Movie Review A Thousand and One (2023)

A Thousand and One (2023) 

Directed by A.V Rockwell 

Written by A.V Rockwell

Starring Teyana Taylor, Robert Catlett, Josiah Cross 

Release Date March 31st, 2023 

Published April 3rd, 2023 

Nature or Nurture? How do we become who we are? The new drama, A Thousand and One isn't so much out to answer that question but it raises that question in a most compelling and beautiful way. The story of a fiercely protective mother and the baby she thought she'd lost to the system years earlier, A Thousand and One begs the question of identity while also revealing a pair of characters whose bond is tested and affirmed numerous times in ways most can never begin to imagine. 

Fresh out of a stay in prison, Inez (Teyana Taylor) simply wants to get on with her life. A talented hairdresser, she'd be content finding a chair in a salon somewhere where she could rebuild her life. Unfortunately, things are rarely that easy, especially for someone emerging from a prison stay. Instead of a salon space, Inez finds herself begging people to let her do their hair while papering all of Harlem with offers to do hair that fall on the deaf ears of indifferent passersby. 

While seeking work, Inez is struck by the sight of a small child. Terry or T, as Inez calls him, is certainly familiar with Inez and the way she speaks to him matter of factly seems to confirm their relationship. T is Inez's son, separated from her when she went to jail. Now out of jail, she sees him and though she seems to understand that she's in no place to try and take him back, she's eager to keep tabs. When Inez hears from one of T's friends that he was hurt, she goes to the hospital and their she makes a fateful choice. 

An unknown amount of time passes as Inez and T couch-surf between extended family and friends until Inez gives up her salon dream, for now, to take a job working as a maid in a nursing home over an hour away by train. It's hard and long work but it's enough to find a place for her and T to live. That's when Inez reconnects with a man who may or may not be T's father. Lucky and Inez have a complicated history. He may or may not have been part of the reason she ended up in prison. He's also the only man Inez ever loved. 

The push-pull of Inez and Lucky's relationship is deeply fraught, especially after Lucky bonds with T and becomes the closest thing he will ever know to a father. Lucky will bounce in and out of their lives even after the couple get married. Settling down doesn't suit him and the tension boils over on several occasions before. Well, you should see that for yourself. Lucky is a deeply complicated, flawed but loving character, loving in a way that he understands love, a love complicated by his own strange and fraught upbringing. 

Find my full length review at Geeks.Media 

Documentary Review Squaring the Circle (The Story of Hipgnosis)

Squaring the Circle (The Story of of Hipgnosis) (2023) 

Directed by Anton Corbijn 

Written by Trish D. Chetty 

Starring Storm Thorgerson, Aubrey Powell, David Gilmour, Roger Waters, Robert Plant, Paul McCartney

Release Date June 7th, 2023  

Published June June 1st, 2023 

For many, the idea of art, what art could be, it's transformative properties, the way it can shape your perception, sprang from seeing a striking image on the cover of an album. I can distinctly recall seeing the cover of Pink Floyd's Wish You Were Here in a friend's record collection when I was 10 years old and being fascinated by the image of a man on fire shaking hands with another man who was not on fire. It's an image both striking and yet simple, the notion that the record industry can burn an artist with a handshake and a smile. 

Regardless of what this image says about the band or the music on the record, that cover, and so many more esoteric, bizarre, and compelling images, helped to shape many young minds. That particular image that dazzled my young mind was created by the most prolific and influential graphic designers in the history of the music business, Hip-gnosis, the team of Aubrey Powell and Storm Thorgerson. Starting at University in the mid-1960s, Storm and Po were an inseparable team. Each taught each other different aspects of design and their ideas blossomed from a shared love of turning reality and sense on their heads. 

Director Anton Corbijn is among many who can count Hipgnosis as a major influence on their work. A music video director, Corbijn is uniquely qualified to document the history and fascination surrounding the legendary art pioneers at Hipgnosis. He does just that with the remarkable, exhaustive and terrific new documentary Squaring the Circle (The Story of Hipgnosis). Through exclusive interviews with Storm and Po and the giants of the music industry who employed them, we get to learn the fascinating stories behind the most talked about, remembered, and beloved album covers in the history of music. 

From the late 1960s through the early 80s, Hipgnosis was the go-to team for creating album art so good that it could sell records on its own merit. If you're a fan of Pink Floyd, then you can thank Hipgnosis for creating the images you've always associated with Pink Floyd. The cover of Dark Side of the Moon? That was Hipgnosis. That wonderful photo of a cow on the cover of Atom Heart Mother? That was Hipgnosis. That tripped out cover for 1968's A Saucerful of Secrets, Hipgnosis. I could go on and on but you should just see Squaring the Circle (The Story of Hipgnosis) for yourself. 

Storm Thorgerson emerges as a fascinating character, a cantankerous, unpredictable and often rude man who earned the love, loyalty and enmity of the biggest rock stars in the world with his blunt assessment of their artistic desires. He had a habit of walking off Hipgnosis projects if he felt the artist wasn't listening to him or exerting too much control over the idea. He loved working with the band 10 CC, a rare band that let Storm loose to make his weirdest and often most expensive ideas come to life. 

Find my full length review at Beat.Media 

Movie Review Padre Pio

Padre Pio (2023) 

Directed by Abel Ferrara 

Written by Abel Ferrara 

Starring Shia LeBeouf 

Release Date June 2nd 

Published May 27th, 2023 

Padre Pio is a strange movie. Ostensibly, the film stars Shia LeBeouf as a troubled Priest who many claim as a Saint who suffered the stigmata, the wounds of Christ appearing on the hands and feet. He was claimed as a Prophet by some and a madman by others. Mostly, the man who came to be known as Padre Pio is known for becoming the biggest champion of confession. He had many passionate tenets to his preaching but Pio was quite adamant about the importance of confession and that appears to be the legacy that the Catholic Church celebrates, far more than his stigmata claim. 

So, why is a movie about this man so strange? Well, it's directed by Abel Ferrara for one. The odd and controversial director has taken his legacy in an odd direction late in his career. Having always leaned heavily into Catholic imagery and themes, he's been working in Italy the last few years and on incredibly low budgets. Budgets so low that his last film, Zeroes and Ones, starring Ethan Hawke, is nearly unwatchable. That film looks as if it had been filmed through a green plastic bag. 

Padre Pio is slightly better looking than Zeroes and Ones but the low budget is still very much Omni-present. The opening scene has an almost embarrassing level of amateur cinematography as Shia LeBeouf's Padre Pio arrives at an Italian Abbey riding a donkey. You can sense right away that this will be one of those performances by LeBeouf, intense to the point of parody. The passion that LeBeouf brings to his craft is admirable but, in the wrong movie, it can be embarrassingly, uncomfortably and unnecessarily intense. 

