Gorgon Reviews

When you claim to watch bad movies so others don’t have to, you often get asked if you have seen certain bad movies. I would say the film I have been asked about the most by a landslide would be Cube. Because I like shit like that, and math. Didn’t see that coming did you? Well I’ve seen Cube now and the first sequel.

The movie most requested after that would easily be The Room, something I didn’t rush out to see. I saw the “best scenes” compilation on YouTube and just put that in a “one day” bucket. Then The Disaster Artist has to go and not only come out but receive awards nominations. shit. That meant I HAD to watch The Room finally. I couldn’t go in blind. What’s the point?

So I saw it still slightly reluctantly. Powered through. I get the appeal but I still won’t see it again. And hey now I can watch others talk about it!

Just not in the goddamn theater, that’d be rude.

Sometime in the late 1990’s, Greg Sestero (Dave Franco) was a struggling young adult. He thought about being a famous actor one day, and he was even taking acting lessons. He just wasn’t any good. At all. At. All. Nothing helped, he didn’t display any emotion, it was a lost cause. But in those same classes, he found a dark and mysterious man named Tommy Wiseau (James Franco). Now this is a man who knew how to channel his emotions and really bring that raw talent to the stage.

So Greg wanted to work with Tommy, and Tommy agreed. He was a bit weird, but he really brought it out of Greg and Greg started to feel confident. After years of friendship, they moved to LA, with Tommy financing everything, to become real actors. After it didn’t work out well, especially not for Tommy, Tommy started to write and figure out his own movie. This piece became The Room, a film that is iconic today, and the rest of this movie is how it was made, the trials they faced, and the hurdles that were overcome. Also how Greg began to move on by getting a girlfriend (Alison Brie) and trying to separate from the Tommy umbrella.

And only some talk about being a vampire.

Given the people who made this, it is no surprise how many famous actors are in this film: Seth Rogen, Paul Scheer, Zac Efron, Josh Hutcherson, Charlyne Yi, Bob Odenkirk, Hannibal Buress, Joe Mande, Nathan Fielder, Andrew Santino, Jason Mantzoukas, Megan Mullally, June Diane Raphael, Jackie Weaver and Ari Graynor. I could have also swore a minor character was Margot Robbie, but the credits won’t let me confirm that.

As we learned in The Room there is never a bad time for football.

I wonder how much your perceptions of this film changes based on your opinions of The Room. If you have seen The Room many times since it came out, were totally in that cult movie aspect, I think you will enjoy The Disaster Artist a whole lot more than someone new to the topic. Obviously this is a film where you sort of need to see The Room before seeing it to really get it at all, but there is a huge difference between me watching it a week before The Disaster Artist and years prior.

Because hey, The Disaster Artist is a pretty funny film. The Francos do a good job of setting the stage, building up the Wiseau mythos and so on. And sure, I can agree that James acted well, only because we obviously have a real person/character to compare him to. But if this was just a movie about a bad production, this is the type of thing that would be panned for unnecessarily ridiculous director guy.

So it is a very hard thing to judge. Was it actually well acted only because he acted like Wiseau accurately? Or does well acted need to be something more than accuracy to a subject? It is a hard subject to answer, and not one that I will go into real detail here. But it is something on my mind and something that certainly would tell me that it certainly shouldn’t be winning awards for its acting.

The Disaster Artist was a film that made me laugh and remind me of a shitty film at the same time. It is a very strange genre of movie, very meta, and it will gain its own cult status I am sure. Double features for the next 20 years! However, in reality, I really just want to read the book to get the full story and won’t bother too much with the film version many times in the future.

When you think of Hostiles, you think of a group of angry people. Knowing that this movie is set as a western, with cowboys and American Indians, it sort of brings Pocahontas to mind. I know, it wasn’t cowboys, but close enough. And famously in that movie we had the song Savages. Throughout history, generally Savage was used when the “white” side ran into natives in another land. But in this song, they both saw each other as savages! Equality because both sides were different and didn’t trust different things.

Except you know, the part where in Pocahontas, the white people were actual terrible invaders and the bad people and that was it. So they tried well, but still failed in that regard.

Anyway, I think of that song when I hear Hostiles (and probably also for the movie Savages). Going into it, I assumed that every side and every new character was probably a “hostile” individual, and that no one should be trusted or given a gun.

When everyone is this aggressive, you just need to have the gun out at all times.

Set in 1892, we find ourselves in the Western United States. The Civil War is over, but the Spanish-American war had not yet happened. Soldiers at this point didn’t have a lot of responsibilties. Mostly keeping the peace, in forts across the country.

Captain Joseph J. Blocker (Christian Bale) has been in the army for about 25 or more years at this point. He has seen and done a lot of things. He was at Wounded Knee not to much longer before. And he hates the Native Americans. He h as seen what they have done to “honest, Americans” and is disgusted by that fact. Hell, most of his career has involved killing them or rounding them up, but he also has only done what he is told.

