Movie Review Irreversible

Irreversible (2002) 

Directed Gaspar Noe 

Written by Gaspar Noe 

Starring Monica Bellucci, Vincent Cassell 

Release Date May 22nd, 2002 

Published February 7th, 2023. 

Irreversible begins with the end credits moving backwards and immediately sets you into the disorientation you are going to experience as the story unfolds backwards. It's not just the credits moving backwards, or the words of the credits being inverted, it's Gaspar Noe's camera which moves not in the sense of being a fly on the wall but rather like a fly that never stops moving, looping, flying here and there up and down and upside down. It's legitimately headache inducing. It's intended to be. 

This camera/fly will lead us back in time, back inside a nightclub called Rectum where a murder has just occurred. We've just seen to men removed from the club to an ambulance and accompanied by Police. We are about to learn why they are surrounded by cops as the two have them have just brutally beaten a man to death so violently that his head is basically gone. It's not just the camera though that is leaving us achy and disjointed, the soundtrack is a swirling vortex of sound rising and falling, loud and then quiet. It's a disquieting, swirling and painful hum. 

I will give the soundtrack credit, as hard as it is to listen to, it causes the kind of tense anxiety that our main character, Vincent Cassell's Marcus, is feeling as he shoves his way through this sex club searching for the man who sexually assaulted and nearly murders Marcus' girlfriend, Alex (Monica Bellucci). Marcus is rage personified and the red lighting of the club seems to match the red-hot intensity of his burning, violent anger. Noe peppers the scene with scenes of hardcore gay sex that is nearly as disturbing as the violence that the scene is building to. 

Sex and violence in the world of Gaspar Noe go hand in hand. A man who claims to know where Tenia, the man Marcus is looking for, can be found begs Marcus to Fist him in the ass, something that may in fact be pleasurable but carries with it a sense of something violent in the word fist, a part of the body far more often associated with punching, pounding or the breaking of facial bones. As the man points in the direction of someone who may be Tenia, more sexual violence is nearly enacted as Marcus finds himself in the position of being forcefully taken by this supposed Tenia. 

That's when the murder occurs. Pierre (Albert Dupontel), Marcus's friend, and a man who also once loved Alex, steps in to rescue his friend. He does so by bashing the supposed Tenia with a fire extinguisher. Here, again, Noe's camera is as much an accomplice to the action as it is capturing the image. The movement of Noe's camera as Pierre proceeds to finish the job of bashing in this man's skull is stomach churning, nearly as much the sick, twisted, gross mess that is the man's face as Pierre's assault increases in violence. 

What has led to this violence we will soon find. Again, Irreversible unfolds from the end to the beginning. We follow Marcus and Pierre through Marcus' single minded pursuit of Tenia, his intent is revenge and when we see what he is intending to avenge, we come to understand his feelings. Marcus' beloved, Alex (Monica Bellucci) is in a coma after having been sexually assaulted in a scene that has become infamous for its dedication to the true horror of rape. 

I am going to use the word rape because that visceral description is more truthful. Calling this sexual assault is far too sanitary for what happens to Alex. Alex is raped. This man, Tenia, who we find is not the man that we've just seen Marcus and Pierre beat to death, is a vile, rotten, bit of scum. We see him first assaulting another woman in this underground tunnel. When Alex objects, Tenia turns to her and enacts a scene of gut wrenching, horrific sexual violence. 

Whether you find this depiction of rape offensive or exploitative is purely subjective. I am not here to argue with you about that. If you are offended by this scene or find it to be exploitative of the crime of rape, I understand and respect your feelings. I can also identify with you in that, when I saw Irreversible following its controversial debut at the 2002 Cannes Film Festival, which made headlines for audiences walking out in droves during this scene, I also found the scene deeply offensive. I thought Gaspar Noe was a sick individual for committing such degradation to film. 

20 plus years later, I've grown up a bit. I'm less of a hothead, less prone to a hot take. Watching Irreversible today, I found the scene horrifying but understandably so. Noe wants you, the audience, to confront fully what happened to Alex. The scene is unflinching and Noe's unmoving, unblinking camera, fully static for the first time in the film, on the ground at the same level as Belluci's Alex, forces us to identify with Alex, to feel her horror. 

