Steve Stebbing

Breaking down all things pop culture

What The Hell Should I Watch At Home? – Feb 4

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February 4, 2021

New Releases:

Falling – Viggo Mortensen makes his directorial debut with this drama that he wrote and starred in as well, and I know awards season is going to be weird this year, but if both he and his other star Lance Henriksen aren’t even mentioned during it, well, that’s going to be a serious indictment on the industry. Henriksen plays Willis, a gruff and brutal father rapidly descending into dementia who moves from his rural farm to live with his gay son and his family in Los Angeles very much against his own wishes. From the get-go, nothing but hazy bile, vitriol and resentment come out of Willis’ mouth and it all takes out characters downhill as they just try to do what’s right for him as they put their lives on hold to figure out his situation, The film explores the deep commitment to family, for better and in this case for worse in an experience that largely feels stressful and uncomfortable but is some of the best character work I’ve seen this year. Bravo to Viggo in his first film and it was a nice touch to see a David Cronenberg cameo in this.

Malcolm & Marie – After seeing his film Assassination Nation and the incredible debut season of Euphoria on HBO I was really excited to see writer and director Sam Levinson’s new film come down the release schedule, a drama shot in black and white with the next serious A-list star, Tenet’s John David Washington, and the filmmaker’s television lead star Zendaya. Being the only two to appear on screen, the story follows a filmmaker who returns home with his girlfriend following a celebratory movie premiere and awaits what he hopes to be imminent critical and financial success. The evening immediately takes a turn as revelations about their relationships begin to surface and the subject matter of his film and it’s inspiration are at the forefront of he argument. Beautifully shot and exquisitely acted, the ultimate goal of the film felt missing to me as I got to the credits. Essentially, the film is two people gaslighting each other for over ninety minutes and the goal is pretty much unknown by the end which, to me, felt like it negated the reason the watch it. Ultimately, I walked away disappointed.

Rams – When I saw this movie pop up on my list of new releases, well, no easy way to say this but, I was pissed. The film is based on a really great Norweigan film and it always seems that American companies grab something great like say Force Majeure and turn it into easily digestible crap like the Will Ferrell comedy Downhill. Luckily, my fears were for naught and Australians remade this movie and put the very likeable Sam Neill and Aussie veteran Micahel Caton in the lead roles. The story follows two sheep farming brothers in the midst of a decades-long feud that comes to a head when disaster strikes their flocks. I will say that the original, Hrutar, is a much better film just because it struck while the iron was hot and this film feels like a straight rehash of that but if you haven’t seen this particular story yet then it all works in this rougher Australian sense. Neill and Caton carry this film on their shoulders and there is no limping on this, they are both so stellar in it.

Two Of Us – Some international flavour lands this week in the form of this romantic drama from France which also is the narrative feature debut of filmmaker Filippo Meneghetti who also co-wrote it as well. The film stars Rainer Werner Fassbinder protege Barbara Sukowa, Tell No One actress Martine Chevallier and absolute stunner Léa Drucker in a story about pensioners Nina and Madeleine who have hidden their deep and passionate love for many decades but their bond is put to the test when they are suddenly unable to move freely between each other’s apartments when Madeleine’s daughter moves in. The film has such a building resonance that feels incredibly tangible as the decade-old love story between these two women and the frustration of hiding their secret is apparent at every second. Intimately shot and beautifully acted, this movie was an absolute surprise to me this week.

A Glitch In The Matrix – Oh boy, time to terrify you with the underlying knowledge that it is possible that the reality you live in may not be real and that you might have the ability to be Neo and take on all of the Agent Smiths around. Sorry, just seeing if you were paying attention but this one does delve into the thoughts I’m sure we all have in that capacity. Coming from documentary filmmaker Rodney Ascher, who already brought us the conspiracy film Room 237 about the supposed secrets contained in The Shining, this film tackles this question “are we living in a simulation?” with testimony, philosophical evidence and scientific explanation to make up his hypothesis. Ever since I saw The Matrix, ideas like this have been floating in my head so it’s so cool to see that Ascher really tackled it head-on and the results are very interesting. I know a lot of people will latch onto this one.

Blu-Ray:

Princess Of The Row – This is a film that really came out of nowhere and goes directly for the feelings right away and I definitely walked away with the name Van Maximilian Carlson in my mind as he makes his feature filmmaking debut here with a heartfelt coming-of-age drama amidst some very dark themes. The film is an inspiring tale of a runaway foster child who will stop at nothing to live with the only family she knows which is her homeless, mentally-ill veteran father who lives on the streets of LA’s skid row, played brilliantly by X-Men: First Class actor Edi Gathegi in a performance that needs to be seen to be believed. This is one of those indie films that will probably slide to the wayside until it is discovered in years on Netflix but I’m telling you now that this is a can’t miss film and the word of mouth will travel.

Let Him Go – Years after playing Ma and Pa Kent for Zack Snyder in his Superman film Man Of Steel, Kevin Costner and Diane Lane reteam for this noir feeling thriller that is a bit above the calibre of film that the trailer would lead you to believe it is. The film has them playing a retired sheriff and his wife who, following the loss of their son, leave their Montana ranch to rescue their young grandson from the clutches of a dangerous family living off the grid in the Dakotas. Both Lane and Costner give formidable performances but it is the small part that accomplished character actress Leslie Manville gives as the matriarch of the family in question that bolts you to the floor for her absolutely intense scenes. This is a taut and emotional slow bubbling thriller that keeps you engaged from start to finish.

The Spongebob Movie: Sponge On The Run – Once again I get to talk about the famous sponge who lives under the sea as I really love to do and, hell, it isn’t even my birthday. Seriously, I absolutely adore this Nickelodeon creation of madness and am totally excited for the arrival of the third movie. The new film had Spongebob on the search for his pet snail Gary who has been kidnapped or, as he puts it, “snail napped”. Spongebob grabs his best friend Patrick and embarks on an epic adventure to The Lost City of Atlantic City to bring Gary home and eventually encounter a helping hand along the way in the form of a “sage” played by Keanu Reeves. This is definitely a movie that will appeal to a certain audience but for a parent like me, I buy it all, hook, line and sinker, but this is the first time I felt any sort of fatigue or diminishing returns from a SpongeBob movie. I definitely didn’t dislike it but my love for this one only hit a middle ground and I felt myself wanting more from it. They got three movie and over ten seasons in so I’d say that’s still a damn good run.

Wild Mountain Thyme – For all of those who loved movies like Circle Of Friends or, more recently but not recently, P.S. I Love You, they may take a look at this movie, see it’s an Irish romantic comedy and plunk in their dollars to VOD for a new Emily Blunt movie with the guy from the Fifty Shades trilogy. Well, the rude awakening comes when you hear Christopher Walken’s narration to open the film, in the worst faltering Irish accent you’ve ever heard. Seriously, coming from the writer of Moonstruck, John Patrick Shanley, I was expecting so much more from a film that follows headstrong farmer Rosemary Muldoon who has her heart set on winning her neighbour Anthony Reilly’s love. The problem is Anthony seems to have inherited a family curse and remains oblivious to his beautiful admirer. Stung by his father Tony’s (Christopher Walken) plans to sell the family farm to his American nephew Anthony is jolted into pursuing his dreams in this film that feels ridiculous, contrived and totally offensive to anyone living in Ireland. Really, everyone should skip this one as a Christmas present to themselves.

The 2nd – This movie starts with the tickle and the slap as it stars Ryan Phillippe, an actor I generally enjoy and one who is currently enjoying a run on television in the network series Big Sky. The bad part comes when you see that his co-star is direct to video actor Casper Van Dien who hasn’t been the feature star of a good movie since Sleepy Hollow over twenty years ago and, yes, I’m skipping Alita: Battle Angel and Mortal Kombat: Legacy for effect. This film has Phillippe playing an Army Delta Force officer who is late picking up his son at college. Meanwhile, his son and a Supreme Court Justice’s daughter are the last there, as is a gang of terrorists who are there to abduct her and force her dad’s hand on a Second Amendment vote. All that said, go with your instinct that this movie is terrible because it really is. A lame attempt at trying to make a John McClane type ripoff, the film has zero originality and is boneheaded and hamfisted at the same time.

Breach – I always take a deep breath when it comes to reviewing Bruce Willis movies these days and definitely when it comes to direct to video titles he does because, unfortunately, he doesn’t really put that star quality into the ones he does for the big screen. Hell, he phones in those ones sometimes too. This story shoots John McClane into space, and follows a junior mechanic on the cusp of fatherhood aboard an interstellar ark to New Earth who must outwit a malevolent cosmic terror intent on using the spaceship as a weapon and slaughtering what’s left of humanity. Co-starring The Expanse’s Thomas Jane and G.I. Joe: TheRise Of Cobra’s Rachel Nichols, I feel like you know where I’m going to say in this review. Yes, I can not lie to you, the film is cheesy, unoriginal all looks like a bunch of people taking paycheque amongst unknown actors looking to make a mark in a production that will definitely not do that for them. I don’t understand why studios keep letting Willis fleece them. His agent must be really good.

Host – Months into the pandemic I said that I definitely did not want to see any COVID driven horror on my screen, a notion that just felt way too tacky to get behind but this film, released only a couple of months into it, gave me a bit of a pause because it takes something that is now very commonplace and used it so brilliantly in its divisiveness. Filmed over Zoom, the story follows six friends who hire a medium to hold a seance using the networking app during a lockdown, but they get far more than they bargained for as things quickly go wrong and things spiral out of control in a deadly way. I won’t get into the details but this film is effective in its scares, completely unpredictable in its plot and maybe enough to get your hair to stand on end. At just under an hour-long, this is that movie you use to actually freak out horror fans and a very smart way to take out the terrible situations and make something immensely cool out of it. Bravo to writer and director Rob Savage, you rocked this one.

Love, Weddings & Other Disasters – With a cast headlined by Diane Keaton, Jeremy Irons and former Lost star Maggie Grace, you would think a romantic comedy set at a wedding would be a slam dunk but adding in that this film was written and directed by Adam Sandler dude Dennis Dugan whose last four movies include both Grown Ups movies and Jack And Jill, well, the expectations lower. The film is a multi-story romantic comedy about the people who work on weddings to create the perfect day for a loving couple with their own lives and relationships being outlandish, odd, crazy and far from perfect. This film is a totally sloppy mess of bad writing, haphazard plotting and, well, other disasters making this a total slog to get through and even at only an hour and a half long my urge to yell at Diane Keaton until I’m hoarse came on very quickly into it. Also, she’s given up on having the costuming department dress her at this point, right?

Horror Noire: A History of Black Horror – I’m a real sucker for film documentaries and let’s get so specific about this, I’m talking documentaries about film and its cultural, pop culture and world issues that they touch on. This movie checks all of those boxes while adding an attuned perspective and comes at the most pivotal time with the Black Lives Matter movement making such a mark in 2020 and hopefully from here on out. In a nutshell, the documentary is a look at the history of black horror films and the role of African Americans in the film genre from the very beginning, highlighting the horrific star with Birth Of A Nation and digging through the pivotal films in that lineage like Night Of The Living Dead, Blackula, Candyman and Tales From The Hood, all the way up to modern masterpieces like Get Out and The Girl With All The Gifts. I was captivated throughout and could have sat through another hour of it, easily. It is that damn good.

The Casagrandes: Season 1 – Oh, Nickelodeon. Such a bottomless barrel of new ideas to beam into your kids minds and this new show landed last year to some solid reviews, on kids sites of course, ad has some great BIPOC representation as it is a Latino based story. The show is a spin-off of  the wildly successful animated show The Loud House and features Ronnie Anne Santiago, a girl who moves to the big city alongside her mother and older brother Bobby, where she meets her extended Hispanic family. The show features great voice actors like Carlos Alazraqui, Dee Bradley Baker and Alexa PenaVega and was created with Chris Savino, the guy behind Powerpuff Girls and Dexter’s Labratory, so he practically build the Cartoon Network himself, so it’s in good hands and, at the end of it all, it’s pretty well written and may actually get a chuckle out of you. The easy bar to clear is it being better than Paw Patrol and I can happily say that it is. Way better.

Steve’s Blu-Ray Geek Outs:

Epicentro – Yes, I’m starting the geek outs with an impactful documentary because what’s geekier than getting informed while you put something enjoyable in your eyeballs, right? Written and directed by Darwin’s Nightmare filmmaker Hubert Sauper, this film is an immersive and metaphorical portrait of post-colonial, “utopian” Cuba, where the 1898 explosion of the USS Maine still resonates. The incident that rocked the country really ended Spanish colonial dominance in the Americas and ushered in the era of the American Empire and at the same time and place, a powerful tool of conquest was born being cinema as propaganda. Narrated by young actress Oona Laurence, the film is fascinating as it rolls out the political myth-making that has been developed for years and kept the people oppressed by fear. This film is eye-opening and may give that frequent travellers on Cuban vacations some repose.

The Harvey Girls – Seven years after the iconic hot of The Wizard OF Oz, a film that still transcends the decades and is still a must-see piece of family-friendly cinema, Dorothy and the Scarecrow reunited for this western comedy musical headlined with the names Judy Garland and Ray Bolger. The story follows Susan Bradley, played by Garland, a mail-order bride on a trip west to unite with her suitor who meets a cheery crew of young women travelling out to open a “Harvey House” which is a restaurant at a remote whistle-stop. This was during the rough decline of Garland’s career as missed eleven days of shooting and was late forty times when she actually did show up and wasn’t keen on the western setting saying “This is a fine picture for me. I hate guns, and I’m scared to death of horses. When I even come near a bunch of horses, they nudge each other and say, ‘This is going to be fun.'”. Heck, even when she was declining into her worst behaviours she was still wildly entertaining as a human being.

Holiday Affair – Two of the greatest stars of the late forties Hollywood era, Robert Mitchum and Janet Leigh, came together for this Christmas time romantic comedy, a modest film that was not a success at the time, but due to the annual showings on Turner Classic Movies in recent years it has become something of a minor holiday classic now. Set just before Christmas, the story follows a department store clerk named Steve Mason who meets a big-spending customer named Connie Ennis who is really a commercial spy. He unmasks her but decides to let her go which gets him fired. They end up on a date, which doesn’t sit well with Connie’s steady suitor, Carl, but delights her son Timmy, who doesn’t want Carl for a step-dad and, of course, romantic complications follow. Tragically, the film did not do well at the box office, resulting in a loss of $300,000, which would be roughly over $3 million in today’s numbers, which probably led to a handful of bad Christmases that year.

Versus – Being a favourite in the genre of weird Japanese movies, I feel like the good people of Arrow Video have been dipping into reading excerpts from my dream journal because this two-disc collector’s edition is everything I could have contained in there and more. I’ll try to nutshell this synopsis but the film is set in the present day where a group of ruthless gangsters, an unknown woman and an escaped convict have met, unwittingly, in The Forest of Resurrection, the 444th portal to the other side. Their troubles start when those once killed and buried in the forest come back from the dead, with the assistance of the evil spirit that has also come back from ages past to claim his prize. What results is the final standoff between Light and Dark, where old Japanese Samurai mysticism meets the new world of the gangster and the gun in a gruesome, bloody and unforgettable fashion. This movie is a total experience and kind of feels like live-action anime in a way but one that I can get a toehold in and enjoy. This is deep genre stuff so proceed with caution.

Survivor Ballads: Three Films by Shohei Imamura – Speaking of not really accessible cinema, let us delve into this boxed set from acclaimed Japanese filmmaker Shohei Imamura, a director whose oeuvre spanned almost four and a half decades with films that often dug beneath the surface of Japanese society to reveal a hidden cache of sensual and often irrational energy that lies beneath. This set showcases three of those films, The Ballad of Narayama from 1983, about an older woman who is getting close to the age of 70, a cut-off age where you have to climb a nearby mountain to die in a poor 19th-century rural Japanese village, Zegen from 1987, about a Japanese immigrant in 1901 Hong Kong wishes to become a simple shopkeeper, but fate intervenes send him on an adventure that brings fervent patriotism with greed and, finally, Black Rain from 1989, his most straight forward in the set, which is the story of the aftermath of the Hiroshima bombing. There’s definitely some deep cinephile stuff here but those who love some complex Japanese films will love this one.

Television:

Firefly Lane (Netflix) – For many television viewers, this one is a double-edged sword as it features the incredibly likeable and Canadian former Scrubs star Sarah Chalke but also has former Grey’s Anatomy pariah and generally one-note actress Katherine Heigl in the opposite role. The great news is Heigl plays against type in this very friendship-centric new series and the two also share some great chemistry. The series is the story of Tully and Kate, two unlikely friends from their meeting as tweens in 1974 to the present. Kate, the introvert, and Tully, the coolest girl in school, form a bond that weathers every milestone in their lives, leading up to a tragedy in the present andwhen we start out with the characters Kate is going through a separation leading to a divorce and Tully is an Oprah like figure with a show rapidly descending into cheesy nothingness. The show is really intriguing but you have to get past the first episode which feels like it’s completely uneventful until the last scene.

The Pembrokeshire Murders (BritBox) – There’s honestly nothing better in the police procedurals than when the Brits get a hold of a juicy story for a little miniseries and this one checks all the right boxes and it is a breeze to watch through, only being three episodes long. The show stars the always great Luke Evans and follows him as newly promoted Detective Superintendent Steve Wilkins who decides to reopen two unsolved double murders from the 1980s that have cast a shadow over the work of his department’s work for a quarter of a century. The show was done under the eye of filmmaker Marc Evans who has a knack for really good drama, as evident in his Canadian production Snow Cake, he did in 2006 with Sigourney Weaver and the late great favourite Alan Rickman. This is a solidly made series that doesn’t skimp on the twists.

The Investigation (Crave) – HBO Max is going international with this brand new series that features a face familiar to those Game Of Thrones fans out there as Euron Greyjoy himself, Pilou Asbæk, leads this new six-episode show. A co-production between Denmark, Sweden and Norway, the show is based on a true story and follows Copenhagen Police’s Homicide unit, headed by the Head of Homicide, Jens Møller, as they try to solve the murder of Swedish journalist Kim Wall. With the hope of being able to provide the prosecutor, played by Asbæk, some solid evidence to create a convincing case and give the relatives the certainty they deserve. While the show doesn’t get into the gory details of the real case, it decides to instead go into the details of the actual investigation without sensation, which plays exactly into the title and it is a very solid watch.

The Snoopy Show (AppleTV+) – There is a bittersweet notion to this all-new series being made as Peanuts creator Charles Schultz had stated that he didn’t want any more Peanuts cartoons being made after his death, but the Schultz family has now sold the rights to Apple for a newly commissioned series and technically it’s not Peanuts as the title just focuses on the beagle Snoopy himself, which I’m sure is to avoid legal litigation. The good news is that the six-episode series is really great, containing the same sweetheart that made these characters a hit that transcends generations. My little girl was completely new to these characters and burned through all the episodes in one sitting and was begging for more which made my heart absolutely sing. Consider the new generation onboard for more Peanuts and thank you Charles Schultz for this magic.

What The Hell Should I Watch At Home? – Jan 28

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January 28, 2021

New Releases:

The Little Things – After testing out their new model of release in this pandemic era of big films, Warner Brothers rolls out the next film on their big slate for this year and it stars the money make and reliable face of one of the greatest actors today, Denzel Washington. The film comes from director John Lee Hancock, known for the popular Sandra Bullock film The Blind Side and the Ray Kroc story The Founder, who gets dark and gritty here with this crime thriller about a burnt-out Californian deputy sheriff who teams up with a crack LASD detective, played by Oscar-winner Rami Malek, to nab a serial killer. The veteran law man’s nose for the “little things” proves eerily accurate, but his willingness to circumvent the rules embroils his young partner in an existential dilemma. As I said at the top, Denzel always delivers and Malek’s performances are so compelling every time, and this should tide us over from not seeing him take on James Bond in the now delayed again No Time To Die.

Palmer – Justin Timberlake makes his return to acting four years after his last time out for Woody Allen’s Wonder Wheel and he brings the big emotion in a beautifully understated performance in this character-driven film. Directed by actor turned director Fisher Stevens in just his third narrative feature, the film has the mega popstar playing former high-school football star Eddie Palmer who went from hometown hero to convicted felon, earning himself twelve years in a state penitentiary. He returns home to Louisiana, where he moves back in with his grandmother who raised him, trying to keep his head down and rebuild a quiet life for himself but haunted by memories of his glory days and the suspicious eyes of his small-town community. Things become more complicated when she passes away and her hard-living neighbour disappears on a prolonged bender, leaving her precocious and unique 7-year-old son behind, often the target of bullying for his gender issues, and in Palmer’s reluctant care. This is a beautiful story of redemption and life rebirth that really puts Timberlake back on the map with a strong performance to start the year.

Penguin Bloom – Going into this based on a true story drama, I have a bit of a chip on my shoulder because the premise felt really reminiscent of a mid-nineties family film like the Jeff Daniels and Anna Paquin one Fly Away Home. I now will say that I was wrong and thoroughly enjoyed this film that stars Naomi Watts in her native Australia alongside former Walking Dead leading man Andrew Lincoln. The film tells the story of Sam Bloom, a mother whose world is turned upside down after a shocking, near-fatal accident leaves her paralyzed. She, her husband and their three young boys and her mother struggle to adjust to their new situation when an unlikely ally enters their world in the form of an injured baby magpie they name Penguin. The bird’s arrival is a welcome distraction for the Bloom family, eventually making a profound difference in Sam’s life, teaching her how to live again. The performances from Watts and Lincoln are fantastic but it’s this bird that makes the film absolutely must see and completely captivating. Is it weird that I want to nominate the bird for acting awards?

