Movie Review The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare

The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare (2024) 

Directed by Guy Ritchie 

Written by Paul Tamasy, Eric Johnson, Arash Amel, Guy Ritchie 

Starring Henry Cavill, Alan Ritchson, Alex Pettyfer, Hero Fiennes Tiffin, Eiza Gonzalez 

Release Date April 19th, 2024 

Published April 23rd, 2024 

It's the flippancy of The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare that rubs me the wrong way. I feel like we've grown so used to minimizing the dangers of war and the real risk of life and limb, that we risk removing the human element from war entirely. The new Guy Ritchie movie, The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare plays a role in this dehumanization by taking a mostly true story and rendering it something akin to the Quentin Tarentino fantasy of Inglorious Basterds, minus the artistry. Tarentino side steps the flippant reimaging of World War 2 because he's not working from a 'based on a true story' archetype. The soldiers of The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare were very real and really risked everything for their country. 

To take their story and render it like some action movie fantasy feels like a disservice that denigrates the genuine bravery and hardship of these real life heroes. These men, and one woman, didn't do what they did to be cool, they did it because it needed to be done. Rendering them as shallow action movie stock characters removes their complexity and humanity. This is the kind of needless revisionism that is obscuring real history far too often and despite my appreciation for the actors and the mostly solid direction of The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare, I can't fully enjoy or appreciate the film because the real story is way more interesting to me than the action movie tropes of the movie. 

Henry Cavill portrays Gus March-Phillips, a wild eyed Englishman with a taste for the finer things and a willingness to get his hands dirty. As we meet him, Gus has been in jail for repeated instances of insubordination. He's a menace to commanding officers and politicians alike. He's perfect for the job to be assigned to him, one that cannot be directly overseen by anyone. Gus' mission involves crippling the Nazi supply chain for U-Boats and thus opening the ocean for the Americans to enter the war. It's an entirely off the books mission as Winston Churchill's top military brass don't believe such a mission is possible, it violates the code of an ethical war. 

Thus, Gus and his team are assembled in secret by General Gubbins (Cary Elwes) who advises Gus that if he is caught by the Nazis, they will die and if they are caught by the English Navy, they will be arrested. Now, about Gus' team. Anders Larsson (Alan Ritschson) is a brutish Swedish man whose pasttime is killing Nazis. Henry Hayes (Hero Fiennes Tiffin) is the son of a very good friend of Gus's from back in the day. He keeps Hayes close to keep an eye on but he's also a whiz with guns and explosives. Speaking of explosives, Freddy Alvarez (Henry Golding) knows everything when it comes to blowing things up. He's been in and out of prisons across Europe for blowing things up for fun and profit. 

Find my full length review at Geeks.Media 

Classic Movie Review Horror of Dracula

Horror of Dracula (1958) 

Directed by Terence Fisher 

Written by Jimmy Sangster 

Starring Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing, Michael Gough 

Release Date May 7th 1958 

Published April 25th, 2024 

If you're going to talk about Dracula and sexuality, you're not going to start with Bela Lugosi. Lugosi's monster may have sexual overtones, Dracula has always been a metaphor for sex, often a symbol of non-consensual sex or used as a fetish figure who represents male sexual dominance or merely a figure representing the seductive nature of taking power over others. But, Bela Lugosi isn't hot. He's not a bad looking dude, per se, but there are few if any people who look at Bela Lugosi and are overcome with a form of erotomania. 

On the other hand, Christopher Lee has that going on. Though he is unconventionally attractive, he has a towering, powerful presence. Lee's eyes appear to be devouring those he's looking at. His every action, every look on his face is filled with a confident, overbearing sense of his own sexual prowess. In the most crass and basic sense, Lee's Count Dracula is a Dracula who F***s. Lugosi's approach was more asexual, leaning on his desire for power over others to be his driving dramatic force. For Lee, and even more prominently, Gary Oldman in Bram Stoker's Dracula, the driving force is eroticism, it's metaphoric sex. The desire for blood is both for sustaining life comfortably and about a forceful sexuality barely concealed. 

1958's Horror of Dracula is a showcase for Christopher Lee's overwhelming presence. It's about those eyes that bore into yours. It's about him looking down at his victims and them looking up at him to subtly and not-so-subtly underline the power fantasy and dynamic at play in Lee's take on the character. Where Max Schreck's Nosferatu is like an incel take on Vampire lore, Lee's Dracula is like a proto-Andrew Tate or one of those pick up artist guys constantly touting their power over women, and sometimes men. Lee's Dracula isn't about murder, he doesn't actually kill the women he covets, he turns them. His intent is keep them and use them against their will for his pleasure, that's his kink. 

Making a woman do something she doesn't want to do. That's the driving force of Lee's Dracula and it's bizarre how that parallels with our modern culture of Alpha Males. The Alpha Males often talk about the power they wish to wield over women. It's about bending a woman to that will, getting them to submit to what the man wants in a relationship, it's their fetish, just as it is Dracula's fetish in Horror of Dracula and as portrayed by Christopher Lee. It's not about blood or murder, it's kink. It's a power fantasy and an appealing one for the Alpha Male types as they could never achieve this kind of control over women, but they can live vicariously through Lee's Dracula. 

