It Ends With Us

It Ends with Us (2024) 

Directed by Justin Baldoni 

Written by Justin Baldoni 

Starring Blake Lively, Justin Baldoni, Brandon Sklenar 

Release Date August 8th, 2024

Published August 8th, 2024 

It Ends with Us is the story of Lily Bloom, a flower shop owner in Boston with a tragic backstory. Lily grew up with an abusive father who has, as we join the story, recently passed away. His death has brought back a lot of the worst parts of Lily’s childhood. With that, Lily sets out on a new path. She’s moved to Boston, bought a storefront, and is intending to live her dream of growing and selling beautiful flowers. Naturally, she’s going to fall in love as without that, there is no movie to be called It Ends With Us. 

Enter Rye Kincaid, played by writer-director-and actor, Justin Baldoni. He’s a hunk of a man. Muscled up, soulful, he’s a doctor, and he has the kind of permanent five o’clock shadow that is some kind of genetic miracle for how it always looks the same. He must have been born with it. He’s also a walking red flag as he is introduced in the angriest possible way, kicking a chair on a rooftop so hard it flies like a football off of a tee. Lily happens to witness this childish outburst but this guy’s chin is so perfectly sculpted that she’s willing to overlook his needless violence.

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

Movie Review Alien Romulus

Alien Romulus 

Directed by Fede Alvarez 

Written by Fede Alvarez 

Starring Cailee Spaeny, David Jonsson, Archie Reneaux, Isabela Merced 

Release Date August 16th, 2024 

Published August, 2024 

The Alien franchise is just not for me. As a kid, I had the whole thing spoiled for me. First, I saw the Mel Brooks spoof Spaceballs before I ever saw Alien. That meant that the whole chest-burster scene was not nearly as interesting, surprising or effective. Then, there is the whole Ripley is a badass thing. I grew up being told that Sigourney Weaver’s Ellen Ripley is a legendary, badass, female action hero. That is simply not the case in the original Alien. That’s not a criticism of the actual character or Weaver’s performance, the cultural reputation of Ripley is not the fault of the movie. 

Ripley in the original Alien is a complicated character, a normal woman in an extraordinary situation. Ripley doesn’t morph into an alien fighting hardass until the 3rd act of Aliens, the Alien sequel. And that’s likely where the cultural perception of Ripley comes from. So, again, it’s not a flaw in the movie, it’s an accident of timing, I never got to see Alien or Aliens in the way so many fans got to see it. By the time I saw it, the franchise had penetrated the culture in such a fashion that I had effectively seen the movie without ever actually seeing it. I knew what a Xenomorph, a Chest-Buster, and a Face-hugger were before I knew who Ellen Ripley really was.

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

Movie Review Caligula The Ultimate Cut

Caligula: The Ultimate Cut (2023) 

Directed by Tinto Brass

Written by Gore Vidal 

Starring Malcolm McDowell, Peter O’Toole, Helen Mirren 

Release Date August 16th, 2024 

Published August 17th, 2024 

With the discovery of more than 90 hours of alternate takes and never before seen footage, a team of restoration artists, under the direction of Art Historian and filmmaker Thomas Negovan, have rediscovered, repaired and reinvented Tinto Brass and Gore Vidal’s original vision for the infamous 1980 film Caligula. Released in February of 1980 under the guiding hand of sleaze merchant Bob Guccione, Caligula was a disastrous exercise in excess and a bold and failing attempt by the proprietor of Penthouse Magazine to court mainstream respect. 

What Guccione got instead was a financial success akin to a car wreck you can’t look away from but you certainly never want to see again. Guccione made money on the Faustian bargain of Caligula but the respect he desperately craved was never forthcoming. Instead, director Tinto Brass, writer Gore Vidal and much of the respectable cast and crew of Caligula savaged the film and Guccione in the press for his vulgar attempt to fuse their good reputation with his desire to take pornography into the mainstream. I have no problem with pornography, but when it is put somewhere that it doesn't belong, it's more distracting and uncomfortable than it is titillating.

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

Movie Review The Crow

The Crow 

Directed by Rupert Sanders 

Written by Zach Baylin, William Schneider 

Starring Bill Skarsgard, FKA Twigs, Danny Huston 

Release Date August 23rd, 2024 

Published August 23rd, 2024 

What the hell just happened? I saw The Crow last night, as I write this, and the nausea induced by the movie has only begun to subside. Legitimately, I became nauseated by The Crow. Not because the movie is overly gross, I’ve recently watched Caligula, my stomach is damn near bulletproof. No, the queasiness induced by The Crow comes from my poor brain trying to piece together what the hell happened in this movie. The Crow is incomprehensible. The basic pieces are decipherable, but the details are so fragmented, it’s like trying to assemble a puzzle from the pieces from a dozen different puzzles, none of which has all of its pieces. 

