Movie Review Challengers

Challengers (2024) 

Directed by Luca Guadagnino 

Written by Justin Kuritzkes 

Starring Zendaya, Mike Faist, Josh O'Connor 

Release Date April 26th, 2024

Published April 26th, 2024 

Sexuality is non-binary. Full stop. Sexuality is a spectrum on which we all exist. The notion of straight or gay as a binary dynamic of sexuality is outdated to the point of being silly. That's not to say that people's desires, what turns them on, can't be just one thing that happens to adhere to the notion of straight or gay, it's merely an acknowledgment that sexuality for anyone can be a fluid concept depending on circumstance. This opening paragraph is triggering a lot of straight men, I can feel the discomfort as they click away in anger. 

Challengers is a rare film that explores the idea of sexuality as a spectrum. The three protagonists of Challengers, two men and a woman, have a brief, exploratory experience that gets at the heart of how circumstantial sexual preference can be. The film also reframes what sex can be in an orgasmic final showdown that reveals these three characters true desires in a fast paced, eye-catching, and breathtaking final few minutes. Director Luca Guadagnino appears to be making the case that anything can be sex its if the circumstances align. 

Challengers stars Zendaya as Tashi Duncan, a tennis prodigy caught up in a love triangle with a pair of fellow prodigies. Art Donaldson (Mike Faist) and Patrick Zweig (Josh O'Connor) have been friends since their early teen years spent at a tennis academy. Both are gifted players in very different ways. Art is methodical and well practiced, Patrick gets by on brut strength and determination, along with an unusual serve. The two young men compliment each other and when each falls for Tashi, it becomes not unlike a tennis match filled with strategic points and breaks. 

But Tashi is no mere ball at play among these two players. She's their coach, teaching them both the game. Literally, she becomes Art's Coach as his career advances while Patrick seeks her as a Coach later in his career. The film shifts through time effortlessly layering in the story to build toward that remarkable final act tennis match where Art and Patrick are playing the game of their lives with Tashi acting as mastermind and the prize for the winner while losing herself in the excitement of tennis. 

For Tashi, life is tennis. Her relationship with Patrick falls apart when he refuses to talk about tennis while the two are becoming intimate. Her relationship and eventual marriage to Art is tethered in part to his success on the tennis court and she's not afraid to tell him that if he can't maintain his high standard of play, she will lose interest and leave him. This constant pressure from Tashi has made Art one of the most successful players in tennis, a grand slam winner, and a favorite for the upcoming U.S Open. 

Find my full length review at Geeks.Media 

Movie Review The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare

The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare (2024) 

Directed by Guy Ritchie 

Written by Paul Tamasy, Eric Johnson, Arash Amel, Guy Ritchie 

Starring Henry Cavill, Alan Ritchson, Alex Pettyfer, Hero Fiennes Tiffin, Eiza Gonzalez 

Release Date April 19th, 2024 

Published April 23rd, 2024 

It's the flippancy of The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare that rubs me the wrong way. I feel like we've grown so used to minimizing the dangers of war and the real risk of life and limb, that we risk removing the human element from war entirely. The new Guy Ritchie movie, The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare plays a role in this dehumanization by taking a mostly true story and rendering it something akin to the Quentin Tarentino fantasy of Inglorious Basterds, minus the artistry. Tarentino side steps the flippant reimaging of World War 2 because he's not working from a 'based on a true story' archetype. The soldiers of The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare were very real and really risked everything for their country. 

To take their story and render it like some action movie fantasy feels like a disservice that denigrates the genuine bravery and hardship of these real life heroes. These men, and one woman, didn't do what they did to be cool, they did it because it needed to be done. Rendering them as shallow action movie stock characters removes their complexity and humanity. This is the kind of needless revisionism that is obscuring real history far too often and despite my appreciation for the actors and the mostly solid direction of The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare, I can't fully enjoy or appreciate the film because the real story is way more interesting to me than the action movie tropes of the movie. 

