Classic Movie Review Four Weddings and a Funeral

Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994) 

Directed by Mike Newell

Written by Richard Curtis 

Starring Hugh Grant, Andie McDowell, John Hannah, Simon Callow, Kristen Scott Thomas 

Release Date April 15th, 1994 

Published April 15th, 1994 

Four Weddings and a Funeral is exactly what the title says it is, four weddings and one funeral over a period of about a year in the life of a group of British friends. Charles (Hugh Grant) seems to attend a wedding a week these days. Despite his deplorable record as a ladies man, which will play out through the series of weddings that occur, Charles keeps getting invited to weddings and goes in with the hope of hooking up. He's cynical about love but secretly a romantic. We will learn this via his strange and strained relationship with Carrie (Andie McDowell). 

At the first of four weddings Charles attends he's the best man. Naturally, he nearly ruins the wedding by forgetting the rings. Thankfully, his friends, Tom (James Fleet), Gareth (Simon Callow), Matthew (John Hannah), and Fiona (Kristen Scott Thomas), along with Charles' sister, Scarlett (Charlotte Coleman), are able to bail him out. Narrowly avoiding that disaster, Charles stumbles into a potential non-disaster when he meets Carrie. For Charles, it's love at first sight. For Carrie, she seems to like the floppy Englishman but it takes a minute for her to warm to him. The two end up sleeping together, after some shenanigans, but then she's off, back to America. 

Cut to wedding number 2. Charles is just a guest this time and instead of nearly ruining the wedding, the universe appears to be ruining Charles' day. Not only were he and Scarlett nearly late to the wedding, they always are, he ends up at the reception sat at a table with not one, not two, but three of his ex-girlfriends. Each takes the time to tell a story about Charles, ones in which he appears to insult one of the other two exes. It's a catastrophe but one that he hope might be mitigated when he sees that Carrie has come to this wedding as well. This too however, is a disaster as Carrie is here with her new fiancée. This doesn't stop Charles and Carrie from hooking up but it's certainly not a good indication of long term plans. 

Find my full length review at Geeks.Media

Movie Review The People's Joker

The People's Joker (2024) 

Directed by Vera Drew

Written by Vera Drew, Bri LaRose 

Starring Vera Drew, Lynn Downey, Christian Calloway, Scott Aukerman, Bob Odenkirk, Tim Heidecker 

Release Date April 19th, 2024 

Published April 17th, 2024 

The People's Joker is pure punk rock anarchy filtered through the lens of an auteur unlike any we have seen before. Vera Drew is the visionary behind this almost indescribable takedown of the Batman/Joker legend and lore. Entirely outside of the purview of permission, Drew and their collaborators took the well known characters of the D.C Universe and turned them on their heads in the most unique and unpredictable fashion. Not one minute of The People's Joker is predictable, it's a train running down the tracks with Drew at the helm and the whole thing in flames with no slowing down. I loved every minute of it. 

Trying to describe the plot of The People's Joker is a rather futile effort, not that the movie is plotless, it's just deciding where to start that's the problem. In this dystopian future, Vera (Vera Drew) is from Smallville but dreams of going to Gotham City where a show called UCB Live is the biggest show in the world and Lorne Michaels rules comedy with an iron fist. It's also where a retired Batman still dominates the headlines despite no longer being the caped crusader. On UCB Live, Vera is assigned the identity of a Male Joker. In the harsh world of UCB Live, you are either a Male Joker with a distinct identity and able to perform on the show or a female Harlequin and designated as only a background dancer. 

Find my full length review at Pride.Media 

Movie Review The Iron Claw

The Iron Claw (2023) 

Directed by Sean Durkin

Written by Sean Durkin

Starring Zac Efron, Holt McCallany, Harris Dickinson, Jeremy Allen White, Lily James, Maura Tierney 

Release Date December 22nd, 2023 

Published ?

Instead of reviewing what I think is a very bad movie, The Iron Claw, I am going to make a list of the many things the movie gets wrong combined with a list of things the film omitted that might have made the film better. As a wrestling fan, I am remarkably familiar with the controversies, the tragedies, and the triumphs of the Von Erich family. The misery porn that director Sean Durkin is engaged in in The Iron Claw is nothing compared to the real life tragedies and controversies that the Von Erich family were part of from the late 1970s and into the early 1990s. 

What The Iron Claw gets wrong: Spoilers ahead, it's based on a true story, but the movie fictionalizes so much that, I guess, this stuff qualifies as spoilers. 

The Timeline 

The Iron Claw proceeds essentially from 1980 when Kevin Von Erich, played by Zac Efron, met and married his wife, Pam, played by Lily James. While at Kevin's wedding, we see Kevin's brother, David, played by Harris Dickinson fall ill. He's vomiting blood and Kevin advises David not to take a trip to Japan the following week, advising David to get some rest first. David assures Kevin he will be fine and he goes on the trip to Japan. Cut to, Fritz Von Erich alone at his kitchen table, distraught. While on tour in Japan, David suffered from Enteritis and died in his hotel room. 

From Kevin Von Erich's marriage in 1980 to David's death from either Enteritis or a drug overdose, depending on whose story you believe, were four years. Four years in which David Von Erich had the biggest successes of his career. In 1980 he broke away from his father and traveled the country working in Florida, where he played a bad guy for a while, a rite of passage in the industry that would not have been afforded to him by his father. He also went to Missouri and was able to win the Missouri Heavyweight Championship, arguably the biggest solo honor of his short career. 

