Zach’s Zany Movie Reviews: SPENSER CONFIDENTIAL (Netflix)

I don’t really know what to say about this movie other than that when actor Mark Wahlberg and director Peter Berg were on a roll, they were on a roll. They had a fantastic little true story action trilogy together with Lone Survivor, Deepwater Horizon, and Patriot’s Day. All three filmed with precision, clarity, and accuracy. But now with Netflix’s new original film SPENSER CONFIDENTIAL and 2018’s Mile 22, they are officially in a major downward slump, and the only question is, are they going to make a third film together to cap off this mediocre trilogy or maybe they’ll start to get the hint and look for other projects with different people for a change? The real problem with this movie is that it’s misfire is with it’s execution of what tone it wants the film to have, combined with too many predictable cliched story elements for it to make sense why this script was even greenlit to be made. Is it a actioner? Eh, I would have to say it’s probably Peter Berg’s worst directed film (not worst movie, that goes to Very Bad Things, but at least that movie had a unique style to it that can’t be denied). He’s on autopilot here, with action so sparse, cheap and staged poorly that the movie turns into a horribly edited shaky cam of a Frankenstein monster which is even more jarring when compared to the other scenes where characters just talk and they use the usual steady, smooth cam dolly movements. This isn’t a giant Netflix misfire like the recent The Last Thing He Wanted, but it’s definitely not worth any of your valuable time.

This Spenser Confidential is apparently loosely based on Robert B. Parker’s Spenser novels, which itself was turned into a television series back in the 80s. This whole film feels cheap to the point where it maybe should’ve been turned into a limited series on HBO or Showtime. Maybe bring in some writers to make the whole story more complex. Here? Not so complex. I knew who was the secret bad guy right when I saw them, and I figured the whole thing had to do with drugs, money, and possibly a venture such as a Casino to launder that money into and make even more money. It was all so very simple to figure out, that I yawned almost every couple of minutes when all these developments revealed themselves. Mark Wahlberg plays a cop named Spenser who is sent to prison for five years for beating the shit out of his boss when he suspects his boss of being a dirty cop after trying to bury a murder investigation and also sees that he beats his wife. After five years he is out, and after a little time in sort of a halfway home time situation living with Alan Arkin and Winston Duke, he’s going to move to start his new life. Problem is, he still has that solving corruption itch he has to scratch, especially when his boss ends up brutally murdered and another cop (who apparently committed “suicide” after the crime) is to blame, one that Spenser remembered was legit and kind. Combined with having to deal with an obsessive ex-girlfriend that can’t make up her mind whether she wants him completely out of her life or just to keep fucking his brains out, he has to figure everything out before he moves, and hopefully leave with him and his friends life in the process.

And as I said earlier, the problem with the movie is with tone. The movie tries too hard to mix too many genres together. It wants to be a buddy comedy, but there isn’t enough of Winston Duke in the entire film to warrant that. It wants to be taken as a serious drama as some point with a really awkward scene of a woman finding her husband dead in a car with some one shot dolly pull back. It wants to be taken as an action movie, but there are few action scenes and they are shot shaky cam horribly. It was to be taken as a mystery/thriller, but has no mystery (because everything is predictable), and it has no thrills. I didn’t laugh once. And when an extended cameo from Post Malone is THE BEST ACTING THE MOVIE HAS TO OFFER…you can chalk it up to something being wrong. And don’t even get me started on actress Iliza Sclesinger, who literally gives the worst performance of the year so far, with a Boston accent so fucking over the top and fake you’ll be plugging your fingers in your eyes so you don’t have to fucking hear it anymore. And Mark Wahlberg, he’s coasting in this film like he does in most, the only performance where it seemed like he actually tried was Instant Family in 2018, and before that maybe not even The Departed in 2007. He’s has the range of Scwharzenegger and Stallone, always the muscle, never the award winner.

Yeah a Netflix blunder for sure. And if you are a constant reader of my reviews, don’t worry, I won’t go into the whole “Netflix has much more blunders than winners” schpeil all over again. You’ve probably all figured it out yourselves. This all felt like a really low rent made for television movie, where you wouldn’t find the likes of Mark Wahlberg ever touching this thing. It all screams a giant Netflix paycheck, with Whalberg being able to be directed by a friend again, who he knows can coast through this production with his eyes closed. What happened to trying? What happened to actually giving a shit? I mean do all these screenwriters have some sort of time crunch where this is the best that they can come up with or are they smoking weed until an hour before deadline? It sometimes just doesn’t make any fucking sense. I hardly saw this film marketed, but you would think they could’ve titled the film Spenser For Hire to get older fans of the novels and TV series amped up to watch this, but it was just dumped on Netflix this weekend, not a care in the world, and I see that a trailer had only debuted a month ago. Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm…wonder why? Doesn’t take a detective to figure it out…confidentially yet unconfidentially mediocre.

Zach’s Zany Movie Reviews: THE WAY BACK

THE WAY BACK is a movie you’ve seen a billion times. Alcoholic/depression/enter drug here to find his way back from rock bottom movie combined with bad sports team that comes together to be greater movie. Throw in a couple of twists of when exactly protagonist hits rock bottom and when exactly the big game the team has to win in the movie for their cinematic journey to be complete and you get this film in a nutshell. The only reason why I am recommending this movie to be something of an eventual one time watch, must see, is Ben Affleck’s best performance of his career. That’s right, Ben Affleck, who most of the time, unless he’s written and directed the movie (and a few other exceptions), looks like he is coasting through the movie with a phoned in performance, is utterly fantastic here. Probably because this movie was ultimately really cathartic for him in that he just got out of a really rock bottom period in his life where he’s admitted to having a huge drinking problem and having to go to rehab several times to try and get through it. So I guess you can say maybe it is his best performance because he had the most disposal to research he’s ever had? Whatever it is, he’s great in the movie. And while I give it a slight recommendation, it is only because I was fascinated with his character, and not so much the kids in the basketball team, which should’ve been direct second fiddle story wise, but ends up as just a background C (maybe even D)plot that manages to stick its head out every once in awhile and yell out, “remember me?!?!?”

