Movie Review Carnosaur

Carnosaur (1993) 

Directed by Adam Simon 

Written by Adam Simon 

Starring Raphael Sbarge, Diane Ladd, Jennifer Runyon, Clint Howard 

Release Date May 14th, 1993 

Published May 15th, 1993 

Carnosaur is a bizarre, incomprehensible mess of a movie. Ostensibly created to capitalize on Jurassic Park, Carnosaur was actually released a month prior to the release of the Steven Spielberg all time classic. Legend tells that Executive Producer Roger Corman heard that Steven Spielberg's next movie was a dinosaur film based on a Michael Crichton bestseller. So, ever the huckster carny, Corman scoured the bestseller list for another book with dinosaurs. 

That's when he discovered Carnosaur by John Brosnan and snapped it up. Now, Corman had no intention of actually adapting the book, he just needed it for the optics of making his movie look like Jurassic Park. This extended to the casting of Carnosaur. When it became known that Laura Dern was in the cast of Jurassic Park, Corman wrote a check to get Dern's mother, Diane Ladd in Carnosaur. By this point, he'd chosen a director he was sure could hack up the book and come up with a semblance of a movie. 

Enter writer-director Adam Simon. The man who partnered with Corman's wife, Julie Corman, to make 1990's Brain Dead, was just the man to slap together a dinosaur movie where the only goal was to release it before Jurassic Park came out. Mission accomplished. Simon slapped, cut, and pasted Carnosaur into something similar to an actual movie in a remarkable 18 days of principal photography. Diane Ladd was on hand for 5 of those days. 

Yes, the behind the scenes story is way more interesting than anything on the screen. Carnosaur is what would happen if you dropped random pages of a dinosaur novel into an A.I generator and asked it to turn that book into a horror movie. It has no inflection points, major motivations are missing, and several plot strands arrive and depart seemingly at random. Scenes exist but they often leave you wondering why they exist. 

I'm going to attempt to unpack this plot, if that's at all possible. Carnosaur stars Diane Ladd as Dr. Jane Tiptree, a famed weapons designer now working on designer eggs. What most don't know is that Dr. Tiptree is a mad scientist bent on the destruction of the human race. Dr. Tiptree believes that the Earth belongs to the dinosaur and her goal is to restore the dinosaur in place of man. To do that, she has genetically engineered chickens to give birth to dinosaurs. 

But, that's not all. Dr. Tiptree has also created a virus that infects people and causes them to give birth to dinosaur eggs. Well, women give birth to dinosaur eggs, its left highly unclear what the virus does to men despite the director going out of his way to show men being super-gross and spreading the dino-virus to each other by coughing on each other or on the food they are serving to others. Despite that, we only see women giving birth to dinosaur eggs and then dying. 

Well, except for Dr. Tiptree who, when her time comes, gives birth to a fully formed tiny T-Rex, rathen than just a gross egg. This scene is so sad. Having done her best to preserve her dignity in this movie, when it is clear that Ladd is laying out a blanket for herself to give birth on, I cried out, NO! Not Diane Ladd! Corman, you monster! Ladd had made it to the end of the movie barely acting a moment in this awful film and when she finally sacrifices her dignity to give birth to a dinosaur, it's the only time Carnosaur achieves any kind of horror. It's mortification, an empathetic sadness on our part on behalf of Diane Ladd, but it does elicit a response. 

Diane Ladd is the villain of Carnosaur, I haven't even introduced our 'hero.' Raphael Sbarge stars as Doc, a former doctor turned drunken security guard at a quarry... I think. He has a medical degree on the wall.... I think. Everyone calls him Doc and he seems to know what to do when a woman goes into labor but, it is incredibly unclear what the nature of his character is. We know that his mortal enemy are hippies. Hippy protestors are trying to stop the quarry from digging... something. 

