Steve Stebbing

New Release:

The Creator – From writer/director Gareth Edwards (“Rogue One,” “Godzilla”) comes an epic sci-fi action thriller set amidst a future war between the human race and the forces of artificial intelligence. Joshua (John David Washington, “Tenet”), a hardened ex-special forces agent grieving the disappearance of his wife (Gemma Chan, “Eternals”), is recruited to hunt down and kill the Creator, the elusive architect of advanced AI who has developed a mysterious weapon with the power to end the war… and mankind itself. Joshua and his team of elite operatives journey across enemy lines, into the dark heart of AI-occupied territory… only to discover the world-ending weapon he’s been instructed to destroy is an AI in the form of a young child (newcomer Madeleine Yuna Voyles).

Expectations: I don’t want to jinx anything but this may be the next landmark piece of science fiction cinema, something that will set the tone for this year much like Dune or Blade Runner 2049 did. Edwards is such a gifted filmmaker and I love the work he does with his usual cinematographer Greig Fraser and the trailers for this look incredible. I also think John David Washington is on the fast track to an Oscar so I love that he’s starring in this one. Very relevant to be talking about artificial intelligence as well.

Saw X – John Kramer (Tobin Bell) is back. The most chilling installment of the Saw franchise yet explores the untold chapter of Jigsaw’s most personal game. Set between the events of Saw I and II, a sick and desperate John travels to Mexico for a risky and experimental medical procedure in hopes of a miracle cure for his cancer — only to discover the entire operation is a scam to defraud the most vulnerable. Armed with a newfound purpose, John returns to his work, turning the tables on the con artists in his signature visceral way through a series of ingenious and terrifying traps.

Expectations: After Chris Rock resurrected the Saw franchise a bit with the last film, Spiral, we now get a full-on resuscitation of the once-popular horror franchise with a prequel here and I’m sure that more are to follow. This is a franchise that was always directed to a very focused torture porn fanbase and this one is definitely no different. Blood, guts, gore and so much more is certainly on display but will there be a solid plot and reveals that take us back to the feeling of the first movie? Well, there hasn’t really been one as good in all the eight movies to follow but we can still keep hope alive for this one, I guess.

She Came To Me – This is a truly modern romantic comedy, a multi-generational love story set against the iconic backdrop of New York: A composer suffering from creative block finds inspiration after a chance encounter with an unusual woman, a couple of bright teenagers fight to prove to their parents that young love can last forever, and for a successful therapist who seemingly has it all, love arrives in the most unexpected of ways.

Expectations: A hell of a cast leads this film, with Peter Dinklage, Anne Hathaway and Marisa Tomei, and the advance word on it is really giving high marks. This isn’t a surprise as it is the new film from writer and director Rebecca Miller, daughter of famed writer Arthur Miller and wife of Daniel Day-Lewis, but that isn’t to diminish her talent as she is proven through and through. Personally, I’ve been waiting eight years for this film as Maggie’s Plan, Miller’s last, was a press screening I checked out in 2015. This may be a word-of-mouth firebuilder here.

Flora And Son – Single mom Flora (Eve Hewson) is at a loss about what to do with her rebellious teenage son, Max (Orén Kinlan). Encouraged by the police to find Max a hobby, Flora tries to occupy him with a beat-up acoustic guitar. With the help of a washed-up LA musician (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), Flora and Max discover the transformative power of music. From the musical mind of John Carney, the film explores the bond between a mother and son on a journey toward a new harmony.

Review: I have really loved all of John Carney’s films to date and this film, although a bit Hollywood glossy cheese at times, still has that crowd-pleaser formula all over it. I love that Carney hasn’t lost his edge and that bit of roughness in character adds so much more to the fantastic performance that Eve Hewson gives, a real starmaker and driving force of the movie. I loved how they framed Flora and her online guitar teacher Jeff’s relationship and the imagination used to tell it and the film really left a smile on my face in the end. A solid film that you should believe the hype on.

Blu-Ray:

Elemental – The film journeys alongside an unlikely pair, Ember and Wade, in a city where fire, water, land and air residents live together. The fiery young woman and the go-with-the-flow guy are about to discover something elemental: how much they have in common.

Review: I had almost no enthusiasm for seeing this new animated film, which is crazy historically as it is a Pixar feature film, but nothing about it looked interesting. Well, maybe the low bar I had set for it worked out because I ended up loving this film, embracing it’s chaotic world and look a bit but the moral and message are what really landed. The film plays with themes of xenophobia as well as the immigrant’s plight and I found it fascinating that they didn’t lead with this in advertisements. Actually, come to think of it, that might have killed it at the box office even more as people are really rejecting the “woke” thing. Mostly because they are idiots that can’t define woke. Yeah, I said it.

