Movie Review Trap

Trap (2024) 

Directed by M. Night Shyamalan 

Written by M. Night Shyamalan 

Starring Josh Hartnett, Saleka Shyamalan, Ariel Donaghue, Hayley Mills 

Release Date August 2nd, 2024 

Published August 2nd, 2024

Trap stars Josh Hartnett as Cooper, a firefighter who also happens to be a serial killer known as The Butcher. As we meet Cooper he is taking his daughter, Riley (Ariel Donaghue), to a concert. Riley is obsessed with a pop star known as Lady Raven (Saleka Shyamalan) and Cooper has secured floor seats for this unusual daytime concert. What Cooper doesn’t know is that this concert is just for him and Riley. Working with the pop star, Police have set a trap for The Butcher. The building is surrounded by cops and they are instructed to investigate any man at the concert that fits the serial killer profile created by Dr. Grant (Hayley Mills). 

Cooper cottons onto the con as he observes numerous men being pulled out of their seats by swarms of cops who appear to be everywhere. A friendly t-shirt seller then spills the beans to Cooper about the nature of the show and the plot truly kicks in. Cooper needs to find some way to avoid the cops, keep Riley from noticing that anything unusual is happening, and escape the building as quietly and secretly as possible. Thus, what should unfold is a thrilling game of cat and mouse where Cooper sneaks about outsmarting the cops and the thrill of the chase thrills us in the audience.

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

Classic Movie Review The Sixth Sense

The Sixth Sense (1999) 

Directed by M. Night Shyamalan 

Written by M. Night Shyamalan

Starring Bruce Willis, Haley Joel Osment, Toni Collette

Released August 6th, 1999 

Published August 7th, 2024 

Will the real M. Night Shyamalan please stand up? Truly, I cannot tell who M. Night Shyamalan really is. On one hand, he’s a brilliant auteur who masterfully manipulated audiences in The Sixth Sense. On the other hand, he’s also the director of several of the weirdest and worst movies that I have ever seen, Lady in the Water, The Happening, The Last Airbender,After Earth, and Glass. He’s also the wildly ambitious mind behind Knock at the Cabin and Old, two movies I don’t love but are, at the very least, wildly experimental in concept. 

Just when I think I understand that Shyamalan is a studio guy, a director who needs to be reigned in by a heavy handed producer and distributor, he goes off and makes Split, a bizarre but effective comic book villain origin story that I found to be utterly brilliant. That film was his first truly great movie since he left Disney subsidiary Buena Vista Pictures which had provided that heavy hand of the studio on Shyamalan’s three previous great films, The Sixth Sense, Unbreakable, and my personal favorite, Signs.

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

Movie Review Unbreakable

Unbreakable (2000) 

Directed by M. Night Shyamalan

Written by M. Night Shyamalan 

Starring Bruce Willis, Samuel L. Jackson, Robin Wright

Release Date November 22nd, 2000

Published July 19th, 2024

Unbreakable was M Night Shyamalan’s last moment as a seemingly unimpeachable genius of pop cinema. After this came Signs which received strong box office but the first real critical grumbles since his little seen debut feature, Wide Awake. Don’t misunderstand, Unbreakable had its critics, but with Shyamalan still in the glow of his multiple Academy Award nominations for The Sixth Sense, Unbreakable was always going to benefit from that film's coattails. 

That Unbreakable wasn’t Shyamalan falling on his face but instead delivering a second straight crowd-pleasing blockbuster is no minor feat. Many directors have shown themselves to be one and done, it-person directors in the past. To have back to back blockbuster critical darlings is far more rare than we imagine.

Find my full length review at Geeks.Media 

Movie Review Borderlands

Borderlands (2024) 

Directed by Eli Roth 

Written by Eli Roth, Joe Crombie

Starring Cate Blanchett, Kevin Hart, Ariana Greenblatt Jack Black, 

Release Date August 8th, 2024 

Published August 8th, 2024 

Borderlands is a bad movie in the least interesting way. Take, for instance, Trap, M. Night Shyamalan’s most recent film, as of this writing. I’m mildly obsessed with Trap. That is a film that is bad in a very interesting way. Trap is misbegotten. It’s a failure in every possible way but it's ambitious and unique while being objectively bad. Borderlands, on the other hand, is bad in ways that are indistinguishable from other movies. It’s boring, it’s derivative, and, despite an all-star cast and a video game playground, it lacks personality. 

Cate Blanchett stars in Borderlands as Lilith, an intergalactic bounty hunter who plays by her own rules. If I had a nickel for every time a movie had a character like Lilith, I’d have enough to open a savings account at a local bank that comfortably accrues interest over time. Borderlands is boring in the same way that local banking with a small amount of money is boring. Lilith isn’t a character, she’s a collection of traits that look good in a trailer. She’s got an odd haircut, she’s sexy because Cate Blanchett is objectively sexy, and she shoots first and asks questions later just like every other cliche badass sci-fi character. (Yawn).

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

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.