Movie Review Justice League

Justice League (2017) 

Directed by Zack Snyder, Joss Whedon

Written by Chris Terrio, Joss Whedon 

Starring Henry Cavill, Ben Affleck, Amy Adams, Gal Gadot, Ezra Miller, Jason Mamoa, Ray Fisher, Jeremy Irons, Diane Lane, J.K Simmons 

Release Date November 17th, 2017 

The problem with Justice League and the problem with the entirety of the DC cinematic universe is the vision of Zach Snyder. I realize that laying the blame for what many perceive as a significant failure on one person is a little unfair, but hear me out. I like the movies that Zach Snyder has made in this universe. I like Justice League but the fact of the matter, for me, is that these movies fail to transcend into being truly great movies because Zach Snyder isn’t a great director, just a pretty good one.

Justice League picks up the story of the DC cinematic universe in the wake of the death of Superman (Henry Cavill). The world is darker and a little more chaotic following the loss of Superman, and no one feels that loss quite as much as Bruce Wayne-Batman (Ben Affleck). Bruce feels that he is responsible for Superman’s death and the danger that the world faces without its savior. Worse yet, there are new beings that have arrived on Earth that feed on the fear that has risen in the world minus Superman.

These new beings are commanded by a being called Steppenwolf (the voice of Ciaran Hinds) who intends to take over the world by uniting three cubes known as the Mother Boxes which when combined will remake the Earth as a hellscape under Steppenwolf’s command. The first Mother Box is located in Themiscyra, the homeland of Diana Prince-Wonder Woman (Gal Gadot). Alerted by her mother Hypolyta (Connie Nielsen), Diana seeks out Bruce Wayne and the two set about putting a team together.

Up first is eager motormouth Barry Allan AKA The Flash (Ezra Miller). Barry is easily won over by a visit from Bruce Wayne though he warns that he’s never done battle before. Much more difficult to convince is Arthur Curry AKA Aquaman (Jason Mamoa). Until his home of Atlantis comes under attack by Steppenwolf, Aquaman appears content to stay in the ocean. Afterward however, Arthur Curry is spoiling for a fight.

Find my full length review in the Geeks Community on Vocal 

Movie Review Call Me By Your Name

Call me By Your Name (2017) 

Directed by Luca Guadagnino 

Written by James Ivory 

Starring Armie Hammer, Timothee Chalamet, Michael Stuhlbarg, Amina Casar 

Release Date November 24th, 2017 

Luca Guadagnino is the poet of idle sexuality. His A Bigger Splash captured the sadness and tragedy of lost love while barely raising its pulse above that of the luxurious, idyllic location, a beachfront European coast where clocks don’t seem to exist. Yes, that film has a tragedy in it that drives the engine of the plot but Guadagnino’s interest lies not with exploring that tragedy but in lingering within the lives of people whose path is toward tragedy, but not a journey defined by that tragedy.

Guadagnino’s latest movie, Call Me By Your Name, appears to be on the same path as A Bigger Splash but has more ambition. Call Me By Your Name is a coming of age romance that mirrors the setting of A Bigger Splash, Guadagnino’s home country of Italy, but the film eschews the notion of a typical narrative aiming toward a conclusion that ties the narrative in a fashion that resembles a movie ending.

Call Me By Your Name stars Timothee Chalamet as Elio, the son of Academics, Lyle and Annella Perlman (Michael Stuhlbarg and Amira Casar). Elio’s life is made up of long swims, hikes, brief encounters with Marzia (Esther Garrel), his would be girlfriend, and the hours he spends listening to classical music and writing out the notes he hears in longhand, one of the more unique hobbies I’ve seen in a film character.

Elio’s teenage Idyll is upended by the arrival of his father’s grad-student assistant Oliver (Army Hammer). Oliver has taken over Elio’s bedroom and immediately begins to invade his thoughts. For the first time in his young life, Elio is looking at a man sexually and it creates an immediate tension between he and Oliver whose attempts at being friendly to Elio only seem to complicate matters further.

Find my full length review in the Geeks Community on Vocal 

Movie Review My Friend Dahmer

My Friend Dahmer (2024) 

Directed by Marc Meyers 

Written by Marc Meyers 

Starring Ross Lynch, Anne Heche, Alex Wolff, Dallas Roberts, Vincent Kartheiser 

Release Date November 3rd, 2017 

My Friend Dahmer starring Disney Channel veteran Ross Lynch is a unique and daring examination of the serial killer before the killing. Based on the true life graphic novels of John 'Derf' Backderf, a real life classmate of Jeffrey Dahmer at a small town high school in Ohio, My Friend Dahmer doesn’t aim to sympathize with the killer. Rather, like so much of the best true crime media, My Friend Dahmer feeds our fascination with what if and why scenarios. Our minds can’t resist trying to make pieces fit together and true crime adaptations are one way we seek to bring order to chaotic histories.

Jeffrey Dahmer was odd from the very beginning of his life. As a teenager, he collected roadkill that he would bathe in acid so that he could harvest their bones. To what end? He wanted to know what the animals’ insides looked like. It’s a characteristic familiar to many who follow true crime and killers, the bizarre and dangerous fascination with anatomy. It’s the kind of character trait that today might be a red flag but was mostly hidden from people in 1978.