There appears to be little justification for compressing four years into one week and it only serves to remove the devastating emotional impact of David's death, which is reduced to a single scene of Fritz telling Kevin that David had died. Tell don't show is a plague on The Iron Claw as so many significant incidents in the lives and careers of the Von Erich's are either ignored completely or we are told that they happened offscreen. 

Kerry Von Erich's personal life 

In The Iron Claw you would assume that Kerry Von Erich was a lonely, drug addicted playboy whose only life was in the wrestling ring. That's partially true. But what The Iron Claw fails to tell you, I assume because they were cut for time, is that Kerry was married and had children. In the movie, Kerry's marriage and his children, including future pro wrestler Lacy Von Erich, are never mentioned and completely ignored. As Kerry spirals toward his tragic, far to young death by suicide, his brother asks him about some random woman that he'd brought home for the holidays. She was some woman he met on the road or something. He never asks about Kerry's wife or mentions his children as a reason for Kerry not to take his own life. 

More Timeline shenanigans 

If David's death happened a week after Kevin's marriage in 1981, then Kerry Von Erich won the NWA World Heavyweight Championship and at the David Von Erich Parade of Champions event a little over a month and a half later. And, according to the timeline in The Iron Claw, Kerry went out and got very drunk and crashed his motorcycle and lost part of his leg that same night. Naturally, that didn't happen that way. Kerry won the title in 1984, a little over a month after David died that same year. Kerry didn't suffer his motorcycle accident and the amputation of the lower part of his right leg until 1986, long after he'd lost the NWA world title. 

The remarkable and tragic story of Kerry's motorcycle accident. 

Find my full length review at Geeks.Media 

Movie Review Origin

Origin (2024) 

Directed by Ava Duvernay

Written by Ava Duvernay

Starring Anjanue Ellis-Taylor, Jon Bernthal, Vera Farmiga, Isha Blaaker

Release Date January 25th, 2024 

Published January 25th, 2024 

Origin is a big project. Adapting a non-fiction story tracking the origin of racial discrimination via the history of the caste system worldwide, is not an easy task. It's a roiling beast of a project that director Ava Duvernay is perhaps the only filmmaker could attempt to tame and tease into a familiar film drama. The book, Caste: The Origins of Our Discontent, a bestseller for writer Isabel Wilkerson, is a deeply academic, research heavy effort that is far from the most natural book to be turned into a dramatic feature film. Director Ava Duvernay had to give a dramatic shape to the story and she found that shape in the author's life story. 

Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor stars in Origin as Isabel Wilkerson, an author struggling with the idea for her next book. She wants to chart the origin of racism in America but her research slowly takes her in a new direction. What she finds is that racism isn't as simple as white people hating black people, though that is a big part of it. Rather, the true roots of racism are often economic in nature. The need for a class of people who exist to do the work that others don't wish to do leads to the owning class to create a caste system in which particular members of a culture are chosen to be that class of people who will perform tasks. 

Leaders in these cultures quickly realized that they could create the workers they needed by exploiting racial and religious differences. Demonizing people for the color of their skin or by the difference in their religious beliefs proved to be an effective way to find a cheap, pliable workforce, groups of people who have no option but to accept poor treatment, low wages, and terrible working conditions, just for the chance to survive. Thus, confronting racial differences required more than overcoming a specific prejudice based on color, it requires dismantling economic systems that have been constructed over hundreds of years that thrived off of this forced labor based on discrimination. 

Find my full length review at Geeks.Media. 

Movie Review The First Omen

The First Omen (2024)

Directed by Arkasha Stevenson 

Written by Tim Smith, Arkasha Stevenson, Keith Thomas 

Starring Nell Tiger Free, Sonia Braga, Ralph Inseson, Bill Nighy

Release Date April 5th, 2024

Published April 5th, 2024 

The First Omen isn't so much of a movie as it is a widget. I mean widget in its first definition, not the internet definition. The First Omen is a product created by a committee who were given budget and a deadline and told to create a sellable product. The people who made it may be of the highest talent and may create a terrific product, but there is no escaping the widget comparison. If The First Omen were not connected to a studio owned franchise, it would not exist and the people who made it, likely would never have worked together. A studio had a product that it wanted made. The studio chose a product manager, a team lead, and a group of people to run the factory floor and they crafted a product for consumption in the market place. 

You can say, that's most movies, and I don't disagree with you. But, you can sense when someone is making a passionate work of art, a deep expression coming from the soul of a genuine artist. And, you can tell when someone is tasked with producing a widget, when they are accomplishing an assignment with a budget and deadline and not a work of a passionate soul. This is not to simply say that by its nature, The First Omen is a bad movie, it's not poorly made. It's a terrific widget. But a widget will never be a transcendent work of art. It will always be a functional mass produced consumer product, no matter how good the effort was to create it. 

The First Omen stars Nell Tiger Free as Sister Margaret, a troubled young Nun who has come to Rome at the behest of her loving mentor, Cardinal Lawrence (Bill Nighy). Cardinal Lawrence was once a humble Priest who helped Margaret survive a difficult childhood in a Massachusetts orphanage. Now, he's using his power as a Cardinal in Vatican City to get Margaret a place at a church run orphanage in Rome, in 19171. It's a heady change for Margaret who turned to God after growing up tormented so badly by visions that she thought she might lose her mind. She still occasionally has horrific visions of the abuse her mind tells her did not actually occur. 