And then LeBeouf just sort of fades into the background for a while. The film is set in the immediate aftermath of World War 1. Italians are returning home and are aching for change to a society where the rich dominate and the poor are impoverished to a ludicrous degree. It's a moment ripe for a socialist revolution and that's what begins to happen in this small town. Agitators begin holding public meetings calling for improved working conditions and the rich employ thugs to hold on to their tenuous political power. 

Helping the elite of the city is the church. We see Priests praying over the weapons of the thuggish authorities of the town and holding hushed meetings with the rich elites. This would appear to place someone like Padre Pio in opposition to his own church, a genuine conflict. But no, this never comes into play with Padre Pio's storyline in any way. This is the set up for a scene in which a group of socialists are gunned down while attempting to vote in their local election. This plot never intersects with Padre Pio. 

My full length review is at Geeks.Media 

Movie Review Air

Air (2023) 

Directed by Ben Affleck 

Written by Alex Convery 

Starring Matt Damon, Ben Affleck, Viola Davis, Jason Bateman, Chris Tucker 

Release Date April 5th, 2023 

Published April 7th, 2023 

Air takes advantage of the collective nostalgia of sports fans of the 1990s. It's a powerful force that alters our critical thinking and places in a welcomg headspace regardless of our critical faculties. Thus how we get a movie about corporate titans, literal billionaires, becomes a shaggy underdog narrative about overcoming the odds. Never mind that Nike always had the means to land Michael Jordan and make him the global brand he became, it's more compelling to pretend that they had no chance and were some kind of upstart in an industry they'd made a billion dollars in in just a decade of existence. 

Our culturewide nostalgia for what Michael Jordan represents leaves us willing to center a story about the triumph of a black entrepreneur that is centered on the success of the white men who proved capable of seeing his worth and willing to bend their profits to his will. Yes, there was still plenty of stakes in 1984 and there was always the chance that Michael Jordan could have gotten hurt or developed a disinterest in greatness, but we know that didn't happen and that fact makes this story much easier to be nostalgic about. 

The makers of Air are aware of the issues we are bringing with us into seeing Air. The film is aware that Nike is the weird cult of a billionaire's personality. The filmmakers are aware that they are taking a story of black excellence and centering it on a group of white men, Nike was well aware that they were seeking athletes they could exploit for financial gain that would mostly go to the white men exploiting them. The film pitches these problems in dialogue and bats them away by telling you a pretty good story about charismatic characters in a complicated and fast paced fashion. Does this excuse the sins involved? No, not in the least, but there is no denying the entertainment value of our blinding nostalgia. 

Matt Damon stars in Air as Sonny Vaccaro, basketball guru. Hired to define the Nike Basketball brand, Vaccaro works alongside marketing guru, Rob Strasser (Jason Bateman), to find athletes willing to be paid to wear Nike basketball gear. As we join the story, it's 1984 and Nike ranks third in the world in basketball shoes. Adidas and Converse are numbers 1 and 2 and the biggest stars are making deals with them. This includes the top 3 picks in the 1984 NBA draft, Hakeem Olajuwon, Sam Bowie, and Michael Jordan. Nike has high hopes for maybe inking  a deal with someone named Mel Turpin. 

Then, late one night, Sonny Vaccaro watches Michael's legendary NCAA Tournament winning shot from the 1982 NCAA tournament championship. In that legendary video, he sees something that no one else had seen before. In Sonny estimation, Michael Jordan, then a Freshman, was actually the first choice to make this game winning shot. Of all the stars at the disposal of legendary College Basektball coach Dean Smith, he chose to draw up a play that relied on Michael Jordan to make the most important shot. On top of that, Jordan appears unafraid of this kind of pressure, he's calm and he confidently hits a shot that hundreds of other players might not have the nerve to make. 

Find my full length review at Geeks.Media 

Movie Review Paint

Paint (2023) 

Directed by Brit McAdams 

Written by Brit McAdams 

Starring Owen Wilson, Michaela Watkins 

Release Date April 7th, 2023 

Publish April 11th, 2023 

Paint is weird. While everyone is caught up in Owen Wilson's Bob Ross impression, what's lost is a timeless story of a fragile male ego, an unrequited love story, and a story that seems to play out in a timeless void somewhere between the 1970s and the 1990s. If Wes Anderson were to direct a late night Adult Swim program, it play a little like Paint. The tone is tricky and odd but I kept finding myself charmed by it. I laughed plenty during Paint and that goes a long way to helping me forgive the messier elements of the story. 

Paint stars Owen Wilson as Carl Nargle, a big fish in the small pond of the Vermont art world. Carl's show, Paint, on Vermont's biggest PBS station, is the most watched show in the state. People's lives come to a stop to watch Carl's latest variation on a nature scene revolving around Vermont's highest peak, Mount Mansfield. Carl's a star on screen and off where he has a devoted staff of women dedicated to his needs. Wendy McClendon Covey, Lusia Strus, and Lucy Freyer, play generations of women who may or may not have been Carl's lover at some point. 

Find my full length review at Geeks.Media

Movie Review The Disappearance of Mrs. Wu

The Disappearance of Mrs. Wu (2023) 

Directed by Anna Chi 

Written by Anna Chi, Donald Martin 

Starring Lisa Lu, Michelle Krusiec, Adrian Pasdar, Joely Fisher, Archie Kao, Rochelle Ying 

Release Date March 21st, 2023 

Published April 12th, 2023 

On the one hand, seeing a story prominently feature three generations of a Asian American family on the big screen feels fresh and new. On the other hand, a movie this bad doesn't do all that much for representation for anyone. The Disappearance of Mrs. Wu is a painfully stretched sitcom episode premise that has been dragged to feature length for reasons that defy logic and entertainment value. The story of an elderly woman not wanting to spend her final days in a hospital bed isn't a terrible idea but in execution, it's a low rent bore. 

The Disappearance of Mrs. Wu centers on dyspeptic senior citizen, Mrs. Wu (Lisa Lu). Mrs. Wu is staying at a high end nursing home and is set to celebrate her 88th birthday but she's far too miserable to enjoy it. Despite what we are told is a high end nursing home experience, Mrs. Wu describes the place as a prison that her daughter, Mary (Michelle Krusiec) and her white husband, Brian (Adrian Pasdar) have sentenced her to. Mrs. Wu wants to spend her last days either in her own home or on the road in Carmel, California, where she lived the biggest moments of her life. 

After a disastrous birthday celebration, Mrs. Wu corners her granddaughter, Emma (Rochelle Ying) and Emma's best friend, Karen (Tiffany Wu), and asks them to sneak her out for an impromptu road trip. In exchange, Grandma gives Emma a VHS tape message from her late father, one she wasn't supposed to get for another year or so, on her 18th birthday. Emma and Karen then enlist the help of Mrs. Wu's best friend and caregiver, Charlotte (Joely Fisher) to help them with this scheme, and keep Grandma alive long enough to reach Carmel. 