John ‘Derf’ Backderf, portrayed in the film by Alex Wolff, befriended Dahmer as a lark. After witnessing Dahmer have some kind of episode in the hallway of their High School, an episode Derf saw not as a cry for help but as a hip prank, he and two other friends approached Dahmer to form a club based on his prank freak outs that they would document and play witness to at school, at the mall and at grocery stores. It’s easy to see why teenagers would find Dahmer's act to be a subversive, disruptive bit of comedy but from the frame of today, with our growing knowledge of mental illness, it’s not hard to see that Dahmer was seeking attention that wasn’t entirely comedic.

Find my full length review in the Criminal Community on Vocal 

Movie Review Murder on the Orient Express

Murder on the Orient Express (2017) 

Directed by Kenneth Branagh 

Written by Michael Green 

Starring Kenneth Branagh, Tom Bateman, Penelope Cruz, Willem Dafoe, Judi Dench, Josh Gad, Johnny Depp 

Release Date November 10th, 2017 

Hercule Poirot (Kenneth Branagh) is the most famous detective in the world. It is 1935 and Poirot is leaving Israel, having solved a crime that likely prevented a religious genocide. His work is that important, apparently. Poirot hopes for some rest and relaxation but unfortunately, he’s been called back to London on a matter of grave importance. The fastest way to travel in 1934 is the train known as the Orient Express, a bullet train from Istanbul all the way to Paris.

Misfortune follows the great detective, however, as he meets Mr. Ratchett (Johnny Depp) on the train and quickly deduces his criminality. Ratchett wants to hire Poirot to watch his back on the train ride but Poirot declines as he knows Mr. Ratchett is not who he claims to be. The true identity of Mr. Ratchett becomes the hook on which the rest of the plot of Murder on the Orient Express hangs. A murder occurs the night after Poirot and Ratchett’s tete a tete and Poirot is pressed into action to deduce the killer.

The list of suspects is long but as luck would have it, the train has been felled by an avalanche, leaving Poirot plenty of time for chatty snooping. Among the suspects are Ratchett’s cheating accountant MacQueen (Josh Gad), Ratchett’s servant Masterman (Derek Jacobi), a wealthy Princess (Dame Judi Dench), her maid (Olivia Colman), a German scientist (Willem Dafoe), a doctor (Leslie Odom Jr.), a governess (Daisy Ridley), a missionary (Penelope Cruz), a dancer and his ailing wife, and a husband-seeking missile named Miss Hubbard (Michele Pfeiffer).

Complicating matters further for Detective Poirot is that each and every one of the passengers I just mentioned are lying. Agatha Christie was a master of this sort of plot, navigating it with tantalizing detail. She, some have claimed, perfected the red herring and in Murder on the Orient Express, she brilliantly navigated a full sea of red herring. That director Kenneth Branagh evokes Christie’s legend is the true charm of the new film version of the legendary novel.

Find my full length review in the Geeks Community on Vocal

Classic Movie Review The Stunt Man

The Stunt Man (1980) 

Directed by Richard Rush

Written by Lawrence B. Marcus, Richard Rush

Starring Peter O'Toole, Steve Railsback, Barbara Hershey 

Release Date June 27th, 1980 

Published May 8th, 2024 

The Stunt Man is a wildly inventive and entirely incoherent exercise in style and storytelling. Directed by Richard Rush, The Stunt Man has an intriguing premise that gets overshadowed by a director eager to experiment with film style and editing. I appreciate what Richard Rush is going for but it's a failed experiment as the stylistic touches and innovations leave us with a story that is impossible to follow because scenes are missing or truncated in service of Richard Rush's desire to play with the toys and tools of filmmaking. 

The intriguing story of The Stunt Man finds a former Vietnam Veteran, played by Steve Railsback, on the run from the cops for an unknown crime. Cornered at a diner, the vet manages to sneak away. However, in the process of his getaway, the vet wanders into a movie scene as it is being shot. A stunt man is performing a car stunt and angrily drives right at the vet who is standing on a bridge that happens to be the location for this scene. In fear for his life, the vet throws a large rock at the car barreling towards him that causes the car to drive off the bridge. 

The stunt driver is killed and the incident is witnessed and filmed by the film's director, Eli Cross (Peter O'Toole). Once again, our unnamed vet flees the scene. This time he winds up at a nearby resort where he once again sees the movie in production. A beach at the resort is being strafed by fake gunfire by a stunt plane. Smoke covers the area as bombs fall and when the smoke clears, the audience of resort patrons are shocked to see mangled bodies and corpses strewn across the beach. Their shock and horror becomes good natured laughter as the director calls cut and the stuntmen and extras lift themselves out of the and and remove their broken, burned and battered fake body parts and wounds. 

As the vet surveys the scene, he watches as an elderly woman approaches the lead actor for an autograph. She wanders down the beach and the vet follows her curiously, wondering where she could be headed. It's a good thing that he does because the old women slips on some rocks and falls in the ocean, forcing the vet to leap in and save her. Soon after, the woman removes her makeup and reveals herself to be movie star Nina Franklin (Barbara Hershey). Nina was testing the believability and durability of her old lady makeup, which she claims to have done herself. Nevertheless, she allows the vet to rescue her to a standing ovation of the assembled crew, including the director. 

Find my full length review in the Geeks Community on Vocal. 