Find my full length review at Horror.Media 

Movie Review Roadhouse

Road House (2024) 

Directed Doug Liman 

Written by Charles Mondry, Anthony Bagarozzi 

Starring Jake Gyllenhaal, Conor MacGregor 

Release Date March 21st, 2024

Published March 25th, 2024

Imagine if someone tried to remake The Room without Tommy Wiseau. Imagine if they tried to take Wiseau's premise and treat it with seriousness and make it into a serious drama? Would it even still be The Room? No, the magic would be gone. It would be a boring soap opera. No, the magic of The Room is the unique alchemy that emerges from when Tommy Wiseau's outsized ambition crashes headlong into his complete lack of talent and is forged in the fire of his self-delusion. You cannot remake that. You cannot recapture that kind of magic. 

Roadhouse is like The Room. The magic of Roadhouse comes from the unique alchemy of director Rowdy Herrington's love of sleazy bars with sticky, beer soaked floors, holes in the walls from errant fists, and from Patrick Swayze's unmatched ability to be bizarrely emotionally detached and fully physically present in every scene. His Zen bouncer is a miscalculation in theory but in practice, it is cheeseball comic gold. He's funny but only because he has no idea that he's funny. The joy or Roadhouse is how deeply dedicated Swayze and everyone else is to this sleazy, cheeseball nonsense. 

In remaking Roadhouse, the fun is completely lost in favor of a desire to be taken seriously. The premise is played straight with the fun sucked out almost entirely. A deeply bored Jake Gyllenhaal replaces Swayze's Zen and so much is lost in that translation. Gyllenhaal is too good of an actor to understand the glorious silliness of being a Zen bouncer fighting rednecks over control of a small Kansas town. Instead of trying to be above it, Gyllenhaal just comes of bemused and self-satisfied and that's just not fun at all. Plus, he doesn't rip out a single throat. Not one. 

Road House begins in bizarre fashion, establishing that no one knows what they are doing here. Gyllenhaal's Dalton shows up at a bar where they hold an unsanctioned fight club. There, a bruiser, played in cameo by Post Malone, has fought and defeated 6 men. Dalton is set to be next but the bruiser smartly bows out, refusing to fight Dalton because he knows who Dalton is. He's also just fought 6 other people and is bleeding and exhausted. So, instead of establishing Dalton as a man of honor and toughness, he comes off as an opportunist and a coward. Not the best way to introduce our hero. 

Find my full length review at Geeks.Media

Movie Review Immaculate

Immaculate (2024) 

Directed by Michael Mohan 

Written by Andrew Lobel 

Starring Sydney Sweeney, Alvaro Morte 

Release Date March 22nd, 2024 

Published March 26th, 2024 

Great directors know that all aspects of filmmaking matter. The script, the aesthetic, the music, the sound, it's all important to creating a truly great movie. First time director Michael Mohan demonstrates control over all aspects of filmmaking in his exceptional debut feature, Immaculate. The story of a Nun who is tricked into moving to Italy and into an ancient nunnery with a deep, dark, secret, Immaculate uses the tools of filmmaking exceptionally well. Most notably, the film's impeccable sound design puts the horror in your head in an inescapable fashion. 

Immaculate stars Sydney Sweeney as Sister Cecilia. At the age of 8, Cecilia fell through the ice in her hometown and nearly died. From that day, she dedicated herself to God and the search to find the reason God spared her. Now a nun, Sister Cecilia has recently lost her home parish in Detroit, Michigan. Fate intervened on her behalf as just as she was looking for a place to continue her path with God, Father Sal Tedeschi (Alvaro Morte), found her and offered her a place in an ancient Italian convent. 

This particular convent serves a very important purpose. The nuns here administer to elderly nuns in hospice. It will be Sister Cecilia's job to help make her sisters comfortable as they reach the end of their lives. At least, that's what the job is supposed to be. Unfortunately, shortly after her arrival in Italy, Sister Cecilia falls ill. The illness takes hold and is a complete mystery until it is revealed that Sister Cecilia is pregnant. This comes as a shock to all as Cecilia is unquestionably a virgin. This leads her fellow Nuns and Father Sal to claim she is undergoing a miraculous Virgin birth. 

Plot mechanics tell you that not all is as it appears. There is a sinister element of Immaculate that we are aware of from the start of the film but that is kept from Sister Cecilia. The film opens with a terrifying sequence as a young Nun is attempting to escape from the convent. As she is just about to slip through a gate, a group of Nuns in terrifying, faceless masks capture her. I will leave to see the movie to see what happens next. I will only say that it took my breath away for a moment. It's a terrific sequence and sets up the rest of Immaculate incredibly well. 

Find my full length review at Horror.Media 

Classic Movie Review One From the Heart

One From the Heart (1982)

Directed by Francis Ford Coppola 

Written by Armyan Bernstein, Francis Ford Coppola 

Starring Frederic Forrest, Teri Garr, Raul Julia, Nastassja Kinski, Lainie Kazan, Harry Dean Stanton

Release Date February 11th, 1982

Published February 8th, 2024 

I owe massive debt of gratitude to filmmakers Scott Beck and Bryan Woods. It's because of their love of movies that I had the chance to see Francis Ford Coppola's One from the Heart on the big screen. In late 2023, the team known for their script for A Quiet Place and their terrific horror movie, Haunt, returned to their home community, the Quad Cities, specifically Davenport, Iowa, to open The Last Picture House, an art house theater. Since then, they've brought modern Oscar contenders, short films and revivals like One from the Heart to the Quad Cities. And I cannot thank them enough for sharing their passion for movies. Because of Beck and Woods, and their brilliant bar manager, Alexa, I was able to discover a new favorite movie, a shaggy dog fiasco of a musical from the 1980s. 

