Movie Review Saw X

Saw X (2023) 

Directed by Kevin Greutert 

Written by Peter Goldfinger, Josh Stolerg

Starring Tobin Bell, Shawnee Smith, Synnove Macody Lund, Steven Brand

Release Date September 29th, 2023 

Published September 29th, 2023 

I'm a huge fan of the Saw horror franchise. I find the underlying philosophy fascinating and challenging. At once, I don't want to see anyone harmed and I am fascinated by the harm Jigsaw creates for his subjects who must endure ungodly pain in order to survive and find redemption. It's like an extreme form of self flagellation with the intent of seeing what the body and mind can endure to survive. Pushing the limits of the human body to their absolute breaking point is something many people talk about as being the most alive one can feel. Jigsaw makes that happen for people with the difference being that they don't get to choose not to do this. 

That's a big and important difference. Jigsaw's victims aren't choosing to challenge themselves, they are forced into this challenge. Now, they end up being challenged because of their own actions, Jigsaw doesn't harm the innocent, only those who have wronged others or who fail to value their own life. But it's still an important point that he is forcing the issue, these people had no intention of seeing the limits they would go to to save their own life. With that acknowledgment out of the way, let's talk about what Jigsaw does as a form of redemption and self-actualization. 

Find my full length review at Horror.Media 

Movie Review The Expendables 4

The Expendables 4 (2023) 

Directed by Scott Waugh 

Written by Kurt Wimmer, Max Adams, Tad Daggerhart

Starring Jason Statham, Sylvester Stallone, Megan Fox, 50 Cent, Dolph Lundgren, Tony Jaa, Iko Uwais 

Release Date September 22nd, 2023 

Published September 26th, 2023 

It speaks volumes without saying a word that before the end of the first act, Sylvester Stallone has left The Expendables 4. Stallone's character may or may not have been killed on a raid on terrorists in Libya. So, even the stars of Expendables 4 don't want to be in Expendables 4 if they don't have to be. The Expendables 4 is an utter shambles, a complete embarrassment for everyone involved. It's a lazy boomer fantasy of middle aged tough guys who use their unique set of skills to kill a mass number of lackeys who seem to form out of thin air only to be brutally murdered as quick as they appear. 

The story of The Expendables 4, such as it is, finds our heroes Barney (Sylvester Stallone) and Christmas (Jason Statham), tracking down a terrorist that has long eluded them both. Rahmat (Iko Uwais) is dangerous on his own and has a history with Christmas. Now, however, Rahmat is working with an international terrorist whom Barney has been looking for since the 80s. With Rahmat in Libya getting detonators for a nuclear bomb, the Expendables team, including Toll Road (Randy Couture), Gunnar (Dolph Lundgren), and newcomers Easy Day (50 Cent) and Galan (Jacob Scipio), head into battle. 

The mission is a disaster, the detonators get away and Christmas is fired. What happens to Barney is a spoiler. Regardless, the Expendables team leadership falls to Gina (Megan Fox). It will be her mission now to try and find where Rahmat is taking the nuclear detonators and to stop him from using them to star World War 3. Naturally, Gina happens to be Christmas' ex-girlfriend. And just as predictably, the two have angry fight sex before he hatches a plan to follow her on her mission. Recruiting the help of a former Expendable, Decha (Tony Jaa). 

Find my full length review at Geeks.Media 

Classic Movie Review Dazed and Confused

Dazed and Confused (1993) 

Directed by Richard Linklater 

Written by Richard Linklater 

Starring Wiley Wiggins, Jason London, Matthew McConaughey, Parker Posey, Joey Lauren Adams, Ben Affleck 

Release Date September 24th, 1993 

Published September 25th, 2023 

Dazed and Confused captured a moment in time, a transition period for American culture. The last vestiges of the Baby Boom giving way to the start of Generation X. It's the end of the last great period of rock n'roll before it gave way to disco and eventually, pop music. The film is set just before AIDS arrived to rob the world of so many, many souls, both through the death of so many, and the many children who would never be born due to the fear of death by sexual activity. Dazed and Confused lives in this calm before the next storm. 

In 1976 we had a little distance from the turmoil of the 1960s and we hadn't yet seen the rise of the Evil Empire, a.k.a The Reagan administration. 1976 was a brief moment where we were allowed to breathe and relax and wait for the next trauma to visit the nation. Vietnam is a recent wound but one that we have a couple years distance from. Like I said, 1976 is a unique moment in time. Dazed and Confused reflects this moment by showing us a relatable but deeply disaffected group of young people, unmoored, exhausted, and just seeking a little break from the outside world via the various available intoxicants. 