Movie Review The Idea of You

The Idea of You (2024) 

Directed by Michael Showalter

Written by Michael Showalter, Jennifer Westfeldt 

Starring Anne Hathaway, Nicholas Galitzine 

Release Date May 2nd, 2024 

Published May 7th, 2024 

With this many talented people involved, I am shocked at how boring and basic The Idea of You turned out. Michael Showalter has proven to be an adept and quirky filmmaker. His previous films have an adventurous yet warm romantic humor. Jennifer Westfeldt, returning to screenwriting for the first time since her breakout screenplay Kissing Jessica Stein, also promises something warm, funny and quirky. So how did we arrive at this product placement laden, highly predictable and endlessly dull, dud of a rom-com. And how did they manage to fumble the radiant talent of Anne Hathaway? 

The Idea of You, a desperately forgettable title, stars Anne Hathaway as Solene, a 40 year old divorced mom. She's an artist and she runs a successful art gallery. As we meet Solene, she's bundling her teenage daughter, Izzy (Ella Rubin), and her two best friends, off to Coachella with Izzy's uber-rich daddy who has sprung for a big backstage package, one that will allow her to meet her favorite boy band. Well, they used to be her favorite boy band but she doesn't listen to them anymore. The boy band, known as August Moon, is headed up by Hayes Campbell, the Harry Styles of the group, played by Nicholas Galitzine. 

Circumstances conspire to have Solene have to take the kids to Coachella where she will end up backstage. In a comic misunderstanding, Solene ends up in Hayes Campbell's trailer, thinking it's the backstage restroom. Hayes is immediately smitten with Solene but she doesn't see it. After a brief exchange about art and her art gallery, they part ways. Later, Hayes shows up at Solene's gallery and buys all of the art as a ruse to spend time with Solene. She goes for this, after initially questioning his dedication to art, and the two end up back at her house sharing a moment over her piano. 

Once Solene's daughter is sent off to a summer camp of some sort, Solene takes up Hayes' offer to fly to New York to hook up and for a time, the pair enjoy hooking up. Naturally, we have roadblocks set up in Solene and Hayes' age gap, 16 years I think it is, and in the reaction of Solene's daughter to her mom dating her former favorite boy band guy, but the biggest obstacle is the predictable nature of romantic comedy structure. The typical beats of a rom-com are inescapable at this point, intractable. The only way to work around the genre strictures is to elevate the familiar with great performance and undeniable chemistry. 

Find my full length review in the Geeks Community Vocal. 

Classic Movie Review Dream Lover

Dream Lover (1994) 

Directed by Nicholas Kazan

Written by Nicholas Kazan

Starring James Spader, Madchen Amick, Bess Armstrong, Larry Miller

Release Date May 6th, 1994 

Published May 6th 2024 

Okay, so hear me out, this is my secret plan. I saw this guy who is really handsome and rich and has his own business. So, what I am going to do is steal his money. Here's how I am going to do it, stay with me, it's complicated. So, I am waiting for him to finalize his divorce. Then, several weeks or perhaps months, after he's been on a bunch of dates with a bunch of women he's not interested in, I will meet him at this art opening that he's supposed to be attending. 

At the art gallery, while he's talking to another woman he's not interested in, I will position myself behind him with a glass of wine. When he turns around, I will say he spilled wine all over me and then storm out without giving him my name. Then, the next day, I will follow him when he's grocery shopping and approach him. Then, he will follow me and ask me to dinner. I will let him take me to dinner but then, I won't tell him how to get in touch with me for another date. 

My plan indicates that he will be so besotted with me that he will start stalking me, not knowing that I am already stalking him. Then, he will see me come home with another man and when that man leaves, he will find a way to find which speaker is connected to my apartment. And then I will let him come in and somehow, I will have just been in the shower, even though I was just answering my door to let him in my building. Then I will have sex with him after he jealously berates me for information about the guy who just left. I will say that guy's gay, so I save this guy's ego. 

So, we have sex and then several months later of us dating and having sex, we will get married. And then, after we've been married for a few months, I will have a baby. And then, after we've been married a few years, I will have another baby. And then, a few months after that, I will start leaving obvious clues about having an affair. And when he gets super-jealous and punches me in the face, I won't have him arrested, I will have him committed and once he's deemed crazy, boom, divorce, I take his money and the kids. 

What do you think? Don't worry about the hitting thing, he will punch me in the face and slap me and I will still put on makeup to fool the doctors that I was abused. I mean, I will have been abused but I am crazy, so I have to make it look like I am lying for no good reason. Then it will only confuse my husband and father of my children even more. Because I am crazy. It's a foolproof plan, it can't fail unless he somehow tricks me into going to see him at the asylum on the ruse that he's figured out my dastardly scheme and then chokes me to death using the excuse that he's crazy as cover so he can get out of the hospital when he recovers. But really, what are the chances of that happening right? 

That mulit-paragraph plot is the actual plot of the 1994 movie Dream Lover, from the perspective of Madchen Amick's crazy wife character Mina. It's my interpretation of her plan and it hopefully illustrates just how desperately convoluted this plot is. Written and directed by Nicholas Kazan, the character of Mina marries and has kids and builds a perfect upper class New York life with Ray Reardon, played by James Spader, all so that after 5 years of wedded bliss, she can blow up the whole thing to steal his money. 

Find my full length review in the Geeks Community on Vocal. 