On a base level, Bill Skarsgard is Eric. He falls in love with Shelly (FKA Twigs). They are both murdered, maybe? He comes back to life, perhaps(?). It may have something to do with Crows? I think. He enacts a violent revenge on people who may or may not be responsible for killing him and Shelly. I have to qualify these statements because the end of the film may or may not indicate that the whole thing was a dream or, perhaps, a Jacob’s Ladder scenario crafted by someone who may not know what a Jacob’s Ladder scenario is.

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

Movie Review Blink Twice

Blink Twice 

Directed by Zoe Kravitz 

Written by Zoe Kravitz, E.T Feigenbaum

Starring Naomie Ackie, Channing Tatum, Christian Slater, Adria Arjona 

Release Date August 23rd, 2024 

Published August 26th, 2024 

Blink Twice stars Naomie Ackie as Frida, a young waitress who dreams of escaping the lowest rung of the economic ladder. She longs for the lives that she sees on Instagram, specifically the one lived by tech billionaire Slater King, played by Channing Tatum. King is first glimpsed as Frida is doom scrolling through social media. He’s apologizing for some unknown scandal and has vowed to step down as CEO and enter therapy to become a better person. This is enough to keep Frida’s fantasy about Slater King alive.

Frida has actually met Slater before, the previous year, when she waited tables at his corporate party. She made an impression on him and she hopes that he will remember her at this year’s big corporate party. Whether he remembers her or not is mentioned in their meeting this time but it doesn’t matter, Slater is taken with Frida and decides on a whim to invite her and her best friend and fellow waitress, Jess (Alia Shawkat), to a party on his private island. The only rule is no phones. Other than that, everything goes on the debauched island paradise.

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

Movie Review Strange Darling

Strange Darling 

Directed by J.T Mollner 

Written by J.T Mollner 

Starring Kyle Gallner, Willa Fitzgerald, Ed Begley Jr., Barbara Hershey 

Release Date August 23rd, 2024

Published August 27th, 2024 

Strange Darling is a thriller about a couple hooking up at a seedy motel. Willa Fitzgerald stars as The Lady and Kyle Gallner is The Demon. That’s how they are introduced to us anyway. We will learn their names, maybe, they are probably lying to each other and by extension, to us. The story unfolds in 6 mixed up chapters starting in the middle and giving us chapters in a specific order intended to keep us guessing as to who is who and what they are up to. 

The film opens with a shocking chase scene. The Lady is bleeding and on the run from The Demon. He’s driving a truck that sounds like some kind of monster while she’s driving an aged 70s era Pinto that is just narrowly keeping her ahead of The Demon. After he shoots the back window out, the vehicle crashes and the chase moves to the woods with The Lady keeping just ahead of The Demon and his deadly shotgun.

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

Movie Review Afraid

Afraid 

Directed by Chris Weitz 

Written by Chris Weitz 

Starring John Cho, Katherine Waterston, Keith Carradine, Havana Rose Liu

Release Date August 30th, 2024 

Published August 30th, 2024 

I was dreading seeing the horror-thriller Afraid. We’ve seen this concept about a killer Smart Home before. The idea dates back to the 1970s, no joke, look up the 1977 movie Demon Seed. Also, to borrow from South Parkfor a moment, ‘Simpsons’ did it.’ There is an epic Treehouse of Horrorssegment called Ultrahouse 3000 that debuted in 2001. That was more of a 2001: A Space Odyssey riff but it covered many of the same ideas and did so while incorporating horror and comedy. 

So, yeah, Afraid didn’t feel fresh to me and the trailer did nothing to make me think it would be anything special. I felt as if I could have reviewed the movie without seeing it. Wow, was I mistaken. Afraid is terrific. The opening moments of Afraid are a grabber. The film takes images we’ve been seeing in our worst A.I nightmares and uses them as nightmare fuel. And that’s really at the heart of the movie, extrapolating a suspenseful horror scenario from what we currently know that A.I is capable of before expanding into the realm of A.I thought experiment, especially the kinds of things that real tech start-ups hope A.I will be capable of.

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

Movie Review Slingshot

Slingshot 

Directed by Mikael Hafstrom 

Written by R. Scott Adams, Nathan Parker 

Starring Casey Affleck, Laurence Fishburne, Emily Beecham, Tomer Capone

Release Date August 30th, 2024 

Published September 3rd, 2024 

Slingshot stars Casey Affleck as John, an astronaut who has earned the chance to travel to the farthest reaches of space. With his crewmates, Captain Franks (Laurence Fishburne), and Nash (Tomer Capone), he’s traveling to Titan. It’s a dangerous multi-year mission that includes a maneuver around a distant planet called ‘The Slingshot’ that will either send the crew to Titan or doom them to a slow, agonizing death in deep space. Needless to say, this is a mission that requires focus and mental fortitude. 

The crew will spend a long portion of this mission in hibernation. They will sleep their way to Titan under heavy sedation. Unfortunately, the sleep medications come with some potentially harsh side effects. One of those side effects is vivid hallucinations and John is certainly suffering from those. Before leaving for his mission, John met and fell in love with Zoe (Emily Beecham). The connection was so deep and intense that John might have considered giving up his mission to stay with her. Obviously that didn’t happen but it has led to him thinking that he sees Zoe on the ship and hears her voice in the halls.

