Classic Movie Review Nights of Cabiria

Nights of Cabiria 

Directed by Federico Fellini 

Written by Federico Fellini, Ennio Flaiano, Tullio Pineal 

Starring Giulietta Masina, Francois Perier, Franca Marzi

Release Date September 13th, 1957

The classic on the latest edition of the Everyone’s a Critic Movie Review Podcast is Nights of Cabiria, Federico Fellini's lovely, episodic exploration of a very unique and poignant life. Set in Rome in 1957, the story follows a sex worker named Cabiria as she goes through several days of trials in her troubled life. Nights of Cabiria was recently remastered and re-released in theaters by Rialto Pictures. The film received a new translation and a remastering of that iconic Nino Rota soundtrack. 

When we think of suspense we don’t often think of Fellini and we certainly don’t think of a movie like Nights of Cabiria. Fellini’s reputation is that of an absurdist provocateur and artist following his odd muse to unique and revealing places. Nights of Cabiria meanwhile, feels breezy with an overarching sadness in our empathy for Guilietta Masina’s wonderful Cabiria, a sex worker who is the constant folly of fate.

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

Documentary Review Beanie Mania

Beanie Mania 

Directed by Yemisi Brookes

Written by Documentary 

Starring Colleen Ballinger, Lina Trivedi 

Release Date December 23rd, 2021 

YouTuber Jenny Nicholson, arguably that platform’s best personality, has been talking about doing a video on the Beanie Baby phenomenon for some time now. And that is, in all honesty, the only reason I subjected myself to the new HBO Max documentary Beanie Mania. I am really eager to see Jenny do a video on this unique subject and I thought having a little more background on the topic might enhance how much fun her video will be. That said, there are some fascinating elements to Beanie Mania in and of itself. 

Beanie Mania takes audiences back to the mid-1990s when a small-time toy company executive named Ty Warner struck out on his own and somehow struck gold with socks shaped like various animals and stuffed with plastic beans. It’s a complete mystery as to why this stuffed toy became a worldwide phenomenon and Beanie Mania doesn’t really offer much of an answer for why this product of all products became such a ludicrously over the top fad. A combination of good timing and clever marketing created a one of a kind phenomenon that has yet to be duplicated.

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

Movie Review The Tender Bar

The Tender Bar 

Directed by George Clooney 

Written by William Monahan, J.R Moehringer

Starring Ben Affleck, Tye Sheridan

Release Date January 7th, 2022 

George Clooney is the kind of director that actors love. As an actor himself he understands the way actors think and what actors enjoy doing. It’s easy to imagine Clooney encouraging his actors to follow their muse no matter where it takes them. That has unfortunately led to some deeply indulgent performances in Clooney directed movies. From Sam Rockwell’s entertaining but kitsch heavy performance in Confessions of a Dangerous Mind to Matt Damon’s downright weird performance in Suburbicon, Clooney shows himself to be a director willing to indulge his actors to good and not so good extremes. 

The latest actor allowed to indulge in extremes under the direction of George Clooney is Ben Affleck in the new Amazon Prime feature The Tender Bar. In this adaptation of JR Moehringer’s best selling memoir, Affleck plays Uncle Charlie to Tye Sheridan’s fictionalized version of the famed journalist and author. And boy can you tell this is directed by George Clooney. Affleck’s Charlie is a walking cliche of a New Yawk, Lawn Guy-land accent, all broad machismo and brainy posturing. As a fan of Affleck I can’t completely hate it, but even I have to recognize how a different director might have tried to reign in some of the broad aspects of Affleck’s otherwise scene stealing performance.

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

Movie Review The Tragedy of MacBeth

The Tragedy of MacBeth

Directed by Joel Coen 

Written by Joel Coen, William Shakespeare

Starring Denzel Washington, Frances McDormand, Alex Hassell

Release Date January 14th, 2022

The Tragedy of Macbeth suffers from our expectations. This newest take on the Shakespearean legend stars two of our finest and most respected actors, Denzel Washington and Frances McDormand, as Macbeth and Lady Macbeth respectively. The film is directed by one half of the most respected directing duo in film history, Joel Coen, working for the first time without his brother, Ethan Coen. To say that the expectations for The Tragedy of Macbeth were high would be a significant understatement. 