And I’m glad the film subverted expectations and didn’t really focus on the kids all that much, like other movies do, where it eventually loses focus of the lead protagonist coach and quickly wraps up his story only at the very end (see every team sports film ever made), but in doing so the movie felt a bit, incomplete? Minor complaint, as if it did end up doing that I’d probably be ripping this film a new one for not being unique. Just something felt a little off, in that I didn’t know ANY of the kids’ characters’s name except one, and I had to constantly repeat his name in my head so that I would forget. What is the story? A mid life guy who is an extreme alcoholic and just seems to be coasting through life gets offered a job as coach at his old high school basketball team where he was once one of the greatest players of the game. He has a sister and separated wife worried about him and always asking questions about what he’s doing, but he doesn’t seem to care all that much and really just wants to be alone, soaking in his pain. Yet he takes the job and he starts to get better…but as you know, it is just a ticking time bomb for one thing to go wrong and he’s falling off the wagon again. Can he overcome his demons and get better? Now I’ve heard a couple of critics said that they wish Ben Affleck’s character just drank because he was depressed, and not the specific reason they give him in the film. They just wanted him to drink and be an alcoholic, because he just was one. I don’t know if that necessarily would’ve worked. They do eventually reveal the reason, and while the reason was sort of what I was expecting but not really (you’ll see and you’ll probably figure out in other way the same sort of reason could’ve been presented), I don’t think the film would’ve worked as well without it. Even though the reason is cliched, no reason just makes the film feel…again…incomplete.

This is another review that will end up being short because there is really not much else to talk about the film without really getting into spoilers. I can’t really talk about the other acting, because none of the characters were memorable enough or had enough screen time to warrant talking about (the woman playing the ex wife did well but she’s barely in it), but I can say that everyone else does a good job. The movie is shot really well by director Gavin O’Connor, who has directed some films I’ve really enjoyed such as Warrior, The Accountant, and yet another sports team drama, Miracle. It is shot with a gritty like feel, making it all seem like you could’ve seen this film in theaters in the mid 90s. It is basically a mid 90s sports character drama. If you go into that expecting nothing more yet nothing less, you will come out quite surprised. And if you feel sorry for Ben Affleck or like him as a person or whatever, he will definitely surprise you with his performance. It’s pretty real. It won’t get him nominated or win any awards, but maybe, just maybe it could be cathartic enough for him to want to get out there and start writing and directing again. We’ve gotten Good Will Hunting, Gone, Baby, Gone, Argo, The Town, and while not many other people like it, Live By Night, writing and/or directed wise from Affleck, and he’s not that old, maybe we could get a couple of more great films from him. Maybe when a couple of more awards technical awards. And I guess it would be fine if he acted in his films too, as long as he brings the same kind of passion he did in The Way Back.

Zach’s Zany Movie Reviews: ALL THE BRIGHT PLACES (Netflix)

ALL THE BRIGHT PLACES on Netflix, which was just released this past weekend is actually not bad at all, if you can swallow that it is basically just The Fault In Our Stars but instead of cancer/disease it is depression/suicide. Don’t worry, this is not going to be me on another rant on how nothing is original in Hollywood anymore, because I managed to look past the fact that this was just another play on an age old tragedy, and find the good, decent, and most importantly, original inside. The music in this movie is incredible, I’m still humming the instrumentals out loud as I type this. The acting is perfection from Elle Fanning (per usual) and Justice Smith (his career best so far). And I think it displays the themes and issues surrounding depression and suicide well albeit in only a few new unique ways, mostly messages we’ve heard of before. Be warned, this movie is very sad and you will probably cry (probably like you did with The Fault In Our Stars), but it is entertaining and tells a good story and some might even say it could be inspirational for those suffering from depression. If you just go into it with an open mind and try to keep the similar films comparisons at bay, it’s a solid Netflix film.

The film (based on a book, like The Fault In Our Stars was) is about a girl named Violet who is about to jump off a bridge where her sister died tragically in a car accident months earlier, when a boy named Finch just happens to be doing his usual exercise routine of running, notices her and gets her to step off. He then tries to help her by seeing the bright side of life, and inserting himself into her life as much as possible, including making her be his school project partner where they have to wander around, visit and report on random places in Indiana. Suffice to say, they fall in love and if you’ve seen The Fault In Our Stars, and switch the cancer element out with depression, you’ll know exactly how it ends. So…I guess I should’ve put a spoiler alert warning? Anyway, even with the similarities, the characters don’t do all the same things in their time together, and the acting and characters are definitely different and more unique from each other to keep things fresh. I’ve kept my eye on Elle Fanning as an actress ever since her excellent debut in Super 8, and it is just a matter of time before she gets a huge big break in the theater and possibly snag an Oscar. Justice Smith gives us his career best performance so far as Finch (you might know him from his turns in Detective Pikachu Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, Paper Towns, Every Day and the TV series The Get Down) and proves that he might be a force to be reckoned with. He just needs bigger and better roles and hopefully isn’t just reduced to Netflix films in the future.

Anyway, this is going to be one of my shorter reviews, as there is not much to say about the film without truly spoiling it all. The movie is heartbreaking yet inspirational and entertaining to say the least. Make sure you have tissues handy. The film is directed by Brett Haley, who I’ve only seen one other film which was The Hero starring Sam Elliott, and that was pretty good, even though it was basically Crazy Heart. I do need to check out Heart Beats Loud that stars Nick Offerman, I’ve heard that is excellent. The film was co-written by the author herself Jennifer Niven, so I’m assuming that the film doesn’t stray too far from the novel, and more surprisingly, Liz Hannah, who co-wrote the excellent Steven Spielberg film The Post, and the most recent comedy Long Shot with Seth Rogen and Charlize Theron. Those films had excellent dialogue and it is no exception here. The number one thing that can make or break these YA dramas is sometimes the dialogue. I have seen great concept after great concept being ruined by what is coming out of the actors mouths. Thankfully, that is not the case with All The Bright Places, everything said feels realistic and true. So yeah, if you need a good cry, definitely cue this up on Netflix, just know that you might be watching The Fault In Our Stars as somewhat of a copy cat double feature.

