The Reel World

I don’t believe any of us could have predicted that global phenomenon that the John Wick franchise would become. I mean, on its surface, it’s a movie about man avenging his dog. However, each film has peeled back a layer of the fictional underworld created in the film, drawing us deeper and deeper into this well-crafted universe. In the first film, we were teased about this world’s existence. In the second, we learned about the rules that govern it. In the third, we learned the consequences if you break this world’s rules. And in this likely final installment of the franchise, we see what happens when this world declares war on you. Keanu Reeves reprises this character for the fourth time, doing exactly what he’s done for each installment; literally putting his body on the line to deliver an action-packed and epic performance. Joining him are the Wick universe veterans, Ian McShane, Laurence Fishburne, and most notably the recently departed Mr.Lance Reddick. Rounding out the cast are the Wick universe newcomers, many of whom are action stars in their own right, such as Donnie Yen, Scott Adkins, Hiroyuki Sanada, Shamier Anderson, and Bill Skarsgard.
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I know that we all know that the DC universe is going through a bit of a revamp right now. I’m sure we’ve all seen it, with the cancellation of the Batgirl movie and the getting our hopes up over the prospect of Henry Cavill’s return to the fold, only to be crushed when it was announced that the studio was going in a different direction. We all have our feelings about it. That said, if there was a franchise that I would recommend keeping around, it would be the Shazam films. I know, I know, I’m surprised by this revelation too, but the thing is, this franchise of them all was the one that took me by the most surprise. I wasn’t expecting to enjoy it. Prior to the release of the first film, the character of Shazam (a.k.a. Captain Marvel) had been nothing more than a background character that I’d observed in the animated films and shows. I even questioned the wisdom of introducing a character like this when DC was behind the curve in comparison to Marvel. I thought they should focus on building up the main Justice League heroes so they could get back in the race.
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We knew it was coming, a new chapter in the Ghostface franchise that has been a staple in the horror genre since the first Scream released back in 1996. Over the years we’ve gotten to see our favorite horror fan/serial killer terrorize the citizens of Woodsboro and even venture out to LA when he terrorized the film set of Stab (you know, the movie within a movie). It was only a matter of time before our killer ventured out of Woodsboro again, and this time he follows in the footsteps of another masked killing icon, Jason Voorhees, as Ghostface sets out to terrorize the Big Apple in Scream VI. Last year’s Scream I felt did a good job at rebooting the franchise (or worked as a requel) and worked as a way of passing on the torch from Sydney and Gale to the next generation, Sam (Melissa Barrera) and Tara (Jenna Ortega). This new film will also be the first time Sydney doesn’t make an appearance on screen, though we do thankfully have Gale (Courtney Cox) and Kirby (Hayden Panettiere) returning in their “legacy” roles. Does Scream 6 manage to impress with the new cast and new locale, or does it take a misstep as Jason Takes Manhattan did for its franchise?
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I would be remiss in my duties if I didn’t address the elephant in the room first. For the first time in the nearly 50-year history of this franchise, Sylvester Stallone was not featured in the film as Rocky Balboa. We could delve into the reasons behind why he elected not to take part in this installment, but that would be a review in itself and take away from this film. I mention it off the bat, so we can all process it and view the film with clarity. Long story short, I will say that his absence was noticed, and he was missed. I think his absence is notable due to the lack of an explanation as to his absence. I suppose the film being set in Los Angeles instead of Rocky’s native Philadelphia is meant to serve as a workaround, but still, I’d hope for some kind of explanation or at least a casual mentioning of the character. The lack thereof is what really drew attention to it. To be fair, the case can be made that that the previous film provided a pretty good conclusion for the Rocky chapters of the franchise.
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Not since Snakes on a Plane has a title for a movie  been so absurd that I just had to see the movie. While Snakes on a Plane delivered on its B-movie camp, it was still kind of a bad movie no matter how hard Samuel L Jackson seemed to try to carry that film.  Cocaine Bear embraces its absurd title, and it goes over the top and beyond with a black ear ingesting more cocaine than Tony Montana would ever dare to snort. The film is loosely based on true events, the truth being that a drug runner did die while tossing numerous bags of cocaine out of a plane in 1985 and that a bear was found dead after ingesting a large quantity of cocaine. This film attempts to rewrite history by posing the “what if?” that the bear encounters many unfortunate humans while on its cocaine binge.  For me the moment I heard they were making this a movie,  it was on my radar.
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I think it’s best that Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania is the last in the series. That is not meant as a condemnation of the film; in my opinion after this outing, it is hard to see how the series fits into Marvel’s overall plans. I’m sure Ant-Man and the Wasp will be featured in the future Avengers movies, and that is fine, but as a solo vehicle, this film kind of showed that the prestige for this franchise has faded. When the first film was released, I was skeptical of what value it could bring to the franchise, and I was pleasantly surprised and enjoyed it far more than I expected to. The sequel was decent enough, while in some cases lacking some of the comedic elements of the first one. This time, the film seems to have lost all the lighthearted humor and felt forced. Rudd does his best to endear the character to the audience, but in this incarnation, he feels more like a secondary character in a film where he plays the titular character. Then there is the other titular character, the Wasp, a.k.a. Evangeline Lilly’s Hope Van Dyne. Her role, too, feels reduced. When the two main characters become the least significant characters in their own franchise, I believe that signifies that the writing is on the wall. It’s time to hang it up.
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“You see, the four of us have a very important job to do. In fact, it might be the most important job in the history of the world.”