Henry Cavill portrays Gus March-Phillips, a wild eyed Englishman with a taste for the finer things and a willingness to get his hands dirty. As we meet him, Gus has been in jail for repeated instances of insubordination. He's a menace to commanding officers and politicians alike. He's perfect for the job to be assigned to him, one that cannot be directly overseen by anyone. Gus' mission involves crippling the Nazi supply chain for U-Boats and thus opening the ocean for the Americans to enter the war. It's an entirely off the books mission as Winston Churchill's top military brass don't believe such a mission is possible, it violates the code of an ethical war. 

Thus, Gus and his team are assembled in secret by General Gubbins (Cary Elwes) who advises Gus that if he is caught by the Nazis, they will die and if they are caught by the English Navy, they will be arrested. Now, about Gus' team. Anders Larsson (Alan Ritschson) is a brutish Swedish man whose pasttime is killing Nazis. Henry Hayes (Hero Fiennes Tiffin) is the son of a very good friend of Gus's from back in the day. He keeps Hayes close to keep an eye on but he's also a whiz with guns and explosives. Speaking of explosives, Freddy Alvarez (Henry Golding) knows everything when it comes to blowing things up. He's been in and out of prisons across Europe for blowing things up for fun and profit. 

Find my full length review at Geeks.Media 

Classic Movie Review Horror of Dracula

Horror of Dracula (1958) 

Directed by Terence Fisher 

Written by Jimmy Sangster 

Starring Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing, Michael Gough 

Release Date May 7th 1958 

Published April 25th, 2024 

If you're going to talk about Dracula and sexuality, you're not going to start with Bela Lugosi. Lugosi's monster may have sexual overtones, Dracula has always been a metaphor for sex, often a symbol of non-consensual sex or used as a fetish figure who represents male sexual dominance or merely a figure representing the seductive nature of taking power over others. But, Bela Lugosi isn't hot. He's not a bad looking dude, per se, but there are few if any people who look at Bela Lugosi and are overcome with a form of erotomania. 

On the other hand, Christopher Lee has that going on. Though he is unconventionally attractive, he has a towering, powerful presence. Lee's eyes appear to be devouring those he's looking at. His every action, every look on his face is filled with a confident, overbearing sense of his own sexual prowess. In the most crass and basic sense, Lee's Count Dracula is a Dracula who F***s. Lugosi's approach was more asexual, leaning on his desire for power over others to be his driving dramatic force. For Lee, and even more prominently, Gary Oldman in Bram Stoker's Dracula, the driving force is eroticism, it's metaphoric sex. The desire for blood is both for sustaining life comfortably and about a forceful sexuality barely concealed. 

1958's Horror of Dracula is a showcase for Christopher Lee's overwhelming presence. It's about those eyes that bore into yours. It's about him looking down at his victims and them looking up at him to subtly and not-so-subtly underline the power fantasy and dynamic at play in Lee's take on the character. Where Max Schreck's Nosferatu is like an incel take on Vampire lore, Lee's Dracula is like a proto-Andrew Tate or one of those pick up artist guys constantly touting their power over women, and sometimes men. Lee's Dracula isn't about murder, he doesn't actually kill the women he covets, he turns them. His intent is keep them and use them against their will for his pleasure, that's his kink. 

Making a woman do something she doesn't want to do. That's the driving force of Lee's Dracula and it's bizarre how that parallels with our modern culture of Alpha Males. The Alpha Males often talk about the power they wish to wield over women. It's about bending a woman to that will, getting them to submit to what the man wants in a relationship, it's their fetish, just as it is Dracula's fetish in Horror of Dracula and as portrayed by Christopher Lee. It's not about blood or murder, it's kink. It's a power fantasy and an appealing one for the Alpha Male types as they could never achieve this kind of control over women, but they can live vicariously through Lee's Dracula. 

The proof of my thesis about Alpha Males and their kink, their fetish for power, comes in an unlikely form, a woman named Pearl. Every now and then, a podcaster named Pearl goes viral for something she said or something that someone said about her. Pearl is often called a 'Pick Me,' a woman who is eager to submit to a male dominated hierarchy. Pearl has talked many times about how women have too many rights and claims that women are happier when they simply submit to the desires of a man. You might assume that the Alpha Males applaud Pearl and are eager to find a woman just like her, but that's not the case. 

