Movie Review Ice Princess

Ice Princess 

Directed by Tim Fywell

Written by Hadley Davis 

Starring Michelle Trachtenberg, Joan Cusack, Kim Cattrall, Hayden Panettiere 

Release Date March 18th, 2005 

Published March 13th, 2025

If not for the far too young passing of actress Michelle Trachtenberg, the 20th anniversary  of the movie Ice Princess likely would have passed unnoticed. Though this is a quite good for what it is sports movie, it's not exactly a top of mid movie for anyone outside a few nostalgic millennials with failed dreams of winning Olympic gold in Figure Skating. In 2005 and thereafter, more than a few young girls lived vicariously through Trachtenberg's overachieving academic with Harvard in her future who develops a sudden interest in figure skating through the use of math. 

Casey (Trachtenberg) has been on her way to Harvard University from the womb. Her mother, Joan (Joan Cusack), isn't a maniac intent on forcing her daughter to go to Harvard, just very supportive of the idea and proud of her accomplishments. Thus, it is to Joan's dismay that Casey decides to get back into figure skating. Joan sees it as a distraction from her stated academic goals. Casey meanwhile, posits figure skating as a physics experiment, developing an algorithm that not only helps her become an incredible skater in mere weeks, it also helps the other girls building their figure skating dreams including Gen (Hayden Panettiere), an early rival and soon friend of Casey. 

Through Gen, Casey meets Gen's brother, Teddy (Trevor Blumas), and begins a tentative romance. Add this to Casey's summer job, and you an understand why Joan starts freaking out over Casey having little time to focus on her studies. A boyfriend, a job, figure skating practice and competitions pile up alongside Casey's Harvard project and everything seems to suffer, save for figure skating. Indeed, Casey has gotten so good that when it appears she may qualify for an advanced tournament ahead of Gen, Gen's mother and their coach, Tina (Kim Cattrall), sabotages Casey to assure that Gen gets to move on to the big tournament. 

Find my full length review at Geeks.Media linked here. 

Movie Review The Monkey

The Monkey 

Directed by Osgood Perkins 

Written by Osgood Perkins 

Starring Theo James, Tatiana Maslany, Christian Convery 

Release Date February 21st, 2025 

Published February 21st, 2025 

The Monkey stars Theo James as a pair of characters, twin brothers, Hal and Bill Schelburn. Despite being twins, the brothers have never been close. Bill is a bully and Hal is meek and mild. The two share a loving and attentive mother, Lois (Tatiana Maslany), and a father that neither got to know very well. Petey Shelburn (Adam Scott) was a pilot who disappeared quite often, always returning with odd gifts for his sons that he would store in a closet with nebulous plans to actually give these gifts one day, until Petey simply never came home. 

While cleaning out dad’s closet, the boys find one of his many gifts, a mechanical monkey with crazy eyes and a drum. Turning the key in the back of the monkey is the start of a horrifying curse. The monkey is some kind of evil entity and when the key is turned, someone dies... horribly. The monkey also cannot be destroyed. In a pre-credits sequence we watch as the monkey is destroyed by flamethrower only to show up a few minutes later, fully intact and in the hands of Hal and Bill.

Click here for my full length review. 

Classic Movie Review Millions

Millions (2005) 

Directed by Danny Boyle

Written by Frank Cottrell Boyce 

Starring Alex Etel, Lewis Owen McGibbon, James Nesbitt 

Release Date March 2005 

Published February 22nd, 2025 

After films like Trainspotting and 28 Days Later the last thing you would expect from director Danny Boyle would be a heartfelt family movie. That is, however, exactly what Mr. Boyle delivers with Millions, a wonderfully imaginative and elegant family film about a good-hearted kid and the circumstances, both good and bad, that accompany trying to do what you feel is right.

Damian (Alex Etel) is not your average 8 year-old. Sure, most kids develop imaginary friends, but I'm sure that for most kids those imaginary friends aren't Saints, literally Catholic saints. Damian has spent much of his life, since the death of his mother, memorizing the miracles of the saints as well as their dates of birth and death.

Click here for my full length review. 

Documentary Review Sorry/Not Sorry

Sorry/Not Sorry (2024)

Directed by Caroline Suh, Cara Mones

Written by Documentary 

Starring Jen Kirkman, Abby Schachner, Megan Koester, Andy Kindler, Michael Ian Black, Michael Schur

Release Date July 12th, 2023

Published February 1st, 2025 

I have a pet peeve. Every time I hear some boomer a****** talk about how such and such behavior was okay 'at the time, I get seriously annoyed. NO IT F****** WASN'T! There was never a time in recorded history where sexual assault was okay. There was never a time in human history when a man could pull out his penis in front of other people and begin masturbating and it was okay. There has never been a time when inflicting your sexual perversion on other people without their consent was okay. Racism, sexism, homophobia, Transphobia, these things were never okay. They should never have been treated as if they were okay. 