The story, such as it is, of Dazed and Confused falls primarily on Randall 'Pink' Floyd (Jason London), the star Quarterback of his Texas High School. Pink is growing more and more disenchanted with the role of golden boy. When the Head Football Coach sends out a letter that is players must sign a drug and alcohol free pledge, Pink decides that he won't say it. This comes from two points of view, one, he just wants to see what the coaches reaction will be. The other point of view is that Randall doesn't want to play football anymore. Anyone with just a passing knowledge of High School Football in Texas knows that this is not decision that will go over well. 

The second track of story follows the incoming freshman of the school. Wiley Wiggins stars in Dazed and Confused as Mitch Kramer. Mitch becomes the prime target of the new senior class as part of an annual rite of passage in this small Texas town. Because Mitch has an older sister who is going to be a senior, the senior boys decide to punish Mitch extra hard. The tradition is such that new seniors, those going into the final year of High School in the fall, must spend the summer making sure to 'initiate' the incoming freshman. 

The initiation involves wooden paddles and spanking. It's a painful initiation into High School life and one the seniors relish as they've been through it themselves and are eager for the chance to become the aggressors. This is no more true for anyone as it is for now two time senior, O'Banion (Ben Affleck). The most loud and nasty of the senior bullies, classmates theorize that O'Banion failed his senior year just so he could come back and paddle freshman for one more year before he heads off to some dead end job. Ben Affleck invest O'Banion with a blank eyed stare that communicates both a depth of fear of the future and a deep sense of masculine insecurity that underlines the homo-erotic aspect of this bizarre rite of passage. 

Freshman girls don't get off easy either, though thankfully, they are free of spankings. For the incoming Freshman girls, the punishment appears to be voluntary. A group of girls who wish to be accepted as popular by the senior girls submit themselves to being forced to roll around on the ground and be covered in condiments before they are thrown into the back of a truck and driven thru a car wash. It's a different kind of ritual, for sure, one embodied by Sabrina (Christin Hinojosa), a freshman who was selected by one of the seniors and ends up being invited to travel with the Senior girls to various places and parties on this first night of summer. 

Find my full length review at Geeks.Media 

Movie Review The Re-Education of Molly Singer

The Re-Education of Molly Singer (2023) 

Directed by Andy Palmer 

Writing Todd M. Friedman, Kevin Haskin 

Starring Britt Robertson, Jamie Pressley, Wendie Malick, Ty Simpkins 

Release Date September 29th, 2023 

Published September 25th, 2023 

The Re-Education of Molly Singer is a bit odd and I kind of like it. Britt Robertson is the title character, Molly Singer, an irresponsible party-girl who is consistently late to work and often hung over. Molly's career is hanging by a thread when her best friend, Ollie (Nico Santos), convinces her to stay out late on the night before a trial. As you can predict, she oversleeps, she shows up late to the trial, and the judge rules against her client because she wasn't there in time. Naturally, Molly's boss, Brenda (Jamie Pressley), fires her with cause. 

Then, just as Molly is about to leave her office for the last time, Brenda gets a call from her son, Elliott (Ty Simpkins). He's ready to quit college and come home after something he did led to an injury that hobbled the school's star football player. With everyone threatening to harm him over this incident, he's ready to quit. This is when Brenda hits upon a completely insane idea. Remembering that Molly had attended the same college as her son, Brenda offers Molly a lifeline. Brenda will go back to college, befriend Elliott and help him rebuild his confidence and social status, and Molly might get her job back. 

Find my full length review at Geeks.Media 

Movie Review Nightsiren

Nightsiren (2023) 

Directed by Tereza Nvotova 

Written by Tereza Nvotova 

Starring Natalia Germani, Eva Mores, Juliana Ol'hova

Release Date September 22nd, 2023 

Published September 21st, 2023 

Nightsiren begins with a jarring series of shocking sequences. First, a young woman hides under the floor of her home as someone, presumably her mother, angrily calls for her. The young girl is bleeding from the head and crying and when her mother pulls her from her hiding place, she makes a daring escape. Running to the forest, this young woman finds herself followed by her little sister. She turns to send her sister back and convince her not to follow her, she accidentally shoves her little sister off of a cliff. It's quite a fall though it's possible that the little girl survived. 

Cut to 30 years later, a grown up Charlotte, the young runaway, haunted by the guilt of what happened to her sister, returns to her small village in the mountains of Slovakia. She's been told by a letter that her mother's estate is being settled. Her return is met with skepticism and fear as her childhood home had burned down just after Charlotte disappeared and many believe that the home is cursed by a witch. Seeing Charlotte living in the cottage nearby, believed to have been the home of the witch Otyla, the locals become concerned that Charlotte herself is a witch. 

Not everyone is unkind however as a local named Mira (Eva Mores) begins a tentative friendship with Charlotte. She too has faced questions about her possible involvement in witchcraft. This however, has more to do with prejudice over Mira being bisexual and having had relationships with men and women in the village, allegedly. Women who are sexually liberated tend to find themselves accused of a lot of things and being a witch is a common refrain in the less educated portions of the world. Witches are believed to use sexuality as a way of controlling and destroying victims and other such superstitious nonsense. 