Insidious: The Red Door – The horror franchise’s original cast returns for the final chapter of the Lambert family’s terrifying saga. To put their demons to rest once and for all, Josh (Patrick Wilson) and a college-aged Dalton (Ty Simpkins) must go deeper into The Further than ever before, facing their family’s dark past and a host of new and more horrifying terrors that lurk behind the red door.

Expectations: The finale of a chilling and jump-scare-filled series arrives and lead actor Patrick Wilson steps behind the camera in his debut as a director to shepherd the end to the screen. This film definitely has its built-in audience so I don’t see it grabbing any new fans. I will also say that the first two films, directed by creator James Wan, are the best in the bunch so I don’t see this one outdoing it at all.

Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken – Sixteen-year-old Ruby Gillman learns she is in the next legendary line of sea Kraken. Despite her lofty destiny, she is desperate to fit in at Oceanside High. Ruby struggles, even more, to fit in when her mother forbids her from going to the beach. After disobeying her mother’s rules, she discovers that she is descended from the warrior Kraken queens and will ascend to the throne as the Warrior Queen of the Seven Seas, her grandmother. The Krakens are a race sworn to protect the world’s oceans from the vain, power-hungry mermaids by battling with eons. Ruby would need to embrace Chelsea, a mermaid-turned-human who enrolls at Oceanside High School.

Review: It looks like Dreamworks is trying to launch a new franchise here and the animation is fun and colourful which had my kid engaged for the whole duration, a tough feat these days. The humour for adults is present here as well, coming from writer and director Kirk DeMicco, the mind behind The Croods movies and I contest that those films are hilarious. Featuring the voices of Lana Condor, Jane Fonda, Toni Collette and Will Forte, this movie didn’t really grab the audience like it should’ve but I see it doing really well on the home release market.

Sympathy For The Devil – After being forced to drive a mysterious passenger at gunpoint, a man finds himself in a high-stakes game of cat and mouse where it becomes clear that not everything is as it seems.

Expectations: Look, this is a Nicolas Cage movie so you will get hyperbole and love from me but I’m more than a little aware of the large disdain for his work. This one has Joel Kinneman playing the straight role of Cage’s psychopath and I can’t lie, it looks like some of Michael Mann’s Collateral was borrowed storywise to plot this film but, still, it looks fun. Yes, the reviews don’t reflect that but I’m forever and ever a Cage dude. That will never change.

Gangnam Zombie – Gangnam, an upscale neighbourhood in Seoul, becomes the center of mass chaos when residents begin to experience terrifying symptoms that turn them into strange, inhuman creatures that begin to attack. A man and woman are among the remaining few not infected and must risk everything to escape the zombie onslaught.

Review: I can’t lie, when I saw this title I was fully expecting Psy to come out during it and everyone dropped into a choreographed “Gangnam Style”. Suffice it to say, that didn’t happen. The issue with this film is it has all of the previous zombie films, both dramatic and comedy, that came before it and, sadly, did it way better. The film has flairs of style here and there but mostly gets stuck in doing a lesser version of what we’ve seen before. All in all, the zombies fared better in Busan and I have my issues with those two films as well.

Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan: Season 3 – When CIA analyst Jack Ryan stumbles upon a suspicious series of bank transfers his search for answers pulls him from the safety of his desk job and catapults him into a deadly game of cat and mouse throughout Europe and the Middle East, with a rising terrorist figurehead preparing for a massive attack against the US and her allies.

Expectations: John Krasinski has done a phenomenal job with this character and given Harrison Ford a run for the best to have played him at this point and it is with that going out on top feeling that he and the creators of this series have decided to bring it to a close with a final group of episodes that is currently on Prime Video. Always well told and believable, I think Tom Clancy would be proud of what they’ve done with the character and the modernization of the world he faces. It also makes me wonder if we may see some limited movies in the future within this world.

Star Trek Prodigy: Season 1 Episodes 11 to 20 – A motley crew of young aliens in the Delta Quadrant find an abandoned Starfleet ship, the U.S.S. Protostar; taking control of the ship, they must learn to work together as they make their way towards the Alpha Quadrant.

Review: The collective zeitgeist is probably looking at CBS All Access and thinking they’re milking the Gene Roddenberry-created universe of smart science fiction for all it can get and, yes, that’s almost exactly what producers are thinking but it is paying off. They have a straightforward series with Discovery, a call-back show with Picard, a comedy series with Lower Decks and now this in-betweener. The series is a teenager-aimed animated story that follows a group of teenagers who steal a derelict Starfleet vessel and use it to explore the galaxy. The show signals the return of Kate Mulgrew’s Captain Janeway and Robert Beltran’s Captain Chakotay from Voyager, which makes me far too happy for a guy who isn’t a Trekkie.

Pennyworth: Complete Series – Former British SAS soldier Alfred Pennyworth forms a security company and goes to work with Bruce Wayne’s billionaire father, Thomas, in 1960s London.

