Tag: Thriller

According to some people, there is only allowed to be one good horror movie a year. Something that is clearly leagues above the rest in terms of story, production value, acting, and whatever. Last year it was It Follows, the year before that The Babadook. In 2013 we had The Conjuring, and if I can plug my own favorite for 2012, I’d say Sinister.

Without watching The Witch, you can tell it is the type of movie that would love that distinction. Hell, it was a horror movie that played in festivals. That is a rarity.

It also very early in the year, most of the best films have come out in the second half (except for It Follows). All I can really say about 2016 before this movie is that it surely isn’t The Forest and it definitely isn’t The Final Project.

Creepy mood lighting: Perfect for scary hiding witches.

In the early 1600’s, America was a scary place. You lived on the plantation with other settlers, you did what you were told, you survived attacks from the natives, and you struggled to survive. To be banished would be akin to death. But for one family, they accepted banishment. The patriarch, William (Ralph Ineson), was a devoutly Christian man and he was upset with the plantation church. He disagreed with them on the book of God, and so he accepted the banishment because he knew the Lord would provide for his faithful family.

So he took his wife (Kate Dickie), oldest daughter Thomasin (Anya Taylor-Joy), slightly teenager son Caleb (Harvey Scrimshaw), and young twins Mercy and Jonas (Ellie Grainger, Lucas Dawson), on a cart into the world to find their new home.

Well after a few months they have a sizable farm. A house, a barn, some sheds. They have grown corn, have some goats and chickens and are surviving. Oh, and the wife gave birth to a baby boy, Samuel. Oh, but the corn crops have developed a rot and most of it isn’t edible. And while Thomasin was playing peek-a-boo with Samuel, Samuel disappeared. They can’t find him and assumed a wolf took him. But maybe it was something sinister? Maybe a witch?

These are only the first of their many problems. Distrust, poorness, hunger. And maybe a witch is causing tiny issues to grow their family apart. Maybe it is all just their own religious fears and puritan values causing the anger. But bad auras are afoot, and no one can save them now.

Also featuring Bathsheba Garnett and Sarah Stephens.

This is a scariest forest than the forest in The Forest.

The Witch was directed and written by Robert Eggers, a man who clearly loves his job. The level of realism in this movie is incredible. From the outfits, to the language, to their principals and actions, everything just seems to make sense. I didn’t find myself shaking my head, wondering why a character did something. No. They all have their reasons and make perfectly logical decisions for their character based on the events unfolding around them. It is fantastic.

You might be wondering if I am actually saying that this is a “horror” movie with great acting, and I totally am. They all sound like they have been speaking that dialect their entire life. Admittedly, the dialogue at times is hard to understand and I don’t pick up every important word. But the point is still made and that point is authentic as fuck.

I wouldn’t describe The Witch as the scariest movie ever, but it is definitely extremely unsettling and it feels downright evil. This is a slow burn horror film. You are frightened because you are living in a Puritan family’s world, facing their real fears and taking on the world as they see it. It is very religious based, and that type of horror can affect someone on the psychological level.

For those who aren’t familiar, one big aspect of the Puritan Christianity is they believed that when they were born, they were pre-selected for Heaven or Hell. Most people were selected for Hell and there is nothing they could do to change their outcome in life. Clearly those meant for Heaven would do great things, and everyone else would have faults and be bad. But they couldn’t help it. So succumbing to your fate and living in constant worry was just some of the many things you would do during this time period.

The witches they show in this film also feel authentic. Eggers based everything on this film on primary sources of the time and it just adds to the downright creepy realism. I should also add the score created great tension with heavy violin play, and allowed the audience to get frightened without any cheap jump scares.

The Witch is hard to watch, frightful, and it is clear that everyone involved put everything they had into it. It is the type of horror film I could see myself watching again and again, just needing a few months or years of downtime in between.

Go home 2016, this is probably the best horror film of the year and one of the best films of the year.

Say what you will about Triple 9‘s vague title, but I think we can all agree that it is a better title than just 999.

This is one of the rare fun times where I actually know nothing about the film outside of movie posters and actors involved! But the director is John Hillcoat, who also directed Lawless and The Road, two films I adore.

And the cover gives a nice terrorist/angry gunman feel to it. A bit dark, something that feels more like a September film, not a February film.

Some rumors say this is actually the real True Detective Season 2.

Michael Atwood (Chiwetel Ejiofor) and his group (Norman Reedus, Aaron Paul, Anthony Mackie, Clifton Collins Jr.) are robbing a bank. Why? Well, working for a client. They are all friends, but more importantly, they are all ex-military, special forces, or cops. Current cops.