The Dig – Within minutes of this new British melodrama and I was totally hooked, a film that boasts fantastic performances from Carey Mulligan, to continue her roll off of Promising Young Woman, the always great Ralph Fiennes and the lovely Lily James. The cinematography is the second star of this movie, with its breathtaking scope, continuous movement and sun-streaked beauty, an accomplishment that I will probably bring up again and again throughout 2021. The underlying story is fascinating, based on a true story, about an English landowner in 1938 who hires an excavator and his team who discover a wooden ship from the Anglo Saxon era while digging up a burial ground on her estate. This is easily my number one movie this year and, yes, I’m aware of the hype I’m setting.

Lennox Lewis: The Untold Story – We’ve got a pretty comprehensive documentary about boxing great  Mike Tyson but, for the life of me, I can’t really think about any other high profile ones until this new film rolled around, outlining the life and career of Canadian and English legend Lennox Lewis, a three-time world heavyweight champion, a two-time lineal champion, and a total machine that remains the last heavyweight to hold the undisputed championship. Coming from the rookie directing duo of G.S. Koch and Rick Lazes, this is an inside look at the career of Lennox Lewis from his rough upbringing to the Olympics and the professional ranks where he established himself as one of the greats in the history of the sport. This film plumbs the depths of Lewis in both his professional life and personal life, a lot of which felt so unexpectedly intimate. This is really how you do a good portrait piece in documentary form.

Phobic – Everything you have irrational fears about is at the heart of this new indie mystery that completely caught me off guard and totally transfixed me for its entire eighty minute duration. Featuring a cast of actors that you won’t recognize and created by writer and director Bryce Clark, a filmmaker just landing now in his first feature film after making a cheesy romantic film with Mischa Barton nine years ago, everything about this was a surprise. The film follows Riley Sanders, a second-generation Salt Lake PD Homicide detective who strives to live up to her father’s reputation. A chance encounter with a masked man who uses a strobe light effect on her renders her catatonic and when she is revived, she is immediately put on leave but when she returns to work she starts to have a deep connection to the victims of a serial killer who is killing clinical phobics by restraining them and exposing them to their fears. As I said, this one was a surprise, very idiosyncratic in its approach and it does huge swerves to avoid the police procedural cliches. This one may fast rise as one of the top indie films of the first quarter of 2021.

The Queen of Black Magic – Shudder is bringing the newest of the streaming horror this week which must be a bummer for Shane. Sorry, my friend, with me in this seat we’ll always have a film of this genre to discuss. This film comes from Indonesia, an unexpected little hub of thrills and chills and seriously effective horror, this one delving into voodoo, witchcraft and the dark arts. This film is set at an orphanage and follows a series of different families who are tormented and tortured by an entity that has a grudge and was also born because of the sins of the orphans, known only as the Queen Of Black Magic. Her goal is their immediate demise in a film that is a plethora of stylish blood and gore with some well crafted moments of true chilling supernatural horror. This one might catch on, much like Host and Daniel Isn’t Real did for Shudder last year.

Blu-Ray:

Come Play – On the outside of this movie it may look like another creepy kid horror film but this one only features a kid as the main character but is more about a malevolent creature looking to steal said kid. The story follows Oliver, a lonely young boy who feels different from everyone else who’s only way to speak is through his smartphone. Desperate for a friend, he seeks solace and refuge in his ever-present cell phone and tablet but when a mysterious creature uses Oliver’s devices against him to break into our world, Oliver’s parents must fight to save their son from the monster beyond the screen. The story seems a bit hokey, based on a short film for the director Jacob Chase, but had the potential to be a really great thriller and makes pretty effective use of its material early on but a terrible script and, therefore, really bad acting constantly serve to take you completely out of the movie time and time again. I love both Gillian Jacobs and John Gallagher Jr. but can’t muster up a good thing to say about either of them in this, they’re just terrible.

Jiu-Jitsu – I can’t lie about this one because when I saw Nicolas Cage’s name attached to this, I got pretty excited in an ashamedly nerdy sort of way and it also has Ong Bak’s Tony Jaa, Frank Grillo in it. The secondary thing that got me is that Cage is a trained fighter who really doesn’t show off his moves too often unless it’s pacifying Vince Neil on the Vegas strip. The story sets up the cheese right away, following an ancient order of jiu-jitsu fighters who join forces to battle a vicious race of alien invaders against all the odds when their celebrated war hero goes down in defeat causing the fate of the planet and mankind to hang in the balance. That’s as far as my excitement went as this movie is purely just awful in every regard. The action is hokey, the story is horrendous and Cage plays a weird blend of the sage wisdom of Yoda and Dennis Hopper’s photographer character in Apocalypse Now. I couldn’t wait to shut off this movie but, for the good of you, my faithful viewer, I persevered until the end credits. My brain probably bled.

Batman: Soul Of The Dragon – For a few movies now the DC animated universe has matured into the R-rated landscape and has been telling stories for a more mature crowd, which makes sense because, well, we all grew up with the comics and need something a little more. This one is cool because it brings the character we know and love, the Caped Crusader and the world’s greatest detective and kind of throws him into some familiar tropes, especially if you love seventies kung fu movies. The story follows Batman, Bronze Tiger, Lady Shiva, and Richard Dragon as they are forced to join forces when they come to realize that they share a common acquaintance, a martial arts master that trained them who has been missing for many years and under mysterious circumstances. When a cursed relic resurfaces, the mystery of their presumed dead master re-opens and Batman and his former classmates must face-off in the ultimate test of their martial arts skills to gain control of this dangerous relic in a very Enter The Dragon sort of way. As a total nerd, I loved this. It’s Batman, there’s a crazy tournament and it has a classic style all over it. Enough said.

Born A Champion – Let’s get some action into this list for the week as this film throws away the guns and explosives of the genre and goes into the vein of mixed martial arts competition-style story which plays into my childhood of dedicating my eyes to the Best Of The Best movies. Starring former Young Indiana Jones and Boondock Saint Sean Patrick Flannery and Dennis Quaid, the story follows Mickey Kelley, a former Marine and one of the first American black belts in Brazilian jiu-jitsu who gets pulled away from everything he loves and into an unsanctioned mixed martial arts tournament. This movie has Bloodsport written all over it but nixes the corny nature that that movie is famous for an earnest underdog movie that does not skimp on the violence for a second. The battle damage of this movie is felt with every bruise, lump and laceration in a final result that won’t wow you but will entertain you.

The Ascent – Are you ready for me to geek out on my new Criterion Collection edition? Sorry, I’m not giving you a chance to answer because I just assume you said yes and this one is another intriguing selection that I had never heard of before. The film is Russian, made in 1977 by writer and director Larisa Shepitko in what would tragically be her final film and follows two Soviet partisans on a mission to gather food while contending with the winter cold, the occupying Germans, and their own psyches driving them mad. This film, with its harrowing nature, would pair brilliantly with the Russian war stunner Come And See which was just released on Criterion just a handful of months ago. This is another astounding film that this wonderful distributor has introduced me to and now I want to see all of Sheptiko’s other works.

The Pajama Game – Let’s go from the desolation of the war-stricken Russian landscape of film seen above and get into the light and fun titles of Warner Archive which, this week, has a bunch of new ones to share, starting with this sweetheart collaboration between star Doris Day and celebrated director Stanley Donen. The story follows an Iowa pajama factory worker who falls in love with an affable superintendent that had been hired by the factory’s boss to help oppose the workers’ demand for a pay raise which was a whole whopping seven and a half cents. Those were the days, right? The film was made in 1957 which was just three years after the main Broadway show debuted starring Carol Haney who featured in the adaptation as well, the only film where she actually spoke in it and didn’t just dance. It was also reported that Marlon Brando was wanted for this one but declined because, well, he was Brando. It was also the year he did Sayonara, which won four Oscars but not one for him.

Room For One More – Now let’s dial the clock back five years and throw the incredibly likeable star Cary Grant into a classic comedy, a genre that he excelled at. The film came from Academy Award-winning Skippy director Norman Taurog and has Grant and co-star Betty Drake as New Jersey couple Anna and Poppy Rose who adopt several kids born into less fortunate circumstances, including a desperately unhappy 13-year-old girl and a physically handicapped boy with a penchant for getting into serious trouble. Grant and Drake were married to each other when they made this film and their chemistry really shows through in this and really made me think about the recent Mark Wahlberg and Rose Byrne comedy Instant Family which seemed like a modern version of it.

After The Thin Man – New on Blu-ray this week for Warner Archive is this kicking off of a franchise way back in the mid-thirties as William Powell and Myrna Loy returned for the first of five follow-ups to the massively popular murder caper comedy The Thin Man. The film has the duo heading back to their San Francisco home after the events of the first film only to have themselves thrown right back into business with Nick investigating the case of a missing man and later a murder that is connected to Nora’s family. This is widely regarded to be the best film of all of the Thin Man follow-ups and is pretty slickly written and was nominated for an Academy Award, ultimately losing to The Story of Louis Pasteur which took three Oscars that year.

Good News – Let’s speed a decade later for this blu-ray update of a romantic comedy musical classic starring June Allyson, an American leading lady whose sweet smile and sunny disposition made her the prototypical girl-next-door of American movies of the 1940s. This one plays into her strengths as she steps into the role of co-ed and school librarian Connie Lane who falls for football hero Tommy Marlowe but, unfortunately, he has his eye on a gold-digging vamp named Pat McClellan. Tommy’s grades then start to slip, which keeps him from playing in the big game, and Connie eventually finds out Tommy really loves her and devises a plan to win him back and to get him back on the field. Lots of spoiler territory there, which is weird for me to divulge, but I feel like the statute of limitations is up on this one and you need all of that preamble for the setup. It should be noted that Allyson had always considered this film one of her three favourites in her career and it was a sizable box office hit at the time too.

Southland Tales – I feel like I’ve been waiting since the mid-2000s for a definitive version of this Richard Kelly science fiction mind twister that I absolutely consider a total masterpiece and now Arrow Video has completely answered my dreams. Featuring a phenomenal ensemble which included Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Seann William Scott, Justin Timberlake, Jon Lovitz and a small but pivotal cameo from Kevin Smith, this movie was everything to me when it came out. In as compact a nutshell as I can get it, the film is set during a three-day heatwave just before a huge Fourth of July celebration and follows an action star stricken with amnesia who meets up with a porn star who is developing her own reality TV project, and a policeman who holds the key to a vast conspiracy and complete world-ending chaos ensues with doppelgangers, gratuitous murder and more insanity than you knew was possible. This edition features multiple cuts of the film and behind the scenes of a film that never got it’s due with the man himself to explain his vision. This blu-ray is amazing.

You: Season 2 – This creeper thriller gets a new entry as Penn Badgley reprises his role as Joe Goldberg, a bookstore manager who you hate but can’t keep your eye off of. Now the question of season two is “How much further can Joe go for his version of love?” and according to the star, this season was tough to pull off without repeating themselves, and it’s a character he really has a hard time playing as he is so massively unlikeable. Who knows? Maybe this is the season that fails to connect with the massive audience the first pulled in. I love that they added a new foil to offset Joe’s proclivities and challenge him at every step and she’s played brilliantly by Victoria Pedretti who totally broke my heart in The Haunting Of Hill House. How and why? Those are spoilers, my friend!

Steve’s Blu-Ray Geek Outs:

Black Gravel – Thanks to great people at Kino Lorber, I was introduced to this German drama from the early sixties that delved into a horrible history the country has to live with and most notably in the time after the war that they lost. In this gripping Cold War noir, tensions boil over between residents of a small German village and the soldiers of a U.S. military base as postwar economic hardship has turned the town of Sohnen into a vice district where the women serve as entertainment for the GIs and the men struggle for survival in the black market, a complete turning of the tide from when Germany thought the had the upper hand in the war. The film is deeply engrossing and equally affecting which begs the question of why it was so buried and only getting a release now. It’s such a dark depiction of the US soldiers, largely thought of as heroes when the war was won to become monsters themselves in their victory. Some very interesting history on film here.

Mister Roberts – A late arrival on my doorstep from last month, I knew this would be perfect for my geek outs because it features four golden era film actors who had a command of the era and were names that drew box office no matter what the genre was and those heavyweights were Henry Fonda, James Cagney, William Powell and Jack Lemmon. Made in 1955, the story is set in the waning days of World War II and follows the United States Navy cargo ship Reluctant and her crew who are stationed in the “backwater” areas of the Pacific Ocean and trouble and complete hijinks ensue when the crew members are granted liberty in what is kind of considered a screwball comedy, which is tonally weird given that its kind of a war story. The film was a huge hit and even earned an Academy Award for Best Actor Jack Lemmon but lost out on Best Picture. It should also be noted that three different directors worked on this, the legendary John Ford after The Long Gray Line, Mervyn LeRoy after Strange Lady in Town and an uncredited Joshua Logan after his debut I Met My Love Again. To me, that’s almost an embarrassment of riches.

The Curse Of Frankenstein – I absolutely love original monster horror and this one checks all the right boxes, starting with Peter Cushing absolutely delivering as the infamous Victor Frankenstein and a cinema god among men, Christopher Lee as his monster, which adds another notch of status because he played Dracula as well. The film has Baron Victor Frankenstein awaiting his appointment with the executioner and, to pass the time, spinning the yarn of a creature he built and brought to life, only for it to behave not as he intended, a story we know all too well. The friendship that was formed between Cushing and Lee is my favourite thing to come from this because, although they had appeared in Hamlet in 1948  and Moulin Rouge in 1952, Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing met on the set of this film for the very first time. They would pass the time between shots by exchanging Looney Tunes phrases and quickly developed a fast friendship, which lasted until Cushing died in 1994. I adore the stories of old Hollywood horror and this one hits that spot beautifully.

Cinema Paradiso 4K – Largely regarded as one of the best pieces of international cinema in the last thirty-five years, it has been a long time coming for this late eighties Italian film to get a high def update and Arrow Academy is giving it the best treatment possible with a 4K edition. A very autobiographical story from writer and director Giuseppe Tornatore, the film centers around a story from a filmmaker who recalls his childhood when falling in love with the pictures at the cinema of his home village, forming a deep friendship with the cinema’s projectionist. I didn’t really discover this one for myself until I started working at a video store and started going through all the films in the foreign section and found myself renting and watching this movie over and over again, pulling something new from it every time and with this brand new 4K transition and all-new special features, Arrow has given a new treasure trove for cinephiles to paw through.

Television:

Snowpiercer: Season 2 (Netflix) – Adapted from Academy Award winner Bong Joon-Ho’s mind-boggling sci-fi thriller, his English language debut, I would usually start my write up on this by saying how disappointing it is that Americans have to pounce on popular foreign properties but this one is different and the first season immediately put my foot in my mouth where it belonged. With Bong on board as executive producer along with fellow Korean film master Park Chan Wook and horror director Scott Derrickson, this show has the immediate source material love and care I wanted for it and it shines, especially with Blindspotting’s Daveed Diggs as the lead, one of the best actors working today. For those who don’t know, the show is a post-fall of humanity story about a divided remainder of people, either the poor or the elite, that live on a train that constantly zooms around the frozen landscape of Earth. With Jennifer Connolly playing the opposition in this show, it can only get better. Like last season, the show will be updated weekly by Netflix every week much as they did with The 100 and currently do with Riverdale.

Red Dwarf (BritBox) – Being a kid that was raised on British comedies, the fact that it has taken this long for one of the funniest science fiction series ever made to make it to a streaming service for the binge is flabbergasting but Lister, Rimmer, Kryton, Cat and Holly are available thanks to the niche service of BritBox. If you know about this series, you are a fan but for those who don’t, it follows an unambitious slob from Liverpool who has been awakened from a high-tech stasis chamber three million years in the future to find he may be one of the last humans alive. Hopelessly lost in space, this crew of mostly sad-act bachelors kill time and share adventure aboard the mining ship Red Dwarf and it is glorious every episode and, yes, I have my favourite episodes that we can trade lines from to an annoying degree on Twitter.

Resident Alien (CTV Sci-Fi) – Being a big comic nerd, I’ve been following this Dark Horse comic book ever since it started in April of 2012 from creators Peter Hogan and Steve Parkhouse, the writer and artist respectively. The story follows a crash-landed alien named Harry who takes on the identity of a small-town Colorado doctor and slowly begins to wrestle with the moral dilemma of his secret mission on Earth, a delightful and quirky tale that hinges on the perfect person to play the lead role and they found it with former Firefly star and hysterically funny actor Alan Tudyk, which immediately makes this comedy a must-see endeavour. There is so much source material to pull from and I hope that Syfy has managed to net itself another hit series on par with Eureka, Battlestar Galactica and The Expanse. My fingers are crossed for season two and I haven’t even seen episode one yet.

What The Hell Should I Watch At Home? – Jan 21

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January 21, 2021

New Releases:

Our Friend – Coming from the director of the wildly popular documentary Blackfish, I put a lot of stock in this new drama from filmmaker Gabriela Cowperthwaite, her second narrative feature after the critically acclaimed Megan Leavey, and she has a great trio to lead this one with Dakota Johnson, Casey Affleck and Jason Segal. The story follows a couple who find unexpected support from their best friend, who puts his own life on hold after they receive life-altering news and moves into their family home to help raise their two girls. Segal’s performance may go down as one of his best but the film refuses to let you resonate in its emotional beats and always tries to up the ante in an obvious manipulative way that pulls you out of the drama far more than the scattered timeline of the storytelling which may frustrate other viewers. Everyone is so good in this and the cinematography is exquisite but it feels like it fails in the end.

Psycho Goreman – I had a small inkling that I would love this movie just based on  the description and the fact that it’s the brand new film from The Void writer and director Steven Kostanski really just added to the hype for me. So, are you ready for the low down? Well, friends, this film follows siblings Mimi and Luke who unwittingly resurrect an ancient alien overlord bent on the destruction of all worlds and the flaying of all life within them. Fortunately for them, they are also in possession of a magical amulet connected to his powers and they force the monster to obey their childish whims, accidentally attracting a rogues’ gallery of intergalactic assassins to small-town suburbia. This movie is absolutely insane, full of dark humour, gore and incredible creature effects from the great Masters’ FX who put on a clinic of wonder throughout. I didn’t know that I’d be looking at one of my favourite films of 2021 but here we are.

Cactus Jack – With Joe Biden’s presidential inauguration being this week and white nationalism being so prevalent and blatantly in front of us right now, it feels like this film may be very on the nose right now, which could be a bad thing or a good thing. The film follows an amateur documentarian who sets out to make a film about a man who hasn’t left his mother’s basement in six months when he discovers the recluse is in fact a vile doomsday hatemonger. The tables are turned when the maniac snaps, imprisons him and takes control of the cameras to start a vitriolic, venomous podcast, making enemies far and wide and promising violent retribution. This all feels dangerously familiar right now and the chilling nature of the film is gripping and totally unrelenting. It doesn’t feature any actors you know or a director of note but it definitely will make some waves so get on it now.

Make Up – This sleeper indie film has been slated three different times for release in the fourth quarter of last year and now arrives in it’s VOD release which is pretty disappointing that it doesn’t have more fanfare because it is really good and a strong female led story. Starring Molly Windsor from the BBC miniseries Three Girls, Game Of Thrones actor Joseph Quinn and newcomer Stefanie Martini, the film follows a young woman on holiday at a remote park in Cornwal who is drawn into a mysterious obsession that spirals out of control when she suspects her boyfriend has cheated on her. This movie wears it’s paranoia on it’s sleeve and draws you into it with it’s relentless eeriness and its all in the perfect storm of Windsor’s performance and the brilliant story command from writer and director Claire Oaley who makes her astounding debut here into feature film. This is a movie to take note of and be ahead of the mainstream curve.

Blu-Ray:

Ammonite – Well, all you need to do is say the name Kate Winslett and it’ll get my butt in a seat but you add Saorise Ronan to the mix and I was just ravenous to get this film into my eyeballs. Francis Lee, the acclaimed writer and director of a total festival favourite God’s Own Country from a few years back, returns with this period drama about an acclaimed but overlooked fossil hunter named Mary Anning and a young woman named Charlotte Murchison who was sent to recover from her “slight bit of melancholia” by the sea who develop an intense relationship, altering both of their lives forever in a time that definitely wasn’t ready for their love. This immediately brings to mind last year’s stellar French film A Portrait Of A Lady On Fire, one of my favourite films of last year and , while it doesn’t quite hit that level of amazing, it is a beautifully shot film, done by Jackie and Captain Fantastic cinematographer Stéphane Fontaine, and Winslet and Ronan are incredible in their very subdued performances.

The Climb – There’s no better way to enter this movie than to have no idea at all about the premise but it just might be the funniest movie of the year in my mind. Written by, directed by and starring Michael Angelo Covino, the simplest way I can safely describe this movie is that it is a look at the friendship between two guys that spans over many years. Over that time span the ups and downs between an emotional screwed up and self-destructive douchebag and the most continually accepting human beings on film. This movie caught me completely off guard and sucked me in from the get-go and it’s technical prowess immediately becomes another one of its strengths as the use of one take elaborate doll shots to make it a goldmine for cinematography fans. A film that has no huge stars or clout, this one will most likely slip under the radar but do not let it, you will thank me later.

Come Away – Peter Pan seems to be the story that Hollywood loves to pull from where it be the iconic tale you know, a prequel, reimagining or even a story about author J.M. Barrie himself. This version follows eight-year-old Alice, her mischievous brother Peter and their smart older sibling David who let their imaginations run wild during a summer in the English countryside. Encouraged by their parents the kids’ make-believe tea parties, sword fights and pirate ship adventures come to an abrupt end when tragedy strikes, forcing the kids deeper into their imaginary worlds. The cast is solid with the parents played by David Oyelowo and Angelina Jolie in a rare acting performance but it feels like a bit of a half baked idea that can get a bit convoluted.

