting with the scene that opens the movie, a bottle of booze hanging from a rope outside his apartment, a device to hide the booze from the prying eyes of the people who care about him. Thus the circle of The Lost Weekend is closed. 

What is the nature of addiction? What causes one to become addicted to alcohol or drugs? The tools themselves, alcohol are, in part, at fault for having been created to be addicting. We've been sold a bill of goods by those that profit from alcohol that it is our fault if we get addicted to it. But the reality they want us to ignore is that their product is specifically conceived to cause addiction and line the pockets of the companies that make it. 

Putting that aside however, addiction is often related to trauma, whether large or small. In order to numb the pain of a significant trauma someone may choose to drink alcohol as a temporary respite from their emotional pain. Not dealing with the trauma however, only makes it worse and the reliance on alcohol deepens as the unrepaired trauma festers into greater and greater pain. There is also a Pavlovian effect at play as alcohol numbs the emotional pain it tricks the mind. I hurt, I drink alcohol, I hurt less. A cause and effect pattern becomes reinforced in the mind of an addict. 

For Don, the trauma is rather minor in the grand scale of things. He's ashamed that he's failure as a writer. Drinking gives him the confidence to think that he can overcome anything, that he can be the great man he wishes to be. Thus, Don's cause and effect pattern is the pain of self-loathing, drinking alcohol, no more self-loathing. There is also shame. Don is ashamed of living off of the provenance of his brother and ashamed that he can't be the man who Helen thinks he should be. Alcohol cures those two shames as well. 

Is this is a simplistic reading of addiction? Perhaps, but on a base level, it's not wrong. It is perhaps that simplicity that makes The Lost Weekend so memorable and beloved. It offers some relatively simple answers regarding the nature of drinking and addiction. We know why Don drinks and why he would benefit from not drinking and what it takes to get him to see that he needs to stop. It's a rather tidy narrative made less tidy by Don's actions while drunk as a carouser, a beggar, a thief, a man desperate to feed his addiction. 

Find my full length review at Geeks.Media 

Movie Review Cocaine Bear

Cocaine Bear (2023) 

Directed by Elizabeth Banks 

Written by Jimmy Warden

Starring Keri Russell, Margo Martindale, Jesse Tyler Ferguson, Brooklynn Prince, Ray Liotta, O'Shea Jackson, Alden Ehrenreich 

Release Date February 24th, 2023 

Published February 23rd, 2023 

Cocaine Bear makes a very big promise with its bizarre premise and I am happy to say that it mostly lives up to that promise. As directed by the very funny Elizabeth Banks, Cocaine Bear delivers a Black Bear that is, indeed, very high on Cocaine. Being high on cocaine, the Bear becomes highly aggressive, angry, and agitated. Thus, a bear that would normally prefer not to interact with humans becomes a violent, murderous beast, especially if you happen to have some more cocaine on you, this bear loves cocaine. 

The story of Cocaine Bear kicks off with a very funny scene. A man who is clearly high on cocaine is dancing around an airplane and tossing bags filled with cocaine off the plane and into a mountainous area of Georgia. The man plans on letting the plane crash to divert attention from the massive amounts of cocaine being dropped from it, but before he can leap out of the plane to accompany his cargo, the man manages to knock himself unconscious and fall out of the plane to his death. 

This death helps set to the tone for a violent, disturbing and quite funny dark comedy. Once we've established that there is cocaine in the forest and a bear has ingested a lot of it, we watch as disparate groups of people head into the forest, mostly unaware that cocaine has turned a mostly docile bear into a ravenous, cocaine addicted monster. Among our main cast are a pair of children played by Brooklynn Prince and Christian Convery, they're skipping school for an adventure. Hot on their trail is the girl's mother, played by Keri Russell. She's accompanied by Forest Cop played by Margo Martindale and her crush, an animal care advocate played by Jesse Tyler Ferguson. 

Then, there are the drug dealers, out to retrieve their drugs. O'Shea Jackson and Alden Erhenreich are flunkies for a drug dealer, played by Ray Liotta. They are to retrieve the drugs by any means necessary or possibly face the wrath of Columbian drug kingpins. They will be joined unwillingly by a police detective, played by Isaiah Whitlock. The detective has been looking for a way to bust Liotta's drug dealer and he sees getting these bags of cocaine as a chance to put Liotta behind bars. Naturally, they will all come face to face with a bear that is off its face on cocaine and each will be lucky if they manage to get out of the forest intact. 