So they know how to get shit done. However, when they deliver the package to Irina Vlaslov (Kate Winslet), they don’t get paid, she demands a second, harder job (for more money), and also ends up killing one of the crew to shows he is serious. Michael can’t walk away, because his son is basically a hostage in this situation.

However, the second job involves breaking into a Department of Homeland Security building. They have guards, private security, and the cops have it on speed dial. So they decide that the only way they can pull off the heist is to do a code 999. Kill a cop. Then everyone in the area will report, because every cop wants to get a cop killer. They know who to pick too. Chris Allen (Casey Affleck), who is one of their new partners, just transferred over, and the son of Sergeant Detective Jeffrey Allen (Woody Harrelson) who is also on their case.

But can they do it? The team is a unique group of individuals. Some are shit, some are good guys deep down in bad circumstances, and some are just train wrecks.

Also starring Gal Gadot, Teresa Palmer, E. Roger Mitchell, Luis Da Silva Jr., Michelle Ang, and Michael Kenneth Williams a transgendered prostitute.

That last note is really all the reason you need to see this film. Even if it is just one scene.

First of all, let me just talk about Kate Winslet. She is a goddamn chameleon. I had no idea it was her in this movie. Just like I had no idea it was her in Steve Jobs. Her role wasn’t as good as it was in Steve Jobs, but it was unique and I just couldn’t tell it was her at all. I love these surprises in the credits.

Triple 9 has a lot of twists and turns, and honestly, most of them were not easy to predict at all. It was keeping me on the edge of the seat throughout the film. In fact, it begins like we are already in the middle of a story. It can take awhile to catch up, but it gradually gives you bits and pieces to help put the whole story together, to find out why these men know each other and why they are in this situation.

It is a great way of doing things, but it is perhaps its biggest downfall.

Triple 9 is also a crowded film. There are a few plot lines going on, all at the same time, and not everything makes sense. Not just unexplained plot points, but character actions. For the life of me, I don’t understand how a criminal organization, wanting an almost impossible job to be done, would kill one of the five member crew before hand to show they are serious, making it even more impossible. Dumb criminals are the worst, especially when on screen they are played off as being intelligent and calculating.

Harrelson was also disappointing in this movie. His character felt like a shit version of his character from True Blood. Less accent, but all the self destructive behavior. There was no way this man was the lead detective for any precinct, as he acted like some beat cop the whole time.

The action is great, the twists are good, but in all honesty a lot of the plot is generic/incomprehensible. Worth watching at least once, just from the comfort of your own home.

Shit. Did you know Mojave was the name of a desert? I think I dd,, but I had only heard it pronounced out loud before and never written.

So instead of pronouncing this as Mo-Ha-Ve as it actually is, I had to tell people I was going to see Mo-Jayve. No one knew what I was talking about, but thankfully it was so stupid that no one could even call me out on it due to their own confusion.

And uhh, unfortunately that is all my pre-story for this film. I knew absolutely nothing about this movie going in, not even the actors involves, so no cool trivia here!

The table once was used in a real room!

Thomas (Garrett Hudlund) was famous since he was 19. He lives in Hollywood, people know him. He is all up in that entertainment industry. And he doesn’t like where his life is at. His wife and daughter have moved to London and he is alone to wallow in his pity. He decides to head to the Mojave desert and maybe, you know, kill himself. After wandering a bit and setting up a camp, a stranger comes up to his camp seeing his fire. Jack (Oscar Isaac) is a weird dude. Talking about Satan and Jesus and talking about books. He is the type of guy that looks like he is up to no good, and maybe he is going to kill him. So Thomas attacks first and gets away.

During their adult hide and seek desert game, Thomas shoots a man coming into his cave and it turns out to be a police officer, not Jack. But Jack sees this happen. He knows what Thomas has done and he plans to use it against him. Especially when Jack finds out that Thomas is famous.

Thomas heads back to LA, not sure of what he should do. He doesn’t feel like he should turn himself in, for obvious reasons. He doesn’t think Jack will do so either, since he is pretty sure Jack killed a few people, so he doesn’t want to deal with the cops.

But Jack instead wants to just kill Thomas. Thomas got away from him earlier and he is a bad guy living in Hollywood pretending he didn’t kill a cop. Who is the sociopath now?!

Also with Mark Wahlberg as a coked up Producer and Walton Goggins as Thomas’ agent.

#NotAllCops deserve gun shots from cave men.

