Tag Archives: American Cinema

Blink Twice – Movie Review

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TL;DR – This is a profoundly uncomfortable film that grabs onto you and refuses to let go until the credits roll.

Rating: 3 out of 5.

Post-Credit Scene – There is no post-credit scene.

Disclosure – I was invited to a screening of this film.

WARNING – Scenes in this film will cause distress.

Frida stands in front of a bunch of red bags all lined up.

Blink Twice Review –

Wow, rarely has there been a film when I felt the need to debrief with people to process what we just watched. However, that is the film we are looking at today. A movie that I had to catch myself from letting out an expletive during the session. This is not an easy film to watch.

So, to set the scene, Frida (Naomi Ackie) and her friend Jess (Alia Shawkat) work as waiters at big fancy events in New York City. One such event is being chaired by Slater King (Channing Tatum), a billionaire doing a redemption campaign after being forced out of his company due to rampant harassment. Frida and Jess slip into some cocktail dresses and sneak into the event when Slater takes a fancy to them. Before you can say it, they are on a plane to his fancy private island, full of all sorts of debauchery. All the girls are having a blast with the endless champagne, fancy food, and anything they could want. It is just that something here does not feel right.

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Jackpot! – Movie Review

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TL;DR – This is a fun film, anchored by a charismatic cast, but you could also feel it was a bit of missed opportunity.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5.

Post-Credit Scene – There are mid-credit scenes and end credit scene.

Disclosure – I paid for the Amazon Prime service that viewed this film.

Katie win the Lotto.

Jackpot! Review –

There are a lot of ways you can anchor a film, and one of those ways is through an interesting narrative hook. Today we wonder: what would happen if a government authorised a state-wide Hunger Games that was completely opt-in? When you have a good premise, its very existence invokes questions that you want answered, which is what we will do today.


So to set the scene, during the Great Depression of 2026, governments were desperately looking for a way to make money. Enter The California Grand Lottery©. You can be the winner of the jackpot, that is if you can survive until sundown. Until then, you are free game from anyone, and if they kill you, they take your winnings. Just no guns. It is Los Angeles in 2030, and a winner just got taken out by a grandma. But as the jackpot hits $3.6 Billion, child actor Katie (Awkwafina) has just arrived back in town on Lottery Day to try and get back into the business. But when Katie accidentally touches a lottery ticket and wins, then all of Los Angeles turns against her, bar maybe Noel (John Cena) who is protecting her … for money.

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The Union – Movie Review

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TL;DR – While it is a perfectly okay spy film, all it does is remind me of better films.

Rating: 3 out of 5.

Post-Credit Scene – There is no post-credit scene.

Disclosure – I paid for the Netflix service that viewed this film.

Shooting targets.

The Union Review –

Today, we look at a film that should have everything going for it. Big names to anchor the proceedings, big action scenes, car chases, hopping across the world. Everything that you would want from a Spy Film. However, while watching it, I just kept thinking the whole time that I have seen this done better elsewhere.  

So, to set the scene, Agent Hall (Halle Berry) is working on what should have been a simple extraction of an asset from a hotel Trieste. However, just as they are about to leave, things start falling apart as the team is picked off one by one. Soon, all but Hall are dead, and the hard drive is taken. Meanwhile, in New Jersey, Mike McKenna (Mark Wahlberg) is living his life, working on bridges, being a good friend, and living paycheck to paycheck. When Roxanne Hall, his old high school flame, walks into the same bar. It is time to reconnect, time to get knocked out, and time to get kidnapped by the not-CIA spy agency, The Union. Because they need skills, only Mike has: a nobody with no history.

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Alien: Romulus – Movie Review

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TL;DR – Beware of Weyland-Yutani Corp representatives bearing gifts.  

Rating: 4.5 out of 5.

Post-Credit Scene – There is no post-credit scene.

Disclosure – I paid to see this film

Jackob's Star Planet.

Alien: Romulus Review –

I have always had an interesting relationship with the Alien films. When I was a kid, a snippet of people crawling through an air vent and a life sign catching up with them scared the life out of me. It goes without saying that Aliens have the legacy it has for a reason. However, recent entries have always pulled me in different directions. For example, Alien: Covenant was a stunningly beautiful film filled with people acting like they had no sense. However, there is a core of these films that can work, and that was what I was looking for today.