Find my full length review at Horror.Media 

Movie Review Dumb Money

Dumb Money (2023) 

Directed by Craig Gillespie 

Written by Lauren Schuker Blum, Rebecca Angelo 

Starring Paul Dano, Shailene Woodley, Pete Davidson, Seth Rogen, Nick Offerman, Sebastian Stan

Release Date September 22nd, 2023 

Published September 22nd, 2023 

Dumb Money feels like an unearned victory lap for the proletariat. The story of a group of independent investors, led by a Redditor nicknamed Roaring Kitty, upending the Wall Street system by investing in, of all things, Game Stop, a video game retailer run so poorly that it's an absolute wonder how they lasted as long as they did. By finding a blindspot in the arrogance of a Wall Street hedge fund practice, Roaring Kitty, aka Keith Gill (Paul Dano), made millions and drove one billionaire hedge fund out of business, though realistically, only took Gabe Plotkin (Seth Rogen) from a being a billionaire to being a multi-multi-multi-millionaire. 

It's impossible for me not to be cynical about anything related to Wall Street. In my lifetime I have watched Wall Street grow in strength and wealth all while paying off regulators and lawmakers to prop them up to the point where billions of dollars have flowed from everyday Americans into the hands of Wall Street hustlers just to keep those billionaires from crashing the country into a depression so they can keep buying needless numbers of houses, cars and consumer items that add nothing to the everyday economy. 

Not since the age of Marie Antoinette have we seen rich fat pigs rolling in the filth of their own wealth in public the way we do today. We've literally watched billionaires build themselves rockets to take vacations in space while people struggle to have money for food. Jeff Bezos asks us to stand up and cheer for him when he returned from what amounted to a day trip to space. Meanwhile, a mother somewhere in America was scraping pennies together to buy baby food. So excuse me if I don't' view one minor victory over the greedy pigs of Wall Street as good enough. 

And, I'm sorry, that's all that the Game Stop thing was, a very brief victory of the proles over the privileged. All that the Game Stop thing did was provide other billionaires a cautionary tale. Now they know exactly what doors to close behind them to prevent this from ever happening again. I appreciate what Reddit did to game this system for a short time but there is only so much outsiders can do to fight this system. Game Stop provided the billionaires a road map to how to stay rich in the face of any kind of revolt within their own Wall Street system. 

Find my full length review at Swamp.Media 

Movie Review Relax I'm From the Future

Relax, I'm From the Future (2023) 

Directed by Luke Higginson 

Written by Luke Higginson 

Starring Rhys Darby, Gabrielle Graham, Julian Richings, Janine Theriault 

Release Date September 22nd, 2023 

Published September 19th, 2023 

There are a number of promising elements in Relax, I'm From the Future. The obvious one is star Rhys Darby, a comedy all star with endless comic timing and instinct. He's been a comedy MVP in numerous smaller roles in projects as diverse as Flight of the Conchords and the two modern Jumanji movies. Darby is just simply funny. Seeing him in the lead of a time travel comedy had me excited to see it. Sadly, he's also the reason that Relax, I'm from the Future is such a disappointment. I expected more of Rhys Darby than what we get in this middling, mean-spirited and mostly forgettable film. 

Relax, I'm from the Future stars Rhys Darby as Casper, a time traveler. Casper lives in a future that's actually pretty great. Following a horrible time in which there was strife and war and starvation, the world corrected itself and became a near perfect society. So why go back in time? Well, Casper has a reason but he's cagey about stating exactly why. Meanwhile, we see several more people coming from the future, each met by Doris (Janine Theriault) on the belief that they are terrorists who are trying to destroy the perfection of the future. 

As for Casper, though he doesn't know it, he narrowly missed running into Doris when he arrived. Instead, he escaped and met Holly (Gabrielle Graham). In exchange for making her rich, she will help Casper by buying lottery tickets and placing bets on sporting events. Casper needs money to fund his new life in the past and a partner to help him do it while not altering the future in any important way. Holly wasn't a mistake, in fact, Casper chose her specifically for the complete lack of impact she has on the future. 

If that sounds kind of harsh, well, it is. The movie should maybe make that a dark joke but if that was the intent, it doesn't land. Holly is super likable and thus, this mean joke at her expense doesn't land well. And that is a significant failing of Relax, I'm from the Future. The movie plays at times like a dark comedy and carries some darkly comic moments but the actors, especially the rather sunny Darby, don't seem to get how bleak the premise really is. I'm not going to spoil the reason why Casper chose to go back in time, but it is also kind of dark but kind of funny and yet it doesn't come off nearly as funny as it should be. 

Find my full length review at Geeks.Media