Month: January 2020

I was told a few warnings about Climax before watching it. Not about actual content, but more about the director, Gaspar Noé.

A controversial fellow, Noé has done plenty of films that I have never seen and shorts I have never seen. Apparently Love was very graphic, but I never got around to it.

I can expect a movie called Climax to be graphic. It is sort of there, in the name. I can hear warnings about French film, but that is really hard to put into one box.

No matter the warnings I received, none of them were really enough and none of them could really explain just what I was getting myself into when I decided to finally check out Climax.

And I felt. fabulous! No, wait. The opposite of that word!

In this movie, we have a few people who are getting a dance troupe together. Selva (Sofia Boutella) is the lead dancer of the troupe, and is working with someone else to pick people for their group and the music. I won’t tag anyone else in it, because everyone else is professional music people/dancers in some way only, and that is why they are in this movie.

The movie opens with a big, long dance sequence in one shot that is interesting, but strange. No wait, before that they show clips from fake interviews with these dancers on questions they asked before joining the troupe. No wait, before that, we see a woman bloody running in the snow. Oh.

After the big dance number, we get to see people talking. People dancing. Some interactions between a few of the characters. Back and forth talks between just pairs, making you really strain to pay attention to the plot point of the film. This is where you get backstory, kind of, sort of! After that confusion ends, we go back to dancing and people interacting.

But, the dancing gets stronger. The people get angrier. The people get weirder. Oh no, someone spiked the sangria and a lot of people are now going on a bad trip.

And then a lot of bad stuff happens the rest of the night, resulting in some deaths, some rape, some deaths, some uncomfortable moments, some sex, some dancing, and some other gross unfortunate terrible moments. Hooray!

Hooray?

I think I definitely did more of a plot description than normal compared to other films. And it feels justified.

There are quite obvious from the conversations early on that seem to be the main focus, and some of the characters who are definitely less of a nice person. The interview portion is completely forgettable after the dance, and probably should be rewatched for clues now that you know the characters better. But it is a huge struggle early on to remember what aspects of what characters were told and are important, with there being such a big cast of dancers and the conversations going so quick.

Now, once the tone shift happens in the film, and everyone starts to get on the bad trip, it definitely gives an uncomfortable feeling to the viewer. Oh no, bad things. And guess what? Basically every bad thing you can imagine happening, based on the earlier conversations and events, totally does happen.

It is very predictable in regards to probably the three worse things that occur in the movie. And this is a wildly gross and sometimes scary film, but having the worst/grossest parts easy to guess seems odd. Basically, if it could go bad, it does go bad.

I will admit, I first just assumed everyone was going to die in some extreme ridiculous ways, and not a lot of people die by the end. But no one is super happy by the end. People have been violated, or killed, or threatened, or raped, and it is just uncomfortable moment after uncomfortable moment. And the whole time we are getting a constant trance background beat, with some characters constantly screaming in the background. We get a power outage and thus, more darkness, a “scarier” hue to the whole thing, and even more bad stuff.

It has a lot of uncomfortable moments, but at no point does it feel worth it. Like you should have to see it, like any character deserves their fate. It is just basic exploitation for the sake of.

And what the hell. There were like, three times in the first half of the film where we got opening credits. I don’t know what was going on there.

0 out of 4.

What? You didn’t see The Fanatic in theaters? I mean, it would have been impressive. It only opened on 52 screens and made a few thousand dollars, so it was a big bomb, but an expected big bomb.

Apparently it isn’t the 1970’s and John Travolta isn’t a big box office draw anymore. Did you know that? I hadn’t heard and neither did Fred Durst.

Fred Durst directed The Fanatic and it is his third directed movie, with this one being really not similar to anything else he has done before, and his first directed movie in over a decade.

There is a lot going wrong with the Fanatic, but I will go into more detail about that later.

And we are all just choking with anticipation over this film. 

Moose (John Travolta), don’t worry, it is a nickname, is a loser. He thinks he is awesome and thinks his movie knowledge should be celebrated, but no one cares. He dresses up on the street to get tips from tourists, but his accent is bad, his characters are bad, and his jokes are nonexistent. How dare the world not see his wonder!

