Documentary Review Lost Angel The Genius of Judee Sill

Lost Angel The Genius of Judee Sill 

Directed  by Andy Brown and Brian Lindstrom 

Written by Documentary 

Starring Judy Sill, David Crosby, Linda Ronstadt. 

Judee Sill is one of the great lost legends of music history. Hers is a story of tragedy, overcoming tragedy and returning to tragedy. Is it a typical rock n'roll rise and fall? Certainly not. The new documentary, Lost Angel The Genius of Judee Sill proves that Judee Sill's rise and fall was anything but typical. It's an incredible story of a young woman who fell to drugs and sex work to support her habit. Who then fought her way through to become a beloved and respected writer and musician before tragedy brought her back to Earth. 

The opening moments of Lost Angel The Genius of Judee Sill find the band Fleet Foxes performing Sill's song, The Kiss, in a full stadium of enrapt fans. The lead singer, Robin Pecknold, tells the fans that the band are huge fans of Judee Sill and they can hear why as they perform the song beautifully. As they play we begin to edit toward Judee herself, alone at a piano performing the song, even more lovely and extraordinary. 

It's quite a start to a powerful story and helps to underline the legacy and influence that Judee has had among musicians. Judee Sill's immortality is secured by the way musicians found her, brought her songs forward, played them live and shared them with fans. She only had two records, and one unfinished EP, but her music is simply too lovely and thoughtful to be forgotten. The documentary captures this influence beautifully while continuing to tell a mostly linear story of Judee's life. 

At an early age she lost her loving father and her struggles with her mother and a likely abusive step-father, led to Judee leaving home at 16 where she got into crime. Judee actually made headlines in the mid 1960s as part of a band of teenage thieves. This criminal path led, eventually, to drugs, heroin specifically, and a near death experience. Judee became a sex worker in her late teens and her story could have ended as thousands of others had, had it not been for music. 

Judee Sill had an innate talent for poetry and latent ability to play a number of instruments. In a mostly unlikely development, given her skinny frame and thin fingers, Judee played stand up bass before taking up an acoustic guitar and the piano. She was a fast learner at writing music, starting with turning her poetry into lyrics. The people around her said however, that it was her ambition to be a star that truly drove Judee. 

The narrative developed though not openly discussed in the documentary, is one of a person who wanted to show the world. Judee Sill grew up feeling unloved and unappreciated and wanted the love, the adulation, and the validation that being a recording star could bring. And  her ambition helped her to find success with relative quickness. By 1970, not long after having survived drugs and sex work, Judee Sill was on stage at the famed Troubadour in Los Angeles. 

Soon after she was recording with The Turtles, J.D Souther, and Linda Ronstadt. There was a love triangle with Judee and Souther and Linda Ronstadt that is touched on briefly in the movie. More on that later. She landed a record deal with then rising star executive, David Geffen and joined his roster at Asylum Records that included Souther, Ronstadt, and Jackson Browne among its impressive lineup. Sadly, success on the charts was elusive even as critics and fellow artists adored Judee Sill. 

Find my full length review at Beat.Media 

Movie Review Megan is Missing

Megan is Missing (2011) 

Directed by Michael Goi 

Written by Michael Goi 

Starring Amber Perkins, Rachel Quinn, Dean Waite 

Release Date May 3rd, 2011 

Published January 23rd, 2023 

In 2020 the execrable horror movie, Megan is Missing became a viral sensation when people on Tik Tok began uploading reactions to the movie. The fame didn't last and the movie dropped back into a very deserved obscurity. So why am I talking about it now? It's one of the movies about missing people that we decided to revisit on the Everyone's a Critic Movie Review Podcast dedicated to movies about Missing people. The movie Missing is, obviously, the inspiration for this. I decided to add Megan is Missing to the show because I was already revolted by its virality in 2020, even without having watched it for myself. 

That's not fair of me though, right? I should see a film if I am going to claim to be revolted by it. So, now I can officially call Megan is Missing revolting. Written and directed by a criminal named Michael Goi, Megan is Missing is a poorly made found footage movie that has all the quality of a Tommy Wiseau directed snuff film. Part Eli Roth at his most woman-hating and part marketing pitch gone horribly wrong, Megan is Missing is an ugly, misogynistic, and deeply gross movie that reflects poorly on everyone involved in its creation. 