Mojave starts off slightly confusing and pretentious, and doesn’t change a lot along the way. I was confused after the first desert scenes. I thought I was suddenly watching flashbacks, no idea where the narrative was going when Thomas got back to LA. It all didn’t seem to matter to the actual plot, and instead was just there to give Wahlberg something silly to do.

No offense to Hedlund, but he is about as charismatic as a potato. He is played off as the lone wolf type. The character in an RPG group who wants to think he is cool for being dark and mysterious but ends up being a dick stealing from the loot bowl. That can be good, if given enough story and characterization, but it sort of just feels lazy on the writers part for him. He is sad because depression basically. And while there doesn’t need to be a reason for depression, for a film it would at least give us something to latch onto for him to hope for his survival.

They put all their effort into making Jack the cool character. A well written sociopath always helps a movie. Always. Isaac does a great job of unnerving the viewer while almost putting them on ease that maybe he isn’t the bad guy after all. If you are going to watch Mojave, watch it for Isaac and nothing else.

Goggins is wasted in this film, and Wahlberg presumably did it as a favor for William Monahan, the writer/director who also wrote The Departed. This is not The Departed. This is a slow film that has a few redeeming qualities, but is no where close to being as high as they wanted it to be.

Leonardo DiCaprio doesn’t have an Oscar. Everyone knows that. The internet won’t let you or anyone forget. He tried so hard with The Wolf of Wall Street. There was the incredibly long and well acted scene where he was on Ludes that was hysterical and just so damn good that it elevated his chances to win.

But he didn’t, and rightfully so. Chiwetel was the bomb. So what does a Leo have to do? Well, he found out that people love really physical performances. Just ask Eddie Redmayne, who won last year. So he will go and give a really physical performance. Easy, no problem, he is a professional actor, he can pretend to do anything. However, he needs help.

So he turns to the man with a plan, Alejandro González Iñárritu. He is fresh off his own Best Picture win with Birdman, and he wants to repeat. So two powerhouses coming together. What could go horribly amazing? Hopefully everything.

Acting.

Hugh Glass (Leonardo DiCaprio) is a real person! In the early 1800s, he was a fur trapper and explorer. Here is his wiki. This movie is based on a very important part of his life. It is also super very different, because in movies, we need cool shit to happen.

Either way, he is the lead scout for a group who are about to head back home after a long few months. And of course they get attacked by some local Native Americans. Who knows the reason? Could be because they are hunting on the land, could be because they desecrated something, could be out of boredom. But there are more of them with really well aimed arrows, so a handful of them are able to escape by boat down the river. They saved some of the furs, but not all of them, meaning they won’t get paid as well as they thought when they return home. Worse news is that according to Glass, that same tribe owns the river, so they will probably lay an ambush for them soon. They have to get off the boat down river, hide the furs, and hike back to civilization on foot. Maybe with a large army they can return and hopefully get the fur back.

The captain, Andrew Henry (Domhnall Gleeson) agrees with the plan, but it angers a few of the crew, namely John Fitzgerald (Tom Hardy) who wants to get paid for all his hard work.

Fast forward a bit, and holy shit, Glass gets fucked up by a Mama Bear (Editor’s Note: He doesn’t get fucked though. Just fucked up) and has injuries all over. The crew would carry him back, but they are on mountains and it just can’t be done when they are on the run. So a few men volunteer to stay back until he either dies or gets better. Hawk (Forrest Goodluck), his son, Jim Bridger (Will Poulter), a young dumb trapper, and of course, Fitzgerald. He did it for the bonus money.

But when Glass is eventually left for dead anyways, he is encouraged to get over his almost carcass of a body. He is determined to ignore the biting cold and hunger. He needs to travel on his own a really long ass way, surviving the weather, river, animals and people trying to kill him along the way. Just so he can get revenge. Just so he can get closure.

Also starring Melaw Nakehk’o and another guy, who isn’t on IMDB, but totally important as he is the leader of the Native American tribe.

You can’t tell by this picture, but you will also see lush bears and hear even lusher accents.

This film is so beautiful. In every single way. Words can’t describe it well. Ohhh nooo. But I will still try today.

In case you are curious, no The Revenant is not one long continuous shot. Are you kidding me, it is 2.5 hours. This isn’t Victoria. However there are quite a lot of longer scenes in this film, definitely longer than normal. It works wonderful, especially during the skirmishes, which allow us to see all aspects happening as they occur, while also gracing us with the beautiful scenery that makes up this winter mountain side. Did I mention beautiful? I think I did.