Find my full length review at Geeks.Media 

Movie Review Juniper

Juniper (2023) 

Directed by Matthew J. Saville 

Written by Matthew J. Saville 

Starring Charlotte Rampling, George Ferrier, Martin Csokas, Edith Poor

Release Date February 24th, 2023 

Published February 24th, 2023 

There is a lovely true story behind the movie Juniper. It's based on the real life experience of writer-director Matthew J. Saville. His grandmother broke her leg and because she was limited in her ability to get around, she moved from Europe to New Zealand to live with family. She was a difficult woman, a hard drinker, not easy to get along with. Over time, Saville and his grandmother forged a bond and that bond is at the heart of the movie, Juniper. It's quite a lovely story and if it were an anecdote related by a friend over dinner, it'd be terrific. As a movie, it's lacking in incident. 

Charlotte Rampling stars in Juniper as the cantankerous, Ruth, grandmother to Sam, played by George Ferrier. Ruth is moving to New Zealand to live with Sam and his father after she broke her leg and became unable to care for herself. Ruth is none too pleased about this arrangement and neither is Sam who is also reeling from the death of his mother. In fact, the room that Ruth is set to occupy is the same room Sam's mother spent her last days before passing away, adding another layer of sadness to the situation. 

When Sam gets himself suspended from his private school, following a fight during a rugby game, he's sent back home where his father, Robert (Martin Csokas), enlists him to help Ruth's nurse, Sarah (Edith Poor), care for Ruth. Things get off to a contentious start to say the least. Ruth is slowly drinking herself to death. She has a pitcher of Gin, cut with a little water and lemon, next to her at all times. When Sam attempts to limit the amount of Gin in this mixture, he ends up getting a glass tossed at his which leaves a little scar. 

Naturally, over the period of this story, several weeks by the evidence of the movie, the relationship between Sam and Ruth will improve. She won't stop drinking, of course, but she becomes less openly verbally abusive. In return, Sam is slightly less hostile until finally, they become genuinely close. This closeness is fostered by Ruth allowing Sam to throw a party for all of his private school friends where she provides the liquor and becomes the star of the show as everyone thanks her for the libations and gathers around to hear stories about her youth. 

Find my full length review at Geeks.Media 

Movie Review She Came from the Woods

She Came from the Woods (2023) 

Directed by Erik Bloomquist 

Written by Erik Bloomquist 

Starring Cara Buono, Clare Foley, Spencer List 

Release Date February 10th, 2023 

Published February 24th, 2023.

Camp Briarbook is overseen by your typically telegenic cast of teenagers eager to party on their last night at the camp, after the young campers have gone home. The party is typically debauched, and this is where the ritual occurs and where Agatha is brought back to life. Agatha's first act is to influence a shy, gawky counselor named Danny (played by Director Erik Bloomquist) to murder his crush, Kellie (Emily Keefe), after she rejects his clumsy romantic advances. He's then killed by another counselor in order to keep his murder from turning into a spree. 

The counselors retreat to the mess hall where they inform the camp owner, Heather (Caro Buono), about the murder. Eventually, they are forced to come clean about the ritual and the potential return of the evil monstrous, Agatha. In order to stop Agatha's rampage, Heather calls in her father, Gilbert, played by the inimitable go-to character actor and weirdo, William Sadler. Naturally, he shows up with a shotgun only once the movie is ready to make the turn to the third act showdown. 

Counselors are killed, kids turn into crazed ravenous zombies and come rushing out of the woods, under Agatha's control, and a rather meaningless back story is related by first Heather and then her father, with slight variations. It's fine, it's a good, solid hanger for a horror movie plot. The lore is merely here only to press forward a plot centered around bloody, violent deaths and narrowly escaping bloody violent deaths. The counselor characters, save one who deserves is his ugly fate, are all not terrible people who did not deserve to have to vomit blood or have their skulls caved in. 

I can still appreciate a movie that gives us protagonists who aren't awful people. I still have awful memories of obnoxious early 2000s horror movies where the protagonists were so agonizingly unlikable that we preferred seeing them die horribly than spending time with them not dead. For a time, directors fell in love with creating obnoxious characters designed to cause us to root for the slasher and I grew tired of that nihilistic approach to horror very quickly. She Came from the Woods is thankfully not one of those movies. Instead, the characters are all rather boringly likable. 