The reputation of Francis Ford Coppola's One from the Heart is one of being a fiasco. One from the Heart is remembered mostly as a fantastic failure, a risky, overwrought flop from a filmmaker mad with power and new technology. Roger Ebert related an anecdote in his mixed review of the film about how Coppola turned a $9 million dollar production into a $25 million dollar failure due to his desire to use the most modern technology of 1982 to achieve his intensely unique vision. Coppola has long been portrayed as a madman on the sets of his movies and One from the Heart is another film teeming with Coppola lore. 

One from the Heart is a throwback to the big, blowsy, ballsy musicals of the 40s, 50s, and 60s, modernized with the kind of sex and nudity that the Hayes Code kept out of the movie business for so many years. The film stars Frederic Forrest as Hank, a layabout who has, perhaps, become too comfortable in his stagnating romance with Frannie (Teri Garr). She's certainly noticed and her restlessness versus his desire not to change is the fractious, contentious, romantic heart of One from the Heart. As Frannie strains against the confines of domesticity, Hank longs for things to be simple and home bound. 

The breaking point for the couple arrives when Frannie meets an exciting and intriguing piano player named Ray. Ray is played by Raul Julia, a man who wreaks with sex and passion. Where Hank wants a life of simple domesticity, Ray wants to travel, make love on the beaches of Bora Bora, or dance the night away in clubs or, in one truly spectacular sequence, in the streets of Las Vegas. Here Frannie and Ray ignite a strip long dance sequence filled with sweat, passion, and sex. It's a boldly chaotic dance staged like those elaborate stage musicals of Hollywood's past crossed with the sex and drug infused passion of the 70s and early 80s. 

Find my full length review at Geeks.Media 

Movie Review Madame Web

Madame Web (2024)

Directed by S.J Clarkson 

Written by Matt Sazama, Burk Sharpless, Claire Parker, S.J Clarkson 

Starring Dakota Johnson, Adam Scott, Sydney Sweeney, Isabela Merced, Celeste O'Connor 

Release Date February 14th, 2024 

Published February 16th, 2024

Madame Web is a uniquely misconceived superhero flick. Part Morbius, part Catwoman, and all terrible, this Dakota Johnson led adventure in Sony's Wish.com version of the Marvel Universe is stunningly terrible. It's the kind of bad that catches you off guard. In this day and age movies tend toward being merely mediocre. Money and careful, risk-averse studios appeared to have found away to keep the truly bad movies away from the big screen in favor of making dull, inoffensive, and forgettable into an all new kind of bad movie. And yet, Madame Web has escaped the web of the merely mediocre into the rarified air of being genuinely bad. 

Madame Web stars Dakota Johnson as Cassie Webb, an EMS worker with a murky past. Cassie's mother died in childbirth and she grew up in the foster system. As an adult, Cassie's main source of support is her partner, Ben Parker (Adam Scott). When Cassie is nearly killed while providing life saving measures she begins to have visions of the future. These brief glimpses into the very near future help Cassie see that a mad man dressed in a dark costume is stalking three teenage women, each of whom she's met before, ever so briefly. Julia (Sydney Sweeney), Anya (Isabela Merced), and Mattie (Celeste O'Connor), are from entirely different backgrounds but they share a connection, a lack of a family. 

Find my full length review at Geeks.Media 

Classic Movie Review Reality Bites

Reality Bites (1994)

Directed by Ben Stiller

Written by Helen Childress

Starring Winona Ryder, Ethan Hawke, Janeane Garofalo, Steve Zahn, Ben Stiller 

Release Date February 18th, 1994

Published February 21st, 1994

In the 80s you were called a sellout when you appeared in commercials for brands that people didn't like or respect. In the 90s, this insult evolved into people being called Posers. Essentially, people who tried to be part of a culture that they were not authentically part of were 'Posing,' pretending to be cool and hip and down with the kids. It's strange to think how antiquated this thinking is today. In our modern culture, some of the most popular celebrities are themselves a brand that is associated with other brands for the purpose of selling products to consumers, also known as fans. In the 80s, famed comedian Bill Hicks railed against celebrities in Diet Coke commercials as the ultimate sin that one could commit against authenticity. Today, you'd be hard pressed to find a celebrity who isn't accompanied by some kind of brand deal and we all just accept it as the norm. 

Sorry for the tangent but writing about Reality Bites bums me out so getting distracted is like a gentle and brief oasis. Reality Bites is the ultimate Poser movie. In the 90s, if marketers wanted to reach the youth market that would find an attractive model or celebrity, throw some flannel and chunky boots on them and have them 'Hello Fellow Young People' their way into our living rooms. We'd roll our eyes and call them posers and then probably still buy the products but ironically and without passion. That's Reality Bites in a nutshell, a movie that comes wandering in dressed in flannel and armored in irony and disaffected youth while selling the notion that it is The Big Chill for Generation X. And yes, I rolled my eyes when I thought of that and then bought a ticket for Reality Bites so I could roll my eyes in front of the big screen and pretend not to care about how the movie was selling a conception of my generation to me like any other branded product. 

Reality Bites stars Winona Ryder as Lelaina Pierce, college valedictorian and wannabe documentarian. Lelaina spent her college years getting drunk, getting high and still making it to class on time and getting good grades. Most of Lelaina's time is spent behind a camera where she has been documenting the lives of her closest friends including Vickie (Janeane Garofalo), a manager at The Gap, Sammy (Steve Zahn), a closeted gay man, closeted at least to his family, and Troy (Ethan Hawke), Lelaina's on again, off again, best friend and flirting partner. We get to see plenty of Lelaina's supposed documentary and what we see does not communicate any serious attempt at documentary filmmaking. It's an entirely facile representation of someone's dream of making movies and it gets Reality Bites off to a deeply inauthentic start that doesn't get any better from there. 