Now onto the acting. HOLY SHIT LEO. WHAT ARE YOU DOING. He gave it all, more than his 100%. At least 105%, which is technically impossible. Impossible is probably what he thought his chances are at winning an Oscar, which is why he put so much dang effort into it. This thing was relentless. The bear attack was a CGI bear, but she was amazing and it didn’t look fake at all. The bear should get nominated for Best Supporting Actress (it is a weak year). Back to Leo, his groans and moans and crawling were everything I could hope for and more.

Technically he didn’t have many words to say. He was often alone, or just physically couldn’t due to injuries. Half of the speech he did have were in a native language. I kind of hope he doesn’t win Best Actor, not because I think someone has acted better (at least, not in films I have seen), but I want to see him top this. If he doesn’t win from this, he will have to try harder right? What kind of future movies could we have where DiCaprio constantly elevates his game, always looking for that highest honor?

No, that sounds mean.

I like to imagine this as all one glorious beard.

Speaking of Acting, Tom Hardy has had a fantastic year. He was great in Mad Max: Fury Road and the only good part(s) of Legend, and here again he is amazing. None of his roles were similar, they all had different voices and mannerisms. His bumpkin drawl was captivating, despite a bit of a struggle just to understand what he was saying sometimes. This is another role I expect to be nominated for Best Supporting Actor, but I still think Benicio Del Toro gets it for Sicario.

Either way, if you don’t see The Revenant on the big screen, you are missing out. It needs to be big to appreciate it that much more. Doesn’t mean I won’t buy it, but fuck, it’s so pretty. Maybe my film of the year.

Quentin Tarantino is a crazy sunuvabitch.

He has passion, you gotta agree with that. He loves movies and wants movies to be real. Christopher Nolan and him are some of the only reasons film is even relevant anymore.

Tarantino had a lot of problems leading up to The Hateful Eight. Like when his script was leaked before they even began filming, causing him to cancel it completely. After awhile, he apparently changed some things and did it eventually.

He also wanted to film the whole thing on 70mm film, but barely anyone had a projector that could play it. So he decided to just provide free cameras to almost a hundred movie theaters across America, just so people everywhere could see his film in the vision he had in his mind. I can respect that, but I also think he is a single man on a mission to move a mounain. So we will see if his lunacy gets us anywhere. Until then. H8FULL8.

“Replace more parts of words with numbers, I dare you.”

Set a few years after the end of the Civil War, and thus, after Lincoln’s assassination, The Hateful Eight is about a group of would be killers, maybe killing each other.

Namely, John “The Hangman” Ruth (Kurt Russell), rocking the same facial hair he had in Bone Tomahawk, is bringing a bounty to Red Rock to get executed. Daisy Domergue (Jennifer Jason Leigh) is a very bad murderer and she has a $10,000 bounty on her head, dead or alive. Well, Ruth brings them in alive, because they deserve to have justice done to them. By hanging. Hanging justice. He is nicknamed The Hangman.

Unfortunately, they are currently racing against a mighty big blizzard and his driver, O.B. (James Park) is hoping to get him to Minnie’s Haberdashery before it hits so they can have a place to stay until it all melts. Along the way though, he runs into Major Marquis Warren (Samuel L. Jackson), a bounty hunter with his own set of bodies heading to the same place. He is able to get a ride. But they also run into Chris Mannix (Walton Goggins), son a Rebel leader who claims he is going to be the new Sheriff of Red Rock!

But when they got to Minnie’s, Minnie wasn’t there. She apparently was away to visit relatives and left Señor Bob (Demir Bichir) was left in charge. Other patrons included Oswaldo Mobray (Tim Roth), a British literal Hangman, Joe Gage (Michael Madsen), a cow puncher visiting his mom, and General Sandy Smithers (Bruce Dern), from the Rebel side looking to bury his son.

Ruth thinks someone is lying. He thinks someone here is not who they say they are and looking to free Daisy and kill all the witnesses. People are lying, and now everyone might die because of it.

Also featuring some less hateful people, Dana Gourrier, Gene Jones, Zoë Bell, and Channing Tatum.

Tim Roth is actually just playing the real life Christoph Waltz.

The Hateful Eight feels like a play, and I love plays. It is definitely the best part of the film and it is why I might want to watch it over and over. The action is of course another big part, graphic and very violent once it gets going. Not as violent or crazy as his previous films, but it is still pretty up there.

The 70 mm version of the film, which is what this is based off of, did not feel too long at over 3 hours. It went quickly because there was rarely a dull moment. And hell, an intermission meant I could buy a drink and not torture myself for two hours refusing to leave my seat. The overture was a nice touch and of course the music throughout.