Zach’s Zany Movie Reviews: COLOR OUT OF SPACE

The new film from Richard Stanley, his first since being fired as the director in the middle of production of the awful Island of Dr. Moreau film with Val Kilmer and Marlon Brando in the mid 90s, COLOR OUT OF SPACE is masterful in its atmospheric tension, cinematography (the word color is in the title, duh), and probably the best body horror I have ever seen since John Carpenter’s remake of The Thing and some of David Cronenberg’s best work. Unfortunately, the acting and dialogue get in the way from it being a true masterpiece of sci-fi horror based off a H.P. Lovecraft story. When you hire Nic Cage, you are really taking a major gamble. Is he going to go full Nic Cage and deliver an weird, yet beautiful performance like he did in the recent revenge film Mandy or Leaving Las Vegas (for which he won an Oscar), is he going to just show up and read the dialogue for a paycheck like he does in more than half of his direct to video films nowadays, or is he going not quite go full Nic Cage, for an uneven yet fascinating performance? Thankfully, it was not option two, but unfortunately, it is option three. But I’m not necessarily blaming Nic Cage for this. I blame the script and I also read that Stanley asked Cage to basically do his performance from Vampire’s Kiss. Yeah…don’t do that. Let Cage be Cage. You either go full Cage or you don’t. Sometimes you can get a happy medium like the National Treasure films, but mostly you are clamoring for more Castor Troy on acid.

Color Out Of Space is about a family that lives out on a rural farm after the wife has a mastectomy, and one night a giant meteor hits their land. This is no ordinary meteor as it glows a very bright and ominous pink/purplish shade and then the next day it is gone after being struck several times by lightning. Then strange shit starts to happen. Body horror type proportion of shit. The second half of the film is much better than the first, with visuals and amazing horror elements to tell the story and less of the hackneyed dialogue and strange acting that plagued the first half. If you like David Cronenberg body horror films like The Fly, or crave some of that awesome body horror practical effect work like in John Carpenter’s remake of The Thing, then this film is certainly right up your alley. Whether you like this or not is if you can appreciate all the weird stuff in it. For example, if you liked the really weird ending to Alex Garland’s Annihilation with Natalie Portman and still love that film as I do, then you’ll really like this film, and only the human acting and dialogue is going to maybe keep you from thinking it is a true class act in horror. There are some gorgeous shots in this movie, especially when everything gets all light pink/purplish. But the main thing to devour is the body horror. There is some really fucked up shit in this film, NO CHARACTER YOUNG OR OLD IS SAFE, so if you are looking for something with a Hollywood ending, look elsewhere.

I would love to see director Richard Stanley direct a 100% solid screenplay, one that he didn’t have a hand in writing except for maybe atmospheric descriptions. Get him away from dialogue, because the more you hear the word alpacas in this movie, the more you’ll cringe. We do get several brilliant displays of Nic Cage going full Cage in this movie, but it isn’t FULL Cage, which was somewhat disappointing. And you can’t blame Cage for this let down this time, blame Stanley, who asked Cage to basically copy mannerism by mannerism of his performance in the cult classic Vampire’s Kiss. And I think the story was supposed to have his father character be somewhat sane and relatable at the beginning of the film before shit hits the fan, but Cage’s weird acting doesn’t make any of that transition quite clear. When we first see Cage, we notice something is off. If Stanley would’ve told Cage to be just National Treasure normal at first or family man loving wise like his performance in…well, The Family Man, and then go full Cage once shit went down, it could’ve been one hell of a show. Unfortunately, the dial is always set at 9 in this film, when it needed to be a 1 or 2, and then straight to Spinal Tap 11.

There are other people in this movie to, and they do an okay job, its just that the realistic dialogue in this is incredibly lacking. But then again Richard Stanley got to do his entire uninterrupted vision for once with this film, and that always has to be commended. If any of what I described to you sounds….well…strange, I can guarantee you that this film isn’t for you. This film is for movie geeks and freaks like me, that study shit like this over and over again to see what went incredibly wrong or what went incredibly right. This film stayed somewhere in the middle of that spectrum, and when the visuals did the talking, it hit the incredibly right end of it several times, especially the body horror shit, that I can’t get out of my mind and will likely have nightmares about in the future.

Zach’s Zany Movie Reviews: THE LAST THING HE WANTED (Netflix)

“WHAT…IS…HAPPENING?!?” I screamed out this phrase about four or five times while watching this new contender for worst film of the year…that’s right, even worse than the awful remakes of The Grudge and Fantasy Island, and you want to know why? At least I knew what the fuck was going on in those movies, even though in the end I ultimately didn’t care for either of them. I had no idea what the fuck was going on in THE LAST THING HE WANTED until one critic decided to do some extra do diligence and publish an entire article explaining what was going on. And it took me awhile to find that article! (will post it on both my Facebook page and Twitter for those interested, fyi I read said article AFTER I had finished the movie to relax my lost brain). And the background of U.S. history not explained isn’t the only reason why I had no clue what was going on. The editing was choppy, the cliched dialogue certainly didn’t help, there was too much paranoia, too many back stabbings, and some key important events were not shown that just enhanced said confusion. It seemed to me that this film should’ve been about a half hour longer and it already clocks in at just under two! It is all even more disappointing considering the fact that writer/director Dee Rees last film, Mudbound, another original Netflix film, was freaking fantastic. This is a movie that you absolutely need to go out of your way to avoid if it hits your Netflix queue. It is one of the most absolute wastes of time I experienced, even more so than my pick for last year’s worst film, Cats.

