Tag: Martin Henderson

A movie called X? I don’t know how my website will handle that. I know it hates when reviews are just numbers, it hates that a lot. But I don’t think I have reviewed a regular letter yet.

(Checks). Oh I did! The movie W. Don’t read that review, it is terrible, it was in the beginning. So X shouldn’t be a problem.

I am guessing that this film would have been called xXx if that one action franchise hadn’t happened. You know. Because of the pornographic content. Soon, people from Texas will be protesting this film even being in theaters I bet. Not like they have anything better to do I guess.

I am running this official photo purely to increase clicks. Can I be protested now?

Let’s head back to the late 1970’s in rural Texas, somewhere outside of Houston. A local strip club owner (Martin Henderson) has decided he should be financing a porno film! Debbie Does Dallas was recently released, and porn might not just be for perverts anymore? So he gets some of his dancers and friends together, to put up a script and film this bad boy right. 

He is bringing along his girlfriend and dancer, Maxine (Mia Goth), who wants to be a star, and another dancer, Bobby-Lynne (Brittany Snow). He has a friend of his to be the main dick (Kid Cudi), and he hired a real director (Owen Campbell) and his girlfriend (Jenna Ortega) to make this shoot look good and professional.  As producer, he just needed to find a place for them to film, which with the economy as it is, was easy. He was able to rent a whole other house on a farm, and maybe the barn too. Sure, he didn’t tell them the why he was renting, but that was on a need to know basis. 

The farmer (Stephen Ure) and his wife (also Mia Goth), are very old, and a bit out there, and certainly conservative. But what is the worst that can happen if they find out the truth? Time to fill the next porno classic, The Farmer’s Daughters. 

Also starring Simon Prast. 

The crew set to change cinema forever.

I mentioned recently that I have only seen two Texas Chainsaw movies in my life (unfortunately, just the last two), and even I found the recent one dreadful. But, this is probably the best sequel to a Texas Chainsaw movie ever, without being an actual Texas Chainsaw movie. Sure, technically, this one doesn’t have any chainsaws. But it does feature Texas and a Massacre. I haven’t seen the original, but I have to imagine the tone of that film seems to match this one pretty well, based on pop culture osmosis. 

For the actors, everyone seemed to really be giving it their all. Henderson seemed to be channeling everything from Matthew McConaughey that he could muster. I don’t know how I will see Snow in Hairspray again after this movie (don’t worry, she still sings in this movie). Cudi was hilarious as the male actor for the porno shoot, and was a real strong presence.  Ortega has the freak out face on lock after this and Scream. Campbell felt like a more Texan Martin Starr with movie filming knowledge, and was a fun cast member as a result.

As for the main lead, Goth, who played two roles. Well, first, I didn’t realize she was the old lady until writing this review. It makes sense, given what happens in the film. And the old lady certainly looked like someone in old makeup, so it is an interesting decision to just reuse her. I think she played her main role really well at least, and have a few complaints about the old lady, but not enough to fully detract from the film.

Apparently the director, Ti West, also filmed a prequel film to this one already, with the old lady, younger, during a war? I don’t think I care about that film idea at all. What story relevance would that have? I am happy to be surprised, I guess. 

X is campy when it needs to be, erotic at points, and still at its heart, guts, and insides, a horror film. Some of the deaths are obvious to track, but that isn’t a big issue. It is still entertaining, unique, and scary at points. A very proud, unofficial, sequel to The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

The Strangers was a really popular horror film a decade ago when it came out and I of course never watched it. Okay, I did see it last week, just to prepare for this sequel, to see why people were excited. There is a lot to like for those who want more realism in their films about people getting killed.

It was terrifying because it was set up as a completely random occurrence, it was something that could ¨happen to anyone¨ and not just people who drank or smoked or whatever. The bad people don´t have some strange backstories, hell, we never get to see their faces. They just torture, kill, and leave.

