Netflix And Chill: Moonage Daydream (2022)

While it's fair to call Moonage Daydream an energised and trippy collage of David Bowie material that works as a celebration of the artist and his art, something that a fan will certainly want to appreciate at least once, it's also fair to claim that this isn't really a documentary that seems to reveal anything truly new. Many of the Bowie clips used are taken from archival interviews, ensuring that Bowie is still often trying to keep some kind of persona in place to protect the real person, and a lot of the concert footage, while new, feels like stuff we've all seen already.

I like to consider myself a Bowie fan, but in the same way that so many others will consider themselves Bowie fans. I don't claim in-depth knowledge of his entire body of work, I cannot tell you the name of every track on every album, but I automatically mistrust anyone who doesn't have some connection with him, either through his music or through his pretty impressive selection of acting work. I'm a "Greatest Hits" fan, a "Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars" fan, and I consider my knowledge to be cursory, at best. But here's what I know wasn't given full, or any, coverage in this documentary: his first wife (Angie), his years spent as a functioning drug addict, his experimentation with fascism, the period in which he had sex with at least one underage groupie, and the relationships forged with other musicians that helped to strongly define chapters in his artistic life (Mick Ronson and Niles Rodgers are either shown for the briefest of moments, and I missed some of their screentime, or seem to be completely missing, although Brian Eno gets his due).

I hope some of you are already raising your eyebrows. That seems like quite a lot to miss out, even in a documentary that is officially authorized by the Bowie estate. I wouldn't expect everything to be covered, and appreciate that maybe not mentioning his two children was a way to keep the focus on his artistic life, but the more that ends up being conspicuously absent, the less rounded and satisfying the whole thing is. What you're left with is an overlong and repetitive selection of songs presented in different live incarnations, film clips often accompanying visuals without the right context (personally, I would have loved to hear anything more about The Man Who Fell To Earth, which is a sci-fi classic and an astonishingly brilliant collaboration between the cast and the visionary Nicolas Roeg), and soundbites that seem to deliberately show Bowie juxtaposing his own wit and charisma with the mundanity of other aspects of everyday life.

I enjoyed spending time with Bowie. Very few people wouldn't. But a documentary should do more than feed you scraps and expect you to feel grateful for them. And a documentary about David Bowie, clocking in at no less than 135 minutes, should struggle to cram in every worthwhile bit of audio and visual footage. While this is a feature-length music video selection, with Bowie tweaking his personalities ever so slightly as he bleeds from one chapter into another, it could have been much more than that. If writer-director Brett Morgen had decided to double the runtime, and pack MUCH more into this, then I would have been happy. As it is, however, this is a huge missed opportunity, and I'm not sure how it will play to anyone who isn't already a fan.

5/10

If you have enjoyed this, or any other, review on the blog then do consider the following ways to show your appreciation. A subscription/follow costs nothing.
It also costs nothing to like/subscribe to the YouTube channel attached to the podcast I am part of - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCErkxBO0xds5qd_rhjFgDmA
Or you may have a couple of quid to throw at me, in Ko-fi form - https://ko-fi.com/kevinmatthews

Shudder Saturday: Mill Of The Stone Women (1960)

Starting in much the same way as many other horror movies from the '60s and '70s, Mill Of The Stone Women has a young man, Hans (Pierre Brice), arriving in a small town to learn more about a talented local, Professor Gregorius Wahl (Herbert A. E. Böhme). Professor Wahl is famous for his sculptures, a carousel of female figures that gives the film its title, but it turns out that he also has a very beautiful daughter, Elfie (Scilla Gabel). Hans has his head turned, of course, but then starts to experience some strange events that soon have him doubting his sanity. He may have also endangered Elfie, although she's arguably placed in greatest danger by her protective father. There's a chance that Dr. Loren Bohlem (Wolfgang Preiss) could help, but he seems to be in the pocket of the Professor.

There isn't anyone here, either in front of the camera or behind it, that I can say I recognise. That isn't a comment on the careers of those involved. It's a reminder that, no matter how I strive to improve my overall knowledge of cinema from a variety of locations and time periods, I still have a number of major blind spots. European genre movies of this time period, be they horrors, Westerns, or the popular pepla flicks, would be one of those blind spots. Every day is a school day though, and I feel good for finally marking Mill Of The Stone Women off my watchlist, especially as I have had the Blu-ray sitting on my shelf for a year or so now.

With a number of writers giving input to the story, but the main idea coming from Remigio Del Grosso, what you get here is a riff on material that has already been used well in a handful of other movies, ranging from outright horror to black comedy, that I won't namecheck here, because to know the central idea would spoil the macabre delights of the grand finale. The situation with Elfie is the new spanner in the works, as it were, but sometimes feels like a mere distraction from the real dastardliness that our beleaguered hero has yet to find out about.

Brice is fine, but he's arguably the least of the main players. Not his fault, it's just that those who are more mysterious and/or villainous, are more fun. Böhme plays his character with an amusingly constant level of irritation and impatience, Preiss hangs around so long that you know his character is in cahoots with the Professor for some secretive reason, and Gabel gets to spend most of her time looking very pretty and fragile. Dany Carrel also impresses, playing Liselotte (girlfriend of Hans), and Liana Orfei is a local woman named Annelore who finds herself in a bit of a predicament that helps to spur on the action needed in the third act.

Director Giorgio Ferroni does a decent job, although I did wish at times that this had leaned even further into a thick and spooky atmosphere (it feels impressively off-kilter for a lot of the runtime though), and there's some pleasant, and fitting, music from Carlo Innocenzi. I can see why many people like this. I think it's missing something to make it truly great though, whether that is some extra insanity throughout, some moments dwelling on the nastier elements, or just a load of dry ice and more shadows displayed in every scene. I look forward to a rewatch one day, however, and may come to appreciate it even more as I delve into some bonus features and find out a bit more about what it took to get it made.

7/10

If you have enjoyed this, or any other, review on the blog then do consider the following ways to show your appreciation. A subscription/follow costs nothing.
It also costs nothing to like/subscribe to the YouTube channel attached to the podcast I am part of - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCErkxBO0xds5qd_rhjFgDmA
Or you may have a couple of quid to throw at me, in Ko-fi form - https://ko-fi.com/kevinmatthews

Crimes Of The Future (2022)

It's comforting to know that David Cronenberg has managed to remain resolutely David Cronenberg for the past four or five decades now. Crimes Of The Future reminded me of two things. One, I have yet to watch the much earlier film from him that shares the same title (although everyone has pointed out that the two films are otherwise unconnected). Two, despite his filmography seeming to take him further away, at times, from his very specific mindset and worldview, he has never let go of firm beliefs that have helped to shape so many parts of his oeuvre.

Crimes Of The Future is set, to the surprise of nobody, in the future. People tend to interface even more directly with machines and computers, often using the kind of furniture and equipment that looks like a cross between something ergonomically designed and something created as a torture device. Humans don't really suffer from disease any more, and physical pain is largely a thing of the past. That leads to people seeking more and more ways to feel . . . something. Saul Tenser (Viggo Mortensen) is one half of a performance art couple, partnered with Caprice (Léa Seydoux), and his special skill involves displaying his body while new organs grown inside him are removed. This is important, for the order of things that it threatens to unbalance, but it's also secondary to a plot that revolves around the potential next steps in human evolution, the ways in which people feel sexual thrills, and a mission to perform an autopsy on a dead child as a shocking work of performance art.

While full of great actors doing great work, Crimes Of The Future feels like Cronenberg being allowed to display and celebrate ideas that weren't allowed to be front and centre in his work years ago, despite always being there. He finally gets to craft something in which there's a beauty contest for the insides of the participants, something Cronenberg had a character state a longing for in the superb Dead Ringers, and there are ideas and images here that rank up there with the best of his work, although the movie, as a whole, suffers slightly if you compare it to his very best. But the very best films from Cronenberg are a very high bar to be measured against.

As well as Mortensen and Seydoux, who are both excellent in their roles, there's yet another great turn from Kristen Stewart, playing a nervy bureaucrat who seems star-struck by Mortensen's character, Tanaya Beatty and Nadia Litz make a strong impression in the few scenes they have, and you get solid performances from Don McKellar, Scott Speedman, Welket Bungué, and Lihi Kornowski, the latter three all connected to that aforementioned dead child.

