Movie Review Road House

Road House (2024) 

Directed Doug Liman 

Written by Charles Mondry, Anthony Bagarozzi 

Starring Jake Gyllenhaal, Conor MacGregor 

Release Date March 21st, 2024

Published March 25th, 2024

Imagine if someone tried to remake The Room without Tommy Wiseau. Imagine if they tried to take Wiseau's premise and treat it with seriousness and make it into a serious drama? Would it even still be The Room? No, the magic would be gone. It would be a boring soap opera. No, the magic of The Room is the unique alchemy that emerges from when Tommy Wiseau's outsized ambition crashes headlong into his complete lack of talent and a movie is forged in the fire of his self-delusion. You cannot remake that. You cannot recapture that kind of magic. 

Roadhouse is like The Room. The magic of Roadhouse comes from the unique alchemy of director Rowdy Herrington's love of sleazy bars with sticky, beer soaked floors, holes in the walls from errant fists, and from Patrick Swayze's unmatched ability to be bizarrely emotionally detached and fully physically present in every scene. His Zen bouncer is a miscalculation in theory but in practice, it is cheeseball comic gold. He's funny but only because he has no idea that he's funny. The joy of Roadhouse is in how deeply dedicated Swayze and everyone else is to this sleazy, cheeseball nonsense.

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

Movie Review Ghostbusters Frozen Empire

Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire (2024) 

Directed by Gil Kenan 

Written by Jason Reitman and Gil Kenan

Starring McKenna Grace, Finn Wolfhard, Dan Akroyd, Ernie Hudson, Carrie Coon, Paul Rudd, Bill Murray

Release Date March 22nd, 2024 

Published March 22nd, 2024 

Recently, I worked out my concerns over the trailer for Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire in an article that worried that there were too many stories, too many characters, and a generally overstuffed quality to the movie. My concerns were not entirely unfounded. Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire is stuffed to the gills with plot and characters. But, to the credit of director Gil Kenan and co-screenwriter Jason Reitman, do bring all of these characters together well enough. It's not a great movie, but Frozen Empire is better than my worst fears for it. Good enough that I can recommend it, with some minor reservations. 

Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire picks up the story of the Spengler Family, Egon's daughter, Callie (Carrie Coon) and her two kids, Trevor (Finn Wolfhard), the oldest, and Phoebe (McKenna Grace), the genius, as they take on ghosts in New York City. Oh, and Gary (Paul Rudd), is also there. They are the Ghostbusters and we join them as they are chasing what looks like a flying electric eel. Property damage and other such mayhem ensues and it leads to Phoebe getting kicked off the team, at least until she's 18.

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

Classic Movie Review The Paper

The Paper (1994) 

Directed by Ron Howard 

Written by David Koepp, Steven Koepp

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

Release Date March 18th, 1994 

Published April 3rd, 2024

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

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

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

Classic Movie Review Demons

Demons

Directed by Lamberto Bava

Written by Franco Ferrini, Lamberto Bava, Dario Argento, Dardano Sacchetti

Starring Urbano Barberini, Natasha Hovey

Release Date October 4th, 1985

Published March 26th, 1985 

Demons is a shockingly good and utterly silly horror movie from the great Italian tradition of badly dubbed horror movies. Directed by Lamberto Bava, with inspiration and script doctoring from Dario Argento, the film is a meta take on the passive consumption of horror movies and the insidious nature of our constant search for palliatives to keep us distracted from real life problems. It’s that and it’s a very silly movie where a guy on a motorcycle kills Zombie/Demons with a samurai sword. 

The premise in Demons centers on Cheryl (Natasha Hovey) , a college student who decides to blow off class so that she can go to a free movie screening. This comes after a bizarre scene where Cheryl is menaced in the subway by a man in a metal Phantom of the Opera mask. This man stalks and terrifies Cheryl for several minutes only to finally track her down and invite her to a free movie screening at a formerly closed theater called The Metrograph. Recovering quickly from this strange encounter, Cheryl takes two invitations and invites her best friend and classmate Hannah (Fiore Argento) to skip class and join her.

