Tag: Joel Courtney

Pursued is part of Make Believe Seattle, and it is having its world premier on Saturday, March 25, 2023. 

Pursued is one of the many films getting its world premier at Make Believe Festival in Seattle this week. What personally drew me in was not the few actor names I actually recognized, but the teenage sleuth feel of it all. I am sure it would have normal horror and thriller vibes throughout it. But high school students finding clues, and finding a killer? At the threat of their own lives? That could be fun.

I mean, I used to be a teacher. The high school students I know, for the most part, were very apathetic, even when it came to passing their classes, so it is always nice to see there are some students out there, even if they are fictional characters, who have passions and desires in SOMETHING.

Besides. Horror film that take place with high school students usually means we get to have deaths in the school, and hey, public schooling at this point already feels like death.

Is this old guy a clue? Is it her dad? Is it a killer? 

Lark (Madison Lawlor) is a high school girl, just trying to live her life, go to parties, and kick ass. Like everyone else. But one night she sneaks out, and when her dad was driving on the way to get her, he got into a car accident. Shit. Now her dad is dead, and it is sort of her fault. She has to carry that guilt.

Some time later, still in high school, we have her actively dating and doing things now, trying to live her best life. Her mom (Molly Ringwald), is finally in the dating game, and dating Mark Franc (Angus Macfadyen). Hey, that is a pretty generic sounding name. In general, Lark doesn’t like the sound of him, so she does her own googling.

And somehow, strangely enough, this leads her on a dark path. Where she finds out the identity of another Mark Franc, who just so happens to be a serial killer. But first she needs proof! She needs help! That way justice can be had. But soon Lark gets far too over her head, and her friends start dying, and she starts to get threats, and well. Hope she doesn’t ruin her mom’s new found happiness by also getting murdered, ya know?

Also starring Joel Courtney, Paul Sorvino, Sam Trammell, Miesha Tate, and Taylor Blackwell.

Same question. Is he the killer? He could easily just be a teacher getting home after working with assholes.

Lark in this movie is no Nancy Drew, but to be fair, the movie didn’t advertise that element at all either. It is just something I wanted. Did the lead solve some clues, and do some nice breaking and entering to solve a murder? Oh, you betcha.

But she also was still a teenager, who made bad decisions, and dug herself into a hole she did not know how to get out of.

Unfortunately for this hole, it felt more laughable than scary. There is always a suspicion of disbelief in these films, you know, murderers who are strong and apparently the best at covering up their tracks. But there was too much in this film for me to get over that fact, unfortunately. It wasn’t giving a film with supernatural elements, so having the murderer go “Halloween Kills” on a group of people who were bigger, stronger, and had him already trapped felt more annoying than anything, at what felt like a good an appropriate ending. [Editor’s Note: That scene in Halloween Kills I hated so much, and this movie is not really that close]. But the film instead needed to continue, and go further. It already felt like it was dragging at that point, but to make it go even more further felt like an awkward decision.

If it broke some cliches in the process, it would have helped. But instead we got still a pretty standard ending, after a less than exciting film. Even though it ended on a weak note, its mediocrity of a story wasn’t going to save it either. I would not pursue Pursued into theaters at any time soon.

1 out of 4.

Here we go, here we go, here we go.

First of all, I apologize for never writing out my review of The Kissing Booth 2. I had a lot to rant about and did it live in person a few times, but never got it all down on a review, and that made it worse since it made my worst film of the year last year.

So I knew with the final (better be) film I would make sure to jot it all down. The Kissing Booth 3, a movie that seemingly exists just to make it a trilogy, because they damn well could have finished the storylines established at the end of the 2nd film, but left it with a cliffhanger because they think resolving any aspect of a movie is pointless, I guess.

I am mostly fine with cliffhanger endings in general, in a planned series, but I also would demand that the film tells a complete story. Avengers: Infinity War ends with a sour note, kind of a cliffhanger (because the bad guy wins?) but it also tells a complete story and no one should leave unfulfilled. The second movie ended with a single decision to make and just suddenly decides to not do it.

Fuck that.