Noe has rightly pointed out that having the camera moving in this scene places you not in Alex's position but rather in the position of the man assaulting her. It changes the dynamic of the scene, it becomes more artificial and exploitative, as if the camera were searching for bits to show you that you could see if you were there looking around at what was happening. Holding the camera at floor level, keeping us fully in Alex's space, puts us fully at the mercy of the situation. 

Find my full length essay at Geeks.Media. 

Movie Review The Outwaters

The Outwaters (2023) 

Directed by Robbie Banfitch 

Written by Robbie Banfitch 

Starring Robbie Banfitch, Angela Basolis, Scott Schamell

Release Date February 9th, 2023 

Published February 8th, 2023 

An opening series of cards tell us that a group of young people went missing on August 8th, 2017. We know this date because that was the date that one of these young people made a terrifying 911 call. Five years later, footage from memory cards found with a digital camera is found and that's what constitutes the entirety of The Outwaters, a found footage horror movie written and directed by and starring, Robbie Banfitch. 

The Outwaters recalls shockers such as Cannibal Holocaust or Martyrs in its dedication to being stunning. It's truly a movie you cannot prepare yourself for. You think you are ready; you think you know how to handle grisly movies and then you watch The Outwaters and your faith in your experiences as a moviegoer are shaken. I'm someone who has watched and reviewed movies online and in podcast format for two decades. I've seen more than my share of shockers and The Outwaters still shook me. 

I really don't know where to go with this review. The plot of the film is superfluous, intentionally so. It's a hanger, it's a prompt, a motivation used to plant four characters where they need to be in order to enact unimaginable horrors upon them. That's not a criticism, that's just the reality of what The Outwaters is. I find this film dreadfully effective even as I fully understand that there will be many who look at this film and can make no sense of it and dismiss it as exploitation or violent trash. 

I understand where you are coming from if you come away from The Outwaters with that feeling. I was leaning that direction for much of the movie. I honestly couldn't make out much of the middle portion of the movie. There are flashes of light here and there, swaths of bright red blood spread across barren desert floor, and strange looking creates that crawl around the ground. That said, so much happens in the dark that I could not tell you if we are dealing with aliens, demons, or a drug crazed violent rampage. 

The found footage aspect is not one that you should spend time lingering on as it raises too many unanswered questions. One that will plague the more logical filmgoers is who exactly was taking the time to change the memory card in the camera as all of the violent chaos is unfolding. Then again, you could ask of any found footage movie why people would keep a camera rolling while a horror movie plot is unfolding in their real life. Look, you're going to have to just go with it. 

Find my full length review at Horror.Media 

Classic Movie Review Semi Tough

Semi Tough (1977) 

Directed by Michael Ritchie 

Written by Walter Bernstein, Ring Lardner 

Starring Burt Reynolds, Kris Kristofferson, Jill Clayburgh 

Release Date November 18th, 1977 

Published February 7th, 2023 

The classic on the latest edition of the Everyone's a Critic Movie Review Podcast was inspired by the release of the sort-of Football movie 80 for Brady. 1977's Semi Tough from director Michael Ritchie is also a sort-of Football movie. The film features football, it's about football players but Football is very much not what interest's director Michael Ritchie. Rather, Football is a vague vehicle to be used to create a colorful setting for three colorful characters. 

Semi Tough stars Burt Reynolds as Billy Clyde Puckett, a running back for the Miami Football team. It was 1977 and licensing actual football team names was not something that movie studios were particularly interested in doing. Billy Clyde is lucky to play alongside one of his two best friends, Wide Receiver Marvin 'Shake' Miller. Both Billy Clyde and Shake live with their other childhood best friend, Barbara Jane 'B.J' Bookman. She's also the daughter of the owner of the Miami Football team, played by Hollywood legend Robert 'The Music Man' Preston. 

The plot, what plot there is of it, kicks in when B.J begins to have romantic feelings for Shake. This upends the friendly dynamic of the trio as Billy Clyde grows more and more jealous of his two friends. All the while, Miami is winning their way through the playoffs and on to the Super Bowl. And the movie could truly not care less about the football aspect. As I mentioned, Football is the culture in which these characters exist and Semi Tough is far more of a character piece than anything remotely like a sports movie. 

