Movie Review The Firm

The Firm (1993) 

Directed by Sydney Pollack 

Written by David Rabe, Robert Towne, David Rayfiel 

Starring Tom Cruise, Jeanne Tripplehorn, Gene Hackman, Hal Holbrook, Wilfred Brimley, Holly Hunter, David Straithairn, Ed Harris

Release Date June 30th, 1993 

Published July 10th, 2023 

John Grisham was a phenomenon in 1993. He owned the bestseller lists with the rapid fire releases of his easy, breezy legal thrillers. Each story bubbled with melodramatic twists and turns that you legitimately did not want to put down. For a time, Grisham's thrillers were met with the kind of frenzy that has only since been matched by the likes of Dan Brown, Stephanie Meyer, and She Who Shall Not Be Named. In 1993 alone two Grisham novels were adapted into blockbuster movies. 

While we have to wait until December for the joyous pleasure of The Pelican Brief, we first have The Firm, a potboiler of a legal drama surrounding the tumultuous tenure of a young lawyer and his job at a deeply corrupt law firm in Memphis, Tennessee. It's remarkable how easily Grisham's pulpy legalese translates to film without missing a beat. Grisham's style is remarkably detailed and yet wildly cinematic with easy to follow twists and turns that rarely get caught up in things that cannot be easily translated to another medium. It's no surprise that the author designed his thrillers with selling the movie rights in the back of his mind. 

The Firm takes on an extra dimension on the big screen as it is overseen by a masterful director. By this point, Sydney Pollack was winding down his legendary career but when he had good material he could be coaxed back behind the camera and we were lucky to have him class up the pulpy prose of Grisham, dressing it up with one of the most over-qualified casts in movie history. Seven cast-members either had or soon would have an Academy Award nomination, a true murderers row of performers brought to bear on what was already set to be a blockbuster courtesy of Grisham's own ludicrously large fanbase. 

Heading up this Yankee's circa 1932 lineup of performers, Tom Cruise stars in The Firm as Mitchell McDeere, a young lawyer fresh out of law school and highly in-demand. We watch early on as Mitch is courted everywhere from Los Angeles, to Boston, to Wall Street. Least likely among Mitch's many potential employers is a small firm out of Memphis, Tennessee. Bendini, Lambert, & Lock only has around forty lawyers on its roster, unlike the other firms which are teeming with associates. They only want Mitch among his prestigious graduating class and to say he's flattered is an understatement. 

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Movie Review Joyride

Joy Ride (2023) 

Directed by Adele Lim 

Written by Cherry Chevapravataldumrong, Terese Hsiao, Adel Lim

Starring Ashley Park, Sherry Cola, Stephanie Hsu, Sabrina Wu

Release Date July 7th, 2023 

Published July 11th, 2023 

There is a visual gag in Joy Ride that is one of the biggest laughs of 2023. It involves one of the most elaborate and unexpected tattoos ever brought to a film screen. I will not spoil it, but truly, any attempt to describe this gag does not do justice the visual designer who crafted this. I don't know if that was makeup or a CGI design of some sort, whatever it was, it's so funny that I laughed embarrassingly loudly. I laughed so hard that it hurt. My eyes popped open to such a degree that I was concerned. It's just that great of a visual gag. 

It's also a very raunchy, incredibly R-Rated gag and thus why you will have to see it for yourself when you see Joy Ride, a terrifically funny and very R-Rated road trip comedy. The film stars Ashley Park as Audrey, one of the boys, despite being very much a woman, at her boy's club of a law office. With her shot at a partnership on the line, Ashley agrees to travel to China to meet with a client and secure a deal. Not speaking Chinses however, Audrey is forced to bring along her childhood friend Lolo (Sherry Cola). 

Lolo is a loving and devoted friend but also a bit of a chaos demon. The two met as the only two Asian girls at their local park. Shy and reserved Audrey was there with her adopted, white parents who could not be more excited to welcome an Asian couple with an Asian daughter to their neighborhood. Lolo secures their friendship when she punches out a boy who uses a racial slur against Audrey. They've been best friends ever since, even as Audrey has gone on to professional success in the law and Lolo has lived in a guest house nearby while working on being an artist. 

Because of Lolo's inability to say no to her family, the two are being joined on the trip to China by Lolo's deeply odd and ambiguous Cousin, Deadeye (Sabrina Wu). Deadeye is the Zach Galifianakis of this Hangover style comedy, a breakout weirdo with her own movie happening in her head that we only catch glimpses of. The final member of the Joy Ride foursome is Audrey's friend from college, Kat (Stephanie Hsu), now a famous Chinese television actress known for her radiant innocence. Once you know that, you know how that joke is likely to payoff but you won't believe how it pays off. 