Movie Review Devil's Whisper

Devil's Whisper (2017) 

Directed by Andy Ripp 

Written by Andy Ripp 

Starring Luca Oriel, Tessie Santiago, Alison Fernandez, Marcos A. Ferraez 

Release Date October 19th, 2017 

I’m torn on the movie Devil’s Whisper. One side of me finds the film stylish, well-acted and some of its ideas daring. The other side of me, however, cannot abide yet another movie where a demon of dubious abilities opens doors, manipulates electricity, or other such nonsense via mind control or some sort of demonic form ESP. When will filmmakers tire of these moronic tropes? When will a movie that has some good ideas about how to couch evil in a horror form to discuss big issues? Devil’s Whisper approaches big ideas but can’t resist demonic silliness.

Alex (Luca Oriel) is only 16 years old, but he already believes that he wants to be a priest. Alex’s mentor, Father Cutler (Rick Ravanello), wants him to slow down and live a little but Alex takes his path very seriously. That is, until Alex stumbles across a strange box in a collection of his recently deceased grandmother’s belongings. Inside the box is a cross once warn by a grandfather that Alex doesn’t remember well. He passed away when Alex was just five years old.

When Alex and his father, Marcos (Marcos A. Ferraez), open the box and retrieve the cross, the evil begins to take hold but like any silly demon possession movie, Devil’s Whisper has a demon of dubious abilities, meaning that this demon has somehow opened this giant piece of furniture, adhered a key for Alex to find to a compartment that shouldn’t be found, that contains a box that the demon somehow is able to convince Alex to try and open it. If the demon is powerful enough to do all of this, why does it need Alex?

Find my full length review in the Horror Community on Vocal

Documentary Review Jim and Andy and the Great Beyond

Jim and Andy: The Great Beyond (2017) 

Directed by Chris Smith

Written by Chris Smith

Starring Jim Carrey, Andy Kaufman, Danny Devito 

Release Date November 17th, 2017

Man on the Moon was one of my favorite movies of 1999. I had no idea what went into making the movie at the time I saw it in 1999. Had I been more aware of the tabloid crazy story that was going on behind the scenes I likely would have loved the movie even more. Jim Carrey has now detailed the making of Man on the Moon in a new Netflix documentary that debuts November 17th and it is a remarkable and fascinating insight into the mind of an artist

On the surface, Man on the Moon was a straight-forward biopic of the always not so straight forward comedian Andy Kaufman. Directed by the legendary Milos Forman, Man on the Moon had the air of an Awards friendly true-life story of a man who had fascinated millions of people before and after his life came to an end. Even with it being the first of Jim Carrey’s attempts to become taken seriously, there was a prestige to the movie that was innate.

Then stories began to emerge about Jim Carrey’s behavior. In 1998 the film became fodder for the tabloids as Carrey’s shenanigans seemed to be overwhelming the film. In particular, Carrey had a very public run-in with co-star and real-life Kaufman antagonist, professional wrestler Jerry “The King” Lawler. Carrey was said to have gone off the deep end, requiring everyone to call him Andy or Andy’s bizarre, obnoxious character Tony Clifton. Rumors were spreading that Carrey’s behavior was sinking the film.

Now, with the release of the Netflix documentary Jim and Andy The Great Beyond, we have a notion of what things were like behind the scenes of Man on the Moon. Now we know that all the tabloid nuttiness that was reported nearly 20 years ago was pretty much true and helped to make Man on the Moon the remarkably authentic and fascinating film it became. Using Carrey’s own behind the scenes footage, shot by Andy Kaufman’s real life girlfriend Lynn Margulies, we get the whole story, and we know that sometimes madness is creativity at its most pure.

Find my full length review in the Geeks Community on Vocal 

Movie Review LBJ

LBJ (2017) 

Directed by Rob Reiner 

Written by Joey Hartstone 

Starring Woody Harrelson, Richard Jenkins, Bill Pullman, Jeffrey Donovan, Jennifer Jason Leigh

Release Date November 3rd, 2017 

I don’t understand racism. It’s strange to write that down but it’s no less true, racism doesn’t make any sense. Why does skin color matter? What is it about skin color that bothers people? What could possibly cause a person to believe that their skin makes them superior? It baffles me. Life is hard enough, why carry such an unnecessary and bizarre hatred on top of that? I find that in my life I need as many friends as I can make. The world makes more sense when you connect with people. To rule out connecting with someone over something like the color of their skin is just not something I can make any sense of.

I’m not seeking to understand racists; I know that they are just wrong in their hatred, but I can’t understand the conviction that drives them. Is it some sort of misguided notion of maleness? Tribalism that has yet to be evolved out of the species. What drives people to hate someone for a reason such as skin color? Hatred of any kind is hard on the soul. I am certainly not without hate, I hate racists, I hate those who hate the LGBTQ Community, I hate those who would seek to oppress others. Carrying that hate is the biggest burden of my life but I do it because I can’t not do it. My hatred makes sense because I hate on behalf of others. The hatred that comes from the racist simply makes no sense.

This is a longwinded way of getting around to reviewing the new Rob Reiner movie LBJ which hinges on the debate over the 1964 Civil Rights Act. The brilliant actor Richard Jenkins portrays a Senator Russell from Georgia whose hatred of black people has lost him to history to the point where I cannot recall his first name and would not be aware of his existence without this movie. That’s fair, he doesn’t deserve to be remembered. Nor do any of the Senators who opposed civil rights. Remembering that they opposed something as fundamental as civil rights for all people is enough of an awful legacy for these men.