Macbeth is a story of the corrupting influences of power and greed. Macbeth (Washington) is a man who gains power through his merciless abilities at war. As we join the story, Macbeth and his best friend, Banquo (Bertie Carvel), are recently returned from war with their reputation for merciless violence preceding them. The heroism of Macbeth and Banquo is announced well before they’ve actually returned from the battlefield and they are credited with killing an enemy leader that may or may not yet be dead.

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

Movie Review American Siege

American Siege 

Directed by Edward Drake 

Written by Corey Large, Edward Drake

Starring Bruce Willis, Rob Gough, Anna Hindman

Release Date December 28th, 2021

American Siege kind of stars Bruce Willis as a lazy, slightly corrupt, County sheriff in some small corner of Georgia. Willis plays Ben, a character so lazily rendered that giving him a last name was too much effort. Reportedly, Willis shot every one of his scenes for American Siege in a single day and boy does it show. Willis acts as if he’s paid by the length of every word, slowly slurring every line. No, Willis isn’t drunk, this is the slur of a man uttering lines he’s reading off a cue card just out of frame and for the very first time. 

Watch Willis’s eyes in American Siege and you can play the 'which direction is the cue card guy' home game. A fun American Siege drinking game might be watching Willis’s eyes searching for the cue card at the start of his scenes. That’s certainly more fun than anything else in this latest late period Bruce Willis paycheck job. American Siege finds Willis at his laziest, hiring his friends and standing around while the action happens around him, seemingly refusing to shoot scenes with the rest of the main cast.

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

Movie Review See for Me

See for Me 

Directed by Randall Okita

Written by Adam Yorke, Tommy Gushue

Starring Skyler Davenport, Kim Coates, Jessica Parker Kennedy

Release Date January 7th, 2022,

See for Me stars newcomer Skyler Davenport, a long time voice actor making their debut as the lead in a feature film. Davenport plays Sophie, a former world class skier who lost their sight. Bitter about the loss of their ability to ski independently, Sophie has found a niche working as a house sitter. This niche has allowed Sophie to dabble in nihilism as they take advantage of wealthy clients by stealing something valuable that Sophie assumes the owners won’t miss and on the assumption that they’d be too ashamed to accuse the helpless blind person of stealing. 

Sophie’s latest gig is somewhere in upstate New York in what, from the outside, looks like a massive ski chalet/hotel. Instead, it’s merely a mansion owned by Debra (Laura Vandevoort). Debra has just finished a nasty divorce and is headed out of town for a few days. Debra has hired Sophie not to watch the house but rather her cat. It’s not an important detail, just one the movie insists upon more than once. Sophie immediately searches for something to steal, using her friend Cam (Keaton Kaplan) over Facetime to locate an expensive wine cellar.

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

Documentary Review American Gadfly

American Gadfly 

Directed by Skye Wallin

Written by Documentary 

Starring Mike Gravel

Release Date January 3rd, 2022 

American Gadfly is one of the most exciting and fun documentaries I have seen in some time. Most political documentaries are so dry that they make great kindling. That’s certainly not the case with American Gadfly which is colorful and engaging while also being intelligent, thoughtful and enlightening. If you don’t know who former United States Senator Mike Gravel was or you think he was just some crackpot who ran for President a couple of times, this documentary sets the record straight about a hero of Progressive Democratic politics and the generation he so unexpectedly enlivened. 

The Senator from Alaska from 1969 to 1981, Mike Gravel rose to fame in the early 1970s when, in the midst of the scandal building from the leak of The Pentagon Papers by government contractor Daniel Ellsberg, Gravel, with help from Noam Chomsky, read a version of The Pentagon Papers into the official record of the Senate using parliamentary procedure to cover the fact that he was releasing top secret information. It was a master stroke that allowed the media to hear what was in the Papers and cleared the legal hurdles that halted the Washington Post and New York Times from publishing the Papers.

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

Movie Review Rucker

Rucker 

Directed by Amy Hesketh

Written by Amy Hesketh, Aaron Drane 

Starring Bobby C. King, Cheyenna Lee, Corey Taylor

Release Date January 4th, 2022

Rucker is an ugly and stupid little movie about truck driving serial killer and a budding sociopath documentary filmmaker. The movie is a pointless and meandering splatter movie that wanders the highways and byways of the United States in search of an ever elusive point. The point is never found and what is in its place is a dimwitted, often deeply confusing movie that pretends to be a boundary pushing horror-comedy. 