The proof of my thesis about Alpha Males and their kink, their fetish for power, comes in an unlikely form, a woman named Pearl. Every now and then, a podcaster named Pearl goes viral for something she said or something that someone said about her. Pearl is often called a 'Pick Me,' a woman who is eager to submit to a male dominated hierarchy. Pearl has talked many times about how women have too many rights and claims that women are happier when they simply submit to the desires of a man. You might assume that the Alpha Males applaud Pearl and are eager to find a woman just like her, but that's not the case. 

Find my full length review at Horror.Media 

Classic Movie Review Clifford

Clifford (1994) 

Directed by Paul Flaherty 

Written by Jay Dee Rock, Steven Kampman 

Starring Martin Short, Charles Grodin, Mary Steenburgen, Dabney Coleman 

Release Date April 1st, 1994

Published April 1st, 2024 

There has been a minor reassessment of the movie Clifford in recent years. Famously, actor Nicolas Cage spoke about being a fan of the film in relating a story about meeting Martin Short. The idea that Nicolas Cage fan-girled at meeting Martin Short and peppered him with praise for Clifford is a better and funnier story than anything in Clifford. I think there are people who adopted Clifford as their movie simply to be different from the rest of the world which roundly rejected this bizarre failure. Other than Nicolas Cage, who is seemingly incapable of irony, no one actually likes Clifford, they like being the person who says that they like Clifford. 

Clifford stars Martin Short as the title character, Clifford, a deeply spoiled and entitled 10 year old boy. On a trip to Hawaii, Clifford manages to nearly crash a plane in hopes of landing in Los Angeles where he hopes to take a trip to Dinosaur World. Clifford's parents, desperate to get away from their child, drop Clifford with his Uncle Martin (Charles Grodin). The timing is fortuitous for Martin who needs to convince his girlfriend, Sarah (Mary Steenburgen) that he likes kids and has a special relationship with his nephew. 

Unfortunately for Martin, he is not aware that his nephew is a 10 year old sociopath. Clifford's single minded desire to go to Dinosaur World leads him to destroy every aspect of his Uncle's life including breaking up Martin and Sarah, getting Martin fired from his job, and getting Martin arrested for planning to bomb City Hall. All of this is revenge for Martin failing to take Clifford to see Dinosaur World. All the while, Clifford plays the innocent child when Sarah or anyone else is around while turning malevolent when it's just he and his Uncle Martin. 

Find my full length review at Geeks.Media 

 

Movie Review Asphalt City

Asphalt City (2024) 

Directed by Jean Stephane Sauvaire 

Written by Ryan King, Ben Mac Brown

Starring Tye Sheridan, Sean Penn, Mike Tyson, Kali Reis, Michael Pitt 

Release Date March 29th, 2024 

Published March 28th, 2024 

Asphalt City is the kind movie that mistakes wallowing in misery for drama. The film about a rookie EMT in New York City wallows in the bleak misery of suffering that, I am sure, will feel like gritty drama to some but felt punishing for this critic. I don't mind a good wallow, I was a big fan of Scorsese's similarly themed Bringing Out the Dead years ago, but I have my limits and Asphalt City pushed well past my limit for desolation that borders on post-apocalyptic. I realize New York City can be an angry and dark place but this borders on pornographic in terms of misery. 

Asphalt City stars Tye Sheridan as Ollie Cross a wide-eyed medical student whose paying his way through med-school by working as an EMT in New York City. Struggling with a terrible partner who hates rookies, Cross's spirits are buoyed when he's reassigned to work with an aging veteran, Gene 'Rut' Rutkovsky. Rut takes pity on the kid and sets about teaching him the job instead of just screaming orders at him. Where his previous partner, played by Michael Pitt, appeared intent on running Cross out of the job, Rut seems to take to being a mentor. 

This doesn't however, give the movie a boost in terms of the pitch black ugliness at play. Even as Rut proves to be kind, the runs they make in their ambulance are unendingly grim. EMT's deal with a lot of horrors but Asphalt City makes the job appear like the seventh circle of hell at all times. It's to the point that I just can't believe anyone would be able to do this job and since we have EMT's currently working in New York City, I can only imagine that they have found some way to preserve their mental health. This movie makes being an EMT akin to trying to survive Cormac McCarthy's The Road. 

Find my full length review at Geeks.Media 

Movie Review In the Land of Saints and Sinners

In the Land of Saints and Sinners (2024) 

Directed by Robert Lorenz

Written by Mark Michael McNally, Terry Loane

Starring Liam Neeson, Kerry Condon, Colm Meaney, Ciaran Hinds

Release Date March 29th, 2024

Published March 27th, 2024

The opening moments of the Irish thriller, In the Land of Sinners and Saints is a breathtaking piece of suspense. Members of the I.RA have just planted a bomb outside of a pub. But, just as they are about to make their escape, a family, with very young children pauses in front of the pub so that one of the children can tie their shoe. One of the bombers screams in an attempt to get the family to move but they appear confused by the screaming one and stay rooted in place. The bomb goes off and it's clear that this family has been killed. 