LBJ paints a complex portrait of President Lyndon Baines Johnson. It is a heroic portrait but one that doesn’t shy away from the less heroic aspects of Lyndon Johnson who, before he became Vice President had consistently opposed civil rights legislation. President Johnson's change of heart wasn’t him being ‘woke’ to use the modern parlance, it was born of pragmatism, at once coldly calculated and genuinely felt. President Johnson could see the direction the country was moving in and was determined to remain relevant and, he had become friendly with his cook, a black woman who could not travel safely and comfortably from Washington D.C to Texas despite working for the Vice President of the United States.

Find my full length review in the Geeks Community on Vocal 

Classic Movie Review Deathwish 4 The Crackdown

Deathwish 4 The Crackdown

Directed by J. Lee Thompson

Written by Gail Morgan Hickman

Starring Charles Bronson, Kay Lenz, John P. Ryan 

Release Date November 6th, 1987 

How in the world did the Death Wish franchise last for four movies? How did anyone with a brain figure that the story of vigilante Paul Kersey could simply linger for over a decade? It’s a bafflement and yet, in the first weekend of November 1987, Cannon Films managed to release Death Wish 4: The Crackdown and it somehow wasn’t the last of this limping, moronic, gun crazy, alpha male fantasy franchise.

Death Wish 4: The Crackdown finds Paul Kersey living in Los Angeles and running his architectural firm. Paul is dating a journalist named Karen (Kay Lenz) who has a daughter named Erica (Dana Barron). One night Erica hits the town with her boyfriend and tries some cocaine and then dies from an overdose. The loss consumes both Karen and Paul as she sets about using her reporting to track down the bad guys while Paul does it his way, through vigilante justice.

After Paul murders the dealer, he believes is directly responsible for Erica’s death, he finds he’s being watched. A man claiming to be Nathan White, a wealthy industrialist, wants to help Paul reap bloody vengeance on Los Angeles organized crime. He offers to get Paul the guns and the information he needs to battle the two biggest drug dealing factions in Los Angeles. Why? White claims to have had a daughter who also died from a drug overdose.

With White’s assistance, Paul begins murdering drug dealers on both sides of the two biggest crime families. While we are told that this is part of a plan by Paul to turn the two gangs against each other, ending their current détente, all we see is Paul randomly choosing targets on both sides and killing his way out of whatever spot he gets himself into. Paul is clumsy and slow, but the movie makes up for it by making it seem as if he never misses, even as every drug dealer in Los Angeles couldn’t shoot water while standing on a dock.

Find my full length review in the Geeks Community on Vocal 

Movie Review A Bad Mom's Christmas

A Bad Mom's Christmas (2017) 

Directed by Scott Moore

Written by Jon Lucas 

Starring Mila Kunis, Kristen Bell, Kathryn Hahn, Susan Sarandon, Christine Baranski 

Release Date November 1st, 2017 

A Bad Moms Christmas is quite funny. The gags delivered by these very funny ladies work most of the time to great effect. So why don’t I love the movie? As much as I laughed at A Bad Mom’s Christmas, I was rolling my eyes during scenes that weren’t centered on off-color gags. For all the uproarious laughs brought on by the brilliant Kathryn Hahn, the non-gag scenes, the ones centered on moving forward the supposed plot of A Bad Moms Christmas, simply don’t hold up.

Mila Kunis is once again at the center of the Bad Moms universe as Amy, the put-upon single mom to two adorable teenagers. Amy is fretting about Christmas and the pressures that the holiday specifically puts on moms to make everything perfect. Amy’s perfect Christmas would be vegging out and watching Love Actually with her kids and her boyfriend Jesse (Jay Hernandez) and his daughter but that’s not going to happen.

Amy’s mom, Ruth (Christine Baransky), has decided to crash Christmas this year and she has big plans for her daughter’s Christmas. Ruth is Christmas crazy, and she immediately throws her daughter’s Christmas plans for a loop. In need of solace, Amy turns to her fellow Bad Moms, Kiki (Kristen Bell) and Carla (Kathryn Hahn) who agree to help her take back Christmas, Bad Moms-style. This leads to a hit and miss montage of the trio creating havoc at the mall, but the laughs outnumber the awkward moments, just barely.

Unfortunately for Kiki and Carla their own mothers have decided to visit. Kiki’s mom Sandy (Cheryl Hines) is a sweetheart, but she has severe boundary issues. A big gag has mom watching her daughter begin to have sex with her husband before revealing that she’s in the room. Carla’s mom, Isis (Susan Sarandon) meanwhile, doesn’t even realize it’s Christmas when she drops in. Isis needs some cash to fund her gambling habit and is seeking a loan from her only daughter.

Find my full length review in the Geeks Community on Vocal. 

TV Review The Lost Wife of Robert Durst

The Lost Wife of Robert Durst (2017) 

Directed by Yves Simoneaux

Written by Bettina Gilois, Matt Birkbeck

Starring Jesse Hutch, Katherine McPhee, Daniel Gillies

Release Date November 4th, 2017 

The Lifetime movie has become synonymous with low-budget, high-camp, gossipy trash. Though the network has worked to try and buy back some respectability with more ambitious, true-life stories and slightly bigger budgets, that gossipy, trashy style of storytelling remains the network’s bread and butter. I sound like I am complaining, and I probably should be, but the fact is, the gossipy, high-camp trash that is The Lost Wife of Robert Durst is insanely watchable; the definition of a pleasure to feel guilty about.