Find my full length review at Geeks.Media

Horror in the 90s: Frankenhooker

Frankenhooker (1990) 

Directed by Frank Henenlotter 

Written by Robert 'Bob' Martin, Frank Henenlotter 

Starring James Lorinz, Patty Mullen, Louise Lasser 

Release Date April 1990 

Box Office $205,000 

Frankenhooker is a visionary work of cinema. It's a vision so bizarre and singular that you can barely wrap your mind around the existence of such a thing. I want to be in a room where someone thought of the idea for Frankenhooker and then wrote a screenplay. They then took the idea to other people and instead of laughing this bizarre idea out of existence, they handed over funding to make Frankenhooker. Actors were then sought and cast in  Frankenhooker. Movie theaters were then invited to book Frankenhooker to be screened for paying audiences.

How? How did this get past the idea phase? How did anyone conceive of this series of scenes which begins with a woman being destroyed by an out control lawn mower and then having her head preserved and attached to a patchwork of body parts cultivated from dead sex workers. There are many weird movies in the world that leave you scratching your head over how someone came up with such nonsense but few of those movies have the head of a dead woman being grafted onto a body made up of a patchwork of dead sex workers. 

If you don't know about Frankenhooker you, perhaps, think I have had some kind of mental collapse and that I am just making something up out of the fractured pieces left in my shattered psyche, but no, Frankenhooker is an actual movie that was made and distributed. Frankenhooker is 33 years old and readily available to anyone capable of streaming movies right now. Rather than being the dramatic result of this writer having suffered a traumatic brain injury, Frankenhooker is a real movie. I swear it is. 

Frankenhooker stars James Lorinz as Jeffrey Franken, a small-time mad scientist who lives with his mother. James is in love with Shelly and the two are set to be married soon. That all changes when Shelly is gruesomely murdered by an out of control, remote control lawnmower that Jeffrey had made as a gift for Shelly's father. Though most of Shelly was eviscerated, Jeffrey manages to save her head and uses a solution he'd created for a different mad scientist project, one involving a brain in a jar on his mom's kitchen table, Shelly's head is preserved. 

But why? Why preserve Shelly's head? Well, Jeffrey believes that he can save Shelly from death. Yes, Jeffrey has a cure for decapitation but it's not a cure that is easy to deploy. No, unfortunately, it will require a lot of bloody murder of sex workers. Thus, in order to save Shelly, Jeffrey takes the last of his life savings and goes to big city where a pimp named Zorro helps him hire several sex workers whom Jeffrey plans to murder and assemble into the perfect body for Shelly. He has two days to make this plan work with a thunderstorm expected to power Jeffrey's Shelly monster. 

The ending of the movie turns the Frankenstein story into a Tales from the Crypt/Twilight Zone style movie with a twist that turns the tables on Jeffrey in a visual you need to see to believe. Then again, to believe anything in Frankenhooker actually exists, you need to see it for yourself. It's one of the wildest ideas that anyone has ever brought to the big screen. The fact that something this insane exists is a testament to pure insanity as art. 

Find my full length review at Horror.Media

Movie Review The Holy Mountain

The Holy Mountain (1973) 

Directed by Alejandro Jodorowsky 

Written by Alejandro Jodorowsky 

Starring Alejandro Jodorowsky, Horacio Salinas Zamira Salinas 

November 27th, 1973 

Published May 15th, 2023 

Is Holy Mountain a movie or an experience? Perhaps it is both. I'm not sure exactly what it is but it had a major effect on me. Written and directed by Alejandro Jodorowsky, the movie is a wildly political, deeply esoteric and visually daring film of extraordinary ambition. Watching Holy Mountain is what I imagine it must be like to be drunk. I've never had a drop of alcohol but observing drunken behavior, I am reminded of how I felt watching Holy Mountain. The film left me dizzy, delirious, occasionally giddy and left me needing a nap. 

Every frame of Holy Mountain could be a painting. Jodorowsky's taken for composition is extraordinary. The opening moments of the film both set the tone for the rest of the movie and do nothing to establish a recognizable story. Two nude women kneel next to a black clad person wearing a large black hat. The background is a psychedelic black and white. The person in the black hat proceeds to brutally and painfully sheer the hair from the women's heads. Why? I don't know but it is damn sure a striking series of visuals. 