It's a principal laid out by Alfred Hitchcock, the explosion isn't nearly as exciting as the ticking bomb itself. The tension isn't the damage that the bomb will do, it's heated seconds until the bomb does what we know a bomb can do that matters in a movie. We don't see this family get murdered and we don't need to, the horror is greater in our mind by implication than it would be if we saw blood and body parts splattered on pavement. 

Don't get me wrong, gore and bloodshed has its place and, in the right hands, it has been effective, but that's a different genre of film altogether than what In the Land of Sinners and Saints is going for. This is a cerebral thriller that builds its emotional tension underneath, allowing it to simmer and grow into a boil before exploding. As directed by Robert Lorenz, that simmering is compelling and the boil is riveting. Then, we wait with our breath caught and our hearts pounding as we anticipate the explosion to come. 

Liam Neeson stars in In the Land of Saints and Sinners as Finbar, a hitman who comforts himself with the notion that he only kills bad people for money. Finbar has killed a lot of people, hiding their bodies under freshly planted trees in a forest near his small cottage. Finbar has reached a point where he'd like to retire, give up killing, and take up a hobby like gardening. He also has his eye on a neighbor at a nearby cottage who is soon to be a widow. The pair have a sad chemistry that could become love. 

But, this is a world of consequence and the consequences of Finbar's choices are that happily ever after is highly unlikely for him. His potential happily ever after is soon threatened by the arrival of four newcomers in his village. Remember the terrorists from the opening sequence, they are hiding out in a nearby farmhouse. One of them has taken to abusing and harassing a young girl whose mother runs Finbar's favorite pub. Seeing that the girl is afraid to go home at night, Finbar intervenes. 

Find my full length review at Geeks.Media 

Horror in the 90s Child's Play 3

Child's Play 3 (1991) 

Directed by Jack Bender

Written by Don Mancini 

Starring Brad Dourif, Justin Whalin, Perrey Reeves, Jeremy Sylvers 

Release Date August 30th, 1991 

Box Office $20.5 million 

The first 15 minutes of Child's Play 3 is a brief meditation on corporate greed. After nearly a decade away from making their Good Guy dolls, the Play Pals company have re-opened the factory and inadvertently, rebuilt Chucky, the malevolent doll body inhabited by the spirit of serial murderer Charles Lee Ray (Brad Dourif). We watch as corporate titan, Mr. Sullivan (Peter Haskell), ignores the warnings from his underlings about re-starting the Good Guys line. Sullivan's greed will be his downfall. 

As Sullivan is alone in his office, after the rest of the staff have called it a day, he's attacked by Chucky and brutally murdered. Though his death at the plastic hands of Charles Lee Ray is based more in Ray's single-minded obsession with killing Andy (Justin Whalin) and taking Andy's youthful body for his own, the underlying anti-capitalist message is clear. Without the dedicated greed of Sullivan and his corporate lackeys, the Good Guy doll would have languished, perhaps have been destroyed, and with it, the final vestiges of Charles lee Ray. But, because of their greed, evil flourishes and shows no mercy, even when confronting the evil that gave it back its life. 

That is perhaps, far too deep a reading of Child's Play 3, but it's a satisfying read. The idea of Chucky as the anti-hero of the socialist set is kind of fun. The notion that a corporately owned and crafted vehicle like Child's Play 3, itself a product of greed and avarice would, even accidentally, call out and punish unchecked corporate greed, is part of the naive charm of Child's Play 3. It's a vague sort of self-awareness that makes the movie just a little more interesting than the average third sequel to an ATM style franchise intended on mining nostalgia for profits. 

Find my full length review at Horror.Media  

Movie Review Late Night with the Devil

Late Night with the Devil (2024) 

Directed by Colin Cairnes, Cameron Cairnes 

Written by Colin Cairnes, Cameron Cairnes 

Starring David Dastmalchian, Laura Gordon, Ian Bliss 

Release Date March 22nd, 2024 

Published March 21st, 2024 

Late Night with the Devil stars David Dastmalchian, forever an actor out of time, as 1970's talk show legend, Jack Delroy. In 1971, Jack Delroy left the world of morning radio for the chance to compete next to Johnny Carson in the realm of late night TV as the show of Night Owls with Jack Delroy. For a time, it appeared that Jack might just eclipse the King of Late Night, Carson, but by 1976, things were no longer going Jack's way. Jack's beloved wife, played by Georgina Haig, died of cancer, not long after he had her appear on the show to share their struggle for ratings. 

After taking a month away to recover from the loss of his wife, Jack returned to the stage to try and salvage his show and his career. It's Halloween night and Jack has an idea that he hopes can get him back on top. Jack has booked a pair of guests with supposedly supernatural talents. Christou (Fayssal Bazzi) is a mentalist with a talent for speaking to the dead. He will demonstrate this talent on the show and then face off with a skeptic, a former magician turned debunker, Carmichael the Conjurer (Ian Bliss). Carmichael is based off of real life magician turned debunker, and 70s celebrity, The Amazing Randi. 