What is it about a cabin in the woods that makes it a good place for the apocalypse? When I think of those isolated cabins, I think of good ol’ Abe Lincoln or a group of guys bonding over a fishing/hunting weekend. But when it comes to folks like Joss Whedon or now M. Night Shyamalan, they see disaster. Where I see a day on the lake, these guys see the end of the world. It’s not like Shyamalan hasn’t brought us there before. The box office bomb After Earth comes to mind. So what about his latest effort, Knock At The Cabin? The trailers appear to pretty much give the plot away, but pleasantly there’s a little bit more to it than that. I’m a huge fan of the man’s mostly early works. The Sixth Sense, The Village, Signs, Unbreakable, and even the more recent Split and Glass are all first-rate films in my book. But lately it’s been more hit than miss from the guy who grew up in the same Philly area playpen where I grew up. So, flop or fantastic? Knock At The Cabin falls somewhere in the middle, which is a new experience for me from a Shyamalan movie.
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“She doesn’t look confused. She just looks demented.”

One of the problems about this job is that we spend so much of our time at the end of the year watching so many serious films for awards considerations and the like that by the time the year is over it starts to get a little too heavy. I always look to try to start my new year with something fun and entertaining. I just want to sit down and have a good time while watching a movie. Akela Cooper and James Wan have written the perfect prescription for that critic malady, and director Gerald Johnstone delivered the proper dose. There’s nothing great or grandiose about M3GAN, but if you’re in need of a good time at the movies, this will cure what ails you.
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“The way of water has no beginning and no end.”

We all know better than that, don’t we? It’s been 13 years since James Cameron first brought us to the moon planet of Pandora. What I remember most from that 2009 experience was the milestone breakthroughs in filmmaking that Cameron brought to the screen. Avatar reinvented 3D for theaters and created a new wave of 3D releases thanks to a technology that made the experience smoother and allowed us to enjoy the spectacle in a whole new light. Cameron also brought us some wonderful innovations in cinematography, motion capture performance, and the nearly seamless blend with the computer-generated artificial and live-action photography. It was a marvel, to be sure. What I didn’t walk away from that experience with was a strong emotional connection to the story or characters. I’ve often called it The Smurfs version of Dances With Wolves.
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With Thanksgiving in the rearview mirror, that can mean only one thing; that Christmas is just around the corner. Normally this time of year the theaters are filled with movies that are either A) jockeying for awards consideration or B) are big-budget blockbusters, and then if you are lucky there are a few holiday films sprinkled in for good measure. It has been a while since there has been a holiday film that has appealed to me. Some of the best ones in recent memory are Better Watch Out (2016) and Krampus (2015), so I think it is fair to say we are long overdue for a great Christmas film.  At first glimpse, Violent Night doesn’t look the part of what you’d traditionally call a Christmas film, but even the trailers for the film market this as a mash-up of Die Hard meets Home Alone, and that’s exactly what you get, and it is gloriously violent and heartwarming.
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I’ve seen Bones and All twice now, and I have to say this is certainly one of the standout films of 2022. A road film that plays out as a romance between two young cannibals trying to find their place in the Reagan era America, well, it’s just the strange mix that works.  Horror isn’t supposed to be this sweet, and romance isn’t supposed to be so gruesome, but director Luca Guadagnino manages to put together a film that is so good that I believe it has a real shot at winning some prestigious awards, and it is so well deserved. I’m going to recommend going into this knowing as little as possible. Just simply allow the film to expose its dark and bloody underbelly to you, and just let yourself care for these monsters that are simply trying to find their place in the world and in the process even fall in love.
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“Life is not like the movies.”

