Movie Review Suburbicon

Suburbicon (2017) 

Directed by George Clooney 

Written by Joel Coen, Ethan Coen, George Clooney

Starring Matt Damon, Julianne Moore, Noah Jupe, Oscar Isaac

Release Date October 27th, 2017 

Matt Damon stars in Suburbicon as Gardner, a man in debt to the mob and desiring to get rid of his wheelchair bound wife, Rose (Julianne Moore) so that he can be with Rose’s twin sister Margaret (Julianne Moore). Caught in the middle of Gardner’s scheme is his son, Nicky (Noah Jupe). When after Gardner’s wife is murdered, Nicky goes along to the police lineup, he spies his father intentionally failing to identify the killers. Here is where the façade of his father’s life comes tumbling down.

Meanwhile, in an entirely separate movie, a black family, the Mayer’s, has moved in next door to Gardner and his family. Suburbicon is set in the 1950s and so, naturally, the neighbors don’t take kindly to the sudden integration of their suburban enclave. While Gardner is plotting, and committing murders on one side of the fence, the rest of the neighborhood is busy trying to run the Mayers’ out of the neighborhood on the other side.

In some version of Suburbicon these two plots meet and make sense together. In this version of the movie however, the only connection between the plots is via editing them into what is only ostensibly the same movie. Somewhere, we can assume, these plots are meant to comment upon one another and make some deeper, metaphoric point but the whole final product that is Suburbicon is so muddled that it’s impossible to make out what that metaphoric meaning might be.

It's rare to watch a movie that has no tone or momentum. Suburbicon is a movie that just sort of happens in front of you. I watched the first hour of Suburbicon waiting for the movie to actually begin. I just assumed at some point that the movie would coalesce into some sort of identifiable narrative with identifiable characters and it just never happens. The film cuts between plots willy nilly and yet cannot find momentum even in chaotic dissonance.

Find my full length review in the Geeks Community on Vocal 

Movie Review Halloween Pussy Trap Kill Kill

Halloween Pussy Trap Kill Kill 

Directed by Jared Cohn

Written by Jared Cohn 

Starring Sara Malakul Lane, Richard Grieco, Dave Mustaine

Release Date October 27th, 2017 

How does a movie manage to be only 77 minutes long and still feel tedious? By ripping off the Saw franchise minus the wit and the skill? That’s certainly the case that is made by the new horror movie Halloween Pussy Trap Kill Kill which feels twice as long as it’s barely theatrical release run time. This dimwitted wannabe exploitation horror flick from former God-sploitation director Jared Cohn, director of the equally tedious God’s Club, wants to marry Saw to Herschel Gordon Lewis or Roger Corman but lacks even the skill to match those low budget heroes of the drive-in genre.

Halloween Pussy Trap Kill Kill is about an all-girl punk band called Kill Pussy Kill which is finishing one big gig and is headed to another down the road on Halloween night. Unfortunately, they catch the attention of a former Army Ranger (Dave Mustaine of Megadeth fame in voice only here) who decides that their days of smoking crack, sex in the back of the van debauchery is offensive to him and he’s going to teach them a lesson.

With the help of his buddy Dale (Richard Grieco), the Army Ranger, credited as The Mastermind, captures the band and locks them in a basement and proceeds to knock off as many clichés of the Saw franchise he can think of. The film employs Mustaine to provide gravel voiced warnings about ‘playing the game or else’ and lays out the nonsensical rules about how some of the band can escape if they are willing to kill other members of the band and blah blah blah; it’s like Saw if you only knew the premise of the franchise.

It’s funny, I can sense that the makers of the movie want me to give this movie a bad review. This is the kind of movie that wants to be able to tell you how much critics hate it. They want to offend a critic, that’s why they are making sure so many critics have access to the movie. The marketing campaign wants for critics to call the movie disgusting and talk about how exploitative it is so they can wear it like some unearned badge of honor. The title alone, Halloween Pussy Trap Kill Kill, tells you exactly what the filmmakers are after. 

Find my full length review in the Horror Community on Vocal 

Movie Review Same Kind of Different as Me

Same Kind of Different as Me (2017) 

Directed by Michael Carney 

Written by Ron Hall, Alexander Foard, Michael Carney 

Starring Renee Zellweger, Djimon Hounsou, Greg Kinnear, Jon Voight 

Release Date October 20th, 2017 

I have a genuine pity for the faith-based audience. Few audiences are as underserved as the faithful. And few audiences are as exploited as the faith based filmgoer. The people at Pure Flix have made their fortune exploiting this audience by serving them half-baked, poorly made movies that pander to their faith without serving it. Pure Flix has little interest in the quality of their work and exist solely to make a buck. Just look at the awful roster of Pure Flix movies and you will find it difficult to argue my point.