I think it's obvious from the plot description here that you shouldn't choose to watch Crimes Of The Future if you're after something light and fun. Mind you, that applies to almost every David Cronenberg movie (as well as anything by his son, Brandon). This deserves your time though, and I encourage people to get themselves in the right headspace for it. It's thought-provoking, disturbing, smart, and sometimes confusing. In other words, bearing in mind that you also get another impressive music score from Howard Shore, it nicely slots into the Cronenberg canon, and it shows that he's lost none of his brilliance.

8/10

If you have enjoyed this, or any other, review on the blog then do consider the following ways to show your appreciation. A subscription/follow costs nothing.
It also costs nothing to like/subscribe to the YouTube channel attached to the podcast I am part of - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCErkxBO0xds5qd_rhjFgDmA
Or you may have a couple of quid to throw at me, in Ko-fi form - https://ko-fi.com/kevinmatthews

The Great Gatsby (2013)

It feels like a lose-lose situation when it comes to adapting The Great Gatsby into film form. Often in the conversation when people are considering the “great American novel”, it’s a fantastic tale that means many different things to many different people. I have read it, amazingly enough, and what I remembered most about it was the feeling of ennui and boredom that seems to cover the central characters like an umbrella, underlining the idea that money can’t buy happiness. There’s also a commentary on permitted behaviours in different social classes, and the fluidity of Gatsby’s personal history, a story people keep gossiping about, feels very much about the bemusement of those who have always had money and wealth reacting to someone new to their particularly privileged strata.

While the story is interesting, it’s also one that superficially appears to be one long sequence of parties that go on for a bit too long. Thinking back on The Great Gatsby, I think of those parties. I think of a feeling of haziness, that moment in between pure joy and paranoia, when the time seems too early to leave but you already know you have stayed up too late. You’re going to be in trouble the next day, but that doesn’t matter right now. Right now is all about the music and dancing and good company.

So who better to convey that feeling than Baz Luhrmann, the master of the numerous loud and brash cinematic equivalents of a party megamix? 

Leonardo DiCaprio is Gatsby, the enigmatic figure who changes the life of Nick Carraway (Tobey Maguire). Their relationship is the heart of the film, although Gatsby has a yearning for Daisy Buchanan (Carey Mulligan), who is already married to the rich, but unrefined, Tom Buchanan (Joel Edgerton), and tension builds between all four characters as the story hurtles towards a finale that may change the lives of everyone forever. Or may prove merely a small bump in the road for those who can speed away from their problems in a fancy sports car.

Adapting F. Scott Fitzgerald’s work for the big screen, writer Craig Pearce and Luhrmann (who have collaborated on almost every other film that Luhrmann has directed) allow themselves plenty of time to unsurprisingly lead viewers into a world of indulgence and excess. That really is Luhrmann’s M.O. A lot of The Great Gatsby is as stylish and beautiful as you would expect from a film set in the 1920s, but Pearce and Luhrmann both do a great job of letting viewers sense something unpleasant beneath the polished veneer. It’s a grand hotel suite, full of flowers and pleasant scents, but one with a decomposing body hidden under the floorboards.

Maguire and DiCaprio are perfectly cast, with the former acting wide-eyes and easily manipulated by those around him while the latter simply embodies what you think absolute charm and charisma wrapped immaculate clothing should look like. Mulligan and Edgerton aren’t as natural a fit in their roles, but both do well, and it’s always believable enough when Mulligan plays someone beloved by those around her (she has had amazing screen presence in every single role of her career). Jason Clarke and Isla Fisher do decent work in their roles, but the real star amongst the supporting cast is Elizabeth Debicki, who I wanted to see much more of. Debicki feels the most at ease in the trappings of the time period, and her character sits nicely in between the extremes of the other personalities in her circle of friends.

I haven’t seen any of the other film versions of The Great Gatsby (I THINK there are about 4 or 5), but it’s hard to imagine them rivalling this. As usual, Luhrmann creates a complete audio and visual blend that both bombards and immerses viewers. He directs his movies like he’s presenting a magic show, plenty of misdirection and distraction delivering straightforward fun in between the moments that show what he was really up to all along.

This may not be one of THE great American films, but it’s a damn fine adaptation of the source material. And it’s a damn fine film. I recommend it to everyone. If you don’t enjoy it then all I can do is apologise, old sport.

Note - I HIGHLY recommend seeing this in 3D if you can. I have the 3D Blu-ray and it was even more brilliant and bedazzling than expected. Although, knowing Luhrmann, I should have known he would have a blast with that format.

8/10

If you have enjoyed this, or any other, review on the blog then do consider the following ways to show your appreciation. A subscription/follow costs nothing.
It also costs nothing to like/subscribe to the YouTube channel attached to the podcast I am part of - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCErkxBO0xds5qd_rhjFgDmA
Or you may have a couple of quid to throw at me, in Ko-fi form - https://ko-fi.com/kevinmatthews

Prime Time: Stir Of Echoes (1999)

If there’s one thing almost guaranteed to happen nowadays when someone praises Stir Of Echoes it is that same person also saying that the film is actually better than The Sixth Sense (the supernatural blockbuster behemoth that unfortunately overshadowed this film back when it was released in 1999). People are entitled to that opinion. I disagree though, although Stir Of Echoes IS an excellent chiller that more people still need to check out.

Kevin Bacon plays Tom, a blue collar worker who is married to Maggie (Kathryn Erbe), the two living in a fairly comfortable new home with their son, Jake (Zachary David Cope). One evening, Tom’s sister-in-law, Lisa (Illeana Douglas) agrees to hypnotize him at a party, which is when his troubles begin. Tom starts seeing things, visions of a young woman (played by Jennifer Morrison) who went missing in the neighbourhood some time ago. His mind has become more receptive, allowing him to see the world around him in a different way. It turns out that his new perspective allows him to glimpse things that his son has been seeing for some time, but maybe things will go back to normal if Tom helps the missing girl in need of his help.

Adapted from a tale by Richard Matheson, Stir Of Echoes was written and directed by David Koepp (his second directorial feature), and it does a fantastic job of grounding the supernatural elements in something that keeps you caring about the characters and believing each stage of the plot development.

As hard as it is for me to say it, because I am a big fan of his work, the biggest problem with Stir Of Echoes is Kevin Bacon. He’s not actually bad, but I cannot help thinking that a number of other actors would do a better job in the main role, from the accent to the attitude. I am not sure who I would replace him with (my mind has considered the likes of Kevin Corrigan and Donnie Wahlberg), but he is the only one I would think of replacing. Erbe and Cope are both very good, with the latter particularly effective at portraying an innocent and playful child who hears and sees things he has become used to others being unaware of. Douglas only has a few main scenes, but she livens up the movie considerably, with her presence and her character being pivotal to the plot. Morrison is shot in a way that allows her to be a memorable onscreen presence, and there are a couple of solid supporting turns from Kevin Dunn and Connor O’Farrell.

Aside from some good performances, the main strength of this film lies in the script and the imagery. The title really sums up the central idea, and the “echoes” that we see are interspersed throughout the plot in a way that brilliantly builds the mystery and sense of intrigue all the way to a final act that is as enjoyable and satisfying as it is annoyingly formulaic. The finale is the least interesting part of the movie, but it works well enough at the end of the journey we have gone on with the main characters.

If you haven’t seen this one yet, do yourself a favour and check it out. The same goes for The Sixth Sense (of course). And then you can decide which one you like more.

8/10

If you have enjoyed this, or any other, review on the blog then do consider the following ways to show your appreciation. A subscription/follow costs nothing.
It also costs nothing to like/subscribe to the YouTube channel attached to the podcast I am part of - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCErkxBO0xds5qd_rhjFgDmA
Or you may have a couple of quid to throw at me, in Ko-fi form - https://ko-fi.com/kevinmatthews

Bring It On: Cheer Or Die (2022)

When I heard that someone had come up with the ridiculous idea of taking the Bring It On movie series into slasher territory, well, I was delighted. Having enjoyed all of the other films, to varying degrees (although I have yet to see Bring It On: Worldwide Showdown), I figured this might be a good way to reinvigorate a series that had faded away from the minds of movie fans some years ago. There's nothing wrong with a movie series creeping towards a natural end point, of course, but I just have a soft spot for the various cheerleading dramas I have been watching for almost two decades now.