Megan is Missing stars Amber Perkins as unpopular High School girl, Amy Herman. Amy's life would be non-stop torment at school if she weren't friends with the most popular girl in school, Megan (Rachel Quinn). The two girls have been friends most of their lives despite their very different paths through life. Amy is portrayed as a goody two shoes that everyone hates for not drinking, smoking and sexing at all times like the rest of them. Megan, on the other hand, seems to find all the time in the world for bad decisions. 

Apparently, whenever Megan isn't with Amy, she's having sex, drinking and using drugs. Oh, and the two girls are supposedly 14 years old. So that's a fun detail. The plot kicks in, after an interminable amount of time spent watching adults try and figure out how the kids of the early 2000s talk, and failing, when Megan meets a man named Josh through an online chat. Josh claims to be kid from another nearby High School and that his webcam doesn't work, hence why Megan can't see him. The two begin a flirtation that ends when he invites Megan to meet him behind a local diner. She's never seen again. 

Heartbroken by the disappearance of her closest, only, friend, Amy begins talking to Josh in an attempt to find Megan. At first, he's trying to flirt with her before he becomes confrontational and then threatening. She cuts off contact but, while she's out recording her personal video diary, we see someone, we assume 'Josh,' stalking her. Then, Amy is taken and the final act of Megan is Missing is us watching a canonically 14 year old girl be tortured, sexually assaulted and murdered by suffocation after being buried alive. SPOILER ALERT. 

Megan is Missing doesn't have any discretion about its storytelling so it doesn't deserve my discretion in my plot description. Why did anyone think this was ever okay to put on film? Of course, sexual assault, rape, it's brutally violent and it can happen to anyone. We all know that, we don't need a horror movie to show us that even a seemingly average 14 year old girl can be the victim of a sex crime. Making a movie of this sex crime is just exploitation, nothing more. 

Megan is Missing is not a cautionary tale, it's a product intended to be sold. It's a product that includes the worst crimes imaginable as a marketing hook. Director, and I use that term loosely, he's not talented enough to be a real 'director, but it's what we have to work with her, Michael is a creepy pervert who hides behind the idea that he's done a service to society by showing us how young girls can be targeted online by strangers, assaulted and murdered. As if that's something that is unknown. 

Michael Goi acts if he's doing us a favor with Megan is Missing. The reality is, he's just some pervert whose put his particularly disturbing imagination on the big screen. Michael Goi isn't a director, he's a guy who shouldn't be allowed within 100 yards of a school. The sexual assault and murder of 14 year old girls is not the subject for your sick fantasies and financial gain Michael. Michael Goi and whatever studio backed this god-awful movie should be ashamed of themselves. 

The moment of Megan is Missing that went viral was a moment in the movie referred to as Photo #1. It's a photo of the kidnapped Megan in her underwear, her hands and head suspended in a board. On her head is a device that holds her eyes and mouth open. It's a shocking visual, there's no doubt about that, but why was it created? What does this add to your movie? If it's just for shock value then you have proved my point about how truly ugly and disturbed this movie is. 

Megan is Missing is the only feature film that Michael Goi has directed in his career and there is a good reason for that, it's terrible. It's not just morally indefensible as an exploitation of teen girls, it's just simply not well crafted. The acting is stilted and false, not merely for coming from amateur, non-actors but for coming from a director who doesn't appear to know how to properly direct actors. Much of the dialogue appears improvised, poorly, and shots appear composed haphazardly to evoke other, similar, found footage movies. 

The lasting memory of Megan is Missing is knowing that people dedicated time and effort to letting Michael Goi explore his ugly fetishes disguised as a feature film. That Goi has been a successful television director for many years might appear to defy my notion of him as a filmmaker but, realistically, television is a far more controlled environment than low budget filmmaking. Layers of people have to approve of something before it appears on a television project. Goi had only a handful of people to answer to on Megan is Missing and you can see the result. There's a reason he's no longer a feature filmmaker, Megan is Missing is a thesis statement on why he needs the oversight of a heavy handed television production. 

Movie Review The Devil Conspiracy

The Devil Conspiracy (2023) 

Directed by Nathan Frankowski 

Written by Ed Allen 

Starring Alice Orr-Ewing, Joe Doyle, Eveline Hall, Peter Mensah, Joe Anderson 

Release Date January 13th, 2023

Published January 12th, 2023 

What The Devil Conspiracy lacks in polish it makes up for in energy. This action movie that retreads the war between the Archangel Michael and the fallen angel, Lucifer, aka Satan, rarely slows down. The film is filled with energetic action and lively interplay over big incidents involving kidnapped women, genetic manipulation, and the return of Satan to the living world via the womb of an unwilling mother. It's... a lot. And not all of it is good. But, I didn't mind the lesser aspect of The Devil Conspiracy because the pace is so fast. 