Find my full length review at Horror.Media 

Classic Movie Review Clifford

Clifford (1994) 

Directed by Paul Flaherty 

Written by Jay Dee Rock, Steven Kampman 

Starring Martin Short, Charles Grodin, Mary Steenburgen, Dabney Coleman 

Release Date April 1st, 1994

Published April 1st, 2024 

There has been a minor reassessment of the movie Clifford in recent years. Famously, actor Nicolas Cage spoke about being a fan of the film in relating a story about meeting Martin Short. The idea that Nicolas Cage fan-girled at meeting Martin Short and peppered him with praise for Clifford is a better and funnier story than anything in Clifford. I think there are people who adopted Clifford as their movie simply to be different from the rest of the world which roundly rejected this bizarre failure. Other than Nicolas Cage, who is seemingly incapable of irony, no one actually likes Clifford, they like being the person who says that they like Clifford. 

Clifford stars Martin Short as the title character, Clifford, a deeply spoiled and entitled 10 year old boy. On a trip to Hawaii, Clifford manages to nearly crash a plane in hopes of landing in Los Angeles where he hopes to take a trip to Dinosaur World. Clifford's parents, desperate to get away from their child, drop Clifford with his Uncle Martin (Charles Grodin). The timing is fortuitous for Martin who needs to convince his girlfriend, Sarah (Mary Steenburgen) that he likes kids and has a special relationship with his nephew. 

Unfortunately for Martin, he is not aware that his nephew is a 10 year old sociopath. Clifford's single minded desire to go to Dinosaur World leads him to destroy every aspect of his Uncle's life including breaking up Martin and Sarah, getting Martin fired from his job, and getting Martin arrested for planning to bomb City Hall. All of this is revenge for Martin failing to take Clifford to see Dinosaur World. All the while, Clifford plays the innocent child when Sarah or anyone else is around while turning malevolent when it's just he and his Uncle Martin. 

Find my full length review at Geeks.Media 

 

Movie Review Asphalt City

Asphalt City (2024) 

Directed by Jean Stephane Sauvaire 

Written by Ryan King, Ben Mac Brown

Starring Tye Sheridan, Sean Penn, Mike Tyson, Kali Reis, Michael Pitt 

Release Date March 29th, 2024 

Published March 28th, 2024 

Asphalt City is the kind movie that mistakes wallowing in misery for drama. The film about a rookie EMT in New York City wallows in the bleak misery of suffering that, I am sure, will feel like gritty drama to some but felt punishing for this critic. I don't mind a good wallow, I was a big fan of Scorsese's similarly themed Bringing Out the Dead years ago, but I have my limits and Asphalt City pushed well past my limit for desolation that borders on post-apocalyptic. I realize New York City can be an angry and dark place but this borders on pornographic in terms of misery. 

Asphalt City stars Tye Sheridan as Ollie Cross a wide-eyed medical student whose paying his way through med-school by working as an EMT in New York City. Struggling with a terrible partner who hates rookies, Cross's spirits are buoyed when he's reassigned to work with an aging veteran, Gene 'Rut' Rutkovsky. Rut takes pity on the kid and sets about teaching him the job instead of just screaming orders at him. Where his previous partner, played by Michael Pitt, appeared intent on running Cross out of the job, Rut seems to take to being a mentor. 

This doesn't however, give the movie a boost in terms of the pitch black ugliness at play. Even as Rut proves to be kind, the runs they make in their ambulance are unendingly grim. EMT's deal with a lot of horrors but Asphalt City makes the job appear like the seventh circle of hell at all times. It's to the point that I just can't believe anyone would be able to do this job and since we have EMT's currently working in New York City, I can only imagine that they have found some way to preserve their mental health. This movie makes being an EMT akin to trying to survive Cormac McCarthy's The Road. 