Miss Juneteenth – A highly touted film in black cinema right now, I was really excited to get my hands on this movie with lead actress Nicole Beharie making some serious waves in the indie film world and already a fan favourite in the television world with the series Sleepy Hollow. This film takes a deep dive into generational expectation as it follows a former beauty queen and single mom who obsessively prepares her rebellious teenage daughter for the “Miss Juneteenth” pageant, an accomplishment that would validate her own life. The plight and story are very interesting but I feel like the dialogue and terrible music choices hamper this film at every turn and even make the editing feel confusing and stilting the whole approach. Maybe I over-thought this one but it just didn’t meet the expectations I had for it.

The Kid Detective – Usually a comedy favourite of mine, actor Adam Brody seriously brings it in a dramatic performance that hangs it’s hat on the detective noir style storytelling and does it so well in the feature debut of writer and director Evan Morgan, known for co-writing the sleeper comedy The Dirties. Brody plays Abe Applebaum, a once-celebrated kid detective, now 32 years old and continuing to solve the same trivial mysteries between hangovers and bouts of self-pity. His world may turn around when a naive client brings him his first ‘adult’ case, to find out who brutally murdered her boyfriend which may end up tying in with a kidnapping case that has dogged him since he was a kid. The movie is so impeccably shot and the noir nature of the film is brilliantly executed with Brody giving the performance of a lifetime. The final shot of this film is a brilliant mix of triumph and sorrow that will stick with me for weeks.

Max Cloud – Eighties homages are my total bread and butter, as I adore Stranger Things and Turbo Kid has its own bean bag chair to rest on comfortably in my heart, so this is why I was really gung-ho about this new sci-fi homage that combines the synthy style that many from that generation would love to forget and props it up on classic video gaming too. Also known as The Intergalactic Adventures Of Max Cloud, this follows a video game enthusiast named Sarah who is transported into her favourite game and finds herself in an intergalactic prison, home to the most dangerous villains in the galaxy. The only way to escape the game is to complete it by teaming up with space hero and intergalactic misogynist Max Cloud with Sarah battling the terrifying planet while her best friend, Cowboy, controls the game from her bedroom in Brooklyn. I wanted to love this movie so much and it is admirably made on a micro-budget but it has so much dumb stuff that constantly drags it down and makes it too goofy to even get behind. Maybe I hyped it up too much.

Spiral – Alright all of you sensitive types out there, time to head back to the mystery horror bucket for this new release so maybe shield your eyes for it. The film follows a same-sex couple who move to a small town to enjoy a better quality of life and raise their daughter with strong social values but when the neighbors throw a very strange party, nothing is as it seems in their picturesque neighborhood as the reality of their new surroundings start to come to light. The film doesn’t come from a known filmmaker or feature any well known stars, unless you enjoy spotting Canadian actors like Lochlyn Munro, but the story is pretty gripping and reminded me a bit of the thriller The Invitation, which can be found on Netflix. Spiral manages to keep a good edge of tension running the whole time which make the reveals of the mystery that much more hard hitting. You won’t find a huge buzz about this film anywhere but I definitely was pleasantly surprised.

Wander – I didn’t notice this until someone pointed it out on my Instagram but with the main billed actors being Aaron Eckhart and Tommy Lee Jones it actually makes this the first film to feature two Two-Faces. Pivoting off my Batman geeking, this is a pretty compelling mystery filled with paranoia as it has Eckhart playing a mentally unstable private investigator who gets hired to probe a suspicious death in the small town of Wander and becomes convinced the case is linked to the same ‘conspiracy cover up’ that caused the death of his daughter. Eckhart is relishing this role and delivers it with such great power but the sound mix was so bad that it felt like dialogue was being consistently drowned out and muffled, a totally frustrating experience. The mystery is there and the film is shot with a horror film like franticness but it kind of shot itself in the foot.

Dreamland – Margot Robbie is really on track to win herself an Oscar pretty soon. Yes, she still affords herself time to get silly and step back into the role of Harley Quinn continually, something she was destined to do, but her dramatic work is so good and, with this film, it’s the thing that holds it together. This film is a love story set amidst America’s struggle during the Great Depression following Eugene, a teen who dreams of escaping his small Texas town when he discovers a wounded, fugitive bank robber, played by Margot Robbie. Torn between claiming the bounty for her capture and his growing attraction to the seductive criminal, Eugene must make a decision that will forever affect the lives of everyone he’s ever loved and also forge his own path away from dust storms, a domineering stepfather and general hopelessness. Finn Cole from Peaky Blinders plays the male lead opposite Robbie and does a fine job in a film that only seems to aim for the middle ground, beautifully shot but dragged down by one of the worst scores I’ve heard in a while.

Hearts And Bones – Hugo Weaving is one of those actors who people know well, sometimes solely for his performance as Agent Smith from The Matrix and Elrond from Lord Of The Rings, but cinephiles know the great body of work this Australian character actor commands. This film was made in his native Australia and plays a war photographer preparing an exhibition of his work from the world’s war zones who is approached by a man asking him to exclude the photos of a massacre in his village. Weaving delivers as expected in this film but it’s South Sudanese actor Andrew Luri who is the standout, giving Sebastian such a rich performance full of nuance that is the heart beat against this impactful story. Great direction from British director Ben Lawrence in his narrative debut.

Always And Forever – We get a double dose of black cinema this week, although this one plays more into the genre side of filmmaking and it is a definite shift for director Chris Stokes who previously did, well, mostly dance movies like You Got Served. The film follows a group of friends reunited by a tragedy who each find themselves in danger, targeted by a deranged stalker. With a terrible secret that they hold together threatened to be exposed, each of these players have more at stake than just death at the hands of blah, blah, I got seriously bored reading that and seeing the movie because it all feels done before. The acting is mediocre, aside from The Wire alumni Wood Harris showing up to make everyone look bad and I wish there had been more follow through and less predictability. Don’t be afraid of bloody kills in movie like this too, spice it up, people!

Toys Of Terror – You know, I should have known this movie was going to be a total crapfest as soon as I opened the package that was sent to me and saw this goofy looking cover that was reminiscent of the Tales Of Terror cover from the seventies with the creepy tribal doll on the poster but I noticed that Dana Gould wrote it and he is a brilliant stand up comedian who also created the great horror comedy series Stan Versus Evil with John C. McGinley. For this film he gets Christmassy with his scares, the film follows young Zoe, her brother Franklin and their family who move into a secluded mansion with a dark past. With the adults preoccupied with renovating the place, the bored kids find a toy chest hidden in the attic, and are delighted when the toys inside magically come to life but bizarre events soon begin to take place and events happen that increasingly threaten the family’s lives, exposing the toys as the evil creatures they are. I gave a way bigger synopsis than this movie deserves as it was compete garbage and a waste of time that has special effects that would have been embarrassing even if they were used in Jason And The Argonauts in the early eighties. I was disappointed that this isn’t even a fun kind of campy.

Martin Eden – It was kind of a solid year for Italian actor Luca Marinelli as he got some mainstream exposure playing on of the main heroes in the Charlize Theron action flick The Old Guard on Netfllx and this politically charged drama based on the work of legendary author Jack London and is getting rave reviews for it. The film has him in the titular role, a man who struggles to rise above his destitute, proletarian circumstances through an intense and passionate pursuit of self-education as he hopes to achieve a place among the literary elite. This is the film that heavily being touted as the next winner of the Best Foreign Academy Award, a complex film that delivers on great performances and a definitive piece of international cinema to start off the year.

Joint Security Area – I was just asking for some of South Korean director Park Chan Wook’s fims to be made into a blu-ray special edition or a Criterion Collection entry and Arrow has seemed to have heard my call through the ether as they have picked this film out of his filmography and it is definitely one of the more straight forward ones he did. The film is set in the DMZ separating North and South Korea just after two North Korean soldiers have been killed, supposedly by one South Korean soldier. The mounting evidence compiled by the investigating Swiss and Swedish team from the neutral countries overseeing the DMZ suspects that another, unknown party was involved, pointing to some sort of cover up meant to ignite a possible war. The film is slick and stylish and shows off that Park’s style can fit many different genre shifts. It also looks gorgeous in the hi-definition.

Scooby-Doo! And Guess Who?: Season 1 – Scooby-Doo gets some reinvention in this brand new series but with some of the tested and true pieces sticking around with Matthew Lillard continuing to be the best Shaggy ever since Casey Kasem retired, and Grey Griffin and Frank Welker keeping up their duties as Fred and Daphne and a perfectly cast Kate Miccucci voicing Velma. The show has a different guest star every week which ranges from Batman himself, voiced by the best Batman Kevin Conroy, Sia, Weird Al Yankovic and even the late Alex Trebek. This is a great new revival of classic characters and the love for the source material shows.

Steve’s Blu-Ray Geekouts:

Three Films by Luis Buñuel – Let’s get artsy this week in this section, shall we? I have to admit, the works of Luis Buñuel have been a cinema blindspot to me but now that Criterion has released this beautiful new collection I feel totally enlightened. Featuring three of his most iconic works, this is a treasure trove of great content starting with The Discreet Charm Of The Bourgeoisie, a surreal, virtually plotless series of dreams centred around six middle-class people and their consistently interrupted attempts to have a meal together. Then you move on to The Phantom Of Liberty, another series of surreal sequences that critique morality and society in a stream of consciousness style moving into the finale, That Obscure Object of Desire which follows the romantic perils of Mathieu recounted in flashback, a middle-aged French sophisticate who falls for his nineteen-year-old former chambermaid Conchita. This set won’t be for everyone but the film nerd in me was captivated and then kicked myself for not getting into this sooner.

He Came From The Swamp: The William Grefe Collection – It’s all about film collections this week for active geeking as this new set hit my doorstep and contains a campy madman with a love for killer sharks, human jellyfish and living mummies, the one and only William Grefe. This collection features seven films with Sting of Death about a deformed man working for a marine biologist who takes revenge on the people that mock him by experimenting with a deadly jellyfish, Death Curse of Tartu about a group of student archaeologists who venture into the Florida Everglades to look for fossils but come across an area cursed by a Native American witch doctor, The Hooked Generation about a gang of dope peddlers who sail out to meet a Cuban boat and are forced to throw their narcotics overboard and are seen by a young couple, The Psychedelic Priest, filmed in 1971 but not released until 2001, about a priest who sheds his habit and heads on a road trip that will change his life, The Naked Zoo about a frustrated and seductive matron who lives in Miami with her wheelchair-bound, wealthy husband who is discovered to be having an affair with a young author and murder ensues, Mako: Jaws of Death about a man who meets a Filipino shaman who gives him a medallion that helps him develop a telepathic rapport with Mako sharks and finally Whiskey Mountain about four motorcyclists who arrived at the titular place for a treasure hunt but are then terrorized in the woods by a gang of murderous hillbilly drug dealers. It’s all great campy fun that is great for insane genre fans like myself.

The 100: The Final Season – Shot in the beautiful forests of British Columbia for seven fantastic seasons, this post-apocalyptic and completely unpredictable adventure action series draws to a close and I have to say that I’ve really enjoyed its run ever since that explosive first season. There is already a prequel series planned to go ahead next year but this has definitely been a rise in notoriety for showrunner and creator Jason Rothenberg who is undoubtedly on The CW’s fast track to make any series he wants along with the Arrowverse’s Greg Berlanti and Marc Guggenheim. I feel like The CW doesn’t get a lot of the praise it should as more of the successful shows are seen on this network and the burnt-out procedurals that seem like a carbon copy of all those that have come before it air on networks like CBS and ABC. Is the CW the only one taking chances besides cable and streaming services?

Young Man With A Horn – With Kirk Douglas only passing away just over a year ago and at the age of over a century, I always feel like I’m getting a piece of Hollywood classic gold everytime I get one of his movies and this one is one of those memorable gems in a long career and features a great group of performances around him. In the film he plays a young trumpet player who is torn between an honest singer and a manipulative heiress as he rises to stardom. The film, made in 1950, also plays at musicians delving into controversial subject matter in their work and was definitely forward thinking for it’s time.It also should be noted that this film was directed by Oscar winner Michael Curtiz who did Casablanca and would go on to do White Christmas a few years after this one. 

The Craft: Legacy – Sequels or reboots two decades or more after the originals, it’s a very touch and go thing. It can either work or make you wonder why they even tried in the first place and the latter is what you may be thinking about this one but the easy answer is that it wasn’t made for the original fans or that age demographic but instead made for a younger audience to latch onto it and make witch covens of their own. Yes, it’s 1996 all over again. For this film debuting director Zoe Lister-Jones creates a very familiar but updated story following an eclectic foursome of aspiring teenage witches who get more than they bargained for as they lean into their newfound powers and everything is going pretty well for the most part until a mess that is the third act comes along to fudge everything that preceded it. This film feels like a hurricane of studio notes and edits and a rushed post-production and it really robs the viewer of a film that had potential. I can’t believe I’m half praising this but here we are.

Television:

Fate: The Winx Saga (Netflix) – This is such a weird one because this new series is based on a Nickoldeon show Winx Club that is geared for kids but this series is meant for a mature audience. I don’t know who the series is made for if no adult really is in the original demographic of this so I guess you could call it a Netflix risk. The story follows Bloom, a fairy who is adjusting to life attending Alfea, a magical boarding school in the Otherworld, where she must learn to control her dangerous magical powers and defend from the monsters that threaten their very existence. The show comes from one of the showrunners behind The Vampire Diaries so expect that CW like storytelling form this one but with a bit more room for the story to breathe due to the freedom that being on Netflix allows.

Batwoman: Season 2 (The CW) – I’d been waiting a long time for a live-action onscreen version of Kate Kane aka Batwoman to be made and finally we got it and I thought the casting of Ruby Rose is kind of incredible as she already invoked many of the character traits right out the door. Now, a year later, and Rose has departed the role and has left the producers scrambling for their unpredicted new direction. For those not in the know, Kane was inspired by Batman to use her own resources to fight crime in Gotham as well under the moniker of Batwoman, but is a woman of Jewish descent and is also a lesbian, something that was a hard pill to swallow for the mainstream. Now the new actress that has stepped in is Javicia Leslie, star of the cancelled series God Friended Me, as Ryan Wilder who steps into the cowl in Kate’s absence. With other Arrowverse shows being shown the door, it really isn’t known what the longevity of this show is but I’m enjoying it so far.

Losing Alice (AppleTV+) – Of the dog crap that was the evolving piece of the Justice League that we saw on the big screen known as Zack Snyder’sMan Of Steel, one of the glowing strands of gold within it was the Israeli actress Ayelet Zurer who showed up again in Marvel’s Netflix series Daredevil playing the formidable villain Wilson “Kingpin” Fisk’s wife Vanessa. Now AppleTV+ has nabbed her for this new episodic thriller and it just sounds awesome. In it she plays Alice, an ambitious film director in her late forties who becomes dangerously obsessed with Sophie, a mid twenties femme fatale style screenwriter and things start to spiral out of control in a total Faustian sort of way, as this is where the original story comes from. Series creator Sigal Avin creates a complex and very cinematic approach to this steamy thriller and it’s pretty impressive given that this is basically their proving ground.

What The Hell Should I Watch At Home? – Jan 14

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January 14, 2021

New Releases:

One Night In Miami – On an incredibly hot streak already after an Academy Award win for If Beale Street Could Talk and her incredible performance in the HBO limited series Watchman, I’ll watch anything that Regina King does and it just happens that her directorial debut here arrives this week. The film features real life people but is a fictional account of one incredible night where icons Muhammad Ali, Malcolm X, Sam Cooke, and Jim Brown gathered discussing their roles in the civil rights movement and cultural upheaval of the 60s. In these pivotal roles are a handful of up and coming actors with Canadian actor Eli Goree playing Ali, Peaky Blinders star Kingsley Ben-Adir as Malcolm X, Hamilton star Leslie Odom Jr. as Sam Cooke and Straight Outta Compton’s Aldos Hodge and knowing that King has Tami Reiker shooting it, the visionary behind HBO’s Carnivale, oh boy, I’m geeking on a whole other level.

Outside The Wire – Getting some of that alternate future sci-fi this week, helmed by the very capable Mikael Hafstrom, the filmmaker behind the Jennifer Aniston and Clive Owen thriller Derailed and the Stephen King horror 1408 and led by Anthony Mackie, kicking off the year of when his new Marvel series arrives. The film is set in the near future and follows a drone pilot who is sent into the war zone of a conflicted Europe that has been taken over by radicals and occupied by the United States on a peacekeeping mission. Looking for redemption after a mission his miscalculated a strike on, he finds himself paired with a top-secret android officer on a mission to stop a nuclear attack that threatens the whole world. The action really delivers in a film that is so much better if you can ignore all of the logic going into Mackie’s cyborg character as it may get bogged down with the simplicity of it. Otherwise, this film is a shallow fast paced action that comes and goes without any real resonance.

Climate Of The Hunter – Yes, much to Shane’s chagrin, I’m bringing more horror this week as I seem to always do and this one is decidedly quirky and weird which really lends to its appeal. Coming from critically acclaimed indie director Mickey Reece, this is an oddball story about two sisters who are competing for the affections of a man who may or may not be a vampire and while none of these actors are on the mainstream radar, they all deliver performances perfect for the genre in a result that sticks to you bones in multiple capacities. I am totally new to Reece’s work and he really sold me with this one, although it is his first in the horror vein.

Love Sarah – Okay, I will admit that I have a weakness for British, Irish and Scottish romantic comedies but I have been burnt before by them and very recently too with that Shanley abomination Wild Mountain Thyme. The thing that this movie has immediately going for it beyond that is that it involves cooking and, most notably baking and I’m all about a Great British Bake Off. The feature film debut of writer and director Eliza Schroeder, the story follows a young woman who wishes to fulfill her mother’s dream of opening her own bakery in Notting Hill, London but to do this she needs some serious help and she enlists an old friend and her grandma for the job. Quirky and light, this is a great movie to watch with the parents or grandma herself if she’s within your bubble but it does nothing to leave a lasting impression and honestly has the weight of an eclair. It’s enjoyable chewing it but it really does nothing good for you.

Dr. Bird’s Advice For Sad Poets – This is a weird little film that I was sent an email about from a small studio called Create Films. The film is led by a young cast with 20th Century Women’s breakout star Lucas Jade Zumann, We Can Be Heroes featured actress Yaya Gosselin and Waves’ Taylor Russell, who also features in another favorite this week, Words On Bathroom Walls, but they have a great supporting cast including the always great Jason Isaacs, David Arquette and Tom Wilkinson. The film follows sixteen year old James Whitman, a teen who lives in an emotionally charged, wild and humorous world of his own design. In his struggle to overcome anxiety and depression, he begins seeking advice from Dr. Bird, an imaginary pigeon therapist, who helps him cope in the wake of his sister’s disappearance. Yes, this is a weird one but it’s shot beautifully and constantly intrigues with its ability to keep you on your toes with its unpredictable plot and stellar script. Just the second film from writer and director Yaniv Raz, which was released ten years ago, I hope it doesn’t take another decade for his next feature.

Bright Hill Road – What’s that? More horror? I thought you’d never ask and this one is Canadian to boot! This one is the new film from indie genre filmmaker Robert Cuffley and he’s trading in wrestling, which featured in his last film Chokeslam, for some decidedly cerebral horror. The film follows an alcoholic named Marcy who is on leave from her job after a workplace shooting and decides to head out to see her sister in California. Halfway there, she stops for a couple of days at the Bright Hill Road Boarding House and with alcohol withdrawal making the walls close in on her, the deeply troubled Marcy starts to lose touch with reality and comes face to face with the misdeeds of her sordid past. I have to say that Deadly Class actress Siobhan Williams knocks this film out of the park with a performance that is so nuanced and damaged that it emits her troubled past from the get go. She left me transfixed by the end. This would be a great pairing with the horror film Beach House from a few months ago which is available on Shudder now.

Blu-Ray:

Words On Bathroom Walls – Moody teen dramas seem to be my bread and butter these days and for as many of them, as they are, some of them don’t even deserve to be any good. This one falls into the total surprise category and only because I had never heard of it before and it has such a phenomenal cast with Spontaneous’ Charlie Plummer, Soul Surfer’s Anna Sophia Robb, the great Walton Goggins and former Ocean’s Eleven adversary Andy Garcia. The film follows Plummer as a witty and introspective teen diagnosed with a mental illness halfway through his senior year of high school who struggles to keep it a secret while falling in love with a brilliant classmate who inspires him to not be defined by his condition. The film comes from director Thor Freudenthal who goes low-key for this small production after doing the Percy Jackson sequel and other family fare and it works out beautifully. This is a little gem of a film that tackles the subject matter of schizophrenia so well and Charlie Plummer delivers yet another noteworthy performance. I definitely recommended this one.

Jungleland – Top lined by stars Charlie Hunnam and Jack O’Connell, I was immediately drawn to this film right away simply by their talent and the fact that this is the third feature film from director Max Winkler, a really compelling young filmmaker. This film follows two brothers who try to escape their circumstances of poverty by travelling across the country for a no holds barred boxing match that may net them a hundred grand. Hunnam plays the scheming and boastful older brother of O’Connell’s character nicknamed Lion, a bare-knuckle brawler with some emotional and development issues and both actors are absolutely astounding in their performances. Also notable is Lovecraft Country’s Jonathan Majors who plays a supporting role as the drug lord that sends them on their journey. This is an actor who will take the movie screens by storm, mark my words.

