No Huddle Reviews

“Most things happen unexpectedly, even the apocalypse!”

I can’t deny that Italians, we love to cook and eat. It’s a stereotype that I embrace with pride. So it shouldn’t be too much of a surprise that food finds its way intruding in other aspects of life. In the 50’s and 60’s we called the Italian western films of directors like Sergio Leone Spaghetti Westerns. Later we would talk about the Italian horror films from masters like Mario Bava and Dario Argento Spaghetti Nightmares. Well, why should we leave out the same period’s Italian science fiction films? So even if it’s not terribly original, I’m going to coin the term Ziti Sci-Fi. One of the true masters of Ziti Sci-Fi has to be director Antonio Margheriti. Don’t be too surprised if you don’t know the name. His films were always low-budget affairs, and he usually directed under the more American-sounding name of Anthony Dawson or Anthony M. Dawson. He understood that the American audience was the Holy Grail of box office success
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“For those of you who haven’t met me, you might call me the undernourished Alfred Hitchcock. The great British craftsman and I do share something in common: an interest in the oddball, a predilection toward the bizarre. And this place is nothing if not bizarre, by virtue of the paintings you see hanging around me.”

When I mention the name Rod Serling, I’ll bet that The Twilight Zone is the first thing that pops into your head. And why not? It would be very hard, indeed, to argue against the impact that The Twilight Zone has had on television. To say that the series was a milestone in that medium would be an understatement of the worst kind. When Rod Serling brought his landmark series to CBS in October of 1959, television was still very new. No one was quite sure what the future held for that magical box. For five years Rod Serling would enter our living rooms with the most bizarre tales we’d ever seen.
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With streaming working the way it does now, every studio in the world is churning out hours and hours of television to please a growing number of viewers on multiple platforms. There’s more material produced in one year today than was produced in any decade leading up to the day Netflix opened the door on a new trend. It’s changed the way we watch television, and that extends to the networks that still operate over the airwaves. We no longer sit and watch an hour or two of television in what was once called prime time. Now we binge. The latest statistics tell us that the average person watches a minimum of four hours at a time, usually the same show. That means not only more content but a greater range of content types. A-list actors and filmmakers are joining the trend, and they’re now able to cater to pretty much every taste or genre. Along comes AMC+ and the first effort to bring the Spaghetti Western to “television”.
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“All I know is that it was a tragedy. A terrible tragedy. I probably shouldn’t say this, but some of those kids, eh … no big loss, if I were honest. But those girls were special. They were champions.”

What happens when you take a concept like Lost and sprinkle in a little Lord Of The Flies, the 1993 film Alive, and work in a bit of Pretty Little Liars and a heavy dose of pretty much any reality series out there? You’d get Showtime’s latest creepy entry, Yellow Jackets. The new drama is one of those shows where they pack on the secrets and teases and then try to walk that tightrope of giving you enough resolution to keep you from giving up but maintain enough promise of more shockers to come so that you keep coming back for more. It’s not an easy thing to navigate, and there are times that Yellow Jackets does that pretty well.
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Unfortunately, this film was a little immature to gain the Nalyce stamp of approval. While Japanese animated films have been her bread and butter in recent years, her tastes venture more towards anime such as Inuyasha and My Hero Academia. When it comes to Panda! Go Panda!, it was just too kiddie for her. Had this been a year or two ago, she would have been all about it. Perhaps there will be such an opportunity with my son, but given that he is only a week old, time will have to tell. As far as I’m concerned, it was a cute story if impractical. I recommend a suspension of belief if you chose to watch the film. Given that a suspension of belief is a prerequisite for all animated films, that shouldn’t be too much to ask. While I understand the need for this suspension of belief, I’m afraid I wasn’t fully able to achieve it at times.
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“Space … the funniest frontier?”

