October 15, 2022 “Old Man” (* out of four) was an excruciating bore about a lost hiker (Marc Senter) who stumbles onto a house in the middle of the woods and finds an erratic old man (Stephen Lang) who takes him in but the two find a bond in kinship and camaderie even as they both try to turn the tables on one another. Imagine Lang’s other feature “Don’t Breathe” as a two-character chamber piece and you have an idea of what to expect about the static snooze proceedings here. Lang remains an underrated character actor but “Don’t Watch” would be a better title for this timewaster. Continue reading →
October 15, 2022 “Halloween Ends” (* out of four) was a dreadful “final” end to this series set 4 years after the last entry in which the undying killer Michael Myers (James Jude Courtney) forms a kinship with another alleged babysitting killer (Marteen); somehow they both end up wreaking havoc for Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) who has attempted to move on in life and be a self-help personal writer. Hard to believe this was directed by David Gordon Green who made the chilling 2018 “Halloween” because this mess is as desperately bad as any of the previous entries (or Rob Zombie versions). Michael Meyers is hardly in this one. Even still- if you make it to the end of this, you may really wish that Michael died in that hospital fire and this series really would rest in peace. Continue reading →
October 12, 2022 “Stalker” (* out of four) was a claustrophobic horror clunker set almost entirely in the confines of an elevator in which a down-on-her-luck actress (Sophie Skelton) becomes trapped in an elevator with a man (Stuart Brennan) who is stalking her and they get to know one another as she gradually turns the tables on him and enacts violent revenge. Both Skelton and Brennan are good under the circumstances but viewers will feel trapped right along with them after a while as film becomes crushingly monotonous. Yet another movie that might have (possibly) worked better as a two-character play. Bret “The Hitman” Hart has a bizarre cameo in a flashback as a hostile film director but this role just doesn’t provide him with any excellence of execution. Continue reading →
October 11, 2022 “Ghoster” (*1/2 out of four) was a synthetic children’s story about a young girl (Sophia Proctor) and her father (J.R. Brown) who attempt to unravel the secrets of an extravagant mansion they are residing in while an evil spirit named Yuto (voiced by Cory Phillips) attempts to wipe all of them away in his quest for immortality. Lame attempt to rehash the elements of “Casper”, right down to its poster design and honestly “Casper” wasn’t that great to begin with. Only some sweet moments at the end have any real connection. For very undemanding kids only. Continue reading →
October 11, 2022 “Deadstream” (0 stars out of four) was an absolutely worthless horror thriller about an obnoxious internet personality (Joseph Winter) who attempts to film a live comeback of himself surviving a night in a haunted house but he soon finds that he has aggravated an evil spirit which causes all Hell to break loose. Star/co-director/co-writer/co-producer/co-editor Winter bears all the blame for this unwatchable film; his annoying character (and performance) is so off-putting that you’ll literally be rooting for the evil spirit to put him (and the audience) out of their misery. It’s movies like these that make the original “Blair Witch Project” and “Paranormal Activity” look like classic Hitchcock by comparison. Continue reading →
October 11, 2022 “Stay The Night” (**1/2 out of four) was a mildly engaging character melodrama about a career-oriented and emotionally guarded woman (Andrea Bang) who encounters a setback at work which prompts her to have a one-night stand with a professional athlete (Joe Scarpellino) but this gets complicated when they both develop a strong bond and feelings for one another. Writer/director Renuka Jeyapalan works in a dreamlike style and mood that holds your interest but can’t transcend film’s pat and predictable story elements which derive from “Before Sunrise” and “Love Story” among others. Bang and Scarpellino’s involving chemistry overall makes this worthwhile and worth “staying” through. Continue reading →
October 9, 2022 “MK Ultra” (* out of four) was an ultra-dull suspense melodrama set in the early 1960’s based on the true stories of the C.I.A. and how they performed drug experimentations on various prisoners and political officials and how one young psychiatrist (Anson Mount) was recruited by the agency to run an experimental unit in a Mississippi hospital and found his moral/personal/ethical boundaries pushed to the breaking point. Viewers will likely reach their own “breaking point” with this long before film is over. Wooden and superficial treatment of an interesting part of C.I.A. history but all of the “Bourne” films covered similar territory with far more vigor and intensity. Jason Patric plays a nefarious agent involved in the program but based on this and other recent films he ought to possibly get a new film agent to get him better roles. Continue reading →
October 9, 2022 “Werewolf By Night” (** out of four) was a lukewarm horror thriller about a lycanthrope superhero (Gael Garcia Bernal) who utilizes a curse in his bloodline to fight the forces of evil but encounters a woman (Laura Donnelly) who is one tough cookie and they both have to utilize their strength and sources to stay alive and save humanity. Disappointingly ordinary Marvel Halloween special is a half-baked homage to monster/vampire movies of the 30’s and 40’s. Impressive black-and-white cinematography by Zoe White is alluring at first but that too becomes monotonous after a while, just like the film itself. Inauspicious directing debut from Oscar-winning composer Michael Giacchino. Continue reading →
October 9, 2022 “Dead For A Dollar” (*1/2 out of four) was a disposable Western about a famed bounty hunter (Christoph Waltz) who runs into his sworn enemy (Willem Dafoe) who is a professional gambler and villainous outlaw whom he had sent to prison years earlier and things start to get really ugly in the old West with various townsfolk (Rachel Brosnahan, Benjamin Bratt, and others) taking sides. Big-name cast fails to elevate by-the-numbers and weak material. Most Westerns at least are visually beautiful but the cinematography here is blurry and ill-lit and Walter Hill’s direction is surprisingly amateurish. His earlier Western efforts “The Long Riders” and “Extreme Prejudice” were far more involving. Continue reading →
October 8, 2022 “The Luckiest Girl Alive” (* out of four) was a punishing adaptation of Jessica Knoll’s best-selling novel about a socialite (Mila Kunis) who seemingly has the perfect life and everything seems fine on the surface but underneath hides crippling personal pain and trauma that threatens to upend her existence when she has to unspool all of this to a documentary filmmaker (Dalmar Abuzeid). How such an awful adaptation could be made is hard to fathom since Knoll adapted her book and wrote the screenplay herself. Kunis remains a terrific actress but is completely undone by static direction and storytelling. Film’s cutting back-and-forth in time structure is really annoying also and it goes on forever (two hours but believe me- it feels much longer). By the end, it seems bewildering and pointless. An unlucky and complete misfire. Continue reading →
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