The documentary, Sorry/Not Sorry is about what Louis C.K did to a series of women. Using his position as a powerful star in the industry, he would invite his fellow professional comics, who happened to be women, to his dressing room, where he would proceed to masturbate in front of them. He has not denied doing this. And yet, his fans and enablers can't stop whining about 'cancel culture.' How about we forget about cancel culture and focus on the fact that what Louis C.K did was creepy, weird, and above all, wrong. It was wrong. I was under the impression for many years that we all agreed that this behavior was criminal. Somehow, just because Louis C.K makes some people laugh, we're supposed to look the other way.

lick here for my full length review. 

Movie Review Companion

Companion 

Directed by Drew Hancock

Written by Drew Hancock 

Starring Sophie Thatcher, Jack Quaid 

Release Date January 31st, 2025 

Published February 2nd, 2025

Companion stars Sophie Thatcher as Iris, the girlfriend of Josh, played by Jack Quaid. The two met while grocery shopping when goofy Josh attempted to flirt with Iris only to dump oranges all over the grocery store. Classic meet-cute stuff. Iris found Josh’s awkwardness sweet and his dorky smile adorable. They’ve been together ever since. If this meet-cute sounds all too perfect, you’re right, it is. 

This memory is related to us by Iris as she remembers it from a dream she was having. She and Josh are in the car driving to a weekend getaway with some of Josh’s friends and Iris dozed off. So the dream explains the gauzy, too perfect, quality of the meet-cute right? Nope, not really. There is still something a little off. It’s in the manner that Josh addresses Iris, his language is a little overbearing. He seems to be giving her orders rather than empathetically relating to the anxiety she feels about being around his friends. He's not rude or mean, per se, just specific and a little insensitive.

Click here for my full length review. 

Documentary Review The Killing of America

The Killing of America 

Directed by Sheldon Renan, Leonard Schader

Written by Leonard Schrader, Chieko Schrader

Starring American Violence 

Release Date September 5th, 1981

Published February 3rd, 2025 

The inspiration for this article is a video I tripped over while researching movies of the 1980s with a friend. We saw that in 1981 there was a documentary about America’s culture of violence and how violence had only begun to take such a hold in America in the wake of the J.F.K assassination. Interesting thesis, I wanted to know more about it. That’s when I learned that The Killing of America, a 1981 documentary created by filmmakers Sheldon Renan and Leonard Schrader, Paul Schrader’s brother, was available to watch for free on YouTube. 

The Killing of America is among the most mind-blowing, shocking, stirring and horrific documentaries to ever exist. The film is boldly uncensored and demonstrates its thesis statement regarding the growth of American gun culture and the culture of violent death that accompanied it, by using uncensored footage of people being killed, footage of morgues full of bodies in the midst of autopsy, and crime scene photos of a kind that haven’t been seen in American media in decades. But it’s so much more than just shock footage. The Killing of America features real instances of American violence that have been forgotten or censored out of existence.

Click here for my full length review. 

Documentary Review My Husband, The Cyborg

My Husband, The Cyborg 

Directed by Susanna Cappellaro

Written by Susanna Cappellaro

Starring Susanna Cappellaro, Scott Cohen

Release Date February 3rd, 2025 

Published February 4th, 2025

My Husband, The Cyborg is a terrific documentary in that it is so very inviting. By that I mean, the film invites you into a conversation with it. Your mind can’t help but argue or challenge the movie, unless you agree with what’s happening, but then you are probably thinking of the possibilities it demonstrates for your own life, in a different conversation with the film. For me, it was a running argument with the protagonist of My Husband, The Cyborg, Scott Cohen, a frustrating human being who, though he is probably a fine person in general, drove me up a wall. 

My Husband, The Cyborg proceeds on the premise of filmmaker, Susanna Cappellaro documenting her husband Scott’s transformation into a ‘Cyborg.’ Scott is starting the process of enhancing his body for the future. The first step is getting a series of bolts in his chest, essentially piercings, which will be in place to hold a small microchip. This microchip has one function, it vibrates when Scott is facing magnetic north. It’s a vibrating compass. That’s it. According to Scott, he will now always know when he’s facing north, which I am sure is valuable information… somehow.

Click here for my full length review.