Find my full length review at Horror.Media 

Movie Review Marlowe

Marlowe (2023)

Directed by Neil Jordan 

Written by William Monahan 

Starring Liam Neeson, Diane Kruger, Danny Huston, Adewale Akinnouye Agbaje, Jessica Lange

Release Date February 15th, 2023 

Published February 24th, 2023 

Marlowe is a stunningly mediocre film. An attempt to bring back the feel of 40s noir detective novels, in the vain of Raymond Chandler, using Chandler's creation, Detective Phillip Marlowe, Marlowe wanders, stumbles, plods and trips over oodles of over pronounced dialogue and a dimwitted 'mystery.' How bad is Marlowe? It made me wonder if I've ever found Liam Neeson entertaining. Seriously, I had to convince myself that I really did like the Taken movies. I think I did. I think... yeah. Neeson could not be more miscast in the role of a 1930s gumshoe in Los Angeles. 

Marlowe opens on a completely meaningless visual. A man is pacing back and forth dictating some odd thing to an attentive secretary. You think the man speaking is Marlowe and the secretary is his Girl Friday, the go-to gal, that reliable female pal from past detective movies. Nope, that's not Marlowe or his secretary. It's also not someone that the actual Phillip Marlowe is peeping in on for a case. So, why did we open on this visual? God help me, I have no idea. It's a completely disconnected visual. It's a seeming recreation from past Marlowe films and novels that I assume director Neil Jordan recreated simply to evoke Marlowe's of the past. 

The reveal of the actual Marlowe comes with the introduction of our Femme Fatale, that dangerous female client with the case that will test our detective's metal. Diane Kruger is our femme fatale in Marlowe and with her platinum blonde hair and tight dress, she certainly has the visual from a Phillip Marlowe mystery down pat. Sadly, she and Marlowe, as played by Liam Neeson, have to eventually speak and when they do, the hired boiled dialogue turns both actors into unintentionally comedic characters. There is a particular cadence to Raymond Chandler mysteries and neither Neeson or Kruger have that kind of cadence. In their mouths, these words come off like people stating written dialogue out loud and not the natural speech of two people who speak like this all the time. 

It's an odd and perhaps labored comparison but Marvel movie fans will understand. If you've seen Guardians of the Galaxy and then see the Guardians as directed by anyone other than James Gunn, they characters just don't sound right. You can tell James Gunn's cadence is missing and it throws off the way the Guardians typically come off on screen. That's especially true in Thor Love and Thunder and kind of true in the two most recent Avengers movies. That's how Neeson and Kruger sound when trying to deliver Raymond Chandler style hardboiled dialogue. It just hits the ear all wrong. 

Find my full length review at Geeks.media 

My Time Traveling Family

There is a legend in my family, passed down through time. In the legend, members of my family are capable of traveling through time. There is one hitch in that legend, you can only do it once and for about an hour at most. Thus, when members of the family reach a certain age they are informed of this ability, how to access it, and the very important rule about its use. One time, one hour. That, naturally, sets the stage for how you want to use your one time and one hour. 

How do you decide? Where do you want to go and what do you want to do? It's an impossible choice as what if you choose to go right away and find that something tragic happened? You could have used your one time, one hour, to save someone you love from death. But, if you're too cautious and you don't use it, what if you die before you can use this amazing power? I had an Uncle who held on to his one time until he was 72 years and before he could finally go back and do something he wanted to do, he dropped dead. 

Don't be Uncle Tony, that's what my Dad told me. Dad used his one time, one hour, to visit his father. Dad went back to 1975 and had lunch with his own father before Granddad passed away. He said it was the best choice he could have made. He could have gone back and done many things, really anything. Like anyone else, Dad made bad choices here and there, he had regrets that he could have perhaps corrected. He could have tried to find a way to make a quick buck, but for dad, spending one last lunch sitting across from his father was everything. 

Granddad recognized him immediately. Dad may have been 8 years old at the time he traveled back to but Granddad still recognized his nearly 60 year old son when he saw him. They cried together, laughed together, enjoyed a meal together. My Granddad passed away on May 15th, 1975 he was shot while trying to stop a convenience store robbery. Before he died, he told my dad not to try and change his fate. He was worried that the ripple effect of his death that day would be too catastrophic to the future of the lives he saved that day stopping that man from killing more than just him. 

