Movie Review Monkey Man

Monkey Man (2024) 

Directed by Dev Patel 

Written by Dev Patel, Paul Angunawela 

Starring Dev Patel, Pitobash, Sharlto Copley, Vipin Sharma 

Release Date April 5th, 2024 

Published April 8th, 2024 

Monkey Man is bathed in cool. Dev Patel's directorial palette is blood red, it's sweat soaked and bruised. It's Dev Patel's first time behind the camera and he directs the confidence of someone who has done this all of his life. It's beyond impressive, it's epic. This guy just gets it, camera placement, pacing, his use of color and music. But he also gets the emotion of cinema. Weaving a story about a boy losing his mother through his blood-soaked and battered action flick. Monkey Man is a punk rock action flick with a Bollywood soul, and a genuine, big beating heart. 

Monkey Man stars Dev Patel Kid, sometimes Bobby, and always Monkey Man. As a boy, Kid grew up in a lush, green forest. He spent days chasing his mother around the surrounding hills, falling asleep in her arms at night as she weaved epic tales of a Hanuman, the devoted warrior companion of Rama. In these incredible stories, the heroics of Hamuman resonate in the young Kid's mind, how Hanuman, the Monkey Man, led glorious victories on behalf of Rama. These stories are the foundation of Kid's moral core, one that will be tested and forged in fire, blood, and broken bones. 

The story of Haniman is inspiring, but the story of the Kid, will not be inspiring. It begins with our Monkey Man in a fight pit giving up his blood and teeth for a few bucks. This underground fight club, overseen by Tiger (Sharlto Copley), affords Kid the chance to lose but earn a few extra bucks from helping to fix the fight in favor of Tiger's chosen champion. Those extra bucks aren't enough to lift Kid out of poverty. But this is poverty with purpose. Kid, is saving his pennies for the chance at vengeance. He's using what little money he earns to build toward his roaring rampage of revenge. 

Find my full length review at Geeks.Media 



Horror in the 90s: Leprechaun 2

Leprechaun 2 (1994) 

Directed by Rodman Flender

Written by Turi Meyer, Al Septien

Starring Warwick Davis, Tony Cox, Charlie Heath, Shevonne Durkin, Sandy Baron 

Release Date April 8th, 1994 

Box Office $2.3 Million 

It's an almost universal truth, if the story behind the scenes of your movie is more interesting than your movie, the movie generally stinks. This isn't always true, Titanic has a more interesting behind the scenes journey but Titanic is still quite a good movie. But, as a general rule, my point stands. Leprechaun 2 is a solid proof of concept for my thesis. The story behind Leprechaun 2 is far more interesting than this bland, boring, and unfunny comic horror movie. The first Leprechaun movie wasn't exactly a great movie either but the sequel is quite, quite bad. 

The story goes that no one behind the 1993 movie Leprechaun believed that the film would be a hit. Then, the film made 8 times its miniscule budget back in theatric grosses and became a home video monster, hitting the VHS market and becoming cash machine. So, of course, marketers with dollar signs dancing in their heads needed a sequel and immediately approached director Mark Jones and star Jennifer Aniston for a sequel. And, they both said no. Now, Jones wasn't a hard no, he was just busy making another horror movie called Rumpelstiltskin, a horror movie we all remember and revere today, I'm sure. 

Jennifer Aniston meanwhile is reported to have laughed so hard at the idea of leaving Friends for a sequel to Leprechaun that her guffaw could be heard across the galaxy. Friends wasn't yet the global phenomenon that it would become, but it was more than enough of a good reason for Aniston to blow off the makers of Leprechaun 2 in no uncertain terms. And so it was, without the man who wrote and directed the hit original and no Jennifer Aniston, the makers of Leprechaun 2 had only their Leprechaun, Warwick Davis, and nothing else in place. 

Find my full length review at Horror.Media 



Movie Review The Listener

The Listener (2024) 

Directed by Steve Buscemi 

Written by Alessandro Camon 

Starring Tessa Thompson, Rebecca Hall 

Release Date March 29th, 2024

Published March 26th, 2024

The Listener stars Tessa Thompson as the employee of a suicide hotline. A former drug addict, a few years removed from a prison sentence 'Beth,' as she calls herself on the calls she takes, uses her personal experience to relate to the numerous people who call her for a listening ear. Beth works the overnight shift, the busiest time of the day for potential suicides. The calls she takes take a toll on her, but she stays at it because she knows what it is like to be at the lowest of lows. 

Find my full length review at Geeks.Media 



Movie Review Arcadian

Arcadian (2024) 

Directed by Ben Brewer

Written by Michael Nilon 

Starring Nicolas Cage, Jaeden Martell, Maxwell Jenkins, Sadie Soverall

Release Date April 12th, 2024 

Published April 10th, 2024

Arcadian stars Nicolas Cage as Paul. In a post-apocalyptic world, Paul is among the lucky few who escaped devastated cities for the relative peace of the countryside. He's managed to do this while carrying to babies, Joseph and Thomas. Are they his children? We don't know for sure, we never see the mother. Paul could very well have rescued these two babies and is taking them to safety. Regardless, it's a demonstration of character and fortitude that, in a post-apocalypse beset by monsters, that anyone would rescue and raise not one but two babies. 

After we roll the opening credits we jump ahead to Joseph and Thomas as teenagers learning from Paul how to be self-sufficient and stay alive in the post-apocalypse. The trio live on a farm, far from the ravaged cities but the beasts, be they aliens or some other sort of monster, are now coming for them. Having assumedly taken what they can from the large cities and suburbs, the desperate monsters are learning and adapting, they are figuring out how to get around the defenses that Paul and his sons have built on the farm. 