Our protagonist in Holy Mountain is a man who vaguely visually associates with Jesus just before he was nailed to the cross. He has long brown hair, a beard, and a lanky, emaciated frame. Our Jesus stand-in is introduced lying in his own filth. Covered in flies, urine flowing around him, and  a general air of gross, the man is awakened when a bunch of naked children start throwing rocks at him. He flees. Eventually, our Jesus meets a tiny man with no legs or hands and the two become fast friends. 

They travel to town where they witness a series of indescribable events that include a recreation of the fall of the Mayan people with the Mayans represented by Lizards and the invading Spanish portrayed by a plague level of frogs. The frogs destroy and consume the lizards as Jesus and his friend dance about. Meanwhile, soldiers arrive to break up the scene and one of the tourists breaks off to have sex with the soldier while her husband watches and calls on Jesus to capture the event on camera. 

Eventually, our Jesus stand in realizes that his resemblance to Jesus could be a way to make some money. He begins accepting money to carry a giant cross while tourists snap photos of him. However, when he falls asleep, he's kidnapped by the same people who gave him the cross to carry. They proceed to make a plaster cast of him as Jesus on the cross and when our Jesus awakens, he finds a room full of plaster versions of himself as Jesus and suffers intense despair before destroying all but one of these plaster Jesus's. 

I have left out so many things. You have no idea. And what I have described thus far is maybe 20 minutes into the movie, at most. Holy Mountain only gets wilder from here with sequences that it would take pages to try and summarize and then assess the meaning. Let's just say that what is still to come in Holy Mountain amounts to a series of artist allegories regarding corporate greed, violence, sexism, religious corruption, the death of the ego and the overall idea of what it means to transcend in the Emerson/Thoreau sense. 

It's a lot and I am not sure I understood a lot of it or what I was meant to understand. Jodorowsky appears to want the viewer to take something away from Holy Mountain that is just for them. At the same time, he's not without a very personal, political perspective. Much of that boils down to greed is bad, corruption is bad, and everyone is susceptible to these societal ills. We can try to assign more depth to Jodorowsky but the basic message is a leftist perspective that is deeply opposed to the corrupting influence of capitalism and generally suspicious of anything that represents a capitalistic status quo. 

Find my full length review of The Holy Mountain at Geeks.Media. 

Movie Review Monica

Monica (2023) 

Directed by Andrea Pallaoro 

Written by Andrea Pallaoro 

Starring Trace Lysette, Emily Browning, Patricia Clarkson, Adriana Barraza, Joshua Close 

Release Date May 12th, 2023 

Published May 12th, 2023 

Monica is a quiet, thoughtful, and quite brilliant film about grief and the strange pull parents have on children, no matter the distance. It doesn't matter if the distance is measured in miles or time, the inherent desire to connect with parents is a universal feeling, regardless of your background. In the case of Monica (Trace Lysette), the distance is physical, it's measured in decades of time, and it's embedded in bitter sadness and grief. Monica has been estranged from her mother, Eugenia (Patricia Clarkson) for nearly 20 years. The last thing Monica's mother said to her, at a bus station in Ohio was "I can no longer be your mother." 

Now, Eugenia is dying and having been found by her brother, Paul (Josh Close), and his wife, Laura (Emily Browning), that pull I wrote about earlier surfaces for Monica. Despite the rightful bitterness and remarkable hurt, Monica cannot resist the pull of seeing her mother again before she passes away. The question of a reconciliation looms but carries more weight in this case. Eugenia is suffering from brain cancer, her mind is slipping, especially when she refuses her medication. It's been nearly 20 years and she may not recognize Monica. 

Of course, time and Eugenia's illness aren't the only reasons why she might not recognize Monica. When the two last saw each other, Monica was at the beginning of transitioning. 20 years later, Monica is indeed a different person. The layers of this story are remarkable as now Monica may have to decide if she will tell her mother that she is her child, the child Eugenia abandoned at a crucial moment in her life. It's heavy stuff but in the brilliantly subtle hands of writer-director Andrea Pallaoro and star Trace Lysette, the fraught emotions are played only on Monica's face as she takes in the huge emotions at play inside her and around her. 