Rucker (The Trucker) stars Bobby C King in the title role of truck driver Leif Rucker. Rucker is being filmed for a documentary and for a time the documentarian is off screen and unseen. Eventually however, Rucker draws the young female filmmaker, Maggie (Cheyenna Lee), in front of the camera and learns her in the ways of the trucker, the language, the lore and the lonely, lonely road. Soon enough however, the veneer of respectability falls away to reveal a deeply disturbed man and an equally disturbed young woman.

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

Movie Review King Car

King Car 

Directed by Renata Pinheiro

Written by Sergio Oliveira, Renata Pinheiro

Starring Luciano Pedro Jr., Clara Pinheiro 

Release Date January 7th, 2022 

King Car is a bizarre and fascinating movie. Set in modern day Brazil, the story follows a college student named Uno who, somehow, develops the ability to speak to cars. Uno, actor uncredited, was born in the back of one of his father’s taxis. This, apparently, fostered a bond between Uno and the car. That bond was broken for a time when the car saved Uno from being struck by this car driven by Uno’s mother who was distracted and didn’t know she was about to hit Uno. The car swerved itself to save Uno but was crushed in the effort and Uno’s mother was killed. 

Uno grew up hating cars and only ever riding a bike. He goes so far as to completely reject his father who expected Uno to take business classes and join the family taxi business. Instead, Uno goes to college and learns about Agriculture and Sustainability. Uno meets a young woman named Amora with whom he develops a romance. However, when Uno’s father suffers a heart attack, Uno is drawn back into the family business in very unexpected and strange ways.

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

Movie Review The 355

The 355 

Directed by Simon Kinberg 

Written by Theresa Rebeck, Simon Kinberg

Starring Jessica Chastain, Diane Kruger, Lupita Nyong'o 

Release Date January 7th, 2022 

The 355 stars Jessica Chastain as Mace, a contractor for the CIA. When Mace is betrayed during a mission to recover the ultimate, all in one, world ending MacGuffin, she goes out on her own and outside the law to find out who betrayed her. Joining Mace, eventually, on this mission is Marie Schmidt (Diane Kruger), a German operative with the same mission of getting the ultimate, all in one, world ending MacGuffin but claiming it for Germany and not letting it go to the United States intelligence apparatus. 

Also, eventually helping Mace is Khadija (Lupita Nyongo), a hacker turned MI6 Operative who specializes in technology. Finally, there is Graciela (Penelope Cruz), a member of the Colombian intelligence service though not as an agent. Graciela is a mental health counselor who is sent to Paris to bring back an agent who has gone rogue after acquiring the ultimate, all in one, world ending MacGuffin. Graciela winds up in the middle of all of the action surrounding the MacGuffin despite her lack of combat experience.

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

Movie Review Sex Appeal

Sex Appeal 

Directed by Talia Osteen

Written by Tate Hanyok

Starring Mika Abdalla, Jake Short, Fortune Feimster

Release Date January 14th, 2022 

I’m not quite sure what to make of the new Hulu teen comedy Sex Appeal. On the one hand, it’s good to see a sex positive movie with a good message about seeking safe, consensual, and pleasurable sex. On the other hand, the jokes and characters feel lifted from various other teen comedies and sitcoms. Director Talia Osteen has made both a sex positive teen comedy and a movie about as sexy the sex talk you might get from your cool aunt. 

Sex Appeal stars Mika Abdalla as Avery, a straight A student who prides herself on being good at everything she does. However, when her equally intellectually driven boyfriend proposes that they take their relationship to the next level, Avery is thrown for a loop. Since Avery is good at everything she feels the need to be good at sex as well. Meanwhile, Avery will be seeing this long distance boyfriend at an upcoming STEM competition, one where she’s been challenged to develop an app that solves a personal problem.

