Tag Archives: American Cinema

Killers of the Flower Moon – Movie Review

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TL;DR – A stunning work of art that captivated me for its entire runtime.

Rating: 4.5 out of 5.

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

Disclosure – I paid to see this film.

The sisters take a photo.

Killers of the Flower Moon Review –

There are some films where you know where you will land when the credits roll, but others still sit with you and reverberate through your brain over the coming days. Today, we look at just such a film that powered through my soul, with performances that were almost once in a generation.

So to set the scene, The Osage Nation had been forced from their homelands by the United States, but as luck or fate would have it, they found oil and became wealthy in this new land. Like any mineral found in human history, there was a rush to the county for those looking for work and making it rich. One such person was Ernest Burkhart (Leonardo DiCaprio), who moved to the area to work with his uncle, William King Hale (Robert De Niro). Here, his uncle subtlety suggests that he marries a local Osage lady because there is a chance that oil headrights could end up with them, which he does with Mollie Kyle (Lily Gladstone). But what if you could help those progressions of headrights towards you with some targeted deaths?

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Werewolf by Night in Color – Movie Review

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TL;DR – A delightful romp through times past, made with the techniques of today, Now in Color.

Rating: 4 out of 5.

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

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

Marvel Studios logo in color.

Werewolf by Night in Color Review –

Last year, we reviewed Werewolf by Night, an experiment and, honestly, one of the best things that the MCU put out on Disney+ … and much to my despair, no one watched it. Well, they are taking a second crack at the project by presenting it “In Color”, so on this final day of the spooky season, it feels like the perfect time to jump back in and see if the colour has changed anything. To save you searching, we will begin with the review we wrote for it the first time out and then look to see if the “In Color” changed anything.     

So to set the scene, we open on a dark night in a mansion deep in the woods where Ulysses Bloodstone’s (Richard Dixon) funeral is about to take place. All across the globe, the hunters gathered because this was both a funeral and a hunt. Whoever of the death dealers wins the ceremonial hunt gets the coveted Bloodstone, a relic of immeasurable power. But one of the hunters may actually be the hunted? 

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Five Nights at Freddy’s – Movie Review

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TL;DR – It captures the feel of the video games, though the added narrative might not work for everyone.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5.

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

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

Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza

Five Nights at Freddy’s Review –

In the not-so-distant past, if you heard the words ‘video game adaptation’, it would provoke a feeling of instant cringe. At best, they were okay, often terrible, and much of the time, they were embarrassed about the very material they were adapting. But 2023 has bucked that trend with The Last of Us and Gran Turismo, some of the many knocking it out of the park. Well, it is time to see if they can keep this run going and terrify me simultaneously.   

So to set the scene, we open in on a man (Ryan Reinike) in clear distress as he crawls through some vents, desperate to escape, but no exit can be found. Sometime later, Mike Schmidt (Josh Hutcherson) is desperately looking for a new job after mistaking a father grabbing his kid for a predator. If he can’t get a job, he will lose custody of his sister Abby (Piper Rubio) to their awful Aunt Jane (Mary Stuart Masterson). With very few options left, he takes a security gig at Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza. It was once all the rage but has sat chiefly abandoned since the 1980s. All Mike must do is sit in the security room and keep an eye on the place, but no one told him the place might be keeping an eye on him.

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The Exorcist: Believer – Movie Review

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TL;DR – It is a stunningly tense affair that gets closer to the original than I think people expected.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5.

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

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

Katherine walks down the ailse of a church covered in communion wine.

The Exorcist: Believer Review –

One of the jobs I set for myself this year was to explore the world of horror more. It was an area that was a bit of a blind spot for me, and I needed to engage with it a bit more. While I am not sure if I have been as successful with that as I would have liked. However, M3GAN, Outpost, and Evil Dead Rise have helped. But I am not sure that anything will prepare me for The Exorcist.