That's another thing about this ability of ours, you have to be responsible with it. You have to understand the ripple effect of your actions. One false move and you could remove a generation of your future family. You could come back from an hour in the past to an entirely different present. It's best to try and observe history or, in some cases, nudge it in your favor. Repair a failure, fix something you regret. Just know that there are potential consequences to every choice and make sure you can live with what you choose to do. 

Which leads back to me. I have a huge decision to make. What will I do in the past? How can I keep what I do from negatively affecting the future? What can I do that will be emotionally satisfying and useful to my present situation? I think I know what to do. It's a bit mawkish, if I am to be self-critical. There was something I wanted to do as a kid but never had the chance to do. I always wanted to see a baseball game with my grandfather at Wrigley Field. 

Find my full length short story at Fiction.Media 

Classic Movie Review An American Werewolf in London

An American Werewolf in London (1991) 

Directed by John Landis 

Written by John Landis

Starring David Naughton, Griffin Dunne, Jenny Agutter

Release Date August 21st, 1981

Published February 27th, 2023 

I don't get it. Well, I understand what people see in American Werewolf in London, but I don't get why it has lasted in people's memories for over 40 years. American Werewolf in London has some terrific practical effects and makeup. It has several memorable visuals, mostly in the makeup effects by the iconic Rick Baker. That's a solid legacy but beyond that, there is not much of a movie here. Thin characters, a horror comedy tone that is never funny, and disconnected scenes that linger rather than move things along, left me rather bored by a movie with a reputation as a horror classic. 

American Werewolf in London stars blandly handsome commercial pitchman, David Naughton as David and Griffin Dunne as David's best friend Jack. Somehow, David convinced Jack to go backpacking across England, specifically in the cold and rainy Yorkshire Moors, even as Jack greatly preferred going to the warmer and more welcoming environment in Greece or Italy. The two are miserable and cold and when they find a pub in a small town, things don't get any better. 

The locals are rude and stand-offish, they send the American visitors away without so much as a warm beverage. The only thing the locals tell the two young men is to stay out of the Moors. Naturally, they don't listen and up walking in the bright light of a full moon across the empty Moors. In the distance, they hear what sounds like a dog or a wolf. Indeed, it's a werewolf, one the locals were fully aware of but failed to keep the young men from encountering. 

Subsequently, Jack is brutally mutilated while David runs away like a coward. He does turn back for Jack but only so that we in the audience can be shown Jack's brutally desiccated corpse. David himself is then attacked but survives when several of the guilt-ridden pub patrons come to rescue him and kill the werewolf. Unfortunately for both David and Jack, David has been bitten before he was rescued and the Werewolf curse was transferred to him. 

The curse also effects poor Jack who cannot rest in peace until the Werewolf bloodline is ended. That means that David needs to die or Jack will live on as a member of the living dead. In the best part of the movie, Rick Baker's makeup turns Griffin Dunne into an ever rotting corpse whose decay is more and more present the more we see him. Dunne, unfortunately for the rest of the movie, is far more charming and engaging than star David Naughton and the movie suffers when Dunne isn't on screen. 

Put it simply, David Naughton is completely overmatched when challenged with carrying the movie. He's blandly handsome but there is nothing much more too him. So much of the movie is spent in his company and because of that, the movie never gains any charm or momentum. Naughton is a giant void at the center of the movie, sucking in all that might be interesting about writer-director John Landis' homage to classic MGM monster movies. 

Find my full length review at Horror.Media 

Movie Review Chronicles of a Wandering Saint

Chronicles of a Wandering Saint (2023)

Directed by Tomas Gomez Bustillo 

Written by Tomas Gomez Bustillo 

Starring Iair Said, Monica Villa, Pablo Moseinco

Release Date March 12th, 2023 

Published March 13th, 2023 

We open inside of a church somewhere in Argentina. Rita (Monica Villa) sits praying in the first pew, alone. Beside her are cleaning materials that she has set aside for her particular need to pray at this moment. Observed by interlopers, Rita is unmoved and continues diligently in prayer. The interlopers are her prayer group who have arrived to pray with her. Rita's role in the church is rather unclear early on. Yes, she's cleaning the church but is she an employee or a volunteer? Is she a church leader or a member of the congregation. 

In the end, I guess that doesn't matter. The point is that she is deeply religious, pious, and dedicated. The plot of Chronicles of a Wandering Saint kicks in when, while cleaning a storage area of the church, Rita finds a statue of a Nun and she steals it with the aid of her loving, devoted, and slightly goofy husband, Lucho (Iair Said). Lucho is unaware of his wife's ruse, even as he helps smuggle the statue of Saint Rita from the church to his home. 