Katherine McPhee stars in The Lost Wife of Robert Durst as Kathie, the first wife of the scion of New York Real Estate moguls Robert Durst (Daniel Gillies – The Vampire Diaries and The Originals) of the New York City Dursts. Kathie met Robert, or Bobby, in 1971 when she took an apartment in a building Robert’s family owned and where he collected the monthly rent in person. The two literally bumped into each other in the hall and were soon inseparable.

What appealed to Kathie about Robert is anyone’s guess. Robert is twitchy, sweaty, and awkward in a way that isn’t charming. He has a square jaw, a full head of hair, and lots of money, but I won’t impugn the dead by saying the appeal was shallow. The film does nothing to make Robert Durst seem like a normal human being, so we really have no good answer to why someone as seemingly intelligent as Kathie is portrayed would be interested in such a weaselly dude.

The film cuts back and forth in time beginning with the fateful day in February of 1982 when an obviously distressed Durst reported his wife missing. We then cut back to Kathie moving into a nice apartment and getting settled before meeting Durst and seemingly hopping aboard the first available man; sorry to the memory of Kathie, but if the IRL Robert Durst is this off-putting, which, judging by The Jinx, he probably is, we have no Earthly idea what would cause Kathie to marry Robert.

Find my full length review in the Geeks Community on Vocal. 

Classic Movie Review Less Than Zero

Less Than Zero (1987) 

Directed by Marek Kanievska 

Written by Harley Peyton

Starring Andrew McCarthy, Jami Gertz, Robert Downey Jr. 

Release Date November 6th, 1987 

I am rather obsessed with the title Less than Zero. I can’t seem to figure out exactly what it signifies. I know that the title of the 1987 movie comes from the title of Elvis Costello’s debut single of the same title but neither the movie or the book by Bret Easton Ellis has anything to do with the song. The song isn’t even included in the movie or on its bestselling soundtrack record. Costello gives few contextual clues as to what he means when he says Less than Zero and thus the title remains mysterious and elusive. It exists in the realm of sounding ‘cool.’

Andrew McCarthy stars in Less than Zero as yet another of his young yuppie caricatures. Clay is a strait-laced Angelino who left the West Coast to get away from the meaninglessness of life in the pre-fab Cali suburbs. Clay is called back to Los Angeles, however, after his cheating girlfriend Blair (Jamie Gertz) leaves a frantic phone message for him regarding his best friend Julian (Robert Downey Jr.). Clay is wary of the call as Blair had cheated on him with Julian just weeks after he’d left for his Ivy League college.

Returning to Los Angeles, Clay is immediately thrust back into the fake stares and fake friendships of Los Angeles drug culture. This is a place where everyone is your friend and no one is your friend depending on your proximity to the drug of choice, Cocaine. Clay is liked by everyone, but everyone is aware that his leaving for the East Coast was a good idea as his lack of a crippling drug dependency keeps him at a distance from his West Coast brethren.

When Clay finds Julian, he quickly uncovers that Julian, whose father had given him thousands of dollars to break into the record producer biz, blew all of his dad’s cash on his cocaine habit. Julian’s dealer, Rip (James Spader at his snake-y best), has extended Julian credit to buy drugs but is now looking at ways to collect his debt that go beyond the money Julian no longer has. As Clay gets sucked into Julian’s downward spiral, he is able to resist the drugs but not his empathy for his childhood friend, a weakness that proves nearly as destructive as the drugs.

Find my full length review in the Geeks Community on Vocal 

Movie Review Thor Ragnorak

Thor Ragnorak (2017) 

Directed by Taika Waititi 

Written by Eric Pearson, Craig Kyle, Christopher L. Yost 

Starring Chris Hemsworth, Tom Hiddleston, Cate Blanchett, Idris Elba, Jeff Goldblum, Tessa Thompson, Karl Urban

Release Date November 3rd, 2017 

Thor: Ragnorak is a heck of a lot of fun. Director Taika Waititi is the first director to fully tap the potential of the Thor character and star Chris Hemsworth. Though we’re aware from The Avengers’ movies that Hemsworth is a real talent, he’s not had a solo, leading man effort that has lived up to the outings of Robert Downey Jr. as Iron Man or Chris Evans as Captain America. Even Tom Holland had schooled Hemsworth by making his Spiderman: Homecoming this past summer one of the best reviewed and well-loved movies in the Marvel canon.

Thor: Ragnorak picks up with our hero having still not returned to Asgard, nursing a fear that his presence may be what leads to Ragnorak, the Asgardian apocalypse. The visions that plagued Thor in Avengers: Age of Ultron have kept him moving about the universe in search what may be the source of his paranoid visions of the end of his world. The opening scene, however, has left him still unsatisfied but with only one alternative, finally returning to Asgard.

We already know what is waiting for Thor on Asgard as we recall Loki (Tom Hiddleston) had usurped his father, Odin (Anthony Hopkins), and taken on his likeness in order to rule Asgard. When Thor returns, Loki’s ruse is quickly uncovered and the search for Odin is on. What the brothers find however, is their father in the last moments of his life. Odin is dying and nothing can stop that. Worse yet, his death means the return of Hela (Cate Blanchett), The Goddess of Death.