Written by Rebekah McKendry and Dana Schwartz, and directed by Karen Lam, this instalment develops a story by Alyson Fouse (the main writer involved with every sequel to the 2004 original, as well as many other projects). A cheerleading team have to practice late at night in an empty building, but they soon find themselves being stalked by a mysterious killer. That's all there is to it.

Kerri Medders plays the main character, Abby, Tiera Skovbye is McKayla Miller, and Marlowe Zimmerman and Makena Zimmerman play sisters, Paige and Evee Simmons, and everyone else really blends in with the whole cheerleading squad. The one exception is Missi Pyle, making a small cameo in the role of Principal Simmons. It's not that the cast aren't given one or two characteristics supposed to help them stand out from the crowd. It's just that everyone spends a lot of time looking perky in a cheerleading uniform, or just coming in and out of the plot to do nothing more than up the potential bodycount.

While the mix of main elements should be fun, it sadly never reaches its full potential. There's no real tension, kills are disappointingly tame and bloodless affairs, and the comedy is ineffective (although works a bit better when just juxtaposing the attempts to maintain a sunny disposition in the face of a situation going from bad to worse). The expected third act reveal is fun, and far from the most ridiculous motivation that we've seen given to crazed killers, but things get a bit too silly when the writers think that using cheerleading as an integral part of the finale will help to justify branding this under the Bring It On umbrella. Maybe it was some kind of stipulation, I don't know, but it's disappointingly mishandled.

The cast all do well enough in their roles, and fair play to everyone who manages to do the kind of cheerleading moves I wouldn't have even managed when I was a teenager, but they're stuck in a film that doesn't help them. McKendry and Schwartz fail to pinpoint the exact tone they want throughout, staggering from one moment to another like a pair of drunk friends heading homeward after a big night on the town, and Lam does nothing to help, seemingly happy to present everything without any extra style or skill.

The central concept - that complete lurch into a very different subgenre - is strong enough to gain some goodwill, but it's a shame that Bring It On: Cheer Or Die wasn't allowed to lean fully into the horror. It's equally depressing that the writers couldn't do better with the comedy. I can't bring myself to hate this, but I won't cheer it.

3/10

If you have enjoyed this, or any other, review on the blog then do consider the following ways to show your appreciation. A subscription/follow costs nothing.
It also costs nothing to like/subscribe to the YouTube channel attached to the podcast I am part of - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCErkxBO0xds5qd_rhjFgDmA
Or you may have a couple of quid to throw at me, in Ko-fi form - https://ko-fi.com/kevinmatthews

Mubi Monday: Holy Spider (2022)

Based on a horrible true story, Holy Spider is another film from talented director Ali Abbasi (who has a small, but excellent, filmography, including helming the superb Border). Written for the screen by Abbasi and Afshin Kamran Bahrami, it’s basically a serial killer movie with the added angle of how the killings were viewed disturbingly favourably by many in the affected area of Iran.

Zar Amir-Ebrahimi plays Rahimi, a female journalist who wants to report on a number of murders that she sees are clearly connected. The police don’t seem to be doing their best, and the fact that the victims have all been prostitutes allows the killer to claim that he is helping to clean the streets of sin. Will he be caught, and what will be the punishment if/when that happens?

Expertly constructed by Abbasi and Bahrami, Holy Spider works as well as it does because of how effectively it straddles two strong touchstones. The more standard serial killer moments are excellent, tense and uncomfortable, but also equal parts fascinating and infuriating as you watch how quickly and easily the vulnerable can be turned into prey. Then there is the damning commentary on how the killer was viewed by so many people who wouldn’t condemn his actions. This is tied into an overview of a misogynistic patriarchal structure that viewers can quickly see as being a perfect environment for this killer and his motivation.

Amir-Ebrahimi is fantastic in her role, portraying a strong and brave woman who is constantly trying to navigate territory full of people who are openly hostile to her, either due to her job or simply due to her being a woman. She is allowed to speak out when overwhelmed by the situation, but her performance is equally commendable for the portrayal of her frustration when she knows she cannot speak freely. Other cast members do good work, nobody here drops the ball, but the other person to single out is Mehdi Bajestani, portraying a man who is typical of many in the attitude towards women, and especially towards women working within the sex industry. Completely confident in his opinions and beliefs, Bajestani is all the better for being surrounded by many who (silently or explicitly) validate his viewpoint.

There’s not much more left for me to say about Holy Spider. From the uncomplicated visuals to the pacing, from the characters used to highlight various facets of the societal problem much larger and more dangerous than “just one man” to the score (courtesy of Martin Dirkov), this rarely puts a foot wrong. Up there with the very best films of 2022, and I hope people check it out whenever they get the chance.

9/10

If you have enjoyed this, or any other, review on the blog then do consider the following ways to show your appreciation. A subscription/follow costs nothing.
It also costs nothing to like/subscribe to the YouTube channel attached to the podcast I am part of - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCErkxBO0xds5qd_rhjFgDmA
Or you may have a couple of quid to throw at me, in Ko-fi form - https://ko-fi.com/kevinmatthews

Netflix And Chill: Murder Mystery 2 (2023)

As many people will already know, I have been a Sandler apologist for much longer than most people. I understand that a lot of his comedy vehicles over the past few decades have been neither big nor clever, and he leans heavily into choices that guarantee people will love or hate him, but I still tend to find enough in them to have a few chuckles. There have been a couple of absolute stinkers, but I can generally go into a Sandler movie with the knowledge that I'll at least not hate it. Judge all you want. While he may no longer tickle the funny bone as well as he did with the likes of Happy Gilmore, Billy Madison, and The Waterboy, Sandler still aims to please his fanbase, usually while he assembles a group of people that he enjoys spending time with and gets them a paid vacation in some beautiful and sunny foreign climes.

Starting off with some narration that briefly recaps the first movie and shows viewers what Nick (Sandler) and Audrey (Jennifer Aniston) have been up to for the past few years, Murder Mystery 2 then allows our characters to head off on another, long overdue, vacation, this time as special wedding guests of their friend, the Maharajah (Adeel Akhtar), who is delighted to introduce them to his bride-to-be, Claudette (Mélanie Laurent). Unfortunately, the wedding is ruined by the Maharajah being kidnapped, and the circumstances of the kidnapping lead Nick and Audrey to suspect a small handful of other guests. There's Claudette herself, a womanising ex-footballer named Francisco (Enrique Arce), the Maharajah's sister (Saira, played by Kuhoo Verma), and Countess Sekou (Jodie Turner-Smith). There may be others involved in the scheme though, and a super-agent named Miller (Mark Strong) comes along to show everyone how an investigation and hostage negotiation should be done.

While it's now Jeremy Garelick in the director's chair, who had what I would consider a moderate success with his previous comedy, The Binge (hey, it did well enough to get a sequel), writer James Vanderbilt returns, the leads are reunited with a familiar face or two from the first film, and there's a feeling of nobody wanting to upset what they obviously consider as having worked well enough the first time around.

Sandler and Aniston once again work well together, the latter continuing to deliver the kind of genuinely great comedic performance that it's all too easy to forget she can do (despite her biggest success being in quite a well-known sitcom) and the former feeling believably, but lovingly, held in check during times when he might otherwise get carried away. It's a shame that the supporting cast isn't as much fun this time around, although everyone works with what they're given. Laurent and Verma aren't given enough to do, and Turner-Smith, her character accompanied by a toadying sidekick (played by Zurin Villanueva), is out of the picture far too soon, but both Arce and John Kani (returning to the role of Colonel Ulenga, now with one less arm than he had last time we saw him) deliver some good lines, and Strong has a lot of fun in the kind of role that is as familiar and obvious as it is entertaining. Akhtar is, of course, onscreen for a lot of the runtime, which isn't a bad thing if his character grates on you slightly, and Dany Boon returns as Inspector Delacroix in time for the third act.

It's been a while since I watched Murder Mystery (hey, I may not hate Sandler movies, but there aren't many that I rush to rewatch lately), but this sequel feels as if it is trying to deliver a bit more action and spectacle. From a lovely wedding dance sequence to an impressive high-speed drive through Paris, not to mention a surprisingly satisfying and memorable final set-piece, there's a better sense of balance between the gags and the actual central mystery being solved.