The plot thickens with Rita tells her pastor, Father Eduardo (Pablo Moseinco) that the statue simply appeared in her home. It doesn't take much for him to declare it a miracle, sight unseen and we're off to the races, so to speak. Rita begins to try and authenticate evidence of her miracle. Soon, Rita does let Lucho in on the ruse and together they work on staging the miracle. The slightly upgraded, more biblically accurate, Statue of Saint Rita will suddenly appear at the church with Rita discovering it there, a genuine miracle. 

And then... well, let's just say, the movie... changes. Something happens at the midpoint of Chronicles of a Wandering Saint that shifts a potential comic farce about a deeply religious woman staging a miracle into something entirely, remarkably unexpected. I am not going to spoil anything; I am recommending this movie and I certainly want you to enjoy it. I will only say that the twist is entirely unexpected and rather ingenious. You are making assumptions about what the twist is but I promise you, you won't guess it. 

Find my full length review at Geeks.Media 

Movie Review Scream 6

Scream 6 (2023) 

Directed by Matt Bettinelli-Olpin, Tyler Gillett 

Written by James Vanderbilt, Gary Busick 

Starring Jenna Ortega, Melissa Barrera, Courtney Cox, Jasmin Savoy Brown, Mason Gooding 

Release Date March 10th, 2023 

Published March 9th, 2023 

After having seen Scream 6 I can now confirm that there are only two possible truths in this franchise. One possible truth is that no one in Scream has any vital organs. Or, second possible truth, Knives are capable of malfunctioning. It has to be one or the other. There are no other rational explanations as to how human beings can survive so many, many stab wounds. Characters in Scream movies now are basically a series of blood balloons tied together to form human beings. No vital organs, just places where they can be stabbed and partially deflate. That's it. 

Stabbing someone in movies used to be far more effective than it is today. In Psycho you did not see Marion Crane getting up and sharing witty banter with anyone after being stabbed repeatedly by Mrs. Bates. Heck, even in the original, 1996 Scream movie, Drew Barrymore died in the opening minutes from a number of stab wounds. Granted, it was the first indication of the growing overall ineffectiveness of knives in horror movies, but she did die from her wounds, eventually. 

I'm being petty. It's just a matter that I have been able to suspend disbelief in previous entries in the Scream franchise. Scream 1,2,4, and 5, feature such good scares and such great characters that the implausibility melted into the background. Writer Kevin Williamson, aided by the skilled direction of horror veteran Wes Craven, was able to distract us with wit and charm while Craven's camera blocking and old school approach to building suspense, carried us over the harder to believe ideas about how many times Sidney Prescott was going to survive a serial murderer. 

Now however, without the wit and with greatly lesser character and direction, the seams of the franchise are beginning to wear away. There are only so many times that Ghostface can be knocked on the head and walk away. There are only so many times we can see someone have most of their vital organs punctured and live that such a thing remains effective. With Scream 6, for me, the franchise has pushed beyond my ability and willingness to suspend disbelief. With nothing to elevate the movie above the horror tropes, we're left with a downright comical number of stab wounds that people manage to survive. 

Picking up the story from Scream 5, the Carpenter sisters, Samantha (Melissa Barrera) and Tara (Jenna Ortega), survivors of the most recent massacre in Woodsboro, are now living in New York City. Tara is attending college, along with old friends Mindy (Jasmin Savoy Brown) and her fraternal twin brother, Chad (Mason Gooding). And, of course, they've picked up strays including new roommate Quinn (Liana Liberato), and Chad's new roommate Ethan (Jack Champion). Samantha has also picked a secret boyfriend, a neighbor named Danny (Josh Segarra), who, naturally, will become an immediate suspect when Ghostface returns. 

Indeed, Ghostface is back as a pair of film students appear to be trying to finish the story that Randy Kirsch (Jack Quaid) and Amber Freeman (Mikey Madison) tried to tell in Scream 5. That story centered on Sam being the big bad due to her history as the illegitimate daughter of original Scream killer, Billy Loomis (Skeet Ulrich). These dorks want to finish Randy and Amber's movie by killing the Carpenter sisters and framing them for all of the murders from Woodsboro to New York City. Before they can accomplish that however, they too are killed and a new story of revenge begins to unfold. 