Review: This DC Universe-related television series that debuted on Epix of all places comes to a close after three seasons, compiled into this set. Not to be confused with the Fox show Gotham, another prequel that had a younger Alfred Pennyworth, loyal butler to Bruce Wayne and medic and everyman to the Caped Crusader Batman, this show features British actor Jack Bannon in the role, harkening back to his days working for Bruce’s father Thomas. The show would honestly be a lot better if they hadn’t tied it to this pre-existing world and done an original series instead. It also gets a bit dry here and there.

Steve’s Blu-Ray & 4K Geekouts:

Rio Bravo 4K – When gunslinger Joe Burdette (Claude Akins) kills a man in a saloon, Sheriff John T. Chance (John Wayne) arrests him with the aid of the town drunk, Dude (Dean Martin). Before long, Burdette’s brother, Nathan (John Russell), comes around, indicating that he’s prepared to bust his brother out of jail if necessary. Chance decides to make a stand until reinforcements arrive, enlisting Dude, an old cripple named Stumpy (Walter Brennan) and baby-faced cowboy Colorado Ryan (Ricky Nelson) to help.

Review: A classic Warner Bros. western has made its way to 4K this year as the famed studio is on a mission to bring its catalogue to the next format and this is one of those landmark John Wayne films that was a crown jewel in his career. The film was directed by Howard Hawks, one of the biggest filmmakers of the era, and this was the follow-up to Land Of The Pharaohs, funny enough, a film I will be covering in this segment very soon. All in all, this is a genre classic that paved the way for many more to be inspired by it, although it was never recognized in an award sense at the time.

East Of Eden 4K – Cal Trask is a particularly unhappy young man. He sees himself as the black sheep of the family and is always competing with his brother Aron, who seems to be perfect in almost every way. Aron is also their father’s favorite and Cal desperately wants his father’s love and affection. It’s the period leading up to America’s entry into World War I and these are tumultuous times. After his father loses most of his fortune trying to ship refrigerated lettuce to New York, Cal decides to speculate on a crop of beans and makes a small fortune but he soon realizes that he can’t buy his father’s love either. Cal’s discovery that his mother is alive – he and Aron were told that she had died – and that she is a madam leads to a final, tragic result for all three of the Trask men.

Review: Through this repressing of all the films that built Warner Bros. as a studio, I have now gotten all of the films that made James Dean a big star before his tragic death at far too young of an age. After taking in Rebel Without A Cause and now this one I really love his performance as Cal more compelling and it might be due to the direction of the legendary Elia Kazan as well as the source material being a John Steinbeck book. I mean, you’d have to try really hard to screw that one up. The film went on to win one Academy Award from four nominations, going to Best Actress, Jo Van Fleet, but it definitely secures its place as one of the greatest dramas of its era.

The Elephant Man – Forever imprisoned inside a hideous, deformed body, the unfortunate, perpetually masked in a dreadful burlap sack Victorian fairground attraction exhibit, John Merrick, is forced to live a cruel life as a curiosity. Milked for every penny by the sadistic showman, Mr. Bytes, the ridiculed and multiply disfigured Merrick crosses paths with the philanthropic physician, Frederick Treves, who offers Bytes a hefty compensation to conduct a more thorough examination at the London Hospital. However, how pure and humanitarian are sympathetic Treves’ motives? Is the grotesque “Elephant Man” doomed to relive his horrible past?

Review: This Criterion Collection beauty was a birthday present for me this year and a thoroughly fantastic edition of a special film in one of my favourite filmmaker’s incredible careers. Directed by a young David Lynch in one of his more conventional films and produced by Mel Brooks, one of the non-comedy entries in his long Hollywood tenure and one that his wife Anne Bancroft starred in as well. This film was celebrated by critics broadly and nominated for eight Academy Awards but, unfortunately, it lost out on all of those awards to a solid year that included Tess, Ordinary People, Raging Bull and Fame. This is one of those must-see films if you are a total movie buff.

Television:

Gen V (Prime Video) – From the world of The Boys comes Gen V, which explores the training of the first generation of superheroes to know about Compound V, and that their powers were injected into them, rather than God-given. These young, competitive heroes put their physical and moral boundaries to the test, competing for the school’s highly coveted top ranking. They quickly come to learn that ambition comes with sacrifice, and that the difference between right and wrong is not as straightforward as they once believed. When the university’s dark secrets come to light, the students must come to grips with what type of heroes they are going to become.

Review: Trying to capitalize on the mega success of the Garth Ennis-written and Seth Rogen-produced adaptation of the graphic novel series The Boys, I wouldn’t look at this show as an equal representation but it’s still really entertaining. This feels like one of the spin-off comics for that Dynamite book series, which is pretty fitting. I’m not sure what it’s future is beyond this one season but it was definitely an entertaining binge with that same satirical and violent style.