The biggest element of Semi Tough is a lengthy riff on self-help movements. If you're under the age of 30 you likely aren't aware of this but, your parents and grandparents who came of age in the 1970s briefly became obsessed with kooky self-help movements. EST for instance, the EST Movement, was a seminar in which a former Encyclopedia salesman berated people for endless hours over several days until people had emotional breakthroughs. That those breakthroughs came through the sheer force of inertia from being trapped in a hotel conference room for days while a salesman called you names was something we're not supposed to call attention to. 

In Semi Tough, EST becomes BEAT, a very direct riff on EST, right down to Bert Convy's sleazy guru opening the meetings by calling his new students A##holes. From there, he tells them that if they have a problem, it's entirely their fault, they choose to have these problems and can choose not to have these problems. This nonsense apparently worked on Shakes who came out of his visit to BEAT a complete convert, a true believer. It does not work on B.J who finds the whole experience exhausting. This leads to a conflict between Shakes and B.J that may end their marriage plans. 

Find my full length review at Geeks.Media 

Spoiler Alert: Consecration's Unholy Ending

Consecration (2023)

Directed by Christopher Smith

Written by Christopher Smith 

Starring Jena Malone, Danny Huston, Janet Suzman 

Release Date February 10th, 2023 

Published February 6th, 2023 

Consecration follows the slowly cracking psyche of a woman who may or may not be the vessel of an ancient demon. Jena Malone stars as Grace, a boring eye doctor living a boring life in London. Grace's life and comfort is upended when she's told that her younger brother, a Priest, has died. Not only is he dead, he murdered another fellow Priest before taking his own life. The Nuns in the Scottish abbey where Grace's brother lived and work appear convinced that he was possessed by a demon who caused him to commit murder and take his own life. 

Naturally, Grace must investigate over the objection of Mother Superior (Janet Suzman) and the lead detective on the case, DCI Harris (Thoren Ferguson), but with the aid of a Vatican based Priest, Father Romero (Danny Huston), who is also seeking the truth about what happened. Or is he? That bit of snark is aimed at the fact that Consecration isn't a great movie. It's often a quite convoluted mess that at once frames the church as the villains and potentially the heroes. It's perhaps intended to have a twist but I am honestly unsure. 

With this spoiler alert article we will examine the characters and see if we can make sense of the odd ending of Consecration and maybe find where this failed film could have worked. From here on, spoilers for Consecration. I don't recommend the movie but you might prefer seeing it before having the characters and plot ruined. Thus, you've been warned. From here on out, spoilers for the characters and story of Consecration... 

Who is Grace? Jena Malone's Grace lives a comfortable if boring life as an eye doctor in London. Grace was an adopted child, alongside her brother, and grew up in a deeply traumatic broken home. Grace's father was crazed and abusive. Dad thought his daughter was some kind of demon and that stopping her from destroying the world started with him keeping her captive. This leads to him murdering Grace's mother before he's nearly killed himself while trying to kill Grace. 

In reality, Dad was right. Grace is, in fact, a demon in human form. She doesn't know it yet, but Grace is a powerful demon who travels through time to kill who needs to be killed to protect her secret and secure Grace's future for whatever evil scheme is supposed to play out. Grace's brother died when an older Priest figured out that killing Grace was the only way to stop the demon inside her and was endeavoring to kill Grace. Instead, the brother killed the Priest and to show the demon that she wasn't in charge, he killed himself. 

I think that's what happened. Again, Consecration is a deeply confused movie that seems to shift motivations while searching for the next creepy visual element. Grace figures out that she is the demon just as she's about to surrender to Father Romero who wants to entomb Grace and the demon under the newly consecrated church. Grace survives, murders several people, including Father Romero, and pretends to kill herself to throw off DCI Harris. In reality, she's an unstoppable evil demon who can survive anything and kill anyone she chooses. 

The film ends when Mother Superior stops sending minions to try and kill Grace and takes matters into her own hands. Showing up outside of Grace's office, Mother Superior pulls a gun on Grace only to then be struck and killed by a cab. Inside the cab is an angel bobblehead which is viewed just as Grace talks about having had a guardian angel since she was a kid. The Guardian Angel is Grace herself as a time traveling demon Nun who leads Mother Superior into the street to be hit by the cab. 