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

Documentary Review Thank You Very Much

Thank You Very Much 

Directed by Alex Braverman

Written by Alex Braverman 

Starring Andy Kaufman 

Release Date March 28th, 2025 

Published March 26th, 2025 

One thing people don’t think about a lot is how many decisions are made out of a sense of insecurity. We also don’t tend to consider how a decision made by someone feeling insecure affects the rest of the world or, indeed, a nebulous future that introduces new people to that decision and the ways it changed the world. The ripple effect of Andy Kaufman’s feelings of insecurity from his childhood into adulthood is massive. 

As a child, Andy Kaufman’s parents chose not to tell him that his beloved grandfather had died. Instead, they told their young, impressionable boy that he was traveling for work. This led Andy to stay in his room and stare out the window for endless hours, hoping that his grandpa would return home. The passage of time led to a deep sadness that could only be sated when Andy was performing, first performing for a fake audience in his bedroom and then, in front of neighborhood kids at birthday parties.

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

Classic Movie Review Wild at Heart

Wild at Heart 

Directed by David Lynch

Written by David Lynch

Starring Nicolas Cage, Laura Dern, Diane Ladd 

Release Date August 17th, 1990 

Published March, 24th, 2025 

What is Wild at Heart? What is it supposed to be? Few films defy explanation quite the way Wild at Heart does. The myriad references to The Wizard of Oz, Nicolas Cage’s Elvis voice juxtaposed against a repeated heavy metal motif, and the sex and violence to an extreme, all feel like disparate elements from different movies. How they have been combined in Wild at Heart feels a bit like someone cutting puzzle pieces to make them fit into a completely incorrect puzzle. And yet, it does feel strangely cohesive, married via David Lynch’s singular aesthetic that presses against the bounds of reality. 

Wild at Heart stars Nicolas Cage as Sailor, a criminal trying to go straight after falling for Lula (Laura Dern). Sailor’s attempt to straighten up and fly right is undermined by Lula’s scheming witch of a mother, Marietta (Diane Ladd), who tries to have Sailor killed only for Sailor to murder his assailant. Because he was defending himself and Lula, Sailor is only charged with manslaughter and, less than two years later, Sailor is leaving prison and he and Lula are picking up right where they left off. The two are running away together, breaking Sailor's parole and dreaming of life on the West Coast.

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

Movie Review Disney's Snow White

Disney’s Snow White 

Directed by Marc Webb

Written by Erin Cressida Wilson

Starring Rachel Zegler, Gal Gadot, Andrew Burnap 

Release Date March 21st, 2025 

Published March 21st, 2025 

Disney’s Snow White is exactly the movie we need at this moment. At a time when supposed leaders say things like ‘The fundamental weakness of Western Civilization is empathy,’ Disney’s Snow White takes a stand in favor of empathy. Indeed, the film boils down to a battle of good versus evil where a venal, greedy, oligarch is defeated by empathy, compassion, and courage. And not a single sword pierces flesh, no arrows fly, and no bodies pile up in the process. The triumph of good over evil is a victory of community over the selfishness of the few. 

Disney’s Snow White stars Rachel Zegler as Snow White, the princess of a kingdom run with benevolence, honesty and compassion by her parents, played by Hadley Fraser and Lorena Andrea. When the Queen dies, the King falls under the spell of a newcomer who comes to be known as The Evil Queen (Gal Gadot). When the King goes to war and does not return, The Evil Queen locks Snow White away while she steals the wealth of the kingdom, starving the people, and enslaving the farmer as guards under her magic spell.