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

Movie Review The Legend of La Llorona

The Legend of La Llorona 

Directed by Patricia Harris Seeley

Written by Cameron Larson, Jose Prendes, Patricia Harris Seeley

Starring Danny Trejo, Autumn Reeser, Antonio Cupo 

Release Date January 11th, 2022

The Legend of La Llorona is a laugh riot. I busted a gut watching The Legend of La Llorona but, unfortunately, that’s not exactly what the makers of the film had in mind for an audience response. The latest iteration of the Mexican legend of the weeping woman who curses and steals children is not intended to be a comedy. The intention was to make a horror movie and the team behind The Legend of La Llorona failed this intention in spectacularly silly fashion. 

The Legend of La Llorona stars Autumn Reeser and Antonio Cupo as Carly and Andrew Candlewood, a couple vacationing in Mexico and trying to recover from the recent loss of a baby that died in childbirth. They are traveling to Mexico with their 9 year old son Daniel much to the dismay of their caretaker, Mama Veronica (Angelica Lara), who was not expecting them to bring a child with them. Children in this area of Mexico have been going missing for years and Mama Veronica is worried for the child while also concerned that the parents will think she’s crazy if she explains why she is so worried.

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

Movie Review The Pink Cloud

The Pink Cloud 

Directed by Iuli Gerbase

Written by Iuli Gerbase 

Starring Renata De Lelis, Eduardo Mendonca, Girley Paes 

Release Date January 29th, 2021 

The Pink Cloud was made before the pandemic hit in 2020. I have to mention this because as I lay out the description of the plot of The Pink Cloud you may find that fact hard to believe. The Pink Cloud posits a story in which a man and woman hooking up on a one night stand end up stuck together in the woman’s home when their home in Brazil is surrounded by a Pink Cloud that kills anyone it touches in a mere 10 seconds of exposure. 

The echoes of Shelter in Place at the start of the pandemic are undeniable and the claustrophobic memories of isolation and fear are palpable. And yet, The Pink Cloud came into existence before we could all relate to it on such a bone deep level. This fact only serves to underscore the hypnotic power of this Brazilian movie which went from science fiction to speculative fiction with no effort whatsoever on the part of the filmmakers.

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

Movie Review The Free Fall

The Free Fall 

Directed by Adam Stillwell

Written by Kent Harper

Starring Andrea Londo, Shawn Ashmore

Release Date January 14th, 2022 

Content warning, this review mentions suicide and discusses a character attempting to take their own life. If depictions of suicide are a trigger for you, please either read with caution or click away from this review. I don’t recommend the movie The Free Fall which is far from a sensitive depiction of suicide, among many, many other failing elements. 

The Free Fall stars Andrea Londo as Sara, a young woman deeply traumatized by witnessing her mother murdering her father. So traumatized by the event was Sara that she almost immediately went from the bedroom where the murder suicide occurred before her eyes to the bathroom where Sara slipped into a bath and attempted to take her own life by cutting her wrists. Sara is saved by the arrival of her husband Nick (Shawn Ashmore).

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

Movie Review Belle

Belle 

Directed by Mamoru Hosada

Written by Mamoru Hosada

Starring Kaho Nakamura, Ryo Narita, Shota Sometani

Release Date January 14th, 2022 

Belle left me a wreck by the time it was over. The movie about a young woman rediscovering her voice years after the death of her mother, hit me like a ton of bricks. Critics try to be as objective as possible but as someone who lost his mother 8 years ago, around the same timeframe that main character Suzu has suffered the death of her mother, my objectivity melted away in a sea of cathartic tears. Suzu’s journey does not resemble me in any other way and yet that shared grief is an unbreakable bond I have with this character. 

The main character of Belle is named Suzu. Suzu has been grieving the loss of her mother for nearly a decade and has retreated from life. Suzu gains a chance at a new life with the launch of a new fully interactive and physically immersive form of social media called U. U posits a technology that allows users to create a beautiful avatar and fully embody that avatar right down to physically being able to touch and feel things inside this virtual world.

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

Documentary Review A Cops and Robbers Story

A Cops and Robbers Story

Directed by Ilinca Calugareanu

Written by Documentary 

Starring Corey Pegues, Victoria N. Alcala

Release Date November 20th, 2020

When former New York Police Department Commander Corey Pegues went on the Combat Jack Podcast and opened up about his past as a gang member and drug dealer he created a firestorm. Amid such a frenzy it’s very easy for the truth to get lost in the hot takes, spin, and agendas of those eager to opine on controversial topics. That fact makes a documentary like A Cops and Robbers Story so valuable. This documentary lays bare the life of Corey Pegues in all of its complexity and controversy. 