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

Movie Review Beetlejuice Beetlejuice

Beetlejuice Beetlejuice (2024) 

Directed by Tim Burton 

Written by Alfred Gough, Miles Millar

Starring Jenna Ortega, Michael Keaton, Winona Ryder, Catherine O’Hara

Release Date September 6th, 2024

Published September 6th, 2024 

A better title for Beetlejuice Beetlejuice would be Beetlejuice 2: Fulfilling Our Contractual Obligations. Or, even better, Beetlejuice 2: HERE! Now, Stop Asking Us to Make a Sequel to Beetlejuice. This sequel to 1988’s beloved horror comedy classic has the stink of a script that’s been sitting in a box in someone's attic for 30 years. Once contracts were signed, screenwriter's Miles Millar and Alfred Gough simply blew the dust off of it, tacked on a character to be played by "insert popular young actress here;” and gave it to Tim ‘where’s my check’ Burton to halfheartedly turn it into a movie. 

My thesis statement on why Beetlejuice Beetlejuice feels like a movie made at gunpoint from a script barely revised in the past 30 years comes in the form of jokes referencing the Disco era TV show Soul Train and the use of the 1978 Donna Summer hit MacArthur Park in a key moment of the final act. These references might have played in a Beetlejuice sequel written and released in 1991 but in a sequel released in 2024, these relics of the 1970s are going to baffle modern audiences. It’s clear from these gags that no one in Beetlejuice Beetlejuice bothered to make the movie even remotely relevant to a modern audience. That simply would have been too much work.

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

Movie Review The Front Room

The Front Room (2024) 

Directed by Sam and Max Eggers 

Written by Sam and Max Eggers 

Starring Brandy Norwood, Kathryn Hunter, Andrew Burnap 

Release Date September 6th, 2024 

Published September 10th, 2024 

I have a strong stomach for movies containing gross stuff. I have experienced the body horror of David Cronenberg, the horrors of numerous legendary horror movies, and I’ve endured the sight of Jon Voight’s stupid face. The point is, I can take a lot after more than 24 years of watching and writing about movies and yet, The Front Room grossed me out. The Front Room turned my stomach. Body horror is one thing but Bodily Function horror is an altogether different kind of horror, and one that I am not a fan of. 

The Front Room stars Brandy Norwood as Belinda, a college professor who is more than 8 months pregnant. Belinda and her husband, Norman (Andrew Burnap), have bought a new home but the purchase has them struggling financially. That struggle becomes even more daunting when Belinda is pushed out of her teaching position by simply no longer being scheduled for classes. It’s at this point that Norman finds out that his distant father has passed away. The two weren’t close and Norman hints that there was emotional and physical abuse involved, much of it related to his stepmother, Solange (Kathryn Hunter).

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

Movie Review Speak No Evil

Speak No Evil (2024) 

Directed by James Watkins 

Written by James Watkins 

Starring James McAvoy, Mackenzie Davis, Scoot McNairy, Aisling Franciosi 

Release Date September 13th, 2024

Published September, 13th, 2024 

Speak No Evil stars Mackenzie Davis and Scoot McNairy as Ben and Louise Dalton, a couple vacationing in Italy with their young daughter, Agnes (Alix West Lefler). The trip is relatively mundane and going as planned until the family is befriended by another family headed up by Paddy (James McAvoy) and his wife, Ciara (Aisling Franciosi) and their son, Ant (Dan Hough). Ant has a condition that prevents him from being able to speak. The families spend the rest of their vacation together and things seem pleasant enough. 

After returning to their respective homes, the Dalton’s in London and Paddy’s family on a farm in the countryside, Ben and Louise are surprised with an invitation to spend a week in the country with their new friends. Struggling at home with Ben having lost his job and Louise battling the isolation of being in a new country with few friends and no other family around, the couple agree to accept the invitation. It’s a fateful decision as this trip is set to change everyone’s lives forever in ways they can’t begin to imagine.

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

Movie Review The Substance

The Substance (2024)

Directed by Coralie Fargeat 

Written by Coralie Fargeat 

Starring Demi Moore, Margaret Qualley, Dennis Quaid 

Release Date September 20th, 2024 

Published September 20th, 2024 

I love The Substance. I believe that The Substance is the best movie of 2024 so far and one of the best movies that I have ever seen. And yet, I am not sure how I feel about recommending that you see The Substance. This movie messed me up. I think that I am better for the experience but I also believe that I will be describing the experience of The Substance to my therapist so that I may fully recover from this experience. Does that sound like something that I can recommend to anyone? 

The Substance stars Demi Moore as Elisabeth Sparkle, a fitness guru of many years experience. Imagine Jane Fonda from the 80s, including her Academy Award winning acting career, and you have the basic template for Elisabeth Sparkle. Though she looks incredible, she's being pushed out of her fitness empire by a sleazy male executive, played by Dennis Quaid at his most ingeniously grotesque.

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