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

Classic Movie Review Candyman Farewell to the Flesh

Candyman Farewell to the Flesh

Directed by Bill Condon

Written by Rand Ravich, Mark Krueger, Clive Barker 

Starring Tony Todd, Kelly Rowan, Timothy Carhart, Veronica Cartwright 

Release Date March 17th, 1995 

Published March 20th, 2025 

The journey to bring Candyman Farewell to the Flesh, the sequel to the hit horror movie, Candyman (1992), to the big screen is far more entertaining than the movie that was the result of that journey. Following the surprising success of Candyman, producers went to Candyman director Bernard Rose to start work on a sequel. Rose was not ready for this request. He had no idea what to do with a sequel as he believed he’d killed the title character at the end of the first film. Indeed, (Spoiler Alert) Tony Todd’s Candyman burns to death alongside Virginia Madsen’s Helen Lyle. So, not only is Candyman destroyed but his legend is passed to Helen who now appears if you say her name five times in front of a mirror. 

So, what to do with a sequel? Candyman is dead and Helen is the new Candyman. Rose had to scramble for an idea. He had a green-lighted movie, he needed to get a story fast to take advantage of this rare Hollywood sure thing. Thinking that since the first story had been based on a Clive Barker short story, Rose began searching through Barker’s catalogue of shorts for a new story to tell. Again, in Rose’s mind, the Candyman is dead. So now, for a sequel, he’s viewing it as an anthology under the umbrella title of Candyman.

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

Movie Review Black Bag

Black Bag 

Directed by Steven Soderbergh 

Written by David Koepp 

Starring Michael Fassbender, Cate Blanchett, Rege-Jean Page, Marisa Abela 

Release Date March 14th, 2025 

Published March 19th, 2025 

Black Bag stars Michael Fassbender and Cate Blanchett as George and Kathryn Woodhouse, married British spies. George, we are told, is a human lie detector, his job is reading people and weeding out their lies. George’s latest task is locating a traitor within the spy ranks. Someone is trying to steal a dangerous weapon to sell it to terrorists targeting Russia. After a brief meeting with a fellow spy in the field, George is given a list of names of potential traitors. George’s wife, Kathryn, is on the list. 

In order to suss out the traitor, George has invited the people on the list to come to his and Kathryn’s home for dinner. He is going to play a game with them that will reveal their deep dark secrets. The dinner guests include Freddie (Tom Burke), George’s friend and immediate subordinate, Clarissa (Marisa Abela), a computer expert who happens to be dating Freddie, Dr. Zoe Vaughan (Naomie Harris), a psychiatrist who is treating everyone except for George, currently, and Col. Stokes, a rising star in the agency who happens to be dating Dr. Vaughan.

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

Movie Review The Electric State

The Electric State 

Directed by Anthony and Joe Russo 

Written by Christopher Markus, Stephen McFeeley 

Starring Millie Bobby Brown, Chris Pratt, Ke Huy Quan 

Release Date March 14th, 2025 

Published March 18th, 2025 

The Electric State stars Millie Bobby Brown as Michelle, a human exposition machine. Michelle’s job is to give us reams of backstory before we can finally get to some passable action scenes. Thus we get an opening movie monologue where a too touchy pair of brother and sister, Brown and Woody Norman as Michelle’s little brother Chris, having a most unnatural conversation introducing their backstory. Chris is a genius who is headed to college at a very young age. He doesn’t want to go, fearing being away from his big sister. 

Naturally, this is setting up a story where they will be separated, something you know just because you’ve experienced stories being told before. Chris is subsequently kidnapped though Michelle is told that Chris and her father have died in a car wreck. Cut to an unspecified amount of time later, Michelle is somehow still a teenager, still in High School. The film does little to let us know how old she’s supposed to be but one scene she’s fretting over her little brother getting to college before her and after a time jump, she’s somehow still in High School.

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

Movie Review Opus

Opus 

Directed by Mark Anthony Green 

Written by Mark Anthony Green 

Starring Ayo Edebiri, John Malkovich, Juliette Lewis 

Release Date March 14th, 2025 

Published March 17th, 2025 

Opus is yet another in a growing sub genre of ‘Vibes’ movies. What is a ‘Vibes’ movie? It’s a film where atmosphere and oddity are as, or more, important than plot and character. A great example of a Vibes Movie is Mark Mylod’s 2022 film, The Menu. That film develops a menacing and confounding air, sending up thriller feels but preferring to keep the audience off balance more than terrified or breathless. Some also consider the work of Ari Aster in the genre of Vibes Movies. I get that, though I prefer to keep Aster in the horror genre, there is no denying the Vibes Movie feel of Beau is Afraid. 

