Movie Review Saltburn

Saltburn (2023) 

Directed by Emerald Fennell 

Written by Emerald Fennell 

Starring Barry Keoghan, Jacob Elordi, Rosamund Pike, Richard E. Grant, Archie Madekwe 

Release Date November 17th, 2023 

Published November 27th, 2023 

Saltburn stars Barry Keoghan as Oliver Quick, an outcast at Cambridge University. Oliver is a scholarship kid from a middle-class family. He's a little awkward, a little shy, and doesn't make friends easily. When he meets Felix Carlton it's quite clear that Oliver sees Felix in a more than friendly fashion. He's practically falling all over himself to catch a glimpse of Felix and that makes sense, Felix is a young God. As captured by director Emerald Fennell, Jacob Elordi's Felix is among the most attractive human beings on the planet. 

Felix will also prove to be incredibly kind as when Oliver offers to help him with a broken bike wheel, Felix adopts the outcast as a friend and brings him into his popular Cambridge friend group. When Oliver proves to be a loyal and devoted friend, Felix returns the favor by inviting him to parties and introducing him to others. Eventually, when the holidays arrive and Oliver has nowhere to go home to, Felix invites him to Saltburn, the name of Felix's family property, a sprawling mansion in the English countryside. 

Oliver even gets the bedroom next door to Felix, connected by a shared bathroom. It's more than Oliver could dream of, though Felix seems unaware that Oliver has feelings for him that go beyond friendship. One person who does appear to be on to Oliver's romantic obsession is Farleigh (Archie Madekwe), Felix's best friend and a close friend of the Carlton family. Farleigh delights in needling Oliver, even as Archie seems to be holding more than friendly feelings as well. At the very least, both young men exhibit a fluid sexuality. 

Slowly but surely, Oliver weasels his way into the good graces of the Carlton family, removing obstacles like Farleigh, and earning the trust of Felix's parents, Lady Elspeth Carlton (Rosamund Pike) and Sir James Carlton (Richard E. Grant). If you haven't caught on that this is all part of a master plan hatched by Felix to break into a rich family, then you aren't paying very close attention. For all of Oliver's awkwardness and creepiness, he's not the wilting violet that he would lead you to believe. as Saltburn careens toward its unexpected ending, Oliver's duplicitousness comes to the fore in nasty, bitter fashion. 

Find my full length review at Geeks.Media 

Movie Review Next Goal Wins

Next Goal Wins (2023)

Directed by Taika Waititi 

Written by Taika Waititi, Iain Morris 

Starring Michael Fassbender, Kaimana, Oscar Kightley, Elisabeth Moss, Will Arnett 

Release Date November 17th, 2023

Published November 20th, 2023 

Next Goal Wins stars Michael Fassbender as disgraced former Dutch Football Coach, Thomas Rongen. Having been fired from his coaching job for repeated angry outbursts and his team losing... a lot, Rongen finds himself at a unique crossroad. He's given the option to either leave the world of Soccer completely or take on the job as the new head coach for the worst soccer team in the world, American Samoa. Not to be confused with the independent nation of Samoa, American Samoa is a tiny island that is under the auspices of American rule, a territory not unlike Puerto Rico. 

The American Samoa soccer team hasn't scored a goal in international play. The team is most famous for a World Cup qualifying loss to Australia in the early 2000s in which they gave up 31 goals. The team is hard working but that is mostly because each team member has three jobs on top of being on the national soccer team. So, yeah, there are many challenges in this position. Naturally, the cantankerous Mr. Rongen is not exactly in sync with the ways of American Samoa. For Thomas, winning is everything. For American Samoa, winning is not the point of playing or living. 

From the start of Next Goal Wins, Taika Waititi sets the bar incredibly low for drama. In a scene in which Thomas Rongen meets the head of American Samoa's soccer organization, Tavita, played by the wonderful Oscar Kightley, we learn that the goal for American Samoa is not winning a game. Rather, the stakes at hand are scoring a single goal in in international play. That's it, one goal in an actual game and Thomas Rongen can write himself into the history books of American Samoa's soccer history. That's the wonderfully low stakes and with that out of the way, we can focus on characters. 

Read my full length review at Cleats.Media

Classic Movie Review Real Life

Real Life (1979)

Directed by Albert Brooks 

Written by Albert Brooks, Monica Johnson, Harry Shearer

Starring Albert Brooks, Charles Grodin

Release Date March 2nd, 1979 

Published November 13th, 1979

Real Life requires a little context. In 1972 PBS launched what many consider the very first reality show. American Family was a day in the life series about the Loud Family. The show chronicled the day to day life of an everyday American family. The series was a social experiment and became the progenitor of an industry that is now a staple of American television programming. Real Life is Albert Brooks' response to the phenomenon that was American Family, a reality movie. Brooks meta concept is both a critique of American Family and the notion of cameras being able to capture reality. 

In Real Life, Albert Brooks stars as Albert Brooks, television star and filmmaker. Brooks wants to capture real life in the first ever reality movie. He plans to spend the next year living in Phoenix, Arizona, in a home directly across the street from the family who will star in his reality movie, the Yeager family, headed up by Dad, Warren Yeager, and his deeply depressed wife, Jeanette (Frances Lee McCain). For one year, cameras will follow the Yeager's everywhere as they gather footage for Brooks' documentary. 