Star Trek: The Animated Series first aired in September of 1973, four years after the three seasons of what is now referred to Star Trek: The Original Series. It was a straight sequel that continued the five-year mission of the starship Enterprise. All of the original cast lent their voices to the characters they played in the live-action series with the notable exception of Walter Koenig. Chekov was replaced with an alien that had three arms and legs named Arex, who was voiced by James Doohan, as were many of the other guest characters throughout the two years the series ran. There were episodes that served as direct sequels, and so we were treated to the likes of Harry Mudd, tribbles, and the Guardian of Forever once again.  Now Paramount and CBS have brought us a second animated series, and the second season of 10 episodes arrives on Blu-ray straight from its running on the network’s streaming service.
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I would categorize this as a unique movie. Not only based on its premise, even though that did possess a measure of intrigue. Zero Contact has multiple things that make it unique, such as it is the first film from a major Hollywood studio to exist on the blockchain. According to my research, the film will premiere on new NFT platform Vuele, a premier platform for collecting, watching, and trading exclusive, limited edition feature-length films and collector NFT film content. However, while this is interesting and potentially could serve as a new frontier for cinematic releases, there was another factor that made the film unique in my eyes. To me, Zero Contact’s most unique quality is that the film was produced in 17 different territories entirely virtually during the 2020 global pandemic. Anthony Hopkins leads the cast and is supported by a cast of faces that I recognize, but whose names are not on the rolodex of actors that I keep in my head.
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“There is an old saying that blood is thicker than water.”

We’ve had Keeping Up With The Kardashians, Gene Simmons with his Family Jewels, and even Snoop Dog’s Father Hood. It’s become a bit of a trend to follow these celebrity families around and watch the drama of their privileged lives unfold on our television screens. You might think it’s a relatively recent phenomenon, but would you believe they were doing it back in the infant days of television when we followed around a musician named Ozzie and his wife way back in 1952? No, we’re not talking about Ozzie Osbourne and his family. I’m talking about Ozzie and Harriet Nelson. They were television’s darling family before we ever heard about Lucy and Desi. The show actually started on radio like many of the fledgling industry’s early hits including the likes of Gunsmoke. Four years after the radio brought us The Adventures Of Ozzie And Harriet, they moved to television.
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I’m coming in kind of midway through the story on this one, guys. While the film does provide a couple of flashbacks to the previous film, those flashbacks do very little to fully provide needed context, making my viewing of Fortress: Sniper’s Eye a bit of a rocky one. Based on what I gleaned, Bruce Willis and Jesse Metcalfe play Robert and Paul Michaels respectively, a father and son duo who live in and manage a top-secret resort for retired U.S. intelligence officers. The resort is attacked by a group of criminals led by a familiar enemy. It is evident that there is shared history between the Michaels and Balzary (Chad Michael Murray). As expected, the Michaels, aided by others, are able to thwart the assault despite being outnumbered and outgunned. Balzary is thought to be killed, but not before making a plea to Robert to rescue his wife from her captors, which is ultimately revealed to be the reason for the assault. This is what frames the basis for our second film. Second of a planned three, I should add.
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“You never kissed me like that before.”

Steve March, played by John Agar, is a radiation expert who lives and does research out in the desert. His instruments detect a strange source of gamma rays in an isolated area of the desert. It’s a good bet they aren’t coming from Dr. Banner, so March decides to investigate, and it turns out you wouldn’t like him when he’s angry. Along for the ride is red shirt … I mean lab assistant Dan Murphy, played by Robert Fuller. They discover a brand new cave, and as they follow the radiation scent, they encounter a giant floating brain with eyes. Murphy ends up dead, and March ends up possessed by the giant floating brain, who calls himself Vol from the planet Arous. The name is an obvious riff on Eros, and we soon get the connection when March returns to his fiancée, who finds his passion a little hotter than when he left.
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I have to admit my knowledge of the show Curb Your Enthusiasm is casual at best. I’ve seen a few episodes over the years, but not enough to call myself a fan. So to have Season 11 handed off to me to review was a bit daunting, but as a long-time fan of Seinfeld and having at least seen Larry David in the Woody Allen film Whatever Works, I figured I had a good enough idea of what I was in store for. Thankfully the show isn’t something like Game of Thrones or Breaking Bad, and I could simply start the season and not feel lost. The season starts off with Larry David waking up after hearing a noise in the house. When he goes to investigate, he eventually finds a body floating in his pool. It was an attempted robbery gone bad, and as it turns out there is a law in Larry’s district that states there needs to be a fence around the pool. This basically is the catalyst for the whole season, and things just get worse for Larry and him not having this fence.
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“It’s simply his way of illustrating the misrepresentation of having quantum particles existing in two states. The cat in the box is either dead or alive. But we can’t tell until we open the box to observe it, so until we do so, the cat is both dead and alive.”