The film is tonally different over its two halves and I wasn’t as excited during the second half. The whole thing is set up as a mystery as to who is a liar and a cheat. Without spoiling, let’s just say the whole thing let me down. It was unexpected surely, but not in a good way. There were still some great acting moments in it, and some of the scenes were very tense, but damn, it just wasn’t that sexy of a reveal.

I cannot say for certain of the 70 mm actually added a lot to the film, it’d be hard to without seeing both versions. I believe the digital version is about 20 minutes shorter including the intermission, but I have no idea what they’d cut out of it.

Not Tarantino’s best work, and worst of his most recent films, but still quite memorable and worthy of multiple viewings.

I could have seen Room months ago, in October. I didn’t. I didn’t know what Room was about. I just knew it was based on a book, maybe a thriller, maybe a romance. Who knows.

I didn’t know I had made a mistake. I didn’t know that choosing Burnt over Room would put me in an awkward situation for months. Mostly because I didn’t know Room would only be a limited release. So despite eventually wanting to see it, knowing just what it was about with rewards hype, I found it an hour and a half away from my home. Too far just for a film.

So I apologize to the entire cast and crew. How dare I slight them for Burnt. How dare I delay my end of the year best of list for a film very hard to find.

In the future, I will make sure I make movie watching choices based on the number of locations the film is shot in. The lesser, the better.

I will only watch “bottle movies” from now on.

Seven years. That is how long Ma (Brie Larson) has been living in Room. She was 17. A high school track star. And she was also a super nice person, and would help strangers. And that landed her in Room.

Oh, and now it is Jack (Jacob Tremblay), her son’s, fifth birthday. Do the math. Yes, you figured it out correctly. Jack has only known Room. A couple chairs, a bed with his Ma, a closet, and this guy, Old Nick (Sean Bridgers). He comes in most nights and Jack has to sleep in the closet while he is there and sharing a bed with Ma. Jack doesn’t know a lot about Old Nick, but Old Nick gives them food and supplies.

Ma doesn’t want to be in the room. She had many years outside the room and knows the reality of her situation. Jack has only known Room. The idea of anything else is scary and wrong and can’t be true. If Ma doesn’t get him out, at least to save her boy, he might grow up and never be a sane kid.

Can she? Will she get out? And if she does or he does, how will they be able to go on with their life? The world is very different and most people would have assumed Ma to be dead and not even know about Jack’s existence.

Also with roles by Joan Allen, William H. Macy, and Tom McCamus.

William H. Macy plays the role of the egg shell snake, of course.

Oh Brie Larson. I haven’t seen a lot of your work, for sure. You were a side character in Scott Pilgrim, and Tanner Hall was pretty average. But then you were in Short Term 12 and I realized you had some acting chops.

And then Room happened, and I, and everyone who saw it, was completely blown away.

Now, obviously it wasn’t Larson working alone to deliver an amazing performance. The script/plot and directing had to allow her to shine and this film offers the full wonderful movie package. Acting, directing, dialogue, plot. Hell, even the make up was on point, when it comes to the way they looked being locked in a room for so long. And guess what? Little Jacob Tremblay does an incredible job as well. There is lots of talk about Larson being nominated for Best Actress (and I am officially here saying she will win it for this), but Tremblay is also someone who deserves just as much praise.

I don’t know if they are trying, but if so, they will probably push him towards Supporting Actor despite being slightly more of a main character than Larson. Go big or go home. I won’t say he would win Best Actor if nominated, just that his performance is worthy of losing to Leonardo DiCaprio this year.

Room is a fantastic movie. One of the years best. And yes, it makes me want to read the book. Well done movie. Well done.

What makes a Legend? Is it their walk, their background, their story, their Will Smithy-ness?

Or does it involve being a bad ass mofo mobster, enough that one day someone will make a movie about you?

Like, Whitey, he was bad ass, and Johnny Depp played him in Black Mass.

Is your Legend-ness downplayed if you have to share the spotlight with a partner? Obviously it is easier to become famous if you are a duo act, instead of a solo act. And in Legend, our criminals are real life twins. Which means we get one actor playing two people, which is probably one of my favorite things ever in movies. One of those things you just can’t do in a play.

However this picture makes it look like a bad romcom.

Ronald Kray (Tom Hardy) and Reggie Kray (Tom Hardy) are twins and gangsters and running this small town of London. Well, soon. Ronald just got released from a mental hospital, because a psychiatrist said he was sane after some arm twisting, but he is very messed up. He was some level of schizophrenic, and openly homosexual. He liked the truth. He also wore glasses, which is helpful for telling them apart early on. Reggie, no glasses, wasn’t insane, but still a gangster. He just had a good head on his shoulders, could think things through and wanted to maybe, eventually, go clean.