Naturally, because our modern culture does not slow down, there are already critics who are talking about being tired of Vibes Movies, even as they haven’t been around all that long. But with many of these movies having been highly praised by critics, myself included, tropes in vibes movies are beginning to emerge and stagnate the sub genre, as always happens when a unique new way to approach a film story takes hold. Others have called this A24-Core, as A24 is the home to Ari Aster but Neon and other indie studios have been in the Vibes Movie Sub-Genre since it took hold in the later part of the previous decade.

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

Movie Review Novocaine

Novocaine 

Directed by Dan Berk, Robert Olson 

Written by Lars Jacobson 

Starring Jack Quaid, Amber Midthunder, Jacob Batalon, Ray Nicholson 

Release Date March 14th, 2025

Published March 14th, 2025 

Novocaine stars Jack Quaid as Nate Caine, aka Novocaine, a nickname given to him by childhood bullies. You see, Nate has a rare medical condition which causes him to not feel pain. When kids found out about his condition, they immediately wanted to test it and set about beating Nate up on a regular basis. All grown up, Nate takes great care not to get hurt. He is, of course, not afraid of pain but rather, if he were to get hurt, he would not know it. He could be bleeding out and he wouldn’t know it until he saw the blood. 

Nate works as an assistant manager at a bank where he has recently fallen in love with a newly hired bank teller, Sherry (Amber Midthunder). She doesn’t know he’s in love with her, but he very much is. When she asks him to lunch he trips all over himself before finally accepting. They flirt and chat and he opens up about his unique condition. The two end up spending the night together and it seems as if Jack’s dreams are coming true. That is until he gets to work the next day. While daydreaming about Sherry, bank robbers dressed as Santa Claus, yes, Novocaine is a Christmas movie, enter the bank and proceed to rob the place.

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

Documentary Review Kim's Video

Kim's Video (2024)

Directed by David Redmon, Ashley Sabin 

Written by David Redmon, Ashley Sabin 

Starring Yongman Kim, Cinema 

Release Date April 5th, 2024 

Published April 4th, 2024 

Kim's Video is a documentary turned heist thriller and an overall tribue to the love of movies. Directed by Ashley Sabin and David Redmon, Kim's Video is about an obsession and a director who perhaps shares a little too much about his unique way of seeing the world. David Redmon, acting as co-director and narrator, details his obsession in a fashion that could be off putting if it weren't directed in a most unique and noble direction. 

In the 1980s a video store opened in New York City, one that was like no other video store around. Yongman Kim owned a dry cleaning business in New York City where he happened to stock a few videos in the corner for rent. This was the beginning of the VHS boom and Kim found the videos were more popular and successful than the dry cleaning. From there, Kim collected the most eclectic and unique collections of videos imaginable.

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

Movie Review Sting

Sting (2024) 

Directed by Kiah Roache-Turner 

Written by Kiah Roache-Turner 

Starring Alyla Brown, Ryan Corr, Jermaine Fowler 

Release Date April 12th, 2024 

Published April 11th, 2024 

Sting promises a big nasty alien spider and it delivers a big, nasty, alien spider. If I could end this review here, I would. Sting is exactly what it promises to be. It's a monster movie in which an alien spider crash lands in a Brooklyn apartment building. It's captured and befriended in its infant form by Charlotte (Alyla Brown), a curious and dark-souled 12 year old aspiring artist. Charlotte goes by the name Fanggirl on social media and enjoys drawing herself as a super-heroine riding a giant spider. 

Thus how an alien spider, only we know that it is an alien, comes to be a pet named Sting. All that Charlotte knows that Sting looks cool and, when it is hungry, it whistles. If you don't know, that's not a typical trait of a Spider, especially one you find in an attic in Brooklyn. These unique qualities are intriguing but they grow dangerous as Charlotte starts feeding Sting other bugs and Sting starts to grow and fast.