And now he is being told to do something unthinkable. He has to return Chief Yellow Hawk (Wes Studi) and his family (Adam Beach, Q’orianka Kilcher, and more) to their homeland. He has been imprisoned for seven years and it has been long enough, especially since Yellow Hawk has the cancer. It has turned into a big deal for their government to send him home to die with his people and forgive past crimes, hell, even the president has signed off on it. The press are involved!

Blocker doesn’t wan this job. And it will be his last one before retirement. He has his crew (Jesse Plemons, Jonathan Majors, Rory Cochrane, Timothée Chalamet), he had his weapons and supplies, and he had a terrible mission.

And along the way he will also pick up Rosalie Quaid (Rosamund Pike) a very recent widow who lost her family and house to a group of Native American horse thieves, and (Ben Foster) a former soldier, turned prisoner for doing unthinkable crimes and trying to run, who needs delivery to a fort for a court marshal.

Also featuring others, like Stephen Lang, Peter Mullan, and Robyn Malcolm.

Shit, everyone gets a gun in this movie.

Hostiles is a film that is just a little bit over two hours, but one that feels much longer. The first scene grabs you and the film refuses to let go the entire time. It keeps your attention by gripping characters, extremely great acting, authentic everything, and slightly terrifying plot.

It doesn’t keep your interest like a modern cartoon, by flashing shit at you every few seconds. No, the scenes are long, detailed, and showcase real human emotion. Hard decisions don’t just come naturally, but they are often decided in between scenes. But in this film, we have to watch actors think through their moral issues and figure out what they need to do. And on its own, that might not seem too appealing, but it just shows the amount of attention to detail that went into this film.

Scott Cooper directed this film and I will be honest, I haven’t really enjoyed anything he has directed before. That is from Black Mass, Out of the Furnace, and Crazy Heart. All films that are known for one reason or another, some good, some not so good. But none of them really reached me.

Hostiles reached me something fierce. Bale has a good chance of getting nominated. Watching Pike play such an unhinged character gave me flashbacks to Gone Girl, she does such work here as well. All of the other side characters are clearly their own individuals. The film kept me guessing with just how scenes would play out. The characters are complex individuals, so their actions won’t always be obvious from earlier in the film.

Hostiles is just a great film on all fronts. The soundtrack, the acting, the story, the pacing, the cinematography, shit, even the costumes. Westerns are rare, but it seems like every western we get is basically gold at this point.

Last Flag Flying is, unfortunately, a film that came and went without a lot of fanfare. Everything that Richard Linklater touches should be given a goddamn parade, especially true given his last three films being Everybody Wants Some!!, Boyhood, and Before Midnight. There should be 76 bloody trombones to announce his films at this point.

And somehow I missed this one. I didn’t even know he had a film coming out. I saw the poster, thought it looked interesting, and didn’t jump right on it not knowing who was really involved.

Speaking of that, check out the main poster/DVD cover right here. If you only glance at it quickly, you might make the same mistake as I did. I actually assumed Colin Farrell was standing in the middle, with a nice moustache. I was very surprised to watch this movie and see absolutely no Farrell.

This picture still does not have me convinced.

The film brings us way back to the year of 2003 in the month of October. A bartender, Sal Nealon (Bryan Cranston) is doing his thing, when in walks a weirder fellow, Larry Shepherd (Steve Carell) walks in and continues to try to talk to him. After a bit it turns out they know each other, from way back. From ‘Nam, except Larry was called Doc then.

Ah yes, war buddies, reuniting after over 30 years, because the internet lets people find each other. After a night of drinking, they also go see a different war buddy, Reverend Richard Mueller (Laurence Fishburne), who yes, found Jesus, got himself a real family with grandkids at this point.

The real reason Doc has found these two gentlemen is unfortunately sad news. Doc had a son who joined the military as well, but he has returned from Afghanistan dead and is to be buried in Arlington National Cemetary. A big honor, but with no one left in his life, Doc needs a few of his friends to come with him on this moment. This moment that they all feared in their own lives, but in a later generation.

It is time for a reunion, to see how they have changed, and how they can still grow together.

Also starring J. Quinton Johnson, Deanna Reed-Foster, and Yul Vazquez.

Okay, Farrell can totally be the type of person to method act as Carell acting right?

On any given day, depending on my mood, this might have been a 4 out of 4 film. Certainly more likely if I saw it in theaters without a baby running around. Because this film has a lot going on for it.

We have a relatively simple plot line, one dealing with burying a child so it easily gains some powerful moments. We have a small number of characters and a long backstory and place to connect them. It is clearly this is going to be a film about growth, despite three men in their late ages. About friendship. And a little bit about forgiveness.