Subplots abound in The Disappearance of Mrs. Wu and each is less interesting or relevant than the last. Karen is coming out as gay. There is nothing wrong with this except that it has no bearing whatsoever on her relationship to her closest friend, Emma, who accepts her friend's revelation with the kind of loving support one would hope to get from their childhood best friend. There seems to be an element of Queer-baiting going on as the film seems to want to create tension between the friends, perhaps with Karen having a crush on Emma, but this is hand-waved away with Karen's subplot about a long time male friend she hopes will go to prom with her. Heterosexuality safely confirmed, the LGBTQ elements are dismissed mostly unaddressed. 

Find my full length review at Geeks.Media 

Classic Movie Review Indecent Proposal

Indecent Proposal (1993) 

Directed by Adrian Lyne 

Written by Amy Holden Jones 

Starring Demi Moore, Robert Redford, Woody Harrelson 

Release Date April 7th, 1993 

Published April 19th, 2023 

Indecent Proposal tries to skirt the issue of its sweaty desperation with a softcore stylishness that had become a cliche trait of director Adrian Lyne well before he recaptured the zeitgeist with this movie. For all of the talent he clearly has and the discourse his movies have inspired, the one consistent thing about Lyne is that he enjoys watching attractive people cavort in little to no clothing while sweating profusely. If you can rely on Lyne for anything, it's getting well known stars to doff their duds to provide late night masturbatory thrills. Not there is anything terribly wrong with that. 

It's the pretense that Lyne has about his movies. Lyne appears to have quite a high opinion of his movies which, without the imprimatur of big movie stars, would be late night cable fare. High minded as Adrian Lyne may be, it's the smut that really revs his engine. In Indecent Proposal he is desperately reaching for a respectability always slightly out of reach, probably because his other hand is reaching for a particular body part that his work aims to stimulate far more than has drama might stimulate the brain. 

That said, there is no denying Lyne's talent for base mass appeal. Lyne's lurid fantasies, just on the dark side of morality, always seemed grab hold of the culture, even if only for a short time. With Indecent Proposal, Lyne made an impact with a very simple premise: What would you do if someone offered you a million dollars for sex, with the permission of your partner? I'm being quite loose with that question. The reality is it wasn't much of a question for the masses but, rather, for the male audience. Would you let your wife sleep with another man for $1 million dollars? 

Indeed, the woman in question, played by the gorgeous Demi Moore, is rather superfluous to the drama of Indecent Proposal. She's the object in play between two arrogant, possessive and deeply insecure men. That might not sound so bad except that neither the movie or the men involved, played by Woody Harrelson and Robert Redford, are remotely aware of how insecure they come off. Each wants to play the 'alpha' male with Redford's fortune proving to be the deciding factor as to who is indeed the bigger dog in this yard. 

The opportunity to explore male insecurity is thwarted by a narrative more interested in moral failings like greed and infidelity than in examining where the real failings of these characters exist, in their massive, unfulfilled egos. The film romanticizes Harrelson's jealous possessiveness, as if he hadn't encouraged his wife to sleep with Redford and was a victim of her greed and his own indecisiveness in the face of a moral quandary. Jealousy is not a cute quality, it's romantic, it's ugly and creepy and while it happens to everyone, it's not a good quality and it makes Harrelson's character more of a creep than the heartbroken romantic of Lyne's conception. 

Find my complete review at Geeks.Media 

Movie Review Blackberry

Blackberry (2023) 

Directed by Matthew Johnson 

Written by Matt Johnson, Matthew Miller 

Starring Jay Baruchel, Glenn Howerton, Cary Elwes, Rich Sommer, Michael Ironside 

Release Date May 12, 2023 

Published? 

Blackberry is a story of technology, hubris, and the ways in which the world has been brought together via technology but people remain, quite predictably, human. The story of the rise of the first trendy handheld communication device, Blackberry charts the astonishing growth and precipitous fall of a fad unlike anything before it. Blackberry became a staple of high class living in the early 2000s. The ubiquity of the Blackberry became a meme before memes were cool. No caricature of a businessman was complete without them holding a Blackberry. 

How the Blackberry thus came and went as a phenomenon is a ripe subject for a movie. After all, how does something as ubiquitous and beloved become ancient and nearly forgotten in the span of just over a decade? It's hard to quantify, even less than 20 years after the Blackberry, how big the Blackberry got and how quickly it fell out of fashion. There are few phenomenon's quite like it. Perhaps a reasonable comparison for modern audiences might be Tiger King. The famed Netflix series was the hottest thing in the world and by the time it came for a sequel, people had already forgotten the people involved. 

The Blackberry lasted longer as a product but as a pop culture staple, the comparison is pretty good. Both became afterthoughts quicker than anyone involved could have imagined. The Blackberry's remarkable fall has roots in the way modern IT has changed the landscape of innovation. Where in the early days of the industrial revolution the innovation life-cycle was decades, today, the innovation life cycle is measured in years. Things in today's IT world change so quickly that even beloved innovations can expect to be outmoded within three years. 

There's a reason why we are on the 14th generation of the IPhone in the 16 years since it was introduced by Steve Jobs and his turtle neck. Technology is now a shark that must swim even when it sleeps. The Blackberry story was the trial balloon of modern technology. Innovators need to look no further than the 2002 introduction of The Blackberry and that same product's obsolescence a mere 5 years later when the IPhone crashed the market. 

As charted in the movie, Blackberry, the writing was on the wall from the early days. Mike Lazaridis (Jay Baruchel), the brains of the operation, was always in over his head as his employees walked all over him and took advantage of his genial good nature and lack of social grace. It's no wonder now, with grave hindsight, that Lazaridis would fall victim to a hard charging snake like Jim Balsillie (Glenn Howerton). Lazaridis just wanted to make new, helpful technology, a noble pursuit. He needed a ballbuster like Balsillie to push him to deliver his best, and it worked, if only for a moment in the span of our new technological evolutionary cycle. 

The casting here in Blackberry is rather brilliant. Jay Baruchel, known as a waif and a shrinking violet, when he isn't an obnoxious denizen of a Judd Apatow film, is just the kind of guy who would get run over by a big personality like that of Glen Howerton. The former star of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia star has a loud and brash personality that befits a scruples free businessman chasing every dollar and imposing his will upon the geeks and nerds that exist under his weighty boot. The dynamic is familiar, a genius who doesn't want the hassle of leadership and a dictator who is hungry for power at all cost come together like halves of a whole. 