You are probably wondering whether or not I can explain the movie to you…I can! But by way of borrowing and giving credit to IMDB.com and Wikipedia: “The story centers around Elena McMahon, a reporter for the Washington Post who quits her job covering the 1984 Presidential Election to care for her father after her mother’s death. In an unusual turn of events, she inherits his position as an arms dealer for the U.S. Government in Central America which makes her lose the thread of her own narrative and thrusts her from byline to unwitting subject in the very story she’s trying to break.” Adapted some from fucking novel I’ll now never read. Look, if you want to know what is going on just a little bit BEFORE you start to watch this movie (if for some reason you are still interested in checking it out after my scathing review) know this: You need to know some of the background of the layered and complex history of the United States and its shady intervention in Central America during the Cold War. To borrow also from the article I’m about to post in the comments of this review: “the United States government was providing millions of dollars of military aid to the El Salvador government during the Salvadoran Civil War, because the El Salvador government was considered a Cold War ally. This means the U.S. directly contributed to the many civilian murders and human rights violations committed by the El Salvador armed forces.” So once you know all that, and combine it with the combined IMDB and Wikipedia summaries of the movie itself, maybe you’ll enjoy the film more?

But see, here’s the thing, if you want your audience invested in the movie, you can’t just assume the viewers are going to know that part of American history well. Yes, you’ll probably need some beginning scene that combines a montage with old archived footage with some background narration (possibly the protagonist), telling you what’s what. And yes, you might not want that because every other new movie that is released does that, but you know what? In a world where everybody is staring at their phones obsessing over social media posts, the likely hood they are going to use those mediums to search American history during the Cold War in the 1980s is slim to fucking none. To tell you the truth, it is cliched, yet a necessity in a movie like this. But what makes my observation even more confusing is that THE FILM STARTS AND ENDS WITH FUCKING NARRATION FROM THE PROTAGONIST!!! (BTW, I haven’t heard of an opening narration so bad since the original theatrical cut of the first Blade Runner films in the 80s) ARE YOU MEANING TO TELL ME THERE COULDN’T HAVE BEEN A SCENE OR TWO ADDED TO TELL US WHAT THE FUCK WHAT GOING ON?!? I know there are stupid people out there that probably still wouldn’t get it after being fed the info with a silver spoon in their mouths, but when you have critic after critic after critic tearing this movie apart because they had no clue what was going on, and then I don’t get what was going on until I found an obscure article telling me what apparently the filmmakers thought I was already supposed to know…you know your movie has a giant problem.

And the giant problem is that I just didn’t care what was happening on screen because I didn’t know any of the stakes. It is just Anne Hathaway being depressed, mad, paranoid and running for her life for two hours, with Ben Affleck in what is just a glorified extended cameo where you can tell he just did it for the paycheck with his blank stare, phoned in performance. Oh, and it has Willem Dafoe for two scenes playing Hathaway’s father, where it should’ve been three or four, with a proper conclusion to his character than just “blind or you’ll miss it” dialogue explaining what happened to him. It’s all just a stupid, awful, boring, confusing mess. And the ending is laughably dumb with a slow motion shot (you’ll know it when you see it) that lasts way too long and had me laughing my ass off (I was well fed up with the film by then to the point of laughing hysterically). Why did Netflix purchase this film to stream on its platform knowing how bad it was? Whatever film festival is debut in January, the reviews were all terrible, does Netflix really have all that cash to waste on a project like this? Maybe it’s because of their relationship with Dee Rees and her successful Mudbound movie a couple of years ago? Who knows, but this film should’ve never seen the light of day unless there happened to have been extensive re shoots where audiences could figure out what the fuck was going on the entire two hours. The last thing I wanted was to watch a film as bad as this. Should’ve trusted the other reviews on this one. Do yourself a favor and trust mine.

Diane’s Delightful Movie Reviews: EMMA. (2020) (No Spoilers)

Hi there! This is Zach here really quick with my two cents (I usually do this at the end) before you read my wife’s review of EMMA. (2020), an opinion that you probably should pay more attention to more than mine, which is to say you should take mine with a giant ass grain of salt. Why? Because I thought it was only okay. I almost fell sleep throughout the first half until a dance ball in the middle of the film peaked my interest until the end credits. Not only that, but would you really trust the opinion of someone who A. Hasn’t read or seen any direct adaptation of it like the 90s Gweneth Paltrow version and more importantly B. halfway thru the film leans over to his wife and says, “I’m bored, this is too much like Clueless.”? Yes, I now know that Clueless was a modern adaptation of Emma and that it’s pretty damn stupid, ironic, yet funny that I didn’t know that shit before the film even started. Me being a movie fanatic and all. Even after knowing that fact, for me, this new version is still a passable, quirky, one time watch adaptation of Jane Austen’s novel, where if I ever wanted to re visit the story again while being entertained, I wouldn’t watch this, but would just put in the Blu Ray I already own of Clueless. I thought the acting here was excellent, especially from Anya Taylor Joy and Mia Goth, and I liked the quirky humor, more the 2nd half than the first, the first half I felt tried a little too hard to yell at you how quirky it was. Ultimately though, I was a little disappointed. But it is far from a bad movie and won’t even touch my worst list of the year. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, period pieces are usually a big hit or a big miss from me. The recent Little Women was a big hit for me, this is one of the rare times it was somewhere in the middle. Okay, time for me to shut my big mouth and time for you to read a female’s more observant, honest perspective (yet much shorter than my reviews, which may be a good thing) of this adaptation, especially if you have any interest in seeing it at all:

Emma was cute, witty, and at its heart, had a good story. At first Emma is the character you want to hate. She is a spoiled little rich girl who thinks that everyone is her business and is too influential for any one to tell her off like she deserves. Through the movie she grows, eats her words and learns to put her friend’s needs before her own. It is a lesson in humility that many need to learn.

The romance factor is delightful. In a time when no one gets to afford love and most marriages are financially motivated Emma is able to find love in an unexpected place. In all, if you like period pieces or cute love stories, this one is for you. It entertained me because I love that sort of quick witted humor that is so subtle that if you blink you might miss it and think it’s boring. (cough cough Zach).