This story, narrated by Frances Shea (Emily Browning), tells of their rise to actually control the London underground, their falling aparts, their separate arrests, and what finally brought them down to justice. Oh, and she is totally dating Reggie, of course. Because he is the cute one.

Nipper Read (Christopher Eccleston) is the main constable trying to bring him down (and Joshua Hill is his side constable). Adam Fogerty plays their muscle, Shane Attwooll some competition, David Thewlis their business partner, and Taron Egerton one of the gay lovers of Ronald.

No, don’t cry Emily. Yes you have to kiss a killer Tom Hardy. But at least he isn’t wearing a mask.

If there is one reason I am glad to be writing this review, it is that Legend will serve as a great example for future movie reviews. For quite a few films, I have seen great acting in overall mediocre films, which is sad. But rarely do you see great acting in actually bad movies.

Hardy. Is. Excellent. Twice! The brothers are very unique individuals, they talk differently, they have different mannerisms, and one even wears glasses. I actually hard a hard time believing that Hardy was playing Twins because they started to look nothing alike in my eyes. It is such an amazing show being put on him, especially as he seamlessly argues and fights with himself. This isn’t a dumb Parent Trap situation. This is great fucking shit. I will admit I found them hard to understand 70% of the time and would have loved subtitles, but I will take that as my own fault.

The rest of the film falters, and it does so big time. It is too long, over two hours and seemingly drags. I was sitting in the theater just wondering when they would finally mess up and get caught. Hurry up and lose. The narration from Browning felt unattached from the rest of the film and mostly unnecessary. Giving it from her perspective made it feel Romance instead of a Crime/Drama. And I have to mention the music, which I basically never do in a review. The score sounded as if it was taken from a soap opera or an extremely older film. Jazz is one thing, but the music was always painfully obvious and distracting, never helping the scenes out.

This is bad that the acting from Hardy was so good but the rest of the film is meh. Most of you will watch this movie, solely for the fact that Hardy is in it. And you know what? Do that. Watch that man do his best. Watch him work. And then forget the rest.

I apologize. I have been doing mostly main stream movies lately. My only weird outlet has been in terms of documentaries, which also have been pretty standard lately.

But no, I need to take time every once in awhile to do something weird. Those indie and low budget movies you haven’t heard about. Which is why I picked Circle today. I heard about it a few weeks ago, and since I could remember the title, knew it was weird, and it was short (hey, I have time crunches some times), it was the perfect movie to review.

Fifty people. Strangers (mostly). They find themselves in a two tiered circle. You can visually see it above. They are each standing in their own red circle. If they try to step off, an alarm goes off. If they touch someone else, an alarm goes off. And in the middle of the circle is a mysterious sphere.

There is a African American man (Coley Speaks). A husband (Matt Corboy) and a wife (Julie Benz). A rich man (Daniel Lench), a pastor (Kurt Long), and a Bruce (David Reivers).

Every few minutes a deep thumping sound occurs from the center, and sure enough, a lightning beam shoots out of it and kills one of our fifty participants. Fuck. Don’t worry, you won’t get piles of bodies, they get whisked away, somewhat magically into the darkness around the room, never to be seen again. Turns out if you leave your circle or touch people after the warning, you too get shot and killed. Definitely a rough life.

There is a bearded man (Kaiwi Lyman). There is the first man that talks (Kevin Sheridan), and a silent man (Muneer Katchi). There is a college kid (Carter Jenkins), an atheist (Rene Heger) and an Eric (Michael Nardelli).

Oh see those arrows? Turns out if they turn their hands, the arrows light up around the room and only they can see their arrow. Turns out they get to vote on who is the next to get killed every time the thumping starts. Now things get interested. Who do they decide to kill? What happens when there is a tie? Does the last person alive get to leave? What if there are two people left, do they tie and both die? Fuck.

There is a soldier (Jordi Vilasuso), an Asian kid (Lawrence Kao) and a lawyer (Michael McLafferty). There is a pretty girl (Sara Sanderson), a tattooed man (Cesar Garcia) and a lesbian (Mercy Malick).

There is a cancer survivor (Lisa Pelikan), a one handed man (Zachary James Rukavina), a pregnant woman (Allegra Masters) and an 11 year old girl (Molly Jackson).