Full length review at Geeks.Media 

Movie Review Evil Dead Rise

Evil Dead Rise (2023) 

Directed by Lee Cronin 

Written by Lee Cronin 

Starring Lilly Sullivan, Alyssa Sutherland, Morgan Davies 

Release Date April 21st, 2023 

Published April 21st, 2023 

The Evil Dead franchise is supposed to be fun. It's supposed to be gross, it's supposed to shock you out of your seat, but above all, it's supposed to be fun. Writer-Director Lee Cronin, the creative force behind the new re-imagining of the Evil Dead franchise has completely forgotten the fun of the franchise. Don't get me wrong, Lee Cronin is a terrific horror movie director. The gore and the weirdness he achieves in Evil Dead Rise is impressive on a technical level. But it's not The Evil Dead. 

Evil Dead Rise begins at a cabin in the woods because it has to, it's an homage to the original film setting. After a gory set piece, we go back in time by one day. We arrive at a rock club where we meet Beth (Lilly Sullivan), a guitar technician for a small scale rock band. Beth has just found out that she is pregnant and is struggling with this information. While in Los Angeles, Beth goes to see and stay with her sister, Ellie (Alyssa Sutherland), and Ellie's three kids, son Danny (Morgan Davies), daughter Bridge (Gabrielle Echols), and youngest daughter Kassie (Nell Fisher). 

The kids' father has rather recently disappeared and the family is being thrown out of their ancient apartment building because it is about to be condemned and torn down. Then, an earthquake hits and reveals a treasure trove in the basement. Curious, Danny goes searching the rubble and finds a tomb in the basement. Inside is a book made of human flesh and series of records that contain the voice of a Priest who has translated the horror Latin of the book, revealing that this is The Book of the Dead. 

You can guess what happens next, the demons are loose, people are possessed, and terror is unleashed on one member of the family after another until the movie mercifully finds a properly blood-soaked ending. It's all rather skillfully crafted, the blocking, the sound design, the overall staging of the blood and guts of Evil Dead Rise, is all first rate horror stuff. But, where's the fun? There is zero fun to be had in Evil Dead Rise and that, for a fan of the franchise, is a death knell. 

If this movie was not an official sequel of The Evil Dead franchise, I might find it more appealing. But as it is, billed as a part of a legendarily dark comic horror franchise, Evil Dead Rise just feels like a bad fit. I was reminded of how horror producers of the 70s and 80s would find a random script and attach a familiar franchise title to it as a marketing gimmick. Sometimes they might graft onto the script a very loose scene to connect it to the franchise, but it was clearly born as something else. 

Find my full length review at Horror.Media 

Movie Review Beau is Afraid

Beau is Afraid (2023) 

Directed by Ari Aster

Written by Ari Aster 

Starring Joaquin Phoenix, Nathan Lane, Parker Posey, Amy Ryan, Patti Lupone 

Release Date April 21st, 2023 

Published April 21st, 2023 

What if what Beau sees as the world around is really his internal life, externalized? This is the kind of question that toys with you when you watch a film from the remarkable, ungodly talented writer-director Ari Aster. The director of the twin masterworks Hereditary and Midsommar, Aster is a masterfully detailed and thorough director with a tone for tone and atmosphere that may just be unmatched in modern cinema. The thesis statement for my claim is Beau is Afraid, a film where atmosphere and tone stand in for just about anything you might find familiar as a film narrative. 

Beau is Afraid stars Joaquin Phoenix as Beau, a stunted, edgy, angst-riddled mess of a human being. Beau inhabits a universe where a criminal known as Stab-Man wanders the streets nude and stabbing people while building an astonishing body count. The streets are littered with filthy oddballs and just plain corpses strewn here and there by a society of haves and have nots we will only ever get a minor sense of. The point is not to make a direct comment about man's inhumanity to man, but to offer you the sight and let you make up your own mind about what is presented. 

Besides, the corpses in the street and Stab-Man aren't really things that Beau is interested, unless he's leaping over a corpse to escape the Stab-Man, and then, suddenly, these things really, really matter. The story kicks off when Beau's mother, played by the legendary Patti Lupone, is expecting Beau to get on a plane to come and see her. We've learned that Beau is not high on the prospect of seeing his mother. He tells his therapist, Dr. Jeremy, that though he loves his mother, the visit fills him with the kind of anxiety that must be treated by a high end drug that MUST be taken with water. 

You don't want to know what might happen if you take these pills without water. Regardless, as Beau is getting ready to leave his apartment, his bags and keys are stolen. Being a spineless simp for his mother's withheld affections, Beau tells Mom that he will still try and make his plane, even as he no longer has a bag or keys to his apartment, or his boarding pass, and she feigns telling him that its fine if he doesn't come, with the strong subtext being that he doesn't love her because he's not coming. 

Beau is a character to whom life happens. Beau doesn't have experiences, he has experiences inflicted upon him by an uncompromising world bent on making him do things he doesn't want to do. It's all related to his strange upbringing, the weird and uncompromising relationship with his mother, the absence of his father, and a bizarre relationship to women with deep oedipal roots and a self-loathing based fear that is not expressed but that Beau wears like a second skin. 

The trip to see his mother is the beginning of a journey for Beau that will somehow combine elements of David Lynch, David Cronenberg, and Homer's Odyssey. If that combination elements, shot through the incredibly prismatic mind of Ari Aster, appeals to you, Beau is Afraid is a must see movie. If however, you are not completely on board for some of the weirdest, most shocking, and distressing moments ever brought to the big screen, then, perhaps, this not the movie for you. 

Find my complete review at Geeks.Media 

Movie Review: Sisu

Sisu (2023) 

Directed by Jalmair Helander 

Written by Jalmari Helander 

Starring Jorma Tommila, Aksel Hennie, Jack Doolan 

Release Date April 28th, 2023 

Published April 24th, 2023 

Sisu is a Finnish word that, essentially, means extraordinary determination in the face of extreme adversity. That is a strong descriptor for the main character of the movie, Sisu, a man referred to as The Immortal for his uncanny ability to survive any kind of attack. Indeed, the former Finnish commando, Aatami Korpi, played by Jorma Tommila, does appear to be immortal. The things that Korpi survives in Sisu threaten to turn the movie into a Monty Python-esque parody of what the human body is capable of surviving. 

That the film doesn't descend into parody likely comes from how satisfying it is to watch a man brutally destroy Nazis, seemingly the last group of people we collectively enjoy watching die horribly. Rarely will you hear someone try and say, can't we just let the Nazis be, and that's the way it should be, no quarter for Nazis. Depicting Nazis being brutally decimated should not only be protected, it should celebrated and shown to actual Nazis as a warning of what we collectively will do if they think about trying to come back. 