Zach’s Zany Movie Reviews: GUNS AKIMBO (no spoilers)

I think that there really needs to be a discussion soon, one that extends globally and also lengthy in nature, when it is appropriate to separate the “art” from the “artist” especially in those cases where there are other “artists” that are involved in the same project, that literally had nothing to do with the other “artists'” crimes, awful tweets, awful behavior, what have you. I mean, am I going to stop watching SE7EN, one of my all time favorite films, just because Kevin Spacey is in it? No, because even though he did some pretty awful stuff, his performance in the film is still fantastic, one of the greatest twists of all time layered in his scenes, and Brad Pitt and Morgan Freeman and David Fincher did absolutely nothing wrong. I think it is safe to say I definitely can separate the “art” from the “artist” in that way. Then you’ll ask me if you can separate Michael Jackson and what he allegedly did, from his music. When his music comes on the radio, I do jam out to it, I’m not going to lie, but I’m also not going to lie and say that I wish that he didn’t allegedly do those things that he’s been accused of every time one of his masterful songs comes on the air. It also isn’t just his music if you look at it a different way. There are mixers, producers, songwriters, etc. etc. etc. that had absolutely NOTHING to do with the awful shit that Jackson allegedly did that don’t want their work on it wiped out from existence. Now while I’m not a sports fan, over the past several weeks after Kobe’s death, I’ve been able to understand how a lot of Sports fans have been able to separate what he “allegedly” did with his performance on the basketball court, helping lend a hand to his team that won several championships. What I’m trying to say is that there is always someone else involved in this “art” that doesn’t deserve to have you wipe it away from existence just because one guy or gal seriously fucked up (murder is another issue entirely). I mean, are you going to ban ALL Miramax films because Harvey Weinstein was a producer on all of them? Fuck no you are not.

So that lengthy paragraph leads us to GUNS AKIMBO, whose writer and director named Jason Lei Howden has got into hot water lately for some racist tweets and also accusing innocent people of crimes, I don’t know, I kind of glossed over the info because all the articles on him and what he did recently are long and I can’t devote my time to reading article after article on why I should be disgusted with this guy and not see his movie. From what I read, yeah, he tweeted awful shit and accused innocent people of awful shit. But I still wanted to see this film, not only because the premise was kind of cool, but because of the two main actors involved, Harry Potter himself Daniel Radcliffe, and awesome bad ass in every role she gets Samara Weaving, whose been on a roll with great roles such as her star stealing turns in The Babysitter and Ready Or Not. I’m not going to boycott a film just because the director is an asshole. Now if everyone involved in the film was an asshole, yes, not seeing it was probably a huge probability. Now going out of your way to try and persuade people boycott the film is an entirely different story, one that I’m not going to get into here. My point is this: I was able to go into this film and separate the “main artist” from the “art” and in doing so I had a fun time with two great performances by Daniel Radcliffe and Samara Weaving. And to be fair, even though I had a fun time with this film, I think Jason Lei Howden is a very mediocre director. The first 15 minutes of this film are almost unbearable editing and loud noise wise. Also, way too much CGI blood splatter throughout the entire thing. Imagine Michael Bay with a second dose of acid added on to the first. Granted after the first 15 minutes the camera slows way the fuck down to be enjoyable, and there are some good and clear shots, but Howden has a long way to go (don’t know how much longer after the crap he’s pulled) if he wants to be even considered a half way decent director. Luckily it is Radcliffe and Weaving that make the movie and them alone.

The premise is that the movie takes place a little info the future and there is this underground, videogame like, real murder club called Schizm that pits two opponents against each other while the world watches via live stream and whoever murders the other first, wins. Daniel Radcliffe stars as Miles, an unsuccessful programmer for this awfully dumb game app that spends his night trolling the trolls on the internet. One wrong comment though gets him a visit from this bald tattooed asshole, who knocks Radcliffe out, bolts a gun in each of his hands, and pits him against Schizm’s ultimate bad ass, Nix, played by the fantastic Samara Weaving. He has a limited amount of time to figure out how to kill Nix before she kills him, because with the world watching and almost every movement from him tracked, there is no hiding. That’s the best description I can come up with. There are some twists and plot developments along the way, and there are more stakes for Miles to survive for that I don’t want to spoil here, but you get the gist. And I bet you can guess the outcome to everything, it is very, very predictable. If the writing and directing duties were given to a more capable director, this thing could’ve been fantastic, but with all the manic editing and sometimes just being too loud, the mediocre film is only elevated, again, by the performances of Radcliffe and Weaving.

Daniel Radcliffe needs better and larger roles where he can use his American accent. He is a much better actor when he has to don an American accent, and the reason being because if any English comes out of his mouth, I just unfortunately can’t get his Harry Potter typecast image out of my head. Thankfully, he is American in this, and his whole Harry Potter persona is completely washed away. And even though the film is fun yet only okay, it is easily his best performance, outside of Harry Potter, to date. Samara Weaving, playing a cocaine fulled kick ass female that blows away the competition, is another fantastic performance to add to her resume. She is definitely a character actor, and is chameleon like with any role she takes on. I laughed along with her character constantly here. In fact, the dialogue in this movie is very basic and sometimes a little too over the top, but Radcliffe and Weaving actually make it all work and somewhat elevate everything from page to screen. Everything else about the script and some aspects on screen are lacking, including but not limited to: the editing, the CGI bullet wounds and blood shots, the balance of tone, some good shots, but then some quick manic ones where editing was used to cover up the lack of coverage. The aspects of mediocrity of the film, fortunately this time, can be blamed on writer/director Jason Lei Howden. If this film was masterful in regards to the aspects just listed, my little way of boycotting him because of his actions would be to not give him fine praise. Thankfully, all the faults showing through the film are his and his alone. Karma.

Anyway, I used my wife’s free birthday ticket at Alamo Drafthouse to see this, but you can now rent this movie on any on demand service and watch it in the comfort of your own home. Based on the performances alone, I recommend giving it a looksie. If you read up about the writer and director, maybe you can find it within yourself to separate the “art” from the “artist,” but I do understand if you can’t. Realize though, that there are more things that make up a film than just being the writer and director on it. I simply cannot punish those who had nothing to do with whatever the asshole is being accused of. It is just not right. Like I said, there needs to be a conversation about this, rules to be established as well how we can separate all of it. Maybe the film should’ve been delayed and they did a couple of re shoots to stick someone else’s name on it? Maybe not give the writer/director credit at all and just put the Alan Smithee title up there instead as a way of separation? Who knows, but we need to figure out something soon or it’s just eventually going to get to boycott this and boycott that for really small and stupid things (not saying this thing was small and stupid, just saying that it might get to that point). Anyway, I’m not going to put what the writer/director did for those that are curious, you can easily Google the son of a bitch to figure out what he did. I’m not doing your homework buddy.