Christou may or may not be a charlatan, one that Carmichael can debunk with relative ease, but a greater challenge to the skeptic and the talk show host is booked next. Author and para-psychiatrist, Dr. June Ross Mitchell is bringing her patient, Lily (Ingrid Torrelli) on the show. Lily was the only survivor of a death cult that worshiped a Devil adjacent demon known as Abraxas. Dr. Ross-Mitchell has written a book about Lily's demonic possession by a demon that Lily calls "Mr. Wriggles." On tonight's show, Dr. Ross-Mitchell is set to place Lily in a trance and bring the demon out of her in front of the world and prove that demonic possession is real. 

What we know, and these characters do not, is that what we are seeing is recovered footage thought lost forever. The concept behind Late Night with the Devil is that this is footage of the most controversial live television broadcast in history, a test footage that was thought lost forever. The entirety of the story of Late Night with the Devil, aside from an opening prologue introducing us to the host, Jack Delroy, is portrayed a recovered recording directly from 1976 and being played back for the first time since it was broadcast. The look of the movie is a near perfect recreation of a 1970's television broadcast, right down to the grainy quality indicative of a live to tape broadcast from nearly 50 years ago. 

Find my full length review at Horror.Media 

Movie Review Lisa Frankenstein

Lisa Frankenstein (2024) 

Directed by Zelda Williams

Written by Diablo Cody 

Starring Kathryn Newton, Cole Sprouse 

Release Date February 9th, 2024 

Published February 12th, 2024 

Lisa is an awkward teenager who has been through terrible trauma. Lisa's mother was murdered by an ax murderer. Now, as we join her story, she's living in the suburbs, her father has remarried to a shrewish, bitter woman, played by Carla Gugino, and Lisa is struggling to fit in. At the very least, her new sister, Taffy (Liza Soberano), is sweet and supportive, to a point. Where Lisa is awkward and an outcast, Taffy is a popular cheerleader with everyone at school fawning over her. Of course, Lisa doesn't make fitting in easy for herself. Lisa's favorite thing to do in her new hometown is to hang out in a decrepit cemetery. 

There, Lisa makes art and chats with the dead. One gravestone in particular, that of a man named Frankenstein, featuring a marble bust of the man's handsome face, catches Lisa's attention more than the others. She decorates this grave and leaves gifts including her late mother's rosary. Thus, when Frankenstein's grave is struck by lightning and the man in the grave bursts back to life, he comes searching for his new friend. Lisa is perhaps the only person who could take this sort of development in stride, after a brief comic chase around her house as she thinks The Creature, as he's known in the credits, played by Cole Sprouse tries desperately to explain who he is without words. 

Click here for my review 

Classic Movie Review Opera

Opera (1987) 

Directed by Dario Argento 

Written by Dario Argento, Franco Ferrini 

Starring Christina Marsillach, Urbano Barberini, Daria Nicolodi

Release Date December 19th, 1987

Published February 6th, 2024

The most captivating moment of the new Shudder documentary on director Dario Argento comes during an interview with his former leading lady, Christina Marsillach. Marsillach starred in 1987's Opera for Argento and the two had a deeply fraught relationship. In her interview in Panico Marsillach starts out talking about Argento as a father figure before taking her reminiscence in a decidedly different direction. Slowly she begins to talk about Argento's passive aggressive style in which he would not give her direct instructions but would have other members of the crew speak to her. 

Marsillach goes from painting a picture of a shy fatherly figure to portraying Argento like one of the villains of his movies, a tyrannical figure bent on getting his way at all costs. She appears to want to speak kindly of the director but then, in recalling her actual experience on the set of Opera, we get a short term psychodrama, a battle of wills between actress and director that she was not winning. It's captivating, there is no other way to describe it. I believe everything Marsillach is saying, based on what we see of Argento in behind the scenes footage, and yet her account of her work on Opera is oddly dramatic, not unlike an Argento movie, serene on the surface until everything comes to a boil.

Opera unfortunately is a wildly inconsistent piece of work. It's a slasher film set in the world of Opera with all of the pomp and circumstance of that world. The film stars Marsillach as a young diva who gets a shot at the big time after a big star walks out on an Avant-Garde take on Verdi's MacBeth. It's portrayed as a temper tantrum but it become quite serious when the Opera diva is struck by a car and is most assuredly not returning to the stage. Thus, a call is made to Betty (Marsillach), the diva understudy who now must step up and become a star. 

Click here for my review 

Classic Movie Review Bird with the Crystal Plumage

The Bird with the Crystal Plumage (1970) 

Directed by Dario Argento 

Written by Dario Argento 

Starring Tony Musante, Suzi Kendall, Enrico Maria Salerno 

Release Date June 24th, 1970 

Published 

I find the simple tools of visual filmmaking to be incredibly moving. When used in the right way something as simple as a good edit can excite my love of film. Case in point a very early, very simple edit in Dario Argento's 1970 thriller Bird with the Crystal Plumage. The film is a thriller about a serial murderer in Italy. The simplicity of this moment, mere minutes into the film, demonstrates that you do not have to have the biggest budget or the showiest of modern camera technology to make a great movie. Sometimes, you just have to show the audience a pair of images next to one another to tell them all that they need to know. 