He has a lot of passions that deal with movies, besides watching them, including getting things autographed and speaking to these celebrities. He gets an opportunity to see Hunter Dunbar (Devon Sawa), whom he regards as one of the greatest horror actors of his time! I honestly couldn’t tell if he actually thinks that, or if he thinks that purely because he happens to be in town at that moment. He seems like the type who would say that just because as a better chance of getting autographs.

Either way, he waits in a line for awhile, and right before his autograph, Hunter has to take a quick sidebar out back to talk to his ex wife about kid situations. Not a big deal. Until Moose decides he needs to go out right after, hearing his personal conversations and still trying to get an autograph at the worst time.

This pisses off Hunter. So he curses him out and vows to not sign his stuff, and stay away from him. So Moose does not stay away. He finds his house, talks to his kid, sneaks in, tries to apologize, you know all the grossest stuff he could have done. The Fan needs his closure damn it, and he is going to tie up Hunter and kidnap him if he has to.

Also starring Ana Golja, Jacob Grodnik, and James Paxton.

Sign the paper, or he’ll put on worse button up shirts!

Ooof. Where does one begin?

Travolta seems to be doing something very strange in this movie. I feel like he is for sure acting and trying to get into this role. But this role is terrible. Not in a “what a bad person, I am fascinated” type of situation, but just, badly written and designed. That part isn’t his fault, I guess.

But never do I feel scared about his character, or sorry for him, or really any emotion at all. I feel a little slimy mostly. And I feel a little stupid. Like myself, personally, somehow I am now stupid for this whole thing.

This is the type of story that could have been good, it could have felt threatening, like Misery! But it just absolutely feels like nothing and achieves nothing on the way to that point. A waste of time for everyone involved and the poor people like me who had to watch it.

0 out of 4.

Maleficent stormed onto the scene many years ago, one of the first of the Disney live action titles, outside of that bad Alice one.And it was pretty forgettable. A weak plot, a lot of time of just watching a kid grow up, and then some terrible CGI fight battles.

But hey, the whole reason for doing it is to say that someone with the name of Maleficent,meaning to cause harm supernaturally, isn’t actually bad. Oh okay. And sure, they made her seem misunderstood, and basically a revenge film about a rape, metaphors aside.

So why is this sequel, Maleficent: Mistress of Evil, doubling down on the badness? But she isn’t bad. Just bad looking. Now she is also the mistress of evil? I uhh, don’t know why they want to do this?

I’ll go ahead and say this early enough, that they don’t have a good plot reason for this title.

Ah, green fire magic. Magic-y. Evil. 
Alright, so Maleficent (Angelina Jolie) was a sort of hero, killing a king who was a liar and a bad person, and I guess everyone agreed? She magically got her wings back and restored some sort of order, and went back to her magical forest to chill with magic forest people.

But apparently in like, a year or two, the story changes so much that she is a bad guy again. Cool.

Well, Aurora (Elle Fanning) wants to get married finally though, to Prince Philip (Harris Dickinson), who was definitely recast between movies. So they get their parents together, Aurora finding Maleficent, and Philip getting King John (Robert Lindsay) and Queen Ingrith (Michelle Pfeiffer).

Neither set of parents like this at all, especially not Ingrith, who sets about immediately being a bitch. This leads to a curse being cast on a King, Maleficent noping the hell out of there, and then a war against the fey, again.

But hey, this time there are going to be lots of people like Maleficent this time, so you know, bigger stakes, and lots of CGI warring.

Also starring Sam Riley, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Ed Skrein, David Gyasi, Jenn Murray, Juno Temple, Lesley Manville, and Imelda Staunton.

The king has huge look of regret about this whole thing.

Without a doubt, this is a two hour movie that feels like four hours. On the first day of the year, ready to watch a bunch of films, I was completely warn out after this one, my 2nd film of the day, because of how much this movie dragged.