Find my full length review at Horror.Media 

Movie Review IMoredecai

iMordecai (2023) 

Directed by Marvin Samel 

Written by Rudy Gaines, Dahlia Heyman 

Starring Judd Hirsch, Carole Kane, Sean Astin 

Release Date March 10th, 2023 

Published March 9th, 2023 

It seems to happen year after year after the Oscar nominations are announced. One nominee with a chance of winning one of the biggest prizes in acting will have their chances of winning torpedoed by the release of another movie, one terrifically embarrassing and using the Oscar attention for the star as a marketing tool. This year, legendary character actor Judd Hirsch earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor in Steven Speilberg's The Fabelmans. Whether or not Hirsch could be considered a frontrunner for the award is debatable. What's not debatable is that he must be hoping voters don't notice his other awards season starring role in the embarrassing product placement based comedy, iMordecai. 

Judd Hirsch stars in iMordecai as Mordecai, a wacky holocaust survivor living the retired life in Florida with his longtime, long suffering wife, Fela (Carole Kane). When we meet Mordecai he is taking a sledgehammer to his apartment bathroom with the intent of building a new bathroom. Did I mention that Mordecai is in his late 80s? Perhaps building an entire new bathroom might not be within his capabilities? That's certainly what Mordecai's son, Marvin (Sean Astin) thinks. He's stunned when his mother calls him to try and get Mordecai to not destroy the bathroom. 

Marvin is struggling to keep tabs on his dad, especially because Mordecai is still using a nearly 20 year old flip phone as his main source of communication. Marvin is desperate to get his father a more reliable phone and finally is able to rope dad into a trip to the mall. There, Mordecai is introduced to a young genius named Nina (Azia Dinea Hale) who is teaching a class on how draw using your Iphone. Nina and Mordecai strike up a friendship over their shared love of art, Mordecai was a painter years ago, and Nina offers to teach Mordecai how to use the new Iphone Marvin is buying for him.

There is a major complication in Nina and Mordecai's friendship that lingers through the second act. What we know and Mordecai will come to know, eventually, is that Nina's grandfather was a Nazi officer at a Jewish Extermination Camp in Germany during World War 2. Nina only recently became aware of this and initially keeps this information from her new friend. Naturally, the truth will come out but, strangely, not much will come from this. One of the hallmarks of iMordecai is the introduction of heavy topics that get shuffled aside for more discussion about how great Iphones are. 

Find my full length review at Geeks.Media 

Movie Review Pinball The Man who Saved the Game

Pinball: The Man Who Saved the Game (2023) 

Directed by Austin Bragg, Meredith Brag 

Written by Austin Bragg, Meredith Bragg

Starring Mike Faist, Crystal Reed, Dennis Boutsikaris, Christopher Convery

Release Date March 17th, 2023 

Published March 11th, 2023 

Pinball The Man Who Saved the Game is a wildly inessential look at a piece of history so inconsequential that it boggles the mind. For reasons that don't bare a need to be repeated, Pinball, the game so righteously lauded by Roger Daltrey in an equally inessential but kind of awesome song, was banned in many big cities in the 1970's. Then, one man, one weird, weird, man, by the name of Roger Sharpe set about to change everything. Forget fighting for equal rights, or battling systemic injustice, Roger Sharpe was going to use his time to rescue pinball. And so incredible is his story that people felt there needed to be a movie about it. 

In a needless device, actor Dennis Boutsakaris plays a modern conception of Roger Sharpe. He's being interviewed by the makers of this film, presumably, about how he saved pinball. To tell the story, Roger must go all the way back to 1971 when he met the magical Jesus of Pinball who gave him the gift of a phrase that he would carry forward into the world: 'I can't let it drain.' Pinball Jesus, handing down the commandments of Pinball to the Moses who would save the game was referring to having Roger take over his machine and not allow the game to end, Pinball Jesus presumably having to inspire others to pinball glory. 

Cut to 1975 and we apparently need to know how sad Roger's life is. Roger worked a soulless job in advertising in New York City while nursing the failed dream of all 1970's male movie characters, the dream of writing 'the great American novel.' Roger's failed dreams have led to a failed marriage and soon the loss of his job. Desperate for a place and a purpose in a cruel and remorseless world, Roger happens to hear the siren call of bumpers and bells coming from inside a porno bookshop. Having not played pinball since college, Roger took this as a sign and spent the next several weeks playing pinball while sex workers and perverts plied their trade behind a nearby curtain. 