Zach’s Zany Movie Reviews: THE INVISIBLE MAN (2020) (No spoilers)

When Universal’s Dark Universe failed with Tom Cruise’s reboot of The Mummy, I thought that was it in terms of us ever seeing new movies with those famous Universal monsters that came out a long, long time ago. A little bit after the cancellation of the Dark Universe however, Blumhouse productions revealed that it had tapped writer/director Leigh Whannell to oversee a reboot of The Invisible Man. The catch is, it was not to be affiliated with the Dark Universe whatsoever, was going to be its own thing, with no ties to any other films. That was promising to me, and the fact that it was going to be the creator of the Saw films next film after his high successful and fantastic Upgrade movie. I got leery though afterwards because Elizabeth Moss was tapped to star. I was thinking, “oh no, seriously, we are going to have an invisible woman now so that the film can be woke for all audiences?” Little did I realize how fucking wrong I was. Whannell successfully turned the invisible man from a mere insane murderous villain that was so because of side effects of his creation, into a terrifying son of a bitch monster villain. He crafts a story that uniquely ties in themes inspired from the #MeToo Movement involving domestic abuse, but those messages aren’t fucking shoved in your face every two seconds. It all blends together seamlessly, ultimately giving the viewer a hell of a terrifying ride, with a fantastic one woman show performance from Ms. Moss, and probably one of the most shocking moments in recent horror movie history, on par with the decapitation moment in Hereditary, that you’ll want to experience with a respectful audience in a packed theater, just so you can hear the loud gasps and then the shocked silence.

Another thing to keep in mind when going to see this at the theater, is that there have been a lot of complaints that the trailer to this movie reveals basically the whole thing. I can tell you that it does not at all, especially that fantastic shocking moment I just mentioned. Yes, it does reveal the crux of the story, that tells of a abused woman able to escape her psychotic boyfriend, learning that he has committed suicide, and then seemingly still stalking her where she thinks her ex has found a way to fake his death and become invisible. But it doesn’t reveal any of the juicy well earned jump scares. Or any of the couple of small twists, or the fantastic well conceived ending. The movie has a solid three act structure (beginning, middle, end) with absolutely no obligatory scenes setting up any universes or any potential sequels. In fact, I recently heard that Leigh Whannell had to tell Universal no when they wanted him to add a couple of scenes on to the beginning of the film before Elizabeth Moss’s character leaves her ex with a scene so tense that it will have you digging your nails into the armrest, leaning forward in your seat. They wanted to add scenes showing some of the abuse that Moss suffered at her boyfriends’ hands so that the context of her escape would seem more clear. Universal recently said that they are glad that Whannell said no and stuck to his guns, and I am too, having the movie start out with her escape was engaging, brilliant, and masterful, and adding scenes at before that would’ve ruined everything. OTHER STUDIOS, THIS JUST PROVES THAT YOU NEED TO STOP MEDDLING WITH DIRECTOR’S VISIONS, THEY KNOW WHAT THE FUCK THEY ARE DOING!!!

This film also has the best way of handling all the horror elements combined with the invisible special effects: using the less is more. Hollow Man, thankfully, this is not. Instead of there always being some kind of atmospheric interference showing us where the invisible person is (and how “dope” their special effects are”, such as rain or a heavy amount of dust, Lannell makes shit scary by just having the camera settle on an empty space. He does this for minutes at a time, making you dread that something could happen at any moment. And while he sometimes delivers on that dread, other times he gives you blue balls, which in this case, is a good thing. When he holds back and delivers a hard blow out of nowhere, you get less jump scares but they have more impact and are EARNED, none cheap. THAT is the way to do jump scare horror my friends. It is an incredible thing here. And whenever the Invisible Man is revealed, he is only done so in mere glimpses, the camera not wanting to show you where he is for that long. In Hollow Man, director Paul Verhoeven it seemed wanted to show Kevin Bacon in a green screen suit for every second that ticked on by, so you could praise the special effects, hear his voice, know his presence, “see his acting,” and as you know, that didn’t work out so well reception wise. There is only one or two words that the invisible man says the whole time here, and the actual human that plays the invisible man is probably seen as himself for a total of 5 to 7 minutes out of a 2 hour and 10 minute run time. The less is more works here so well, I couldn’t praise it anymore if I tried. Leigh Whannell, his third film as a director after Insidious 3 and Upgrade (if you haven’t seen Upgrade you are a moron), is really starting to hone in his craft here. We already know he’s a terrific writer, having done masterpieces such as Saw and Insidious, but as a director he flexes his muscles all he can here, and it shows and pays off in spades. I cannot wait until he directs again.

Elizabeth Moss is the frightened victim here, and while there are other actors in it such as Aldis Hodge, Storm Reid, and Harriet as two friends and a sister that help her after she leaves her abusive ex, the movie really is a one woman show. Moss has to constantly act terrified and tortured to no one acting in front of her, and she is absolutely terrific. If the Academy Awards wants to start recognizing fantastic horror performances after their giant missteps with Lupita Nyong’o and Us last year, they could give her a nomination at the end of this year. She is that good. Her, combined with the fantastic camera work, the solid structured story, the fantastic invisible effects (the times where they do show it), several fantastic fright, and a truly “HOLY FUCK WTF” moment mid way through the film, easily makes me put it at the top of my 2020 favorite film list thus far. It’s a solid, solid, solid, solid, entertaining as fuck movie. It really makes me wish that they had asked Whannell to come back and do Spiral (aka Saw 9) that comes out in May as I know it would’ve been nothing short of masterful (I have a feeling it is still going to be pretty good though). Now that he signed a two year exclusive deal with Blumhouse after the box office success of The Invisible Man though, I know he is EXACTLY where he needs to be. If you have any reservations about seeing The Invisible Man, please don’t, don’t leave that seat in the theater empty, as I promise you’ll have a helluva good time. Hopefully I have made my praise as visible as it could possibly be.