In this case, we've seen a man make a note to pick someone up and follow them to a particular location. Cut to a woman walking alone along a busy street. A light, airy soundtrack, she's oblivious to everything but her attendant location. She's unaware that anyone is following her. Cut to, a darkened room. Hands covered in black leather gloves, a man in a black leather jacket. A striking red handkerchief is lifted to reveal a set of knives of different shapes and sizes, displayed in a red velvet case. The implication is clear yet subtle, these knives are special, they hold a specific purpose. The gloved hands select one, examine it, and the scene changes. 

The visual link from the woman walking down the street, unaware that she is being watched and photographed and the man with the dangerous looking set of knives is made simply by the edit. Unconsciously, from this simple visual link, you know that this unnamed woman is in grave danger. The man with the knives has ill intent and the next steps in this story may or may not include her being attacked and possibly killed using this chosen implement of death, a long, lovingly caressed steel blade. The simplicity of this visual filmmaking is its secret genius. Great directors like Dario Argento understand this kind of simplicity. 

It's a shame the rest of Bird with the Crystal Plumage isn't quite as strong as the opening moments. The biggest flaw is the fact that this is murder mystery in which a witness and potential victim is given all the tools to investigate the murder that he witnessed. Tony Musante stars in Bird with Crystal Plumage as Sam Dalmas, an American writer who is finishing up his time in Italy. Or, at least, he was finishing up. When Sam witnesses a woman being attacked in an art gallery, and nearly watches her die after he becomes trapped between two glass walls, Sam is first a suspect and then, through convoluted means, becomes the lead investigator. 

Sam first becomes interested in clearing himself so he can recover his passport from a suspicious detective. But soon, he becomes obsessed with the case, even as he is nearly killed while heading home from an early investigation. Strangely, the actual lead detective, Morosini (Enrico Maria Salerno), encourages Sam's investigating, even helping him with access to a victim and a currently jailed potential witness. Sam even locates a piece of evidence about one of the first murders in this killer's series that the cops failed to find. 

Click here for my review 

Movie Review Argylle

Argylle (2024) 

Directed by Matthew Vaughn 

Written by Jason Fuchs 

Starring Bryce Dallas Howard, Sam Rockwell, Henry Cavill, Bryan Cranston, John Cena, Ariana Debose, Dua Lipa, Samuel L. Jackson, Catherine O'Hara

Release Date February 2nd, 2024

Published February 1st, 2024

The high concept premise of Argylle is relatively simple: what would happen if the spy novels written by an unassuming, shut-in, bestselling author, became a reality that forces the writer into the real life world of espionage, violence, and betrayal. Bryce Dallas Howard stars as the hapless best selling author Elly Conway. Elly's high flying spy adventure Argylle has become a worldwide phenomenon all while Elly lives a peaceful, slightly lonely, existence at a lakeside home far from the crowds of admiring readers. Elly's idyllic life of writing and spending time with her beloved cat, Alfie, is upended when she can't think of a final chapter for her fifth book in the Argylle series. 

Suffering from severe writer's block, Elly boards an Amtrak train headed to see her mother, Ruth (Catherine O'Hara) who she hopes will help her snap back into writing mode. Unfortunately, Elly is not going to make it home to mom. On her train ride, Elly finds herself in the company of Aiden (Sam Rockwell), a real life spy who saves Elly's life from a series of attempted assassinations aboard this moving train. Bodies pile up fast as Aiden whipsaws about the train snapping necks and shooting baddies right in the heart while he saves Elly and Alfie from assassination. 

As Aiden will eventually explain, Elly's books are somehow mirroring real world, geo-political situations in which a rogue spy agency is trying outwit a group of good guy spies working to protect the world. Caught in the middle, Elly doesn't know who to trust, Aiden and his CIA pal, played  by Samuel L. Jackson, or the head of a rival group of spies who Elly may or may not already be familiar with. It's a terrific premise and it's all building to a pretty nifty twist until director Matthew Vaughn twists us one too many times leading to a flat finish for an otherwise fleet footed action flick. 

Click here for my review 

Classic Movie Review Car 54, Where Are You

Car 54, Where Are You? (1994) 

Directed by Bill Fishman

Written by Erik Tarloff, Ebbe Roe Smith, Peter McCarthy, Peter Crabbe

Starring David Johansen, John C. McGinley, Rosie O'Donnell, Fran Drescher, Nipsey Russell, Daniel Baldwin. 

Release Date January 28th, 1994

Published January 29th, 1994

If you think the Hollywood of today is fearful of releasing musicals, considering that both Wonka and Mean Girls were seemingly released without telling anyone they were musicals, you should see how scared of musicals Hollywood execs were in the early 1990s. Hollywood was so afraid of musicals in the early 1990s that they made two of them and then refused to release them as musicals. Two movies, released within one week of each other in 1994, began life as musicals and arrived in theaters minus most of their musical numbers. 

Naturally, that's not easy to do. In the case of the next movie I will be talking about for this series, I'll Do Anything, an entire film score written and performed by Prince, was scrapped after poor test screenings. This is deeply ironic as one of the songs was literally intended as the lament of a Hollywood movie producer character racked with angst over poor test screening scores. Hiring Prince to write and perform a film score is not cheap, scrapping it after paying him seems even more insane and expensive and yet that's what happened. 