A lot of powerful themes, especially with the war background behind them all. How three different veterans have had their lives unfold since the war. I will admit, I cried at one point in the film, and I practically cried writing the plot description, which is a strange sensation that I have never done before.

And yet, at times it did seem to drag a little bit. Or maybe they relied too much on Cranston’s potty mouth. Or the fact that it seems to be about Carell’s character, but there is a lot more focus/story given to the side characters. It is really hard to say why it never went into the love territory. However, it is a film that I would watch again and rexamine over time, and honestly, I hope it grows on me more.

It took all year, but I finally found it. I found a great animated film that came out this year, that brought me something new to the genre while also being emotional with a fantastic plot.

This is the sort of things that I would normally save for the ending, but I know you can see the rating up there, I have nothing to hide.

The Breadwinner is a foreign film, about non-American problems, a non average hero, and an above average story. It is the type of film that more people should be hyping, but unfortunately, it is foreign and had a limited theatrical run and most people just want to talk about Coco.

But read on so that you can see what The Breadwinner is all about and get psyched about watching it in the future.

This relates in no way to some TV show Breadwinners.

Parvana (Saara Chaudry) is a strong independent girl around 12 years old. She knows how to read, she can write, and she wants to be able to do anything she puts her mind to. The only problem is that she lives in Afghanistan, currently under rule by the Taliban, who are getting more and more frequently dickish. They are recruiting younger men, who have a lot of grudges, who are making the area more into a police state. I am not saying early Taliban rule Afghanistan was great, just that it was better than it is now in the film.

Parvana knows all of these things because of her father, Nurullah (Ali Badshah), who lost one of his legs previously in a war. She has a mother, an older sister, and a baby brother, but because she isn’t yet fully “mature”, Parvana can join him at the market and help sell goods to help earn money for the family.

But at some point, a young soldier gets angry at Parvana for having such a free spirit and not being covered “Enough”. This leads to a Taliban raid of their house, where they find forbidden books, so they arrest Nurullah and take him to a prison far away. The family is left defenseless and hungry, given that the next male in line is less than 2 years old, and none of the others are allowed to buy goods, or even leave without a male escourt.

Their family may die poor and alone. But not Parvana. She is resourceful. She chops of her hair, dresses like a boy, and finally gets to feel that sense of freedom she has always longed for. It is up to her to provide food and money for her family, while also figuring out how they might help their father out of prison.

Also featuring the mouth sounds of Kanza Feris, Kawa Ada, Laara Sadiq, Noorin Gulamgaus, Shaista Latif, and Soma Chhaya.

To really commit, she should have grown her beard like how all 10 year old boys do.

In The Breadwinner we get a regular story about a girl going above and beyond the call of duty, to protect her family and try to make things right. This isn’t some goddamn princess in her ivory tower discovering how to be good, but a girl who has lived a hard life and still rising above it all. This is set in the real world that has real issues, even if the setting is no longer accurate. This is the type of story that can resonate with the youth of the world regardless of their age while also providing factual knowledge.

And even more importantly, it is not a cookie cutter story. We get violence that might seem a bit extreme for a PG film, even if it is “off camera”. We have a goddamn war zone with people running around with automatic rifles and a high assumed death count. Their entire family is put into realistic peril several times, because that is the world they are living in and it is downright frightening.

It also has a story within a story, giving us a different art style, to sort of break up the main story into sections and give us a parallel to compare things to. A common idea and one that works wonderfully in this film.

But most importantly, the ending really resonated with me. Everything didn’t magically fall into a place and it certainly isn’t a situation where they lived happily ever after. They didn’t somehow cause the Taliban to disappear and run off into the sunset. It gives a realistic enough ending for them, without giving us the picturesque fairy tale finale.

This is an animated film that took some risks and they paid off. And it took Canada, Ireland, and Luxembourg to work together apparently to give it to us (not: no middle eastern countries made this movie about Afghanistan). I didn’t know anything actually came out of Luxembourg! But I am excited for whatever they brought to the table because now I have the Luxembourgian tag on my website.

I don’t need a long introduction anymore, I have done a few of these already! I don’t even have a significant list of missing films to talk about, even better!

So you know the drill, here are some honorable mentions. Honorable what?

Like every year, I had quite a few 4 out of 4’s to choose from. Top 15 lists are more exciting and besides, 10 is an arbitrary number. But what films couldn’t make the list? Things like Beauty and the Beast, The Lost City of Z, The Post, Thelma, and The Chess Player and more.

This year I sucked at watching documentaries as well as foreign films. They will have a lot of missing components when the Oscar nominations happen. So I decided to not include any documentaries on the list, and the only foreign film was in English so you wouldn’t notice anyways.