This felt like more of the same, with worse reasoning for existing. This time, the big CGI fest battle happened for a bigger chunk of the movie, if we start it with the very obvious double cross that started against the magical creatures.

This film tries to do more world building this time, but it is building a world, answering questions none of us had. Maleficent is stronger and better than others because. Just because.

Pfeiffer’s character is completely stupid in this film. An antagonist without a good reason. And honestly, Pfeiffer does nothing to really elevate the role at all, she is here for a paycheck.

Maleficent 2 is a movie with more CGI that is exhausting in his excess without being worth looking at. It has acting from all fronts that is forgettable. It tells a story that is very, very similar to the first one, but with “bigger scales” that don’t really matter either. It is a waste of what felt like four hours of my life.

0 out of 4.

When I first saw the trailer for Yesterday, I will admit it intrigued me. A world where only one person knew about The Beatles? Okay, cool.

A world where something never happened can be a hard subject to take over. Are the writers/director going to really drive hard into all the consequences of the bigger band ever never existing? Will a lot of the world be different? Or will it just be an awkward hole that needs filling.

And honestly, I don´t care about The Beatles at all. So hearing some guy do covers of their music all movie doesn´t appeal to me in the slightest, so I would go in only caring about the story, the why, and the ramifications.

He also seems to be screaming instead of singing most of these shots. Jack Malik (Himesh Patel) is a British man from an Indian family, trying to make it big in the music business. He can write songs and play guitar, but no one gives a damn about him. His best friend for a long time is his manager and a school teacher, and Ellie (Lily James) has always supported him, even when he wants to give up.

And he wants to give up, a lot. Especially after he is hit by a bus when a global blackout occurs.

After his recovery, he plays a Beatles song for his friends, and none of them recognize it. That is a dumb joke, but whatever. And when he references them to more and more people, no one has a clue what he is talking about. Shit, even the internet is confused by his nonsense.

Time to exploit this knowledge, sing all of their songs, and become world famous! But wait, it is 2019. Will people care about the Beatles songs outside of the context of their role in history? Aren´t they all basic forms of music compared to some of the complex music we have today?

Eh, who cares. Let´s get rich and deal with the how and moral implications later.

Also starring Kate McKinnon, Ed Sheeran, and Joel Fry.

Scream number 2.

If you want a light movie with some Beatles covers and some light romance too, then I got a movie with you. If you care at all about plot or the ramifications, well, do not watch this movie.

This is the type of film where they had the idea and stopped developing it after the idea. There were a few cute moments about OTHER popular things that did not exist because of the Beatles fame. But the only one that made direct sense was Oasis, because of course. The filmmakers just nonchalantly picked other famous things to delete as well.

Were they because of the no Beatles? Were they also wiped during this weird event? Were they the real thing that was disappeared and that caused no Beatles? They do not explain it at all, and do not make an attempt.

And also, as most of us would assume, no one would get super famous from Beatles music in 2019, if it didn´t come out 60-70 years ago. No way at all. So his strange rise to success feels forced and at no point am I given a believable picture of this strange rise to fame.

Just kidding. A scene where his parents gave no fuck that he was unveiling a new song for them to hear, and interrupted him multiple times? That was believable.

A concept that could have been great, but was instead left up to mysteries and lack of thought.

1 out of 4.

Two movies were hailed as being the next Superbad for 2019 (12 years after Superbad came out. I don’t think movies were really compared to it before?). The first was Booksmart, or Superbad for a modern age with ladies! And it was amazing.

The next was Good Boys, or Superbad for middle school (and for a modern age)!

And Booksmart was great, one of my favorites of the year. And I am disappointed with myself in missing Good Boys in theaters, as it would have probably been even better surrounded by other assholes like me laughing my asshole off.

Is this some sort of middle school fantasy film? The Bean Bag Boys have been best buds since the early years, and now they are in middle school, ready to kick butt. However, they interests are no longer all lined up the same way, and now it is considered uncool to have passions. Like singing, or niceness, or smarts.

