Movie Review The Man from Rome

The Man from Rome (2023) 

Directed by Sergio Dow 

Written by Adrian Bol, Beth Bollinger, Gretchen Cowan 

Starring Richard Armitage, Amaia Salamanca, Paul Guilfoyle 

Release Date June 29th, 2023 

Published June 26th, 2023 

I knew I was in for an unintentional laugh riot in The Man from Rome when the first scene featured a hacking of the Vatican. Now, I am sure the Vatican probably does have a modern infrastructure with a secure network and so on. They may even have a database that they would prefer not to have being hacked. That said, the scene is framed like every movie hacking scene ever. It's as if The Vatican morphs into FBI headquarters and Ethan Hunt's computer guy in Mission Impossible were tip tapping away to get into the FBI database. As staged, it's just so silly to see Vatican security trying to battle a hacker. 

The hacker succeeds in getting through Vatican security via the power of movie level typing. What was the hacker doing? They were hacking the Pope's personal laptop. I love the idea of the Pope lying in bed late at night watching Netflix and he gets hacked. The film does show the Pope on his laptop in bed and the sight is wonderfully incongruous. Again, I'm sure The Pope is as modern as any other Boomer, but it doesn't stop the sight of him in bed with a laptop from breaking out into giggles at how it looks. 

The hacker has some information about a business deal and a haunted church in Seville, Spain that is killing people. The hacker believes that someone in the Vatican is helping the business deal to destroy the church go through and they don't trust that anyone would get this information to The Pope so they have to hack the Vatican. For his part, The Pope, played by Franco Nero, is easily convinced that something strange is afoot. He immediately assigns a top Vatican investigator to the case, Father Quart (Richard Armitage). 

In another example of how delightfully, unintentionally silly The Man from Rome is, Father Quart arrives in Seville and has a deeply awkward and stilted conversation with a local detective. The detective, in explaining to us just how good Father Quart is as an investigator, says "If you ever decide to turn in that collar for a badge and a gun, you know where to find me." In this universe, Vatican higher ups are just like cops. The cop movie tropes don't stop there as the rest of the movie plays out like a modern cop movie investigation with guns and murder attempts and duplicitous, corrupt businessmen. 

The Vatican being portrayed like a Police Precinct in an 80s cop movie is perhaps the most unexpected trend of 2023. The thriller, The Pope's Exorcist, starring Russell Crowe, had the same vibe, right down to Crowe's priest nearly being asked to turn in his holy water and collar over his above the law approach to exorcism. And, in a strange coincidence that could mean these movies exist in the same weird universe, The Pope in The Pope' Exorcist and in The Man from Rome are played by the same actor, Italian legend Franco Nero. 

Nero is the seen it all, I'm too old for this s### Pope of your cop movie dreams. He never gets the chance to demand that Richard Armitage turn in his badge and gun, but in The Pope's Exorcist, he does act as Russell Crowe's man in the chair, sending him vital information for his case exactly when he needs it. The Pope in The Man from Rome is mostly just there to kick things into gear and then take a back seat for the rest of the less than thrilling action. 

Find my full length review at Geeks.Media 

Horror in the 90s Tremors

Tremors (1990) 

Directed by Ron Underwood

Written by Ron Underwood, S.S Wilson 

Starring Kevin Bacon, Fred Ward, Michael Gross, Reba McEntire, Finn Carter

Release Date January 19th, 1990 

Box Office Gross $16.9 million 

Somehow, I had managed to convince myself that I didn't like the movie Tremors. I don't know where this opinion came from as I am not sure I had actually watched the movie until now. I have little memory of seeing it before seeing it for this project and quite enjoying it. Indeed, I really had a great time watching Tremors. Why I thought I had disliked it is a mystery to me. It's my own personal Mandela Effect, my mind was convinced that I had disliked the movie when reality was that I had not seen Tremors before. 

That's about as deep as I can be in a review of a movie with such shallow pleasures as Tremors. That might sound insulting, but it's not intended that way. Tremors is quite shallow but that's not a bad thing. Instead of going for anything of substance, Tremors is about shocks and thrills, a gross monster and plenty of gross jokes as well. The movie is intentionally dumb with dopey characters getting by on their wits and dumb luck as they battle one of the most inventive movie monsters in quite many years. 