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

Movie Review Hundreds of Beavers

Hundreds of Beavers (2024) 

Directed by Mike Cheslik 

Written by Mike Cheslik, Ryland Brickson Cole Tews 

Starring Ryland Brickson Cole Tews, Olivia Graves, Wes Tank

Release Date Streaming April 12th, 2024 

Published April 12th, 2024 

Hundreds of Beavers is among the funniest movies of 2024. It's a wildly inventive, entirely unique and utterly bizarre comedy and I loved every minute of it. The brain-child of Mike Cheslik and his star Ryland Brickson Cole Tews, the film mixes animation, furry costumes, and old west tropes to craft a live action Looney Tunes movie about an old west trapper and the wacky animals he traps and violently murders in the name of love. 

Jean Kayak (Ryland Brickson Cole Tews) was a successful tavern owner. He served apple based alcohol to mighty trappers, hunters, and burly, manly, manly, men. Then winter came and Kayak, now a stumbling drunkard, accidentally blows up his apple grove, home, and thanks to some interfering beavers, his gigantic barrels of alcohol. Waking up covered in snow, Jean suffers through the winter, unable to kill anything for food and being tormented by the elements and the animals.

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

Movie Review Abigail

Abigail (2024)

Directed by Matt Bettinelli-Olpin, Tyler Gillett

Written by Stephen Shields, Guy Busick 

Starring Melissa Barrera, Kathryn Newton, Dan Stevens, Kevin Durand, Alisha Weir 

Release Date April 19th, 2024 

Published April 20th, 2024 

Abigail 0pens on a heist. We meet a series of criminals as they are preparing to break into a home. Joey (Melissa Barrera) is picked up by Frank (Dan Stevens) and Peter (Kevin Durand), they wear all black and put on masks. In a different vehicle at a different location, Dean (Angus Cloud), is talking with Sammy (Kathryn Newton), who is hacking the security of the home where they just dropped off Rickles (Will Catlett) who has a rifle and positions himself on a nearby rooftop to watch the home that is about to be robbed. 

If you have not noticed the naming convention for these characters, it's The Rat Pack, Frank Sinatra's group of friends who ran Hollywood and Las Vegas in the 50s and 60s. These are the aliases chosen by the group's benefactor, Mr. Lambert (Giancarlo Esposito). But this is not an ordinary heist. You see, the target isn't money or a hard drive filled with crypto or ancient art worth millions of dollars on the black market. Rather, the loot in this heist is a little girl named Abigail (Alisha Weir). Abigail is the daughter of a very rich, very powerful man and the goal is to ransom the child for millions of dollars.

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

Movie Review Sasquatch Sunset

Sasquatch Summer (2024) 

Directed by Nathan Zellner, David Zellner 

Written by David Zellner 

Starring Jesse Eisenberg, Riley Keough, Nathan Zellner, Christophe Zajac-Denec 

Release Date April 19th, 2024 

Published April 20th, 2024 

Sasquatch Sunset isn't a movie. Let me explain. Technically, there are actors, it was filmed with cameras by a director with the aid of a film crew on a scouted location. All things that add up to making a movie. But that's just a technicality. The reality is that brothers Nathan and David Zellner have tricked a modest audience of indie movie lovers into paying money to watch them screw around in the forest. I can admire the audacity of making a movie as a prank on the audience but figuring out the joke doesn't make the movie any less of a pain to sit through. 

There is no plot in Sasquatch Sunset. The film has four actors dressed in Sasquatch suits. These are quite good suits, this was not a cheap prank, it's elaborate. It's also quite a good looking setting that is beautifully captured by cinematographer Mike Gioulakis. And yet, what you are watching, for all the skill on display, is an elaborate troll job. They've got your money, they have you in the theater and now you are sitting there watching actors in Sasquatch costumes grunt at each other in between times when they are scratching their privates and smelling their fingers, picking their noses and eating it, and waving their skinny genitals at each other.

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