I do love me some psychological thrillers. I also love me some movies that take place for the most part in one room. I also love me some dialogue based movies. Needless to say, this movie has them all. An interesting premise, a constant guessing game who is going to die, and lots of arguing. Everyone is talking to save themselves, but some people get caught up in the moment. You can see several games and plans characters have to ensure their own survival, and it is wonderful. I also definitely enjoyed the ending.

There is one bad thing, technically. The acting. There is a lot of people involved, so it is all over the place. A lot of it is kind of shit. But I forgave it for the nice concept and story.

Honestly not much more I can say about this one. Under 90 minutes, on Netflix, and a nice way to spend the evening. Unless you aren’t into slightly weird shit.

The Stanford Prison Experiment was one of the coolest and scariest things I ever heard about, when I learned about it as a freshman in college. I don’t even remember in what class it was brought up, but the real life experiment was so fascinating I remember running home to wiki all I could about it. After all, doing my own research outside of Wikipedia seemed silly.

Hearing about it lead to hearing about all the creepy things people ended up doing in the name of psychology, before jerky standards were set in place. So now things like TSPE cannot take place for scientific knowledge, because you know, humans and shit. So instead of crazier and more ridiculous experiments, this is one of the top tier ones and I guess it will stay that way.

And although they can’t recreate this one for science, they sure can recreate it for film and TV. They did it in season 3 of Veronica Mars, they had that movie five years ago called The Experiment, and more!

But now, this film is about the entire enchilada. Nut just the test itself. But also the people behind it and what occurred before and after, for realsies, in Stanford.

How do you know someone went to Stanford? Don’t worry, they will probably …err, not talk about this.

In 1971, hair was everywhere and government oversight was only a legend. The 60’s were dead, so it was time to get serious. Dr. Philip Zimbardo (Billy Crudup) was a professor who wanted to simulate a prison in their own building. They would do it over the summer when not many students were around and offer to pay people $15 a day to participate in a two week experiment. After extensive interviews to make sure people weren’t crazy, they narrowed down the group of men and used a coin flip to determine who would be the prisoner and who would be the guards.

Zimbardo and his crew (Gaius Charles, Olivia Thirlby, and more), along with Jesse Fletcher (Nelsan Ellis), a guy he knew who went to prison to help “legitimize” the experiment, would monitor the halls 24/7. The men are kept to a strict contract, where the guards are in charge, the prisoners have very few rights, and there is to be no physical violence of any sort.

So the prisoners get brought in my volunteer police to arrest them at their homes to make it feel a bit real. They have to get naked, cleaned, and put into prison uniforms (which are closer to dresses to help break them down), and put into their cells. The guards try to break their humanity right away in order to maintain order and make it feel a bit more serious. The prisoners are referred to as their numbers not their names. They don’t get a lot of sleep. They are forced into exercise and other mental punishments, since they can’t just get beaten down.

And the prisoners break. They break quickly. Mentally and physically. It becomes quickly a torture job, as suddenly, the people who identify as guards feel they have to be mean and the prisoners feel like they are worthless.

And of course, even more dramatic and scary shit.

Some of the guards are played by Nicholas Braun, Moises Arias, and Michael Angarano, who plays the “worst” guard and calls himself John Wayne. He knows how to push buttons.

A lot more of the prisoners matter, and they are sort of led by Ezra Miller and Tye Sheridan. Other prisoners who play big roles include Johnny Simmons, Logan Miller, Ki Hong Lee, and Thomas Mann who joins later to fill in a spot after a prisoner has to leave.

Everything about this movie is real. Including the facial hair.

Want to see a bunch of male youths devolve into their primal forms and do bad things, but not on an island? Then this movie might be for you!

The filmmakers did an excellent job of really driving home the moments when people began to break under pressure. It is one thing to know that the prisoners were referred to as numbers, constantly having their number drilled into their head, and long amounts of time spent sounding off their number until the guards were satisfied. But it is another thing to see it happen. These, for lack of a better word, mental torture scenes are long, loud, and constant. Major props to everyone involved for making me feel sick to my stomach that things like this could have even happened.

From the prisoners, over half of the prison cast seemed to play an important role. There might have been 2-3 people who were just also there, but every single one of them had a personality that presumably matched reality and a lot of them got focus. We were able to see almost every single one of them break and lose any sense of hope. Seeing that is disgusting, but by golly, is it some fine acting.

For the most part, the guards were just lead by Angarano’s fine acting. Angarano has to play a person playing a role, not just some mean dude. It is sadistic and cruel, but surprisingly not physical. No, other guards devolve into physicality. He is just a mind fucker.