Zach’s Zany Movie Reviews: COME TO DADDY (On Demand)(no spoilers)

No, I’m not reviewing porn. I’m not talking about cliched sex positions or those kinds of money shots. COME TO DADDY is a horror film that stars Elijah Wood that sort of switches genres exactly half way through the film and then once more right at the very end. And it completely works. The film is also gleefully violent. I can stress it enough: VERY…VERY VIOLENT. There are gruesome stabbings combined with some good ol’ fashioned body horror they will make you scream out while watching or at the very least cringe a little bit on your couch. It’s a short and quick 95 minute film that is engrossing from the very beginning, and never lets up. It has a couple of secrets up its sleeve, and even though I guessed what was going on at the beginning, narrative wise it still makes for an interesting feature, and the little secrets of just how violent it is just keeps on giving until the last scene. You don’t get many movies like this anymore, nice little film that stick around an hour and a half, that don’t contain many cast members or locations, nice low budget stuff. It feels refreshing comparing it to all the superhero, sequel, reboot, remake, re-do, soft reboot mess we get nowadays. It’s very rare to hear the phrase “less is more” with films nowadays. But that is exactly what this film accomplishes.

The premise without getting into any spoilers, because some of the fun of this is discovering what is happening on your own even if you guess correctly, is that a man in his 30’s, played by Elijah Wood, get a letter from his father, who he hasn’t seen since he was 5 years old, asking him to come to where he currently lives so that they can reconnect. Once he gets to his destination (which is right at the very first 5 minutes of the film) things just keep getting weirder, and weirder, and weirder, and then once the couple of twists and turns happen about mid way through the film, things just keep getting gleefully bloodier, and bloodier, and bloodier. And I had a massive amount of fun with it all. I think I’m been getting a good dose of Elijah Wood lately. Just last week I watched another little film with him in it that was barely in theaters called Grand Piano, which co-starred John Cusack and co-written by Damien Chazzelle before he got famous with Whiplash and La La Land. Like this, that is a short 90 minute film with limited locations and the premise was that Wood plays a great pianist that when he starts a new concert appearance after being absent from the limelight half a decade, he opens his music and what is written on the page chills him to the bone, “you play one wrong note and you die.” It was basically Phone Booth, but “Piano Booth” but it was pretty damn entertaining for what is was, and I was more than happy to had only spent about $3 on VUDU to own it.

I blindly spent about $9 on this (because A. good reviews and B. you can see it limited at the Alamo Drafthouse right now and they’re ticket price is $14. Seriously, why would I come to a theater and watch it once than save $5 dollars, gas, a probable headache being around other people, and I can just own it and watch it cheaper in the comfort of my own home?) and I’m more than happy I did. I would definitely check it out again. Especially for the comedic and bloody second half. There is a character in this that calls himself a Tittyholic because he is obsessed with boobs. If that makes you chuckle, then you are in for a smile or two. And the only reason why I easily guessed what was going on, and why you probably won’t, is because I saw a certain name in the cast list that I was familiar of, and since this person hadn’t shown up yet, I knew there was much more to it and easily started to piece shit together. The writer/director Ant Timpson hasn’t done much, he has produced a bunch of indie shit like Turbo Kid and wrote and some segments for The ABCs of Death films, but other than this, this is his first big (for him) sort of project. But it’s very well filmed and he gets a fantastic performance out of Elijah Wood. I heard he is also good in the remake of Maniac, which I’m probably now obliged to check out. Elijah Wood probably knew that Lord of the Rings would be his epic peak with his Hollywood career. Instead of keeping up the franchise game he’s been in a little or this and a little of that, but really small independent projects, and it is some of the best work he’s done. I hope he keeps it coming (pun to this movie intended).

Zach’s Zany Movie Reviews: FANTASY ISLAND (2020)(one marked spoiler paragraph)

What…in the actual fuck…happened with FANTASY ISLAND (2020) that made me so badly wish that my fantasy be my eyes being gouged out and my ears cut off so I wouldn’t have to endure the movie any longer? Add to that an extra fantasy to wipe my memory of its existence after it was all over. Never, ever have I’ve seen a great concept to a feature film, let alone one from an old television show, be so terribly fucked up in its execution. I mean, where to start? This will mostly be a spoiler free review with one big marked spoiler paragraph trying to explain why half of the shit that happens plot and twist wise doesn’t make any fucking sense. The main problem of the movie is this: it didn’t know what it wants to be. Someone in a different review, I believe it was on JoBlo.com pointed out that, while the movie was marketing as a horror/thriller take on an old television show that was the exact opposite, the movie isn’t scary…at all. Then the movie tries to switch gears and genres several times, but never quite fully becomes those genres. It tries to become an action film, but fails miserably at that. It tries to inject some drama into the affair, epic fail. And at one point it even tries to become…a comedy. I’ll let you guess which of the genres it failed the worst at. I’ll give you a hint…I laughed at parts you weren’t supposed to laugh at. Combined with a last minute twist that is so ridiculous that when you look back on scenes beforehand you’d realize it didn’t make any sense, Fantasy Island is a disaster…at Frye Festival like proportions.