Lupin III: The First – It feels really weird to be covering another adaptation of this classic French thief story but the Japanese animation division looks like they wanted a crack at it so I’m kind of talking about the same thing two weeks in a row but it’s a different feather off the same bird. For this go around the third in the thief’s lineage, aptly named Lupin III, goes on a grand adventure to uncover the secrets of the Bresson Diary, which is tied to the legacy of his famous grandfather. Although it doesn’t feature any hugely known actors or even voice over artists for the English dubbing of it, the animation is absolutely gorgeous and completely flawless making it a really fun treat to watch with the whole family.

Skylines – I had to do some serious research for this one because it is the third in a series of films that kicked off in 2010 with Skyline then took a long break until 2017 with Beyond Skyline. The first film followed an alien invasion that had an extraterrestrial force swallowing up the entire human population off the face of the Earth by sucking them up into their ships and using their brains to power their soldiers and the second film was that story from a different angle of survivors and got into some killer action with Frank Grillo and The Raid star Iko Uwais. That second movie is totally awesome by the way and I was expecting more of the same from this one but was let down. It fast forwards over a decade after the events of the last movie and follows Captain Rose Corley, a toddler in the last installment, who must lead a team of elite mercenaries on a mission to the alien world in order to save what’s left of humanity. You can almost literally feel the wind come out of the sails of this one as it progresses. If the long arc of this story is being fully realized here then it is getting decidedly lacklustre.

Spell – With the heavyweight of the horror classic The Serpent And The Rainbow behind it in a big bad way, I’m always excited to check out voodoo and hoodoo centric genre films and this one definitely piqued my interest as it not only has all of the boxes checked on these tropes but it also has character actress Loretta Deine doing some villain work. The story follows a man who crash lands in rural Appalachia with his family on the way to his father’s funeral and awakens in the attic of a traditional Hoodoo practitioner named Ms. Eloise who claims she can nurse him back to health with the Boogity, a Hoodoo figure she has made from his blood and skin. He desperately tries to break free from her dark magic and save his family from a sinister ritual before the rise of the blood moon in a film that has its really creepy moments but feels a bit less than effective. The thing that bothered me most about this lower grade but bloody thriller-horror was the score which felt like a placeholder rather than anything composed with what was going on in the movie.

Monsoon – One of the breakthrough stars in the last few years after Crazy Rich Asians, Henry Golding takes the lead in this new film dealing with culture, race and self discovery and it’s really sad that no one seems to be talking about it. He plays Kit, a British Vietnamese man, who returns to Saigon for the first time in over thirty years, after fleeing during the Vietnam-American War when he was 6 years old. There he meets Lee, an estranged second cousin, Linh, a Vietnamese student, and Lewis, an American clothing designer and even arranges an online date, something very new for him and it turns into something more. Struggling to rediscover the country he never knew, he is able to discover friendship, love and happiness on his journey in a film that feels uplifting and another stellar piece of writer and director Hong Khaou’s resume.

The Empty Man – Based on the graphic novel from writer Cullen Bunn, this is an adaptation I was looking forward to without even knowing it as I love the book but didn’t know it had been greenlit to be made. Starring James Badge Dale from The Departed and Stephen Root from Newsradio, this is the story of an ex-cop on the trail of a missing girl who comes across a secretive group attempting to summon a terrifying supernatural entity. The book is incredibly stylish and absolutely chilling so I was very excited to see if the debuting director and screenwriter David Prior has done justice to the source material but it all felt like something we may have enjoyed in the time of The Ring or The Grudge but with all of that time passed, it feels like none of this is really that scary anymore. This shows some of the staunch unevolved nature of studio horror films and it really bums me out as a fan of the genre.

Minding The Gap – Twenty years after the affecting documentary of future skateboarding legends in Dogtown And Z-Boys we get this new but very different story of three American youths, tied to each other through their love of riding that board and it makes its debut on home release through a deserved Criterion Collection edition. The film is resonant as the story of these three boys who escape volatile families in their Rust-Belt hometown, as it brings a plight that can be recognized in so many people’s tales. As this documentary progresses, they face adult responsibilities and unexpected revelations threaten their decade-long friendship as each of them seek their own escape from their harsh realities. I was captivated by this movie and saw quickly why it had been chosen to go into the collection. An amazing movie that was only just on the festival rotation in 2018.

Spongebob Squarepants: Season 12 – I’ve definitely said this before on the show but I don’t need my kids to be around to watch my favorite underwater seas sponge because I will watch this insane show at any time because I believe the show is funny no matter if you’re a kid or an adult and it is especially funny if you are a stoner like I am. This is another season beyond the passing of creator Steven Hillenberg in 2018, but the love and reverence for these characters is still felt as it is in the hands of writers who still truly know this zany bunch as well as the man who thought them up. This season also brought back David Hasselhoff as himself again in real life, just like the first feature movie, as well as guest stars like Maria Bamford, Bobby Cannavale, Amy Sedaris, Gilbert Gottfried and Nickelodeon original star Kel Mitchell. This is definitely a box set I can get lost in.

The Twilight Zone: Season 2 – It seems like everything that Jordan Peele has touched in genre storytelling has turned to gold so why not take the iconic Rod Serling serial series that creeped out the generations before and give it a bold kick in the ass on CBS’s All Access streaming services and now for you to watch at home on DVD. I’m unsure if original series classics like “Terror At 30,000 Feet” like the first season but I know that it will include filmmakers like The Endless directors Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead, Gretel & Hansel’s Osgood Perkins and A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night’s Ana Lily Amirpour so you know the atmosphere will be incredible and the star line up includes Joel McHale, Topher Grace, Christopher Meloni and Damon Wayans Jr. If you’re hoping for a solid sophomore season from this one, you definitely have it here.

Manifest: Season 2 – If you are looking for your new Lost like series, this NBC sci-fi mystery might be up your alley and, while it doesn’t feature any huge stars unless you were a fan of Josh Dallas on Once Upon A Time, it comes from creator Jeff Rake who created some vastly underrated comedy with the Wall Street series The $treets and the Alicia Silverstone and now does a sizeable genre shift. The series follows the passengers onboard Flight 828 who, after being presumed dead, return and discover the world has aged five years. As they reintegrate into society, they begin to experience guiding voices and visions, and soon a deeper mystery unfolds. The show reminds me of the Syfy original series The 4400 quite a bit, a show that was cut down far too early and left too much of a tantalizing mystery. Now seeing that this one was preserved for a third season, maybe we’ll get to see this one until it’s conclusion. Fingers crossed.

Legacies: Season 2 – The CW added to their ranks of teen targeted hit shows that aren’t related to DC Comics with this thriller mystery that had a built in fan base already as it is the second spinoff from The Vampire Diaries after The Originals with the Matthew Davis played vampire hunter Alaric Saltzman taking the central role with his family at the head of a this new continuing story. this series is the tale of the next generation of supernatural beings at The Salvatore School for the Young and Gifted with former vampire baddie Klaus Mikaelson’s daughter, the 17-year-old Hope Mikaelson, Saltzman’s twins Lizzie and Josie and a plethora of other attractive teens coming of age in the most unconventional way possible, nurtured to be their best selves in spite of their worst impulses which include the unbridled maiming and murder of everyday people without powers. It’s slickly shot, maybe a little bit cliched on the script but still very entertaining for those that love the original series.

Steve’s Blu-Ray Geekouts:

Mustang – One of the greatest international films from the last decade, this is a movie that is begging to be seen and heard. Guaranteed to drain every tear out of your body, as it did a friend of mine who I brought to the original screening, this is the story of five orphaned Turkish girls who are sold off in marriage by their guardians. This is a beautiful and heartbreaking film of sisterhood and the destruction of innocence, a movie that will leave its mark on you like a belt lashing. This movie was nominated for an Oscar but ultimately lost to Son Of Saul in a year of incredibly tough competition. The release was bobbled badly here in Canada so this is a great opportunity to check it out.

Awakenings – A loss I felt heavily when it happened, as a film fan, is that of actress, writer and director Penny Marshall and aside from Big and A League Of Their Own, is this institution set drama that features incredible performances from Robin Williams and Robert De Niro. Celebrating it’s thirtieth anniversary this week, the story follows a new doctor who finds himself with a ward full of catatonic patients and, disturbed by the fact that they have been catatonic for decades with no hope of any cure, he develops a possible chemical cure with the hope he gets permission to try it on one of them. When the first patient awakes with his new prescription, the star patient, played by De Niro, is now well into his 50s having gone into a catatonic state at 20 years of age and finds delights in the new awareness of the patients and then on the reactions of their relatives to the changes in the newly awakened. The film was a critically lauded hit and earned three Academy Awards that year but ultimately lost out to a dominant Dance With Wolves.

Television:

Night Stalker: The Hunt For A Serial Killer (Netflix) – Hell yes! A brand new crime docu series to binge through and it’s about one of the most notorious serial killers of all time and, trust me, by all the witness accounts of people that came across him and lived to tell about it, he may be one of the scariest people of the last century. Yes, he’s a far cry from the dashing good looks of Ted Bundy. Be consoled by the fact that this series leads up to and includes his apprehension and conviction but the details lining his gruesome spree across California is gruesome and monstrous and probably will haunt your nightmare but just know that he can’t hurt you anymore. He was real but he’s gone. I’m actually talking to myself here and not you, bear with me.

Disenchantment: Part 3 (Netflix) – Matt Groening’s third original series and his first with Netflix enters into its the third piece of its story, following Princess Tiabeanie or ‘Bean’, voiced by Broad City’s Abby Jacobsen, a royal in a world of fantasy that wants desperately to shed the shackles of what a princess is supposed to be, yearning for action and adventure. After meeting Luci, a demon, and Elfo, an elf, she gets more than she wished for in a series that is honestly a bit hard to get into through the first four episodes. Towards the end of the first season the show kind of finds its footing so I really hope that this new season builds on that from the get-go because, honestly, it feels slow and we are talking about an animated series here. That said, the supporting voices of Eric Andre and Matt Berry are what keep me coming back to this one for more.

WandaVision (Disney+) – We are finally at the point where Disney+ means more than having The Mandolorian, every episode of The Simpsons and Hamilton as the first all new Marvel Universe live action series hits the streaming service and, from all of the reviews I’ve already seen, it’s going to be amazing. For those who are new to this one, this eight episode series blends the style of classic sitcoms with the MCU characters in which Wanda Maximoff and the Vision, two super-powered beings living their ideal suburban lives, begin to suspect that everything is not as it seems as well as their nosy neighbor, played to perfecting by the always scene stealing Katheryn Hahn. After having weeks of nothing after the finale to the second season of Mando, I’m all excited about this show. It will most likely be amazing and they’re already comparing it to a “David Lynch-like production. Don’t threaten me with a good time!

Tiger (Crave) – No matter what scandals came into his life, and from my count that’s only really one, I think it’s safe to say that Tiger Woods will go down as the greatest golfer of all time and a name that is synonymous with the sport. I mean, let’s face it. If you bring up golf, his name is surely to follow. For all of those who want to get deeper in their knowledge or viewers who love biographical documentaries, this new HBO docu series will give you everything you need and its put together by the best of the genre with the greatest himself, Alex Gibney, overseeing in a producer capacity and the guys behind Cartel Land directing it. With this being HBO’s big release this week, I can see it becoming a huge hit, another victory for Woods to notch on his resume.

Servant: Season 2 (AppleTV+) – So, after the rollout of this new streaming that had seemed a little lackluster at launch time, we’re now heading into a time of the AppleTV+ where we aren’t up with the big boys yet but there is a lot of great watches in both original series and films This show is one of them, another freaky tale from the mind of M. Night Shyamalan who, with me, has been on a little bit of a roll even if Glass wasn’t everything I wanted it to be. Definitely containing some sort of massive twist in there, this series follows a young and troubled couple who replace their newborn baby with a lifelike doll after their child dies from sudden infant death syndrome. This show is creepy as hell and it has a personal favorite actress in the lead, Lauren Ambrose who played Claire Fisher in the HBO series Six Feet Under. I’m not to the full way point of giving this streaming platform all of my love but it’s getting there.

What The Hell Should I Watch At Home? – Jan 7

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January 7, 2021

New Releases:

Promising Young Woman – Just when you think your best of the year list is all completed, the last week of releases comes through and throws a couple more at you to think about in including this film that has a Carey Mulligan performance that demands to be seen. The feature debut of Killing Eve creator Emerald Fennell, this film is a gutshot to every toxic dude on this planet and it may be uncomfortable at times, but it is all necessary. Mulligan plays Cassie, a young woman who is traumatized by a tragic event in her past that happened to her childhood best friend and seeks out vengeance against those who cross her path as well as men who prey on drunk women at clubs. This film’s narrative is caustic, searing and totally unrelenting but has an ability to be sardonically funny and then slap you hard with its seriousness. Very quickly into this movie, I knew I was watching the year’s best and it kept getting better.

Pieces Of A Woman – Starting your 2021 out with some real tragedy here, which extends in two very different ways with this new film that got snapped up by Netflix from the festival circuit. Starring the new queen of existential sorrow, Vanessa Kirby, and arguably the best actor of his generation but totally mental case human being Shia LeBeouf, this film starts with a long thirty-minute opening scene that culminates in a soul-crushing home birth death, this film hits the emotional high on the intro but that is just the beginning. The story continues with Kirby’s character beginning a year-long odyssey of mourning that fractures relationships with her husband and domineering mother as she learns to live alongside her loss. The film is a guttural blow to the emotions until the third act comes and tries to sprint to the finish line with grandiose moments and unsatisfying quick wrap-ups of the storyline. It all feels completely unearned and does nothing but knee cap the whole movie. I was so on board for most of this movie but it lost me.

The Dissident – The murder of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi was a shocking and blatant act of cold, brutal and calculated violence that in the large scheme of fast digested news has seemed to be almost swept under the rug in every facet. Will Mohammed bin Salman, the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia and the man largely believed to be the one to give the kill order ever see punishment for this. I guarantee he won’t but filmmaker Bryan Fogel makes sure all of the evidence is presented in this gripping and riveting documentary. This film follows Khasshogi’s fiancée and dissidents from around the world as they piece together the clues to murder and expose a global cover-up when he disappears and in the aftermath of his murder. This film left me slack-jawed in shock many times and for spoiler reasons, I won’t get into that. This is a must-watch, trust me.

Herself – This week’s underlying theme seems to be about women, adversity and the strength of their character as this new film hits Amazon Prime on Friday and embodies all of these qualities. The movie follows the story of a young mother named Sandra who escapes her abusive husband and fights back against a broken housing system. She then sets out to build her own home while rebuilding her life and discovering her new sense of self that emerges. The film doesn’t feature any big-name actors but it comes from the capable hands of director Phyllida Lloyd who directed the fan-favourite Mamma Mia and the Margaret Thatcher biopic The Iron Lady and it was shot by cinematographer Tom Comerford who previously did the horror film The Hole In The Ground, which was gorgeous. This one has definite potential.

Stars Fell On Alabama – Alright, so let’s look at a quick synopsis of this one, which as a successful Hollywood agent named Bryce who is returning to Alabama for the first time in 15 years for his high school reunion and when he learns he’s the only one of his friends who isn’t married with children, he convinces his client, a country starlet, to pretend to be his girlfriend. Of course, things aren’t what they seem and he is drawn into his scheme more than he thought and starts to fall in love with his fake wife because this is a predictable rom-com that falls way short on comedy. No known stars grace this movie that feels like it was grafted straight from a Lifetime original and blown up to feature size without any touch-ups. I can honestly say that I hated every second of this one.

Knuckledust – Apparently underground fighting is the new hotness in film again, two decades after Fincher brought the cerebral nature of Chuck Palahniuk’s Fight Club, but just in the last few months alone we got the great Charlie Hunnam and Jack O’Connell flick Jungleland and the dismal Malin Ackerman comedy Chick Fight. This one kind of fits in between in calibre, following Chief Inspector Katherine Keaton and her team who have ninety minutes to interrogate Hard Eight, a man found beaten to a pulp and barely breathing in an elite underground fight den called Club Knuckledust. With a shady Government official en route to take him away, Keaton has ninety minutes to interrogate Hard Eight to find out if is the lone survivor or a multiple murderer responsible for the seven levels of hell they found him in, filled with the dead bodies of countless fighters, assassins and goons. The film is brash and rough, with The VVitch actress Kate Dickie being the big draw but don’t expect a whole lot of originality to it.

Emperor – With The Good Lord Bird so recently in our television rearview mirror, it’s really hard to see anyone do that story better and, to this movie’s detriment, it had an uphill battle to even hit a level of adequacy for me. The story is a massively important one to this time, following an escaped slave who travels north and has chance encounters with American abolitionists Frederick Douglass and John Brown and right away the level of acting feels drastically different from the powerhouses of Ethan Hawke, Daveed Diggs and Rafael Casal. This film feels like a starter film from director and writer Mark Amin, who really does make his directorial debut here, and the amateur mistakes show through very largely. At the end of it, I think a watch through of all of the Showtime original would be better suited to satisfy the urge for this historical story.

Blu-Ray:

Love And Monsters – These days, if a film is attached to the name of Brian Duffield I am pretty much on board immediately with his last works being the Babysitter movies and his directorial debut Spontaneous which was just fantastic. This new film has Five Fingers for Marseilles director Michael Matthews behind the camera for his second feature and star Dylan O’Brien in front of it to hopefully show off how great he was in Teen Wolf and not the failings that were the Maze Runner series and the action flick American Assassin. The story is set seven years after the Monsterpocalypse, following Joel, who, along with the rest of humanity, has been living underground ever since giant creatures took control of the land. After reconnecting over the radio with his high school girlfriend Aimee, who is now 80 miles away at a coastal colony, Joel begins to fall for her again and as he realizes that there’s nothing left for him underground, he decides against all logic to venture out to Aimee, despite all the dangerous monsters that stand in his way. The supporting cast also has Michael Rooker, which is an instant sell in my opinion.

Yellow Rose – This film was a total surprise, one that I had heard no buzz about or one that had any real ad campaign behind it which is kind of a shame because it is an incredible movie. Written and directed by Diane Paragas in her feature narrative debut, this is the story of Rose, an undocumented 17-year-old Filipina, who dreams of one day leaving her small Texas town to pursue her country music dreams. Her world is shattered when her mom suddenly gets picked up by Immigration and Customs Enforcement and, facing this new reality, Rose is forced to flee the scene, leaving behind the only life she knows and embarks on a journey of self-discovery as she searches for a new home in the honky-tonk world of Austin, Texas. This film is beautifully shot and gives each character on screen such a rounded reality that we feel the weight of the situation at all times, most heavily felt with any of the dealings with the Gestapo nature of ICE. This movie has a soul and will infuriate you with the immigration practices in today’s America. Highly recommended.

12 Hour Shift – If you’re a horror fan like I am then the name Brea Grant is one that you know or you know her face when you see it. An actress that has appeared in genre favourites like Beyond The Gates and Halloween II as well as a small run on Dexter, she now gets behind the camera for her second directed feature and it’s in her genre of comfort this time. Starring horror favourite Angela Bettis from Lucky McKee’s May, David Arquette and WWE Hall Of Famer Mick Foley, this story leans hard on the comedy following a junkie nurse, her scheming cousin and a group of black market organ-trading criminals over the course of one twelve-hour shift at an Arkansas hospital who start a heist that could and definitely will lead to their imminent demises. This movie completely blew me away and I was expecting something fun but, honestly, it surpassed expectations. Unrelentingly brutal, twisted and darkly funny, this is a wild ride from the start.

Steve’s Blu-Ray Geek-Out:

Doom Patrol: Season 1 – With everything good that has appeared in the CW aired DC Universe shows like Arrow, The Flash, Supergirl, Legends Of Tomorrow and Black Lightning there is inevitably some clash of writing that brings it down to the level of your normal network television. This is certainly not the case when it comes to this brilliant series, made exclusively for the now-defunct DC Universe streaming service. For a quick catch up, the series follows a group of five seemingly unrelated and dissimilar individuals who find themselves drawn together, assembled by the mysterious The Chief. They all suffered traumatic, near-fatal accidents but now have superhuman abilities and The Chief has something in mind for each of them. The cast is phenomenal, including Brendan Fraser, Matt Bomer and Timothy Dalton and it is the series every comic fan needs to be watching.

Television:

History Of Swear Words (Netflix) – Netflix is kicking off their year with another hard-hitting docuseries and one that hits you in the knee and makes you scream “fuck!” Just kidding, this one isn’t hard-hitting at all but it is fun and delves into that expletive and all of the other swear words, their origins and their evolution all narrated and hosted by the man who uses each of these words so beautifully in many films, the legendary Nicolas Cage. Yes, he is a legend, deal with it. With help from some of the best “swear artists” in the game, like Sarah Silverman, Jim Jefferies, Nikki Glaser and Nick Offerman, we get an education in expletives, the history lesson you didn’t know you needed but oh is it fun! A loud and proudly profane series that explores the origins, pop culture-usage, science and cultural impact of curse words, I had such a great time with this entire series.

Dickinson: Season 2 (AppleTV+) – One of my favourite young actresses today and the future Kate Bishop in the upcoming Hawkeye series, Hailee Steinfeld has been on my radar since her breakout performance in True Grit. AppleTV+ knows her star power as well as they cast her in this great new series which delighted viewers when it debuted with the streaming service and quickly renewed it for this second season. Steinfeld takes the lead role in a highly fictionalized and stylized version of the real-life aspiring writer Emily Dickinson who is refreshingly brought to life with modern sense and sensibility. Embarrassed by her own parents and shunned from society, she stops at nothing to rebel against her strict background and makes her voice heard through the magic of poetry and, honestly, the series really works well. It’s an ambitious project but former head writer for The Affair, Alena Smith can channel all of it into a culturally relevant story without dampening the time period or real-life character. I was surprised by it.