The other musical that became not a musical just before being released in theaters was the film adaptation of the short lived 1950s sitcom, Car 54 Where Are You. The original concept for Car 54 Where Are You was as a painfully modern musical and an edgy reboot for one of the most edge-free sitcoms of Boomer youth. Instead of following the travails of cop buddies Toody and Muldoon as they try and trick their wives into letting them go fishing instead of spending time with their family, we have Toody, as played by David Johansen, delivering a hip hop infused dream sequence where he boogies while being celebrated as a neighborhood hero. 

This is one of two songs that producers felt they had to keep in Car 54 Where Are You. The other comes late in the film as Johansen jumps into sing a song that vaguely resembles his late 80s one-hit-wonder Hot, Hot Hot. All other songs have been excised, aside from a brief and deeply unfortunate scene where a pair of rappers encourage Jeremy Piven to attempt to beatbox. It's even more cringe-inducing than you imagine. Piven is a plot point character, a former mob account that Toody is assigned to keep safe. Naturally, our bumbling hero fumbles this task and the last act is trying to save Piven from a mobster played with dopey, broad, hamminess by Daniel Baldwin, the discount Baldwin brother. 

John C. McGinley is wasted in Car 54 Where Are You. Though the original series centered on the long term friendship and partnership of Toody and Muldoon, the movie transforms Muldoon into a no-nonsense rookie officer who gives tickets for Jaywalking or Spitting on the sidewalk. And, in another in a lengthy series of regrettable and poorly aged scenes, he tries to shoot a child suspect in the back as the child flees after stealing a $5.00 sandwich from a deli. Muldoon misses shooting the child and is lucky that he only shoots a watermelon as he fired into a crowd of people on a New York street. 

Click here for my review 

Movie Review The Underdoggs

The Underdoggs (2024) 

Directed by Charles Stone III

Written by Danny Segal, Isaac Schamis 

Starring Snoop Dogg, Tika Sumpter, Mike Epps 

Release Date January 26th, 2024 

Published January 25th, 2024 

I know it's wrong. I am well aware that the new Amazon Prime-Snoop Dogg comedy, The Underdoggs is objectively, not a good movie. It's amateurish, it's childish, it's derivative, and it's needlessly filthy for a movie that features a mostly child cast. And yet, there is this undeniable element that I cannot deny and that is my affection for Snoop Dogg. Snoop has crafted one of the more eclectic and straight up odd careers in entertainment history. He was a fearsome gangsta rapper who may or may not have been involved in actual murders. He's also a close friend and partner to Martha Stewart. He's known for smoking more weed than your average small American city and is one of the most savvy marketers of his brand going today. He's an enigma, a dynamic, charming and entirely unpredictable character. 

It's that same unpredictable, enigmatic charm that Snoop brings to his first film leading role since the failed horror franchise Bones in 2001, Snoop has a laid back charisma that I find irresistible. Snoop is Jaycen Two J's Jennings in The Underdoggs, a disgraced former NFL Wide Receiver better known for his bad behavior than his on the field heroics. In a classic Mighty Ducks scenario, Jaycen gets himself into an accident that is entirely his fault and is sentenced to community service. In this case, Jaycen is sentenced to cleaning up a park in his old neighborhood in Long Beach. While cleaning up dog poop, Jaycen sees a group of kids playing Pee-Wee Football, badly. 

Find my full length review at Geeks.Media 

Movie Review Miller's Girl

Miller's Girl (2024) 

Directed by Jade Halley Bartlett 

Written by Jade Halley Bartlett 

Starring Jenna Ortega, Martin Freeman, Dagmara Dominiczyk 

Release Date January 26th, 2024 

Published January 25th, 2024 

Ewwwww! The ick is a big feeling throughout the new melodrama, Miller's Girl, an erudite and empty exploration of sexual desire between a teacher and a student. Starring It-Girl Jenna Ortega, Miller's Girl is a double entendre. The title refers to both author Henry Miller and his endlessly horny catalog of books and the character played by Martin Freeman, a teacher named Jonathan Miller who is drawn to his student, played by Ortega. It's not a particularly clever double meaning but it's a good try. A lot of filmmakers don't even bother making their title matter to their movie, so, there's that. 

Jenna Ortega stars in Miller's Girl as Cairo Sweet, a wise beyond her years High Schooler. Jaded and bored by her Tennessee hometown, and her absent parents, Cairo spends her time reading and developing her skills as a writer. Her hard work pays off when she shows her writing to her new Literature teacher, Mr. Miller (Freeman). Miller is immediately taken with Cairo's writing. That said, he's also impressed with her personal reading which happens to include his only published book. If you are thinking that he's being set up, stop reading ahead! 

At home, Mr. Miller is struggling as a writer and a husband. His marriage to Beatrice, a far more successful and prolific author than her husband, is on the rocks. Desperately horny, Mr. Miller can't seem to get his wife away from her publisher long enough for a makeout session and a handjob, let alone the kind of passionate lovemaking that defined the early years of their marriage. Thus, Mr. Miller is ripe for a young woman who reads Henry Miller and proves capable of writing with just as much flushed, engorged, and filthy prose as Henry Miller himself. 