Fuck this.As you know, of course, the last time we left off, Elle (Joey King) not knowing where to go college. Harvard, or Berkeley. Because of course if she goes to Berkeley, which she has talked to going for years with her best friend Lee (Joel Courtney) and was their dream. But her boyfriend, Lee’s older brother, Noah (Jacob Elordi) is a year older and in Harvard. If she chooses to go there, she will pick her love life, her future, and you know, it is Harvard. Should she care about a promise to a best friend? Well, she is already lying to both of them saying she is wait listed on both, so she can take her time.

After a few weeks of travel with them and Lee’s girlfriend (Meganne Young), they still have a lot of summer left, and decide to go to Lee and Noah’s family beach house. But oh no! Their parents (Molly Ringwald, Morné Visser ) are going to sell the place after this summer! The kids somehow convince the parents to just let them live there the rest of the summer then, and they promise to clean it up and get it ready for the market. This is where Elle finds an old Beach Bucket list that she made with Lee. They decide to make it the best summer ever, especially since Elle has decided to go to Harvard.

But that isn’t all the plot! For example, her dad (Stephen Jennings) is maybe finding love after all these years, someone to help raise the much younger son (Carson White). And Elle hates it.

But that isn’t all the plot! Marco (Taylor Zakhar Perez) is still around, making Lee jealous. And Chloe (Maisie Richardson-Sellers) is still around, not making Elle jealous. Also Lee has to deal with the fact that he will be in a long term relationship with a girl he already has problems remembering, because he is a goddamn man-child. And Elle has to come to terms with the fact that she is in a relationship with Noah, who keeps having emotional bursts of jealousy (usually for good reasons), but also because he is a goddamn man-child. And Elle has to come to terms with her own shiftiness, because she is a goddamn womanchild.

Wow, good pristine condition after 8-10 years. 

How does one start to talk about a movie, nay, a franchise, like The Kissing Booth. Something written by a teenager, and every aspect of that fact is obvious through every scene, decision, and dialogue choice.

The fact that it is called The Kissing Booth isn’t even an issue. It is, for all intents and purposes, a minor part of the first film and still fine to be a dialogue. The dialogue choices from the narrator to overhype the minor part, and constantly try to bring it back through relevance, is really what hurts. Because in the second movie, it has even less of a point on the plot, and of course, in the last movie, is just once again unnecessarily brought back up in the epilogue, six years in the future, because apparently that is where several characters need to meet up at and pretend they never really stayed in communication the times before that.  This aspect of the movie makes more sense if the movie was set in the 1920’s, where maybe there was never a kissing booth beside it, because then we could all understand the strange hype and obsession with it.

The main character Elle is a terrible person. And role model, in case anyone looks up to her for that. You can have movies about bad people, but usually those people have some sort of consequence for their action, or a really hard choice that they will live with for regret to get to their power. Important things to show that those who hurt are hurt in return. But Elle? The girl who actively cheated on her boyfriend while he was away at college, both physically and mentally, and kissed another boy publicly. The one who demanded all the free time of her best friend so much that he literally forgot about her girlfriend who for some reason stuck it with him.

So what does she do this movie? Well, she is more trusting of her boyfriend that he won’t cheat on her, which is great, because he never did. And she decides that means she can hang out and plan things with someone she did cheat on him with, who made it obvious he wants to still win her over? She also decides to get upset with her best friend who wants to do so many things with her, when it was both her idea to make him feel better for it (after lying for over a month) and she did the same thing last year with no care for repercussions?

Let’s be clear on the things that happen to Elle negatively this film. One, her dad is dating a woman and Elle gets mad at her, and lashes out cause of her other shit, over one of the worst board games ever made (Monopoly), and still doesn’t care, until her dad calls her out on her bullshit and makes her feel bad. Second bad thing that happens to her is her boyfriend broke up with her over her bullshit.

Wow. Well let us make it obvious. She has a lot of bullshit and keeps making mistakes and never learning from them. He should have never been with her over the events of The Kissing Booth 2.  But even more importantly, SHE SHOULD HAVE NEVER BEEN WITH HIM DUE TO THE EVENTS OF THE MOVIE THE KISSING BOOTH. Where he was shown to be emotionally abusive, and threatened other guys to leave her alone for years while he was on his own path of getting experience before trying out her. He is shown to not handle any really conversation or argument well time and time again, which is why he runs off and does dumb shit all the time. And so does she. They are both really bad people, which doesn’t make it a good fit for them. Nor does it warrant spending three movies to talk about this relationship.