Maybe sometimes life is exactly like the movies. You know the old phrase of art imitating life and that kind of thing. That’s exactly the territory that’s covered in Steven Spielberg’s latest film The Fabelmans. It’s an autobiographical film where the names are changed to protect both the guilty and the innocent. It’s also the first time that Spielberg has directed his own writing in over 20 years. In those 20 years Spielberg has become something of a movie-making machine, and I think he felt it was time that the machine walked away from the spotlight for a minute and allowed the man behind the machine to show his face again. It used to be about heart; lately it’s been about box office, and more recently it’s been about surviving after the hit the industry took with COVID. I think that Spielberg had a lot of things to get off his chest, and it looks like he might have found the time and place to do just that. While the film is a love letter to people who still think movies are a kind of wizard’s magic, it was also a little bit of therapy for this particular wizard. Like all autobiographies, it’s not really finished, and that’s the most profound takeaway I had when the film ended.
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“Some people aren’t meant to be heroes.”

Black Adam was a unique experience. It was an occasion where a being that kills without hesitation is viewed as more of a hero than those that exercise restraint while fighting for justice. This is a principle that was leaned into during the film’s marketing campaign, which for me generated a great deal of intrigue, and I was glad that it was not just a marketing ploy. The fact is that Black Adam is very much an anti-hero. However, he did not start out that way. He was initially just a supervillain, one that was and likely still is intended to serve as the primary antagonist to Zachary Levi’s Shazam. For this film, he embraces the role of anti-hero, which is in keeping with his comic book roots, which saw the character shift from villain to anti-hero. Simply put, he is a dark hero; someone you love watching even when he is doing morally questionable things. Who better to embody that idea than Dwayne Johnson.
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As I mentioned in my review for Amsterdam, it’s awards season, and the studios are churning out the films they hope will garner praise and a lot of statues celebrating how great their film is. Spoiler alert, Amsterdam won’t be one of those films, but one that will be is a film that is easily one of the top films I’ve seen this year, and it’s The Banshees of Inisherin.  Because of the title I know many have been put off from watching the film because they think it is going to be a horror film. Well, let me assure you that this isn’t a horror film, nor are there any banshees in the film. As to why the film is called that, well, you’ll have to see it to find out for yourself.
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After watching this film I needed a good 24 hours to process what I had watched before getting too critical and writing this. I love the Halloween franchise. Sure, like any of the horror franchises there are some duds, but it doesn’t take away the fun these films can bring, especially during the month of October. Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) is definitely an icon of horror and for many will be seen as the genres ultimate “Final Girl”, so when Curtis said that Halloween Ends was really going to be her last time stepping into the role of Laurie Strode, well, it gave the film a bit more meaning for fans.  It’s not just the end of the trilogy that director David Gordon Green kicked off in 2018, but this film is the final chapter of Laurie Strode, the babysitter horror fans first fell in love with back in 1978 with John Carpenter’s Halloween. You look at the trailers for this new film and you think that this third installment is going to be the final showdown between Michael Myers and Laurie Strode we’ve all waited for, a film that could possibly end this franchise on a high note. Even I was optimistic
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It’s that time of year again, when studios begin to release the award contending films. Considering how lackluster the summer release slate was, when I look at the release schedule, these next couple months are pretty stacked with films for film lovers to get excited about and hopefully give them a reason to return to the cinemas. This week the film I’m talking about is Amsterdam. You look at the star-studded cast, you see the writer and director, David O. Russell (American Hustle, Silver Linings Playbook, The Fighter) and you wouldn’t be wrong to think that this is going to be a big film. I’ve been a fan of David O. Russell since he did Three Kings, and any time he has a movie come out, it’s something I get excited about. Sadly, this is one of those films that just seem to be too ambitious for their own good. I’ll say this; if it wasn’t for the amount of talent on screen, I don’t think it would be as good as it is.
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I’m lucky; I got to see the premiere of Smile in perhaps the best environment possible to experience a genre film. By this I mean I saw it at its premiere as the opening night film of Fantastic Fest in Austin, Texas at The Alamo Drafthouse. It’s important I state this, because it reflects the amount of excitement that I had going into this film, not just for the film but for the festival as well. I’d be seeing this film with about 180 plus film fans who are ravenous for genre films from around the globe who are definitely more than just casual filmgoers. Still I went into this film knowing as little as possible. I believe I had only seen one trailer for the film, which was the night before; it was attached to Barbarian. (Seriously, you need to see Barbarian on the big screen and with a crowd, it was a friggin blast to experience.) What I remember from the trailer was intriguing, and it certainly showed promise, though I feel the marketing tactics they did by placing actors in baseball stadiums to leer at the players with creepy smiles was some of the most brilliant marketing for a film in years. With all that said, is it a good film?
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George Miller is a filmmaker who will forever be known for his Mad Max films, and to be fair, it’s a pretty awesome legacy to leave behind, but when you take a look at his filmography, it is one that is filled with variety. There is The Witches of Eastwick, his segment from The Twilight Zone: The Movie, and then there is Happy Feet, a variety that shows that he has more to offer than testosterone thrill rides. I feel it is worth mentioning this because it shows that as a director he’s willing to take chances and stray beyond his comfort zone and show that he is one of the more talented visual storytellers still working in the industry. The film Three Thousand Years of Longing is, simply put, a love letter to storytelling and its use over the existence of mankind. Sure, there are some mythical aspects involved and plenty of CGI, but at its heart the film is simply about two characters sharing stories inside a luxurious hotel room where Agatha Christie is said to have written “Death on the Nile”. Tilda Swinton plays Alithea, a self proclaimed “narratologist”, an academic who tells stories.
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“We’re in his territory now.”