I watched that movie just to have some context for The Strangers: Prey at Night, and boy howdy, I am surely glad I did that. If I did not see the original, I would have never known just how badly this so called sequel actually was.

The lady in the back will help her fit through those holes.

This film centers us on a family going through turmoil. No, not people with knives, just teenage disobedience. We got a mom (Christina Hendricks), a dad (Martin Henderson), an older brother (Lewis Pullman), and our hero I guess, Kinsey (Bailee Madison).

Kinsey is a bit of a fuck up. Besides the underage drinking and smoking, she got into some serious problems over the last year and now her parents cannot deal with her anymore. She is going to boarding school, and they are all going to drive her down there. It is the last shot they have to fix her. They are staying the night in a trailer at one of their relative´s resorts, their last night as a family.

Oh, and then they find out that everyone is gone or dead there. And the three masked people are around, trying to spook them, or even kill them, or worse, sell them on the black market. Probably not the former. They just want to kill them for the lols.

Starring Damian Maffei, Lea Enslin, and Emma Bellomy as our masked killers.

Fear is imagining the hardworking Hendricks as a boring stay at home mother.

Everything good and wonderful about the first film was thrown out of the window for this follow up.

There was one or so surprises in the sequel. I will give it that. Things that I didn´t think would ever happen did happen, so it gave some nice shock. But that was the only positive.

Instead of regular people getting tortured by seemingly regular people, we instead have a whole family being terrorized by superhuman monsters. They are seemingly invulnerable at times, including one of them near the end that just never stops. Suddenly the guy with the bag head is Jason I guess.

Not to mention their ability to teleport around this trailer park area. It is crazy how they always happen to know which house they are hiding in. They always have someone nearby ready to go, even if they were just at some other place. I am having a hard time typing it, but coincidence central could be this movie. The movie was better when it was a single house because it all made sense then. But a giant resort village? Yeah right.

This film feels like it was not meant to be a sequel to The Strangers, but they changed their mind and said fuck it for some of that sweet brand recognition. Everything that made the first film work was just ignored and left to rot.

Miracles From Heaven is the latest close to Easter Christian film release to happen this year, the first being Risen, and the next one after this being God’s Not Dead 2. I figured I should tell you that these all exist, because it is easy to get lost in it all.

Miracles is by the people who brought us Heaven Is For Real from a few years ago, also based on a book based on a true story. And of course, Heaven is in both titles. They want you to know right off the bat what you are getting in to.

Sure, I almost never rate Christian films highly, because they are all pretty similar. Overacting, cheesiness, non realistic situations, straw men, whatever. But what annoyed me in particular about this one ahead of time was the marketing. I barely saw anything for it, but I did see a viral post on the Facebook. At the risk of giving this random person more views, here it is if you haven’t seen it.

Now, first of all, yes it is just the trailer. And the trailer is cut off on the left and right due to the actual size of the post. But this trend of having text on the top and bottom of gifs or videos is incredibly annoying. First of all, it takes away from the original creators of the gif/video, and puts someone else’s mark on it. It usually changes the distortion of the video and makes it smaller. But lastly, what an annoying thing to even write on just a trailer to get people to share. It feels underhanded and deceptive almost. I hope I don’t start seeing more of these, because people will fall for this way of advertising apparently and not realize how crap it is.

And of course, you also have to see the trailer for this film, which tells 100% the whole damn story of the movie.

Oh hey. That guy. I like that guy. Never mind, I need to see this movie!

Let’s journey back in time to a few years ago to Texas. Near Ft. Worth, not near Dallas. We will meet the Beam family, which is a strange last name to hear a lot as you will assume bean half the time. The patriarch is Kevin (Martin Henderson), a veterinarian, who recently convinced his wife, Christy (Jennifer Garner) to let him open up a bigger clinic. They have a lot of animals on their large farm, but also three daughters: Amy (Brighton Sharbino), Anna (Kylie Rogers), and Adelyn (Courtney Fansler).