Find my full length review at Geeks.Media 

Movie Review Driveaway Dolls

Driveaway Dolls (2024)

Directed by Ethan Coen

Written by Ethan Coen, Tricia Cooke 

Starring Margaret Qualley, Geraldine Viswanathan, Colman Domingo, Matt Damon, Bill Camp, Pedro Pascal

Release Date February 23rd, 2024 

Published February 23rd, 2024 

Driveaway Dolls is one of the most sex-positive, pro-LGBTQ movies I have ever seen and I love it. Driveaway Dolls is a refreshingly frank and very funny movie that recalls last years Bottoms with a hint of Raising Arizona for good measure. That last part, obviously, comes from the fact that Driveaway Dolls is a rare solo directorial effort from one of the Coen Brothers. Working with screenwriter Tricia Cooke, the comic sensibilities of a classic Coen Brothers take on a modern, LGBTQ friendly sensibility that makes the whole film feel fresh, even as the movie is set in 1999. 

Driveaway Dolls stars Geraldine Viswanathan as Marian and Margaret Qualley as Marian's best friend, Jamie. The two could not be more different. Jamie is uptight and sexually repressed, while Jamie seeks sex as if it were her profession. As we join the story, Jamie is in the midst of cheating on her girlfriend, Sukie (Beanie Feldstein) and thus, getting kicked out of her apartment. As for Marian, she's grown weary of life in New York and plans to escape to Tallahasse and the loving arms of her aunt. 

With nowhere to live and nothing better to do, Jamie decides that she's going to Tallahassee with Marian, despite not being invited. Jamie however, has a way to get them there cheap. The two go to Clancy's Driveaways, owned by the gruff but lovable, Clancy (Bill Camp). Just as the girls are arriving, Clancy has finished a phone call. He is to give two people a specific car to take to Tallahassee and since Marian and Jamie happen to be going to Tallahassee, Clancy assumes they are the ones taking the car. 

Find my full length review at Pride.Media 

Movie Review Ordinary Angels

Ordinary Angels (2024) 

Directed by Jon Gunn 

Written by Meg Tilly, Kelly Fremon Craig

Starring Hilary Swank, Alan Ritchson, Nancy Travis, Amy Acker, Tamala Jones 

Release Date February 23rd, 2024 

Published February 20th, 2024 

Okay, fine, I admit it, I cried... hard. I cried. Watching the movie Ordinary Angels made me weep. I'm in my late 40s and I am far more in touch with my emotions than ever before. So, perhaps, that may explain a little why such a desperately conventional movie touched me so deeply that I had to cry. Ordinary Angels is exactly the kind of movie that is constructed to extract tears from the audience. It's a machine that sucks tears from your face whether you are compelled to give up the tears or not. And yet, my tears came not from the forced nature of the plot about an imperiled, adorable 5 year old girl, but from genuinely overwhelmed by the kindness that people are capable of when properly motivated. 

I'm sure that if I did further research I would find that the term 'Based on a True Story' has been abused to the usual degree but regardless, the film does show the most emotional moment of the story as it happened via some pre-credits, archival news footage, and that's going to have to be enough for me. This is a mostly true story about a family that suffered beyond anything normal. After struggling to get pregnant and struggling to give birth, Theresa Schmitt (Amy Acker), passed away just two years after her second daughter, Michelle was born. Just three years after this, Michelle herself fell ill and needed a liver transplant to survive. 

Drowning in debt and lost in grief, Ed Schmitt struggled to keep his family afloat with the help of his mother, Barbara (Nancy Travis). Then, a strange sort of miracle happened in the form of Sharon Stevens (Hilary Swank). A tornado of a personality, Sharon saw the family's story in a newspaper, how their mother had passed away and how Michelle needed a liver transplant and Sharon threw herself into action. At first, Sharon launched a fundraiser at her hair salon, co-owned with her best friend, played by Tamala Jones. This fundraiser brought in more than $3000 dollars but Sharon sensed that this would not be enough. 

Find my full length review at Geeks.Media 

Classic Movie Review 8 Seconds

8 Seconds (1994) 

Directed by John G. Avildsen

Written by Monte Merrick

Starring Luke Perry, Stephen Baldwin, Cynthia Geary, James Rebhorn

Release Date February 25th, 1994 

Published February 27th, 2024 

8 Seconds is a painfully boring film. The mostly true story of famed bull rider, Lane Frost, played by Luke Perry, 8 Seconds is a by the numbers sports movie with all the innovation and excitement of a damp rag. Bull Riding is a sport, of sorts. It takes a great deal of dedication and very strong hands. It also requires the bull to be basically tortured. Controversial opinion, if your sport requires an opponent that doesn't want to be your opponent, to the point where they may kill just to get you to leave them be, it's not really a competition, it's animal cruelty with judges, points, and a time. 

So, yeah, I wasn't really the audience for a schmaltzy, dizzying, dimwitted movie like 8 Seconds. Lane Frost died tragically young and, as demonstrated in 8 Seconds, his accomplishments were relatively limited. He was a multiple time champion of his sport and was kind to children. Lovely qualities that are at odd with the moody, broody, young man who could turn on a dime and be cruel to his loyal and loving wife, Kellie (Cynthia Geary), who takes the brunt of Lane's unpredictable mood swings, often related to his anger toward his father, Clyde, a man who cannot tell his son that he loves him. 