Given the film’s premise, this strikes me as the perfect tagline for the film. A family on safari finds themselves trapped and stalked by a lion with a bloodlust. It definitely evokes memories of the Val Kilmer and Michael Douglas-led 1996 film, The Ghost and The Darkness. In this instance, of course, they rely on the acting chops of Idris Elba to keep the film from descending into cliché. And while there are some situations that seem avoidable and unrealistic, the film did a great job of maintaining my interest for the duration. Joining Elba is Sharlto Copley, another talent with an extensive resume. My only gripe about Copley is that he felt underutilized, and I felt there were intriguing developments with his character that if fleshed out would have added a greater degree of depth to his character. However, this of course was out of Copley’s control and in no way negative impacts his given performance.
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Very quirky, exciting to watch, and a sci-fi mystery you will not believe: that’s the film Nope. There have been many stories about flying saucers and invaders from space, but this wild and wacky production grabs you right from the beginning and never lets go. My kind of film; the pace is fast, and there’s never a dull moment. For years Otis Haywood, Sr. has been uneasy about happenings on his ranch.  His sudden death, however, has his sons OJ Haywood (Daniel Kaluuya) and Emerald Haywood (Keke Palmer) completely baffled. Their income has fizzled since their movie horses have been acting skittish on the sets, so OJ and Emerald want to get to the bottom of what has caused the recent disturbances at the ranch. One cloudy day, OJ sees a shiny object in the sky that he believes is an alien vessel. When it’s likely the reason for the turmoil,
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Some of my favorite films are those directed by Mel Brooks.  Blazing Saddles, Spaceballs, Young Frankenstein, The Producers, and the list goes on and on.  He has an ability to create a wonderful parody that blends comedy and homage to so many great films.  The films are those quite frankly that you can watch over and over again even if you have heard the joke fifty times in a row.  (I used to recite Spaceballs by heart until my college roommates at the time threatened to beat me to a bloody pulp)  So imagine my surprise when in the year 2022,  we get an animated film with Mel Brooks in one of the supporting voice roles, and it smells quite a bit like Blazing Saddles.  Let’s take a look at Paws of Fury: The Legend of Hank.

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“I, like you, have heard the tall tales told about the Marsh Girl. An abandoned child. A little girl surviving on the marsh on her own, reviled and shunned.” 

Where The Crawdads Sing took a rather unlikely journey to the big screen. It was the first novel from Delia Owens, who spent most of her life as a scientist focusing on Africa and coming up with some rather controversial theories. She went to Africa with her husband in 1996 and before long was embroiled in a situation where a documentary was shot that depicted the murder of a poacher. They left Africa facing murder charges, and now in her 70’s Delia has tried her hand as an author of fiction. It shouldn’t be too surprising that her maiden novel focused on a woman who was believed to be a killer. There’s no question that some of her own life bled into the story, but in her 70’s Delia Owens had a bestseller on her hands which was given more attention when Reese Witherspoon made the novel one of her book club selections, something Oprah was also able to do for many titles in her day.
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“This is my vow. Death to all Gods.”

With this film, Hemsworth solidifies himself as having the most solo films of all the original Avengers. With Thor Love and Thunder, I’d say that his legacy has been assured and this film servers as a proper conclusion for the character. Circumstances suggest that this will not be the end for the character, but I cannot imagine a better conclusion than this one, so any continuations I fear would likely be subject to the law of diminishing returns. In reference to the film, It does not reach the heights that the Thor Ragnorak reached in my opinion. Even so, I found the film to still possess a majority of the qualities that made the franchise and the character beloved. Which is why I firmly feel there is no point in another installment. Better to go out on a win.
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To date, I have probably seen each Despicable Me and Minions movie anywhere from half a dozen to a dozen times.  I blame most of this on my wonderful seven-year-old son, who thanks to this instant delivery of entertainment age has re-watched these movies at countless opportunities.  Naturally, my eyes glaze over at Gru, the Minions, and other supporting characters in between researching Blu-ray and 4K disc release dates.  But the truth is that it is one of the few movie series where I have went out of my way to make sure I had every 4K disc.  So, when we heard about a new movie of the little yellow guys, we were thrilled to say the least.  Eagerly, which was rare for us, we even decided to go on a Thursday night to our favorite theater (thank you Star Cinema Grill).  Let’s see how it turns out.

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