Marvel Studios: Legends (Disney+) – This month is about to be a great kickoff to Disney+’s year as they are gearing up to release their first Marvel Cinematic Universe tie in series with Wandavision next Friday but to get the jump on that, they are rolling out this new documentary series that pays homage to the greats within the comic world. This series showcases individual characters from the MCU viewers have come to know and love over the years and revisit some of their most iconic moments, with the first two episodes of it directly tying into Wandavision with extended looks at Wanda Maximoff, the Scarlet Witch, and her love, The Vision. As a comic book nerd myself, I am so damn excited for Wandavision and will definitely be watching every episode of this one as well.

Lupin (Netflix) – We’re going to France for this new series that takes Transporter helmer Louis Letterier and places him in the showrunner position of the story of a master thief, embodied by the phenomenal Omar Cy in the title role. The show is inspired by the adventures of Arsène Lupin, a gentleman thief that appears in literary form and is the assumed identity that Senegal immigrant Assane Diop takes to set out to avenge his father for an injustice inflicted by a wealthy family. The show is all about the long con and pulls each one off beautifully in a series that will delight international viewers and draw in those fans that latch onto mystery serials. It really just took me one episode to get on board with this and now I sit here having finished my binge and waiting for the arrival of the second part.

Pretend It’s A City (Netflix) – New York City is a legendary place that really grows beyond being a mere city into being a state of mind, a feeling or a way of life that extends beyond its own microcosm. So who would you pick to give it a thorough and wittily hilarious exposition? Well, Netflix has decided that legendary director Martin Scorsese is the perfect person to spearhead this project, which, given films like Taxi Driver, Mean Streets, The King Of Comedy and more, make him the perfect candidate but his interview subject, writer, humorist and raconteur Fran Leibowitz, makes it that much better. Many may be turned off by the style in which this show is done, a straight talk in a darkened New York City restaurant and other landmarks including the replica of the famed metropolis in a warehouse, but I was totally captivated. I feel like this show will definitely find it’s embedded with audiences looking for something a little different.

What The Hell Should I Watch At Home? – Dec 31

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December 31, 2020

New Releases:

Shadow In The Cloud – I thought this one would be a movie with the utmost potential but all of that was quickly erased when I saw that it was partially written by the bottom-feeding troll that is Max Landis, for me one of the worst interview subjects I have ever had. Not to go into detail but the dude is awful. The movie does sound pretty cool, as it stars Chloe Grace Moretz as a female pilot with top-secret cargo talks her way on board a bomber plane about to take-off on a stormy night during World War II. The crass all-male crew reluctantly agrees, but their suspicions about her identity and the mysterious cargo quickly grow. Then a shadow appears in the clouds that may be the incoming Japanese fleet or it could be caused by some other sinister stowaway on the plane. The end result isn’t something I disliked but instead was a pulpy little horror film that would fit in an elseworlds World War, like the actioner Overlord. It feels like two separate movies thrown together at times but the unevenness of that is handled deftly by Moretz who is bringing her A-game here. It’s worth your time on a slow New Year’s Day, for sure.

We Can Be Heroes – One thing we can say about writer, director and producer Robert Rodriguez and that is he has fun making his projects. We’ve already seen it this year with his episode of The Mandalorian where he brought back Boba Fett in a spectacular style that made us all feel like glee filled children again. Well, that feeling will continue with your kids as he brings this sequel to his 2005 family fantasy actioner The Adventures Of Shark Boy And Lava Girl, this time without the 3D but with a pretty sizable cast behind it, except for original star Taylor Lautner for some reason. The film has all of the children of superheroes banding together when alien invaders kidnap their parents, and by using their individual powers, from elasticity to time control to predicting the future, they form an out-of-this-world team to bring the fight to these villains and save the planet. Simple, bombastic filmmaking with Priyanka Chopra Jonas, the lava hot Pedro Pascal, Boyd Holbrook, Christian Slater and more showing up to add some star power cred, this is one entertaining adventure.

Death To 2020 – Let’s kill this year. Shoot it, stab it, throw it off a building and just to make sure it’s not going to rise up like Jason Voorhees in the third act of a Friday The 13th film, set it on fire. Okay, so we can’t do that but Black Mirror creator Charlie Brooker has provided us with a pretty solid consolation prize with a brand new bout of satire that features a huge cast including Samuel L. Jackson, Hugh Grant, Lisa Kudrow, Kumail Nanjiani, Tracey Ullman, Leslie Jones and many more. They all come together, in separate COVID safe recordings to take a look back at the mad glory of the year 2020 in this comedic retrospective and it all works greatly to laugh away our sorrows. Seriously, I can’t stress the catharsis of this one enough.

Sing Me A Song – Let’s hit the door on this horrible year that we will forever be running from with a little bit of inspiration, shall we? This film takes us out of the comfort zone of our living rooms into the Kingdom of Bhutan, a landlocked country in the Eastern Himalayas that has just gotten internet service for the first time ten years ago and filmmaker Thomas Balmes was there for it. He focuses on a seven-year-old Buddhist named Peyangki who lived in a monastery set against a stunning mountainous backdrop. Peyangki confides to the camera his hopes and fears about the arrival of electricity. Fast forward to now and Peyangki is a seventeen-year-old monk, still at the monastery, but now awaking to the alarm of the smartphone that is his constant tool for every minute of the day, even during prayers. The film follows Peyangki in his rural monastery as he forms, via WeChat, a virtual relationship with a barroom singer named Ugyen who lives in the capital, Thimphu. She sings him love songs while he saves money from collecting medicinal mushrooms to go visit her. We watch their long-distance relationship evolve from both sides and, oh man, is it ever hopeful in this dark Zoom age we’ve plunged into this year. Human connection is something we all still strive for and this is a beautiful illustration of it.

Blu-Ray:

Honest Thief – It’s really kind of funny now that after the Taken trilogy had wrapped up, Liam Neeson stated that he was done with the action genre, retired I think was the term he used. Since then, he has made six more of them, including this film here, and five more on the horizon so, contrary to this movie’s title, he isn’t very honest at all. Coming from Ozark producer Mark Williams, this new movie has him playing Tom Carter, nicknamed the In and Out Bandit because of how meticulous of a thief he is, stealing $9 million from small-town banks while managing to keep his identity a secret. After he falls in love with the bubbly Annie, played by Private Practice’s Kate Walsh, Tom decides to make a fresh start by coming clean about his criminal past, only to be double-crossed by two ruthless FBI agents. Neeson action films seem a dime a dozen in the last twenty years with glimmering hopeful spots here and there but I can’t say that this is one of them. The film is formulaic, corny at times and massively bland, to the point that you will forget about it immediately after viewing it and the ending has this “all’s well that ends well” cheese ball quality that was almost laughable. Avoid this.

The Last Shift – Richard Jenkins is one of those character actors who has been busting his ass for years and movie fans adore him and casual viewers know his face for sure. In this film, he plays Stanley, a long time employee on the graveyard shift at Oscar’s Chicken and Fish who is calling it quits after 38 years and must train his young replacement, a talented but stalled young writer who was recently paroled and his provocative politics keep landing him in trouble. Jenkins gives another fantastic performance as he’s done throughout his career but like The Visitor, a film that got him nominated for an Oscar, this is another benchmark in his great career. This is a strong narrative debut for writer and director Andrew Cohn and a really solid supporting role from Shane Paul McGhie as well as former Modern Family star Ed O’Neill.

Triggered – Hell yes, some diabolical survival horror comes your way to finish off the new releases for this week and, really, this one is just a shut off your brain sort of movie because if you try to look for deeper meaning within the characters you will give yourself a migraine. The film follows nine friends, who all harbour a dark secret, that go camping in the woods. After a wild night of partying, they wake up with explosive vests strapped to their chests, all with varying times on their countdown clocks. They decide to work out how to disarm the bombs or find help until they discover they can ‘take’ one another’s time by killing each other. The concept is really cool and the need to understand each character’s plight is minimal but the endgame to the movie feels flimsy and almost makes everything you’ve seen pretty superfluous. That said, the violence in it is neat and stylish making it an entertaining but hollow and weightless thriller. 

Steve’s Blu-Ray Geek-Outs:

Silent Running – One of the classic science fiction stories from the 1970s, this film is fast becoming a forgotten gem that had such a massive influence on so many filmmakers but Arrow Video isn’t going to let it fade away without a fight. In this new collector’s edition, you can be introduced or re-introduced to Freeman Lowell, a man who looks after plants in giant space greenhouses. Back on Earth, all the trees have long vanished, so Lowell puts a lot of heart into his work but when orders from Earth are received to destroy the greenhouses, Lowell can’t go through with it, and cannot persuade his three colleagues to help him save the plants, so he makes other “arrangements”. This is the nudging piece to many end of the world films, like Danny Boyle’s Sunshine or Claire Denis’ recent space film High Life, and is part of the great career from director Douglas Trumbull, in his debut film, and writer Michael Cimino made his debut writing this as well. Well worth the time. 

The Hobbit Trilogy & The Lord Of The Rings Trilogy 4K – Much like a part of the generation before me got to experience the beginning of Star Wars in their teens and early twenties when the first film hit theatres in 1977, I consider the Lord Of The Rings to be my version of that, a phenomenon in film that is the trendsetter of the time. Then came the prequel trilogy, The Hobbit, which didn’t have as much appeal. See the connection? Well, now both trilogies on 4K, and the Rings including the extended versions, I can introduce my kid, the new generation, to the stories that Tolkien has lovingly crafted and director, writer and produced Peter Jackson has brought to the screen and watching them in the order of the story might give me a better insight to how they are received now, much like when I went through the Star Wars Saga. Spoilers, she really enjoyed the prequels of that so maybe we were a little hard on them as jaded adults?

Television:

Yearly Departed (Amazon Prime) – It’s really about time we got out of this wretched year so why not do it in style with a whole bunch of comedians roasting it like it sorely deserves? This comedy special features eulogies for the year 2020 with a line-up of all-women comedians, featuring Rachel Brosnahan, Sarah Silverman, Tiffany Haddish, Natasha Leggero and more, discussing everything from casual sex to beige Band-Aids and everything in between that we’ve “lost” in 2020. I think this is another great indicator of how we must enter 2021, either laughing our asses off or quietly and disturbing nothing so it doesn’t notice that we are here. I think both are solid bets, don’t you?

Chilling Adventures Of Sabrina: Part 4 (Netflix) – The final piece of this story hits Netflix for all the rabid fans of this show and I’m excited about the conclusion but we may be the only ones as Sabrina isn’t closing out because they want to, instead they are being rushed off of Netflix in a sweep of cancellations. Former Mad Men star Kiernan Shipka is perfectly cast as the title star, a girl that is half human and half witch and constantly finds herself torn between those worlds, trying to keep evil at bay while still maintaining the life of a normal teenager. The show plays the gothic themes so well and the direction and cinematography match it with so many great nods to classic horror tropes and the supporting cast of Lucy Davis and Miranda Otto as Aunt Hilda and Zelda will always keep me watching and makes me a bit misty that it’s going out like this. It’s much better than Riverdale, I think.

Letterkenny: Season 9 (Crave) – I don’t think it is at all outlandish to call this how one of or possibly THE greatest comedy series on television today. On the outside, it looks like rural Trailer Park Boys with a crude sense of humour but looking at it on a deeper level, it is an insanely well-written show that takes its jokes to intricate levels that I had no idea existed in a show like this. You know what? Strike that. There is no show like this one. For those who have never had the pleasure of this homegrown gem, it is a quick-witted, fast-paced snappy comedy about rural folk getting by in the small town of Letterkenny, filled with hicks, muscleheads, meth heads and hockey playing morons. It is a pure piece of brilliance that truly shows that the laughs can come from weird places.

Cobra Kai: Season 3 (Netflix) – Remember that school of bad guys from the Karate Kid movies? Well, they’ve had their own series running for two seasons as a YouTube original and now with this third season, they get the high profile and bigger budget release on Netflix to bump it up to the next level. Featuring a lot of the original cast from the movies, including William Zabka, Martin Kove and even Daniel-san, Ralph Macchio, this Emmy nominated series takes place decades after our mains have had their 1984 All Valley Karate Tournament bout, following a middle-aged Daniel LaRusso and Johnny Lawrence who again find themselves martial-arts rivals. This is your chance to get fully acquainted with this critic and audience lauded series all at once and hopefully secure it another season and it’s damn worthy of that.

The Watch (AMC) – In the literary world, author and creator Terry Pratchett was almost godlike, a man who had and still has a pantheon of fans that revere everything he has written and the biggest tentpole in that has to be the Discworld series, a connective tissue for a lot of his writings. There are so many cogs that make up this world and AMC has decided to latch onto one in their latest series. Based on the characters from those novels, this show follows a group of misfit cops who rise up from decades of helplessness to save their corrupt city from catastrophe. The show was brought to the screen by showrunner Simon Allen, a writer on BBC shows like The Musketeers, and doesn’t feature a notable cast outside of The Wire’s Wendell Pierce and What We Do In The Shadows Matt Berry, but the story is where this series excels and if it’s given the chance, it can just get better and more intricate into a world that really deserves this sort of treatment. I’m excited about it.

What The Hell Should I Watch At Home? – Dec 24

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December 24, 2020

New Releases:

Wonder Woman 1984 – Finally, after waiting since June after delay after delay due to the pandemic we get to see the next piece in the theatrical story of Princess Diana of Themyscira, also known as Wonder Woman. It would have been way better to see this on the big screen obviously but don’t look a gift horse in the mouth and be happy with what you get as both Gal Gadot and director Patty Jenkins has returned for this sequel that is bigger and better than the first film, corrects the mistakes made with the character in Justice League and even resurrects Chris Pine’s Steve Trevor character. How is this? I’m not going to give all that info to you but it definitely involves Diana’s new foes in this film, Max Lord and The Cheetah, played by The Mandoloarian Pedro Pascal and Kristen Wiig respectively. Sit back, relax and have this film dazzle you. After the year we’ve had, we deserve to go out like this.

News Of The World – It’s hard to believe that in Tom Hanks’ long and storied career he has never tackled a western before, although he has played a cowboy before but his Toy Story adventures don’t really count in this regard. Reteaming with his Captain Phillips director Paul Greengrass, he finally corrects this wrong, playing a Civil War veteran who now goes across the country reading the news who agrees to deliver a girl, taken by the Kiowa people years ago, to her aunt and uncle, although against her will. They travel hundreds of miles and face grave dangers as they search for a place that either of them can call home and create a bond together that may be stronger than they have ever experienced. This movie is somber and methodical with Greengrass shelving his usual shaky hand held style for something more poignant and it works so beautifully. I was gripped by Hanks performance and the character development holds fast to you until the very end.

Wild Mountain Thyme – For all of those who loved movies like Circle Of Friends or, more recently but not recently, P.S. I Love You, they may take a look at this movie, see it’s an Irish romantic comedy and plunk in their dollars to VOD for a new Emily Blunt movie with the guy from the Fifty Shades trilogy. Well, the rude awakening comes when you hear Christopher Walken’s narration to open the film, in the worst faltering Irish accent you’ve ever heard. Seriously, coming from the writer of Moonstruck, John Patrick Shanley, I was expecting so much more from a film that follows headstrong farmer Rosemary Muldoon who has her heart set on winning her neighbor Anthony Reilly’s love. The problem is Anthony seems to have inherited a family curse, and remains oblivious to his beautiful admirer. Stung by his father Tony’s (Christopher Walken) plans to sell the family farm to his American nephew Anthony is jolted into pursuing his dreams in this film that feels ridiculous, contrived and totally offensive to anyone living in Ireland. Really, everyone should skip this one as a Christmas present to themselves.

Sylvie’s Love -At first glance, many may pass this one by as just a flighty romantic drama but a guy like me looks at it and goes “oh man, Tessa Thompson is in this? I’m sold.” It’s just that simple for me but let’s get deeper on this one. The second narrative feature film from writer and director Eugene Ashe, this film follows a woman working at her father’s record store in Harlem in the late 1950s who meets an aspiring saxophone player and begins a whirlwind romance that will change her life. The movie has so much going for it, featuring a killer cast around Thompson including Eva Longoria, Aja Naomi King, Wendi McClendon-Covey and Jemima Kirke, which is really just the tip of the iceberg, and it’s shot by Declan Quinn who did A Master Builder, Rachel Getting Married and Breakfast On Pluto just to name a few, and incredibly vibrant cinematographer. Critics are falling in love with this one so there’s a good chance you will too.

Chicago 10 – It’s so odd to watch this film a mere few months after Aaron Sorkin’s big cast adaptation of this story hit Netflix but with it being so fresh in my mind, I enjoyed it all that much more because of it. In a half-real footage and half animated film, documentarian Brett Morgan looks back at the eight anti-war protesters, including Jerry Rubin, Abbie Hoffman and other activists/dirty goddamn hippies (depending on which side of the argument you were on), who were put on trial following the 1968 Democratic National Convention. This is a fascinating look at the trial which I already was able to pull where Sorkin pulled his scenes from but the most interesting thing is that this film was made in 2007 and is only getting a sort of theatrical release now. The voice cast from the animated bits is sort of a who’s who of popular stars, including Roy Schieder who passed away a year later. I also have to say that the soundtrack is full of great tunes, although they definitely aren’t era-specific as it all kicks off with Rage Against The Machine’s Freedom.

Blu-Ray:

The War With Grandpa – As a general rule now, I don’t get into any movie involving Robert De Niro and the word grandpa because I’m still in a state of trauma from having to go to the press screening for his raunchy comedy Dirty Grandpa which made me severely question his financial state as well. This one will definitely go in a different route than that, a family film that follows a boy thrilled that Grandpa is coming to live with his family until he finds out that Grandpa is moving into his room, forcing him upstairs into the creepy attic. Though he loves his grandpa, he wants his room back and has no choice but to declare war, so, with the help of his friends, he devises outrageous plans to make Grandpa surrender the room but Grandpa is tougher than he looks and rather than give in, Grandpa plans to get even. Oh man, now reading that back, this movie may be no better than the previous movie I mentioned and seeing that it comes from the director of Alvin And The Chipmunks, well, the positivity meter is shrinking.

Kajillionaire – One of my favourite filmmakers in the last twenty years and a storyteller who is very idiosyncratic in her own right, like Nicholas Winding Refn or Yorgos Lanthimos, I have always been excited about Miranda July’s new projects and this film didn’t disappoint. Starring Evan Rachel Wood, Richard Jenkins, Debra Winger and Gina Rodriguez, the story follows two con artists who have spent twenty-six years training their only daughter to swindle, scam and steal at every turn to get them by. During a desperate and hastily conceived heist, they charm a stranger into joining them, only to have their entire world turned upside down as she upsets the dynamic that had been working so well for them and starts to show Old Dolio (yes, that’s really what they named her) the real way of the world and the goodness in people. Wood is absolutely incredible in this movie, playing a morose feeling monotone character that reflects so well in every nuanced reaction. Just another phenomenal performance in 2020 that shouldn’t be overlooked.

The Craft: Legacy – Sequels or reboots two decades or more after the originals, it’s a very touch and go thing. It can either work or make you wonder why they even tried in the first place and the latter is what you may be thinking about this one but the easy answer is that it wasn’t made for the original fans or that age demographic but instead made for a younger audience to latch onto it and make witch covens of their own. Yes, it’s 1996 all over again. For this film debuting director Zoe Lister Jones creates a very familiar but updated story following an eclectic foursome of aspiring teenage witches who get more than they bargained for as they lean into their newfound powers and everything is going pretty well for the most part until a mess that is the third act comes along to fudge everything that preceded it. This film feels like a hurricane of studio notes and edits and a rushed post production and it really robs the viewer of a film that had potential. I can’t believe I’m half praising this but here we are.

The Place Of No Words – The four year old son of writer, director and actor Mark Webber and actress Teresa Palmer asked them a serious question that set this whole film production in motion, the simple query of “what happens to us when we die?” What results is this inventive and boisterous adventure that has Webber acting with his own son as they cross an existential plain looking for answers to life’s mysteries and, honestly, it reminded me a lot of Spike Jonze’s adaptation of Maurice Sendak’s Where The Wild Things Are. At the sea time, this movie feels very personal as well, lie we’re peering behind the curtain of a family home as they educate their child. You may have qualms with the information they are imparting but it’s not your place to say differently or criticize. This is what makes this an incredibly hard film to review and I’m certainly not the only person to say so.

Steve’s Blu-Ray Geek Out:

Burst City – How about I throw some weirdness into this holiday season by way of Japan because what would one of my geekouts be without an oddball pick? This one ticks all the boxes of genre insanity with a film that has punk rock gangs and music groups clashing with one another as well as the brutal police force in a futuristic Tokyo setting. Coming from gonzo filmmaker Sogo Ishii, this is an action packed and frenetic two hour romp of nuclear power plant protests, armor clad bikers and so much more, giving it a cult status that should have raised it in popularity. Hopefully this new blu-ray edition from Arrow Video will give it a boost to new audiences as it also has an in-depth interview with Ishii so you can get in the head of the madness that created it.