I think. Again, Consecration is highly convoluted, as you can sense from that description. I think Grace is a demon. I know we see Grace, in demon form, dressed as a Nun, traveling back in time to witness the murder of the Priest, witness her brother's death, she is responsible for saving herself from her father when he tries to murder her as a child. She's there to stab a Nun who tries to kill Grace. And, we see all of the strange, inexplicable and violent deaths that happen in front of Grace, that Grace herself commits the acts, invisibly. 

Find my full length Spoiler Alert at Horror.Media 

Classic Movie Review: Loaded Weapon 1

Loaded Weapon 1 (1993) 

Directed by Gene Quintano

Written by Gene Quintano, Don Holley 

Starring Emilio Estevez, Samuel L. Jackson, Kathy Ireland, Whoopi Goldberg 

Release Date February 5th, 1993

Published February 6th, 2023 

On the new Everyone's a Critic Movie Review Podcast Spinoff, Everyone's a Critic 1993, myself and my co-hosts, Amy K, and M.J, watch movies that were released 30 years ago that week. One movie per week and the month of January 1993 was truly awful. It was a miserable time for movies. Leprechaun was mildly entertaining but certainly not great. Body of Evidence was downright traumatizing in how sleazy it was, and Hexed, starring Arye Gross, is among the worst movies Hollywood has produced in the last 30 years. 

Thus far, the best movie we've watched is another of the worst of all time. Children of the Corn 2: The Final Sacrifice is one of the great hidden gems of the So-Bad-Its-Good pantheon. It's one of the best unintentionally funny movies I've ever had the pleasure of watching. But, the pleasure is tinged with it being a solely ironic appreciation. In the first month of the new podcast, we have not seen a single good movie. February changed things immediately. 

On the first weekend of February, 1993, Hollywood managed to finally release a good movie. National Lampoon's Loaded Weapon 1 stars Emilio Estevez and Samuel L. Jackson in a Naked Gun style spoof of the Lethal Weapon movies. This might sound like a tired idea but the reality is that Loaded Weapon 1 is a hidden gem, an oasis of genuinely funny comedy in a sea of terrible movies of the early 1990s. Before the Scary Movie franchise ruined parody movies seemingly for the rest of time, Loaded Weapon 1 stuck to the basics of the spoof genre and created a forgotten classic. 

The plot of Lethal Weapon 1 is brilliantly silly. William Shatner plays General Mortars, a former Army General turned drug kingpin. For reasons that are ingeniously silly, he needs a piece of micro-film to help him turn Cocaine into Girl Scout Cookies that he can distribute via a subsidiary of the Girl Scouts, headed up by Kathy Ireland as Miss Destiny Demeanor. Tim Curry co-stars as the General's right hand man and right away, from the introduction of Curry as Mr. Jigsaw, you get a sense of the wonderful silliness at play. 

A girl scout gets out of a van and begins skipping towards the door of a suburban home. Just before knocking, she stubs out a cigarette. The home is a safe house where an ex-cop, played by Whoopi Goldberg is hiding out. When she finally opens here series of comical front doors and locks, we see Curry dressed as a Girl Scout and speaking with a thick, Middle-European accent. Deadpan, Goldberg invites him in so she can buy cookies and ends up dead. The back and forth in this scene is wonderfully silly and sets a terrific tone for the rest of Loaded Weapon 1. 

From there we will unite our Riggs and Murtagh characters, Emilio Estevez as the haunted and suicidal detective with nothing to lose, Sgt. Jack Colt, and family man detective, on the day before his retirement, Sgt. Wes Luger. Luger also has a tragic backstory where he nearly killed his partner and has since been unable to shoot a gun without shaking uncontrollably, a bit that pays off multiple times in Loaded Weapon 1. Each gag is better than the last. 