This can be a hard watch, but a good one if you want to learn some crazy shit about human nature, while also watching a lot of young new talented actors in the same film.

Bond Bond Bond. In case you missed my other reviews on the subject, I have no craps about Bond growing up. My parents didn’t care, so I didn’t get him in my impressionable youth phase, so the only Bond films have had Daniel Craig at the helm.

Casino Royale was okay, Quantum of Solace was terrible, Skyfall was interesting, and now we have Spectre. The internet tells me that the wiki page has spoilers on the subject and the trailer gives too much away. Apparently Spectre is a reference to an older Bond villain from a past film and they are redoing it. I think?

The good news is, I won’t have to compare it to something decades ago. Like always, I will just look at this film and see if I like it as a stand alone action spy film. And for those who are counting, this is the FIFTH Spy movie of the year. After Kingsman: The Secret Service, The Man From U.N.C.L.E., Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation, and of course, Spy. Strangely enough, the other 4 were all good movies. This might be the best year of Spy film ever recorded. Assuming the grand daddy of spy films can end the streak with a bang.

I’m sure this is just a metaphor.

Do you remember the last three films? Because you will need to. You especially need to know that M (Judi Dench) died in the last movie, and now there is a new M (Ralph Fiennes). The 00 program is potentially going to get shut down, what with half of their building destroyed in the last program and all. They have a new commander, who we will call C (Andrew Scott), who is going to bring all of the British agencies together and more transparent.

Bond (Daniel Craig) don’t give a damn. He opens the movie in Mexico City on the Day of the Dead, killing an assassin and a few other people who planned on blowing up a stadium! This doesn’t help his cause, and he gets house arrested in London for the time being, complete with GPS nanobot tracking in his blood. But like I just said, Bond don’t give a damn. He was told to kill the assassin, Marco Sciarra (Alessandro Cremona), by M (dead one) herself! She sent him a video from beyond the grave to get it done, should she die. So of course he followed orders.

However, in killing Sciarra, he stumbles upon a large and secret organization calling itself Spectre. His only clues involve using Sciarra’s wife, now widow, Lucia (Monica Bellucci) to find the organization and find The Pale King who is also involved in their bad evil guy plans…somehow.

Spectre is led by the mysterious Oberhauser (Christoph Waltz) who seems to know an awful lot about Bond. We also have returning favorites, Q (Ben Winshaw), Moneypenny (Naomie Harris), and Tanner (Rory Kinnear). Also returning is Mr. White (Jesper Christensen) from the first two films, and introducing his daughter, Madeleine Swann (Léa Seydoux). And of course Dave Bautista as scary intimidating no talking killer, Hinx.

This is…also a metaphor? Is Bond getting religious?

Spectre is not what it is hyped up to be. Heck, if you look at my reviews for the other spy movies that came out this year, you will see that they all earned higher marks, making Spectre, technically, the worst spy film of the year. The good news is that it is still at least okay or average and not complete shit.

Here is what is wrong with the film. Bellucci is used in like one scene, and never seen from again. Most of the actors don’t seem to be giving it their all. They really forced the love interest in this film, none of it felt believable and trying to make it a for sure thing is just lazy writing. A lot of lines I couldn’t even understand, due to mumbles or louder sound moments, allowing me to miss jokes and important plot points. There are plot twists, technically, but everyone you can see coming from miles away in the first 20-30 minutes.

But most of my complaints revolve around Waltz and his villain. First of all, Waltz is normally fantastic, but again, his character was always reserved and never felt scary or intimidating. His character also felt like he was barely in the film until the end. We needed a lot more of him for him to reach his true big bad scary levels. Most Bond fans know everything about the villain already, as there is only one notable Spectre leader. However when the reveal occurs, it is also mumbled quickly and then ignored. So for a non serious Bond fan, it does nothing, and for the serious ones, well, they knew it was coming all along.

They connected the villain from this film to the last three, but it all felt shoe horned, offering only a quick explanation and then moving on. More details would have helped understand the bad guys motivations, outside of the vague backstory they gave him. The villain also had a cool brain altering needle that would just take out important functions for whoever is getting tortured. Well. Bond had two pricks, and basically everything that was said would happen, did not. What the hell even was the point?

And the ending itself felt forced and dare I say, heavy handed.

Not saying there weren’t moments I didn’t like. I loved the intro, both in Mexico City (which opened with a very long shot), and the credits, with all the octopus imagery. Q and M were good. The Rome car chase, the train fight scene, and the plane ridiculousness were all very entertaining and well shot. Classic Bond moments from them all.