Click here for my review 

Horror in the 90s Body Parts

Body Parts (1991) 

Directed by Eric Red 

Written by Eric Red, Norman Snider 

Starring Jeff Fahey, Brad Dourif, Kim Delaney, Lindsay Duncan 

Release Date August 2nd, 1991 

Box Office $9.2 million

Body Parts stars Jeff Fahey, a golden boy of the low budget horror set in the 1990s, as a doctor trying to prove that death row inmates were capable of being reformed. Our protagonists ideals are put to the test after a car accident takes his arm and an experimental surgery grafts the arm of a former serial murderer onto the good doctor's body. The arm remains psychically linked to the supposedly dead murderer and begins to turn against its new host. That's the high concept premise of Body Parts and there really isn't much to it beyond that premise. 

The disparate parts of the serial killer's body, his arms and legs, even his head, try to reassemble themselves. All the while, Fahey's doctor knows what is happening and is trying to stop the body parts from killing their new hosts, including an artist played by Brad Dourif who has become wildly more prolific and creative with his new arm and an average joe who got both of the killer's legs and can now play basketball for the first time. Both men are set to lose their new body parts unless our hero doctor can warn them about what is happening. 

And that's the plot of Body Parts. There really isn't much to say about the plot. It's bizarre but presented in a fashion that mutes how bizarre it is. Director Eric Red doesn't treat this kind of science fiction notion of transplant surgery with any kind of special quality. He makes it seem downright mundane aside from the body horror surgical scars applied to the amputee arm. They went all out making the arm look grotesque for the few scenes we are able to see it. Beyond that however, Body Parts is desperately mediocre effort from a director who only kind of seems as if he knows what he's doing. 

I will give you a for instance. Red directs a scene early in Body Parts where he wants to underline how normal and suburban the doctor is. So, he has the doctor enjoy a family breakfast with his wife and two kids and makes a big show of moving his camera through the halls of the house to the front door where the wife and children follow dad so they can send him off with a hug and kiss. It's all needless underlining of the point: he's a normal suburban dad. Except, it's not normal. Real families don't do this and if you saw this in real life you might suspect some kind of cult behavior occurring. 

Find my full length review at Horror.Media 

Movie Review Godzilla X Kong: The New Empire

Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire (2024) 

Directed by Adam Wingard 

Written by Terry Rossio, Simon Barrett, Jeremy Slater 

Starring Rebecca Hall, Bryan Tyree Henry, Dan Stevens Kaylee Hottle 

Release Date March 29th, 2024 

Published April 2nd, 2024 

My apathy towards Godzilla x Kong The New Empire knows no bounds. I saw the film a little before the release and was so unmoved by the movie that I forgot to write a review of it prior to the release. It's such a nonexistent movie for me that I have had to read through the Wiki description of the plot, more than once, to recall the plot of the movie. It's so boringly slick and stupidly loud that the only lasting impact Godzilla x Kong The New Empire had on me was a slight damage to my hearing in my right ear, I think I was too close to the speakers on the right side. 

Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire takes Godzilla and King Kong and makes them partners. It's a team up movie in the monster-verse. You can hear the marketing buzzwords bouncing off the walls. King Kong is struggling to adjust to life in Middle Earth, sorry, The Hollow Earth, the inside of the Earth where he hopes to find more giant apes like himself. Thus far, he's made no progress and has spent his time in pain from a toothache. Indeed, the opening act of Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire spends most of its time dealing with Kong's bad tooth. 

Rebecca Hall, gritting her teeth while picking up a big budget paycheck, returns to the franchise as Dr. Ilene Andrews, Monarch Corporation's leading expert on King Kong. It was Dr. Andrews who helped discover the hollow earth and helped get Kong there and away from Godzilla who remains on the surface of the Earth, protecting it by destroying large swaths of it when fighting other 'titans' for dominance. In a moment the movie sure thinks is cute, Godzilla uses the Colisseum in Rome as a Godzilla sized doggy bed. 

The plot kicks in when Godzilla becomes agitated by a signal coming from the hollow Earth. 

Find my full length review at Geeks.Media 

Classic Movie Review The Paper

The Paper (1994) 

Directed by Ron Howard 

Written by David Koepp, Steven Koepp

Starring Michael Keaton, Marisa Tomei, Randy Quaid, Glen Close, Robert Duvall

Release Date March 18th, 1994 

Published 

The Paper stars Michael Keaton as Henry Hackett, Metro Editor for a New York City tabloid perpetually on the brink of closing. With a baby on the way, with his reporter wife, Martha (Marisa Tomei), Henry is plotting an exit from the paper. On this day, as we join the story, Henry has an interview with a Wall Street Journal style, internationally respected newspaper. Henry doesn't want the job. He wants the money but he'd much rather stay at his current employer where he can get his hands dirty. Instead of being behind a desk with a fat paycheck, Henry needs the excitement of the metro page. 

Making Henry's choice to stay or go at his current gig difficult is his rival, Alicia (Glenn Close). Alicia is a former reporter and editor who is now a bean counter. She makes big decisions based on budgets instead of journalism and Henry resents her for switching sides. Henry doesn't want to end up working under Alicia and her penny pinching, thus another reason he's considering leaving. Holding him in place is his current boss, Bernie (Robert Duvall), a legendary editor and the final word at the paper. As long as Bernie is there, Alicia is mostly neutralized. But how much longer does Bernie have? 