Same Kind of Different as Me is not much different than those other low quality offerings; it just had the decency to hire better actors. Renee Zellweger and Djimon Hounsou may be at the mercy of a low-quality script and production, but they are far too good at what they do to be dragged down by it. They are the reason that I can’t fully dislike Same Kind of Different as Me because when asked to deliver in big moments, their talent transcends the limitations of the Pure Flix machine.

Same Kind of Different as Me is told from the perspective of Ron Hall (Greg Kinnear), a Texas-based art dealer whose wife Deborah has recently passed away. Ron has arrived at a friend’s home to attempt to write a book about his wife but his voice-over in the film tells us he’s struggling. If, like me, you believe that voice-over is has become the bankrupt screenwriters worst crutch, get ready for a serious amount of torture in Same Kind of Different as Me which abuses this crutch.

As Ron tells the story, we flashback two years before Deborah passed away. Ron is being forced to come clean about being unfaithful and has been met by a challenge from Deborah. After she breaks off his relationship with his mistress, she forces Ron to pay penance by joining her at a mission where she serves food to the homeless. Here, Deborah is shocked to find Denver (Djimon Hounsou), a man she claims to have seen in a dream before having ever seen him in real-life.

Find my full length review in the Geeks Community on Vocal 

Movie Review The Snowman

The Snowman (2017) 

Directed by Tomas Alfredson

Written by Peter Straughan, Hossein Amini 

Starring Michael Fassbender, Rebecca Ferguson, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Val Kilmer, J.K Simmons 

Release Date October 20th, 2017 

Before I formally go into my review of The Snowman, let me preface this review stating my respect for director Tomas Alfredson. In press interviews for The Snowman he is not sugar-coating the film’s problems. He’s been up front about the abrupt production time in Norway, the lack of a finished script and the reshoots that nevertheless failed to find the missing pieces of what is one truly jacked up puzzle of a movie.

The Snowman stars Michael Fassbender as the horrifically named detective Harry Hole. Harry is a drunk who likes to pass out and wake up in strange places on the frozen streets of Norway. When he’s relatively sober, Harry is a famed detective whose cases are studied for his remarkable investigative success. His latest case following his latest bender comes when he spies a junior detective, Katrine Bratt (Rebecca Ferguson), sneaking away with confidential files.

Harry decides to take up the younger detective’s cause, investigating a series of bizarre missing person’s cases. Each of the cases focuses on blonde women with secrets of some sort that may or may not be related to sex or something; the film is comically unclear. The killer has a thing for snow which is also rather comical as the film is set in Oslo. When the younger detective mentions that snow is a trigger for the killer we are led to wonder just how big that body count might be considering the part of the world the killer inhabits.

While the serial killer story is the A-Plot, the B-Plot about Harry’s former home life is far more fleshed out and given more development. This is bizarre for a number of reasons but mostly because the stuff about Harry, his ex-girlfriend Rakel (Charlotte Gainsbourg), the son who doesn’t know Harry is his real father (Michael Yates) and Rakel’s suspiciously nice new boyfriend Matthias (Jonas Karlsson) is stunningly dull. Each time the film pauses for the B-Plot to take center stage the film comes to an abrupt, jarring halt.

Find my full length review in the Geeks Community on Vocal 

Movie Review Boo 2: A Madea Halloween

Boo 2: A Madea Halloween

Directed by Tyler Perry 

Written by Tyler Perry 

Starring Tyler Perry, Cassi Davis, Patrice Lovely, Tito Ortiz 

Release Date October 20th, 2017 

What is there to be said about Tyler Perry's Boo 2! A Madea Halloween? You already know it’s not any good. We all know that Tyler Perry doesn’t give a damn about the quality of his work. It’s completely critic-proof. I am epically wasting my time writing a review of this, or really any of Perry’s work. And yet, I am somehow here to write a review of Tyler Perry's Boo 2! A Madea Halloween. It really makes me begin to question my profession. Not completely, lord knows I wouldn’t want to get a real job.

Here is where I will make a vain attempt to describe a plot, of which there is little. Brian (Perry, in one of his three roles) continues to struggle as a parent to his daughter, Tiffany (Diamond White). Yes, despite Brian’s parenting success being the only arc of the first film, he still sucks as a parent and has to learn or teach(?) a new lesson to his horror of a daughter who, frankly, seems like a lost cause. Given her decision making, based on these two movies, it’s a wonder she’s still alive, let alone ready to donate her virginity to a doofus frat-guy.