And things proceed from there. The social experiment is being monitored by doctors working for a family research firm who have ways of measuring mental health down to examining the way someone holds a mug. From the start, the experiment appears to be a disaster. On the second day of the experiment, after a fight with her idiot husband, Jeanette decides to leave and go stay with friends, leaving the cameras behind. Brooks himself has to go and win her back to the project, though this is fraught with Jeanette believing that Albert is coming on to her, something she's receptive to. 

Read my full length review at Geeks.Media

Movie Review Fingernails

Fingernails (2023) 

Directed by Christos Nikou 

Written by Christos Nikou, Sam Steiner, Stavros Raptis 

Starring Jessie Buckley, Riz Ahmed, Jeremy Allen White 

Release Date November 3rd on Apple TV 

Published November 2nd, 2023 

If you could scientifically prove that you and your significant other were in love, would you want that? What does it say about you and your relationship that you would like or need scientific proof of your love for someone. Trust is the most important foundation of a loving, romantic partnership. If you don't trust your partner enough when they tell you that they love you and you need scientific, undisputed proof, that, for me, should be enough to prove that you are not actually in love. The new movie, Fingernails, lingers over this conflict by creating a universe in which love can be scientifically proven to exist between two people and how that effects the lives and loves of three disparate souls. 

Anna (Jessie Buckley) is in a loving, long term, relationship with Ryan (Jeremy Allen White). The two live together and have lived together long enough to have fallen into a comfortable rut, a routine that appears to serve their needs. However, Anna has started to long for something that she can't quite bring herself to admit. In one telling scene early in the film, she mentions how she always gives a certain piece of her food to Ryan. It's his favorite part but it's also a part that she really likes. But, in an effort to make him happy, she sacrifices what she wants for him. 

It might seem like a little thing but how much of yourself, your wants, your desires, you're willing to give up and feel resentment about are incredibly telling. It's one thing to sacrifice for the sake of your partner, but when does that sacrifice become too one-sided and who determines who should give up more of themselves for the other? When is enough, enough? It might just be a bite of food but the deeper meaning attached to it points the way to larger questions that will come to loom over the story of Fingernails. 

The story of Fingernails kicks into gear with a lie, another bit of damage to the foundation of Anna's relationship with Ryan. Instead of seeking a position as a teacher, the recently unemployed Anna has decided to pursue a career with a company that provides scientific testing of true love. It's similar to the place where Anna and Ryan went and got tested years earlier but even more intensive. At this clinic, run with gentle authority by Luke Wilson's Duncan, this clinic tests for true love but only after each couple seeking a test goes through an intensive relationship course that the company believes can set the couple to be in love by the time they take the test or drive them apart. 

Find my full length review at Humans.Media

Movie Review The Marvels

The Marvels (2023) 

Directed by Nia DaCosta 

Written by Nia DaCosta, Megan McDonnell, Elissa Karasik

Starring Brie Larson, Teyonah Parris, Iman Vellani, Samuel L. Jackson, Zawe Ashton

Release Date November 10th, 2023 

Published November 10th, 2023 

Superhero movies are supposed to be fun. I don't know why I need to say that but, given the utterly bizarre response that many have had to The Marvels, I feel like this point should be underlined. Superhero movies are supposed to be fun and The Marvels is a lot of fun. Directed by Nia DaCosta, The Marvels is fast paced, funny, and heartfelt. The special effects are spectacular, the action is solid, and, above all else, The Marvels is FUN! The addition of Iman Vellani's Kamala Khan to the MCU with the Disney series Ms. Marvel was terrific but she's even better as an enthusiastic fangirl living out the dream of every young fan by fighting alongside her hero. I loved this. 

In The Marvels, the status quo has Captain Marvel, aka Carol Danvers, living alone in space and still trying to recapture the memories she lost in her years with the Kree. That aside, Carol is still working with Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson), who now has a space station and helps protect the universe from various threats while negotiating for peace. The status quo of this effort is upended when a villain named Dar-Benn (Zawe Ashton), with a grudge against Captain Marvel dating back to the events of the first Captain Marvel movie, begins damaging the fabric of the universe. Dar-Benn's goal is part revenge against Captain Marvel and an attempt to rob other planets of resources for her home planet of Hala. 

Whatever Dar-Benn is doing to the fabric of the universe it has a massive unexpected effect on Captain Marvel's light powers which have become entangled with those of two of her fellow superheroes, Monica Rambeau (Teyonah Parris), and Kamala 'Ms. Marvel' Khan (Iman Vellani). Now, each time they use their light based powers, the trio switches places, leading to great danger as well as comic mishaps. The unexpected switching of places is very funny at times and used to tremendous effect cinematically as we switch locations at a head spinning clip, much like the characters. 