So to set the scene, one morning, Katherine (Olivia Marcum) and Angela (Lidya Jewett) go to school, and they disappear, vanishing until they are found walking in the forest disorientated. The girls think they have been gone for hours but have been missing for three days. Their parents are just happy to have them home, that is, until they start acting odd, dangerously odd. For you see, it might not have been just the girls who returned home that evening, and traditional medicine might not have the answer.

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The Equalizer 3 – Movie Review

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TL;DR – A solid conclusion to the trilogy that does not chart a new course but knows the waters it wants to stay in and revels in it.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5.

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

Disclosure – I paid to watch this film.

fireworks explode behind a religious statue.

The Equalizer 3 Review –

As I arrived a couple of hours early for the first The Creator session, I realised there was enough time to see another movie while I waited and scratch one of the current releases off my pile of shame. There were a couple of options until I saw The Equalizer 3. From memory, I liked The Equalizer 2, and I have often dreamed of living on the Italian coastline. But then I realised who the leading cast member was for this film and who it was for The Creator, and I knew that was a double bill that sold itself.

So to set the scene, a while after the events of 2, we find ourselves away from America and on the island of Sicily, Italy. An older man arrives with his grandson at a winery to discover all his henchmen are dead outside. Walking through the carnage down into the heart of it, we find one personal under guard. But that one person is Robert McCall (Denzel Washington), and a couple of guns will not stop him. Okay, a rifle to the back might. But when he is found by a kind a local carabiniere, Gio Bonucci (Eugenio Mastrandrea), after falling unconscious behind the wheel and saved from bleeding out by local doctor Enzo Arisio (Remo Girone). Robert takes a liking to the town and thinks this is where he could find some peace, and that was the wrong time for the mafia to try and muscle their way into the town.

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The Creator – Movie Review

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TL;DR – A phenomenal work of art that touches on all the emotions.

Rating: 4 out of 5.

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

Disclosure – I paid to watch this film.

A smiling synth.

The Creator Review –

There are many ways you can get me into a cinema, and chief among them is bringing a new Science Fiction film into the world. A new movie not attached to any existing IP. Do you know how rare that is today? But then also have it be the first significant follow-up of Gareth Edwards after Rogue One. Well, you have already sold me, but sure, add a cherry on the top. However, even then, I was unprepared for the beauty and ugliness I was about to watch.

So to set the scene, in the near future, AI, robotics, and synths will be a part of every facet of society. That is until that same AI launched a nuclear missile attack on Los Angeles in 2055. Millions died, and much of the world banned AI, but not New Asia. Ten years after LA and the war across New Asia rages, America tries to destroy the robotic resistance. Amongst all of this, Joshua (John David Washington) and Maya (Gemma Chan) live in a house on the beach and are expecting their first child when an American raid reveals Joshua to be a double agent. It is a disaster for Joshua, but five years later, as the last threat to the looming spaceship USS Nomad is identified, he is given a choice: Help a team find this weapon and maybe save his love. But no one was expecting what they found in that lab.

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We’re Back! – A Dinosaur’s Story (1994) – Exploring the Past

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TL;DR – A fascinating time capsule to the early 1990s, which might feel as far in the past as the dinosaurs featured. 

Rating: 3 out of 5.

Post-Credit Scene – There is no Post-Credit Scene.

Disclosure – I paid to watch this film.

Looking at a past Earth.

We’re Back! – A Dinosaur’s Story Review –

I always like plugging in gaps in my knowledge when it comes to cinema, especially when it hits one of those topics that I am deeply passionate about. Well, if you have dived into our site before, you will know that I love dinosaurs, and as someone who grew up in the 1990s, I thought I had watched all the tentpole dinosaur films from that era. Well, this week, I was reminded that this was not the case, and that was something that I had to fix pronto.

So to set the scene, Captain Neweyes (Walter Cronkite) and his assistant Vorb (Jay Leno) have a plan to bring dinosaurs from the past to the present and make them sentient. Thus Rex (John Goodman), Woog (René Le Vant), Dweeb (Charles Fleischer), and Elsa (Felicity Kendal) are ripped from their time and brought to the future. So many children wish to meet a dinosaur, and Neweyes has chosen to grant that wish, which is when he kicks the dinos out of his spaceship to parachute to New York City below.     