But I digress. Sisu is told over several chapters. Chapter 1 introduces Korpi as a man mourning the death of his wife and setting out into the world to seek his fortune. Chapter 2 quickly follows and shows Korpi striking it rich, finding a rich vein of gold that should set him up for life and beyond. But, that's only if he survives to get the gold to the Finnish capital where he can exchange it for his life changing fortune. This task is rendered impossible when Korpi is accosted by Nazis who are fleeing in the dying days of World War 2. 

It's 1944 and Finland has been convinced to come over to the side of the allies and banish the already fleeing Nazi army. Running away with their tale between their legs, the Nazis can't help but try to start something with an old man just trying to reach the next outpost. Korpi doesn't want trouble but the Nazis sure do and when they attack, they find out that the old man they believe they can bully and rob on their way of town is not the man to mess with. Indeed, Korpi brutally murders his attackers but in doing so, he catches the attention of a fleeing German convoy, one equally eager for a reason to fight. 

The convoy turns back to attack Korpi and a brutal and deadly game of cat and mouse ensues with Korpi somehow surviving multiple bullet wounds, losing his horse to a mine in a stomach-churning scene of violence, and a near drowning. He will survive even more than that as Sisu plays out its story but that's for you to discover when you Sisu. Korpi also gives as good as he gets as he inflicts deathly wounds on Nazis using any manner of bloody, bloody, violence. As I said earlier, it's incredibly satisfying seeing Nazis on the receiving end of this kind of brutality.

It certainly doesn't make up for the real life crimes of Nazis but since we are not currently murdering Nazis, there is a reasonable satisfaction in seeing figurative Nazis get slaughtered. If you're mad that I am saying this about NAZIs, you might want to have a long talk with yourself or maybe a therapist and consider why someone talking about the brutal, bloody, eviscerating of Nazis bothers you. Most people don't deserve this but Nazis do. Being a Nazi is not an ideology, it's not a debate, it's just wrong and should be met with that in mind. 

Find my complete review at Geeks.Media. 

Horror in the 90s Henry Portrait of a Serial Killer

Henry Portrait of a Serial Killer (1990) 

Directed by John McNaughton 

Written by Richard Fire, John McNaughton 

Starring Michael Rooker, Tracy Arnold, Tom Towles 

Release Date January 5th, 1990 

Henry Portrait of a Serial Killers opens on a perfect and horrifying bit of misdirection. With birds chirping in the background, it’s an idyllic setting, for a moment you settle into the film. You see the peaceful face of what you initially believe is a woman sleeping, perhaps about to wake up and begin her day. Then, director John McNaughton’s camera begins to reveal what is really happening here. 

The woman is not sleeping, indeed her eyes aren’t even closed, they are blackened, either from the mess made of her makeup or, perhaps a beating. Regardless, her eyes are open and lifeless. In reality, the camera was never still, it was always pulling back and always about to reveal that you are looking at a dead woman, fully nude, wounds to her abdomen fresh with blood. The camera tilts and a score sets in underneath, a droning but angelic chorus that ends in a harsh cut to a cigarette, harshly stubbed out in diner ashtray. 

The harshness of the cut and the symbolism of the cigarette, once carrying a fiery, intoxicating life before being snuffed out with a careless force hits you hard. We are barely two minutes into Henry Portrait of a Serial Killer, and that’s counting a credits sequence, that is just text on a black screen with a tense synth score. And yet, director John McNaughton has already set the tone. The plasticine perfection of nature in our imagination slowly melting to a horrifying and harsh reality. 

The movement from the mundane to the horrific is another hallmark of Henry Portrait of a Serial Killer. After that harsh cut from before establishes Henry in the diner, stubbing out his cigarette, we watch a mundane moment play out. The camera slowly pulls back to observe Henry pick up his bill, stand, put on his jacket, walk a few steps to the other side of the counter. He pays his bill and half heartedly flirts with his waitress. Then Henry walks to his car and climbs inside, giving us, ever so-briefly, a glimpse of his face. 

Then WHAM! Hard cut to a body lying face down on the counter of a liquor store, a bullet in her head. Look at the visuals, side by side of the diner waitress and the woman on the counter, they could be the same person. It’s as if the movie is showing us that no one is safe, Henry will kill whenever he feels like killing and whomever. We’re not even finished with the reveal however, as this time, there are two corpses, another lying on the floor, feet away from the first victim. 

We don’t need to see the killings, it’s quite clear from the editing, the progression of scene to scene, who is responsible for these grisly deaths. The sound design also progresses at this moment. I am imagining from the birds chirping and the silence of the opening moments, that the first victim was likely dumped in that location. I am inferring that because when the liquor store owners die, we see their corpses, but the sound design plays out the scene, we here the terror in the woman’s voice, we hear the shots fired that end their lives, and briefly Henry’s voice, telling the woman to shut-up. 

Cut to Henry, casually driving his car and idly listening to a rock n’roll radio station. Then, smash cut to bloody sheets in a hotel room. The droning bass of the score, a hellish drone. The camera slowly pans and the slow motion horror of this moment cannot be understated. The choice of weapon here catches you off guard. You don’t see it right away but as the camera slowly moves closer to the victim, the outline of a glass bottle protruding from her bloody mouth comes into focus as the source of the blood pouring down her neck to her chest. 

Find my full length review at Horror.Media 

Horror in the 90s The First Power

The First Power (1990) 

Directed by Robert Resnikoff 

Written by Robert Resnikoff 

Starring Lou Diamond Phillips, Tracy Griffiths, Jeff Kober, Mykelti Williamson 

Release Date April 6th, 1990 

Box Office $22.4 million 

Right off the bat in The First Power, we are off to a bad start. The film begins on a massive info dump of exposition. A Nun, Sister Marguerite (Elizabeth Arlen), is speaking to a group of Priests, her church leadership, one can infer. She lays out the state of the universe. 15 people in Los Angeles have been murdered and their bodies have been mutilated with a symbol of the Devil, the pentagram. Sister Marguerite believes that this a sign, a symbol of, perhaps, the rise of Satan and the start of an apocalypse. The church leaders dismiss her concern and send her back to her convent. 

We know, by knowing the movie that we've chosen to watch, that this Nun is right, and the Devil is indeed inspiring this killer to kill. So, why dump exposition like this? Laziness? Clumsiness? A disrespect for audience intelligence? Yeah, probably. Making things infinitely more insulting however is how awful the acting is in this moment. Now, to be as fair as possible to Elizabeth Arlen, no actor, of any level of skill could deliver this kind of dialogue while emoting and trying to communicate a character and come off well. She was at a grave disadvantage. 

Why choose to start what is supposed to be an atmospheric chiller about a demon possessed serial killer like this? No music, neither the main character or the killer is on screen, and reams of exposition delivered by a main character to several non-characters. It doesn't tell us anything about the church, it tells us little about Sister Marguerite aside from how much her actor is struggling to fight through the scene. Writer-Director Robert Resnikoff has done a grave disservice to Ms. Arlen by placing the burden of starting the movie entirely on her when he has a movie star, Lou Diamond Phillips, at the ready. 