The story opens on a skeptical young American student, Laura (Alice Orr-Ewing), who is studying biblical art in Italy. Laura doesn't believe in the bible and feels she has a more rational explanation of the biblical artwork she studies. So, in order to teach the young American a lesson, fate intercedes to make her the vessel for Satan to return to Earth. After being invited to see some legendary works of art at a famed museum by her friend, Father Marconi (Joe Doyle), Laura is kidnapped after seeing her friend murdered trying to save the legendary Shroud of Turin from being stolen. 

The murderous thieves are part of a cult centered on the science of genetics and Satan's return to Earth. The cult members believe that if they have the blood of Jesus Christ, like that supposedly found on the Shroud, they could clone Jesus and combine his DNA with that of Lucifer to give him the chance to rule on Earth. Standing in their way is the Archangel Michael, first glimpsed in a prologue by Peter Mensah, when he condemned Satan to hell centuries ago. 

Find my full length review at Geeks.Media linked here

Movie Review Plane

Plane (2023) 

Directed by Jean Francois Richet 

Written by Charles Cumming, J.P Davis 

Starring Gerard Butler, Mike Colter, Tony Goldwyn 

Release Date January 13th, 2023 

Published January 13th, 2023

Plane stars Gerard Butler as Brodie Torrance, a commercial pilot on a fateful plane flight. Brodie is piloting a flight from Malaysia to Tokyo with plans for himself to go on from there to Hawaii to meet his daughter. Of course, this is a movie, we know that meeting will not happen as planned. Nope, Brodie Torrance is in for a rough flight, one that begins with bad weather, his plane being struck by lightning, a narrowly avoided crash, and a kidnapping of his relatively small number of passengers plus crew members. 

After surviving his plane having lost its electronics and much of its fuel, Brodie Torrance has to navigate a jungle on an unknown island where criminals and mercenaries have taken up residence and use any foreign visitors as currency on a worldwide kidnapping market. Somehow, with no radio or cell service, Brodie must rescue his passengers and get them safely off of the island. He's joined by a former soldier and current arrestee for murder, Louis Gaspare (Mike Colter), who was being extradited for his alleged crime until the plane went down. Now, he's Brodie's only ally. 

Meanwhile, at the headquarters of the generically named airline, the CEO has called in a fixer. Tony Goldwyn lights up the movie Plane with a charismatic if rather rote performance as Scarsdale, a man who can make things happen for the right price. Scarsdale is the boss of a group of mercenaries for hire who work outside the law to fix P.R problems for major corporations around the globe. That might sound unethical but these guys are the true heroes of Plane as they swoop in to perform the rescue that Brodie and Louis get started. 

As for the baddies, they are a group of nameless, generic, terrorists, vaguely racist caricatures, living in squalor and using human beings as currency. They exist to shoot guns at the good guys and die unmourned deaths. That they perform this task well or not is not important, they are fodder for a Hollywood action movie and could just as easily be replaced by CGI aliens or robots and have the exact same impact on the story. 

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

Movie Review Skinamarink

Skinamarink (2023) 

Directed by Kyle Edward Ball 

Written by Kyle Edward Ball 

Starring Lucas Paul, Dali Rose 

Release Date January 13th, 2023 

Published ? 

Skinamarink is some kind of endurance test for the modern attention span. This buzzy Canadian horror film tests the patience of audiences via a series of stylish cuts, whispered dialogue, and intriguing ideas that go absolutely nowhere. I have a theory; I think Kyle Edward Ball is an excellent filmmaker who decided that he wanted to test audiences. Thus, he made a movie that is artfully crafted but intentionally nonsensical. Skinamarink is really a taunt and how you react to that taunt is how you react to Skinamarink. 

Providing a plot description for Skinamarink is... really not that hard. Two kids are trapped in their home and their parents are either not home or acting strange and actively staying hidden. Kevi n and Kaylee are four-year-old siblings who have awakened in the middle of the night. They can't find their parents and it appears, to them, that their home no longer has doors or windows through which they might escape. These very young children have some basic survival skills, they eat cereal and watch cartoons on TV and generally listen for whatever instruction an adult, be it their parents or some demonically possessed voice gives them. 

All the while, as Kevin and Kaylee pass the time, occasionally searching for mom or dad or investigating various intriguing noises, the camera cuts from one piece of architecture to another. The camera will sit static for a length of time, perhaps something moves in the frame, mostly you, the audience, simply search around the frame looking for something to happen and then nothing does happen. This is intentional, you assume, because it must be setting up for when something in the frame does finally happen, when something does finally move. 