Click here for my full length review at Geeks.Media

Movie Review Insidious Chapter 3

Insidious Chapter 3 (2015) 

Directed by Leigh Whannell 

Written by Leigh Whannell 

Starring Lin Shaye, Leigh Whannell, Angus Sampson, Dermot Mulroney, Stefanie Scott 

Release Date June 15th, 2015 

Published July 10th, 2023 

Insidious Chapter 3 is a vastly underrated entry in this terrific horror franchise. All of the Insidious movies have been pretty good but Chapter 3, with Leigh Whannell writing and directing is a low key brilliant horror movie. Whannell is a thoughtful, thorough, and detailed director and he brings that fully to bear on the trim, ingenious scares of Insidious Chapter 3. Stepping out of the shadow of his friend and partner James Wan, Whannell had a lot to live up and Insidious Chapter 3 was proof that he could hang with the best in the genre. 

Insidious Chapter 3 is set several years prior the first Insidious film. The story finds our hero, Elise Rainer (Lin Shaye), a shell of the woman she was when we met her. It's the story of Elise finding herself again following the death of her husband and the threats made against her life by a demonic entity we will eventually come to know as 'The Black Bride." For now, however, Elise pads about in a housecoat and sleeps with her husband's cardigan in a scene so sad I can't stand thinking about it. Elise's stupor is interrupted by the arrival of young woman at her door. 

Quinn Brenner (Stefanie Scott) is desperate to speak with her late mother and she's been referred to Elise as someone who can communicate with the dead. Elise, at first, tries to turn the young woman away but soon relents. What she finds is that Quinn's forays into the world of the dead have communicated with someone, but it is most certainly not her mother. She warns Quinn not to continue contacting her mother but deep down, Elise knows that this vile entity is now attached to Quinn and she's in great danger. 

Insidious Chapter 3 also gives us the origin of Elise's connection to Specks (Leigh Whannell) and Tucker (Angus Sampson). The duo is a pair of ghost hunters who have yet to encounter any actual ghosts. They do however, have advanced equipment that could, potentially, help them find one. Specks and Tucker are called by Quinn's father, Sean Brenner (Dermot Mulroney), at the behest of his son, who saw them on YouTube. Quinn, at this point, has undergone several inexplicable events that have endangered her life so even her skeptical father has to admit, something is going on. 

That's when Elise returns, partners with Specks and Tucker, and the fight to save Quinn from The Further is on. Whannell's talent for pacing, clever ideas for scares, and atmosphere are on full display in Insidious Chapter 3. Whannell has a sense of wonder about his work that I really enjoy. He has a sort of awe for what his characters are doing which feels appropriate. Eventually, this will be a routine for them, but this is there first adventure together and their chemistry is immediately apparent. 

Find my full length review at Horror.Media 

Movie Review Son in Law (1993)

Son in Law (1993) 

Directed by Steve Rash 

Written by Fax Bahr, Adam Small, Shawn Schepps 

Starring Pauly Shore, Carla Gugino, Lane Smith, Tiffani Amber Thiessen 

Release Date July 2nd 1993 

Published July 11th, 2003 

I feel as if I need to apologize to my Everyone's a Critic 1993 co-host M.J. Being a member of Gen-Z, M.J once lived in a world where they were blissfully unaware of the existence of Pauly Shore. Our podcast has ruined that for them. M.J is now fully aware of the existence of the man once known as 'The Weezil,' and they are forever changed by this knowledge. I'm reminded of how I managed to go for over a year of the Baby Shark phenomenon without ever hearing the viral tune, only to have a co-worker destroy minus innocence and torment my mind via a shared office Alexa. 

For M.J, the Everyone's a Critic 1993 Podcast has included learning about a movie star with a confusingly large penis, they've seen not one but two terrible films starring the eminently forgettable actor, Arye Gross, and now, they know of the existence of Pauly Shore thanks to a screening of the movie Son in Law. If they weren't of legal, adult age, honestly, I might be risking arrest for having shown my young friend such horrors in just a mere six months of reflecting on the movies of 1993. 

Son in Law is a blisteringly terrible comedy in which the blindingly obnoxious Pauly Shore inflicts himself on everyone around him. Shore is a whirling dervish of a comic void that sucks in all of the good around him and then returns it all less beautiful, and entirely unfunny. With his irksome comic accent and bizarre language, Shore is what Adam Sandler would be if all of Sandler's characters were variations on Billy Madison. That's a hellscape I don't even want to imagine but there it is. 

