Movie Review Kinds of Kindness

Kinds of Kindness (2024) 

Directed by Yorgos Lanthimos 

Written by Yorgos Lanthimos, Efthimis Filippou 

Starring Emma Stone, Jesse Plemons, Willem Dafoe, Margaret Qualley, Hong Chau

Release Date June 21st, 2024 

Published July 5th, 2024 

Kinds of Kindness is a confounding bit of absurdity. An anthology starring a recurring group of actors, led by Jesse Plemons and Emma Stone, Kinds of Kindness invites you to decide what it all means while presenting a series of seemingly non-sequitur bits of dark comedy, irony, and mild horror. All of the stories, in some way, involve a silent, stoic man known only as R.M.F whose death, attempted murder, and ambiguous fate occur as important aspects of each oddball story. 

I am trying to help myself understand just what Kinds of Kindness is all about so this review is filled with spoilers. I need to map this out if I am going to try to understand exactly what it is I saw in Kinds of Kindness. Did I like this movie? Do I have a theory of what it is about? Is the movie simply so absurd that it defies any kind of explanation? I hope that by providing a beginning to end description of these three stories something will emerge as a theme, idea, or theory. Here goes nothing.

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

Movie Review Longlegs

Longlegs (2024)

Directed by Osgood Perkins 

Written by Osgood Perkins 

Starring Maika Monroe, Nicolas Cage, Alicia Witt, Blair Underwood 

Release Date July 12th, 2024 

Published July 12th, 2024 

Longlegs stars Maika Monroe as FBI Agent Lee Harker. Relatively new to the FBI, one of Harker's first field experiences was seeing her partner murdered right in front of her. This came immediately after she had advised her partner that the man they were looking for, a dangerous serial murderer, was in a house she'd seemingly identified at random. Is she psychic? Is this a premonition? How did she manage to pick the one house out of a cookie cutter neighborhood, as the one where the killer was staying? 

Harker's premonition and her subsequent capture of the killer, brings Harker to the attention of FBI Boss, Carter, played by Blair Underwood. Carter is after an even more dangerous and unpredictable killer who has claimed the name Longlegs in his seemingly nonsensical letters to law enforcement. Longlegs has been tormenting the FBI since the late 1960's, annihilating entire families without even stepping foot inside the family home. The film is set in the early to mid-90s, for context.

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

Movie Review Forrest Gump

Forrest Gump (1994)

Directed by Robert Zemeckis 

Written by Eric Roth 

Starring Tom Hanks, Robin Wright, Gary Sinise, Sally Field 

Release Date July 6th, 1994 

Published July 12th, 1994 

I Hate Forrest Gump. I despise this movie. I cannot stand anything about Forrest Gump. I love Tom Hanks, I think he's deservedly one of our most beloved actors. He's incredibly talented. But this movie is the worst of his career. This basic bitch of a movie holds your hand and drags you to every empty emotion it is trying to evoke. Nostalgia porn is the most simplistic interpretation of Forrest Gump but it's so much worse than that. It's ugly, self-congratulatory Boomer nostalgia porn. 

Forrest Gump was born a little slow. He has an I.Q of 75. But his mama, played by Sally Field, refuses to let him be treated differently from the other kids. Mama Gump sleeps with a school principal to get Forrest into public school beginning a trend where everyone around Forrest Gump has to suffer to make his life possible. So, mama gets Forrest into school where he is bullied relentlessly.

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

Movie Review Manhunter

Manhunter (1986) 

Directed by Michael Mann

Written by Michael Mann

Starring William Peterson, Dennis Farina, Brian Cox, Kim Greist, Joan Allen 

Release Date August 15th, 1986 

Published July 16th, 2024 

The visual simplicity of the opening images of Michael Mann's Manhunter are sublime. We open on a flashlight falling upon a flight of stairs. It's pitch black other than the flashlight. This could be a home invader or an investigator at this point. Toys are strewn across the stairs in the haphazard way that young children carelessly like to play. The visual signs of life in a typical American home are all present. As the person with the flashlight climbs the stairs, it's light falling on more signifiers of life, we arrive at the top of the stairs. The flashlight pans into what appears to a be a child's room, seemingly empty. 

A few steps further and we arrive in a bedroom where we see our first evidence of people. A woman and a man are in bed and for a moment, it's not clear if they are alive or dead. The flashlight begins to hold steady on the woman who finally moves to signify that she's alive. The flashlight, now unmoving, continues to hold on the woman as it becomes clear that she's waking up. The fog of sleep still in her mind she finally begins to rise and just as she might be about to react to the sight of a stranger with a flashlight, we cut to the opening title of the film, Manhunter.

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

Movie Review Twisters

Twisters (2024) 

Directed by Lee Isaac Chung 

Written by Mark L. Smith 

Starring Glenn Powell, Daisy Edgar Jones, Anthony Ramos, Maura Tierney 

Release Date Friday, July 19th, 2024 

Published Friday July 19th, 2024 

“You don’t face your fears, you ride’em.” 