Odin’s life force is all that has kept Hela at bay for centuries but without him she will return and Thor and Loki will not be able to stop her. There are a few major secrets that come to light with Hela but I won’t spoil them here, the secrets don’t matter all that much but they’re still secrets and this is intended as a spoiler-free review. Thor and Loki are quickly defeated in their first encounter with Hela leading them both to land on a strange scavenger planet where Loki charms the planet’s ruler, played by Jeff Goldblum, while Thor is turned into a gladiator and forced to battle an old friend who's been on the planet for some time and doesn’t immediately recognize his old friend.

Find my full lengh review in the Geeks Community on Vocal 

Movie Review Shortwave

Shortwave (2017) 

Directed by Ryan Gregory Phillips 

Written by Ryan Gregory Phillips 

Starring Juanita Ringeling, Tina Feliciano, Nina Senicar, Kelly Fitzgerald 

Release Date October 16th, 2024 

Shortwave is at once exceptionally ambitious and completely insane. The film about a shortwave radio engineer and his wife dealing with the consequence of his having invented shortwave technology that can speak to lifeforms not of this Earth has remarkable ambition but lacks the budget and ability to meet that ambition. Part arty, pretentious nonsense and part low budget sci-fi exploitation, Shortwave is, at the very least unique.

The film begins with quite a good tracking shot as Isabel (Juanita Ringeling) leads her daughter into a bookstore and sits her down in a group of kids listening to a storyteller. Isabel then attends to the ladies’ room but when she comes out, all of the children, and the storyteller, are gone. Cut to some unspecified time later, a guilt-ridden Isabel barely registers emotions as she and her loving husband Josh (Cristobal Tapia Montt) move into a secluded new home.

Josh is an engineer working for a tech company that hopes to use shortwave radios to communicate with beings from another planet. The house belongs to the company and may or may not contain the secrets they’ve already discovered using Josh’s technology. As the couple settles slowly into their new home, Isabel begins to have strange visions related to the sounds on Josh’s radio, visions that she believes are clues to where she might find her daughter.

My description of the plot is much more direct than the film itself. Shortwave director Ryan Gregory Phillips wastes a great deal of screen time on arty pretentious nonsense. Shortwave is desperately padded by interminably long shots of Isabel posing in front of pretty outdoor backdrops. The blurry visuals at first seem like more arty pretentiousness until you see them in straight-ahead dialogue-based scenes and realize that the blurred edges may, in fact, be a shorthand to cover for the un-decorated portions of the set.

Find my full length review in the Futurism community on Vocal 

Movie Review Thank You For your Service

Thank You for Your Service (2017)

Directed by Jason Hall

Written by Jason Hall 

Starring Miles Teller, Haley Bennett, Joe Cole, Amy Schumer, Scott Haze 

Release Date October 15th, 2017 

Thank You for Your Service is a deeply respectful and respectable movie about veterans and PTSD. The film stars Miles Teller as Staff Sgt. Adam Schumann who is just returning from Iraq from a traumatic third tour of duty. Having been praised for his unique ability for locating roadside mines, Adam’s last experience in Iraq was seeing a friend shot in the head and him having dropped that friend as he carried him down the steps of a building under fire by terrorists

The guilt and shame are overwhelming and demonstrate one of the many ways that PTSD can manifest in a soldier. Adam’s two closest friends, Billy Waller (Joe Cole) and Tausolo ‘Solo’ Aieti (Beulah Koale) have their own kinds of PTSD. For Billy, the trauma is waiting back at home where his fiancée has cleared out their apartment and left without telling him. For Solo, he’s suffering from post-concussion syndrome, PTSD with a deep effect on his memory.

PTSD takes so many different forms that it is impossible to come up with one catchall treatment as we find out when Adam and Solo attempt to navigate the Veterans Affairs system and find themselves unable to find help that isn’t weeks or months away. The VA is swamped with PTSD patients whose traumas are manifested in numerous different ways. That there is no cure for PTSD. There’s barely even a proper diagnosis. It’s no wonder our vets are eager to go back to combat; it makes more sense than the bureaucracy waiting back at home.

Thank You For Service never shies away from portraying the hurt and trauma that comes from PTSD and the betrayal soldiers feel after making incredible sacrifices for their country only to spend weeks wrapped in red tape when they go for help. Suicidal ideation is one of many symptoms of PTSD and much of that may simply stem from the hopeless, helpless feeling engendered in waiting in endless VA lines only to buried in paperwork and delays in treatment.

Find my full length review in the Serve Community on Vocal 

Movie Review Suburbicon

Suburbicon (2017) 

Directed by George Clooney 

Written by Joel Coen, Ethan Coen, George Clooney

Starring Matt Damon, Julianne Moore, Noah Jupe, Oscar Isaac

Release Date October 27th, 2017 

Matt Damon stars in Suburbicon as Gardner, a man in debt to the mob and desiring to get rid of his wheelchair bound wife, Rose (Julianne Moore) so that he can be with Rose’s twin sister Margaret (Julianne Moore). Caught in the middle of Gardner’s scheme is his son, Nicky (Noah Jupe). When after Gardner’s wife is murdered, Nicky goes along to the police lineup, he spies his father intentionally failing to identify the killers. Here is where the façade of his father’s life comes tumbling down.