Find my full length review at Geeks.Media 

Movie Review In the Land of Saints and Sinners

In the Land of Saints and Sinners (2024) 

Directed by Robert Lorenz

Written by Mark Michael McNally, Terry Loane

Starring Liam Neeson, Kerry Condon, Colm Meaney, Ciaran Hinds

Release Date March 29th, 2024

Published March 27th, 2024

The opening moments of the Irish thriller, In the Land of Sinners and Saints is a breathtaking piece of suspense. Members of the I.RA have just planted a bomb outside of a pub. But, just as they are about to make their escape, a family, with very young children pauses in front of the pub so that one of the children can tie their shoe. One of the bombers screams in an attempt to get the family to move but they appear confused by the screaming one and stay rooted in place. The bomb goes off and it's clear that this family has been killed. 

It's a principal laid out by Alfred Hitchcock, the explosion isn't nearly as exciting as the ticking bomb itself. The tension isn't the damage that the bomb will do, it's heated seconds until the bomb does what we know a bomb can do that matters in a movie. We don't see this family get murdered and we don't need to, the horror is greater in our mind by implication than it would be if we saw blood and body parts splattered on pavement. 

Don't get me wrong, gore and bloodshed has its place and, in the right hands, it has been effective, but that's a different genre of film altogether than what In the Land of Sinners and Saints is going for. This is a cerebral thriller that builds its emotional tension underneath, allowing it to simmer and grow into a boil before exploding. As directed by Robert Lorenz, that simmering is compelling and the boil is riveting. Then, we wait with our breath caught and our hearts pounding as we anticipate the explosion to come. 

Liam Neeson stars in In the Land of Saints and Sinners as Finbar, a hitman who comforts himself with the notion that he only kills bad people for money. Finbar has killed a lot of people, hiding their bodies under freshly planted trees in a forest near his small cottage. Finbar has reached a point where he'd like to retire, give up killing, and take up a hobby like gardening. He also has his eye on a neighbor at a nearby cottage who is soon to be a widow. The pair have a sad chemistry that could become love. 

But, this is a world of consequence and the consequences of Finbar's choices are that happily ever after is highly unlikely for him. His potential happily ever after is soon threatened by the arrival of four newcomers in his village. Remember the terrorists from the opening sequence, they are hiding out in a nearby farmhouse. One of them has taken to abusing and harassing a young girl whose mother runs Finbar's favorite pub. Seeing that the girl is afraid to go home at night, Finbar intervenes. 

Find my full length review at Geeks.Media 

Horror in the 90s Child's Play 3

Child's Play 3 (1991) 

Directed by Jack Bender

Written by Don Mancini 

Starring Brad Dourif, Justin Whalin, Perrey Reeves, Jeremy Sylvers 

Release Date August 30th, 1991 

Box Office $20.5 million 

The first 15 minutes of Child's Play 3 is a brief meditation on corporate greed. After nearly a decade away from making their Good Guy dolls, the Play Pals company have re-opened the factory and inadvertently, rebuilt Chucky, the malevolent doll body inhabited by the spirit of serial murderer Charles Lee Ray (Brad Dourif). We watch as corporate titan, Mr. Sullivan (Peter Haskell), ignores the warnings from his underlings about re-starting the Good Guys line. Sullivan's greed will be his downfall. 

As Sullivan is alone in his office, after the rest of the staff have called it a day, he's attacked by Chucky and brutally murdered. Though his death at the plastic hands of Charles Lee Ray is based more in Ray's single-minded obsession with killing Andy (Justin Whalin) and taking Andy's youthful body for his own, the underlying anti-capitalist message is clear. Without the dedicated greed of Sullivan and his corporate lackeys, the Good Guy doll would have languished, perhaps have been destroyed, and with it, the final vestiges of Charles lee Ray. But, because of their greed, evil flourishes and shows no mercy, even when confronting the evil that gave it back its life. 

That is perhaps, far too deep a reading of Child's Play 3, but it's a satisfying read. The idea of Chucky as the anti-hero of the socialist set is kind of fun. The notion that a corporately owned and crafted vehicle like Child's Play 3, itself a product of greed and avarice would, even accidentally, call out and punish unchecked corporate greed, is part of the naive charm of Child's Play 3. It's a vague sort of self-awareness that makes the movie just a little more interesting than the average third sequel to an ATM style franchise intended on mining nostalgia for profits. 

Find my full length review at Horror.Media