Anna is our main girl though, the middle child, because she has stomach pains and no one knows how to help her. Eventually they figure out that her intestines are not working, they are basically bloated and paralyzed, so she cannot eat any solid foods. She has to switch to liquids. It is a disease with still no known cure, so it is mostly about making her comfortable through all the pain and living with her for the few months or years she may have. But Christy will not accept it. So no matter the cost, no matter the strain on her family, she will help her daughter. They even get her into the best doctor who works with kids with these sorts of problems. Dr. Nurko (Eugenio Derbez)! Except he is in Boston with a long waiting list.

Well, they will get through this. No matter who loses faith. No matter who gives up on life. No matter what strange accidents that might occur eventually and cure the disease surprisingly despite no known cure.

Also featuring some smaller roles from Kevin Sizemore, Queen Latifah, Bruce Altman, and John Carroll Lynch as the preacher.

Damn this family just looks perfect.

Okay here we go. Miracles From Heaven was not as bad as most other Christian cinema. It wasn’t overly cheesy, nor was it overly preachy. The acting was average to good, only poor acting coming from some random extras. It also did a lot better at connecting to the viewer on an emotional level. It doesn’t make it a great movie, it just makes it better.

Now of course, I am still a relatively new father. So movies that are about the potential (or actual) loss of a child, especially a girl, really get right up into my brain and make me feel the sad feels. So yes, Miracles From Heaven made me cry. Not just once, or twice, but several times. Just getting caught up in all of the emotions, the sad and the happy. After all, once you start flowing, it is hard to really stop. So obviously the film did a wonderful job there of jerking the tears.

In all honesty, a lot of me just seemed to feel bad for Kevin, who had to try and hold everything together, working long hours, still taking care of the kids and missing out on events, while trying to be an emotional rock for his family.

But enough about that. This movie did feel too long. And if you saw the trailer, there is not a whole lot of reason to see the movie outside of an emotional experience, because you see how she even gets healed. There were a lot of unnecessary scenes without any real payoff, like Queen Latifah’s character. You could cut her out of the movie easily and you wouldn’t miss out at all. It felt like there were several potential ending points, which kept me feeling tied down. And of course story wise, there isn’t a whole lot of plot.

Only one “prayer” scene felt really awkward or out of place, and that was when Christy was losing her faith and yelling at the sky. There was also a heaven scene that got really strange, but I guess it was required to happen.

Oh well. A decent recounting of the true story of a girl who had issues who then lost them after getting into an accident. What it doesn’t try to do is prove that Jesus is real through the story. It is only a small part. Unlike Heaven Is For Real, which is all about trying to prove it with terrible evidence, this is a story about a family going through a tough time and becoming stronger on the other side. Miracles is now the new film that I will compare all future Christian films to.

Here is a dumb question you can ask your friends and coworkers if you want them to dislike you a little bit more than they already do.

“Before Mount Everest was discovered, what was the highest mountain on Earth?” This will make them ponder and come up with some bad guess, and you can quickly toss in a “It was still Mount Everest, it just wasn’t discovered, dipshit!” And again, you will lose friends.

My main problem with this joke, as a geophysicist/movie reviewer, is that it assumes that Mount Everest was always the tallest mountain on Earth, and that things don’t change. But we know they change, we know India and Asia weren’t always smashing into each other, so there is a real answer to the question of what used to be the tallest mountain before Mount Everest took over.

Turns out this knowledge is hard to get to and a bit awkward. But know there is a real answer out there. Just modern technology hasn’t always existed.

Oh yeah, I am supposed to talk about Everest. I think I should watch it on a large screen to give the large mountain its necessary honor.

Like a very gentle soft touch on its top most tip.