Very few people will agree with me here, and many won't even bother wasting their time with another Sandler vehicle, but I liked this a little bit more than the first film. Considering I liked the first film more than most, you may just want to discard my whole opinion on this one. It's entirely up to you, but you'll miss some wonderful scene-stealing from Aniston.

6/10

If you have enjoyed this, or any other, review on the blog then do consider the following ways to show your appreciation. A subscription/follow costs nothing.
It also costs nothing to like/subscribe to the YouTube channel attached to the podcast I am part of - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCErkxBO0xds5qd_rhjFgDmA
Or you may have a couple of quid to throw at me, in Ko-fi form - https://ko-fi.com/kevinmatthews

Shudder Saturday: Witch Hunt (2021)

The second feature from writer-director Elle Callahan, after the very enjoyable Head Count from 2018, Witch Hunt is pretty much exactly what you might expect it to be from the title. It's a film set in a modern version of the USA where witches are very real, but their existence is not tolerated. Anyone found to be a witch is dealt with by a special law enforcement agency, and causing trouble can lead to an immediate death penalty.

Gideon Adlon plays Claire, a teenage girl going through normal teenage girl times, but with the added stress of living in a household where witches are being sheltered and helped in their attempts to get themselves smuggled over the border to Mexico. Claire's mother, Martha (Elizabeth Mitchell), knows the danger she is putting her family in, Claire also has two younger siblings, but she very much believes in doing the right thing. Besides, they're very careful. Young Fiona (Abigail Cowen) and Shae (Echo Campbell) are the latest witches to be sheltered by the family, and a determined witch-hunter/agent (Christian Camargo) may end up causing them a lot of problems.

Many people didn't like Witch Hunt, certainly not as much as I did, and a very quick search online turned up a couple of reviews that were practically vitriolic in their criticism of it. Some thought it was clumsy and annoyingly simplistic, an obvious metaphor not handled anywhere near as well as they wanted it to be, while others seemed to be annoyed by a script that they viewed as illogical and full of major mis-steps. I am sure some were also annoyed by the fact that, despite the title and one or two impressive scenes showing updated versions of old tricks for dealing with alleged witchery, Witch Hunt isn't really a horror movie. It's a drama, a very pointed and relevant one, that happens to be wrapped in, well, a spooky cape and pointy hat.

Adlon, Cowen, and Campbell are all very good in their roles, often feeling more like one close family unit once they start to bond with one another. Mitchell is an excellent matriarch, offering support and optimism for those who end up in her care. She risks so much for strangers because she knows what the situation means for everyone, especially other women who may one day find themselves inadvertently on the wrong side of these new laws. Camargo may not have a massive amount of screentime, but his every moment is loaded with tension and menace. He's an excellent addition, and his character essentially gives a face to the inhumanity and coldness of the legislation. 

I liked almost every part of this, and I think Callahan knows exactly what she was doing. Some moments play out like Mean Girls, other moments are riffing on Thelma & Louise (namechecked in a conversation between two main characters at one point), but the main point, more than the comparison to the struggle of illegal immigrants, is something that Callahan pins down for almost every minute of the runtime. Coincidentally or not, considering the political horror of the last year or so, the film has now become even more inspiring. It's about men fearing women, and about how women can, and should, support one another in fighting back against that, as opposed to being turned on one another. Maybe I am reading too much into it, because the social pushback recently has seen women becoming more oppressed and shouted down in a way that has forced them to create a network of information and support not entirely unlike the underground resistance shown in scenarios like this, but it's there nevertheless. And there has always been a different reason for the witch hunts over the years, all of them allowing nasty cowards to mistreat and get rid of women they view as threatening to them.

Does every scene make sense? No, but I don't think they have to. While witches are onscreen, we can assume that not everyone seeing events unfold is necessarily seeing the same thing. There are also moments that just show teenagers behaving like teenagers, and when have they always thought everything through fully and adhered to arbitrary rules given to them? I know I certainly didn't at that age. And if I had some awesome witch powers . . . yeah, forget it, I'd be sitting on a ducking stool within a week (note - the "ducking stool" scene in this is absolutely fantastic).

While far from perfect, this is a step up from Head Count. And I liked Head Count. I hope others check out both of Callahan's features, and I hope some end up agreeing with me on how good they are.

8/10

If you have enjoyed this, or any other, review on the blog then do consider the following ways to show your appreciation. A subscription/follow costs nothing.
It also costs nothing to like/subscribe to the YouTube channel attached to the podcast I am part of - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCErkxBO0xds5qd_rhjFgDmA
Or you may have a couple of quid to throw at me, in Ko-fi form - https://ko-fi.com/kevinmatthews

CODA (2021)

Coda is a word that probably means something musically to people who know the definition of it. Or you think of it as an extra button on the end of a tale. Even before I knew what the word actually meant, I occasionally popped into a music shop in Edinburgh named Coda. It was ridiculously expensive, and the first time I had seen any import CDs for sale (which explained a fair few of the high prices). None of that is really relevant here, where CODA is used to signify Child Of Deaf Adults, but it also provides a very satisfying extra layer to everything onscreen.

Emilia Jones plays Ruby, the child of deaf adults at the centre of this narrative. Her life is already busier than most, and she carries a great responsibility on her shoulders, spending a fair bit of time around her schoolday hours helping her family with their fishing business. Ruby can translate for them, speaking to others who cannot read ASL, and she wants to help them get better rewarded for their hard work. Ruby also has a talent for singing, and one teacher offers to help her get good enough to audition for a music college, but it’s hard to stay focused on a pathway that will take her further away from parents who may never be able to recognise her gift.

Written and directed by Siân Heder, adapting the 2014 original film, La Famille Bélier, CODA is as enjoyable and moving as it is satisfying. You can plot out almost every major moment from the first scene, and I realised at the halfway point that I was waiting for the big moments to come that I knew would turn me all moist-eyed and wobbly-lipped. I needed the film to play out almost exactly as I expected it to, almost holding my breath in the run up to what I hoped would feel elating and cathartic.

Aside from Jones, who is excellent in her role, the central family unit is portrayed by deaf actors. Marlee Matlin, arguably the best-known cast member, is the mother, Jackie, and Troy Kotsur is the father, Frank, and the film features some great scenes that allow them to show how firmly in love, and lust, they remain. Daniel Durant is Ruby’s brother, Leo, adding extra friction, as siblings so often do, and his own path through life, quite settled and/or resigned to how things are, provides a nice contrast to Ruby’s longing to get away. Eugenio Derbez is very enjoyable as the teacher who untaps the potential of our lead, and everyone else onscreen convinces, whether playing carefree teens, hardy fishermen, or other work colleagues kept distant from the central family by their lack of ASL knowledge.

Although some may roll their eyes at movie awards, and there are always so many other contenders that aren’t even up for consideration during those campaign seasons, the fact that CODA won an Oscar for Best Picture, Best Adapted Screenplay, and Best Supporting Actor (given to Kotsur) is, much like the film itself, as hugely satisfying. It’s a warm and witty crowd-pleaser, with a couple of unexpectedly bawdy moments that will prompt a guffaw out of anyone expecting something more serious and bleak, and I don’t have anything against that kind of film being rewarded when it is so well-handled. The fact that it also showcases some superb deaf actors without reducing them to characters identified only by their deafness is also a big plus.

Yes, you have to read subtitles. Or maybe you could learn ASL (seriously, we should all strive to learn at least a few basic words and phrases in ASL). If that puts you off giving this a watch then it’s your loss. CODA may not appeal to cynical viewers, but it’s an easy one to recommend to anyone willing to be made to laugh and cry in (almost) equal measure.

8/10

If you have enjoyed this, or any other, review on the blog then do consider the following ways to show your appreciation. A subscription/follow costs nothing.
It also costs nothing to like/subscribe to the YouTube channel attached to the podcast I am part of - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCErkxBO0xds5qd_rhjFgDmA
Or you may have a couple of quid to throw at me, in Ko-fi form - https://ko-fi.com/kevinmatthews

John Wick: Chapter 4 (2023)

Keanu Reeves is back as John Wick, with Chad Stahelski once again directing, and writer Shay Hatten (who worked on the last film) now joined by Michael Finch, and many people are saying this is the best film in the series. I would disagree, but the third act has a number of major sequences that easily jostle for a spot amongst the action highlights of all four films.