So, to set the scene, life is hard in Jackson’s Star Mining Colony, 60-odd light years from Earth. While the mines are rich, the storms constantly rain, the clouds block out the sun, and the mine continually kills people through collapse or disease. Rain Carradine (Cailee Spaeny) has worked hard to get her quota done so she and her brother Andy (David Jonsson) can get off and go live in an independent farming colony when they discover that The Company has doubled their quota. They must stay for six more years. Rain is distraught, but her old friend Tyler (Archie Renaux) may have found an out. He and his crew, Kay (Isabela Merced), Bjorn (Spike Fearn), and Navarro (Aileen Wu), have discovered an old ship left in orbit that has an intact hypersleep chamber. If they can steal it, they could get off-planet. The only problem is why the ship is abandoned.

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Beneath Us All – Movie Review

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TL;DR – While there was a lot of promise with this scenario, you can tell that there were factors like the budget that held it back.

Rating: 2.5 out of 5.

Post-Credit Scene – There is no post-credit scene.

Disclosure – I was sent a screener of this film

Warning – Contains scenes that may cause distress.

Left overs from a mauling.

Beneath Us All Review –

Today, we dive back into the world of Vampires, a world of shadows and screams. I have quite liked vampire films in the past because they are this blend of bloody action with profound lore. There are many versions of vampires, and I am interested to see where we will land in today’s film.

So, to set the scene, it is Scandinavia back in 912 AD when a child is ripped apart by a monster that appeared from the woods. The Monster (Yan Birch) was captured, but they could not kill him, so he was buried in a coffin, taken across the seas and then dumped in Vinland. In the modern day, Vinland is now North America and is full of rural Americans. Some of them are Todd (Sean Whalen) and Janelle Gibbs (Maria Olsen), who foster several kids and are not the nicest people in the world. But one day, their foster daughter Julie (Angelina Danielle Cama) is walking in the woods when a perceived noise impacts her head after she touches an amulet, which leads her to something buried in the ground.    

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Borderlands – Movie Review

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TL;DR – While I will give it points for getting some of the visual style right, and something must have gotten that cast to sign up. But the final product was a soulless mess of nothingness.

Rating: 2 out of 5.

Post-Credit Scene – There is a mid-credit scene that you don’t need to stay for.

Warning – There is strobing effects.

Disclosure – I paid to watch this film.

Space Station around Pandora.

Borderlands Review –

For a long time, there has been a question about whether you can write an engaging video game adaptation? They have been hit and miss, and many were just made for tax write-offs [allegedly]. However, in recent years, we have found that you can make that translation on both TV and in the cinema, which makes it even more frustrating that we take a return to the past with today’s entry.  

So, to set the scene, we open around the planet of Pandora, where a secret vault containing alien information has drawn vault hunters for generations, leaving the planet trashed and strewn with violent gangs. One man who is after that power is Atlas (Edgar Ramírez), which makes it concerning when one of his own soldiers, Roland (Kevin Hart), kidnaps his daughter Tina (Ariana Greenblatt) and takes her into the quagmire. It has been months, and no one has been able to find her, which is when he goes to Lilith (Cate Blanchett), the one bounty hunter that can take on the planet because she used to live there.

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Walden (The Stenographer) – Movie Review

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TL;DR – While the premise is novel, the final product left me more frustrated than anything else.

Rating: 2 out of 5.

Post-Credit Scene – There is no post-credit scene.

Disclosure – I was sent a screener of this film.

Warning – Contains scenes that may cause distress.

The Alexandra Court House.

Walden Review –

When you make a film, you have the whole world to play in, and more really. However, when you touch on real-world issues, do you have an obligation actually to engage with them in a meaningful way? Today, we look at a movie working in that space to see.  