Find my full length review at Geeks.Media 

Movie Review Dune 2

Dune 2 (2024) 

Directed by Denis Villeneuve 

Written by Denis Villeneuve, Jon Spaihts 

Starring Timothee Chalamet, Zendaya, Austin Butler, Rebecca Ferguson, Javier Bardem, Dave Bautista

Release Date March 1st, 2024 

Published March 4th, 2024 

Dune 2 is the epic and awesome follow-up to the triumphant 2021 extravaganza that manages to top the spectacle of the first while never losing sight of the characters at the heart of both films. The scope, the scale, the spectacular action and special effects, all come together to make Dune 2 a film experience not to miss. Co-written and directed by Denis Villeneuve, Dune 2 demonstrates what can happen when a visionary filmmaker is given the resources and the time to explore their vision and realize that vision in full. It's a staggering work. 

Dune 2 picks up the story of the first Dune by fully revealing the conspiracy at hand. Not only was House Atreides attacked by House Harkonnen, the attack came at the best of the Emperor of the known universe, Shaddam IV (Christopher Walken). The Emperor believed that Duke Leto Atreides (Oscar Isaac, from Dune 1), was becoming a threat to his rule so he secretly supported and influenced House Harkonnen to take over the spice trade and destroy House Atreides. 

Unfortunately for the Emperor, the Harkonnen's failed to finish off House Atreides. Rumors are spreading fast regarding a leader having emerged among the Fremen, a warrior that many see as a possible messiah. The rumor goes further in stating that this supposed messiah is Paul Atreides, son of Leto and Lady Jessica (Rebecca Ferguson). Having been taken in by the Fremen, Paul and Lady Jessica have become members of the Fremen people with Paul taking on the name Paul Muad'Dib, and Lady Jessica accepting the role of the Reverend Mother of the Fremen, a challenge to her Bene Gesserit elder, played in both films by Charlotte Rampling. 

As the story picks up, Paul's place among the Fremen is assured just as his romance with Chani (Zendaya) is taking hold. The relationship between Paul and Chani is at the heart of Dune 2 as the script sets up a natural and heartbreaking conflict between the two, Chani's defiance over the idea of Paul as this messiah like figure and Paul's having to accept the role of messiah if he is to gain revenge against the Harkonnen's and the Emperor while securing the safety of the Fremen amid the growing conflict. This conflict between the freedom of the soul versus the notion of God's will is a terrific conflict and Chalamet and Zendaya make you feel every inch of that conflict in their dueling performances. 

Read my full length review at Geeks.Media 

Documentary Review Plastic People

Plastic People (2024) 

Directed by Ben Addelman, Ziya Tong

Written by Ben Addelman

Starring Ziya Tong 

Release Date March 9th, 2024

We are no longer Homo-Sapiens, we've evolved, we're now Homo-Plasticus. That's not my observation, that is the observation of scientist and doctor Sedat Gundogdu. Dr. Gundogdu has been tracking microplastics around the globe from his home in Turkey. As hard as it can be to wrap your head around it, the plastics that we encounter everyday are never going away. They have to go somewhere and in scientific test after test, so-called Microplastics are being found in the last place you'd think to look or even be able to look, your own body. 

The documentary Plastic People, debuting at the SXSW Film Festival on March 9th, is halting, breathtaking and frightening warning and call to action. The documentary lays out the case that we desperately need to cut back on our reliance on plastic or risk a continuously worsening health crisis. Microplastics can cause cancer, developmental delays in children, and any other number of ailments and if we keep unknowingly ingesting these tiny pieces of plastic, we have no idea what even greater harm might befall humanity in the future. 

Plastic People unfolds a serious of smaller stories that feeds into a larger story about how and why microplastics have been making their way into the human body. One such sequence follows the co-director of Plastic People, Ziya Tong using her own body to prove the growing issue of microplastics in the human body. Tong undergoes a blood test and a test of her feces and each return results that show particles of microplastic in her body. Researchers have been seeking people to test for microplastics and even when testing people who aren't making a documentary about microplastics, the results were the same. 

Find my full length review at Earth.Media 

Documentary Review Dickweed

Dickweed (2024) 

Directed by Jonathan Ignatius Green 

Written by Jonathan Ignatius Green 

Starring Emily Pokora, Ronald Douglass, Greg Kriek, Rizzy Fuentes 

Release Date March 9th, 2024 at SXSW Film Festival 

Published March 9th, 2024 

Dickweed is a rollercoaster of a true crime story that starts right at the biggest drop and keeps the twists and turns coming at a neck snapping pace. It's a jarring, fascinating and jaw dropping story that keeps you guessing from start to finish. And, it comes with the pleasure of knowing that no one died. Yeah, this is a true crime story in which there are no dead people. A crime is committed, it's a terrifying and life altering crime, but there is no death and that makes it all the more riveting as we are introduced to a villain with the dangerous aura of a killer, minus the actual body count. 

In 2012, a weed dealer named Mike was chilling on his couch, dozing off. His girlfriend is asleep in the bedroom. Suddenly, without any warning, Mike is awakened by a flashlight attached to a shotgun. He's beaten and bound. His girlfriend is bound and gagged. Both Mike and his girlfriend are bundled into a van by three masked men. On the way to being driven into the desert, Mike is interrogated about where the million dollars is. Mike, genuinely doesn't know what they are talking about. The three men are operating on the belief that Mike has a million dollars buried in the desert. Mike does not have any money buried in any desert. 

This fact doesn't stop the masked men from beating Mike relentlessly while threatening harm toward his girlfriend. The two are then dumped in the desert and, seemingly having realized that Mike is telling the truth, they decide to leave them in the desert to fend for themselves. Oh, but there is one more horrifying detail. It's the reason for the title of this movie. An injury is inflicted upon Mike that threatens to end his life. If not for the quick thinking and the effort of his girlfriend, Dickweed would have a body count. Thankfully, she was able to get help in time. Though, what happened with Mike's horrific injury, you will need to see the documentary to find out. 