Split was the first 4 out of 4 I gave of the year, and the last film to make my list. Split was a surprise, as it was a big return to form for M. Night Shyamalan and more importantly it was a sign of how this year would be. Which is of course, a strong as fuck year on horror. I am excited about the sequel to this film and James McAvoy should be celebrated for the acting he pulled off in this movie.

Speaking of Horror, It Comes At Night was a film that disappointed a lot of individuals due to its advertising campaign. I didn’t watch any trailers, so I didn’t come into the film with any expectations. What I got was a very simple film, dealing with dreadful themes and making me feel uneasy for quite a few days afterwards. It was well acted, beautifully shot, and a film that really makes you think.

The Greatest Showman is the movie that I thought would be my favorite of 2017, from sometime early in 2016. Its a musical, it has actors I love, and it is about a fascinating subject. If you just realize that this is full of lies and in no way accurate of P.T. Barnum, it is a fun experience with catchy songs.

This is my favorite musical of 2017, although there is at least one other song higher that is musical in the other definition.

Hostiles is the first film on this list that I haven’t had a review published for yet, because the studio wants it to be released closer to the January release date. But Hostiles was a slow, long, and powerful journey and experience. A lot happens on that journey, including great acting, good scenery, and a lot of redemption.

A Ghost Story is not a horror film, just a straight up Drama movie, although it does deal with some potentially frightening scenes. It is a very slow burn and it will turn a lot of people off due to strange it is. A powerful concept, with two talented leads, although one of the leads might no actually be under the sheet for most of the film, who the fuck knows.

This is a movie that will never make you look at pie the same way.

It took me until December to find an animated film I could really get behind and love when I finally saw The Breadwinner. This a year of disappointing animated films, and quite a few will make my worst of the year list. But The Breadwinner sails above them all, giving a powerful new story, from an underrepresented area in film and a little girl star. It is the type of film families should want to show their kids to encourage them to overcome their future struggles.

This is the best animated film of 2017, by a long shot.

You know whats better than superheroes? Sometimes the story behind the superheroes! In this case Professor Marston & The Wonder Women is about three fascinating, real individuals, who did more than create a comic. They had academic lives, they made discoveries, inventions, experienced a lot sexually, and then made a comic. The more you know!

And no, the Wonder Woman film about the actual hero didn’t make the list, because it went “Full DC” in the conclusion. The end was so bad and hard to watch it put a dark stain on that film.

At this point in the list, it was so hard to rank these movies, and there are still 8 to go! Why is Wind River up here and not further? Fuck if I know. This could very well be my favorite movie of the year, and right now I just don’t remember a lot of it because it came out in the summer. Other films I was able to watch multiple times despite early releases.

That doesn’t change the fact that Wind River is incredible. Jeremy Renner and Elizabeth Olsen are acting powerhouses, and this is a film that has the potential to change you.

Speaking of number ones, a lot of people will have Get Out on top and that makes sense. Have you not seen Get Out yet? Then fucking go do it. It came out really soon after Split, and these two movies were both genre bending, not full on horrors. Get Out has a better message, a better story, and really resonated with most of the viewers.

Get Out is an important film, and thus, the best “horror” film of 2017.

Another very topical film, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri is also a very topical film. Sweet sentence, I know. This film features very strong acting across multiple directions, and it is hard to know who is right or wrong. But we get violence, language, gross as fuck scenes, this is a movie about modern middle America for adults.

Human. Fucking. Amphibian Man. Consensually.

This is the kind of film people might not have wanted when they said they wanted original films, but The Shape of Water is what they are getting. Brought to us by the mastermind of visuals and monsters, Guillermo del Toro. A love story that feels like it is traveling uncharted waters and with eccentric characters to boot.

The last film I saw this year that had the potential to be on this list was I, Tonya, and it certainly blew me away. It started off a bit slow, and I was a bit weirded out with its quirkiness. But this tells a really powerful story (one that might not be true, but I am not judging truthiness) that turned a national punchline joke into an emotional story about overcoming abuse. Both physical and emotional. A film that builds and gets crazier and more unbelievable with each passing moment.

This would be the best Dark Comedy of 2017 for me. Or the best Dark Comedy. Mostly uncertain because I don’t know how to classify half of the films on this list, let alone the first one.

Probably the biggest surprise you will see on this list is Brawl in Cell Block 99. Some of you may just be asking what the hell is this film even? And that is fair. It is by the director who brought us Bone Tomahawk last year which had a lot of acclaim. This one is just more modern, more Vince Vaughn, and an incredible (frightening) ending that had me going for more than two hours. An incredible experience with probably Vaughn’s best performance. I could watch it again, but I am too afraid.

This is probably considered the best Action film of 2017. Depending on how you view the next film in this list.

