Game Night

Game Night is a funny film, not a great film, but a funny film with a great cast. Jason Bateman, as always is great in the lead, as is Rachel McAdams, whom is as adorable as ever here. Jesse Plemons, as usual, steals the show. The story unravels & you go on a crazy night with a cast of likable characters. Not all the jokes work, but when they do, they are really funny. I got exactly what i wanted from this flick.

Annihilation

Alex Garland has always been a great screenwriter, three years ago he proved he was a great director, and now, he is 2 for 2. Ex Machina was a great debut, GREAT, and his follow up is even better. What we have here is a film that honestly would be a great double bill with the Ritual. That was a damn good film, but another film it reminded me of was the Descent, a film i was let down by, but this takes the concept of that, the idea of the Ritual, and aspects of later Terminator flicks, adds in some great ideas about aliens cropping the Earth, blanks being destroyed and the empties being taken over. It is also gory, this is a pure science fiction film with pure horror moments, a truly fantastic film!

Mute

Duncan Jones made a masterpiece with Moon, great film, i loved it. His follow up didn't have his heart in it, it was a good film, i liked it, that film was Source Code. I wanted him to do his Blade Runner homage instead, but like Moon was his 2001. Perhaps his third film would be.....nope, instead we go Warcraft, it wasn't a good film, i didn't care for it. Now he unleashes his Blade Runner, now he unleashes Mute. Mute is flawed, the story has some incoherent moments and the film has some odd pacing but overall, this was an enjoyable film. For one, it was better than Blade Runner 2049, secondly, it is a true companion film to Moon. Lastly, modern nerds, aka, the modern masses, hate everything that is flawed. If Fifth Element was released now, they'd hate it, but the fact it is a hot cosplay makes em love it. Not every film needs to be Star Wars or Marvel. Hey critics, not every sci fi flick needs be Arrival or Ex Machina. Enjoy this flick, it might make your brain hurt but guess what, same thing happened for peeps in 1982 for Blade Runner!

When We First Met

This film is getting a ton of hate, i don't know why. Is it cause he wants out of the friend zone? Is it cause he goes back and time and manipulates his future? It seems to be part of it. Alot hate Adam Devine, and yes, a little bit of him goes along way, but he was not annoying in this. The script, while not the quickest or wittiest, was still funny. It is a coming of age tale for a failure of love, he realizes that the love he wanted isn't what he needed, that the best way to have happiness was to let go, that the love he was looking for was in front of him all along.

Everything Sucks

Everything Sucks is truly a coming of age series. At the start i found the three main characters to be cringe worthy but at the end, they gained heart(well two of them) and had depth. Our "antagonist" became our friends, our female lead had an awakening. and our parents found love. The soundtrack to this show is amazing, but i hope if they do a season 2 that is focuses more on the cool shit of 96. Spawn toys & comics, Playstation, the nWo, Austin 316, Smith & Tarantino influence, the X Files. If you are watching this and are turned off from the cringe worthy behavior, give it time, age will come!

Black Panther

I've loved almost every Marvel film, almost, here is Black Panther, one of the better films, yet a film i did not love. I will sleep on it, but i merely just liked this film. As i said, it is a good film, it looks gorgeous, has fine acting and has some good battles. The battles are good not great, they are pure carnage, yet i wanted them a bit more controlled. The acting is solid, what you are used to from Marvel, but a little better. The film looks gorgeous, and with a tight script it makes for an entertaining film, however i wanted more. More of Wakanda, more of Michael B. Jordan, and comic book bliss. Wakanda is pure comic book, and it is what makes this film so beautiful, but i wanted to have the film embrace it a bit more. I am glad the humor was at a minimum, as it didn't call for it, i am also glad the villain was actually well rounded and played with charisma. It was refreshing to see a Marvel film without many call backs to previous films in the series. I hope the sequel goes for broke and flat out embraces Wakanda & technology.I wrote most of this Thursday after seeing it, and the flick gets better each day, with that said, i still only like it. It needs a second viewing.

Gotham By Gaslight

Man, the DC Animated Films have slipped in recent years, sure i enjoyed the Caped Crusader flicks, but Killing Joke and Justice League Dark were pretty bad. I still haven't seen Batman & Harley Quinn, but judging from Gotham By Gaslight, I am not so sure if I am in any rush, i mean i has been out for a while, so obviously i am not. Much like Killing Joke, you take a comic(this one not as amazing as Killing Joke) and you give it a hohum adaptation(again this isn't even as good as Killing Joke's film, which it self, wasn't that good). In fact i was just bored by this flick. The new Suicide Squad looks pretty sweet though.