Still looking for a way out of his predicament, John Wick is coming to the inevitable conclusion that he may just have to die. He won’t go down without a fight though, and aims to at least try to take down everyone who is sent after him. The armed goons are being sent in their droves by a determined Marquis (Bill Skarsgård), but the biggest threat comes from a skilled assassin who was once a friend (Caine, played by Donnie Yen) and a tracker (Shamier Anderson) who wants to keep Wick alive until the bounty on his head reaches his desired amount. 

I have complained about some other films that start at a point not allowing for any decent sense of escalation, and you might think that John Wick Chapter 4 would have the same problem, considering the first half of the lengthy runtime, but don’t worry. While there is a risk of fatigue setting in, considering how many fight moments consist of people shooting at one another while lifting up their Kevlar jacket collars to protect their face/head, there is just enough inventiveness and style to keep you entertained until you get to the moments that truly feel as if they are taking things to another level. Every main action set-piece set in Paris, whether it involves the busy traffic going around the Arc de Triomphe or some fluid overhead camerawork showing our hero destroying numerous enemies with a gun that fires out incendiary ammo, sets the bar about as high as it can go for this kind of thing. And I cannot tell you how many times I winced during a battle on some steep steps that saw one stuntman after another take many painful tumbles.

Reeves is still perfect in the lead role, more action than words (but able to show both his determination and tiredness while leaving piles of corpses in his wake), and all of the returning players, such as Laurence Fishburne, Lance Reddick (RIP, his role here is all the more poignant), and Ian McShane, continue to have great fun in their supporting roles, with the latter once again effortlessly stealing some scenes with a raised eyebrow or delightful turn of phrase. Yen is a formidable opponent, and brings with him the legacy of his entire body of work (I hope those new to his skills will hunt down some of his greatest hits), and the same can be said for the great Hiroyuki Sanada, in a relatively small, but pivotal, role. Anderson is good fun, and he gets to give orders to the talented killer dog in this movie (which is great, but sadly not as entertaining as the dogs owned by Halle Berry in the previous instalment). Then there’s Bill Skarsgård, playing his main villain - or, arguably, just the new boss charged with re-enforcing rules and fixing what was broken by Wick’s rampage - with a smug air of superiority, a general lack of concern for what he sees as the inevitable outcome that will go his way, and an entertainingly overdone French accent. There’s also room for Clancy Brown (always welcome onscreen, here lending his talents to the role of Harbinger), Rina Sawayama (playing the daughter of one main character, and someone who may end up on a revenge mission of her own one day), Scott Adkins, Natalia Tena, and the lower half of Marie Pierra Kakoma’s face as she DJs at a radio station named WUXIA.

The soundtrack is another corker (Tyler Bates and Joel J. Richard also having been a part of the series since the first film), the production design throughout keeps things well-balanced to show us bright colours and neon lighting in between moments of stealth in more shadowy areas, and there’s an equally fine job done, as ever in this series, of blending the editing and special effects with an overview of the frenetic action.

I doubt the series will end here, but I will not be unhappy if it does. It’s hard to think of what they could do to top this. You have all of the violence and death, all enjoyably creative, you could hope for, but there are also a couple of thematic strands running through the whole thing that give it some more weight, and keep you remembering what everyone has at stake. And you shouldn’t underestimate the glee you can experience from watching our hero repeatedly smack someone in the head with nunchucks. It’s almost downright cathartic.

8/10

If you have enjoyed this, or any other, review on the blog then do consider the following ways to show your appreciation. A subscription/follow costs nothing.
It also costs nothing to like/subscribe to the YouTube channel attached to the podcast I am part of - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCErkxBO0xds5qd_rhjFgDmA
Or you may have a couple of quid to throw at me, in Ko-fi form - https://ko-fi.com/kevinmatthews

Prime Time: Triangle Of Sadness (2022)

The very talented Ruben Östlund, a writer-director with a track record that currently holds a 100% success rate with me, returns with another film poking at class, money, social media, and gender roles. It’s about double standards, moral standards, and standards used to measure wealth and/or power. Some may be put off by the lengthy runtime, it clocks in at just under 2 1/2 hours, but I cannot think of any scenes I would want to remove, considering how well Östlund makes his main points.

Things start with Carl (Harris Dickinson), a young model already past the peak of his success, as evidenced by him being questioned about him now attending a general casting call. Carl is in a relationship with a model/influencer named Yaya (Charlbi Dean), and the argument we see them have over a restaurant bill shows the strain caused by the imbalance of one partner being much more successful than the other. That success may be fleeting though, and it may not even be real, as we see in the second act (the film is divided into three main acts) when Carl and Yaya join some super-rich and pampered people on a luxury cruise. Some of the other people on the cruise are super-rich tech guy Jarmo (Henrik Dorsin), the also-super-rich-from-fertilizer-sales Dinitry (Zlatko Burić), a head of customer relations/manager named Paula (Vicki Berlin), a woman named Therese (Iris Berben) who can only repeat the one phrase after having suffered a stroke, and a Captain (Woody Harrelson) who just wants to stay in his quarters and get drunk. It isn’t long until a snowballing chain of events leads to disaster, and being rich isn’t necessarily any good when disaster strikes.

On the one hand, I can see why some people would criticise this as a slightly lesser film from Östlund. The targets are obvious, it sometimes feels like picking low-hanging fruit, and many will doubt that something so relatively simple needs to be couched in a film that runs for almost 150 minutes. I would respectfully disagree with those who view the film that way though, and I actually think this is Östlund’s best film, weaving between various scenarios in a way that feels fast and loose while actually remaining smartly on point with every observation, character detail, and barb.

Both Dickinson and Dean (who sadly passed away before the film was released) are both very good in the lead roles, with the former giving a performance so strong that I was stunned to realise it was the same person I had recently watched, convincing American accent and all, in a small, interesting, film called Beach Rats. I am already keen to see whatever else lies ahead for him. Berlin is also excellent, Burić and Dorsin are both great fun, Berben delivers a fantastic physical performance, and Harrelson is hilarious in what is basically a star cameo appearance. His fatigued, drunken Captain feels very much like a fatigued and drunken Woody Harrelson. Dolly De Leon is the other character who proves vital to the plot, a “lower deck” worker who ends up in a very different position during the third act, and she almost steals the movie with her sly and formidable turn. Others worth mentioning are Sunnyi Melles, Amanda Walker and Oliver Ford Davies (a married couple setting things up for a punchline that is both very funny and the weakest scene in the movie), Arvin Kananian, Jean-Christophe Folly, and Alicia Eriksson, with no one cast member dropping the ball for even a second.

Densely-packed, with Östlund orchestrating every minor and major moment like a maestro, Triangle Of Sadness is a rewarding viewing experience that expertly dances around comedy, awkwardness, drama, and occasional nightmarish imagery. It is satisfying to watch, but I also suspect that a rewatch will allow viewers to pick up on many more details, whether they feed into running jokes or keep bursting the bubble of an environment populated by the rich and the privileged.

Oh, and the Captain’s Dinner sequence may be the best scene of 2022, a comedic trip through a dining experience in hell that, whether you like it or not, is absolutely unforgettable.

9/10

If you have enjoyed this, or any other, review on the blog then do consider the following ways to show your appreciation. A subscription/follow costs nothing.
It also costs nothing to like/subscribe to the YouTube channel attached to the podcast I am part of - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCErkxBO0xds5qd_rhjFgDmA
Or you may have a couple of quid to throw at me, in Ko-fi form - https://ko-fi.com/kevinmatthews

Crabs! (2021)

If there is anyone who would be excited by the prospect of a comedy horror about giant killer crabs then that person is me. I love a good creature feature, first of all, and I STILL have a hankering to one day check out the killer crab novels written decades ago by Guy N. Smith (if you have read the wonderful Paperbacks From Hell then you have seen some of the wonderful artwork that helped to sell his books). This film seemed made for me.

It wasn’t. It brings me no great pleasure to say that Crabs! was, in fact, utter bobbins, to put it politely. Let me get some info out of the way before I get back to supporting my opinion on this.