What do we know about the monsters? They don't go out in daylight. In fact, it appears that the sun harms them. They also have fearsome claws that, over time, can scratch through even the biggest wooden door. This wasn't always the case. Nor was it always the case that these monsters would try and dig holes, but this appears to be happening as documented by Joseph (Jaeden Martell), who has become fascinated with studying the monsters, charting their evolution and learning about their weaknesses and way to fight them. 

Find my full length review at Geeks.Media 



Movie Review Civil War

Civil War (2024) 

Directed by Alex Garland

Written by Alex Garland

Starring Kirsten Dunst, Cailee Spaeny, Wagner Moura, William McKinley Henderson, Nick Offerman

Release Date April 12th, 2024 

Published April 12th, 2024 

So, war is bad. Don't do war. If you do war then we won't have internet or even electricity. People will have live in tents in football stadiums, it's all bad. There is no NFL, no NBA, no March Madness. No movies, no Marvel, no Disney Plus. War truly sucks. 0 out of 5 stars for war. Are you enjoying my sarcasm? I'm laying it on pretty thick. On a very surface level, this is the thesis statement behind Alex Garland's new movie Civil War. Lot's of people will die and nothing good will happen if we let our country slip into a civil war. 

Civil War stars Kirsten Dunst as veteran photo journalist, Lee Smith. Lee and her reporter colleague, Joel (Wagner Moura) are planning a perilous journey to the White House from New York City. This is dangerous because the so-called 'Western Forces' of Texas and California have moved the frontline of the Civil War to the President's front door. To get to the White House and the chance to interview the President (Nick Offerman), will mean crossing the almost invisible line between Americans fighting the government and government forces fighting on behalf of the embattled President.

Which side is right or wrong is not part of this conversation. We will never learn why the two sides are fighting. You can make your assumptions and perhaps try to make the President out to be a Trump-like figure who is clinging to power against the will of the American people, but the movie doesn't have a rooting interest, it doesn't take a side. The movie Civil War is simply opposed to war of any kind and that's something that the movie and I have in common. Indeed, that is something that most people have in common, we don't want to be in a war. 

Find my full length review at Swamp.Media 



Classic Movie Review Four Weddings and a Funeral

Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994) 

Directed by Mike Newell

Written by Richard Curtis 

Starring Hugh Grant, Andie McDowell, John Hannah, Simon Callow, Kristen Scott Thomas 

Release Date April 15th, 1994 

Published April 15th, 1994 

Four Weddings and a Funeral is exactly what the title says it is, four weddings and one funeral over a period of about a year in the life of a group of British friends. Charles (Hugh Grant) seems to attend a wedding a week these days. Despite his deplorable record as a ladies man, which will play out through the series of weddings that occur, Charles keeps getting invited to weddings and goes in with the hope of hooking up. He's cynical about love but secretly a romantic. We will learn this via his strange and strained relationship with Carrie (Andie McDowell). 

At the first of four weddings Charles attends he's the best man. Naturally, he nearly ruins the wedding by forgetting the rings. Thankfully, his friends, Tom (James Fleet), Gareth (Simon Callow), Matthew (John Hannah), and Fiona (Kristen Scott Thomas), along with Charles' sister, Scarlett (Charlotte Coleman), are able to bail him out. Narrowly avoiding that disaster, Charles stumbles into a potential non-disaster when he meets Carrie. For Charles, it's love at first sight. For Carrie, she seems to like the floppy Englishman but it takes a minute for her to warm to him. The two end up sleeping together, after some shenanigans, but then she's off, back to America. 

Cut to wedding number 2. Charles is just a guest this time and instead of nearly ruining the wedding, the universe appears to be ruining Charles' day. Not only were he and Scarlett nearly late to the wedding, they always are, he ends up at the reception sat at a table with not one, not two, but three of his ex-girlfriends. Each takes the time to tell a story about Charles, ones in which he appears to insult one of the other two exes. It's a catastrophe but one that he hope might be mitigated when he sees that Carrie has come to this wedding as well. This too however, is a disaster as Carrie is here with her new fiancée. This doesn't stop Charles and Carrie from hooking up but it's certainly not a good indication of long term plans. 

Find my full length review at Geeks.Media




Movie Review The People's Joker

The People's Joker (2024) 

Directed by Vera Drew

Written by Vera Drew, Bri LaRose 

Starring Vera Drew, Lynn Downey, Christian Calloway, Scott Aukerman, Bob Odenkirk, Tim Heidecker 

Release Date April 19th, 2024 

Published April 17th, 2024 

The People's Joker is pure punk rock anarchy filtered through the lens of an auteur unlike any we have seen before. Vera Drew is the visionary behind this almost indescribable takedown of the Batman/Joker legend and lore. Entirely outside of the purview of permission, Drew and their collaborators took the well known characters of the D.C Universe and turned them on their heads in the most unique and unpredictable fashion. Not one minute of The People's Joker is predictable, it's a train running down the tracks with Drew at the helm and the whole thing in flames with no slowing down. I loved every minute of it. 

Trying to describe the plot of The People's Joker is a rather futile effort, not that the movie is plotless, it's just deciding where to start that's the problem. In this dystopian future, Vera (Vera Drew) is from Smallville but dreams of going to Gotham City where a show called UCB Live is the biggest show in the world and Lorne Michaels rules comedy with an iron fist. It's also where a retired Batman still dominates the headlines despite no longer being the caped crusader. On UCB Live, Vera is assigned the identity of a Male Joker. In the harsh world of UCB Live, you are either a Male Joker with a distinct identity and able to perform on the show or a female Harlequin and designated as only a background dancer. 

Find my full length review at Pride.Media 



The Cave (2005) – A Soggy, Sinking Creature Feature

     By Sean Patrick Originally Published: August 27, 2005 | Updated for Blog: June 2025 🎬 Movie Information Title:   The Cave Release Dat...