Avenue 5: Season 1 – Veep creator Armando Iannucci left his series early but I like to think it was so he could go and develop this new sci-fi comedy and I think we are all better off for it. The series follows the troubled crew of Avenue 5, a space cruise ship filled with spoiled, rich, snotty space tourists, who must try and keep everyone calm after their ship gets thrown off course into space and ends up needing three years to return to Earth. The cast is so phenomenal, featuring Hugh Laurie, Josh Gad, Zach Woods, Jessica St. Clair and so many more in a show that has all of that great snark that Iannucci has in abundance and creates characters that are so massively unique. I can’t wait for the next installment of this fantastic series.

The Slammin’ Salmon – Finally, the last piece of my Broken Lizard comes together with this purchase I made of a massively underrated comedy in their filmography as well as a great performance from the gargantuan actor and sorely missed talent Michael Clarke Duncan. He’s the title character of this restaurant set film, the brutal former heavyweight boxing champion Cleon “Slammin'” Salmon, who is now owner of a Miami restaurant, that institutes a competition to see which waiter can earn the most money in one night. The winner stands to gain $10,000, while the loser will endure a beating at the hands of the champ. This movie is so funny, a total tribute to how great this troupe is at writing for each other and the additional cast members of Burnaby’s own Cobie Smulders and Will Forte just sweeten the deal that much more. If you haven’t found this one but love all the other films you need to rectify that problem immediately.

Blade 4K – How freaking awesome was this movie when it came out? An early Marvel adaptation that worked on every level, this film kicked off a franchise that is so massively entertaining, featuring Wesley Snipes in a role we never knew he was born to play. For those who forget, the film is about a half-vampire, half-mortal man who, along with his life-long friend Whistler, battle vampires. Born of a mother bitten by a vampire, he possesses all their strengths and none of their weaknesses and is known as the day walker because sunlight does not affect him. With the addition of a new ally, Dr. Karen Jenson, Blade endeavors to prevent the evil Frost from unleashing the blood god upon the world. Now in a 4K update, this movie looks better than ever and will hopefully bring new fans to the character as Mahershala Ali is now stepping into the role for what looks to be a new slate of films.

Television:

The Midnight Sky (Netflix) – George Clooney gets in front of the camera as well as behind it with his first onscreen movie role in four years after Money Monster and, yes, I know he was in the Hulu series Catch 22 and some Nespresso commercials but we aren’t counting those. For this film he heads into the end of the world as Augustine, a lonely scientist in the Arctic dying of cancer, who must take care of a little girl who stowed away at the Nunavut outpost he’s living in and also race to stop Sully and her fellow astronauts from returning home to a mysterious global catastrophe that has made the planet untenable. Clooney delivers the powerhouse, especially with his bond with his new dependant, almost reminiscent of the Tom Hanks film opening this week as well. The problem comes with the separation of the two stories, Clooney’s on Earth and Sully and her crew, led by Academy Award winner Felicity Jones. Every time we get some good character development we seem to be whipped back to the other storyline and it feels a bit jarring. Otherwise, it’s a solid emotional drama that is nicely shot,

Soul (Disney+) – I have to be honest here, when Inside Out came out both my wife and I enjoyed the film but it never hit us on that deeply emotional level that it resonated with everyone else on. That said, when I watched this new film from Pete Doctor, the director of that one and Up, it hit me like a ton of bricks and easily fit into my list of the best of the year. Jamie Foxx voices Joe, a middle-school band teacher whose life hasn’t quite gone the way he expected. His true passion is jazz and he’s good, able to get in the zone and float away on his own tangents and it ends up earning him his big break and then he falls into a sewer drain right after. Now he must team up with an earth-defiant little soul, voiced by Tina Fey, and travel to another realm to help her find her passion, he soon discovers what it means to have a soul. This is such a beautiful film about purpose and Doctor nails it in every respect. It feels like the Pixar of old was missing for a few years but they came back big time for this one.

ariana grande: excuse me, i love you (Netflix). – It’s a rough time to release a music driven documentary after Taylor Swift’s Miss Americana, the recent Dolly Parton film Here I Am and then Taylor did it again with the Folklore: The Long Pond Studio Sessions, so I think people were expecting the same sort of introspective look at one of the biggest pop stars in the world, Ariana Grande, but this isn’t that. Instead what the “Thank You, Next” singer delivers is a very intimate look at her concert tour by giving you a front row seat for it. That’s it. No more, no less but you know that the Grandes or whatever her fan base is called is already over the moon and Google searching anyone’s review of it so, in that case, oh boy did I love it. Thumbs up!

City Hall (PBS) – This is an interesting one as it is a huge undertaking for a documentary, clocking in at over four and a half hours long, but it’s a film that is already getting a lot of critical love, which is great for original PBS programming. The film is an in-depth look at Boston’s city government, covering racial justice, housing, climate action, and more from the point of view of both the bureaucrats in the system as well as the citizens it governs. The film is incredibly studious in it’s approach and is massively insightful into the roadblocks on all sides and that has to be due to the wide net that director Frederick Wiseman casts, no stranger to this long form storytelling with three Primetime Emmys already on his awards mantle. I think you can expect a few more when the television awards ceremony rolls around next year.

Bridgerton (Netflix) – Shondaland must be really horny because the famed production company has landed on Netflix with their first original series and it is a randy little bodice ripper that can’t wait to show partial nudity and get swearing immediately. Created by one of Shonda Rhimes main dudes Chris Van Dusen, this series is set in the backdrop of Regency era England as seen through the eyes of the powerful Bridgerton family in their follies of wealth, lust, and, of course, betrayal. The young cast is young, attractive and relatively unknown, aside from Jonathan Bailey from Broadchurch, Nicola Coughlan from Derry Girls and Freddie Stroma from the Harry Potter films but it’s veteran inclusions like Rome’s Polly Walker and the legendary actress Julie Andrews that gives this one any weight. You’ll know quickly if this show is for you.

What The Hell Should I Watch At Home? – Dec 17

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December 17, 2020

New Releases:

Monster Hunter – Can somebody please take these Capcom properties away from Milla Jovovich and her writer, producer and director husband Paul W.S. Anderson? Really, just take all adaptations away because Anderson has tanked the Resident Evil franchise, made a mess out of the history of Pompeii and even Alexander Dumas has been slighted with his terrible Three Musketeers adaptation. This slogfest that has bright points of action jumps on a game franchise I’m unfamiliar with, following Marine lieutenant Artemis and her loyal soldiers who are transported to a new world and engage in a desperate battle for survival against enormous enemies with incredible powers. Co-starring Ong Bak action star Tony Jaa and featuring T.I., Megan Good and Diego Boneta for all of ten minutes, the film is haphazard in plotting and brainless in its script and that’s me going easy on it. Ugh, when will the torture end, Milla? I used to love you!

Fatale – Hilary Swank and Michael Ealy are trying to bring you some sexy thrills before Christmas with this new film that seems to borrow a lot of it’s plot from nineties thrillers, which would be fine if you had a competent filmmaker to bring that to the screen. Instead, you have Deon Taylor, a director who has brought out laughable films like the Dennis Quaid dumbness The Intruder, a film so unintentionally funny that I couldn’t take it seriously for a millisecond. Predictably, this film is about a successful married man who, after an adulterous one-night stand, finds himself entangled in a cunning police detective’s latest investigation. My request for a screening link for this was denied so you know this is going to be craptacular.

The Kid Detective – Usually a comedy favourite of mine, actor Adam Brody seriously brings it in a dramatic performance that hangs its hat on the detective noir style storytelling and does it so well in the feature debut of writer and director Evan Morgan, known for co-writing the sleeper comedy The Dirties. Brody plays Abe Applebaum, a once-celebrated kid detective, now 32 years old and continuing to solve the same trivial mysteries between hangovers and bouts of self-pity. His world may turn around when a naive client brings him his first ‘adult’ case, to find out who brutally murdered her boyfriend which may end up tying in with a kidnapping case that has dogged him since he was a kid. The movie is so impeccably shot and the noir nature of the film is brilliantly executed with Brody giving the performance of a lifetime. The final shot of this film is a brilliant mix of triumph and sorrow that will stick with me for weeks.

Another Round – One of my most anticipated films of the Vancouver International Film Festival this year, I was already seeing great reactions to this new Thomas Vinterberg film on Twitter before I even got the chance to check it out and they are all very much warranted. Starring one of my favourite international actors of all time, Mads Mikkelsen, the story is about four friends, all high school teachers, who embark on an experiment where they each sustain a certain level of alcohol intoxication during their everyday life, believing that all people, in general, would benefit from a bit higher Blood Alcohol Content. As a result, their working experiences are turned upside down, forcing their lives into deeper turmoil than they were in the first place. The performances are phenomenal as the story keeps descending into a chaotic nose dive until an odd resolution that seems like a conflicted triumph, What a pure cinematic gem this movie is!

Max Cloud – Eighties homages are my total bread and butter, as I adore Stranger Things and Turbo Kid has its own bean bag chair to rest on comfortably in my heart, so this is why I was really gung-ho about this new sci-fi homage that combines the synthy style that many from that generation would love to forget and props it up on classic video gaming too. Also known as The Intergalactic Adventures Of Max Cloud, this follows a video game enthusiast named Sarah who is transported into her favourite game and finds herself in an intergalactic prison, home to the most dangerous villains in the galaxy. The only way to escape the game is to complete it by teaming up with space hero and intergalactic misogynist Max Cloud with Sarah battling the terrifying planet while her best friend, Cowboy, controls the game from her bedroom in Brooklyn. I wanted to love this movie so much and it is admirably made on a micro-budget but it has so much dumb stuff that constantly drags it down and makes it too goofy to even get behind. Maybe I hyped it up too much.

Modern Persuasion – Okay, this might be something more in the vein of holiday viewing as it takes one of the major works from renowned, revered and celebrated author Jane Austen and brings it up to modern times, well, hence the title. Featuring former Twin Peaks resident Alicia Witt and Frasier’s Lilith herself Bebe Neuwirth, this film is about a single woman focused on her career in New York who is forced to deal with the aftermath of a failed relationship when an ex-boyfriend hires her company. I feel like fans of Hallmark movies or more transparent romantic comedies will really dig on this one, but it left me totally out in the cold, pulling apart terrible dialogue and cringing at utterly predictable storytelling. I don’t even know if I can like this one on even a fluff level.

Beyond The Woods – You didn’t think we were going to make it out of the new releases with one horror movie did you? Well, here we go, and I exaggerate a bit with the genre but it’s a little low budgeter that takes you out into the wilderness to bring you its thrills. The feature film debut of Canadian writer and director Brayden DeMorest-Purdy, this is a psychological thriller which follows Detective Reeves’ investigation after Laura Bennett’s death and the disappearance of her brother Jack with the suspect at hand being Laura’s husband Andrew, who seems to be the only one to know where Jack really is. Detective Reeves must solve this never-ending puzzle, as Jack’s odds of survival are against him. Although on the outside, this may look like an under-produced Canadian film that will end up in a Wal-Mart bin, it really isn’t. Instead, it’s an emotionally taut ride that features some really solid performances in it as well.

Blu-Ray:

Tenet – This is the movie that it feels like the pandemic was robbing us of most as Christopher Nolan returns with another mind-bender of a film that looks very akin to one of his previous masterpieces, Inception. With Blackklansman star John David Washington leading a stellar cast including Robert Pattinson, Elizabeth Debicki, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Kenneth Brannagh and Michael Caine, not much about the central plot was given to the general public, just that it follows our protagonist who is armed with only one word, Tenet, and fighting for the survival of the entire world who journeys through a twilight world of international espionage on a mission that will unfold in something beyond real-time. This description is a whole thing to unlock on its own and if you’ve seen the trailer you know the intense intricacies that it only gives you a taste of. My belief is the best way to enter this movie is without really any knowledge at all and let the brilliance wash over you as I’ve watched it thoroughly and still want to give it another spin to unpack everything I’ve already experienced. I also want to relive it again and again because it is also pure Nolan masterwork and a level that not many filmmakers hit.

Infidel – Former Jesus Christ Jim Caviezel takes the role of the sole star of this new thriller from writer and director Cyrus Nowrasteh who garnered some solid acclaim with his film The Stoning of Soraya M. from over a decade ago. In this film, Caviezel plays an outspoken American journalist who is kidnapped by the Iranian regime while giving talks in Cairo, Egypt and taken to the Middle East and put on trial for erroneous charges. His wife, a State Department official, tries to use her influence to get the American government involved so that they get her husband back but she soon realizes that the American government will not get involved so she is forced to go to the Middle East to search for him by herself. With the “based on a true story” stamp appearing at the beginning, the ‘based’ part feels apropos as there are so many pieces that feel completely unreal. That said, this one really works as a traditionally straight forward thriller.

Chick Fight – On paper, this is a movie I really should have enjoyed. The cast is solid, featuring Malin Ackerman in the lead with Alec Baldwin, Fortune Feimster and Bella Thorne in a story of female empowerment that feels like it is really needed in this day and age. Ackerman plays Anna Wyncomb, a down on her luck woman who is introduced to an underground, all-female fight club to turn the mess of her life around and discovers she is much more personally connected to the history of the club than she could ever imagine. This movie fails almost right out of the gate with easy jokes, contrived and dated plotting and, immediately, I head to the notes to see that this movie was made by two dudes who obviously didn’t get a woman to give them notes because, although it doesn’t go sexually exploitative, it is really apparent that they just had the cliff notes on what it means to be a woman. They also saw way too many Michael Bay films because it comes through in the direction.

Echo Boomers – A really easy way for you to get my interest piqued in a movie is to tell me Michael Shannon is in it. “Hey Steve, there’s a new Smurfs movie but Michael Shannon is in it.” Sold, brother, say no more. Well, this new under-advertised crime story is a heist film with a Robin Hood edge and it brings Alex Pettyfer and Patrick Schwarzenegger along for the ride. Based on a true story, the film follows five college graduates who decide that the best way to get back at the unfair economy that keeps them down and live the life they’ve always wanted is to steal from Chicago’s richest and give to themselves. With nothing to lose, they leave behind a trail of destruction but with the cops closing in, tensions mount and the gang soon discovers they are in over their heads with no way out. I think the worst thing about this movie is how seriously it wants you to take it while it’s doing backflips of narrative goofiness that equate to novice filmmaking. If you want something vapid though with no resonance, then this is your flick right here.

The Beach House – Ah yes, some divisive psychopathic thriller-horror for us to dig into. This has been floating on Shudder for a couple of months now but for those who don’t have the privilege of logging into that library of awesomeness, it is available to you now on disc and VOD. Starring Liana Liberato, a great young actress, this film follows a young couple heading to a beach house to spend some quality time and find it immediately peaceful when they don’t encounter any neighbours around. Their quality time is interrupted by the arrival of unexpected guests and as if that wasn’t bad enough, a mysterious fog along with a mysterious infection is slowly spreading around. Intriguing, right? Well, the great news is all of this setup has so much delicious payoff to it as writer and director Jeffrey A. Brown crafts a brilliant mind twist with a small budget. This guy has a huge future ahead of him.

The Wolf Of Snow Hollow – Jim Cummings is a writer, director, producer and actor who has been carving out a small place of notoriety for himself with his comedy-drama Thunder Road a couple of years back but with his sophomore effort, he has landed with the grace of a horror-loving cat’s with a comedic edge. This film is set in a small mountain town in the grips of terror as mutilated bodies are discovered after each full moon without explanation. Losing sleep, raising a teenage daughter, and caring for his ailing father, officer Marshall, played by Cummins, struggles to remind himself there’s no such thing as werewolves as evidence increasingly indicates the opposite. This movie is quirky, unpredictable and devilishly fun throughout and features Riki Lindholme in a supporting role as well as the legendary Robert Forster in his final performance before passing away towards the end of last year. This is an absolute hit in every way.

The Opening Act – Although this one isn’t horror like the previous two on this list, it could be regarded as social horror because the idea of hitting the stage as a stand-up comedian is pretty scary to me. That’s kind of what is at the heart of this new comedy, following a struggling stand up who works a thankless day job until one of his idols asks him to be the emcee for one of his shows. He then must make a full push to go forth with his dream or let it go completely, something that is very true in that industry because I hear it all the time on podcasts. The cast is pretty solid with Silicon Valley’s Jimmy O. Wang and one of the original kings of comedy, Cedric The Entertainer but the emotional resonance is where the film starts to falter and it really never recovers from it. As a fluff piece, it entertains.

The Dark And The Wicked – Brian Bertino is here to mess us up again. If you don’t recognize the name then you haven’t been put through the home invasion nightmare of The Strangers movies or his lesser-seen creature feature The Monster. Let it be known here that Bertino is one of the best minds in horror and he does it again with his new flick. He gets real sinister with this film which follows two siblings who are summoned back to the family farm to await the inevitability of their father’s death but what initially appears to be a timeless ritual of loss and remembrance turns out to be something very different, marked by waking nightmares and a growing sense that something evil is taking over the family. The cast is unfamiliar in this one unless you saw Michael Abbot Jr. in the phenomenal The Death Of Dick Long but know for a fact that this movie is incredible, chilling and will get under your skin in the best ways. I loved every second of it.

Tex Avery Screwball Classics: Volume 2 – Let’s get back into the classic cartoon goodness after I most likely disturbed Shane with a bunch of horror, shall we? Warner Archive digs into the vault for the next volume of Tex Avery originals, an animator who was iconic and carved a side of Saturday morning cartoons out for himself as one of the masters of animation during Hollywood’s golden era. After helping develop Porky Pig, Daffy Duck and Bugs Bunny for Warner Bros., Avery moved to MGM in 1941 to create a set of comedy masterpieces that defined a new slapstick style for animation which is illustrated in this collection here. For any classic cartoon fan out there, this remastered set is a definite must-have.

Steve’s Blu-Ray and DVD Geek-Outs:

Lake Michigan Monster – Nothing says Christmas time like a weirdo take on Moby Dick set on one of our Great Lakes in a black and white adventure film to the lowest of budget proportions, right? Well, that’s what we’re looking at here as the minds at Arrow Video have come together with this special edition of a 2018 film that became a festival hit at the high profile genre celebration of Fantasia and other subsequent movie fests. The story is pretty simple, writer and director Ryland Brickson Cole Tews plays an eccentric ship captain who forms a crew of specialists to plot revenge against what he believes to be the most mysterious creature of the deep, the Lake Michigan Monster. I feel like this film would be a great chaser for another black and white sea shanty, The Lighthouse, which would cleanse the palate of dark weirdness with a brush of inanity that feels fresh and original. This film was a great surprise, really.

Upside Down Magic – Some locally made Disney landed on my doorstep this week with this Disney Channel original that was filmed in Richmond and has some pretty slick CGI in it from a local effects studio that also did Arrow and is led by a friend of mine. The story follows thirteen-year-old Nory Boxwood Horace who discovers she can flux into animals and that her best friend Reina Carvajal can manipulate flames. Together, they enter the Sage Academy for Magical Studies and Reina’s expert ability to harness the power of fire lands her at the top of her class of “Flares,” but Nory’s wonky magic and proclivity for turning into a “Dritten” -a half-kitten, half-dragon-lands her in a class for those with Upside-Down Magic, otherwise known as UDM. This is a live-action romp that has almost no edge to it whatsoever so it really works for all ages. Don’t expect really any depth to this one but it does lend itself to a larger franchise in the end.

Seniors: A Dogumentary – Documentaries can be a hard sell for a lot of people but when you throw an animal movie at most people they are openly receptive. This is a very divisive film in the fact that it is really pursuing a word-of-mouth outcome after the viewing but it’s definitely one I can get behind. The film is a portrayal of the vitality of senior dogs and features Old Friends Senior Dog Sanctuary, an award-winning forever-foster home-based sanctuary in Mount Juliet, Tennessee and their Border Collie, Chaser known as the smartest dog in the world, all shot through the lens of famed photographer Jane Sobel Klonsky. Yes, this is a totally roundabout way of saying” don’t shop at puppy farms and give an old guy a chance” which I totally agree with. How can you say that message is wrong? Plus, you get to live vicariously through this dog kennel for over an hour! Win!

Chernobyl – One of the most horrific global catastrophes in the last forty years, the effects of the Chernobyl nuclear explosion is still being felt but after the debut of this HBO produced series tourism actually increased there which is an exercise in idiocy in my opinion. That aside, this limited series is incredible, led by stars Stellan Skarsgard, Jared Harris and Jessie Buckley and written by Craig Mazin who will adapt the video game The Last Of Us next for HBO, a long-awaited series. The show is set in April of 1986 when a huge explosion erupted at the Chernobyl nuclear power station in northern Ukraine. Following the stories of the men and women who tried to contain the disaster, as well as those who gave their lives preventing a subsequent and worse one, this is a show that is deeply political but is charged by the emotional fallout and tragedy that still marks this Eastern European country. Now on the higher definition of 4K, this is must-see television.

The Untold Story – This movie was a complete mystery to me when it arrived but judging it on its blood-spattered cover and inane looking lead character, I was more than intrigued. It is an Asian slapstick style telling of a Henry: Portrait Of A Serial Killer style story? Kind of. Released in 1993, this film is set in 1986 Hong Kong, eight years after a grisly murder rocks the city. On this day kids discover the severed hands of a fresh victim on a Macao beach and suspicion falls on Wong Chi Hang, the new owner of Eight Immortals Restaurant, which serves delicious pork bao. This is one of the most disturbing uncovered Chinese classics I have ever come across, a story that rivals something that would have come from the mind of auteur Takashi Miike but even more messed up is that this is based on a true story and you might be able to glean what depths of depravity and savagery that this film goes to. Definitely not for the weak of heart in any shape or form.