Find my full length review at Humans.Media 

Horror in the 90s: The Exorcist 3

The Exorcist 3 (1990) 

Directed by William Peter Blatty 

Written by William Peter Blatty 

Starring George C. Scott, Brad Dourif, Scott Wilson, Nicol Williamson

Release Date August 17th, 1990 

Box Office $44 million 

People forget just how big a hit The Exorcist 3 was when it was released in August of 1990. William Peter Blatty's first and only directorial effort managed to top the box office on opening weekend and accumulated overall, a gross that would be over $100 million dollars today. Despite much negative reaction to the film at the time, The Exorcist 3 has persisted in the minds of horror fans as a rare third sequel in a famous franchise that doesn't stink out loud. 

The Exorcist 3 centers on a Police Detective, Lt. William F. Kinderman, played by legendary actor George C. Scott. Kinderman recalls having been at the scene of the crime when in 1975 Father Damian Karras plunged to his death from the apartment window of young Regan MacNeil after having participated in Regan's exorcism. It's a horrific memory that Kinderman shares with Father Karras' close friend, Father Joseph Dyer (Ed Flanders). And it's a memory that creeps back into both men's minds when a series of murders occur that recall a demonically possessed killer. 

In 2020, The Exorcist 3 turned 30 years old and on my podcast, the Everyone's a Critic Movie Review Podcast, we watched it and reviewed it on the show. Our review was incredibly positive. We loved George C. Scott's performance and the wild horror imagery of William Peter Blatty's shabby but endearing first time direction. Watching the film again, a mere 3 years later however, the charm is less pronounced. What steps forward are the flaws, the strange choices, the reasons the normies of 1990 hated this movie. 

It's sad but it appears to be true that I willed myself to like The Exorcist 3 so much in 2020 that I neglected just how weird and random William Peter Blatty's choices are. First of all, one of the first images of The Exorcist 3 is a jarringly silly shot that is intended to be frightening. Church doors fly open, and an ill-wind blows through the church, creating a chaotic swirl of loose hymnals and biblical verses. The camera slides into the chaos before cutting to a close up of a cross where a ceramic Jesus of Nazareth comically opens his eyes. The image of Jesus here looks like comedian Tom Kenny and the horror spell that Blatty is trying to cast fails immediately. 

This is followed by an attempt to give The Exorcist 3 the feel of a waking nightmare. The camera leaves the church and takes on a first person perspective, as if we are the camera and we are in the midst of a dream. We are walking down a wet street late at night. In the distance, a man who appears to be wearing a Priest's garb runs quickly and strangely across the street. The camera moves up and down with each step, the camera, our eyes, fall upon the sidewalk before us. A young man appears to the left of the frame holding a rose. We walk past him and continue up the street. The young man emerges again somehow having teleported to a spot ahead of us. He holds out the flower and we walk past. 

We then leap to a new location, the steps from Georgetown below the former home of Regan MacNeil. It's the place where Father Karras died after leaping from a fourth story window. We, the camera, roll down those stairs just as Father Karras did, rolling and bouncing horrifically until we reach the bottom, and there the nightmare ends. We awaken to helicopters intercut with scenes from the church. Our protagonists, Lt. Kinderman and Father Dyer going about their business. Kinderman is investigating a grisly murder scene. Father Dyer is practicing a sermon and scolding a student priest, played in a cameo by a very young, almost unrecognizable Kevin Corrigan, a favorite character of mine. 

The visual marriage of Lt. Kinderman and Father Dyer is accompanied by dialogue that establishes the long-time friendship of these two men. It's a friendship bound in the blood of their dead friend Father Karras. it's established that each man is haunted by this date, the date of Father Karras's death. They are haunted so much that they each feel the need to comfort the other. Each man talks of having to cheer up their old friend and thus they meet at a local movie theater for an umpteenth showing of It's a Wonderful Life. 

One can infer that Blatty is intending to evoke the life-affirming emotional power of It's a Wonderful Life to underline how these two men appreciate being alive. Other than that, it's a particularly random inclusion. The movie date is followed by a bizarre non-sequitur conversation in which the detective relates a story about why he doesn't want to go him to his wife and mother-in-law. It's a story about a fish currently occupying Kinderman's bathtub and how he hasn't had a bath in 3 days because the fish is there. This is the pretense Blatty feels is necessary to get Kinderman and Dyer to have dinner together and rehash stories about Father Karras and Kinderman's strange new murder case. 