Tremors stars Kevin Bacon and Fred Ward as Val and Earl, Nevada rednecks working every part time job in their tiny, tiny community. Indeed, Perfection, Nevada has all of 14 residents. That is until residents start to get sucked into the ground and eaten by giant, poop brown slugs with snakes for tongues. It takes a little while to get going but once Val and Earl find out about the giant monsters, the movie takes on a much faster pace and cleverly pays homage to drive-in monsters of the past. 

That's the true heart of Tremors, an old school monster movie. Elements of The Blob, The Killer Shrews, Night of the Lepus, Shriek of the Mutilated and so on. Tremors isn't as much of a blood and guts horror movie as those films, the kills are relatively tame by the standards of some of the great 60s drive-in movies, but the homage is still quite clear. In the heart of Tremors, this is a movie you half watch while making out in a car, in a field, with a tinny speaker in the window and a sea of fellow cars stuffed with friends. 

Find my full length review at Horror.Media 

 

Movie Review No Hard Feelings

No Hard Feelings (2023) 

Directed by Gene Stupnitsky

Written by Gene Stupnitsky 

Starring Jennifer Lawrence, Andrew Barth Feldman, Natalie Morales, Matthew Broderick 

Release Date June 23rd, 2023 

Published June 23rd, 2023 

No Hard Feelings is absolutely hysterical. Starring Jennifer Lawrence as a struggling Uber driver trying to save her home after losing her car to an asset seizure, the film takes raunchy comedy on a ride that never stops being hilariously funny. As Maddie Barker, Lawrence finds herself in danger of losing her home unless she can find a way to get a new car fast. That's when serendipity strikes. A bizarre post online offers hope in a very unexpected way. A rich family is offering an older but still good looking mid-sized Sedan for a strange but reasonable price. 

What makes it strange? The price is dating the family's teenage son, Percy (Andrew Barth Feldman). And by date, Percy's parents, Laird (Matthew Broderick) and Allison (Laura Benanti), mean having sex with him. Helicopter parents to the extreme. As Laird explains, he had an experience when he was Percy's age that changed his life, brought him out of his shell, and led him to become rich, successful, and now happily married. He hopes that his son having a similar experience, even if it is paid for, will have the same effect on him. 

If this premise is a problem for you, then this movie is not for you. No Hard Feelings is uncompromising in the opinion that there is absolutely nothing wrong with Maddie trading sex for a vehicle. She's a grown woman who is in charge of her body and her decisions and she has no problem doing what she needs to do to save her childhood home. We live in a deeply screwed up version of capitalism that leads to this type of situation, one in which the poor have to fight for the scraps of the very, very rich by any means necessary, but this movie isn't about that, at least not directly. 

Find my full length review at Geeks.Media 

Classic Movie Review Sleepless in Seattle

Sleepless in Seattle (2023) 

Directed by Nora Ephron 

Written by Nora Ephron, David S. Ward, Jeff Arch 

Starring Tom Hanks, Meg Ryan, Rita Wilson, Victor Garber, Rosie O'Donnell, Bill Pullman 

Release Date June 25th, 1993

Published June 26th, 2023 

Losing my mother in 2013 was the hardest thing that I have ever endured. My mom was awesome. She worked three retail jobs, 80 to 90 hours per week, when I was a kid, just to make sure that myself and my sister had food and a good home. All that time, she remained unsinkable in her spirit and love. She was a human teddy bear, soft and comforting. Her worst quality was that when someone she loved was suffering, she would make that suffering her own, as if she could take our pain away by making it her pain. I consider myself incredibly lucky to have had a mom who was so loving and empathetic. 

My mom fostered my love of movies. I have a distinct memory from my childhood of my mother swooning over Cary Grant. I'd make fun of her for her reaction to Cary Grant movies and she would lean into it by talking about how handsome and charming he was in effusive terms. I can recall the first time I saw my mom cry was the day she was supposed to go see Cary Grant's one man show in Davenport, Iowa. That show never happened as Grant died the night before the show was to take place. My mom showed me that para-social relationships with celebrity weren't a bad thing, they were a human thing. 

The movie Sleepless in Seattle, which features prominent references to Cary Grant, became a favorite movie for my mom. She would watch it any chance she got. She didn't love Tom Hanks as she did Cary Grant, but her heart leapt seeing him fall for Meg Ryan at the last minute. She felt the same rush of emotion every time she watched the movie, even as she'd seen it a dozen times and was fully aware that the happy ending was coming. She always got teary when Meg Ryan took Tom Hanks' hand at the end of the movie. It showed me that being emotional about movies was not just okay, but something that just happens when you witness something beautiful. 