When the trio of heroes are finally together, and able to piece together Dar-Benn's plan, they also have to get over their issues with each other. Kamala's inexperience and youth could prove costly while Carol and Monica are in battle, while Carol and Monica's past, fraught with emotion surrounding the death of Monica's mother, Carol's best friend, Maria Rambeau (Lashana Lynch), and Carol's years long disappearing act as she went off to fight around the universe and failed to return home as she had promised young Monica, as seen in Captain Marvel. 

Find my full length review at Geeks.Media

Movie Review Lion Girl

Lion Girl (2023) 

Directed by Kurando Mitsutake 

Written by Kurando Mitsutake

Starring Tori Griffith, Damian T., Derek Mears, Joey Iwanaga 

Release Date November 7th, 2023 

Published November 7th, 2023 

I'm not sure what I just watched. Parts of the movie Lion-Girl are so insane that describing them feels impossible. If I tried to simply explain the death of Lion-Girl's father in the movie, I would need to full paragraphs just to set the stage. This movie is wacky as all get out. It's also bursting forth with nudity, male, female, and those that lay betwixt. It's entirely gratuitous and, if I trusted this filmmaker at all, I might argue that the nudity is intentionally silly, a comic riff on the idea of gratuitous nudity. But, nothing else in the whole of Lion-Girl makes me think that director Kurando Mitsutake is anything more than a bit of a pervert. 

So, who is Lion-Girl? Great question, it's also a question that the movie itself is asking. In a future world where most of humanity was wiped out by a massive meteor strike, children can be born with superpowers and become protectors of the innocent. Or, you can be infected by walking too close to one of the pieces that the meteor left behind on Earth and you become infected. Once infected, you become something of a zombie who feeds off of the life force of the uninfected. Lion-Girl stands between the infected and the innocent. And she stands between the evil Shogunate and the people living under the ironclad rule of the Shogunate. 

So, Lion-Girl (Tori Griffiths) was born with superpowers, she's not infected and is capable of harnessing the power she was born with via a magical tattoo on her back. When she isn't destroying people infected by the meteor, Lion Girl and her Uncle and protector, offer a protection for hire business. Lion Girl can get people from one part of the remaining tiny land mass of Earth, located in a stretch of Japan, to the other relatively unharmed. Their latest gig however, is a little more dangerous. They've agreed to take a father and daughter to the most dangerous part of the remaining world. 

Find my full length review at Geeks.Media

Movie Review The Killer

The Killer (2023) 

Directed by David Fincher

Written by Andrew Kevin Walker 

Starring Michael Fassbender, Tilda Swinton

Release Date November 10th, 2023 

Published? 

Is David Fincher's The Killer a comedy? I'm genuinely asking this question because I think Fincher is messing with us. The Killer is oddly sly, talky, and carries an almost entirely ironic needle drop soundtrack of songs by The Smiths, that most melancholy, death-obsessed, of pop groups. A killer who relaxes by listening to The Smiths is an irresistible comic idea. I asked my music obsessed sister about making a movie about a contract killer with a soundtrack full of Smiths songs and she responded, not knowing I was talking about the new David Fincher movie, 'That's a bit too spirited and haunted of an idea. The Smiths are 'a bit too acutely perfect for it.' 

Putting aside for a moment that The Smiths lead singer, Morrissey, is now a toxic waste dump of a human being, the soundtrack does feel like a bit of a joke. That's especially true when you combine the soundtrack with Michael Fassbender's insanely relaxed performance that slowly starts to unravel as his nameless killer is forced to go on the run and hunt down killers who are now hunting him after he botches a job in Paris in the opening 'chapter' of the movie. The needle drops are mostly early in The Killer but they have a perversely comic edge to them. 

As Fassbender delivers an inner monologue to us in the audience about his work as a killer for hire, Fincher punctuates the scene by raising and dropping the volume on the Smiths' song "How Soon is Now." Pointedly and purposefully, after Fassbender's killer says "I serve no God or country, I fly no flag." The volume rises on How Soon is Now as Morrissey sings "I go about things the wrong way." It's as if the music Fincher chose for this scene is intended as a critique of his main character. This motif repeats moments later when Fassbender intones his personal thesis statement "I...Don't...Give...A...F***" the soundtrack rises again and Morrissey sings, as if in conversation with the movie, "I am human and I need to be loved." 

Do I think this is Fincher saying that a hardened, sociopathic murderer just needs to be loved? No, I think, in the world and mind of David Fincher, this is humor. This is Fincher mocking the idea that someone this cold blooded, this seemingly without remorse, could be saved by a good hug and a cuddle. That's what I thought when the scene was playing out anyway. By the end of the movie, Fincher seems to have come around on the idea of the transformative power of love, at least a little, at least as a way of ending the movie. 

There are other elements of dark and twisted humor in The Killer. After his failed shooting at the start of the movie, as Fassbender is riding a scooter to get away from the scene of the crime, Fassbender says the line 'WWJWBD, What Would John Wilkes Booth Do?' Is the line funny? Kind of, at the odd angle that David Fincher comes to it, it's kind of funny and Fassbender's relaxed, calm delivery of the line almost feels like he's acknowledging the dark comedy of such a statement. I am only amused by the line as I sit here, while watching it, it rang a bell in my mind that it was an odd statement but I quickly moved on from it. 

Click here for my full length review at Geeks.Media.