Not to be Mr. IMDB trivia, but, as we cut to the restaurant in the following scene, there is an entirely random and uncommented upon cameo from a famous non-actor. Glimpsed ever so briefly in this scene is the former United States Surgeon General, C. Everett Koop. Most won't recognize the man but if you are of a certain age, his oddly styled beard, a style referred to as a chinstrap, as it circles the face without including a mustache, is a strangely familiar sight. Koop became famous in the late 80s and early 90s when he defied the Reagan and Bush administrations to openly discuss AIDS. He spoke of safe sex and promoted condoms at a time when it was not something conservatives wanted him to do. 

That's a wordy way of saying that spotting C. Everett Koop in a brief cameo in The Exorcist 3 is weird and quite distracting for someone who knows who he is. Perhaps the former Surgeon General was invited because he shared a prominent Letter C with star George C. Scott. These are the kinds of bizarre intrusive thoughts that such random inclusions invite. And they are a warning to future filmmakers, try to minimize such distracting cameos in your movie as they might pull focus from what you are trying to accomplish in a scene. 

Find my full length piece at Horror.Media

Movie Review Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. #3

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. #3 

Directed by James Gunn 

Written by James Gunn

Starring Chris Pratt, Zoe Saldana, Dave Bautista, Bradley Cooper, Pom Klementieff, Karen Gillan, Sean Gunn, Will Poulter, Vin Diesel, Chukwudi Iwuji 

Release Date May 5th, 2023 

Published May 3rd, 2023 

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. #3 arrives at a strange time for a Marvel movie. The Marvel film universe appears, in many ways, to be in decline in relevance and popularity. The biggest stars such as Robert Downey Jr, Scarlett Johansson, and Chris Evans, have left the MCU and the fan base is growing impatient with how the latest phase of this universe is unfolding. Add to that, Guardians writer-director James Gunn who has already abandoned Marvel to take over the leadership of the D.C Film Universe even as his final MCU movie is only now arriving in theaters. 

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. #3 is feeling like a bit of an afterthought. Intended as a coda to James Gunn's little corner of the Marvel Universe, the film has the feel of an afterthought as well. The villain pales in comparison to Kurt Russell's towering Ego in Volume 2, the lack of the Peter Quill-Gamora dynamic feels like a pivot that no one in the Guardians universe wanted to make but were forced into, and what has replaced that dynamic here feels quite slapped together and unwelcome. 

The story of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 picks up on an outpost called Knowhere. The Guardians and their allies are regrouping for their next gig, saving the universe when someone brings the fight to them. Adam Warlock (Will Poulter), glimpsed in a post-credits sequence in Volume 2, comes to Knowhere with the intent of kidnapping Rocket (Bradley Cooper). He's here on the orders of the Grand High Evolutionary (Chukwudi Iwuji), the man who created Rocket many years earlier. 

The Guardians turn back Warlock but not before he nearly kills Rocket. The rest of the plot will center on the gang having to enact a heist to steal the plans they need to save Rocket's life. This will involve a reunion with Gamora (Zoe Saldana), now a member of The Ravagers, who has no memory of her other life as a member of the Guardians. She's a completely different person than the Gamora the Guardians knew and she angrily asserts just how much she doesn't know the family she'd had in another life. She's willing to help out of sympathy for her sister, Nebula (Karen Gillan), but she'd rather killer Peter than listen to any of his memory of who she might have been before. 

Find my full length review at Geeks.Media 

Movie Review Are You There God, It's Me, Margaret

Are You There God, It's Me, Margaret (2023) 

Directed by Kelly Fremon Craig

Written by Kelly Fremon Craig

Starring Rachel McAdams, Kathy Bates, Abby Ryder Fortson, Benny Safdie 

Release Date April 28th, 2023

Published May 2nd, 2023 

So, I didn't get the memo regarding Are You There God, It's Me, Margaret. Having missed my critics screening a few weeks ago, I saw the film at a public screening, unaware of my apparent massive faux pas. After having watched and enjoyed this lovely, sweet, funny coming of age story, I was informed that a woman at my screening had complained that a 'Creep' had attended the screening. Said 'Creep' was me. Being a single man seeing the film alone and sitting in the only available seat in the front row, I had been identified as a creep. 