If you live under a nostalgic bridge, you should know that Fantasy Island was first a very popular show aired in the late 70s and finished in the early 80s. It starred Kahn errr…Ricardo Montalbahn as Mr. Roake, who, along with his small person sidekick Tattoo, ran an island where literally anything you desired could become true. There was no limits to your imagination. That show, from the few episodes I’ve seen, I was born in 1986, mostly mixed comedy and some drama (a little dash of the supernatural) with a little dash of adventure, and (from what little I saw) mixed those genres really well. The islands visitors fantasies were grand and imaginative, but as you could guess, they wouldn’t go quite as how they pictured things, but then again, it limited itself to comedy, drama, and some adventure. This film, at first, tries to do milk the one untapped resource that the television show never represented: horror. And, pun intended, it does so horribly. Instead of just sticking to horror, the real problem with the movie is that it changes its mind constantly throughout the film what it wants to do with the source material. And it does so because it feels like what they were doing previously wasn’t working. They are correct, and in that case, while they were writing the damn script, they should’ve just given up and threw it in the garbage, knowing not to mess with what came before. That or hire writers that were actually up to the task of bringing something meaning full to the big screen. Nope, they had to endure, and what they thought would be the perfect mixture of all genres you can think of (a la the recent Parasite, seriously, if you haven’t seen Parasite yet you are a moron), ends up being a Frankenstein monster of different pieces that are duct taped to a whole with absolutely no stability whatsoever.

In this incarnation, a bunch of contest winners are flown to the island with dumb cliched fantasies of their own. Lucy Hale wants revenge on a childhood bully, Maggie Q (why the fuck is she in this? she’s better than this) wants a do over on her life by saying yes to a man’s proposal she rejected 5 years before, Ryan Hansen and Jimmy O. Yang do the dude bro thing (they are brothers by marriage in this) and just want to “have it all,” and finally Austin Stowell wants to enlist in a war in honor of his late father. There is no Tattoo (yet, I have expected him to be an exact opposite of the Tattoo in the television series and be some tall, lurking muscular monster), but Mr. Roarke is there, played by Michael Pena, the one and only small good part about the movie (his performance). Needless to say, this movie being marketed as a horror/thriller version of the television show many grew up watching, their fantasies turn into nightmares and thus turn into nightmares of the audience actually sitting through the below mediocrity the movie itself represents. And if you think this is just my opinion, you should’ve been at the theater my friend Kim and I, went to. Everybody was laughing at parts that we weren’t meant to laugh at, with groans after it ended yet sighs of relief that we were finally leaving the theater after that torture.

***BEGINNING OF GIANT SPOILER PARAGRAPH** The movie ends up trying to throw one too many dumb twists and turns into the affair to hide the fact that their ultimate villain twist doesn’t really work so well when you think of the scenes that came before that contained him/her (I’ll reveal who it is in a second). The first several twists, other than that the fantasies aren’t what they are cracked up to be) have the film trying to be too much like Inception, where there are fantasies within fantasies, on top of different fantasies that were started before the guests even arrived to the island. It turns out that all these different people share a connection to each other where they all were either there or had to do with one fateful night where an apartment complex caught fire and claimed the life of one of its inhabitants. Can you see where this is going? Well, in case you don’t, those new guests of the island are actually part of a fantasy of someone who arrived there before them, wanting revenge against these people because they all had a part (albeit accidental) in that person’s death (a male) who died in this apartment complex fire. They at first think it is his mother that is exacting her revenge for the death of her son, and that mother is the main female concierge on the island, right hand woman to Mr. Roarke, but it turns out it is just Lucy Hale, all because she didn’t get to go on a first date with a cute guy that had asked her out when nobody would give her the time of day in high school because of her bully. I SHIT YOU NOT. Lucy Hale’s character (by the way, I can’t ever see Lucy Hale as a villain, she’s just so darn effective at being tiny and cute, and that is most of the characters she plays, and the fact that she was nice when I met her in real life) claims she was acting the whole time, but scenes from the beginning of the film, mainly the ones that show her getting ready and reacting to torturing her high school bully, end up making this twist not make one lick of fucking sense. It is never explained on the television show how the island is able to grant these wishes come true, but the movie horribly does. Straight out of what looked like the abandoned third act set of Pirates of the Caribbean On Stranger Tides, in the middle of the island is a magical rock that water hits it, and then the water is put into the island’s drinks, and the water is able to read your mind and fulfill your fantasy…AGAIN, I SHIT YOU NOT. And for my final what the fuck, it turns out this whole movie is basically a PREQUEL to the television series because Mr. Roarke, at the end of the film, decides that the island won’t be a place for revenge, but for redemption of character and only happy and heartfelt fantasies will take place from then on (this is after Lucy Hale’s character has been thwarted). One of the guests stays behind, Jimmy O. Yang’s character, because the island will fulfill your fantasy forever, as long as you stay on the island, and his brother dies near the end of the film, but his fantasy is for him to be alive and go live his life on the mainland, so Ryan Hansen magically is alive again on the plane heading home with the rest of the survivors. Mr. Roarke wants to give Yang’s character a nickname, so he goes by his brother’s nickname for him, Tattoo, because Yang has a tattoo of the word ‘Tattoo’ on his chest near his left nipple…do I ever need to repeat myself on the I SHIT YOU NOT??? **END OF GIANT SPOILER PARAGRAPH**

The movie doesn’t work on any level. In the end it plays out like a shitty higher budgeted SciFi Network original, but almost bad on the scale of any Sharknado movie you’ve seen. All the more frustrating because the low indie Blumhouse produced this, which has produced great horror films such as Get Out, and while this film is gorgeous to look at (it was actually filmed on Fiji Islands), it’s just so damn awful in its execution I can’t even recommend it on either a “so bad its good” level or if you took it as one big goofy comedy and just laughed at the entire thing type affair. I don’t know who thought to ultimately green light this (probably Jason Blum) but whoever did needs their head examined thoroughly. In the end I should’ve seen all the signs. First, it wasn’t screened for critics, which is a bad thing in its own right, but even with that, there are usually Thursday night late shows if people want to get ahead of the weekend crowds. There were NO Thursday late shows, which just screams cover up. Now it has less than 10% on Rotten Tomatoes…which usually you take that site with a grain of salt, but with this film it is very much warranted. I was actually looking forward to this, because the team that wrote and directed this, also wrote and directed Blumhouse’s Truth or Dare, which at the end of the day, the mythology in that movie was so juicy yet bat shit crazy it became a guilty pleasuure, so bad it’s good film for me. I was hoping this would be on the same level, but it isn’t even near the same continent, let alone the same island.