Max (Jacob Tremblay), Lucas (Keith L. Williams), and Thor (Brady Noon) are trying to navigate the new waters, and dealing with bullies, dealing with drugs, alcohol, nicknames, and pursuing their passions.

And like every plot line in middle and high school, a lot of this revolves around a party. Max was invited to a kissing party, with his friends able to come to, but first they need to figure out how to kiss. This leads them on a wild adventure in town, skipping school, getting chased by high schoolers (Molly Gordon, Midori Francis), dealing with perverts, cops, and more.

Also starring a lot of adults, like, Sam Richardson, Enid-Raye Adams, Retta, Lil Rel Howery, Mariessa Portelance, Stephen Merchant, and Will Forte. Also some kids, like Izaac Wang and Millie Davis.

It’s also great to see puberty effect people differently. 

Good Boys was first and foremost hilarious. I was worried going into it that this would be about middle schoolers who curse a lot and that is the amusement factor. But since they were good kids, they weren’t doing bad things, they were trying to do the right thing and getting into bad situations. It provided a much better humor type.

It is funny to be in these extreme circumstances, since they don’t know what is going on and aren’t familiar with all the words/terminology that are being used. The banter between the kids feels realistic and they feel like real best buds, even if it is trying times between them.

The real stand out to me was Williams, who much best embraced the ideals of being a good kid. He was given the best lines and situations, and I hope to see him in a lot of things in the future.

I laughed like a kid and I watched it on my own, and that is a weird thing for a person to do. It was a good simple comedy, and a nice bright surprise in this year of film.

3 out of 4.

There was quite a lot of nostalgic hype for Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark when it was coming out. Well put together trailers, books come to life, all of that.

Now, unfortunately for me I never read the stories so I didn’t ride the hype train. Fortunately for me, I am a critic and shouldn’t read the source material first. I definitely read some other non-Goosebump series of stories in 3rd or 4th grade, that had sequels, but I couldn’t recall those titles.

Despite that, it looked really good from the trailers from what I saw. A horror movie aimed at families and kids, without relying on slapstick jokes every other sentence. Kids should have entryways into horror, and this looked like something I would show my own family and creep them the heck out.

Ah, a haunted house, how original.Got a small town? Then you probably got a haunted house.

This small town is like many others. Notably white, jocks can do whatever they want, rampant racism, and more.

So our main group of friends (Zoe Margaret Colletti, Austin Zajur, Gabriel Rush) run into this Hispanic dude from outside of the town (Michael Garza), and because he helped them, they are now best buds.

And so of course they take him to the local haunted house, what else are they supposed to do so close to Halloween? And sure enough, they find a secret passage, maybe a torture room, one with a nice book. So our lead takes the book to read later!

And weirdly enough, the book begins to write stories so she can read a long. This seems to match up with some kids disappearing. Very scary. Oh no, are they all going to die now?

Also starring Kathleen Pollard, Lorraine Toussaint, Natalie Ganzhorn, Austin Abrams, Gil Bellows, and Dean Norris.

I couldn’t tell you why this was scary, but it did look fun. Ahh, stories!

I will give this movie props for one thing. It killed off kids and/or made them disappear forever, and we do not get a resolution out of that. Oh they tease a sequel on trying to fix it, sure, but no in movie resolution. Those. Kids. Are. Dead.

And most of the kids in the movie, outside of the bully, are main characters! They didn’t just kill off a lot of side kids and leave our fab four, no, they were gutted as well. And movies for this age group rarely do that. Since this movie is based on an anthology of short horror stories, they could have done whatever they wanted, and they went the darkest timeline.

And yet, for me, it did bore me a lot at times. The stories were okay. I’m sure they were ones in the book. But they didn’t do a lot in order to make them super relevant to each other or the plot, but instead random happenings and creeps. Some of them were based on their real life town, some based on stories they heard as a kid, and some based on absolutely nothing. They could have done a lot better job at meshing them together.

Overall, this film had a singular goal as far as I can tell, besides nostalgia money. They wanted to scare my kids, and yes, they did succeed at that.

2 out of 4.