The scene immediately following the opening is WAY more intriguing and effective. Detective Logan (Lou Diamond Phillips) is looking over a map of recent killings. He has crime scene photos laid out, a visual indication of who he is and what he is doing. Logan gets a phone call from a mysterious woman whom we will learn, eventually, is a psychic named Tess Seaton (Tracy Griffith). She tells Logan that she knows where the killer is and will tell Logan if he promises not to kill him, and not to push for the death penalty when he captures him. Logan agrees and the two agree to meet. 

Who is this woman? How does she know what she knows? The crime scene photos tell us he's a killer, the phone conversation tells us he's dangerous and has a very specific M.O. Logan crosses lines on a map based on what the woman on the phone has said, the X's marking the map are places where bodies were found. Each can be connected with lines that come together to form a Pentagram. In less than 2 minutes of cryptic but intriguing visuals and dialogue, we've been brought into The First Power far more effectively that in the opening scene. 

Find my full length review at Horror.Media 

Horror in the 90s Leatherface Texas Chainsaw Massacre 3

Leatherface: Texas Chainsaw Massacre 3 

Directed by Jeff Burr 

Written by David J. Schrow 

Starring Kate Hodge, William Butler, Ken Foree, Tom Hudson, R.A Mihailoff 

Release Date January 12th, 1990 

Box Office Gross $5.8 million dollars 

Bottom-feeding cash-ins are always pretty obvious about their intentions. That was certainly the case when a group of huckster con-artists looked to cash in on the legacy of the greatest horror movie ever made, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Studio execs like money and when they can seize the rights to an exploitable property, they eagerly gobble up the opportunity with little concern for the quality of the product they plan to capitalize on. With this as the background, was there any way for Leatherface: Texas Chainsaw Massacre to succeed? No, probably not. 

A very game and determined Kate Hodge stars in Leatherface: Texas Chainsaw Massacre 3 as Michelle, a student driving her dad's vintage car from California to Florida alongside her soon to be ex-boyfriend. William Butler is the soon-to-be ex of Michelle and he quickly makes a case for why they are no longer going to be together by being a whiny little prat. He can't understand why Michelle would want to leave him for a chance to travel the world. We understand it from just a few lines of whiny, man-baby dialogue from Ryan. 

The story of Leatherface: Texas Chainsaw Massacre 3 kicks in when the couple stops at a last chance gas station. The creeptastic gas station employee, begins to perv on Michelle, eventually spying on her in the ladies room. He's stopped by a transient, Edward 'Tex' Sawyer (Viggo Mortensen), who hopes that interceding will convince Michelle and Ryan to give him a ride. He ends up getting shot by the creepy gas station attendant while giving Michelle and Ryan a chance to escape. He appears benevolent but it's merely a ruse, he is, after all, a member of the Sawyer clan. 

Michelle and Ryan's escape is short-lived as they are soon chased down and menaced by what they assume is the gas station creep. They end up with a flat tire and try hiding on a side road. This side road however, leads them right to Leatherface (R.A Mihailoff) who attacks with his trusty chainsaw and his unnatural amount of physical strength which he demonstrates by ripping the top off of the car's trunk. Having made another narrow escape, Michelle and Ryan end up in another crash and, after colliding with Benny (Ken Foree), the trio end up in a life threatening game of cat and mouse with the horrific Sawyer family. 

The mercenary nature of Leatherface: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 3 is obvious in the dimwitted marketing campaign which focuses entirely on Leatherface's weapon of choice, a chainsaw. In this case, it's a custom made saw, silver plated and engraved with the film's tagline, 'The Saw is Family.' The movie was pitched with a comic teaser trailer in which the custom chainsaw is gifted to Leatherface King Arthur style, via a lady in a lake. You can almost hear the cash registers ringing in the hearts of heartless studio execs. 

Cynicism aside, for just a moment, I want to commend Kate Hodge and Ken Foree. These two terrific actors work very, very hard to bring something to this beyond the cash-in effort being put in everywhere else in the movie. Where the film's writers, director, and producers either don't know or don't care about the legacy of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Hodge and Foree are giving great performances. While the rest of the film appears dedicated to sullying the memory of the original, these two performance darn near redeem the misconceived enterprise that is Leatherface: Texas Chainsaw Massacre 3. 

Hampered by a script that adds unnecessary aspects to the Sawyer legacy, Hodge delivers a gritty, hard as nails final girl performance while the horror veteran Foree is so good as Benny that the character is allowed to survive wounds that were absolutely intended as his death blow. Benny survived only because test audiences loved Benny and hated seeing him go. That's yet another testament to the mercenary quality of Leatherface: Texas Chainsaw Massacre 3. But, it's also a credit to Foree whose performance is so good, you may not mind the ludicrous nature of his miraculous survival. 

Find my full length review at Horror.Media 

Horror in the 90s: Brain Dead

Brain Dead (1990) 

Directed by Adam Simon 

Written by Adam Simon, Charles Beaumont 

Starring Bill Pullman, Bill Paxton, George Kennedy, Bud Cort, Patricia Charbonneau 

Release Date January 19th, 1990 

Box Office Gross $1.6 million dollars 

One image. Brain Dead is remembered for one, singular image. The fact that this one image has nothing to do with the movie that contains it, does not matter. There is only one thing that anyone remembers about Brain Dead and it is just one memorable, awful, brutal image. You see it in all of the marketing materials about the movie when it was released. To those who've never seen Brain Dead, this image is the star of the film. It's a very compelling image, one worthy of building a bizarre cult movie marketing campaign around. 

In a college science lab there is an unnamed student toying with a human brain. The student shoves an electrode into the ooey gooey brain situated in a petri dish. The brain is connected to something, a metal apparatus. Upon this apparatus is a complete abomination. Stretched like horrifying silly putty across an empty expanse, connecting to a circular metal apparatus is a human face. This face has eyes, a nose, and a mouth. It seems to have facial muscles somehow, hidden behind a weathered expanse of skin. 

The facial muscles are implied in the film by the way the face twitches in pain when the brain in the pan is electrocuted back to life. Depending on where the student stabs his electrode into this brain in a pan, the face twitches its eyes, wrinkles its nose, or turns the mouth in a pained expression, a wince. From the manner in which the student playfully stabs away at this brain, this is a normal day in the lab. We don't know how long the student and the face have been in this dynamic, but it is not the first time this student has engaged in this twisted game. 

You would be forgiven if you thought that this detached face were that of a main character, that of Bill Pullman, or Bill Paxton, or Bud Cort. It's not. In fact, we have no idea where this face came from or how this face ended up attached to a brain in a pan being painfully stimulated by electrodes. We get only a vague sense of why this is even being done. It's being done to prove that the human brain is capable of being stimulated after death. 