About 50-55 million years ago, India collided with Asia. It was probably the fastest moving tectonic plate ever, as it split with what is now Madagascar, presumably looking for a new climate. India was on an oceanic plate that was subducting under Asia at the time, which is the why it moved so fast. Once they crashed, the Himalaya mountains decided to be a thing, as the two land masses crumbled into each other, upward and forward! They grew fast and grew hard, making some really tall mountains that are still growing today. Mount Everest, aka Sagarm?th?, aka Chomolungma, currently sitting at 29,029 ft above sea level. Everest’s main purpose seems to be looking tall and killing crazy white assholes.

Oh, but maybe you care about those assholes? Well in that case, the film itself takes place in 1996, based on a real life disaster that took place that year and had like, five books written about it from survivors. Lot of primary sources to work with.

But our main character is Rob Hall (Jason Clarke), owner of Adventure Consultants out of New Zealand leads groups up Everest for large sums, helping them the whole way. He was the first to do this as a commercial business. There is also Scott Fischer (Jake Gyllenhaal), main guide of Mountain Madness, who started doing the same thing later. In 1996, it was extremely popular though, and there were dozens of groups up there, all trying to use the few mountain paths to make it to the top, around the same time, causing a lot of problems.

Speaking of people, we have a few more notables. Like the fact that Rob’s wife (Kiera Knightley) is at home, pregnant, ready to give birth not long after his return. And Jon Krakauer (Michael Kelly), a journalist who is going to write about his experience. And Doug Hansen (John Hawkes), a regular guy who worked three jobs to save up money to hike Everest, making his second attempt to the peak to help school kids realize that dreams come true! And Beck Weathers (Josh Brolin), from Texas, a cocky dude who feels good when he climbs, but is depressed back at home. And and and and of course Anatoli Boukreev (Ingvar Eggert Sigurðsson), one of the guides working with Fischer, and a general bamf climber.

Honestly, plot reviews are easy in this case, because I don’t have to describe bad things happening. I just have to talk about who is involved. And since it is such a big cast, here are a few other people involved!

Emily Watson played the base camp leader with Elizabeth Debicki as their team doctor. Thomas M. Wright, Martin Henderson, and Tom Goodman-Hill play the other 3 guides and Sam Worthington plays a literal Guy who works with Adventuring Consultants, and in real life later becomes their director and CEO. Naoko Mori plays Yasuko Namba, who had climbed 6 of the 7 main peaks with Everest as her last, and Robin Wright as the wife of Beck Weathers.

Color coding the hikers is a good strategy, but I feel bad for anyone who got stuck with red.

Apparently, sometimes, I get a little bit emotional over some geology. Because at least one scene in particular had me bawling my eyes out. I mean I found myself crying in the dark theater, surrounded by strangers, crying for like two minutes. It wasn’t even at the end of film, it was probably about 80% of the way through. I am just an emotional wreck since I had a baby, I guess.

Everest is an intense, dramatic, and gorgeous film. It was made in particular to be experience first hand on an IMAX screen. Sure, in the beginning, it is a bit weird as we get some character introductions, watching them hike to base camp and the weeks of training before they finally climb. It isn’t just a group of people running up a hill and facing constant threats. They don’t slowly die one at a time like it is a horror film. This is based on a true story and the attention to detail is astounding. It is easy to get things right when you have multiple books to figure it all out.

The last 40 minutes is extremely gripping. Not knowing the actual story, I didn’t know who would make it out alive so I was afraid for everyone. They all feel like real people and it is easy to connect with many of them before their eventual ascent.

Finally, I think my favorite part of this movie is that it isn’t about a group of people trying to battle nature and show their dominance. It is really about a mountain, who gives zero fucks about the insignificant life forms that sometimes explore its slopes. It is about how nature is unforgiving and doesn’t care about how much prep work occurs, it will do what it wants, when it wants. It is about how life doesn’t care if you are a good person, or a bad person, a newbie or a trainer climber, you are just as likely to get killed in a heart beat.

Nature is a fucking beast. And Everest is fucking good.