This goes on for nearly 100 minutes. From time to time, you catch a snatch of dialogue. Early on, you hear the father, apparently on the phone, talking about how someone may have been injured and taken to the hospital. Was it mom? Was it another, unseen sibling? We will never know, and dad is never actually seen on screen, as far as I can remember. Mom is seen, briefly, I think. The movie plays with darkness in an interesting way as it mirrors the way the human mind tries to make sense of something it can only kind of see. 

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

Movie Review House Party

House Party (2023) 

Directed by Calmatic 

Written by Stephen Glover, Jamal Olori 

Starring Jacob Latimore, Tosin Cole, Lebron James 

Release Date January 13th, 2023 

Published January 16th, 2023 

House Party barely qualifies to be called a movie. This rough assemblage of logic free, brain free scenes are in frame, mostly but that's about the nicest thing I can say. Mostly, House party is a gloopy, sloppy, slippery pile of nostalgia and absurdity that might be called occasionally amusing if any of the amusing moments had anything to do with the movie and not the collective goodwill people like myself have for the original House Party, a loose, silly, fun flick with endless amounts of charm. 

The charm free remake meanwhile, stars Jacob Latimore as Kevin, a single father, struggling with money and needing a place for him and his daughter to live. Kevin's parents are selling their home and leaving town, and Kevin is about to be homeless. Needing a quick windfall, he's hopeful that a party he's promoting with his irresponsible best friend, Damon, pronounced DUH-mon. That qualifies as a joke in the world of House Party 2023, the way the name Damon can be pronounced in different ways. 

Naturally, the party is cancelled thanks to Damon's irresponsible behavior. The pair need a new venue for the party and fast. That's when they get a truly terrible idea. Kevin and Damon work for a cleaning company when they aren't promoting parties and the house they happen to be cleaning on this day is a pretty great house. It's a massive mansion with plenty of space. It also happens to be the home of NBA legend, MVP, and future Hall of Famer, Lebron James. 

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

Movie Review Back to the Wharf

Back to the Wharf (2023) 

Directed by Xialfeng Li 

Written by Xin Yu 

Starring Yu Zhang, Jia Song, Yanhui Wang 

Release Date January 17th, 2023 

Published January 10th, 2023 

Back to the Wharf is a noir crime thriller about the impact that one moment in life can have. It's about how a crime can reverberate through time with unimaginable impact. Directed by Xiaofeng Li, from a script by Xin Yu, Back to the Wharf is haunting, sad, and incredibly absorbing. It features performances by Yu Zhang, Jia Song, and Yanhui Wang that are absolutely superb. A first rate cast, tremendous writing and direction and an excellent story make Back to the Wharf a January release gem, a great way to start 2023. 

A teenage boys life is changed forever when he finds out that the college scholarship he thought he had secured is given to another student. Looking to confront that other student, who happens to be a close friend, our protagonist finds himself entering the wrong home. There, he is confronted by the homeowner who assumes he is there to commit a robbery. This leads to a fight wherein the homeowner ends up dead. Well, not right away, there is another part to this story that our protagonist isn't aware of, one that compounds the tragedy. 

In the immediate aftermath of the death, our protagonist, played as an adult by Yu Zhang, has fled his hometown, blown off college, and taken on the job of a laborer, far from home. When his mother dies, he must return home and confront the past, including his deeply distant father, now a powerful public official with deep ties to the criminal empire run by our protagonists former High School friend. The father has already moved on from his wife's death and has plans to retire and leave the country to escape the corruption he's become a party to. 

At his mother's funeral, the depth of differences between father and son are made plain. After our protagonist meets his father's new family, including not only a new wife but also a son, the father tells his eldest son "Your upbringing was a failure; I needed another son." That gut punch would be enough to level any man. Thus our protagonist looks to leave town as soon as possible. His plans hit a bump in the road when he meets a former High School classmate, played by Jia Song, who makes it her mission to keep him from leaving. 

The love story between our troubled protagonist and the girl who has loved him secretly since they were kids provides a big beating heart for this otherwise grim story. Jia Song is wonderful in Back to the Wharf. Her performance steals the entire movie for a time. Her performance is filled with surprises and her character's actions are rarely predictable. She is determined to turn our protagonists life around with the sheer force of her love and care and Song is brilliant at making that seem like a reasonable thing to do. 

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