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

Movie Review Float

Float (2024) 

Directed by Sherren Lee 

Written by Jesse LaVercombe, Sherren Lee

Starring Andrea Bang, Robbie Amell, Michelle Krusiec 

Release Date February 9th, 2024 

Published March 18th, 2024 

Float stars Andrea Bang as Waverly, a woman living a lie. She's told her parents that she has gone to Vancouver for an important doctoral apprenticeship that will move her along in her career. In reality, Waverly has gone to Oregon to stay with her artist aunt, Rachel (Michelle Krusiec), while she tries to figure out who she is and what she wants. It's while lying to her parents and having a minor existential crisis that Waverly meets Blake, a handsome local man who raises chickens and cares for his teenage sister. Blake is Rachel's neighbor which is how Waverly knows about his gentle way with chickens. 

Blake is also a lifeguard and when he learns that Waverly doesn't even know how to float, let alone swim, he offers to teach her. It's a blatant attempt to get to spend time alone with her and Waverly is definitely on that wavelength. That said, this is a Nicholas Sparks-esque romance so the two lovers cannot have a clear path to happiness. We already know about Waverly's lies but we will come to learn about Blake's flaws and what has kept him in this small town and generally out of long term relationships. It's a lot of sticky emotions about his late parents and his little sister and somehow it all may prevent him from being with Waverly. 

Red my full length review at Geeks.Media linked here. 

Movie Review Street Fighter The Legend of Chun Li

Street Fighter The Legend of Chun Li (2009) 

Directed by Andrzej Bartkowiak 

Written by Justin Marks 

Starring Kristin Kreuk, Chris Klein, Neil McDonough, Robin Shou, Michael Clark Duncan

Release Date February 27th, 2009. 

Published February 28th, 2009.

Well, we’ve all seen career meltdowns off screen but how about witnessing a meltdown on screen? Chris Klein, best known for American Pie and Election does just that in Street Fighter Legend of Chun Li. As an Interpol agent, Klein delivers a performance of such goofball determination that his mere presence invites a giggle fit. 

Klein combines vocal affectation and exaggerated gesture to evoke something akin to a soap opera actor crossed with a community theater wannabe on top of the jocky persona that has been his calling card in his biggest role. You’ll recall he played the meathead jock with a big heart in election and the meathead jock who goes soft in American Pie. 

In Street Fighter he’s still a meathead but now a meathead with dramatic flair and an action heroes' sense of flair. Were there still a Mystery Science Theater this performance could go down in history as one of the great unintentionally hilarious roles in movie history. 

As for the rest of Street Fighter, villain Neal McDonough, one of those character actors whose name escapes you but his face you’ve a few hundred times, earns a few of the same derisive laughs that Klein does. For McDonough it’s a bizarre accent, part Irish part Cantonese? Vietnamese? Something with an eastern flair that just doesn’t jive with the Irish brogue. 

Michael Clarke Duncan is a long way away from the days when he was Oscar nominated for The Green Mile. He has become the go to beefy guy for beating people up. I can’t really say if there was another way for his career to play out but being an on-screen thug, the rest of his life doesn’t seem like the ideal career unless getting paid is your only motivation. I hope it was a really, really good paycheck. 

And finally star Kristen Kreuk. I am not a regular viewer of TV’s Smallville, but I’m told it’s a well-acted, complex superhero story and Kreuk’s Lana Lang is integral to the plot. She’s been in every episode. She likely wishes she had stayed in Smallville. Street Fighter may have given her; her very first leading role but the movie makes her look like a 12-year-old girl on steroids. The hair and makeup choices really truly make her look far younger than her 26 years. She makes Dakota Fanning look like Liz Taylor. 

That’s not a complement. The character is supposed to be in her mid-twenties. The look is distracting and unfortunate. 

As for the plot, hey, if director Andrzej Bartkowiak doesn’t care about the plot, why should we? Check out that final act and tell me what the bad guy's motive is? It’s a futile search because the script doesn’t supply one. It’s not really needed because the final act is really about fight choreography and some of the dopiest looking low budget effects this side of 1984’s The Last Dragon. At least that movie had a cool soundtrack. 

Eddie Murphy's Biggest Movie Mistakes

Originally Published in November 2011 to accompany the release of the long forgotten comedy, Tower Heist. 

Eddie Murphy returns to theaters on Friday, November 4, in the comedy "Tower Heist," co-starring Ben Stiller and directed by "Rush Hour" director Brett Ratner. "Tower Heist" looks a like a potential hit given the heavy promotion the film is getting from Universal Pictures. If "Tower Heist" does become a hit it will be remembered as a good decision by an actor who has a history of making very bad decisions. Here's a look back at some of Eddie Murphy's biggest career blunders.

"Imagine That"

In "Imagine That" Murphy delivers a dull family movie about a father bonding with his daughter after he discovers that her imaginary friends can help him predict the stock market. "Imagine That" failed with critics and at the box office, earning a 38 percent positive rating at Rottentomatoes.com and a meager $16 million at the domestic box office.

"Meet Dave"

How "Meet Dave" made it past the planning stages is a major question mark. The story finds Murphy in the dual role of a humanoid robot and the leader of the robot's miniature alien crew. Among critics, "Meet Dave" was blasted even worse than "Imagine That," with USA Today critic Claudia Puig calling the story "dull, witless and hackneyed." Among moviegoers, the project was among the biggest bombs of Murphy's career, earning a disastrous $11 million at the domestic box office. Ouch!