In my middle of the year top 10 list, Baby Driver was number one. And usually my number one halfway through the year doesn’t crack the top five at the end, so this is already impressive that it only went down one spot. My second viewing wasn’t as powerful as the first, but this is still a fantastic film, with great acting, a great soundtrack, fun plot and characters. It also has Kevin Spacey, which is going to be one of the last things I talk about with him in it I guess.

Is this an action movie? A heist film? A comedy? A musical (because it is musical, at least…). Who knows! Let’s just say the best adventure film of 2017 and move on from that.

Surprise motherfuckers!

Seriously, none of you saw this coming. Hell, I barely saw it coming. I have never had a harder time determining a number one for a year ever. Usually I know well in advanced, or get swept up in some December hype. But a lot of the December releases just really didn’t sell themselves well to me, and the ones I over hyped I know are still not the best.

With Colossal, I feel like it is a natural progression from Split and Get Out earlier in the year. It is like, five genres rolled into one, building off of each other and creating an incredible experience overall. Even knowing how it ends and the twists, I still was captivated in my second viewing.

I think Anne Hathaway and Jason Sudeikis give such great and at times subtle performances in this film. Hell, I am surprised it wasn’t praised more when it came out. I can understand no awards love, because yet, it is a very awkward film and uncomfortable by the end. Although not perfect, with some very strange plot points that don’t make a lot of sense, this is a film that I would recommend over and over again to such a variety of people. It is my number one film of the year, and right now, I am sticking to that.

Thanks for reading! If you disagree with part of this list, let me know. If there is something I missed, let me know (but I probably saw it and reviewed it on this very site! Overall, only one animated film, 1 musical, and no super hero films. Shockingly the big news here is how many of these films were thriller or horror, which has the best year ever.

And for those haters who need to compare this list to others, yes I did see Molly’s Game, The Killing of a Sacred Deer, Last Flag Flying, All The Money in the World, Call Me By Your Name, Lady Bird and The Big Sick. Big films that people would expect to see on these lists. But hey, they didn’t make it. I didn’t put this warning at the top because it would have been spoilers, hah.

And as always, I accept hate mail via the post office, email, or tweets.

Brawl in Cell Block 99 is a great title. It is descriptive, while also leaving enough mystery to make you wonder. It highlights a single fight, which means it is a fight that should stand out in a movie that probably has a lot of fights. And it just has good letters. Those B’s are powerful, not a lot of B’S in movies lately, let alone multiple Bs.

This is brought to us by S. Craig Zahler, who gave us Bone Tomahawk recently. It was well known and received for being a slow, well acted western, with also one really gross death scene that really rattled people.

And this one is about prison! I am sure it will be perfectly quaint, although, not your average action film. Its run time is over two hours, so it better have a lot of story to tell in between punches.

This is not the titular brawl, just the Brawl in the Prison Yard.

Bradley Thomas (Vince Vaughn) is an honest working man, a bit of a tall muscular freak, but hard working. He is a tow driver, which makes below average pay. But he has been fired from that. And at home, he found out his wife, Lauren (Jennifer Carpenter), was cheating on him. He deals with his anger the only way he knows, and not on her. They agree to work through it, to go for a baby, and Bradley will go back to being a drug dealer (not a user), where his size and strength can come in handy.

And now, a year and a half later, everything is fine! They have a bigger house, a baby girl on the way, life is looking up!

Until Bradley gets a job he does not want to do. The thugs involved with the deal look like users. They look like no good people who will try and kill and steal and put him in the line of fire. He agrees reluctantly only because if he does that he will get three months off paid once his baby is born. See, even if the drug business has better parental leave than the USA!

Bradley takes the deal, things go south, and sure, Bradley is in prison. He is blamed for the deal going south of course, so he is told that unless he kills another prisoner, they will get someone to perform a very late term abortion on his wife, and his not yet born baby girl will, well, stay that way. The only issue is, this guy is in a much more extreme prison, so he has to “earn” his way there by going against his own morals and code and hurting people to save the ones he loves.

Also starring Dan Amboyer, Don Johnson, Geno Segers, Marc Blucas, Tom Guiry, and Udo Keir.

This is not the titular brawl, this isn’t a brawl at all!

While watching Brawl in Cell Block 99, I had two main thoughts: One, when are we getting to this brawl that they needed to emphasize in the title? and two, Vaughn is really carrying this power and weight in this role. I was intimidated by him and awed by him. They made his character smart, strong, and oddly moral. When you expected domestic violence, you got instead a calm rational human, who didn’t even yell. It was odd and satisfying.

Anyways, there are a handful of action scenes pre-brawl to entertain those who ned punching. Of course some of that is just people straight up beating up one person, some of it is Vaughn seeming like a super hero.