Television:

Song Exploder: Volume 2 (Netflix) – Have you ever wanted to go deep into the construction of one of your favourite songs? We all remember the VH1 series Behind The Music when we would get in-depth about classic bands, albums or moments in time but this one is even more focused as we get it straight from the artist what it took to put these iconic songs together. This second volume got me immediately as it features an episode about the haunting Nine Inch Nails track Hurt which largely, along with the rest of The Downward Spiral, got me through high school in some semblance of emotional intactness. It’s fascinating to watch Reznor explain exactly what went into creating this final track on that landmark album but shy away from what the song actually means to him. Trust me, that methodology is for the best.

Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom (Netflix) – Chadwick Boseman gets one more time to shine after tragically and suddenly passing away after a four year battle with cancer that none of us knew he had and the saddest thing about this one is it’s the performance that will most likely give him a posthumous Academy Award. Driven by another great performance from Viola Davis as well and based on an August Wilson play, the story is set in Chicago in 1927 at a recording session with tensions rising between the “Mother of the Blues” Ma Rainey, her ambitious horn player with a new flair on how she should play her music and the white management looking to satisfy their shareholders and determined to control the uncontrollable and larger than life diva. Thunderous performances command a film that may turn viewers off with its straightforward adaptation of the stage play, but this is a film that hangs on its actors, not set pieces.

The Expanse: Season 5 (Amazon Prime) – Now this is a show that Drex actually got me into, really pushing me to watch the series that I think really reminiscent of a show like Battlestar Galactica where it is the human interaction that really drives the story and the politics of the immediate crisis at hand it keeps you fully engaged and on the edge of your seat. I was immediately so happy that we actually got a Season 4 out of this show as it was cancelled at their original Network, SyFy, which I believe they are already regretting because Amazon has now journeyed out with this new season. Just to give a vague synopsis, the series is set two hundred years in the future and initially follows the case of a missing young woman which brings a hardened detective, played by former Punisher Thomas Jane, and a rogue ship’s captain, played by former heartthrob Steven Strait, together in a race across the solar system to expose the greatest conspiracy in human history. Believe me, if you get the pilot under your belt, you will be immediately hooked on the rest. It’s that simple.

The Stand (Crave) – I feel like I’ve been waiting since the mid-nineties for someone to tackle this epic Stephen King novel and now the timing is really weird for a story about an uncontrollable virus that decimates the earth’s population to be released but, mid pandemic, here we are. Let it be known that this is probably my favourite book of all time and under The Fault In Our Stars filmmaker Josh Green, the potential is huge. The story exists in the mass destruction caused by a manmade virus called “Captain Trips” with a false messiah emerging to gather his like-minded survivors, possessing incredible powers and hellbent to rule the remaining human society. It’s up to a group of people to journey the post-apocalyptic wasteland to stop him and his army or perish in the attempt. With a killer cast, including James Marsden, Whoopi Goldberg, Alexander Skarsgård and many more, the unrated platform of CBS All Access is the perfect way to present this as it can go way deeper than the ABC miniseries ever did. This one is going to be awesome.

A Creepshow Holiday Special (Shudder) – You all know how much I’ve loved everything the Greg Nicotero led reboot of this anthology horror has done and I will continue to sing its praises into the holiday season as Shudder has done it again with an all-new yuletide special to make us genre fans feel the warm and fuzzies. What kind of chills will come from this show that is non-weather related? Well, this holiday-themed, hour-long episode, “Shapeshifters Anonymous,” follows an anxious man who fears he is a murderer so he searches for answers for his “unique condition” from an unusual support group and, according to Nicotero himself, they are “reimagining how we look at the holidays and Santa Claus with an outrageous ensemble cast (featuring Adam Pally and Anna Camp), a myriad of creepy crawlies and a few thrills and chills shouldn’t be missed.” Yes, you’ve definitely got my ticket!

What The Hell Should I Watch At Home? – Dec 10

stevestebbing

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December 10, 2020

New Releases:

Ip Man: Kung Fu Master – It’s no secret that on this weekly blog posting and my spots on The Shift that I’m a fan of these films about the legend of Master Ip and his teachings that were made international by his most famous student, Bruce Lee, but, admittedly, the ones without establishing star Donnie Yen come across a little flat and charisma light. That goes for this one, which follows the title character during his time as a police captain in Foshan, Ip Man is targeted by a vengeful gangster just as the Japanese army invades the region, the common enemy that the master finds himself tangling with. I haven’t been given the review opportunity to see this one but it does feel like another cash in on the name but from what I read it’s just a great excuse to watch over eighty minutes of kick ass fighting.

Songbird – Ugh, I’ve been cursing the day I would ever have to review this movie and the good news is, from all that I can tell from emailing studio reps, there will be now reviewing of this title, a, get this, pandemic themed thriller. With all the shared trauma that nests in all of our brains daily, do we need to have a film scaring us with the isolation we already feel anyways? Starring Riverdale’s KJ Apa, The Office’s Craig Robinson, The West Wing’s Bradley Whitford and more, this film is set in 2024 as a pandemic ravages the world and its cities and centers on a handful of people as they navigate the obstacles currently hindering society like disease, martial law, quarantine and vigilantes. The film comes from low budget horror guy Adam Mason, who I appreciate for all the Alice In Chains music videos he did recently, but, really, this all feels like the low hanging fruit that all filmmakers should avoid. I speak for myself but I don’t think we want COVID horror flicks.

Nadia, Butterfly – Retirement must be a hard transition to go through and must be even harder to do when you’re at a young age and still have so much future ahead of you. When you’re an athlete it must be doubly worse, a problem I will never know. French Canadian writer and director Pascal Plante delves into this notion in this new drama about a Canadian Olympic swimmer who finishes her final race, a relay in which her team wins the bronze medal, and then the real implications of her decision start to dawn on her, pushing her to some self-destructive actions with all start with her alienating her teammates during their celebration that night. Plante does a phenomenal job in illustrating our main character Nadia’s isolation that she feels deep inside and does a great job of keeping everything so internal with actress Katerine Savard giving a knockout performance in the process. The weird irony that struck me was that this takes place at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, an event that, due to COVID-19, hasn’t even taken place. Maybe this movie is set in the future.

Guitar Man – I feel like I’m a pretty knowledgeable guy when it comes to rock music, not as much as movies and television but comparably. That said, Joe Bonomassa completely slipped under the radar and this is a guy that sold out arenas overseas, headlined Jazz Festivals and played with legends like Eric Clapton and B.B King who called him the future of blues. How did I miss this? This documentary tells the comprehensive story of Bonamassa, a guitar virtuoso who single-handedly transformed Blues from a marginalized legacy genre to an arena-filling spectacle, told in interviews and concert footage to chronicle his extraordinary rise as a guitar wunderkind who was playing chords at five years old and melting faces with his skill by thirteen. The film is a bit underproduced, especially coming off films like Zappa and Crock Of Gold, and at almost two hours long it feels a bit bloated and uneven.

Giving Voice – After talking about the immense catalog and reach of Joe Bonamassa and his music we now change gears and hit the inspirational side of documentary filmmaking with this Netflix produced film that focuses on the legacy that one of the greatest American playwrights and a man regarded by many as “theater’s poet of black America”, August Wilson. The film follows the annual monologue competition created in his name immediately after his death in 2005 and the thousands of high schoolers who enter the competition for their golden opportunity to perform on Broadway. Featuring and produced by mega stars Viola Davis and Denzel Washington who had the privilege to perform Wilson’s work like Fences both on the stage and the screen, this is a unique film that celebrates what has come before, in the form of the renowned writer’s oeuvre, and the future with these gifted young performers. This is a touching and emotional movie that resonates, especially if you’re in the arts crowd.

Blu-Ray:

Possessor: Uncut – Let’s mess you up right quick as David Cronenberg’s son Brandon returns with his second feature, a violent sci-fi film that proves once again he is his father’s son and the body horror runs in the family. The film stars Andrea Riseborough, Jennifer Jason Leigh and Christopher Abbott and it follows an agent who works for a secretive organization that uses brain-implant technology to inhabit other people’s bodies, ultimately driving them to commit assassinations for high-paying clients. Riseborough’s character, a veteran assassin, is starting to suffer psychotic breaks in her “outside” life which breaks wide open with her latest client. I’ve already had a chance to see this movie and it blew my mind entirely. Disturbing in visuals, this chaotic film is another showcasing of Cronenberg’s boundless imagination and the incredible prowess that cinematographer Karim Hussain has.

Yes, God, Yes – Every now and then I come across a movie where I think “where the hell did this come from?”, something that completely flew under my radar. This is another one of those films, a comedy set in the early 2000s starring Stranger Things actress Natalie Dyer and is one of those rare coming of age films for a woman, following the star as a Catholic teenager who discovers masturbating after an innocent AOL chat turns racy and struggles to suppress her new urges in the face of the indoctrinated punishment of possible eternal damnation. This movie really surprised me, especially based on its premise, for being so sex-positive in its message and Dyer is so fantastic in the film, giving such nuance to her character. The film is the debut behind the camera for Obvious Child writer Karen Maine who continues her knack for creating believable and endearingly fallible female characters. This is a must-see I think this week.

Smiley Face Killers – Bret Easton Ellis is a writer who I had a pretty extensive love for in the late nineties and early 2000s, a mind whose pure nihilism blended well with my addiction to Chuck Palahniuk books, especially after Fight Club. Those who have seen films like Less Than Zero, American Psycho and Rules Of Attraction know that Ellis likes to put beautiful people in a downward spiral and that’s the basis here, a story about handsome young soccer player Jake Graham who believes he is going insane and is unable to shake the feeling of being stalked by something or someone. His friends and everyone around him believe he’s just anxious and prone to paranoia and start questioning his mental state but Jake is actually being followed by a small group of serial killers that track, drug, torture and drown beautiful young men leaving only a graffitied Smiley Face as their signature. Really, this movie will only appeal to a niche audience and aside from former George McFly, Crispin Glover, there are no stars of note and everything gets crazily excessive. Watch at your own risk is what I’m saying.

The Godfather, Coda: The Death of Michael Corleone – I think we’re all in agreement that while we celebrate The Godfather and The Godfather Part II we still use Francis Ford Coppola’s third film in the Mario Puzo penned trilogy as pretty much a joke that contained too much of his daughter Sofia and was a total step down from the excellence exuded from everything before it. Now, like he has done multiple times with his masterpiece Apocalypse Now, Coppola has redone this film with new footage, re-edits and story swapping to make this into a real fitting end for this trilogy. The plot has an aging Don Michael Corleone seeking to legitimize his crime family’s interests and remove himself from the violent underworld but is kept back by the ambitions of the young. You know, “Just when I thought I was out… they pull me back in.”, right? While he attempts to link Corleone’s finances with the Vatican, Michael must deal with the machinations of a hungrier gangster seeking to upset the existing Mafioso order and a young protege, played by a young and dashing Andy Garcia, who’s love affair with his daughter distracts him as well. This is an insane resurrection of seemingly dead material from a true legend.

She Dies Tomorrow – Actress Amy Seimetz has a lot of great things on her resume, dating back to 2006 when I first saw her in Wristcutters: A Love Story, then Upstream Color which is a story I would rather not get into and great television like The Killing and a small part in Stranger Things and, let’s face it, she’s one of the better things about Alien: Covenant. Well, she is behind the camera as writer and director in this new horror, her second feature, this film following a character named Amy, played by You’re Next actress Kate Lyn Sheil, who is ravaged by the notion that she is going to die tomorrow, which sends her down a dizzying emotional spiral. When her skeptical friend Jane discovers Amy’s feeling of imminent death to be contagious, they both begin bizarre journeys through what might be the last day of their lives and, I feel like this is needless to say, but the film is amazing and totally captivating from the start. I’m in total awe of this film and I feel like it was released in the perfect time as it works incredibly well into the pandemic psychological warfare. Be prepared for this one, it will bruise you.

Bobbleheads: The Movie – As a reviewer, when a distribution company emails me with new releases I adopt the rules of the Yes Man and give an umbrella answer of “send me everything” which sometimes leads to me receiving kids movies like this where I look at the cover of it and go “what the hell is this?” Yes, Bobbleheads in movie form and it features Cher. Complete weirdness. So, what is the story here, if there even is one? Loosely, it follows a group of toys who must defend their home from unexpected guests when their humans go missing with two of the uninvited intruders who hope to swap a new baseball player bobblehead for a valuable one. Yup, it’s the heist of the century am I right? Move on, Toy Story, get bent Ocean’s Eleven. Oh, man. How much more shade can I throw at this crap?

Collateral – I don’t think this is a controversial statement to make but I think that this is my favorite Tom Cruise performance to date in a Michael Mann film that is filled to the brim with tension and action thrills but it was Jamie Foxx that got the Oscar nomination for it. The story, for those who skipped by this one, has Foxx playing a cab driver who finds himself the hostage of an engaging contract killer, brilliantly portrayed by Cruise, as he makes his rounds from hit to hit during one night in Los Angeles. Shot in that brilliant digital style that has been known to bring down some of Mann’s films, this one was shot by a duo of cinematographers, Dion Beebe, who won an Oscar two years later for Memoirs Of A Geisha, and Paul Cameron who did Tony Scott’s awesome Man On Fire the same year. Did I mention that all of this is on the glorious hi-def of 4K and should be on every movie lover’s Christmas list? Yes, I’m doing your cinephile shopping for you.

Hawaii Five-O: The Complete Series – All long-running series must come to an end and, as far as new series reboots of old classic shows go, I’d have to say that Steve McGarrett, Danno and company had a solid run as I’ve brought this show to the radio program a number of times and now is the final time I do that as this is the whole shebang in one set, all eleven seasons. Yes, it all is some of that same police procedural stuff you’re used to but in a tropical setting, like bombings, kidnappings, murder and such but it also brings things like pirates, race wars, deadly mercenaries and a joyful dude that has a shaved ice stand to spice it up. The show also features in some crossover with CBS’s other reboot series Magnum P.I., bringing Jay Hernandez into the mix because they’re both on the same island. Also, to keep with the theme, all of the episodes have names that are unpronounceable and I’m not even going to try it live on the air. Don’t test me.

Mouchette -Two new Criterion Collection titles arrive this week, both from the seemingly hidden niche corner of all of cinema. This first one already existed in the collection on DVD, numbered in the three hundreds of this prestigious list of titles. The story is about a young girl living in the country with a mother who is dying and a father who constantly neglects her. Mouchette remains silent in the face of the humiliations she undergoes but one night in the woods she meets Arsene, the village poacher, who thinks he has just killed the local law enforcement and tries to rope in the title character to build an alibi. In the eyes of acclaimed filmmakers like Andrei Tarkovsky and modern auteur Kelly Reichardt, this is a masterpiece and now in a new higher definition we can see that too.

Symbiopsychotaxiplasm: Two Takes By William Graves – We get even odder for the second Criterion entry this week with a film from the late sixties by African American documentary writer and director William Greaves who chose to approach his subject with two complete films. The first, known as Take One, Greaves auditioned acting students for a fictional drama, while simultaneously shooting the behind-the-scenes drama taking place which ends up becoming the real story and I think the goal behind the experiment. For the second part, Take Two and a Half it’s called, he headed to Central Park to shoot scenes of a young couple whose marriage was falling apart and now, thirty five years later, they are back in the landmark New York location as the director relentlessly pursues the ever-elusive symbiopsychotaxiplasmic moment. So, what is sybiopsychotaxiplasmic? Well, it’s a documentary inside a documentary inside a documentary is the best it can be described but it’s a damn fascinating experiment for sure.

Steve’s Blu-Ray Geek Out:

Essential Fellini – Look, as much as a cinephile and a guy that tries to be in the know as much as I am, there are some of the classic filmmakers that are far before my time and definitely slip under my radar. Federico Fellini is one of those filmmakers, a creator known for creating bizarre and abstract plots peppered with risque humour and who loved to include dream-like imagery and nostalgia. Now, the greatest blu-ray maker on the planet and the definitive standard of film appreciation, the Criterion Collection has amassed this new set which features fourteen of his productions from the years 1950 to 1987, released in the year that would have been his one-hundredth birthday. It’s really cool now to go back and watch all of these movies that have influenced countless directors and see where the homages lie. It’s almost like a parlour game for movie nerds.

Daughters Of Darkness – Blue Underground seems to be this odd distribution company that gets these forgotten horror movie gems like old films from Lucio Fulci or William Lustig, for example and gives them an all-new hi-def life, whether it be on blu-ray or, in this movie’s case, on 4K in glorious fashion. This one takes us back to 1971 for a creepy but really well received little chiller from Belgian filmmaker Harry Kümel following a newlywed couple passing through a vacation resort when their paths cross with a mysterious, strikingly beautiful Hungarian Countess Elizabeth Báthory and her aide, who may be a serial-killer that drains the blood of the victims to use as an elixir of youth. Having seen a biopic about Báthory starring Julie Delpy, I was immediately fascinated with this very cult-like movie that is super sexual, almost as much as it is creepy.

Television:

I’m Your Woman (Amazon Prime) – Celebrated breakthrough actress and the lead of the critic and audience lauded The Marvelous Ms. Maisel, Rachel Brosnahan is getting her chance to spread her wings a bit more in this brand new drama but only moving up a couple of decades in the timeline she usually operates in. This film is a 1970s-set crime drama about a woman who is forced to go on the run after her husband betrays his partners, sending her and her baby on a dangerous journey into an unknown future. The film is written and directed by Julia Hart who astounded me with the incredibly grounded superpowered drama Fast Color, a film I recommended to anyone who was listening and I feel like this one will land in the same boat as well with the lucky critics who already got to screen it calling it smart, sophisticated, and subversive. Amazon Prime has landed a lot of hits recently and this may be a slow boil one as well.

Let Them All Talk (Crave) – Meryl Streep makes her first of two entries this week but the good news is that this one is probably the one with the most substance to it and that’s because it reteams her with director Steven Soderburgh and it co-stars Candice Bergen, Diane Wiest and the actor with the greatest agent in the business, Lucas Hedges. The story follows Streep as a famous author who goes on a cruise trip with her friends and nephew in an effort to find fun and happiness while she comes to terms with her troubled past. The good news is that Soderbergh is working at his highest level for this movie and produces a film that has an air of mystery to it and utilizes the entire cast to their strong points meaning you don’t have to be a dedicated Streephead to enjoy this movie, it’s just plain good.

The Prom (Netflix) – Okay, let’s move on to more Streep but this is one that definitely doesn’t really have a hold on me like the last one but it is a part of the continued Netflix dominance from the one and only Ryan Murphy, the creator of a gazillion shows and movies. This film features a huge cast around your favorite Meryl with Nicole Kidman, James Corden, Kerry Washington, Keegan Michael Key and Tracey Ullman and is about a troupe of hilariously self-obsessed theater stars who swarm into a small conservative Indiana town in support of a high school girl who wants to take her girlfriend to the prom but, of course, the basic townspeople are not exactly friendly to that union. Oh, should I mention that this is a musical? Yes, that is where this film has a whole bunch of obstacles to me because I have a deep dislike for this genre of movies. Well, unless they are good which this one just actually manages to be but by a small margin. Corden is still pretty unbearable though.

Your Honor (Crave) – When Bryan Cranston does a new series, you take notice, but when he does a new show for Showtime? Get every Breaking Bad fan you know on board because this might be the new binge. A new show from The Night Of creator Peter Moffat, the story has Cranston starring as a judge confronting his convictions when his son is involved in a hit and run that embroils an organized crime family. Facing impossible choices, he quickly discovers how far a father will go to save his son’s life and the boundaries he’ll not only cross but sprint through. Kind of Walter White sounding, right? Look, Cranston is great in this show, as to be expected, but the underlying thread of a father going to the nth degree to save his family is a long threaded trope for him, is it not? I think you’ll enjoy it if you can get past this but otherwise, it’s old hat.

Lennon’s Last Weekend (BritBox) – This week is a hard one for a Beatles fan like myself as this is the fortieth anniversary of the murder of John Lennon who would have been eighty years old if the cowardly and unstable Mark Paul Chapman hadn’t have shot him in cold blood. Ravenous for everything to do with the amazing singer, songwriter, musician and activist, I was so taken in by this new documentary from writer and director Brian Grant. It transports you back to that fateful December in 1980, when John Lennon and Yoko Ono had not spoken to the media for more than five years. With a new album to promote Lennon was prepared to speak in New York to Radio One D.J. Andy Peebles of the BBC. John surprised everyone by candidly discussing a variety of subjects he’d never spoken of before including The Beatles break-up, his relationship with Paul McCartney, his battles with addiction, political issues in the US and UK, his family and his homesickness for Liverpool. This is just the tip of the iceberg of things he talked about and Lennon’s heartfelt honesty and forthright revelations make this film all the more potent as he was brutally shot and murdered 48 hours later. Any fan like me will love this movie but others on the outside of it may find some poignancy to it as well.

What The Hell Should I Watch At Home? – Dec 3

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December 3, 2020

New Releases:

Godmothered – Disney is dipping back into that fairytale meets real life style of storytelling that really worked out for them well with Enchanted, a film I still find funny. Well, hopefully Jillian Bell can bring some of that magic from her great performance in Brittany Runs A Marathon as she takes the lead in this one too. The film has Bell as a young and unskilled fairy godmother who ventures out on her own to prove her worth by tracking down a young girl whose request for help was ignored and is now a jaded adult with the issues of a disillusioned childhood. The trailer for this is hysterically funny with Isla Fisher taking the role as the fairy godmother’s mission as well as Jane Curtin, Mary Elizabeth Ellis and June Squibb. As a classic Saturday Night Live fan, I’m so excited to see Curtin make an appearance in this and it comes from director Sharon Maguire who did both Bridget Jones’ Diary and Bridget Jones’ Baby which were way better than they had any right to be. This has a lot of promise.