"Beverly Hills Cop III"

The original "Beverly Hills Cop" grossed over $230 million in the United States. "Beverly Hills Cop II" was slightly less successful than the original but still grossed over $150 million domestic. Seven years after "Beverly Hills Cop II," Murphy went back to the character of Axel Foley in hope of reviving his fading star-power following the diminishing returns for "Another 48 Hours," "Boomerang," and "The Distinguished Gentleman." The result was both a box office and critical failure. "Beverly Hills Cop III" grossed barely a quarter of what the original brought in at the box office 10 years earlier. As for critics, the same people who hailed Murphy's arrival in "Beverly Hills Cop" were mostly embarrassed for the desperate and unfunny Murphy in "Beverly Hills Cop III."

"The Adventures of Pluto Nash"

"The Adventures of Pluto Nash" is a legendary blunder. This sci-fi comedy starring Murphy as a nightclub owner on the moon, who travels the galaxy to investigate who burned his club down, cost more than $100 million dollars to make and took in an apocalyptic $4 million at the domestic box office. Not surprisingly, critics lambasted "The Adventures of Pluto Nash" -- for being a bad movie and for wasting the equivalent of the annual budget of your average small, island nation.

"Norbit"

Here we have a unique point in Eddie Murphy's career. Yes, "Norbit," the story of a nerdy kid who finds himself dragged into a marriage with a horrible overweight woman, also played by Murphy, was a hit, earning nearly $100 million at the box office. However, "Norbit" arrived in theaters in February 2007 with ads featuring Murphy in a fat-suit pretending to be his own wife, just as Murphy was campaigning for his very first Oscar for his role in "Dreamgirls." It is believed, though it cannot be proved, that "Norbit" cost Murphy an Academy Award, thus earning the film a place on the list of Eddie's biggest blunders.

Documentary Review Panico

Panico (2024) 

Directed by Simone Scafidi 

Written by Documentary 

Starring Dario Argento, Asia Argento, Guillermo Del Toro, Nicholas Winding Refn, Gaspar Noe

Release Date February 2nd, 2024 

Published January 29th, 2024 

At a particular point in the new documentary Panico, all about the life and work of Dario Argento, actress Cristina Marsillach, star of Argento's 1987 film, Opera, is asked "Who is Dario Argento?" Her response is that she doesn't know. This comes at the end of an interview in which she spoke about working with Argento, enjoying working for him, the struggles of working for a visionary like Argento, and slowly revealing that the two actually rarely talked while on set together. By the end, Marsillach is describing the horror and trauma of working on the film and is in tears by the time she says she doesn't know who Dario Argento really is. 

The natural artifice, the controlled storytelling of a documentary film almost betrays itself in this moment. The journey that Marsillach takes us on in this moment begins to take on the feeling of an Argento movie. It begins to feel like she's back on set and that the whole thing is a movie in which Argento was the antagonist, that mysterious man with a black glove and a cleaver. He's the unseen killer and she's the endangered ingenue. Is this what director Simone Scafidi is intending or is this what I am reading into this portion of Panico? I honestly cannot tell you for sure. I know that I believe every word Marsillach said. 

Marsillach appears remarkably genuine, and her recollections of events mirror the experiences of other actors who have worked with Argento over the past 50 plus years. Argento, though described as quiet and shy, energetic but also a shrinking violet amid the chaos of his sets, can be as cruel in silence as Stanley Kubrick could be cruel in bluster and demonstration on his. As described in Panico, Argento is in charge of all aspects of his films, every light, camera set up, and sound. But he's also a man who has his assistants tell his actress that he'd like her to remove her bra for the scene and is angry when she refuses though refuses to confront her directly. 

Is this perhaps why Argento began working with his daughter, Asia, also featured in the documentary, when she was just old enough to achieve his vision? No one, not Dario, not Asia, or any of his collaborators will say so, but there is a distinct notion that, yes, Dario worked with and directed his daughter so often because they were so alike but also because she was more apt to take his direction. This includes taking his direction in what Asia herself describes as losing her virginity on camera when she filmed a sex scene for The Stendahl Syndrome. 

Argento was roundly criticized in the 90s for filming sex scenes and nude scenes starring his daughter. Asia Argento, in her own words, describes these scenes as playing out, in real life, their own Electra Complex. Indeed, Carl Jung, had he not died before Argento began making films, might have appreciated the psychosexual themes and presentations in a Dario Argento movie, particularly Trauma, The Stendahl Complex or Phantom of the Opera, the most notable movies that Argento made with his daughter. 

But Panico is not about putting Dario Argento on trial, either directly or indirectly. Rather, this is a documentary celebrating his life and work and with his full participation. The documentarian joined Argento as he traveled to a hotel to write his next film. I can only guess that this was 2022's Dark Glasses, though it's never mentioned in the documentary. Argento enjoys the solitude of a hotel though not the expensive and lavish one that the filmmakers have set him up with in Panico. Nevertheless, a late scene does show Argento packing away what appears to be a fully completed screenplay. 

Panico moves in a more or less linear fashion through Argento's career from his childhood spent with Italian movie stars and directors via his famed photographer mother and his producer father, to his brief time in journalism, working as a critic, to his triumphant 1970 debut as a director. A film hailed by none other than Argento's hero, Alfred Hitchcock, The Bird with the Crystal Plumage is compared directly with Hitchcock's thrillers and Michael Powell's all time classic, Peeping Tom. High praise indeed. The film was a huge success and from there, the documentary charts Argento's ups and downs. 

Find my full length review at Horror.Media