Okay okay, at this point I am stalling. Once the brawl started to happen, it got really tense as it first had to involve a breakout attempt. Watching our moral character beat up guards at a level of realizing he is doing wrong, trying not to hurt them too bad, while also doing it for his wife and unborn girl. And then the actual part that matters, well I HAD TO STOP WATCHING ONCE IT STARTED. IT GOT REALLY INTENSE, REALLY QUICKLY AND I COULD ONLY GAG AND COUGH AND SHRIEK TO MYSELF. After that, it wasn’t that bad BUT IT STILL GOT REALLY INTENSE.

I had to type in caps there to properly show just how freaked out this movie got very quickly. It ramped up several notches, and frankly I wasn’t ready for it. The high rating isn’t just for those scenes, but for the whole build up, for seemingly telling a unique story in a familiar location, and just how strong Vaughn was in it.

I should have known what I was getting into with the director, and next time I won’t be caught unawares. After all, the next film is called Dragged Across Concrete, which is extremely descriptive and I am already gagging in anticipation.

I have been reviewing for over six years, but only over the last three or so have I gone hard into getting those Oscar nominated films in as well. And every year we have movies hyped throughout the year about their chances, for their actors, directors, and so forth.

I usually can always get to the super hyped films early enough to not feel so late in the conversation.

That feels less true for something like Call Me By Your Name, which has been hyped consistently for so long this year. It feels like this is the only film people are talking about, on multiple categories. And yet, it took me so. damn. long. To see.

I didn’t even get to see it in theaters, but instead a dinky screener, because it turns out an invite was lost for me over a month ago. Oh well, I did get it, well before Oscar nominations were announced, this has just been one of my bigger fears of a film I thought I’d never get to see.

To avoid uncomfortable moments like this, I generally opt to be on the “shirts” team.

In the early 1980’s the world was a wonderful place, now that Nixon and Vietnam and Disco were done. The sun was shining, but the globe wasn’t too warm, and people tended to chill a bit more. In 1983, and in Italy, it was a wonderful, quaint place to be. Elio Perlman (Timothée Chalamet) recently turned 18 and was living with his parents (Michael Stuhlbarg, Amira Casar) in the Italian countryside. His dad was a professor of archaeology, so he was there for statues and pots.

And this summer, we are getting Oliver (Armie Hammer) to join them for a few months. He is a graduate student and he is going to assist the professor in work and writing. Sounds way better than my summers in graduate school.

Elio and Oliver are very different people, as Elio is a quiet person for the most part and a lover of playing music, while Oliver is far more outgoing. Elio has a girlfriend, Marzia (Esther Garrel), an actual Italian girl, and things are getting serious. But Elio is young and unsure of himself. In fact, he is starting to find Oliver mesmerizing.

But what does he know about love? Is he gay? Is Oliver gay? Does any of this matter in the 1980’s?

Where the shorts are always short and the cafes are always cafe-y.

Call Me By Your Name is a film that is talked about so much due to three reasons, and all of them are guys. Chalamet carries this film despite his actual real life young age and has had an inedible year all around, also having parts in Lady Bird and Hostiles. He gives off this aura of insecurity and realness that makes it easy to love his performance.

Hammer, the co-lead but going for supporting actor nominations, is always an acting force, and his normal bravado in his roles still comes through with this one. His arrogance and superiority are extremely intentional given his characters age and experience compared to Chalamet and is no wonder he starts to swoon over him. Hell, everyone who watches this film will swoon over him.

And of course we have Greatest Small Role Actor Ever, Stuhlbarg, who the last few years has been in so many amazing roles with various screen times. He gives a wonderful speech near the end and just feels so wise throughout that he does a wonderful job.

The countryside is a good location, as are all the details about the time period. But if I am being honest, I don’t see what really sets this apart from any other forbidden romance type film. It is very well acted, it doesn’t rely on sex to sell it (Hammer notwithstanding), and yet I don’t think it needs the long run time. It drags in some areas early on for me and well, shit. I can acknowledge it is a good film, but certainly not one that I have fallen in love with, nor will it make my top of the year lists.

Every film can’t be for everyone, but this one is still pretty good with some fine acting samples.

People don’t like Guillermo del Toro like I like Guillermo del Toro. Wanna know how I know? Because I gave Crimson Peak 3 stars. Great film, you should check it out. Decently creepy, and very beautiful.

Unfortunately, we are never going to get the Hellboy 3 he invisioned (now that the reboot is coming), but it seems to me like The Shape of Water is him telling an offshoot Hellboy story without needing Hellboy. Or at least, a prequel about Abe before he joined the B.P.R.D.

And I am a bit annoyed that this review is coming to you so late in the year, well after the wide releases, because I wanted to be in the forefront, waving my del Toro flag around, hoping that my eyes bleed from beautiful awkwardness.

There it is, love at first sight.

Way back a long time ago, long long ago. Let’s say the 1960’s. Yeah, that sounds good. Somewhere in Baltimore, close to DC, lived a mute girl by the name of, Elisa Esposito (Sally Hawkins). She led a simple life, generally alone in her world. She would wake up late at night, bathe, masturbate, eat, and head to work because she worked as an overnight cleaning lady.