There are one or two killer crabs that enter a small town and start to cause havoc. Starting small and vicious, there’s also a major threat that comes from one fast-growing “supercrab”. The main characters are mobility-impaired Philip McCallister (Dylan Riley Snyder), his police officer brother, Hunter (Bryce Durfee), Annalise Menrath (Jessica Morris), and her daughter, Maddie (Allie Jennings). There’s also a “comic relief” character named Radu (Chase Padgett), someone with a dubious accent who gets to act like an idiot until being allowed to have one or two moments of minor heroism.

I am not going to say that I hope this remains the only film ever made by writer-director Pierce Berolzheimer, that would be unduly harsh and unfair. I do hope that he takes more time to consider what he might helm next though, particularly when it comes to the tone and humour. Comedy is highly subjective, of course, and some people may find this hilarious, but I felt there weren’t many gags here that really worked. And, when you consider that the horror of the thing is also played for laughs, that’s a huge problem. In fact, labelling it as a comedy horror probably isn’t fair. It is a comedic creature feature, and your enjoyment of it will depend on how you respond to the humour.

Although it never comes together into one cohesive whole, it is easy to see what has influenced Berolzheimer. The creature feature may stretch back many decades, but the writer-director seems to think that now would be the best time to remind audiences of the less sophisticated films of the 1980s. There are attempts here to emulate John Hughes, Fred Dekker, and Roger Corman productions, and I am not labelling all of their films as unsophisticated, but the end result feels like the unsuccessful films that would try to cash in on their hits.

Snyder and Jennings are fine in their roles, but they are easily outshone by both Morris and Jennings, who just feel better-suited to their roles than their slightly awkward male counterparts. Padgett, on the other hand, is saddled with portraying one of the worst movie characters I have had to endure in recent years. His performance would have been grating in any teen movie from the past four decades, but it’s almost intolerable in this adventure.

The first few minutes of Crabs! actually works, promising a throwback that might be fun. You get some gratuitous nudity and bloodshed, with a deadly crab attacking some unsuspecting victims. It isn’t big or clever, but it works. Things quickly go downhill, sadly, and anyone still invested in the film by the time the deliberately ridiculous third act starts to play out, well, you’re a much kinder viewer than I am.

3/10

If you have enjoyed this, or any other, review on the blog then do consider the following ways to show your appreciation. A subscription/follow costs nothing.
It also costs nothing to like/subscribe to the YouTube channel attached to the podcast I am part of - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCErkxBO0xds5qd_rhjFgDmA
Or you may have a couple of quid to throw at me, in Ko-fi form - https://ko-fi.com/kevinmatthews

Mubi Monday: La Cérémonie (1995)

Adapted from “A Judgement In Stone”, a 1977 novel by Ruth Rendell, La Cérémonie is yet another wonderful film from writer-director Claude Chabrol (helped in adapting the tale from page to screen by Caroline Eliacheff). 

Sophie Bonhomme (Sandrine Bonnaire) is hired as a maid by the Lelièvre family, a unit consisting of two adults and two children (both in their later teens, at least). While very good at her job, in most respects, Sophie has a secret that she struggles to maintain. She cannot read or write. She may be able to keep up a pretence of literacy, however, with the help of a new friend, a postmistress named Jeanne (Isabelle Huppert). Jeanne is no friend of the Lelièvre family though, and her presence soon starts to cause problems.

Making great use of a super cast, La Cérémonie is a film that scatters small details throughout every scene to build something as potentially darkly comedic as it is menacing. Viewers can sense that things are finely-balanced at almost every turn, and the mix of characters onscreen ensure that you are rarely 100% sure of who you should be rooting for, even as some people try to paint others in a bad light. I am not familiar with the source material, I don’t think I have read any Ruth Rendell books yet in my life, but I suspect that there is less ambiguity there than there is here. Although I should note that it is apparently widely-regarded as one of the best writing works by Rendell, for those wanting to dive into her work.

Bonnaire and Huppert are excellent together, happily forming a stronger bond with each shared experience that allows them to bring out the worst in one another. The latter is especially entertaining, quick to provide what she views as essential information to someone she can claim as a firm friend. Jacqueline Bisset and Jean-Pierre Cassel are very good as Mr & Mrs. Lelièvre, and Virginie Ledoyen and Valentin Merlet are almost as good as the mature children of the household, although the character played by Merlet feels like he could easily have been cut from the plot without much really being changed.

While it may wear clothing that helps it look cosy and sedate, this is very much a wolf hiding in a woolly jumper. The sharp teeth are there, not just for the biting wit either, and the finale delivers a gut punch that rivals many better-known, bleaker, endings, even if there is still a vein of pitch-black humour and irony running through it.

Excellent stuff all round. The more I see from Chabrol, and I have seen a fair few of his films now (and own a couple of nice boxsets released over the past few years), the more I like his French Hitchcockian style.

8/10

If you have enjoyed this, or any other, review on the blog then do consider the following ways to show your appreciation. A subscription/follow costs nothing.
It also costs nothing to like/subscribe to the YouTube channel attached to the podcast I am part of - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCErkxBO0xds5qd_rhjFgDmA
Or you may have a couple of quid to throw at me, in Ko-fi form - https://ko-fi.com/kevinmatthews

Netflix And Chill: Re/Member (2022)

AKA Remember Member.

Having stumbled across Re/Member while trawling through the "horror" choices on Netflix, I was immediately intrigued by the plot summary telling me that the film was about a high school student and friends being stuck in a time loop that will only end when they collect seven body parts and put them back together. That sounds like macabre fun, right? I should have suspected something was off from the fact that I had never heard anyone else mention this film, but I thought I might be discovering a hidden gem. I was wrong.

Kanna Hashimoto plays a lonely young girl named Asuka, and she is the one thrown into the challenging time loop with a number of her peers, most notably Takahiro (played by Gordon Maeda), someone she used to be good friends with some years ago. It doesn't take long for the group to figure out that they've been selected for the "Body Search" challenge, which is the scenario described above. There's a little girl after them though, a deadly spirit who becomes more and more dangerous to the group as they strive to complete the challenge.

Directed by Eiichirô Hasumi and written by Harumi Doki, two names I am not familiar with, this is yet another Japanese film that may already be familiar to fans of the manga it was based on, written by Welzard and Katsutoshi Murase. I can see this being a decent tale in that form, considering how it allows for so many possibilities, possibly even changing the main group of characters whenever some succeed in completing the challenge (or maybe not, I've never read any of it), but the film version starts to falter just when you think it should step up the fun and thrills.

The main characters are all perfectly fine, although it's only really Asuka and Takahiro who stand out, but the central concept is wasted. You barely get a few of the usual time loop "signposts", there's not enough time spent with characters having to convince others of what is going on, and everything quickly turns into yet another film about "this urban legend is real, but we can help this spirit rest if we solve the mystery". I don't mind films like that, and some of the best Japanese horrors are in that vein, of course, but I had hoped for something a bit more unique from Re/Member.

Morisaki is a likeable lead, and Maeda is good, if a bit bland, while the rest of the supporting cast do what is asked of them, namely running about school corridors looking scared. The characters may not be that memorable, but that isn’t the fault of the cast.

Despite the script issues, most of the blame seems to lie with director Hasumi. He doesn’t do anything to elevate the material, with a lot of the film just showing various teens in underlit environments while the growing monster menace remains hidden by shadows and editing. There’s also an unforgivable final sequence of “the lead character just needs to do one thing to end it all, but decides to turn back and mourn and waste time doing everything but that one thing”.

There are some good moments here and there, including a vision our main character has before the time loop even kicks in, but there are also far too many moments that don’t add anything smart, exciting, or entertaining. I won’t be rushing to give it a rewatch.

3/10

If you have enjoyed this, or any other, review on the blog then do consider the following ways to show your appreciation. A subscription/follow costs nothing.
It also costs nothing to like/subscribe to the YouTube channel attached to the podcast I am part of - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCErkxBO0xds5qd_rhjFgDmA
Or you may have a couple of quid to throw at me, in Ko-fi form - https://ko-fi.com/kevinmatthews

Shudder Saturday: Blood Harvest (2020)

AKA The Ballad Of Audrey Earnshaw.
AKA The Curse Of Audrey Earnshaw.