Sleepless in Seattle is a beautiful film. It's a celebration of magical romance and believing in something beyond yourself, the notion of fate. The characters of Sam Baldwin and Annie Reed were fated to be together. The universe conspires to unite them. Through the audacity and resolute stubbornness of Sam's son, Jonah, and the good luck that he has a best friend, played by Gaby Hoffman, whose parents are travel agents, Sam and Annie are brought dramatically together on the most romantic day of the year in one of the most romantic spots on the planet. 

Read my full length review at Geeks.Media 

Movie Review Asteroid City

Asteroid City (2023) 

Directed by Wes Anderson 

Written by Wes Anderson 

Starring Jason Schwartzman, Edward Norton, Scarlett Johansson, Tom Hanks, Steve Carell, Tilda Swinton, Willem Dafoe, Jeffrey Wright

Release Date June 23rd, 2023 

Published June 23rd, 2023 

I adore the work of writer-director Wes Anderson. As a film critic with more than 20 years of experience writing about movies, Anderson's work has an unusual appeal for me. I see so many movies that look the same, go for the same goals, demonstrate the same filmmaking technique, and though they can be quite good or not good, the sameness of most of what I see becomes monotonous. Then, along comes a Wes Anderson movie like an alien from another planet. Instead of striving to place his characters in a place we can recognize and identify with them in a typical fashion, Anderson's style creates a surreal reality all its own. 

In his first feature film, Bottle Rocket, the characters were colorful and odd amid a realistic landscape. Since then, The Royal Tenenbaums began a turn for Anderson that led to more and more of a surrealist perspective. Anderson is a fan of artifice, and he brings artifice forward in his cinematography and production design. In his newest, remarkably ingenious work, called Asteroid, the surrealist production design is intended to logically marry the stage and film. It's as if Wes Anderson wanted to adapt a play into a movie but wanted to bring both the play and the movie forward at once. It's an exceptionally silly, funny, brilliant move. 

Trying to describe the plot of Asteroid City is rather pointless. Wes Anderson isn't so much interested in his plot. Rather, it's a Wes Anderson style of comedy, a series of odd, awkward, and often various funny scenes that may or may not be moving forward a plot. On the surface, we are following photographer and family man, Augie Steenbeck (Jason Schwartzman), as he takes his kids across the country and their car breaks down in the oddball small town of Asteroid City. Luckily, they were on their way here anyway as Augie's oldest son, Woodrow (Jake Ryan), is to compete for a science scholarship. 

Asteroid City is the real star of Asteroid City. At the center of the town, which is made up of, perhaps four locations, is a giant crater where an asteroid landed in 3200 B.C. The town grew up around the asteroid as scientists and military men seek to understand the asteroid. Tilda Swinton is the top scientist and Jeffrey Wright is the military man. Things get crazy when an alien comes to Earth and takes the asteroid. The arrival of an alien causes the town, and all of its visitors, including Augie and his four kids, celebrity actress, Midge Campbell (Scarlett Johannson) and her genius daughter, Dina (Grace Edwards). 

Augie begins a tentative flirtation with Midge, their tiny cabins are right next door to each other, and Woodrow starts a budding relationship with Dinah as they work with their fellow genius kids, played by Sophia Lillis and Ethan Josh Lee to study the alien while also making sure the rest of the world knows that the alien exists, much to the chagrin of the military and their parents. The genius kids also work with Tilda Swinton's scientist to try and determine where the alien went and whether or not the alien is dangerous or not. 

Find my full length review at Geeks.Media 

Movie Review The Nut Job 2 Nutty By Nature

The Nut Job 2: Nutty By Nature (2017)

Directed by Cal Brunker

Written by Cal Brunker, Scott Bindley, Bob Barlen

Starring Will Arnett, Maya Rudolf, Jackie Chan, Katherine Heigl 

Release Date August 11th, 2017 

To call out The Nut Job 2: Nutty by Nature for creative bankruptcy would be as futile as calling out Congress for its corruption. Sure, both of those assessments are of equal accuracy but they are also empty facts of life that aren’t going to change simply because we point them out. So, what then do we make of The Nut Job 2: Nutty by Nature? Now that we’ve accepted the creative bankruptcy what is left for us to ponder?