She had a friend, Zelda (Octavia Spencer.) who worked with her and did all the talking for the duo. She also had a neighbor, Giles (Richard Jenkins), an eccentric artist who a lot of strong opinions on everything. But she has no one to love, to really be intimate with, outside of the occasional Giles snuggles.

Well, at work one night, a strange shipment comes in, and their head of security (David Hewlett) says it is their most important thing ever! It comes with its own team of scientists, led by Dr. Robert Hoffstetler (Michael Stuhlbarg) and some sort of federal agent, Richard Strickland (Michael Shannon). And sure enough yeah, it is some sort of Creature from the Black Lagoon! Or at least an Amphibian Man
(Doug Jones) from the Amazon Rain forest and rivers where he was worshiped as a god.

Oh fun! A creature that people are afraid of, who is being abused, who also has communication problems and is alone. Well, Elisa seems to have a connection to him. She feels his pain and wants to put him at ease. And when his life is on the line and other countries want him dead as well, she is going to have to put a lot more of herself out there than ever before.

Also starring Morgan Kelly as a below adequate pie flinger.

Michael Shannon desires only above average pie flingers.

At this day and age, it is very hard to give us a sort of “star crossed lovers” story and have it believable. We get it. People can be with anyone at this point. Romance against all odds.

So what about a woman and an amphibian man. Not a man who turned into a fish creature, but you know, some entity that evolved on its own, completely separate from humans, despite being humanoid. See, this is the new stuff that storytellers need to be tackling, the things that the Republicans have been warning us against.

Hawkins gives an astounding performance as our mute lead, and I am surprised there currently is not a giant campaign against her taking actual mute actresses work, or whatever. She does an amazing job, doing so much with those eyes and her smile. Shannon and Stuhlbarg are a bit cartoon-y, but that is okay given what they end up doing. Shannon’s villainness started off slow but really escalated near the end during the climax. I was very scared in the scene with Spencer.

Jenkins continues his eccentric small characters that he has been doing recently, and Spencer is unfortunately playing a role she keeps getting put into. She needs a better agent to showcase her range instead of the same thing over and over.

The film is stunning to look at, the Amphibian Man is detailed in every facet (and orifice). Doug Jones is finally being acknowledged for his astounding work in the creature field. There are so many positive things to say, but really, just see it for yourself for a different experience.

By and by, this is probably the finest piece of interspecies erotic ever written.

Bright was meant to be this big Netflix release at the end of the year, one of their first Blockbuster films. So of course they brought in Will Smith for this adventure.

And hell, they made it R, so we can get the killing, the swearing, and the boobs. Just going to go all out. They even did pre-screenings of the film for press! The night before it was on Netflix, sure, but they were trying.

And then everyone hated it. I heard a lot of things, like how it was meant to be the worst film of the year, terrible, whatever. So something I meant to ignore I was now contractually obligated to write about. Statistically, everyone who sees this review would have seen it by the time I publish this, which in my head is currently “whenever.”

“Say whenever again, I dare you.” – Samuel wilL. Smith.

In the year, I dunno, probably this one, in a city much like LA, we have one notable difference. Fantasy races also exist in our world, or at least just a few. We got elves, we got orcs, we got fairies, and as far as I can tell that is it. Sorry people who love dwarves. Two thousand years ago there was some Dark One that came and tried to destroy the world, the Orcs were on his side, the “good guys” won and the orcs were hated ever since, despite being citizens of the world as well. So they get shit upon by everyone.

Oh and magic! And specifically, magic wands which are super rare. The only people who can use the wands are called Brights, who are usually elves. Humans have been Brights in the past but it is like, 1 in a million chance of being a Bright. Oh, and the only way to know if you are a Bright is to try and use a wand, if you aren’t a Bright, you will explode. good times.

Now that world building is done, we have a cop duo, Daryl Ward (Will Smith) and Nick Jakoby (Joel Edgerton), the only orc cop for diversity reasons. Also no one wants to work with Ward cause he is a dick, or moral, or something. Ward hates it, Jakoby just wants to be a good guy, and Ward recently got shot on a call as his partner was getting food, so he is angry a lot.

After thirty minutes of exposition and shit talking to the Orc, we eventually have the duo discover an actual wand, and an elf who is talking gibberish and warnings. Before they can turn everything over, they find out that a lot of people want the wand for their own power hungry ways, including other cops ready to sweep this incident under the rug.

So our duo has to run around town at night, protecting an elf and the wand, from groups who want it, or else maybe the world will end. Who knows!

Also starring Alex Meraz, (Noomi Rapace), Edgar Ramirez, Happy Anderson, Lucy Fry, Margaret Cho, and Veronica Ngo.