So, to set the scene, in the small town of Alexandria near the City of Atlanta, there is a court stenographer called Walden (Emile Hirsch). It is a job that he is good at, but it does mean that he sees the worst of humanity every day. When a particularly monstrous person tries to kill the judge in front of everyone, well, that changes someone, even worse when you discover you have a brain tumour. However, knowing you are going to die does have a clarifying factor on one’s life and goals. Suddenly helpless, Walden might not be so helpless anymore.    

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The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare – Movie Review

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TL;DR – Big personalities and a lot of action, but not a lot more than that.

Rating: 3 out of 5.

Post-Credit Scene – There is no post-credit scene.

Disclosure – I paid for the Amazon Prime service that viewed this film.

Anders Lassen looks through a porthole covered in blood.

The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare Review –

If there is one film that people have asked me for, it is what happened to The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare? It looked like it was everywhere, and then it disappeared, but that cast and director should have cut through. Well, today, we have a chance to answer that question and give it a look as it finally got a release here in Australia.   

So, to set the scene, it is the height of WW2, and things are not going well for the Allies. In the middle of the Atlantic, patrolled by German U-Boats, a sailboat is being inspected by Nazis. The Nazi Commander does not like the laughing Swedes, even less when those Swedes mow down all his men. It is here that we discover just what is going on. The UK is the last significant power in Europe, not occupied by Axis Powers, and they are being cut off from the air and sea. Hitler is not playing by the rules, storing the rearming operations for the U-Boats in neutral territory. Well, then, it is time for the UK to retaliate with a group of soldiers who do not play by the rules. Led by Gus March-Phillipps (Henry Cavill), Operation Postmaster, all they have to do is sink an Italian Ship in neutral territory before the Nazis move it. To do this, they need a team: Henry Hayes (Hero Fiennes Tiffin), the navigator; Freddy Alvarez (Henry Golding), the explosives expert; Anders Lassen (Alan Ritchson), who is good with wet work, and Geoffrey Appleyard (Alex Pettyfer) intelligence. With Heron (Babs Olusanmokun) and Marjorie Stewart (Eiza González) embedded on the island of Fernando Po, it should all go fine … right …?   

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Deadpool & Wolverine – Movie Review

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TL;DR – While it languishes in parts, the camaraderie and love for what they are doing is off the charts, and you feel that love in every part of the film.

Rating: 4 out of 5.

Post-Credit Scene – There is a mid and post-credit scene.

Disclosure – I was invited to a press screening of this film.

Lady Deadpool.

Deadpool & Wolverine Review –

Well, here we are, with a movie that is either the MCU’s latest desperate attempt to try and get either the multiverse or the mutants to work. Or a fun fourth-wall-breaking meta romp bro road trip through the Fox X-Men years via someone who liked that one bit in Loki season 1. Yet, somehow it is both of these things, and in the process, might be better than the sum of its parts.

So, to set the scene, after we deal with the ethical quandaries laid bare by the existence of Logan, we find that things have not gone well for Wade Wilson/Deadpool (Ryan Reynolds) since we last saw him in Deadpool 2. While his friends always surround him, and he has made it along the way, no one in power trusts him, and rejection after rejection leads to him shutting himself off from people, especially on this birthday. But when henchmen from the TVA arrive to take Deadpool to see Mr Paradox (Matthew Macfadyen), he finds out that this timeline is dying, and the only way to save it might be to find himself a new Wolverine (Hugh Jackman).

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The Delicate Cycle – Movie Review

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TL;DR – It makes the most of its one location to explore the emotions of significant life changes.     

Rating: 3.5 out of 5.

Post-Credit Scene – There is no post-credit scene.

Disclosure – I was sent a screener of this film.

A washing machine about to start.

The Delicate Cycle Review –

While a short film can be constraining, those limitations can be turned into strengths. You can concentrate things down into their core forms. For example, that transient information that gets passed down from generation to generation. Today, we are looking at a film that is working in that space.  

So, to set the scene, it is just a typical day for Lance (Fred Mancuso) as he gets into the laundromat as early as possible to get his clothes done. Usually, there is no one there, bar maybe Anita (Yassmin Flores), but today there was someone new, a young kid called Adam (Dean Norris Jr.) who is in the process of trying to win at Ms Pacman but also struggling with his emotions.

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