The threadbare premise of Son in Law finds Becca Warner (Carla Gugino), a small-town gal from South Dakota, moving to Los Angeles to attend college. Finding herself a small fish in a big pond, Becca becomes completely overwhelmed and plans to give up everything and go home. That's when her new Resident Advisor, Crawl (Pauly Shore), yes, his name is Crawl, you try and figure out why, Crawl steps in to keep her from giving up everything. 

Crawl takes Becca under his obnoxious, oblivious wing, gets her new clothes and a new haircut, and generally treats her like the newest member of a cult. Truly, this is how Nxivm started. The end game of Son in Law is Shore and Gugino being arrested alongside one of the stars of Smallville. Okay, it's just a makeover and a tattoo, but it's still kind of weird how she changes every aspect of her life based on the advice on one weird guy. 

Click here for my full length review at Geeks.Media 

Classic Movie Review The Killers (1946)

The Killers (1946) 

Directed by Robert Siodmak 

Written by Anthony Veiller 

Starring Burt Lancaster, Ava Gardner, Edmond O'Brien, Albert Decker 

Release Date August 30th 1946 

Published July 10th, 2023 

The Killers is both an apt and somewhat abstract title for this movie. On the one hand, the film is about two men who go to a small town to kill an ex-boxer over a debt he may or may not owe. On the other hand, the killers of the title are not central to the plot of The Killers. They put the plot in motion by murdering a seemingly random guy, but then they are mostly absent in the story until they are reintroduced late in the 3rd act. The title centers you on The Killers but the movie is more interested in the victim and how he came to be the victim. 

The movie is based on a short story by Ernest Hemingway, a short story that unfolds over the first 10 minutes of The Killers. Two men, Max (William Conrad) and Al (Charles McGraw), enter a small town diner and have a tense back and forth with the diner owner. Over the course of their terse exchange, the two men reveal why they are here. They've come to the diner on this night to kill a man known by most as 'The Swede,' also known as Ole Anderson. The Swede eats at this diner every night at this time and they intend to kill him when he arrives. 

When The Swede (Burt Lancaster) doesn't show up, the killers leave to search for him. Nick, a patron of the diner and a co-worker of The Swede rushes to warn his friend that the killers are coming. In a moment of breathtaking despair, The Swede tells Nick that there is nothing that can be done to stop this and that Nick needs to leave and never look back. Soon after, the killers arrive at The Swede's door and he accepts their arrival with a heartbreaking resolve. 

Hemingway's story ended with Nick returning to tell the diner owner what happened and when the diner owner simply nods in a cynical acceptance of what has happened, the young, idealistic Nick leaves town in disgust. The conflict is between Nick and the diner owner and their dueling perspectives. The diner owner represents an old school mindset that would prefer to ignore the encroachment of the outside world into the insular world of a small town. Nick represents the future, an idealistic notion of right and wrong, justice versus injustice.            

Find my full length review at Geeks.Media 

Movie Review Insidious The Red Door

Insidious The Red Door (2023) 

Directed by Patrick Wilson

Written by Scott Teems 

Starring Patrick Wilson, Ty Simpkins, Sinclair Daniel, Rose Byne, Lin Shaye 

Release Date July 7th, 2023 

Published July 7th, 2023 

The key to the Insidious franchise is the wildly brilliant mind of writer-director Leigh Whannell. His consistently terrifying and inventive work on each of the Insidious films, co-writing and directing the first two and providing the screenplay for Insidious The Last Key, are proof that he's one of the modern auteurs of the horror genre. Thus when I saw that he'd neither directed nor provided the screenplay for the latest Insidious movie, Insidious The Red Door, I was immediately skeptical. My skepticism peaked further when it was announced that star Patrick Wilson would be making his directorial debut with Insidious The Red Door. 

That's not intended as a negative judgment of Wilson's work before I had seen it, rather just a manifestation of my overall skepticism of an Insidious sequel without the direct influence of the franchises creator and steward. Whannell does make a cameo in Insidious The Red Door, but his presence behind the camera and the keyboard becomes notable as the film goes on. Insidious The Red Door is lacking the essential ingredients of an Insidious movie, those that Whannell's fertile, creative, and slightly disturbing mind had always provided. 

In his directorial debut, Patrick Wilson also stars in Insidious The Red Door, reprising his role as Joshua Lambert. As a child, Joshua discovered that he could travel into a nether-realm called The Further. There he would be menaced by demons who would attempt to steal his body to return themselves to the real world. Joshua's mother, played by Barbara Hershey, was able to rescue her son with the help of a psychic medium named Elise Rainer (Lin Shaye). Through Elise, Joshua was made to forget his ability to travel into The Further. 