Elves are rich and elves are hipster druggies.

Was Bright the worst movie of the year? Hell no. In fact, not even the worst movie I have seen on Netflix as an “original film” this year. It doesn’t mean it is good, it is still bad, but it wasn’t dog shit terrible.

However, the intro is going to turn so many people off. It is going for a parallel of their world and our world’s view on races, but they put it to 11. The first 30 minutes or whatever is just people railing into the orc cop, from all sides, constantly. If you want abuse, you will get it, and by then people will have made up their minds. They get over it eventually, but it puts a bad taste into everyone’s mouth. It is far too heavy handed.

After that, it is only an okay story. Nothing too original, the fantasy elements are only somewhat there, and really, the ending is obvious. The acting is mediocre and the effects are also mediocre. So a mostly blah movie with a bad intro is of course, a bad grade.

The bottom line? Netflix wanted to turn this movie in to a franchise of films or a TV show (along the lines of the Marvel series) or something. And you know what? It probably still will. The world building is there already, they have a lot of room for other fantasy growth, and most importantly, they have a shit ton of people talking about this film.

I don’t know how Netflix in particular makes money from their movies/shows, given everything comes with the submission fee. But almost everyone I know has talked about watching this movie since it came out, due to the hype and the bad talk. So this movie probably put up amazing numbers besides the PR buzz. Expect more Bright in the future, whether you want it or not.

Get Out did a lot of things for movies in 2017. It started the year off with a bang (a bang that I think Split also helped open) where it was definitely some sort of horror film, but with other genres molded into it. The comedy elements that normally turn something into a parody film were present, helpful, but not overshadowing.

Those movies helped pave the way for something like Happy Death Day to be released. A film taking a familiar concept (reliving a day over and over) and tacking on a serial killer. Great. We have a reason for the day to be relived, we have a horror element which is new, and we have a goddamn mystery.

I remember missing this movie earlier in the year because four screenings were happening at the same time, so I ended up picking Professor Marston and the Wonder Women, which honestly still feels like the right move. But I had high hopes for this film, let’s just say that.

I also had high hopes for a big lavish birthday cake, but fuck me right?

Tree Gelbman (Jessica Rothe) has a stupid name, but that won´t bring her down. She is in college, she is smart enough, she likes to drink and party and is in an amazing sorority. She is sleeping with a professor for grades (And love?), and yes, it is in fact her birthday.

She woke up unfortunately not in her own bed, but in the bed of some boy named Carter (Israel Broussard). She doesn´t know him, she was drunk, clearly mistakes were made. Oh well, she can walk of shame it to her house for her birthday, no biggy. She just has to deal with other dumb college people, her annoying roommate (Ruby Modine), trying to sex up her professor (Charles Aitkin) without his wife (Laura Clifton) knowing, and of course, dealing with Sorority Drama.

But on the way to what is most certainly a surprise party for her, something strange happens. She gets murdered by someone in a big baby mask, straight up killed. And after she dies, she wakes up, back in Carter´s bed, confused and scared. Thinking it is some really intense dejavu, she goes on like normal, only changing up her route to the party, and sure enough, she finds herself dead, again, and back in Carter´s room. Oh no.

For some reason, Tree is dying every night by someone murdering her in the face, and she is waking up each day, more and more tired and concerned for her safety. She has to enlist help to determine who the killer is, but it is like everyone she needs to help her has short term memory. It sucks. Worst birthday ever.

Also starring Rachel Matthews, Rob Mello, Jason Bayle, and Phi Vu.

Baby got a bat, better run run run.

Overall, I found Happy Death Day to be pretty disappointing.

When it comes to uniqueness, it only is unique in that the other repeated day stories and movies did not have horror elements. Or at least that wasn’t their main element. But can a repeated day film really be that scary? Well, for the most part, there will not be a sense of surprise. We know that she makes it until the end of the day, and unless it is purely random when she gets stabbed (it isn’t), then we know when to expect stabbing. It is hard to get scared in these situations, so the movie doesn’t work well as a horror.

On the comedy side, it too was weak. Most of the comedy came from the occasional weird kill, but a lot of it was just regular interactions between college students. Parts were amusing, but nothing really would cause someone to laugh out loud. As you can see, this is a multi-genre film that doesn’t really do great at any genre.

The main character is such a lame character, that no one would ever root for her. She is a mean sorority girl, and frankly, her getting killed doesn’t seem like a big deal. We can have films about unlikable characters, but that doesn’t mean we should want to root for them.

The ending is also a dud, where the main red hearing based solution is just so nonsensical, it is annoying how they wasted so much time on it. Any viewer would know it is incorrect, but we have to suffer through almost 30 minutes (it feels like) on that notion that it is excruciating.

Happy Death Day is a movie with a good idea, just terrible execution all around.