That's part of the crazed, doomed experiments being conducted by Bill Pullman's monstrous, genius brain scientist. Dr. Rex Martin believes he can cure all manner of neurological disorders by using the brains of the dead as guinea pigs. Dr. Martin's particular specialty is paranoia and he is convinced he can cure paranoia via brain surgery. This brings his research in line with the awful, amoral aims of Bill Paxton's corporate shark. Paxton wants Pullman to cure the paranoia of a genius mathematician, Bud Cort, so that said genius will reveal an equation that could be worth billions. 

Find my full length review at Horror.Media 

Movie Review What's Love Got to Do With It

What's Love Got to Do With It (2023) 

Directed by Shekhar Kapur 

Written by Jemima Khan 

Starring Lily James, Shazad Latif, Emma Thompson, Sajal Aly 

Release Date May 5th, 2023

Published May 4th, 2023 

What's Love Got to Do With It has some hard work to do to overcome a rote, predictable outcome. The film follows a documentary filmmaker, played by Lily Collins whose new documentary is about her Pakistani friend, played by Shazad Latif, going through the motions of an arranged marriage. She's supposed to document his marriage to a stranger arranged by a matchmaker but since this is a movie and both Collins and Latif are young and attractive, we know that the movie is arranging for them to be married. 

Knowing that, the movie needs to find a way to be charming while also being insanely predictable. The film has an uphill battle to try and build tension into a movie story that has no tension whatsoever. It can be done, most romantic comedies are built on a highly predictable conceit. The key to a modern rom-com is scribbling in the margins, creating laughs and charm amid the highly predictable machinations of a pre-destined ending. 

Zoe (Collins) doesn't believe in love. She's not a romantic, she's a pragmatist. When she tells fairy tales to her best friends daughters, her cracked fairy tales invariably find the female protagonist rejecting the Prince in favor of independence and adventure. Her retelling of The Princess and the Frog has the hero failing to kiss the frog, preferring to take her new talking frog on the road to show off for audiences. Hey, how cool would it be to have a talking frog, right? 

Zoe's conceptions of love and marriage are put to the test when her long time neighbor and friend, Kaz Khan tells her that he's agreed to see a matchmaker for an arranged marriage to a Pakistani woman, one approved of by his mother. His choice is fraught with backstory, Kaz's sister has been cast out of the family after she married a white man and had a child. Kaz's desire to be a good son to his traditional mother and grandmother drives his actions but it's clear his heart is not in this idea. 

Zoe is compelled to capture the wedding process on film after she finds out that her latest documentary idea, something dreary about war or famine or some such thing, has been rejected for being too bleak. Needing a pitch in a pinch, she pitches Kaz's arranged marriage process as a documentary and receives a greenlight from her producers. Getting Kaz's green light however, is a little harder, he's not exactly thrilled about this idea. He reluctantly agrees and the documentary becomes the bomb under the table, that McGuffin that threatens the status quo of Kaz's plans for his arranged marriage. 

Find my full length review at Geeks.Media 

Horror in the 90s Tales from the Darkside

Tales from the Darkside: The Movie (1990) 

Directed by John Harrison

Written by Michael McDowell, George A. Romero 

Starring Debbie Harry, Steve Buscemi, Julianne Moore, Christian Slater, James Remar, Rae Dawn Chong

Release Date May 4th, 1990 

Box Office Gross $16.3 million

Why don't more people talk about how great Tales from the Darkside The Movie is? I've seen Tales from the Darkside The Movie a few times but somehow, it wasn't until this viewing that it really clicked for me. This anthology of three horror movies, and one wraparound segment, combines the talents of Stephen King, George Romero and a powerhouse cast, across four stories, to deliver one of the most consistently entertaining horror movies of the 1990s. 

Let's begin with our wrap-around story. Tales from the Darkside: The Movie opens on a peaceful suburban milieu. A lovely looking woman has purchased groceries and is returning home to start dinner for a dinner party. This is classic horror movie stuff as perverting the pristine perfection of suburban life is a classic trope. The first signs of such perversions of norms only arrives once we are inside the home of that plain Jane woman and her groceries. 

We arrive in the home of Betty, played by rock icon Debbie Harry, before she does. While she's getting her groceries, the camera takes us into her home and a strange looking broom is propped against a wall. While we puzzle over the broom, which brings to mind a witches broom, we begin to hear a noise. The camera slowly reveals a door in the kitchen and someone struggling to open the door before fearfully retreating when Betty comes inside. The skillful visual filmmaking tells us everything we need to know, Betty is a witch and whoever is in that locked pantry, is her prisoner. 

Perverting things even further, Betty soon reveals her victim, tiny moppet with floppy hair and a crooked grin. This is Timmy (Matthew Lawrence) and we soon learn that Timmy is set to be that night's main course as Betty is bringing her witch friends over for a Timmy casserole. In a desperate attempt to keep himself alive, Timmy grabs a story book called Tales from the Darkside and offers to tell Betty a scary story as a reason to keep him alive. She agrees and we proceed with our first terrific story. 

The most star-studded of our three stories was not quite so star-studded at the time of release. Lot 249 stars a pair of stars before they became big stars. Steve Buscemi and Julianne Moore were at the beginning of what would be lengthy and critically acclaimed careers when they played academic rivals in Lot 249, the story of a man and his mummy. Christian Slater, already having become a leading man by 1990, is the best known of the cast which is rounded out by lesser known character actor Robert Sedgwick. 

Lot 249 is a tale of revenge as Edward Bellingham (Buscemi) is convinced that a rich idiot, Lee (Robert Sedgwick), has used his influence, and his equally rich and duplicitous girlfriend, Susan (Moore), to steal a lucrative scholarship from him. The loss may force Bellingham to have to leave school just as he is on the verge of an astonishing breakthrough in his research on ancient Egypt. Through nefarious circumstance, Bellingham has secured Lot 249, an ancient Egyptian sarcophagus that could be worth millions, depending on what he finds inside. 

Find my full length review at Horror.Media 

Documentary Review It's Quieter in the Twilight

It's Quieter in the Twilight (2023) 

Directed by Billy Miossi 

Written by Documentary

Release Date May 19th, 2023 

Published May 18th, 2023 

I was vaguely aware of the Voyager Spacecrafts. The Voyager mission launched one year after I was born. It would then bubble back up into the culture every couple of years when the mission reached a new milestone, traveling and providing the first up close images and data from Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. What most people don't realize is that the Voyager mission never ended. Though Voyager surpassed Neptune in 1989, the mission continued and continues as we speak. 