These questions roil beneath the surface creating tension while the bigger story begins to unfold. The paper has missed a big story. Last night, a pair of businessmen were gunned down and every other newspaper in town ran with the story. The paper is playing catch up and Henry is determined not to get scooped for a second day in a row. He wants to know the moment an arrest is made so they can get the picture and the story on the front page that night. But first, what if the story is wrong? What if the eventual arrest of two black teenagers for the crime is wrong? 

Find my full length review at Geeks.Media 

Movie Review Monkey Man

Monkey Man (2024) 

Directed by Dev Patel 

Written by Dev Patel, Paul Angunawela 

Starring Dev Patel, Pitobash, Sharlto Copley, Vipin Sharma 

Release Date April 5th, 2024 

Published April 8th, 2024 

Monkey Man is bathed in cool. Dev Patel's directorial palette is blood red, it's sweat soaked and bruised. It's Dev Patel's first time behind the camera and he directs the confidence of someone who has done this all of his life. It's beyond impressive, it's epic. This guy just gets it, camera placement, pacing, his use of color and music. But he also gets the emotion of cinema. Weaving a story about a boy losing his mother through his blood-soaked and battered action flick. Monkey Man is a punk rock action flick with a Bollywood soul, and a genuine, big beating heart. 

Monkey Man stars Dev Patel Kid, sometimes Bobby, and always Monkey Man. As a boy, Kid grew up in a lush, green forest. He spent days chasing his mother around the surrounding hills, falling asleep in her arms at night as she weaved epic tales of a Hanuman, the devoted warrior companion of Rama. In these incredible stories, the heroics of Hamuman resonate in the young Kid's mind, how Hanuman, the Monkey Man, led glorious victories on behalf of Rama. These stories are the foundation of Kid's moral core, one that will be tested and forged in fire, blood, and broken bones. 

The story of Haniman is inspiring, but the story of the Kid, will not be inspiring. It begins with our Monkey Man in a fight pit giving up his blood and teeth for a few bucks. This underground fight club, overseen by Tiger (Sharlto Copley), affords Kid the chance to lose but earn a few extra bucks from helping to fix the fight in favor of Tiger's chosen champion. Those extra bucks aren't enough to lift Kid out of poverty. But this is poverty with purpose. Kid, is saving his pennies for the chance at vengeance. He's using what little money he earns to build toward his roaring rampage of revenge. 

Find my full length review at Geeks.Media 

Horror in the 90s: Leprechaun 2

Leprechaun 2 (1994) 

Directed by Rodman Flender

Written by Turi Meyer, Al Septien

Starring Warwick Davis, Tony Cox, Charlie Heath, Shevonne Durkin, Sandy Baron 

Release Date April 8th, 1994 

Box Office $2.3 Million 

It's an almost universal truth, if the story behind the scenes of your movie is more interesting than your movie, the movie generally stinks. This isn't always true, Titanic has a more interesting behind the scenes journey but Titanic is still quite a good movie. But, as a general rule, my point stands. Leprechaun 2 is a solid proof of concept for my thesis. The story behind Leprechaun 2 is far more interesting than this bland, boring, and unfunny comic horror movie. The first Leprechaun movie wasn't exactly a great movie either but the sequel is quite, quite bad. 

The story goes that no one behind the 1993 movie Leprechaun believed that the film would be a hit. Then, the film made 8 times its miniscule budget back in theatric grosses and became a home video monster, hitting the VHS market and becoming cash machine. So, of course, marketers with dollar signs dancing in their heads needed a sequel and immediately approached director Mark Jones and star Jennifer Aniston for a sequel. And, they both said no. Now, Jones wasn't a hard no, he was just busy making another horror movie called Rumpelstiltskin, a horror movie we all remember and revere today, I'm sure. 

Jennifer Aniston meanwhile is reported to have laughed so hard at the idea of leaving Friends for a sequel to Leprechaun that her guffaw could be heard across the galaxy. Friends wasn't yet the global phenomenon that it would become, but it was more than enough of a good reason for Aniston to blow off the makers of Leprechaun 2 in no uncertain terms. And so it was, without the man who wrote and directed the hit original and no Jennifer Aniston, the makers of Leprechaun 2 had only their Leprechaun, Warwick Davis, and nothing else in place. 

Find my full length review at Horror.Media 

Movie Review The Listener

The Listener (2024) 

Directed by Steve Buscemi 

Written by Alessandro Camon 

Starring Tessa Thompson, Rebecca Hall 

Release Date March 29th, 2024

Published March 26th, 2024

The Listener stars Tessa Thompson as the employee of a suicide hotline. A former drug addict, a few years removed from a prison sentence 'Beth,' as she calls herself on the calls she takes, uses her personal experience to relate to the numerous people who call her for a listening ear. Beth works the overnight shift, the busiest time of the day for potential suicides. The calls she takes take a toll on her, but she stays at it because she knows what it is like to be at the lowest of lows. 

Find my full length review at Geeks.Media