The problem with this movie is the impressions it leaves on people. Since there is almost no real consequences for any of the characters being terrible, it just helps reinforce that being terrible is a great thing for people to be. After all, look at all the fun they are having. Did you see those costumes? [Editor’s Important Note: Why the fuck does the go-kart track at a water park have stands for people to watch. Do people just sit there all day and look for exciting basic races? It was more than just a parent sitting area.]

I could talk so much about the other technical problems with the movie. Like how all over the place it is in time. When was it set? When did they make the beach bucket list? Why is going to Berkeley on a beach bucket list? Why would they hide it in a hidden time box if the goal was to actually complete it, and they went to the beach every summer? Why does the box have a Super Nintendo Mario Kart design, as if it was set in the 90’s? That goes with my earlier question about time. Because things on the list don’t make sense for various age groups they would have written it.

This is a trilogy that trivializes high school, relationships, proper communication, and the ability to fucking apologize.

0 out of 4.

Welcome to a Movie Roundup! A movie roundup features a few films that I didn’t feel like making full reviews for, but needed to get basic reviews out there for completionist reasons. It also helps me deal with my backlog. It may have a theme, and today’s theme is Online Releases 2018! Basically, things that started out on the internet, ideally a streaming website, because it is a loose theme, and I will take it.

Being on a movie round up doesn’t mean a movie is inherently bad, or good, or meh. I can feature any rating on here! So don’t assume the worst! I will also just post the reviews in alphabetical order.

Online Releases 2018

The Ballad of Buster Scruggs

Can we go wrong with the Coen brothers? Yes, we totally can. But I can’t help but feel something wonderful when they continually try to do something different, or make the normal a lot more eccentric. This time, they went back to the former, while also going back to some of those old timey western roots, which are arguably their best movies. Except this time, it is straight to Netflix, and an Anthology movie with six short films instead. The only connection? Western.

This ends up working really well, even if I can say I didn’t love every part of the anthology. Unfortunately, the best and most fun was the first of the stories, and probably me least favorite was number two. I really enjoyed the one about the prospectors and the woman with her not dog too. When it works, it really works, and when it doesn’t work, it is still well made and a bit beautiful, if not full of fuckery. This is not a happy movie, and it can easily be watched in parts, and deserves praise for its individual shorts that work out amazingly well.

3 out of 4.

None of these people share a scene with the others.

The Kissing Booth

On the other hand, Netflix has made it clear its strategy isn’t to appeal to just the best movie ever, but to instead go for all the demographics so that they all have something to watch, which is fair. Netflix having a shit movie doesn’t mean that Netflix is bad, I just don’t have to watch it…if I am a normal movie goer.

But this movie is something else, and it has crawled out of the pits of hell thanks to some teenage girl. Yeah, it is based on a book, written by a teenage girl, on some website, and now its a movie. An uninspired romance movie, that seems to rely on the kissing booth as a feature, despite not being featured too heavily in the grand scope. It features a love interest who is super controlling, threatening, and uses his fists to solve problems. Ah, what good values to instill in our youth.

0 out of 4.

Help, help, I’m trapped in a 90s movie.

My Dinner with Hervé

Over on HBO, they also like to do movies, and shows, and documentaries. In this one, we have dudes as the stars, with one of them being one of their biggest stars of their biggest show. Makes sense. Peter Dinklage playing a biographical role, of possibly the most famous little person in history (before Peter Dinklage and Verne Troyer), Hervé Villechaize. Made famous for being in Fantasy Island and The Man With The Golden Gun.

Now, this is all according to a journalist, but it is based on the night out on the town with Hervé, where he also recounts his whole life story leading up to the point, his rises, and his many many downfalls. Dinklage does an amazing job of transforming himself, or what I know about himself, and this is an extremely touching tale of a childhood of abuse and sadness, while still trying to make something about it. It never seems to go deep enough into the sadder parts though, and probably skirts around important details. I just knew that it started off way better than it eventually ended.

2 out of 4.

And that is also true about life, I suppose.