It's a testament to Perry’s opinion of women that they range from whores to idiots to shrews. Whereas early in his career Perry seemed to have a modicum of respect for his female characters, that’s long gone. I would call Perry a misogynist, but I can’t be sure that the hateful way in which he portrays women in his two Halloween features is genuine disdain for women or his overall incompetence as a director and storyteller.

In case you think I am just lobbing P.C bombs, let’s profile Perry’s female characters in Boo 2! A Madea Halloween, shall we? First there is Tiffany, who is portrayed as a danger to herself and others after she is given a car by her mother despite having done little to warrant such a gift. She only gets the car because Perry portrays the mother as the kind of awful parent who buys her daughter’s affections with gifts and makes out with other men in front her ex-husband– in other words, she’s a castrating shrew.

Find my full length review in the Geeks Community on Vocal 

Documentary Review Faces Places

Faces Places (2017) 

Directed by Agnes Varda, JR 

Written by Agnes Varda

Starring Agnes Varda, JR 

Release Date June 28th 2017 

The grand lady of the French Cinema, Agnes Varda, may have made her final film. In interview with Indiewire.com, Varda told writer Eric Kohn that her new film, Faces Places, made with innovative French artist JR, would be a fitting final film. In the interview, Varda compares herself at 89 years old to a boxer potentially staying for one fight too many. She’s not "going to bed," as she puts it, she still has art installations to work on, but indeed the curtain may have come down on Agnes Varda at the Cinema.

If that is the case, Faces Places isn’t merely appropriate, it rings beautifully true as a summation of her filmic spirit and her lifelong dedication to the visages of the French lower middle class. Faces Places finds Varda working with JR, a French artist who has made his name with large scale installations in unusual places. JR travels France in a truck that looks like a giant camera. Indeed, it is a camera, inside, average people load in and get their picture taken and the photo emerges in large scale from the side of the truck like a Polaroid.

JR and Agnes’ sensibilities are the same as their ages are so very different. While they are feisty towards each other at times over their shared vision, Faces Places captures their warmth and obvious care for each other even as they entered the project as near strangers. Varda in many ways seems to be bestowing some of her legacy upon the young artist who is making the move into the cinema for the very first time with Faces Places, though whether he intends to stay in the film world is not mentioned in the film.

Throughout Faces Places this wonderful pair of artists roam the French countryside looking for unique faces and places to install large scale photography that is pasted to the sides of any structure people will allow them. In one of my favorite moments in any film in 2017, JR and Varda happen upon a rusty, rundown coal town that is preparing to tear down the last of a set of row-houses that once housed hundreds of coal miners and their families.

Find my full length review in the Geeks Community on Vocal

Movie Review Only the Brave

Only the Brave (2017) 

Directed by Joseph Kosinski 

Written by Ken Nolan, Eric Warren Singer

Starring Josh Brolin, Miles Teller, Jeff Bridges, James Badge Dale, Taylor Kitsch, Jennifer Connelly 

Release Date October 8th, 2017 

Only The Brave is based on a harrowing true story. In 2013 the Granite Mountain Hotshots wildfire fighting team was sent to Yarnell Hill in Arizona to battle a wildfire. When the weather turned and the wind kicked up the flames in a new direction, 19 members of the Hot Shots team was caught behind the fire line. All 19 were killed despite their use of flame retardant covers which proved ineffective for this raging blaze.

Director Joseph Kosinski, a fine director of such solid efforts as Tron Legacy and Oblivion, brings the story of the Granite Mountain Hotshots to life beautifully and painfully in Only the Brave. Taking the tale from the perspective of a new member of the squad, and ultimately the only man on the crew to survive the Yarnell Hill Fire, he was away from his team working as a scout, the film boils down the experience to a very human and relatable level that packs an emotional wallop.

Though it departs from the true story a tad, Only the Brave follows Brandon McDonough, a jobless, seemingly hopeless addict, who cleans up and looks for work as a firefighter. He arrives at the headquarters of the Hotshots in his hometown of Prescott, Arizona, with little experience, aside from EMT training course and looks to be a laughingstock to the members of the Hotshots crew. However, Supervisor and Hotshots boss, Eric Marsh (Josh Brolin) recognizes something in McDonough and hires him on the spot.

In reality, McDonough was a three-year hotshot's vet when the Yarnell Hill fire occurred, but the film character is meant as an amalgamation, as well as an audience surrogate. McDonough, who takes on the nickname Donut because his new friends don’t like his name, is made a rookie so the film can use him to explain terminology and give us more insights into what a Hotshot does. It’s a good choice, if one that defies the true story.

Find my full length review in the Geeks Community on Vocal