Find my full length review at Geeks.Media 

Movie Review Consecration

Consecration (2023) 

Directed by Christopher Smith 

Written by Christopher Smith 

Starring Jena Malone, Danny Huston, Janet Suzman 

Release Date February 10th, 2023 

Published February 6th, 2023 

Consecration stars Jena Malone as Grace, a doctor living in America who is called to Scotland when her brother dies under unusual circumstances. Grace's brother, a Priest, is accused of having murdered another Priest before taking his own life. Naturally, Grace does not believe that her brother would have done such a thing or taken his own life. Thus, a mystery unfolds, who killed the Priest and who killed Grace's brother and portrayed it as a suicide? 

Aiding or perhaps hindering Grace's search for the truth is Father Romero (Danny Huston). Father Romero claims to be at the convent where Grace's brother was found to re-consecrate the place and bring it back to God. He claims that he can't do that as long as lies are being told about the death of Grace's brother. So, he offers to help Grace find the truth. Meanwhile, Mother Superior (Janet Suzman) lingers in the back of many scenes looking menacing and admitting that she may have tainted the evidence surrounding the murder and Grace's brother's death. 

Eventually we learn that members of the convent blame a demon for the death of both Priests. A Nun claims that a demon possessed Grace's brother, causing him to murder the other Priest and causing him to take his own life. Whether or not such a demon exists or if the death of Grace's brother was orchestrated by members of the convent is the mystery that drives Consecration as it proceeds through its horror movie story, one bubbling with religious imagery. 

The conclusion of Consecration is frustrating and deeply unsatisfying. The whole thing turns on a Deus Ex Machina that is broad to downright silly. Essentially, one of our characters turns out to be able to be anywhere at anytime and has been orchestrating everything we have seen since the start of the movie. We learn this when we are taken back in time via flashback that shows us everything that the rest of the movie was incapable of implying. 

Jena Malone usually makes better choices than this. Malone is wonderful at playing haunted characters with deep, dark, secrets and yet, Consecration makes her weepy and weak. It doesn't suit her. She ends the movie in a much different place than she began but it feels unearned. Malone is not the wilting flower type, she has a natural strength that she brings to most of her performances. Trying to tamp that down in Consecration via bad wig and weepy eyes simply doesn't work. 

Find my full length review at Horror.Media

Movie Review Linoleium

Linoleum (2023) 

Directed by Colin West 

Written by Colin West 

Starring Jim Gaffigan, Rhea Seahorn. Katelyn Nacon 

Release Date February 24th, 2023 

Published February 19th, 2023 

Linoleum stars Jim Gaffigan as Cameron, a scientist and star of a failing children's television show. Cameron dreams of being an astronaut and as we join the story, he's sending in an application to NASA. And then a corvette falls out of the sky. Inside the car is what looks like a younger, slightly better-looking version of Cameron. Later, he relates the story to his family, including his soon-to-be ex-wife, Erin (Rhea Seahorn), and his loving if capricious daughter, Nora (Katelyn Nacon). Cameron also has a son but I am not even sure he's in the credits for the film, he exists to be indifferent to his father and the story in motion around him. 

Cameron's basement man-cave is stocked with NASA memorabilia which we see as Cameron is sneaking off to sleep apart from his disapproving wife. The following day we learn that the man in the Corvette crash is a scientist and astronaut whose uncanny resemblance to Cameron is intended as a way of commenting on the shortcomings of his dreams. Where this similarly looking man has succeeded in all of Cameron's dreams, Cameron himself, is a failure. This notion culminates in this man, Kent Armstrong, taking Cameron's job as host of his children's show. 

Running parallel to this odd story about Cameron and his doppelganger is that of Cameron's daughter, Nora (Katelyn Nacon). Nora is awkward and acerbic, unpopular at school but not really caring for popularity. Nora then meets Marc (Gabriel Rus), a new kid in school who happens to be the son of Cameron's doppelganger. Nora and Marc slowly build a romantic connection despite Nora saying she's gay more than once early in the film. 

That sounds more problematic than it is as there is an explanation. That said, the explanation is bizarre and may leave some audience members deeply confused. The final act of Linoleum sees three parallel stories seemingly merge at different points in time. Characters begin to merge in terms of timelines and it all coalesces into a very interesting conclusion, though one that remains open to interpretation. I can understand audiences that are deeply put off by how Linoleum plays out. 

Find my full length review at Geeks.Media