Slice

Slice might not technically fit this theme, because it came out on VOD, but hey, my themes are loose, and I want it in this post. Slice is the type of movie that is just so out there, it is hard to believe that it even exists. Vampires, werewolves, zombies, ghosts, murder mystery, pizza store, witches, and such a strange plot and concept. It is the type of movie that when describing it you know will have a cult following and probably LARPing in the future.

But in all honestly, it just doesn’t work out well. The only redeeming factor is that it definitely feels original. It just is a weird mash of ideas that aren’t fully explained because it isn’t fully thought through. It is cool, it is weird, but it is definitely not good.

1 out of 4.

Although, it made me want pizza, so good job there.

The Tale

Finally, another HBO movie (sorry Hulu), that I didn’t even know came out this last summer. I would have never known it existed if it didn’t get nominated for a Spirit award. I mean, it has a big name in it, and it is about sexual abuse when someone was a child. Sure, a fictional tale, but a tale that resonates due to how often similar “tales” have been told by other girls in relation to their coaches while growing up. Hell, the gymnastics scandal was in 2018, maybe even going on after this movie. It is very relevant.

Dern plays someone very vulnerable and stubborn at the same time. It doesn’t end with fireworks, but plays it in a more realistic way. More importantly, the girl who plays the younger version is amazing at her role. Her acting, in normal kid way, amplifies the creepiness of everything. It puts the viewer in a dark place and really helps bring the hate towards these sexual predators.

3 out of 4.

These two adults are now on my despise list, well done!

Overall, steaming platforms put out a lot of duds, and some successes. And especially Netflix, because I will never catch up on on their new releases. Or, maybe I will, if I just keep the review format like this and not larger. But these ones caught my eye for some reason or another and I chose them to watch to review, and never got around to actually writing.

Super 8, by JJ Abrams, has been one of the more hyped releases for awhile now. (Outside of Twilights, Harry Potters, and Hangover 2). Honestly, I have been asked a LOT when this movie is finally coming out, as they pushed it back at least once from October to now.

But I think a lot of the hype is warranted.

Feel free to commence “OH Facing” now.

The film takes place at the end of the 70s, Disco is still good, and technology is still not rampant. If it was, these kids would have a jillion youtube hits. Riley Griffiths is a kid with a dream, to make a movie on his 8MM camera and be shown in a local festival. So he gets his friends, borrows a camera, and starts his dream. Doing a zombie flick. Yay zombies! They even convince AJ Michalka (sister of Aly!) to join their project and be the detective(Gabriel Brasso from The Big C)’s wife.

Afterall, ever good production needs some T&A. For the kids, that is her. Also involved are Zach Mills, Ryan Lee, and Joel Courtney, son of a cop (Kyle Chandler), great at makeup, and actual main character (Got cha!).

While filming a scene at the local train station, they see a train coming past. They quickly rush to film their scene, thanks to the great production value! But a dude in a truck rams the train and everything goes to hell. The End.

Or not. Holy shit wreckage everyone running, and the camera filmed it all! But what were those weird noises? Did they see a creature? What about these cube things? Whats going on? They of course decide to tell no one they were out there, run away, and (sort of) try to solve the mystery, while at the same time weird things (thievery) and deaths begin to happen around time.

So yeah. That is what this movie is about. Making movies. Young life love and friendships. And holy shit alien monster thing.

I really liked it though. A lot of the kids are more or less unknown actors, who have only one (this) or a few film credits. So the majority of the cast was just fresh and new, giving it a more real feel. Unless you watched the Friday Night Lights series, then you probably don’t know Kyle Chandler either. What I really liked was just the emotions everyone conveyed in the movie. Their fear seemed real (probably had Rob Reiner yelling at them, for some reason), and their strive to work together just gave that “ah, youth! nostalgia!” feeling.

You won’t be screwed into never seeing the monster. You will get more than enough to appease that palette, don’t worry.

This could be the next E.T, and it only took 30 years. Is it? I don’t know, I never saw that movie.

Don’t give me that look kid. I just never saw it. That is what happens when it comes out before you are born and the parents never show it to you when you’re a kid. What? hey. Come back here. Readers! Stop leaving my site saying I have lost all my movie credentials! Noooooo!

You guys should watch it. It is about 2 hours long. Some parts in the middle are a bit more boring than the rest, but if you sally forth, you can make it, I swear. Also, in the credits you get to see the Zombie movie in all its awesomeness.

4 out of 4