I’ve seen a lot of horror and thrillers in my time. This is my first one with mathematics at the heart of it. I applauded the film for introducing me to something new. However, the moments of intrigue are surrounded by periods where the plot seems to drag on. Also, I’m not sure that the characters’ reactions to particular events are sensible. For example, my daughter suddenly goes missing, and I suspect that her disappearance is somehow the result of my newly acquired residence. No matter how irrational that idea may be, the first thing I would do is get me and the rest of my family a hotel.
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All is fair in the spy game. Or least that is the principle that this film embraces, as every character attempts to get the upper hand on the others. Though the film is not without its thrilling moments, it does take a bit of time to get to those thrilling bits. Told in a nonlinear fashion, it takes a moment to adjust to the constant shift between the two plots. It is only when things start to synch that I found myself completely engaged with the story. On the plus side, the film has a cast of recognizable faces, to include Arrow’s Katie Cassidy, The Cleaning Lady’s Adan Canto, Chicago Fire’s Annie Ilonzeh, Dermot Mulroney, and last but not least, Mel Gibson. While I would not categorize the film as box office quality, there are some elements that make for an intriguing story once things get into a groove.
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Every era has their Hollywood good guys and their Hollywood bad guys. Back in the early days, we had Nazis to pit against our heroes. When they didn’t quite fit the bill, we had the Japanese. For much of the Cold War, we had great Russian villains to test the mettle of our heroes. Terrorists fit the bill a lot today, but perhaps the only group hated by large segments of American audiences more are the 1%ers. Anyone who makes an obscene amount of money must have cheated to get there. It doesn’t hurt that financial power companies have been immersed in the last couple of economic disasters. Michael Douglas taught us that greed is good, and while every single one of us wants to be at the top, it’s not quite the politically correct thing to express … at least out loud. Billions gives us the kind of power broker who is just too much fun to hate.
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“But I like to have sex with dragons.” 

Have you ever had the desire to see a midwestern take on ninjas? I’m going to go out on a limb and say that you have not, but the if you happen to be that one person out there with an itch for bad cinema, I’m talking the kind of film that makes Troma look like high art cinema, then Ninja Badass may be the movie to quench your need. After 30 minutes of watching this film, I had to stop it and take a break. When Ed Wood set off to make his films, he didn’t intend to make a bad movie; it just happened. He was a filmmaker just trying to do the best he could without any real talent supporting him. Ninja Badass seems to go above and beyond to create one of the worst films in history
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When I heard Fox had cancelled Lucifer after Season 3 and Netflix had picked up the show, I have to admit I got excited about the possibilities. I had hoped that the transition from network TV to the streaming service would mean the show could get away with more, because the show wouldn’t be bound to network rating guidelines. As it turns out, the show still has its TV-14 rating, but on the bright side the episodes are longer now, which in my opinion is a good thing. When Netflix picked up the show, they had announced that Season 5 would be the last season of the show. While the show does take some major storyline leaps as ways to wrap things up, thankfully things don’t come to an end just yet, as a Season 6 was produced and is currently airing on the streaming service.
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“Who’s the wolf now, Ray?”

For all intents and purposes, Season 7 was the final season of Ray Donovan. The end came rather suddenly, and after it was too late to create and film some kind of satisfying finale for the series. The cast and crew were taken by surprise, so you can imagine how the fans of the show were taking this. To make matters worse, the last episode, while not a complete cliffhanger, leaves too many strands of thread that weren’t connected. There’s nothing satisfying about the finale, and that created waves in the world of fandom. Star Trek is famous for being the first television show that a network cancelled and then brought back because of a huge letter-writing campaign that flooded network executives and pushed them into an unprecedented action for that time. The show was brought back.
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I’m still looking for answers. I just don’t know the questions anymore. I just know there’s too much out there. Seas of filth. An endless onslaught of ugliness. Blight. Plastic. Cheap s#$t cloggin’ up our minds. Cloggin’ up the drains, poisoning our water, turning us to s@4t. Where does it all go? I’ve got blood on my hands. I’m stained. I’m dirty. No matter how hard I try, I can’t wash away the past.