Cut to many years later, Josh is married to Renai (Rose Byrne), and they have three kids including their oldest, Dalton (Ty Simpkins), who has been exhibiting some odd behavior. When Dalton ends up in a coma, his grandmother recognizes what is happening and is forced to confront Joshua's past. She once again calls on Elise to save her family. The solution to the problems was supposed to be once again hypnotizing Josh and also Dalton, so that they forget about The Further. Naturally, this won't be enough to keep their memories at bay for long and that's where the story of Insidious The Red Door kicks in. 

We are nearly a decade in the future from when Dalton and Joshua were hypnotized into forgetting The Further and both, father and son, are having strange dreams and fuzzy memories. For Josh, the decade since the hypnosis he's struggled with daily tasks and has become a shell of his former self. Things are so bad that he and Renai have separated and Joshua has become distant from his three kids, including Dalton who is now getting ready to leave for college. Since Joshua and Dalton rarely talk, Joshua volunteers to drive Dalton to his new college. This only serves to further the rift between father and son. 

Find my full length review at Horror.Media 

Movie Review Insidious Chapter 2

Insidious Chapter 2 (2013) 

Directed by James Wan 

Written by Leigh Whannell 

Starring Patrick Wilson, Rose Byrne, Lin Shaye, Leigh Whannell, Ty Simpkins 

Release Date September 13th, 2023 

Published July 8th, 2023 

The first Insidious Chapter was an impressively creepy movie for a PG-13 rated horror movie. The film achieved a solid atmosphere and via tremendous production design, makeup and practical effects, the film became a smash hit. And it deserved to be a hit, James Wan and Leigh Whannell had managed to create a wholly original horror movie at a time when franchises and familiar I.P remakes were the norm in Hollywood. It was a no-brainer that there would be an Insidious sequel but what no one could expect is how much of an improvement the sequel would be over the terrific original. 

Insidious Chapter 2 picks up in the wake of the shock death of Lin Shaye's iconic and immediately beloved, Elise Rainer. The Lamber family is now living with Lorraine Lambert (Barbara Hershey), Josh's mom, in the wake of the horrors that led to their son, Dalton (Ty Simpkins), spending a year trapped in another realm called The Further. Josh (Patrick Wilson) had managed to save his son from this other realm but, as observed by Renai (Rose Byrne), Josh did not come back the same man he was. Instead, an unsteady, often volatile Josh stalks their home, only occasionally showing off the qualities that she loves about him. 

The plot of Insidious Chapter 2 kicks into gear quickly with Lorraine realizing that her son is not the man she knows. Knowing something is very wrong, Lorraine seeks out Elise's team, Specks (Leigh Whannell) and Tucker (Angus Sampson), who are now at Elise's home. They've found a key piece of evidence that shows Josh may be trapped in The Further. With Elise gone, they need a new medium and Lorraine calls on another old friend, Carl (Steve Coulter), the man who initially connected Lorraine with Elise when Josh was a child and traveling dangerously into the further. 

Via Carl we get the backstory of the person who has been stalking Josh all his life, The Black Bride, a vicious and very dangerous serial murderer. Is the Black Bride the entity who has possessed Josh? How will they find their way into The Further to find out? And how will Elise come back to help? These questions have solid answers that build brilliantly on what you already know from Insidious Chapter 1. Watching Insidious Chapter 2 it appears quite clear that James Wan and Leigh Whannell had a plan for a sequel all along as moments from the first film provide a perfect foundation for what we get in Chapter 2. 

It's almost like a fun little game, recalling things that happened in Insidious Chapter 1 and seeing how they happened via Insidious Chapter 2. The seamless integration of the two films gives a little kick to the proceedings of Chapter 2. For me, auteurs are filmmakers for whom details matter. Meticulousness is a strong trait among our best film storytellers and James Wan, along with Leigh Whannell, are an auteurist team who care deeply about the minutia of their storytelling. They recognize the joy that can from having lore and how discovering lore can bond and audience with a story. 

The Insidious movies are thick with lore but not so dense that they become incomprehensible to new audiences. It's a delicate balance, but one that Wan and Whannell achieve via studious attention to details that audiences can choose to follow closely or simply experience on a per thrill basis. You can either actively involve yourself in Insidious or simply enjoy the horror movie ride of the Insidious films without taking note of the layered and extensive lore. For me, I love the lore, I adore the attention to detail and the care with which the filmmakers take to build a community around the Insidious films. 

I also love, love, love the work of Lin Shaye. It was clear in the original Insidious that she was the star of the movie and perhaps the biggest failure of Insidious Chapter 1 was not pivoting away from her ending in that movie. Shaye was the breakout character and the filmmakers recognized that going foward when they bring her back here in Chapter 2 and go back to her in subsequent features, minus Wan but with Whannell firmly shaping the lore. 

Find my full length review at Horror.Media