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Spy Kids: Armageddon – Movie Review

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TL;DR – While it does not quite hit the heights of the original, it was still a fun time.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5.

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

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

Map Room over lava.

Spy Kids: Armageddon Review –

All the way back in 2001, there was this oddly delightful film full of delight and odd clay hand monster abominations. Spy Kids was this strange series that was always on the cutting edge. I think I remember a smell scratch and sniff one time, and 3D before 3D, 3D’d. But it is also one of those series you don’t feel need a reboot. With that in mind, can they bring this franchise into the 21st century, or will it feel like a relic of a time past?

So to set the scene, the Torrez-Tango’s are a perfectly normal family bar for some overly dramatic tech lockdowns. Tony Torrez-Tango (Connor Esterson) likes to play the scoundrel using his tricks and cheats, while Patty Torrez-Tango (Everly Carganilla) likes to play fair with integrity. But little do they know that their parents, Nora (Gina Rodriguez) and Terrence (Zachary Levi), are spies. But when some malicious code is hidden in the video game, Hyskor steals the secret Armageddon Code. Well, it just might be the kids that come to the rescue.    

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A Haunting in Venice – Movie Review

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TL;DR – The stronger of the three so far that explores faith, mystery, and, of course, murder.

Rating: 4 out of 5.

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

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

skellington

A Haunting in Venice Review –

I love a good murder mystery film, and when you want a good murder mystery, you can’t go past the Queen of Murder Mysteries, Agatha Christie. She has a way with words that have made it through the ages, and the latest interpretation of her work on the big screen has been helmed by Kenneth Branagh with their Murder on the Orient Express in 2017 and Death on the Nile in 2022. Today, we get the third instalment in the series, and what, spoiler alert, is my favourite of the three.

So to set the scene, it is now 1947, and it has been ten years and one world war since we last saw Hercule Poirot (Kenneth Branagh) on the Nile. After a lifetime of investigations, Poirot has taken to seclusion and retirement in a house in Venice with only his bodyguard Vitale Portfoglio (Riccardo Scamarcio) and the daily pastries boat making their way past his door. It is a life of quiet solitude that is punctured when an old friend/acquaintance/annoyance, Ariadne Oliver (Tina Fey), arrives at his door with a conundrum. There is a medium, Joyce Reynolds (Michelle Yeoh), going around claiming that she can talk with the dead, and no matter what Oliver can do, she can’t work out Joyce’s tricks. Joyce is doing a séance for local celebrity Rowena Drake (Kelly Reilly) to speak with her recently lost daughter Alicia (Rowan Robinson) as it is Hallowe’en. All Poirot has to do is work out her tricks, and surely there won’t be any other deaths …

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Blue Beetle – Movie Review

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TL;DR – It was an enjoyable time, and I wish it were not placed in such an awkward position in the franchise. 

Rating: 3.5 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.

Palmera City

Blue Beetle Review –

Well, if there was ever a film that was affected because of cinematic universe issues out of its control, it is today’s film. No matter what merits the movie is coming in on, it will find difficulties because the DC Universe is one film out from a considerable reboot, and we have already seen that torpedo good films like Shazam. But if nothing else, you could tell the cast was throwing their all into this, and I am glad I watched it.

So to set the scene, Jaime Reyes (Xolo Maridueña) is returning to Palmera City after graduating from Gotham Law University. His family Alberto (Damián Alcázar), Rocio (Elpidia Carrillo), Molagro (Belissa Escobedo), Rudy (George Lopez), and Nana (Adriana Barraza) all meet him at the airport and take him out for tacos before dropping the bomb that they are losing their house. Jamie tries to find a good job but gets stuck cleaning the home of Victoria Kord (Susan Sarandon). Still, a chance encounter with her niece Jenny Kord (Bruna Marquezine) changes his life when that blue scarab statue Jenny gives him comes to life and gouges into his skin.

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