With Adrien Brody’s picture-perfect delivery of this monolog, I was all in with this film. It was like Brody’s voice was made for this voiceover. And while the film did have some intriguing moments, it didn’t really break any new ground like I hoped it would. It reminded me of a couple years ago when Hollywood tried to remake Death Wish, and while I did enjoy this film immensely more than that one, Clean isn’t a film that I will feel compelled to rewatch anytime in the near future. The film essentially has more of a one-and-done feel to it.
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It took me a second to get past the title of this documentary. I had a feeling that it had some kind of significance, but without that context, all it was for me was grammatically incorrect. With that to start off, I have no problem admitting that I wasn’t really looking forward to reviewing this documentary. I know shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, but I was, and something about the title just rubbed me the wrong way. It felt ignorant. Now I must admit that I was actually the ignorant one given my lack of knowledge regarding the cultural significance of that title, the associated poem, as well as the prominent poet it came from, and the legacy of his prominent family. Why Is We Americans tells the story of the Baraka family, a family whose story is carved deep into the civil rights movement. It started with the family’s patriarch, Amiri Baraka (formerly known as LeRoi Jones), a poet/playwright/activist, as he shepherded his family through decades of social activism with poetry, music, and art.
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This season of the Paramount Plus long-running series did a bit of shaking up. For one, the series said goodbye to a main staple of the series with the departure Delroy Lindo’s Adrian Boseman. This departure came as a surprise, as he’d been with the series from its opening, and it wasn’t as if his character had been relegated in recent years. However, I suppose everything changes with time. Don’t imagine that it will be long before we see Delroy on the small or big screen again, as the actor already has four projects in production, including the MCU’s revamping of Blade (no confirmation on who he will be playing in the film, but my gut tells me Abraham Whistler). Now if the Lindo departure shocked you, brace yourselves, because he isn’t the only cast member who made their exit. Cush Jumbo, who’s played Lucca Quinn, is also saying goodbye. Lindo’s exit surprised me, but Jumbo’s floored me. Jumbo’s Lucca Quinn has been a significant part of the series, and with her gone, the show in a sense is losing the paradigm of the old lions vs the young wolves. Well, if you need a fix of Jumbo’s quiet presence, you can catch her on a Netflix adaptation of a Harlan Coben novel.
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Edgar G. Ulmer started his career working for the early German masters of Expressionism like Fritz Lang and F. W. Marnau. He set out on his own doing ethnic films in the Ukraine before coming to America and trying his hand here. His most notable film has to be the 1934 The Black Cat, which brought Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi together for the first time and remains a classic to this very day. Unfortunately for Ulmer, he fell in love with the wife of Carl Laemmle, the head of Universal Pictures. He later married Shirley, but the result was he was barred from every major studio in Hollywood. He had a huge box office success in 1934 with Universal, but his affair in 1936 ended any chance he would get to ride that future. He was relegated to the independent studios where he had little money and a hard time getting good actors or distribution.
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So, I fully expected this movie to be one of those films that I would have to subject myself to in order to appease my wife. I mean, I was familiar with nearly every member of the cast, but given the film’s plot, I expected to be bored and to find it cheesy. It just seemed like a clash. Like it should be two separate movies: one that deals with the secret daughter of the king, and the other a story about a mermaid. However, it would appear that I’m eating my words, as The King’s Daughter proved to be a far more entertaining tale than initially advertised. Based on the 1997 novel of The Moon and the Sun, the story follows Marie-Josephe (Kaya Scodelario, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales), a rebellious, free-spirited young woman who grew up in a convent. Her days are normally spent giving the Abbess a hard time. Unbeknownst to her, she is actually the daughter of the legendary monarch, King Louis XIV (Pierce Brosnan).
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“There are some aspects of the life of an Earth savage that are exciting and rewarding; things that are missed by the brains on my planet Arous.”

When I was a kid going to the drive-in movies was a pretty big deal. In those days your parents would hide you under a blanket on the back seat floor or even in the trunk just to shave off a buck from the admission price. I don’t think the guys running those things really minded. It was kind of an open secret, and after saving a dollar or two, my pop would blow ten times that at the concession stands. He thought he was pulling one over on the management, but I think he was the one getting snookered. Still, it was a good time, and my mom and sisters usually fell asleep before the first of what was always a double feature even started. They were getting a little sleep, but I was getting an education. It was there along with the Friday night Shock Theatre shows on television that I was first introduced to Hammer’s horror films, AIP’s Poe classics, and countless schlock features from the likes of Roger Corman and William Castle.
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