Upon reflection, I guess I understand. This is a movie about a young woman discovering her body for the first time as she comes of age as a woman. Why would this appeal to a single man is not an unreasonable question. I will admit, the subject matter is not relatable to my experience. That said, I would think that encouraging men to see a movie with this kind of sensitivity and understanding toward the experiences of young women is not a bad thing. In fact, if more men gave a movie like this a chance, it might help them understand their partners, mothers, sisters and daughters a little more. 

Are You There God, It's Me, Margaret, awkwardly but sweetly illustrates the kinds of things that young women experience but don't like talking about, especially with the men in their lives. But it's also a movie that invites you to try and understand the struggle of young women and that's valuable information for everyone. It's especially valuable when the story is this well told. Writer-Director Kelly Fremon Craig has crafted a warm, sensitive, unrelenting story of teenage womanhood, a story filled with humor and charm. 

Abby Ryder Fortson stars as Margaret, a 12 year old girl who has just learned that she's leaving her home in New York City for the suburbs of New Jersey. It's a jarring shift in geography as it means changing schools and losing touch with friends. Worst of all, it means being separated from Margaret's beloved grandma, Sylvia (Kathy Bates), a rock and a fount of humor and wisdom that is an irreplaceable part of young Margaret's existence. Nevertheless, they will have to get by with daily phone calls and a few weekend bus trips to the big city. 

Find my full length review at Geeks.media

Movie Review Polite Society

Polite Society (2023) 

Directed by Nida Manzoor 

Written by Nida Manzoor 

Starring Priya Kansara, Ritu Arya 

Release Date April 28th, 2023 

Polite Society is a charmer. This story of sisters, a weird wedding conspiracy, and wild stunt work, is highly unconventional and succeeds fully on the charm of its star. Priya Kansara is plucky teenager, Ria Khan, who dreams of being a stuntwoman. Her dreams are supported by her loving sister, Lena (Ritu Arya), a struggling artist who has been forced to move home. There, Lena takes great care to record her little sister's stunt videos in which she mimics famous female stunt women and posts the videos to her YouTube channel. 

The sisterly bond is put to the test when the family attends a party at the home of a rich family. The mother of this rich family, Raheeta (Nimra Bucha), is very eager to marry off her handsome, doctor son, Salim (Akshay Khanna), and she has her eye on Lena. It's a little odd, Lena is attractive but she's a depressed, failed artist from a middle class family, hardly the most likely wife of a rich man. This sets off Riya who is immediately suspicious of Raheeta and Salim. 

Cleverly, the film posits many of Ria's concerns as coming from a place of not wanting to lose her sister. Ria clearly feels that if her sister gives up her dream of being an artist, their parents will see it as an opportunity to tell her not to follow her dream of being a stuntwoman. As these scenes play out, there is some genuine evidence that Raheeta and Salim may have motivation that goes beyond merely wanting a son to get married. The conclusion of this plot is wild and weird and really, really fun. 

Find my full length review of Polite Society at Geeks.Media 

Movie Review: The Evil Dead

The Evil Dead (1983) 

Directed by Sam Raimi 

Written by Sam Raimi 

Starring Bruce Campbell, Ellen Sandweiss, Betsy Baker 

Release Date April 15th, 1983 

Published April 20th, 2023 

The Evil Dead is inspired and inspiring. A group of friends in Michigan used the limited tools they had at hand to make one of the most incredible DIY horror movies of all time. With plenty of makeup, innovative small scale special effects, and chutzpah, Director Sam Raimi, Producer Rob Tapert, and star Bruce Campbell crafted a series of iconic scenes from what they were able to scrape together. The Evil Dead launched a million imitators as anyone with access to a camera the ability to make fake blood and bile, began making horror movies in their backyard. And yet, there is still only one The Evil Dead. 