What does that mean? I’m being pedantic, I know, but this line clangs like a basketball on the rim bouncing errantly away from a score. It’s a bum note in a symphonic performance, like an out of tune instrument. How do you ride your fears without facing them? The context of the scene is Glenn Powell’s Tyler Owens explaining to Daisy Edgar Jones’ Kate that he gave up bull-riding to pursue meteorology. He had to face the bull first in order to ride it. You can’t get on a bull backwards. I’m being intentionally thick, I just hate this movie and that line specifically. 

Twisters stars Daisy Edgar Jones as Kate Carter. Kate was a grad student who, with the help of a team, had developed a way that she believed might be able to tame a tornado. Through the use of a super-polymer, she theorizes that you can suck the moisture out of a tornado, essentially strangling the tornado, rendering it less destructive. Her first test of this theory, unfortunately, goes horribly wrong. Three members of her team, including her boyfriend and her closest friend, are killed. Kate leaves the field and takes a desk job with the National Weather Service.

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

Movie Review Oddity

Oddity (2024) 

Directed by Damian Mc Carthy 

Written by Damian Mc Carthy 

Starring Gwilym Lee, Caroline Bracken 

Release Date July 19th, 2024 

Published July 19th, 2024 

Oddity stars Caroline Bracken as twin sisters, Dani and Darcy. We meet Dani first as she is cleaning up her gorgeous new home in the middle of an English countryside. Her sister, Darcy, believes the home is haunted and has Dani doing all sorts of things in an attempt to get information on the potential haunting. Indeed, there are some strange noises in the house but there is a far more sinister, real life threat coming for Dani. With her husband, Ted (Gwilym Lee), working nights, Dani is all alone in this house. 

Late one night, as Dani retrieves something from her car and heads back into the house, she’s nearly followed inside. A man knocks on the door and offers a terrifying warning: He saw someone sneak into the house while she wasn’t looking. He wants Dani to let him come inside and find the guy in order to keep her safe. The man has a crazed look in his eyes, he’s a stranger, and, since Dani’s husband works at a nearby mental hospital, she’s rightly concerned that he may be a loose mental patient.

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

Movie Review Dressed to Kill

Dressed to Kill (1980) 

Directed by Brian De Palma 

Written by Brian De Palma 

Starring Angie Dickinson, Michael Caine, Nancy Allen, Keith Gordon

Release Date July 25th, 1980 

Published July 23rd, 2024 

Right off the bat, we have to talk about transphobia. Spoiler alert for this more than 40 year old movie. See it for yourself and come back if you don’t want spoilers. I do think the movie is worth seeing even as it is fairly viewed as problematic by many in the LGBTQ community. I am not a trans person and I cannot speak to how trans people feel about Dressed to Killoutside of a few essays I’ve read about this specific topic. I am writing from the perspective of a trans ally. I have trans people in my family and thus I am sensitive to how our popular culture portrays transness. But I will not try to speak on behalf of any trans people, even those I know and love. 

Dressed to Kill features a killer, played by Michael Caine, who claims to be a woman trapped in a man’s body. The conceit, according to the screenplay by director Brian De Palma, is that this woman trapped in a man’s body is like a second personality who becomes defensive when the male presenting part of them presents a masculine attraction to a woman, played by Angie Dickinson. This defensiveness is expressed by the female personality emerging, presenting as female, stalking Dickinson’s Kate character, and brutally murdering her.

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

Movie Review Deadpool and Wolverine

Deadpool & Wolverine (2024) 

Directed by Shawn Levy

Written by Ryan Reynolds, Shawn Levy, Rhett Reese, Paul Wernick, Zeb Wells

Starring Hugh Jackman, Ryan Reynolds

Release Date July 26th, 2024 

Published July 24th, 2024 

Deadpool & Wolverine is a fourth wall shattering comic adventure in which Wade Wilson/Deadpool is suffering from an existential crisis. Sure, he’s been ported over to the Marvel Universe from the Fox-Marvel Universe, but now what? After visiting the Avengers campus and being told that he’s not the world saving type, Wade is floundering. For the time being, he’s settling into being a working stiff, selling cars alongside his buddy Peter (Rob Delaney), and being generally miserable. Wade’s lack of purpose in this new world has had a negative effect on his relationship with Vanessa (Morena Baccarin), to the point where he is back living with Blind Al (Leslie Uggams). 

Wade tries to put on a brave face but his struggle is quite obvious. Then, a purpose seems to present itself. The TVA shows up at Wade’s birthday party and kidnaps him. Taken to TVA HQ, he’s told that he’s being brought up to the superhero big leagues, they want him to help save the Marvel Universe. Unfortunately, that begins with destroying his universe and everyone in it. Matthew MacFadyen plays Mr. Paradox, who gives Wade the bad news, everyone he cares about is going to die while Deadpool moves toward immortality among The Avengers. Despite his tendency toward being an unhappy loner, Wade chooses to be a hero and try to save his universe from the TVA.

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

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.