The Nut Job 2: Nutty by Nature, picks up where 2014’s The Nut Job left off with Surly Squirrel (Will Arnett) and his woodland pals living the high life in their adopted home inside a nut shop. The gravy train of free nuts seems endless but Surly’s gal-pal Andie (Katherine Heigl) remains worried. Andie wants everyone to get out of the nut shop and go forage in the park just in case something ever happens to their gravy train. Her concerns are laughed off until something does happen and the nut shop explodes, thankfully with our characters on the outside.

Left homeless and without a food source, Surly leads his crew back into the park only to find that the town’s corrupt Mayor (Bobby Moynihan), who literally has the phrase EmBzzler as his license plate, is demolishing the park in favor of an amusement park filled with garish, overpriced and highly unsafe rides; because apparently demolishing the park isn’t enough, kids need to know that the Mayor is getting kickbacks for his unsafe choices. Hey, what kid doesn’t love plots about corrupt politicians?

Naturally, the animal pals look to Surly for a plan and he’s got a whopper, a literal war with the machines that are tearing up the park. This leads to an action scene in which the animals battle bulldozers and earth-movers and cause as much damage to the park as the bulldozers and earth-movers were doing without the aid of the animals attempting to destroy them. When our furry friends are thwarted in their efforts they must find a new home or find another way to fight back that doesn’t get them all killed.

In case the plot description didn’t grab you don’t worry because The Nut Job 2: Nutty by Nature has a brand-new character that is guaranteed to go right for your wallet. Jackie Chan provides the voice of Mr. Feng, a cute little mouse who was once a forest dweller but was driven to the city by the same corrupt Mayor now taking away Surly’s home. Mr. Feng’s schtick is that though he and his fellow mice are adorable they cannot stand being called cute and when they are called cute they react with violence.

Read my full length review at Geeks.Media 

Movie Review The Glass Castle

The Glass Castle (2017) 

Director Destin Daniel Cretton

Written by Destin Daniel Cretton, Andrew Lanham, Marti Noxon 

Starring Brie Larson, Woody Harrelson, Max Greenfield, Sarah Snook, Naomi Watts

Release Date August 11th, 2017 

When I was an up and coming young radio talk show host, I had the privilege of interviewing author Jeanette Walls about her remarkable memoir The Glass Castle. Normally, in prepping for an interview in talk radio, you don’t have time to read entire books, you’re forced to skim and pick and choose important portions to discuss in the brief time you have with your subject. In the case of The Glass Castle however, I was lucky enough to have a full weekend and in that weekend, I read the entire book because I simply could not stop myself.

The adage has it that you should never meet your heroes because they never live up to your idealized version of them. Jeanette Walls defied that adage in every way in my brief interview. Just as in her book she was charming, erudite, earthy, and fascinating. She had the kind of wit that comes from combining the mountains of West Virginia with the privilege of Park Avenue. In short, she was as delightful in voice, it was a phone interview, as she was in written form.

Given how harrowing that written form was, the human result is that much more remarkable. It is this version of Jeanette Walls that I took with me into the film adaptation of her remarkable memoir The Glass Castle. The film version stars Academy Award Winner Brie Larson and thank heaven for her, she resembled the Jeanette Walls of my brief but exciting memory.

The Glass Castle stars Larson as Jeanette Walls in 1989 when her career as a gossip columnist for New York Magazine has brought her the kind of fame and security she could never have imagined while growing up in poverty on a West Virginia mountainside. This Jeanette Walls is perfectly coiffed, stylishly dressed, and on the arm of a handsome, nebbishy financial adviser, played by New Girl star Max Greenfield, giving her even more of the fiscal security she never knew as a girl.

We also meet that young, insecure version of Jeanette, played by a pair of young actresses, Chandler Head and Ella Anderson, whose brilliant but damaged father Rex (Woody Harrelson) and scatterbrained artist mother Rose Mary (Naomi Watts) shuttle her from one place to the next always outrunning some bill collector or agent of law enforcement. When she was very young, alongside her three siblings, these changes in scenery seemed like an adventure with her father as part ringmaster and part wizard. As Jeanette comes of age however, the magic begins to wear off and the stench of her father’s alcoholism and emotional abuse becomes unbearable.

Find my full length review at Geeks.Media