Meanwhile, in an entirely separate movie, a black family, the Mayer’s, has moved in next door to Gardner and his family. Suburbicon is set in the 1950s and so, naturally, the neighbors don’t take kindly to the sudden integration of their suburban enclave. While Gardner is plotting, and committing murders on one side of the fence, the rest of the neighborhood is busy trying to run the Mayers’ out of the neighborhood on the other side.

In some version of Suburbicon these two plots meet and make sense together. In this version of the movie however, the only connection between the plots is via editing them into what is only ostensibly the same movie. Somewhere, we can assume, these plots are meant to comment upon one another and make some deeper, metaphoric point but the whole final product that is Suburbicon is so muddled that it’s impossible to make out what that metaphoric meaning might be.

It's rare to watch a movie that has no tone or momentum. Suburbicon is a movie that just sort of happens in front of you. I watched the first hour of Suburbicon waiting for the movie to actually begin. I just assumed at some point that the movie would coalesce into some sort of identifiable narrative with identifiable characters and it just never happens. The film cuts between plots willy nilly and yet cannot find momentum even in chaotic dissonance.

Find my full length review in the Geeks Community on Vocal 

Movie Review Halloween Pussy Trap Kill Kill

Halloween Pussy Trap Kill Kill 

Directed by Jared Cohn

Written by Jared Cohn 

Starring Sara Malakul Lane, Richard Grieco, Dave Mustaine

Release Date October 27th, 2017 

How does a movie manage to be only 77 minutes long and still feel tedious? By ripping off the Saw franchise minus the wit and the skill? That’s certainly the case that is made by the new horror movie Halloween Pussy Trap Kill Kill which feels twice as long as it’s barely theatrical release run time. This dimwitted wannabe exploitation horror flick from former God-sploitation director Jared Cohn, director of the equally tedious God’s Club, wants to marry Saw to Herschel Gordon Lewis or Roger Corman but lacks even the skill to match those low budget heroes of the drive-in genre.

Halloween Pussy Trap Kill Kill is about an all-girl punk band called Kill Pussy Kill which is finishing one big gig and is headed to another down the road on Halloween night. Unfortunately, they catch the attention of a former Army Ranger (Dave Mustaine of Megadeth fame in voice only here) who decides that their days of smoking crack, sex in the back of the van debauchery is offensive to him and he’s going to teach them a lesson.

With the help of his buddy Dale (Richard Grieco), the Army Ranger, credited as The Mastermind, captures the band and locks them in a basement and proceeds to knock off as many clichés of the Saw franchise he can think of. The film employs Mustaine to provide gravel voiced warnings about ‘playing the game or else’ and lays out the nonsensical rules about how some of the band can escape if they are willing to kill other members of the band and blah blah blah; it’s like Saw if you only knew the premise of the franchise.

It’s funny, I can sense that the makers of the movie want me to give this movie a bad review. This is the kind of movie that wants to be able to tell you how much critics hate it. They want to offend a critic, that’s why they are making sure so many critics have access to the movie. The marketing campaign wants for critics to call the movie disgusting and talk about how exploitative it is so they can wear it like some unearned badge of honor. The title alone, Halloween Pussy Trap Kill Kill, tells you exactly what the filmmakers are after. 

Find my full length review in the Horror Community on Vocal 

Movie Review Same Kind of Different as Me

Same Kind of Different as Me (2017) 

Directed by Michael Carney 

Written by Ron Hall, Alexander Foard, Michael Carney 

Starring Renee Zellweger, Djimon Hounsou, Greg Kinnear, Jon Voight 

Release Date October 20th, 2017 

I have a genuine pity for the faith-based audience. Few audiences are as underserved as the faithful. And few audiences are as exploited as the faith based filmgoer. The people at Pure Flix have made their fortune exploiting this audience by serving them half-baked, poorly made movies that pander to their faith without serving it. Pure Flix has little interest in the quality of their work and exist solely to make a buck. Just look at the awful roster of Pure Flix movies and you will find it difficult to argue my point.

Same Kind of Different as Me is not much different than those other low quality offerings; it just had the decency to hire better actors. Renee Zellweger and Djimon Hounsou may be at the mercy of a low-quality script and production, but they are far too good at what they do to be dragged down by it. They are the reason that I can’t fully dislike Same Kind of Different as Me because when asked to deliver in big moments, their talent transcends the limitations of the Pure Flix machine.

Same Kind of Different as Me is told from the perspective of Ron Hall (Greg Kinnear), a Texas-based art dealer whose wife Deborah has recently passed away. Ron has arrived at a friend’s home to attempt to write a book about his wife but his voice-over in the film tells us he’s struggling. If, like me, you believe that voice-over is has become the bankrupt screenwriters worst crutch, get ready for a serious amount of torture in Same Kind of Different as Me which abuses this crutch.

As Ron tells the story, we flashback two years before Deborah passed away. Ron is being forced to come clean about being unfaithful and has been met by a challenge from Deborah. After she breaks off his relationship with his mistress, she forces Ron to pay penance by joining her at a mission where she serves food to the homeless. Here, Deborah is shocked to find Denver (Djimon Hounsou), a man she claims to have seen in a dream before having ever seen him in real-life.

Find my full length review in the Geeks Community on Vocal