Directed by Ilinca Calugareanu, A Cops and Robbers Story lays out the conflict of Corey Pegues in the opening moments. Pegues was a member of the NYPD and instructed officers regarding identifying known drug dealers and proper investigative technique. The bones of his presentation was a VHS tape and when he pressed play his heart nearly stopped. The video laid out the leadership of the famed New York street gang, The Supreme. In a talking head interview Pegues nervously recounts his reasonable concern that he himself might be listed in this chain of command.

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

Movie Review The Curse of La Patasola

The Curse of La Patasola 

Directed by A.J Jones

Written by A.J Jones, Shaun Mathis

Starring Patrick Walker, Luciana Faulhaber, Yvette Gonzalez-Nacer 

Release Date January 14th, 2022 

Some movies are just impossible to care about. They may have a scene or two that is pretty good or even a good idea or two in the storytelling and yet, they fail to engage your mind. The Curse of La Patasola is such a movie. Despite there being at least one legitimately good scene, the film from director A.J Jones never rises above mediocre to downright terrible. The low budget provides some excuses for the low rent nature but it can’t excuse the overall throwaway aspect of The Curse of La Patasola. 

The Curse of La Patasola stars Najah Bradley as Naomi, one of half of a pair of couples sharing a camping getaway. Both couples are struggling though they haven’t been talking about their problems. For Naomi, her boyfriend, James (Patrick R Walker), is too passive and doesn’t challenge her in the way she longs for. As for the other couple, Sarah and Daniel, played by Gillie Jones and director A.J Jones, they’re struggling with finances. Daniel has spent several years trying to get a business off the ground while Sarah has supported them both.

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

Movie Review The King's Daughter

The King's Daughter

Directed by Sean McNamara

Written by Perry Berman, James Schamus, Vonda N. McIntyre 

Starring Pierce Brosnan, Kaya Scodelario, William Hurt

Release Date January 21st, 2022

The King’s Daughter thrives on being the kind of movie Hollywood doesn’t seem to make anymore. It’s a family friendly, mid-budget, romantic adventure that earnestly evokes similar fare from the 80s and 90s. Blockbuster culture and the Marvel Movie Revolution had seemingly killed movies like The King’s Daughter but here we are. And, even more surprisingly, time has been kind to this genre. The King’s Daughter feels like a breath of fresh air at a time when the smog of blockbuster culture has held a chokehold on the big screen. 

The King’s Daughter stars the delightful Kaya Scoledario in the title role of The King’s Daughter, aka Mary Josephe, say it with a French accent so it doesn’t seem plain. Mary is a spirited child who believes she was an orphan because she grew up in a convent. Mary is unaware that when she was born her mother traveled to the convent to give birth in secret and unfortunately died in childbirth. Why did she decide to deliver in secret? Because the father was King Louis the 14th (Pierce Brosnan) and mom didn’t want him to know about the child if it wasn’t a male heir to the throne.

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

Movie Review Nocturna Side A/Side B

Nocturna Side A The Great Old Man's Night

Nocturna Side B Where Do Elephants Go to Die

Directed by Gonzalo Calzada

Written by Gonzalo Calzada

Starring Marina Artigas, Lautaro Delgado, Mora Dela Veccia

Release Date September 30th, 2021 

After watching Noctura Side A and Nocturna Side B, I sent a message to my Everyone’s a Critic Movie Review Podcast Co-Host, Bob Zerull, that indicated what I had watched and that I would have trouble sleeping that night. So haunting, engrossing, and agonizing is the Side A-Side B duo of Nocturna movies in their psychological horrors and soul aching sadness that I was unsure I was capable of sleep anymore. Nocturna Side A and Nocturna Side B are the kind of movies that etch themselves into your subconscious. 

Nocturna Side A subtitled The Great Old Man’s Night stars Pepe Soriano as Ulises, a 100 year old man living the last day of his life. It’s never stated for sure that this is the last day of Ulises life but, context clues, visual and aural, hint at the fact of Ulises approaching his final hours. A disembodied voice from an unseen television talks about dying elephants who develop the ability to see and communicate with dead ancestors as they themselves approach the final moments of life. How anyone would determine this about Elephants is unclear but it’s also not important.

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