Day of the Dead: Bloodline

Stop remaking Romero, seriously. Okay the first remake of Night is awesome, and Synder's Dawn is pretty cool, but all those sequels, reboots & remakes or Night are awful. The worst offenders are the Day films. The Day sequel Contagium was pure zombie shit. The remake of Day was just as bad but not quite. Now we have something that almost tops it, almost, cause Contagium is one of the worst films ever made, and this here, Bloodline, is pretty damn close. It starts off promising with blood, almost too much as it felt forced. A nice rack goes for a run, cut to hours earlier, we meet one dimensional characters and are fed a plot that attempts to copy the 85 classic but fails miserably, no commentary, no heart, no cool moments or character interactions, just a dull 90 minute piece of shit.

The Ritual

David Bruckner has mainly done anthology flicks, good ones like VHS, really good ones like Southbound and great ones like the Signal. Now he does a stand alone film all by himself, and he knocks it out of the park. This film out Witched the Witch, it out Blair Witched all the Blair Witch flicks. He crafted a super tense and nightmarish slice of cinema. Netflix has delivered some good films in the past year, and for the year 2018, this along with Futile & Stupid Gesture, the year is off to a great start. Hopefully small films continue to be as great as this, hopefully horror continues to be as great as this, cause it set the bar high.

Cloverfield Paradox

In 2007 I was all over the 1-18-08 buzz, the film, Cloverfield, was amazing. I loved LOST, so JJ Abrams producing a kaiju film? Yes Please! I loved the film, then 8 years later a trailer dropped for a sequel, an unannounced sequel! It too was amazing. Now we are getting a third and a fourth this year, but wait, the trailer for the third will debut at the Super Bowl, wait, the Super Bowl was the other night. Wait, the trailer announced the film would drop that night? I watched it the next day? You bet you ass i did. I am just not getting around to writing about it? YEP. Why? Cause, while i liked it, it was also meh. When it was over i watched a Futile & Stupid Gesture, and that overshadowed it, greatly. Then Tuesday i thought about the flaws, then Wednesday i was reading plenty of articles on it. It is a brilliant concept with a terrible execution. The film shouldn't have been a Cloverfield film, making multiverses here makes no sense. A Marvel film, sure, but not here. The plot is pure Alien, hell here it is more Sunshine, double hell, Life was out last year, so there is that. It's a decent but underwhelming film.

A Futile & Stupid Gesture

David Wain constructed a brilliant film with a mind & heart towards comedy, writing, film making, and life in general. Hilarious & heartfelt! The meta approach is great, it at times resembles Animal House, The cast captures the facial features & voices of the comedy legends perfectly. For every tongue in cheek slap stick moment is a moment of humanity that either makes you happy for achievement or cringe in how big of a mess reality can truly be. If you are a humorist, please watch this, it is an amazing film! 

The Good Place Season 2

I thought this season would kind of suck, last year's finale i had mixed emotions on, and this years premier i had mixed feelings on. Rebooting the show? Multiple times? Nonsense! But it worked, it made the characters seem to have more flaws, it also made them more likable. As they began to know the real versions of themselves, so did we. It was a somewhat coming of age season, and on top of that it used corse correcting and a lost flash sideways narrative in the finale.

Winchester

The directors of Undead, do it again, another stinker. I didn't mind Daybreakers, i liked Predestination, the new Saw was meh, but Undead i am not a fan of, but all are masterpieces compared to this. This is bad, not cause it is boring, which it is, not because it is poorly made, which it is, but because they missed so much. There is a cool idea in here, but the script is so god damned bad, which leads to some of the worst acting you can find, and that includes, especially includes Helen Mirren. I thought, cool maybe i will find moments in this to enjoy, to possibly love, maybe this can be a Room.....nope, Bye Bye Man can get that honor, not this.

Happy!

SyFy has found it's stride in shows recently. Happy is the best of the best, it is a profane, gross, un PC, shoot em up, with drugs, hookers, booze, blood, brain goo, and alot of heart. For such a fucked up show, it has a core, a core of love. Whether it comes from Nick Sax and his grich heart growing, his daughter Hailey, her imaginary friend Happy, there is something to warm your heart to while you smile from laughter and gore. This is how i wanted Deadpool to be, and it does a better job than Deadpool could dream of. This is a new Christmas favorite, and christmas is now officially over with this show ending(for the season!). The show balances over the top violence and dark humor of Nick, with the super creepy and fucked up Santa. This is the scariest show of TV, A Demogorgon isn't real, but sex trafficking and pedophiles certainly are. By no means does the show make light of that aspect, that is painted very dark & disturbing, but Patton Oswalt is so cheerful  as Happy, and Christopher Meloni is brilliant as Sax. His facial expressions tell a million stories, and this is his second best, if not best role(Gene, looking at you)