Black Bear – Back when I watched this one for the Vancouver International Film Festival as soon as the credits rolled I blinked a few times and went “huh?” in an utterly confused way. With all the different movies of the festival it was bound to happen but even though it looks like I’m throwing a bit of shade at this film I am really not as the direction is great, the cast delivers but I just don’t think that the dual complexity of it worked. So, now, as I have you all confused I’ll try to give you a little context. Directed and written by Lawrence Michael Levine, the film follows a filmmaker at a creative impasse, played by Aubrey Plaza who seeks solace from her tumultuous past at a rural retreat with a married couple, played by Christopher Abbott and Sarah Gadon, only to find that the woods summon her inner demons in intense and surprising ways. This description is almost a red herring as this only sort of describes the first half of the movie before it shifts to a real film being made at the remote house, flipping the character motivations and dynamics completely. Again, I enjoyed it but am still, months later, trying to unpack it.

Luxor – Andrea Riseborough is a special kind of talent that can raise the bar of any production just by the subtlety of her performances. This is a film that is totally hinged on that quality from her because, honestly, nothing really happens in it so she has to fill in the blanks with nuance. In the film she plays a British aid worker named Hana who returns to the ancient city of Luxor and immediately runs into Sultan, a talented archaeologist as well as her former lover. As she wanders, haunted by the familiar place, she struggles to reconcile the choices of the past with the uncertainty of the present in a very broody and reflective turn. I really wanted to like this one as I love the lead and it is gorgeously shot in a way that almost feels like a tourism video but the story is almost non existent and we are given no real reason to get behind Hana as a character. Instead we get an example of making an hour and a half long movie feel like three hours.

All My Life – It is the tearjerker side of this week’s write up as this movie delves into the romantic drama side with a tragic twist. The film stars former Glee star Harry Shum Jr. and the glowing piece of both Happy Death Day and Happy Death Day 2U, Jessica Rothe and follows a couple whose wedding plans are thrown off course when the groom is diagnosed with liver cancer. This movie looks pretty corny on the outside and, to be totally honest, it really is but the sugary sweetness that comes with it is kind of a breath of fresh air in the darkness of 2020 and hearing the COVID numbers everyday. This may ease your mind and give you a reprieve from all of that and not in that terrible Hallmark movie sort of way.

Rocks – Sometimes a small, contained indie story is enough to burst the floodgates of your emotions and it looks like that’s what it did to me on my watch through this film. There isn’t anyone you will recognise in the cast but the director, Sarah Gavron is no slouch, the woman behind the films Suffragette and Brick Lane but the caliber of this film may be her best yet. The story follows a young teenage girl, Shola or Rocks, as she’s known, finds herself struggling to take care of herself and her younger brother after being abandoned by their single mother with no choice but to live out on the streets, with a headlong stubbornness on not relying on her tight group of friends. This movie got me hooked early on the beautiful character study of this young girl who is guarded and reserved but slowly starts to crack under the pressure which leads to a scene to kick off the third act that I may never recover emotionally from. What a film!

Survival Skills – This is an utterly strange experiment in film and, being a bit of a weird cinema connoisseur myself I was definitely all about it. Coming from Seattle born filmmaker Quinn Armstrong, this is an odd little comedy drama that only has it’s wheels on the ground for just the introduction of the story then blasts off to Weirdsville. In short, this film seemingly is a lost training video from the 1980s with Jim, the perfect policeman, our subject who gets in over his head when he tries to resolve a domestic violence case and takes outside the law as he starts to lose his grip with reality. Stacy Keach provides some serious gravitas as the video’s narrator who eventually gets himself into the mix in an odd and ethereal sort of way. Yes, this one is decidedly weird and if you’re into something off the beaten path, you may like what Armstrong does here.

Crock Of Gold: A Few Rounds With Shane MacGowan – Two weeks in a row now of great music biopic documentaries about brilliant songwriters and creators that I wasn’t super familiar with and, in the case of this one, my knowledge was even more fleeting. To be completely honest, the only thing I knew from The Pogues and frontman Shane MacGowan was the Christmas time song Fairytale In New York which is one of my favorites of the season. What I didn’t know was how haggard this dude looked and how much worse it is today as he is constantly strung out in appearance, appearing like he is a step away from death. That aside, this is very much a celebration of the Irish punk poet Shane MacGowan, composer and lead singer with The Pogues, which combines unpublished archive footage and family footage with animation for the more insane stories that he tells. The thing that hangs in the same area that Zappa did last week is the two artists uncompromising styles and their shrugging off of the status quo although I’d say that Shane is far angrier.

Triggered – Hell yes, some diabolical survival horror comes your way to finish off the new releases for this week and, really, this one is just a shut off your brain sort of movie because if you try to look for deeper meaning within the characters you will give yourself a migraine. The film follows nine friends, who all harbor a dark secret, that go camping in the woods. After a wild night of partying, they wake up with explosive vests strapped to their chests, all with varying times on their countdown clocks. They decide to work out how to disarm the bombs or find help until they discover they can ‘take’ one another’s time by killing each other. The concept is really cool and the need to understand each character’s plight is minimal but the endgame to the movie feels flimsy and almost makes everything you’ve seen pretty superfluous. That said, the violence in it is neat and stylish making it an entertaining but hollow and weightless thriller.

Blu-Ray:

Buddy Games – Josh Duhamel dons the director’s hat for the first time with this comedy that is based on his friends and their exploits and it was really cool to get the behind the scenes thoughts from the man himself when he did an appearance of Dax Shepard’s podcast Armchair Expert, especially since Dax is in this movie too. The film is about a group of friends who reunite to play The Buddy Games, a wild assortment of absurd physical and mental challenges. In the process, they try to heal old wounds, right past wrongs and figure out the true meaning of friendship and get beaten to hell in the process. Such a great cast with Duhamel and Shepard including Kevin Dillon, Olivia Munn, Nick Swardson and WWE superstar Sheamus, I feel like this movie has great pay off even if it lacks finesse in execution. Sometimes a dude comedy is exactly what is needed.

The Broken Hearts Gallery – What if you saved a souvenir from every relationship you’ve ever been in?That’s what is at the forefront of this new and audience loved film that follows the always unique Lucy, played by Blockers’ Geraldine Viswanathan, a twenty-something art gallery assistant living in New York City, who also happens to be an emotional hoarder. After she gets dumped by her latest boyfriend, Lucy is inspired to create The Broken Heart Gallery, a pop-up space for the items love has left behind. Word of the gallery spreads, encouraging a movement and a fresh start for all the romantics out there, including Lucy herself. This film co-stars the breakout heartthrob of Stranger Things’ Dacre Montgomery and the two leads share so much good chemistry together which really drives the movie in my opinion and the charm of the script is always there as a safety net. This movie really won me over.

Made In Italy – Actor James D’Arcy, a face you may recognize from Cloud Atlas, Dunkirk, Master And Commander or Marvel’s Peggy Carter, makes his directorial debut with this new comedy that he wrote as well. Starring an interesting cast that includes Liam Neeson and Lindsey Duncan, the film follows a bohemian artist who travels from London to Italy with his estranged son to sell the house he inherited from his late wife. Given that this is D’Arcy’s debut, an actor I really enjoy, I wanted this to be a great landing but the script is clunky to a degree that no matter how veteran some of these stars are, it just doesn’t work. No matter how much I enjoyed seeing Liam act alongside his real life son Michael Richardson, I couldn’t shake the amateurish feeling.

The Rental – Okay, so there’s a multitude of things that had me on board with this movie. First off, it’s the feature directorial debut of Dave Franco who did some behind the scenes work for his brother James on The Disaster Art, which was great. Secondly, the cast rocks, featuring Dan Stevens, Alison Brie and Toby Huss and thirdly it was written by mumblecore co-creator Joe Swanberg. Oh and did I mention that it’s a horror film? The story follows two couples on an oceanside getaway who grow suspicious that the host of their seemingly perfect rental house may be spying on them. Before long, what should have been a celebratory weekend trip turns into something far more sinister, as well-kept secrets are exposed and the four old friends come to see each other in a whole new light. I can not say enough great things about this movie, a slow burn that kicks up huge embers of intensity throughout plus the cast is so damn good. This one is a word of mouth must see.

The Rising Hawk: Battle For The Carpathians – This is a weird one as it is an international medieval war epic but features some recognizable American talent like T-1000 himself, Robert Patrick, Sons Of Anarchy club president Tommy Flanagan and more. The story is set back in the Mongol Empire, which at that time had grown to be the largest the world had ever known. With the armies having laid siege to much of Eastern Europe, one small village fights for freedom in the frontier landscape of the Carpathian Mountains. At just over two hours long, you would expect this one to be pretty action packed but it is unfortunately largely a dull affair of history lessons.The low budget of the production is also clearly on display is some ways which makes me believe that the scope was larger at one point and they had to dial it back or run out of money. There are way better Mongol films out there, trust me.

Beverly Hills Cop 4K – Eddie Murphy’s comeback trail at the end of last year was absolutely robbed of an Academy Award nomination for Dolemite Is My Name but you can now get over those hurt feelings by getting the movie that introduced us to him on the big screen and a film that still kicks so much ass and makes you laugh while doing it. The 80s action fan in me is singing as I loved the exploits of Detroit transplant cop Axel Foley and having director Martin Brest oversee the restoration of this film into the high definition of 4K and provide a new commentary for it is such a sweet spot for a collector like me. The special features have all of that mid eighties nostalgia for you as the soundtrack mixtape is included with the film as well as all the press junket interviews of young Eddie in his prime, deleted scenes and a look at the whole Beverly Hills Cop fandom phenomenon is explored. Some sweet Eddie goodness to start off a big review week of his classics.

Coming To America 4K – Not only is this Eddie Murphy classic getting the full 4K restoration but it comes in an absolutely gorgeous steelbook edition which is a little piece of gold to a collector like me and one of two that are released this week. For those who are unfamiliar with this fish out of water comedy, it follows Eddie as the extremely pampered heir apparent to Africa’s prosperous kingdom of Zamunda, Prince Akeem, who travels to Queens, New York, and goes undercover to find a wife that he can respect for her intelligence and will. Featuring Arsenio Hall, John Amos, James Earl Jones and Garcelle Beauvais, great make-up effects by Rick Baker and a studious direction from John Landis, this is a hilarious comedy that still holds up and will be a perfect watch as we prepare for the sequel, Coming 2 America, set for an Amazon Prime release in March.

The Golden Child – This is undoubtedly one of my movie staples as a kid, an adventurous Eddie Murphy comedy action that I may have burnt out time and time again on our VCR. Remember those? Anyways, the synopsis has Eddie playing a detective with a speciality of finding lost children. He is told he is the ‘Chosen one’ who will find and protect the Golden Child, a Bhuddist mystic who was kidnapped by an evil sorcerer. At first, he outright disbelieves the mysticism of this new case but finds more and more evidence of demon worship as he investigates. Making its debut on the higher definition of blu-ray so I can’t overwatch it, this Michael Ritchie classic was a longtime coming to this format and I was so happy to throw it on again. Nothing too deep on the special features but the Making Of featurette is interesting.

Popeye – A celebrity death that always seems to be a fresh new wound everytime he is mentioned is Robin Williams. It’s always bittersweet to watch him onscreen now and even my wife hasn’t been able to watch a movie of his without tearing up. We both perked up when this one landed on my doorstep, a Williams collaboration with legendary filmmaker Robert Altman to bring a classic cartoon to life, the first film to actually do this sort of adaptation. Co-starring Shelley Duvall, who was brilliantly cast as Olive Oyl, this is the story of the iconic buff sailor man Popeye arriving in the awkward seaside town of Sweethaven. There he meets Wimpy, a hamburger-loving man, Olive Oyl, the soon-to-be love of his life, and Bluto, a huge, mean pirate who is out to make Sweethaven pay for no good reason. Also discovering his long-lost Pappy in the middle of it all, Popeye must regain control of this small town, put down the oppressor and restore the happiness of all the citizens. Besides the picture restoration, this edition is a bit bare bones but has a great featurette on the work between Williams and Altman.

Top Gun 4K – This has to be at the top of Tom Cruise’s greatest films of all time, right? I remember as a kid being totally obsessed with this movie, Tom as the bad boy fighter pilot Maverick always butting heads with his rival the Iceman all to the sun bleached beat of a Kenny Loggins soundtrack. Then, when it all gets sensual under a cool blue filter for some love with Kelly McGillis we get the iconic tones of Berlin and the track Take My Breath Away, oh man, the memories. Well, with the sequel Top Gun: Maverick in the chamber and ready to fire at some point when the pandemic conditions will allow it, it is the perfect time for this 4K version to hit shelves and it is truly beautiful and the film has never sounded or looked better. I also failed to include that this is the second steelbook I received this week and it has a gorgeous brand new artwork on it that needs to be seen to be believed.

Mission:Impossible – The Original Television Series: Complete Series – I boasted last year about owning every Mission:Impossible movie but I had no idea of the real bragging rights that came with this box set because with this complete series which has been beautifully updated to the high definition of blu-ray, I truly do own everything to do with this spy title. For those who don’t know what the original series is all about, it follows the I.M.F. or Impossible Missions Force, an elite force of Agents who are given orders by tape and are asked to do jobs that are considered impossible by any other known means. The art of the con is used time and time again, and the Agents use technology, drugs, and plain greed to achieve their goals in a series that featured Peter Graves, Martin Landau and Barbara Bain. My daughter has been really wanting to watch the movies but at her young age it’s a great alternative to start her here now.

Looney Tunes Bugs Bunny: The 80th Anniversary Collection – The original Saturday morning cartoon bad boy is celebrating eighty years of entertaining us and getting hunters riled up during rabbit season. That’s right, Bugs Bunny is being celebrated here and long before he suited up for a Space Jam with Michael Jordan and company he had this collection to delight audiences. I really feel like I don’t have to give you a full rundown of the exploits and shenanigans of this dubious little rabbit but I will tell you that the limited edition blu-ray package does come with a sparkly little Bugs Bunny Funko Pop toy and it has kept me from opening it because it’s a total collector’s item. Yes, I am that nerdy.

Green Eggs And Ham: Season 1 – Ah yes, some Dr. Seuss to get our kid’s childhoods to meet up with our own because, really, who didn’t without reading him or having his words recited to you? It’s really a rite of passage I think. This one is easy to encapsulate in a nutshell as it’s an animated series based on the popular Dr. Seuss story “Green Eggs and Ham” and features a great voice cast including Michael Douglas, Adam Devine, Jillian Bell, Ilana Glazer and so many more and by all accounts the kids should be very entertained by it. For adults, your pleasure will arrive in the form of guessing who the guest voices are and the calmness of a child transfixed by the television glow giving them something more wholesome and a break from Ryder and the Paw Patrol. I think all of us parents feel the fatigue on that one.

Perry Mason: Season 1 – As a kid, I used to sit with my grandparents and watch reruns of this classic lawyer show starring the legendary status Canadian Raymond Burr and was captivated time and time again. Well, now Robert Downey Jr. has made my dreams come true as he and the global force of HBO have collaborated to bring this new series set in the era that creator Erle Stanley Gardner intended it to be in and it stars The Americans’ Matthew Rhys in the title role. Set in 1932 Los Angeles, the series focuses on the origin story of famed defense lawyer Perry Mason who is living check-to-check as a low-rent private investigator, haunted by his wartime experiences in France and suffering the effects of a broken marriage. A kidnapping gone very wrong leads to Mason exposing a fractured city as he uncovers the truth of the crime and uses it, sometimes lawlessly, to find some redemption. Needless to say, this show rocks in every way and Rhys is powerful, gripping and definitely in line for an Emmy for it.

Steve’s Blu-Ray Geekouts:

Ghost Dog: Way Of The Samurai – This has to be one of my favorite Criterion releases of the year as a piece of Jim Jarmusch’s oeuvre and one of the most different films in his storied career gets the full special edition in this beautiful blu-ray edition. For those who haven’t been exposed to this brilliance, it features Forest Whitaker as a hitman who lives by the code of the samurai, works for the mafia and finds himself in their crosshairs when his recent job doesn’t go according to plan. Now he must find a way to defend himself and his honor while retaining the code he lives by. Gorgeously shot and featuring an incredible soundtrack spearheaded by producer The RZA, this is Jarmusch’s exercise in creating a badass anti-hero in a film that relies on what’s going on in the action and movement of the picture than any sort of dialogue exchange. It may be one of his most artful films in his filmography.

Moonstruck – Let it be known that I really can’t stand Cher, both in her music and in her acting styles, but that may come from the fact that I suffered through her last film, Burlesque, ten years ago. This, on the other hand, is the only passable thing on her resume in my opinion and it’s a shared one because she did win an Academy Award for it but it is also coupled with a fantastic Nicolas Cage performance. Directed by legendary Canadian director Norman Jewison, this is the story of Loretta Castorini, a bookkeeper from Brooklyn, New York, who finds herself in a difficult situation when she falls for Ronny, the brother of the man she has agreed to marry. She tries to resist, but Ronny lost his hand in an accident he blames on his brother, and has no problem with aggressively pursuing her while Johnny is out of the country. As Loretta falls deeper in love, she comes to learn that she’s not the only one in her family with a secret romance as her family one by one exposes their extra marital affairs. It was honestly just a matter of time before this landed on the greatest collection of all time, Criterion, and it really looks incredible.

Westworld: Season 3 – After a two year absence we finally get the next piece of this incredible mysterious show that emanated from a 70s Michael Crichton movie. The favorites are all back including Evan Rachel Wood’s Dolores, Jeffrey Wright’s Bernard and Thandie Newton’s Maeve as well as newcomers Aaron Paul and Kid Cudi but what is this season about? Well, showrunners Lisa Joy and Jonathan Nolan are keeping everything secretive but what we do know is that Bernard and Dolores have been rebuilt outside of the facility so we get to see what this future looks like and I am damn excited for that.

Television:

Big Mouth: Season 4 (Netflix) – It’s time to get uncomfortable with our bodies all over again as this lewd, rude and massively crude animated comedy returns with all-new episodes. I adore anything that Nick Kroll and John Mulaney do and when you throw Maya Rudolph and Jason Mantzoukas into the mix than I am in love. For those who don’t know about this show, it is the awkward and sometimes brutal coming of age story of two best friends in the throes of puberty, this time sending the whole cast of characters to summer camp for more explorations of their sexuality and relationships. Watch it at your own risk but keep it in mind that it is totally my kind of messed up.

Mank (Netflix) – This new era picture from master director David Fincher is notable for a multitude of reasons, the small being that this production distracted him so much that it’s doubtful that we’ll get a third season of Mindhunter, which is heartbreaking for a lot of fans. The big thing is that with this movie he has hit the true god-like level in cinema, pushing him into the echelon of filmmakers like Martin Scorsese and even the man he has as a character in this, Orson Welles. The story has Gary Oldman playing screenwriter Herman J. Mankiewicz as he sequesters himself after a serious car accident to start his tumultuous development of Orson Welles’ iconic masterpiece Citizen Kane which starts to rope in real people from his life like American businessman and newspaper publisher Charles Randolph Heart. This film is incredible, leaping off the screen with every shot filled with nostalgia for the era but themes that are still painfully relevant today. Honestly, you can give Oldman another Oscar after this one because he shakes the whole room with his performance, my favourite lead actor of this year I think.

Selena: The Series (Netflix) – Remember when Jennifer Lopez burst onto the scene, not as an In Living Color Fly Girl or the mega pop star JLo, but in the tragic story or the murder of Latina American pop sensation Selena Quintanilla? Well, Selena’s family has spearheaded and produced this new limited series that retells that story but in a much more expanded telling. Rather than getting bogged down with the murder, this series opts to tell the story of the late Tejano singer’s burgeoning rise to success as her dreams come true, and her family makes life-changing choices on the singer’s journey to superstardom. The walking Dead former favorite Christian Serratos plays the title role with such charisma that becomes the real beacon of everything that works for the show as the acting around her is kind of dull and makes you yearn for performers like Edward James Olmos and Constance Marie from the original movie. That said, I know lots of people excited for this one.

Anything For Jackson (Shudder) – Just when you think that we’re done with horror for this year, Shudder brings another original to make us squirm into the holiday season. This one is a Canadian production, so it can go either way, that follows a bereaved Satanist couple after losing their only grandson in a car accident who kidnap a pregnant woman so they can use an ancient spellbook to put their dead grandson’s spirit into her unborn child but end up summoning a malevolent demon bent on destroying everything in its path. This movie is clever in its delivery and has a great creepy atmosphere that blankets it in style, especially with the always great Julian Richings taking the lead, an actor that usually chews the scenery in a supporting role. Who says you can’t get scared at Christmas, right?

Sound Of Metal (Amazon Prime) – Riz Ahmed has astounded me with his talent twice now this year, first with his role as a British Pakistani rapper in the drama Mogul Mowgli just over a month ago at the virtual version of the Vancouver International Film Festival and now this one, another deep character piece. In this film, he plays a heavy-metal drummer and former heroin addict whose life is thrown into freefall when he begins to lose his hearing. Believing that there can be a solution, he fixates on an experimental but expensive procedure to “cure” his hearing loss in a sort of desperate hope. This is an impactful film about the state of denial and desperation a person must feel when they lose something that we take for granted, really. Director and writer Darius Marder beautifully creates an experience that seems to transcend the sensory experience and put you right into Ahmed’s character’s plight in such an incredible way. It’s truly stellar.

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