Five friends travel to a cabin in the woods is now a trope for a horror movie. That was not a trope until The Evil Dead. Ash (Bruce Campbell), his girlfriend, Linda (Betsy Baker), his sister, Cheryl (Ellen Sandweiss), his best friend, Scott (Richard Demanicor), and Scott's girlfriend, Shelly (Theresa Tilly) have come to this remote cabin, in the middle of nowhere, to get away from the world, drink some beer, and generally have a good time. Unfortunately for our weary travelers, the previous denizens of this cabin accidentally unleashed an unimaginable evil. 

One by one Ash and his friends are attacked by the demon, possessed, and are subsequently befouled by the demons before having to be dismembered by Ash, our de facto 'Final Girl.' It's actually on the women who end up being subjected to the demonic possession. Scotty is briefly taken but not until he's already dead. Ash meanwhile, is tormented for most of the film by having to dismember his girlfriend and his sister in order to survive this inconceivably insane situation. 

The key to the appeal of The Evil Dead is a dedication to DIY, low budget special effects. Director Sam Raimi brilliantly demonstrates how to make the most of what you have by thinking of ways to maximize his location and use the tools of filmmaking to his advantage. One standout example is how Raimi uses his camera to portray the film's villainous demons. When he wants us to see the demons in action, Raimi's camera becomes the demon as it rushes around the woodsy location running at or after our protagonists. 

It's a simple idea rendered ingenious by Raimi's skillful and economic deployment of this device. But the inventiveness doesn't end there. As Ash's friends are picked off one by one in gruesome fashion, the low budget gore effects take center stage and dazzle you with how cleverly staged they are. It's a wonder how Raimi and his team pulls off having two dead bodies rapidly decompose in a fashion that is both hilarious and gruesome. Your stomach turns at the sight of a seemingly once human body turning to mulch but the gruesomeness of the sight is also comically grotesque making it an absurd joy to watch. 

The blood and guts of The Evil Dead is wildly over the top and the perverse comedy of the gore makes The Evil Dead so much ridiculous fun. Reanimated corpses are punched, stabbed, and chainsawed, buckets of blood cover our heroic Ash, and the fact that he is being forced to decimate the people closest to him in the world adds another perverse layer to the horror comedy at play in The Evil Dead. All the while, Bruce Campbell is ragdolled from one side of this cabin in the woods to the other, all for our unending amusement. 

Campbell embraces the silliness of his stunts. For Campbell, physical comedy seems to come as naturally as breathing. What the star lacks in gracefulness he more than makes up for in hustle. Campbell throws himself wholeheartedly into every bit of physical business thrust upon him and his dedication to the gags is charming and hilarious. Campbell has a huge personality, an expressive and handsome face, and a strong sense of the absurd. It's a rare combination of traits and one that should have made him a major Hollywood star. 

That Bruce Campbell never became one of Hollywood's biggest stars baffles me. I imagine that it had to do with being pigeonholed as a horror guy. But, I can also see where he seemed to only want to work with Sam Raimi and with Raimi struggling through the 80s just get Evil Dead 2 made, followed by the tepid box office of their big gamble, the cult favorite, Army of Darkness, Campbell missed his chance to become a massive Hollywood star. Don't get me wrong, I consider us all lucky that Campbell didn't get big in the mainstream, we'd miss a whole lot of great cult cinema and TV without him, but I can't help but wonder what might have been, just a little. 

The Evil Dead is most assuredly eclipsed by its sort of sequel, Evil Dead 2. That film, with a slightly larger budget, featured the elements that would make the franchise iconic. Evil Dead 2 has Ash fighting his demonically possessed hand, Ash's chainsaw, and his one word catchphrase, 'Groovy.' The Evil Dead however, doesn't completely suffer in comparison. It still has the honor of having introduced the style that would be cemented into cult movie history in Evil Dead 2. The moving camera and the dedication to grisly, absurd gore, each came from the success of the original, The Evil Dead. For that, I will always have a soft spot for the film that kicked off the franchise. 

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