The sophomore feature from writer-director Thomas Robert Lee, Blood Harvest is an assured and unhurried work, a mood piece that shows what can happen when members of a small community just won't leave their local suspected witches to live their lives in peace. It's well-acted, and well put together. It's just a shame that it's not very good.

The setting is an isolated village in North America, established a couple of centuries previously by families who settled there after separating from the Church of Ireland. This is all related to viewers by opening text. In 1956, after an eclipse, the community started to suffer, bad soil and sick livestock making things hard for almost everyone. The notable exception is Agatha Earnshaw (Catherine Walker), who also gave birth to a daughter, Audrey (Jessica Reynolds), during that same eclipse. She has kept the existence of her daughter a secret from the others in the community, but it's getting harder to keep that secret, especially as people become more and more curious about how Agatha is managing to maintain her farm while everyone else suffers great hardship.

While there's a lot here that is very familiar, Lee makes the decision to stay away from anything that could seem too in line with more obvious horror moments or witchy imagery. There aren't any pointy hats or broomsticks here, nor even one eye of newt. There also aren't many moments that feel like a battle between witches and non-witches. As mentioned in the first paragraph, Agatha just wants to be left to get on with her life. Others around her may resent her, and they may consider her reluctance to help them as a contributing factor to their misery, but Agatha and Audrey aren't necessarily out to actively harm them. That doesn't mean that one, or both, won't eventually fight back in self-defence as the behaviour of others starts to become more confrontational and aggressive.

It's admirable that Lee takes this approach to the material, and he's helped by cinematographer Nick Thomas, among others, maintaining a brooding and oppressive atmosphere throughout. He doesn't do enough to reward the patience of viewers though, and that's particularly obvious during a hugely anti-climactic finale. There's a difference between deciding not to show too much and forgetting to show anything of interest, and Lee sadly does the latter.

Walker and Reynolds are both very good in the main roles, very good indeed (giving the kind of performances that immediately have me hoping to see them in other, better, movies), and there are a fine selection of performances from Jared Abrahamson, Hannah Emily Anderson, Geraldine O'Rawe, Don McKellar, and Sean McGinley playing other members of the community. The film simply doesn't do enough to feel deserving of their good work.

Is this bad? No. It's a decidedly okay drama with dark clouds constantly gathering overhead. Those clouds never break though, delivering neither a storm nor momentary sunshine. They're just always there, which means viewers are left with an average film that feels just like them; grey and portentous, but sadly going nowhere.

5/10

If you have enjoyed this, or any other, review on the blog then do consider the following ways to show your appreciation. A subscription/follow costs nothing.
It also costs nothing to like/subscribe to the YouTube channel attached to the podcast I am part of - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCErkxBO0xds5qd_rhjFgDmA
Or you may have a couple of quid to throw at me, in Ko-fi form - https://ko-fi.com/kevinmatthews

Infinity Pool (2023)

The third feature film from writer-director Brandon Cronenberg, Infinity Pool shows that he can keep finding different ways to explore what seems to be his favourite topic - immortality. There's more to this, and it's different enough from both of his previous films, but it's interesting to see that the pros and cons of potential eternal life seems to be his obsession (perhaps stemming from his personal experience of forging a career with the weighty Cronenberg name attached to him).

Alexander Skarsgård plays James, an unsuccessful author (he wrote one book, some years ago, and hasn't written anything since) on holiday with his rich partner, Em (Cleopatra Coleman). They are staying in an exclusive beach resort, advised not to stray outwith the boundaries of that area, and having a very nice time of it. Things all change when they meet Gabi (Mia Goth) and Alban (Jalil Lespert), a couple who encourage them to be a bit more daring and join them for a day out. A day beyond the resort walls. Heading home, an accident leads to someone dying, which could land them all in very hot water. That's when the central idea of Infinity Pool kicks in. This island has a deal for tourists who can afford it. If you have the money, you can pay for a clone to be executed in your place . . . while you watch. This bizarre experience changes something in James, and he realises that he can live his life without fear of consequences. For a while.

As you may have already noticed, Infinity Pool is a movie that actually sits nicely alongside a few other recent releases that have something to say about the selfishness and entitlement of people who can afford anything they like. It might make for a bizarre triple-bill, but you could easily schedule this alongside both The Menu and Triangle Of Sadness and have a strong thematic strand running through your evening's entertainment. This may be a horror film, and one interspersed with hallucinatory and kaleidoscopic imagery at times, but the biggest horror of it all is watching people devolve so quickly when they realise that they can be as hedonistic and boorish as they like, pitying those around them who haven't tasted the same level of "freedom" from the chains of morality.

Skarsgård is excellent in his role, moving convincingly from a state of calm and passivity to a wrecked mass of raw nerves as things develop (imagine him as a healthy tooth that is then worn down and broken within a short space of time), and it's not saying anything new now to heap a whole lot of praise upon Goth, who plays her part here with sheer glee. Even when raging with anger, Goth's character is confident that she will get whatever she wants by the time everything is sorted out. Coleman has less to do, but it's good that her character remains calm and clear-headed at a time when everyone else is looking to dive into the deep waters of insanity, and Lespert is suave and charming throughout, the slick devil alongside Goth's imp/demon.

While it is all put together well enough, with every aspect, from the score to the practical FX work, supporting the ideas being explored throughout, Infinity Pool, due to the nature of that central conceit, cannot avoid feeling a bit inconsequential. Maybe that is deliberate, maybe it isn’t, but it certainly lacks the impact of Possessor (which remains Brandon Cronenberg’s finest work, to date). There's a strong point being made during the final scene, but any statement is undermined by what ISN'T said/shown. I just wish, ironically, that more people had suffered some real consequences. That isn’t to say it is a bad film though. It’s a good one. In fact, it's a very good film indeed.

8/10

If you have enjoyed this, or any other, review on the blog then do consider the following ways to show your appreciation. A subscription/follow costs nothing.
It also costs nothing to like/subscribe to the YouTube channel attached to the podcast I am part of - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCErkxBO0xds5qd_rhjFgDmA
Or you may have a couple of quid to throw at me, in Ko-fi form - https://ko-fi.com/kevinmatthews

Winnie The Pooh: Blood And Honey (2023)

Sit down and strap in, this isn't going to be pretty. Winnie The Pooh: Blood And Honey is that rare thing, a film so consistently awful, and horribly put together, that I have to work much harder to avoid writing a review that amounts to nothing more than a list of choice insults.

Starting with a crude, but effective, bit of animation, viewers are told the tale of Christopher Robin making friends with Winnie The Pooh, Piglet, and co. But Christopher Robin leaves. He is off to become an educated man. That leaves Pooh and friends alone, hungry, and ready to revert to animalistic savagery. Having dived headlong into insanity, there's no way back, and even the return of the grown-up Christopher Robin (Nikolai Leon) cannot undo what has happened. Thankfully, there are also a number of young women for the gang to prey upon whenever they tire of torturing their ex-BFF.

Written and directed by Rhys Frake-Waterfield, who has a few film credits to his name already (none of them sounding great, but none sounding quite as bad as this), it's hard to think of any one way in which Winnie The Pooh: Blood And Honey could be a more inexorably awful viewing experience. One or two decent bits of gore aside, this is boring, visually murky, and seems to have been made by someone who believes that the slasher movie peaked in 1981 (or thereabouts). Maybe Frake-Waterfield was trying to make something slyly amusing and reminiscent of the unsophisticated fare that flooded the slasher movie market five decades ago, but I suspect that he just figured he could make a decent payday, and get his film some notoriety, by making use of characters that have fallen into the public domain and throwing around splashes of bloodshed and gratuitous nudity.

Maybe having some better cast members would have helped, but there isn't anyone here who can rise above the material. Which is understandable, considering how bad the material is, but still a shame. I won't list the names of everyone involved, but Leon is bloody awful as Christopher Robin (hindered by the fact that he is left to repeat the same pleading line over and over when he sees how murderous his old friends have become), Craig David Dowsett at least gets to hide behind the Winnie The Pooh mask, because Winnie and co. are played by people wearing masks, and Maria Taylor could have been a decent potential final girl if the script had helped viewers to care about her fate. I liked both Natasha Tosini and May Kelly, but that was nothing to do with the writing or direction. I just happened to like both of those actresses whenever they were onscreen.

