August 28, 2019 “Pilgrimage” (* out of four) was a miserable bore set in 13th century Ireland in which a group of monks (Richard Armitage John Lynch, Jon Berthal, and others) and a young novice (Tom Holland) must escort a sacred relic across a landscape and face danger which cause them all to re-examine their personal and religious beliefs in life. Molasses-moving story takes its time but has no real story to tell. What the hell is Holland doing in this movie? Don’t make the “pilgrimage” to Redbox for this time-waster. Continue reading →
August 28, 2019 “Big Top Evil” (*1/2 out of four) was a gory, one-note horror freak show about five delinquent youths (J. Larose, Austin Judd, and others) who embark on a road trip to locate the site of a mad slasher and instead end up lost and pursued by a group of cannibal clowns (led by Bill Moseley). Imagine Rob Zombie’s “The Devil Rejects” with no laughs but plenty of gore and crude humor (and clowns) and you’ve got an idea of what to expect here. Moseley seems to be more-or-less playing the same role he did in “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2” and he’s just as over-the-top and annoying. Continue reading →
August 28, 2019 “Midsommar” (*1/2 out of four) was a stultifying horror drama about a couple (Florence Pugh, Jack Reynor) who travel to Sweden to visit a rural mid-summer festival and go on an isolated retreat but they are instead taken into an increasingly lurid and violent competition by a mysterious pagan cult. Director Ari Aster utilizes a hypnotic mood and visual style that may remind you of Stanley Kubrick’s “The Shining”……….but you soon realize that’s all the movie is, since it moves like molasses and goes on forever at nearly two-and-a-half hours. Many critics and fans thought highly of this but I’m not one of them. Continue reading →
August 27, 2019 “The Wizard Of Lies” (** out of four) was a superficial drama centered around Bernie Madoff (Robert De Niro) whose corrupt empire crumbled when his Ponzi scheme was exposed as it defrauded $65 billion from unsuspecting victims and became the largest fraud in U.S. history. Director Barry Levinson bombards you with financial and personal details of Madoff and his family but never really tells you much about him you don’t already know and doesn’t get into his motivations or backstory leaving this film with a frustrating aloofness. De Niro is OK in the lead but Michelle Pfeiffer fares best as his struggling wife Ruth Madoff. This marks their fourth collaboration together. Continue reading →
August 27, 2019 “Residue” (** out of four) was a mindless horror thriller about a private investigator (James Clayton) who reads a book involving sinister origins and unwittingly puts him and his daughter (Taylor Hickson) in jeopardy in a fight for their lives in which nothing is what it appears. Attempt to mix together elements of fantasy, horror, and underworld melodrama scores points for originality but becomes tiresome after a while. Matt Frewer is amusingly over-the-top as a criminal boss but Clayton is one-note and blank in the lead. Continue reading →
August 27, 2019 “Dolls Cemetery” (*1/2 out of four) was a glum horror show about a famous novelist (Jon Paul Gates) who is sent to a remote collage in rural England to find inspiration for his latest novel. While there, he discovers a doll named Alfred who he soon finds is a very bad doll with murderous intentions. Even the doll looks bored and that goes double for the audience. Yet another killer-doll movie that can’t hold a candle to “Child’s Play” or even its sequels. Watch any of those or “Pet Sematary” instead. Continue reading →
August 26, 2019 “Here Alone” (** out of four) was a moody but meandering melodrama about a young woman (Lucy Walters) who struggles to survive on her own after a worldwide epidemic exterminates mankind and she has to venture into the wilderness for the first time to try and stay alive and determine what is the cause of this and why. Artfully and respectfully done story, with some good performances and intelligent dialogue, is also too stilted and morose. Rich music score by Eric D. Johnson is a definite plus. Continue reading →
August 26, 2019 “We All Fall Down” (* out of four) was a boring post-apocalyptic thriller about a young man (Cardiff Gerhardt) who struggles to protect his mute younger brother (Connor James Moore) in a desolate world in which all adults have turned into zombies and a cannibalistic tribe begins hunting them down. Cheapjack pastiche of “Lord Of The Flies”, “The Walking Dead”, and also “The Road Warrior” but completely lacking any of those film’s grandeur or thrills. Perhaps it’s time to give these futuristic and apocalyptic stories a rest for a long while. Continue reading →
August 26, 2019 “What Happened Last Night” (*1/2 out of four) was a slapdash college comedy about two students (Clayton Snyder and Alix Kermes) who wake up in bed together after a night of partying and story is then told in reverse as they try to piece together what happened the night before and how they met. By the end of the movie, you may wish they both just went to an A.A. meeting instead. Loaded with the usual scenes of college partying, annoying characters, and sex jokes. Viewers will likely forget this movie by the next night. It’s movies like these that make you realize how good “Revenge Of The Nerds” and “Animal House” were so many years ago. Continue reading →
August 26, 2019 “Locked Up” (*1/2 out of four) was a pretty awful melodrama about an American teenager (Kelly McCart) in Southeast Asia who fights back against her vindictive bullies at school and gets railroaded and sent to a reform school for young girls which (naturally) turns out to be more of a prison in which she has to fend off menacing gangs and worse prison guards in order to survive. Almost exactly what you would expect, with several gang fights, knifings, and lesbian shower scenes. Not all that different actually than Sylvester Stallone’s “Lock Up” but just as dumb and unpleasant. Continue reading →
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