Find my full length review at Geeks.Media. 

Protecting the Finisher: Storytelling Devices in Professional Wrestling

What is a Finisher? 

A finisher is the move that a professional wrestler uses to end a match in victory. After a hard fought contest of trying to incapacitate an opponent with a series of blows and maneuvers, a wrestler will begin to look for an opening where they can hit a maneuver that will end the match. This move is typically devastating and when struck, it means that the match is going end with the referee slapping the mat three times to signify the victory of one competitor over another. 

Perhaps the most mainstream famous finisher or finishing maneuver is the RKO, the finisher of one Randy Orton of the WWE. For a time, Orton's finisher became a popular meme as it could be hit, outta nowhere. Kids playing around swimming pools would run and grab a friend around the neck and pull them into pools outta nowhere. Memes of Orton grabbing his opponent around the neck and slamming them to the mat as their chin rested upon his shoulder began to pop up in animated GIF form in the mid to late 2010's in ubiquitous fashion.

In the parlance of professional wrestling, the RKO is a well protected finishing maneuver. What does that mean? Well, as a storytelling device, the RKO was the end of a story for whatever opponent stood across the ring from Randy Orton. For a time, no one, not even the biggest stars in the company were allowed to 'kick out' of the RKO. Once the blow was struck, the match was over. Kicking out is another kind of wrestling storytelling device, one key to some of the best drama in professional wrestling. Kicking out when it appears that you are about to lose a match is a big moment, it's a storytelling crescendo, a moment of breathless wonder for fans rooting for a hero to overcome the odds and come back to win or for fans hoping that a hated foe had finally been vanquished. 

Thus, the fact that no one ever kicked out of the RKO, built the importance of the move. In terms of long term storytelling, if a finishing maneuver like the RKO is never kicked out of, it means that if someone ever did kick out of it, that person would gain a particular level of prestige. Only the most valiant and resilient of babyface heroes or the most dastardly of hated foes could ever come close to kicking out once Randy Orton hit the RKO Outta Nowhere. It's a storytelling device so well established in WWE lore that when Randy goes to the biggest shows of the year and competes in the biggest matches of his career, whether or not he can hit the RKO is a major part of the story of the show and the match he's competing in. 

Find the full length article at Geeks.Media 

Movie Review Caught

Caught (1949) 

Directed by Max Opuls 

Written by Arthur Laurents, Libbie Block 

Starring James Mason, Barbara Bel Geddes, Robert Ryan

Release Date February 17th, 1949 

Published March 13th, 2023

Caught tells the story of Leonora (Barbara Bel Geddes), a woman who dreams of being a model. To achieve her dream, she attends a Charm School. This takes her to a job working at a department store as a living model for Mink Coats. While doing this, she's approached by a man to attend a private party aboard a yacht. She's dubious about the idea but is convinced by a friend that she should attend. It's a fateful choice as before she can even reach the party, she meets the man for whom the party is being thrown, multi-millionaire named Smith Ohlrig (Robert Ryan). 

Ohlrig is handsome and he decides to sweep young Leonor off her feet using his vast resources. After doing so however, he's immediately resentful of her. He's long assumed that any woman who would want to be with him is only there to take his money. Leonor insists that her feelings are genuine, despite them having a very, very limited courtship. She asks for his time, and he refuses, leaving her home alone. In a particularly telling and cruel moment, he tells her to simply spend his money as that is the only reason she's there anyway. 

Nothing about the Leonora that we've met to this point indicates she is a gold digger but that's the label he's given her. It's clear that this marriage is a mistake and one that is headed to a tragic ending. That is until Leonora makes an unexpected choice. Having tired of Ohlrig's absence and cruelty, Leonora leaves the comfort and security of being a rich man's wife for the life of a lower middle class working girl. Leaving Smith's compound in Long Island for a small tenament in the City, Leonora takes a job working for $25.00 a week in the office of Dr. Larry Quinada (James Mason). Eventually, a romance begins between Dr. Quinada and Leonora but a complication looms over the romance, one that may force Leonora to return to Ohlrig. 

Caught demonstrates the elegance of the direction of Max Ophuls. The German director's camera sweeps and flows from scene to scene beautifully, seamlessly marrying rooms in single locations, rarely breaking shots without the absolute need to do so. The style of Max Ophuls is rarely distracting or flashy, it's distinctive only if you are truly looking for directorial style. A trained eye may take note of Ophuls' work while a more casual audience may simply find his style appealing for its crisp beauty and how rarely jarring his edits are. This could be said about a number of directors but Ophuls has a particular skill that stands out when you know what you are looking for. 