I'm really not sure if we should even class this as a film. It's a childish bit of nastiness that does nothing interesting, or cinematic, with the idea. Want to work with this idea in a way that doesn't seem completely lazy and awful? Go for the more amusing and ambiguous approach of Christopher Robin being the potential killer, letting viewers wonder if his animal friends are real or imaginary. There. The film is already 50% better, and I just thought of that right now. My personal minimal effort far exceeds the effort of Frake-Waterfield (although, yes, he got his film made and I am just here, typing words out to criticise and deride it).

Skip this. It's not worth your time. Just wait until I come up with my own tale of Winnie The Pooh and friends planning a series of bank robberies when The Hundred Acre Wood is put up for sale. Hopefully hitting a cinema some time in 2024, it's Winnie The Pooh: Show Me The Honey.

2/10

If you have enjoyed this, or any other, review on the blog then do consider the following ways to show your appreciation. A subscription/follow costs nothing.
It also costs nothing to like/subscribe to the YouTube channel attached to the podcast I am part of - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCErkxBO0xds5qd_rhjFgDmA
Or you may have a couple of quid to throw at me, in Ko-fi form - https://ko-fi.com/kevinmatthews

Prime Time: Meet Cute (2022)

If you look over the short filmography of writer Noga Pnueli then you will see that she seems to have a fascination with time travel/time loops, and how people may try to use it to change themselves, or change the people they care about. I am only going by the plot summaries here, having not seen any of her other work, but I am now keen to see how she has been working and reworking this idea for the past few years, because Meet Cute is good enough to make me into an instant fan of her.

The premise seems quite simple, and familiar. Kaley Cuoco is Sheila, a young woman who approached Gary (Pete Davidson) in a bar. She offers to buy him a drink, and they stick together for an enjoyable date night. Things aren't what they seem though. Sheila has gone through this date multiple times, thanks to a time machine she makes use of in the back of a nail salon, and she wants to keep enjoying the perfect night. While relishing the opportunity to fix her own life, because this bit of time travel came along just after a very low point, Sheila also realises that she can "fix" Gary. She can mould him into someone absolutely perfect. But maybe he's already perfect for her. And maybe she shouldn't meddle around in the past without considering "the butterfly effect".

Director Alex Lehmann also has a fairly small filmography, for anyone wanting to explore it, but this is the first film from him that I have enjoyed. Other people liked Blue Jay, but I was underwhelmed by it. Funnily enough, it's easy to see a connection between that film and this though, considering the moments in which one character is going through the motions and celebrating a complete relationship that the other character is often unaware of. Lehmann does a good job here, keeping everything lively and interesting enough while allowing the focus to remain on the script and his leads.

As for those leads, both Davidson and Cuoco are excellent. I have, for some reason, always thought I disliked Davidson, but time and time again he delivers moments onscreen (whether in his many acting roles or in his live comedy work) that really work for me. His self-deprecating manner, his ability to tap into his own darkness and discomfort, even his way of leaning fully into complete asshole mode, he's always fascinating and entertaining to watch. And he sometimes gets to be awkward and sweet, as he is here. Cuoco is someone I always liked in her TV work (yes, hate the show all you want, I was easily amused by The Big Bang Theory whenever I watched it), but she deserves to be in more lead movie roles, especially after proving her range in recent projects like this and The Flight Attendant. Meet Cute gets dark at times, very dark, and it's the winning charisma of Davidson and Cuoco that stop it from ever being too dark. Deborah S. Craig is fun in her small role, June (guardian of the time machine), and it was good to see Kevin Corrigan onscreen, even if he was in the fairly thankless role of "Phil the bartender".

Although I do love a good time loop movie, they are often quite similar to one another when it comes to the execution of the material. You see the key moments that will signify repeating time, you see many changes being made to attempt to change the end result, etc. Meet Cute has those moments in place, but they're interspersed throughout the film in a way that helps the whole thing to feel a bit different from many other films in this sub-genre. And almost none of it seems to matter by the time we get to the end, which moves away from the fantastical element to instead underline the main message about not dwelling on the past.

Funny, sweet, painful, and smart. Highly recommended.

8/10

If you have enjoyed this, or any other, review on the blog then do consider the following ways to show your appreciation. A subscription/follow costs nothing.
It also costs nothing to like/subscribe to the YouTube channel attached to the podcast I am part of - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCErkxBO0xds5qd_rhjFgDmA
Or you may have a couple of quid to throw at me, in Ko-fi form - https://ko-fi.com/kevinmatthews

Cocaine Bear (2023)

I often roll my eyes when I see films that claim to be "based on a true story". It's often a selling point for a movie that is as closely related to the truth as I am to Michael B. Jordan. I didn't mind it with Cocaine Bear though, a film that takes a bizarre real life starting point (a black bear that was found to have overdosed on over 30kg of cocaine dropped by smugglers flying overhead) and turns it into a wild and entertaining "what if?" scenario.

The plot is simple, but allows for a number of different people to be placed in danger. The cocaine is dropped. The bear ingests some cocaine. The bear is high, and looking to get more cocaine. Meanwhile, Daveed (O'Shea Jackson Jr.) and Eddie (Alden Ehrenreich) have been sent by Syd (Ray Liotta) to retrieve the missing cocaine, obviously oblivious to the idea that it may have already been enjoyed by a huge bear. Young Dee Dee (Brooklynn Prince) and Henry (Christian Convery) have skipped to school to trek around the forest that now contains the Cocaine Bear, which leads to a worried mother, Sari (Keri Russell), requesting help from a couple of forest workers (Ranger Liz, played by Margo Martindale, and a conservationist named Peter, played by Jesse Tyler Ferguson). Meanwhile, a cop (Bob, played by Isiah Whitlock Jr.) also enters the forest, trying to trace the missing cocaine after finding the corpse of the smuggler who fell to his death after knocking himself unconscious. A few more bits of food (dammit . . . people, I mean people) enter the forest, and the scene is set for numerous encounters between scared humans and a coked-up bear. Oh, and it's 1985, which allows for some fun wardrobe choices.

Written by Jimmy Warden, who started his screenwriting career with his co-writing credit on The Babysitter: Killer Queen, this is a fun film, but also a messy one. Everything is set up nicely, in terms of the characters and their disposability, but few of the sequences flow well, either individually or in connection to other moments around them. It's a bit of a mess, but at least it's a fun mess.

The third feature to be directed by Elizabeth Banks (a very smart and funny actress who has been doing really well for herself for over two decades now, whether you like her projects or not), I feel better about seeing the success of Cocaine Bear than I feel about the film itself. The mix of carnage and comedy works well in theory, and the trailer did a great job of selling it to people, but it's a harder sell throughout the movie, only ever intermittently successful. The greatest moment in the entire film, involving the bear and some paramedics in an ambulance, leaves the rest of it feeling surprisingly unenergised. And a film with so much cocaine at the centre of it shouldn't be lacking energy.

I have no complaints about the cast though, whether they're playing typically tired criminal lackeys or young kids tempted to sample from a brick of cocaine found in the forest. Prince and Convery are highlights, and it's more fun to watch them with the idea that they might actually be killed off at any moment. Jackson Jr. and Ehrenreich work well together, suitably deflated whenever they are being chewed out by a typically great Liotta (in one of the last roles filmed before his death), and Martindale, Ferguson, and Whitlock Jr. all pitch their performances nicely in line with the tone of what the film is striving for.

There are a number of canny song choices on the soundtrack, a good helping of graphic gore here and there, and a third act that manages to make you actually root for the bear to continue rampaging, so the good certainly outweighs the bad. It's just a shame that it couldn't have been put together in a way that would allow it to flow a bit better, and moved the best scene to much nearer the very end. Maybe I'm being too picky though. I know I'll definitely rewatch this. And I know it's a fun time. A lot of other people agree, which means that most people reading this review will have seen it already anyway.

6/10

If you have enjoyed this, or any other, review on the blog then do consider the following ways to show your appreciation. A subscription/follow costs nothing.
It also costs nothing to like/subscribe to the YouTube channel attached to the podcast I am part of - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCErkxBO0xds5qd_rhjFgDmA
Or you may have a couple of quid to throw at me, in Ko-fi form - https://ko-fi.com/kevinmatthews