The new documentary It's Quieter in the Twilight takes us through the history of Voyager via the people who have been with Voyager for the past 46 years. Many scientists and engineers have come and gone from the Voyager project over the years but a core of around 10 to 12 people have kept watch over this urgently important space mission for nearly 50 years. Director Billy Miossi brings those remarkable people into the spotlight in It's Quieter in the Twilight and they have a remarkable story to tell. 

The launch of Voyager was improbable. By 1977, going to space had already become something that Americans were used to. For years, each space launch and moon landing was broadcast live. The news led with stories of space travel and interviews with NASA scientists about how incredible space travel was. Voyager was one of the last times that many Americans gathered around their television to watch a launch and hear about what incredible discoveries we were going to make. 

Then, every few years, Voyager re-emerged and changed the way we saw the solar system. After launching in 1977, Voyager reached Jupiter in 1979. The following year, 1980, we saw the rings of Saturn for the very first time thanks to Voyager 2. Voyager 1 would bring us back to Saturn the following year. 1986, 9 years into its mission, Voyager captured the first up close images of Uranus and once again reshaped how we saw the universe. Three years, later, for many, Voyager's mission ended with Neptune and another historic moment in our unending attempts to understand our universe. 

But the mission did not end. Voyager continued on. Year after year a small but vital team kept collecting data from Voyager and, though most people were unaware, they kept making history. In 2012 Voyager became the first man-made object in interstellar space. It's hard for most, myself included, to fathom just how incredible that is. To its credit, It's Quieter in the Twilight captures the quiet awe of this achievement and the people whose life simply goes on revolving around Voyager and data points that Voyager is still capturing today. 

Find my full length review at Futurism.Media 

Movie Review The Little Mermaid

The Little Mermaid (2023) 

Directed by Rob Marshall 

Written by David Magee 

Starring Halle Bailey, Jonah Hauer King, Javier Bardem, Melissa McCarthy, Daveed Diggs 

Release Date May 26th, 2023 

Published May 26th, 2023 

I can't sit here and tell you I was a big of The Little Mermaid. I am not a fan of director Rob Marshall's bombastic, somewhat chaotic, and often wonky vision of this Disney classic. I was all set to write a mostly negative review of The Little Mermaid. Then, when the movie ended, I stood outside of the theater and watched the crowd making their way out of the theater and I was struck by the reaction of others. Specifically, I saw a uniformly joyous response from young girls leaving the theater. More than one said they wanted to be Ariel for Halloween. They were singing the songs, the choruses anyway. 

It was the best possible review anyone could give to The Little Mermaid. The young girls from 4 years old to 12 years were in universal praise of The Little Mermaid. And listening to that broke through my cynicism. Their joy reframed my context of The Little Mermaid. This movie is not to my taste at all, but it's not meant to be. If a movie can inspire this much joy in the audience intended to enjoy it, who am I as a middle aged dude to say that's bad. 

Halle Bailey stars in The Little Mermaid as Ariel, the youngest daughter of King Triton (Javier Bardem). Ariel is an endlessly curious young woman, her eyes filled with wonder, she explores the seas searching for human treasures that fall into the ocean. With her pal Flounder (Jacob Tremblay), she also finds trouble. While searching for treasure in one of the many sunken ships at the bottom of the ocean, she and Flounder narrowly and daringly escape a very hungry and determined shark. For Ariel, this is just another day of adventure. 

However, this is not just another day in her kingdom. This is the day that her sisters from around the world are visiting to meet with the King and when Ariel fails to show up on time, the rift between Father and Daughter is further exposed. King Triton wants his youngest daughter to be more careful. He especially wants Ariel to shake off her fascination with humans. According to Triton, it was human who murdered his wife, Ariel's mother and his grief has curdled into anger and suspicion of all humans. 

This does not curb Ariel's curiosity however, and when she spots a ship caught in a storm and dashed on some rocks, she leaps in to help the ship's captain, Prince Eric (Jonah Hauer King). Saving his life, Ariel doesn't fully reveal herself to him but her voice is burned into his memory. He vows to search for the mysterious young woman who saved his life. Meanwhile, the scheming Ursula (Melissa McCarthy), has witnessed all of this and sees Ariel's desire to be a human as her chance to upend her brother, King Triton, as the ruler of the seas. 

Find my full length review at Geeks.Media

Movie Review The Machine

The Machine (2023) 

Directed by Peter Atencio 

Written by Kevin Biegel, Scotty Landes 

Starring Bert Kreischer, Mark Hamill, Iva Babic 

Release Date May 26th, 2023 

Published May 30th, 2023 

The Machine is a labored but amusing extrapolation of comedian Bert Kreischer's most beloved routine. According to Kreischer, as a college student, he traveled to Russia on a school trip. While there, he found himself partying with the Russian mob, first at his dorm and then on an ill-fated train ride. The winding and wild party story eventually finds Kreischer being called 'The Machine' for his prodigious ability to put away high proof alcohol without passing out, and finds 'The Machine' being enlisted by the gangsters to help rob everyone on the train. 

It's a classic piece of stand-up comedy but is it enough to stretch out to a feature length film? The answer is a bit of a mixed bag. The movie version of The Machine finds comedian Bert Kreischer, playing himself, struggling with his persona as a hard-partying, drug and alcohol imbibing comic and his real life as a husband and father of two young girls. Bert cannot seem to balance these two parts of his life and as we join the story, he's hit rock bottom. 

After a drunken episode of his podcast, Bert had his 15 year old daughter, Sasha (Jessica Gabor), drive him home. When she gets pulled over by Police and is subsequently arrested, the drunken Kreischer decides to livestream the debacle on social media, doing grave harm to his already strained relationship with his oldest daughter. This rock bottom moment causes Bert to go into therapy and quit drinking and partying entirely. Unfortunately, Bert's past is about to come back and haunt him as a Russian gangster has finally seen his stand-up routine and wants revenge for something Bert doesn't remember doing. 

Kidnapped during Sasha's 16th birthday party, Bert, along with his disapproving father, Albert (National Treasure Mark Hamill) are trundled off to Russia. Their kidnapper, Irina (Iva Babic), is the daughter of a Russian mobster and is at the heart of a struggle for control of crime in Russia. She needs The Machine to lead her to a watch that he stole while drunk on a train in college. Not the easiest thing to find, especially through the blurry haze of alcohol, drugs, and time. Nevertheless, if Bert and his dad cannot find the watch, a hitman is set to murder Bert's daughter. 

That's the premise for The Machine and it sounds a lot funnier than it really is. Sadly, stretched thinly over a feature film, Kreischer's funny, lively, and irreverent story takes on a highly conventional narrative that features many repeated jokes and more than a little dead time as exposition and needed stakes are set up. In fairness, the conventional plot and the stakes set, are relatively well executed. It's a standard bit of movie comedy. But that's also a bit of a problem as audiences might expect more from a performer with Kreischer's reputation for energetic and off-color humor. 

Find my full length review at Geeks.Media