Take for instance Ophuls simple yet skillful framing of characters. When one character has an advantage of information over another, that character is foreground, looming larger in the frame. When this character then give their advantage away, the framing subtly changes to equalize the characters in the scene. It's a remarkably subtle visual cue that an important piece of information has been shared, information that may shift the narrative. Ophuls is visually equalizing his characters to draw you closer to the disadvantaged character. If you weren't looking for that, you might not notice it and that is the hallmark of a terrific piece of direction. 

Movie Review 65

65 (2023) 

Directed by Scott Beck and Bryan Woods 

Written by Scott Beck and Bryan Woods 

Starring Adam Driver, Arian Greenblatt, Nika King, Chloe Coleman 

Release Date March 10th, 2023 

Published March 12th, 2023 

65 does little to justify its own existence. The sci-fi action movie starring Adam Driver is an incredibly basic and repetitive action movie that happens to include space travel and people from a planet other than Earth. The core story is about a man trying to protect a small girl from a perilous and uncaring world, a story reflected in his personal life where he has a daughter who is sick and dying from an unspecified disease. Saving this small girl in the context of a mission on a foreign planet is intended as commentary on protecting the man's daughter from an illness that may kill her. 

That sounds like it has potential and perhaps it does but nothing really comes from that potential. Adam Driver plays Captain Mills. Mills has been offered three times his salary to take a group of people in cryo-pods from one side of the universe to another. It's a trip that will take two years to complete. This means spending two years away from his wife, (Nika King), and their sick daughter (Chloe Coleman). Why do this? Because the family needs the money to give their daughter a chance to survive. 

The plot of 65 kicks in when an unexpected meteor shower shatters the calm of an otherwise mundane space trip. This field of meteors seemingly came out of nowhere, Mills was asleep when it happened, demonstrating just how unexpected this was. The ship crashes on a nearby, seemingly uninhabited planet. Uninhabited by intelligent life forms anyway. Instead, the planet is populated by giant monsters that we recognize as dinosaurs, though Mills doesn't seem to know what they are. 

Mills must then find an escape pod which is about 12 kilometers from where his part of the ship crashed. His journey is complicated when he learns that one of his cryo-pod passengers is still alive. Koa (Ariana Greenblatt), is foreign to Mills. She doesn't speak the same language and this communication barrier will provide further complication as they attempt to navigate the 12 kilometers of lush jungle, low and dangerous open space, and a mountain range. 

Read my full length review at Geeks.Media 

Movie Review The Boston Strangler

The Boston Strangler (2023) 

Directed by Mark Ruskin 

Written by Mark Ruskin 

Starring Keira Knightley, Carrie Coon, Chris Cooper 

Release Date March 17th, 2023

Published March 16th, 2023 

The Boston Strangler takes the perspective of the two real life reporters who put together the story of the killers behind The Boston Strangler. Keira Knightley stars as Loretta McLaughlin, an experienced reporter tied to the Lifestyle section of her paper. When her mother mentions the murder of an elderly woman in her neighborhood, Loretta's instincts take over and she begins to investigate, even before she's managed to get herself assigned to this story. In order to keep the story once it starts to get bigger and more complicated, Loretta is teamed with Jean Cole (Carrie Coon), a more experienced and connected Crime Reporter. 

Together, the duo of reporters follow disparate leads to multiple suspects all the while watching as the Boston Police Department fumbles the investigation. How bad are the cops on this case? The lead detective, Detective Conley (Alessandro Nivola) begins telling Loretta how poorly his bosses are handling the case. The film avoids making it appear that the reporters are better at investigating the case than the cops by simply being honest about the challenges that the cops were facing and the politics behind the awful decisions they were making. 

One cliche the movie cannot avoid is the spouse who gets upset when their successful wife/husband is spending too much time at work. Loretta's husband begins as an incredibly supportive and forward thinking, for the 1960's, guy. Then, when the movie needs to force some drama and deal with the fact that Loretta's marriage did end in real life, the script resorts to scenes that feel deeply forced and perfunctory about Loretta not being home for dinner a few times or missing a bedtime or two for their kids and blows these things up into world ending dramas. 

Find my full length review at Geeks.Media.