Movie Reviews (2019) – Part 2
Here’s the 2nd part of my movie reviews for the year. Many more on this list because I forced myself to watch more movies. I was too busy making films and not spending enough time watching them so I decided to change things up. Bold is for movies I thought were beyond great and would watch again and again in a heartbeat.
- The Raid – Was told this was the best action movie of all time. So I was expecting it to be amazing, and it was really good. But it also didn’t let me get surprised since I was aware of how many good fight scenes. I liked the premise, and the story mostly. Crazy a non-native speaker chose that as the setting. I need to see the sequel. I heard that Dredd ripped it off but I find them very different.
- Midsommar- Really good but liked Hereditary so much more. Just like Get Out you know the whole premise before you see the movie. You just don’t know how they’re going to do it. Probably the best folk horror movie out there.
- Once upon a Time in Hollywood– Amazing how Tarantino can keep you captivated for 3 hours without having much of a story. The characters and timeline keep you engaged the whole time. It made me very interested in learning about the whole Manson Family afterward. Probably my 2nd favorite Tarantino movie behind Pulp Fiction.
- Sorcerer-Was told for a long time to see this and it delivered. Another great movie by William Friedkin. One of the scenes looked like it must have been a nightmare to make happen and I read about the filming of it, it was.
- The Boys-My friend begged me to watch this, just like my sister did with Breaking Bad. Well, it delivered. 8 episodes that you can’t wait to see what happens next. Definitely worth seeing if you’re bored of all the paint by the numbers Marvel movies coming out.
- Bone Tomahawk- Red Letter Media recommended it and it was worth it. A horror, adventure, Western. All 3 delivered. I loved the characters, and couldn’t believe that was Richard Jenkins, didn’t even seem like the same guy. I recommend this as a must-see as well.
- Network-Didn’t get all the hype. Felt too preachy and pretentious.
- Get Carter-Loved this movie. I already want to watch it again. I see why the cult status. This movie is a timestamp of a certain place that will never exist again and I had no idea did. Cain plays a great anti-hero that you don’t get behind all the way.
- Brawl in Cell Block 99- From the guy that wrote and directed Bone Tomahawk. Kind of a dumb movie made by a smart guy. Over the top Tarantino violence with a simple story. Vince Vaughn’s character may be tall but didn’t seem that strong to do what he was doing. Also, how’s such a stand up guy in the predicaments he’s in. He has no other paths in life than that? Also, what’s up with the head tattoo? It doesn’t fit his character.
- War Horse- I’m such an animal guy and I tear up easily at movies and my eyes were watering in the first few minutes of this movie and nothing sad had even happened. I’m a pussy when it comes to animals. I love that it touched on WW1, never get to see enough movies about it. This is one of my favorite Spielberg movies. I loved the characters, which made it even more heartbreaking and sad with all the things the war does. I still feel sad over many of the characters as I type this, but that’s war. I loved the friendship of the two horses as well. I wish things could’ve gone differently but the story would’ve suffered. Tragic what happens to innocent animals that just want to eat grass and survive and are put into a human war.
- Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels- Guy Ritchie’s first feature. I finally watched it after seeing so many of his other movies. You can tell he had the “it factor” from the beginning. And you can also tell that he comes from a music video background in that he’s such a vibrant filmmaker. He’s great with funny quick banter and characters. He gets a lot out of nonactors and made Statham’s career. Still no Snatch, but still a good fun movie and a great start for his career.
- Caddyshack-Finally watched this after all the hype for years. I don’t like comedies. Maybe because I’m a comedian but nothing is funny to me. This movie, of course, didn’t work for me. Maybe laughed once. In a movie with all these comedians the only person that made me laugh was Knight. He was so intense with his character and playing it straight he made it really work. Other comedians were just fucking around ad-libbing and might’ve been funny back in its day but in 2019 it’s nothing I haven’t seen a bunch of times already. And Dangerfield’s character is too antagonistic to Knight so he’s unlikeable as a character.
- Snatch– I’ve seen this movie so many times and I still get a thrill watching it. Just like Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels he’s able to weave multiple stories of the London crime characters into one big narrative all the way keeping you engaged. So many scenes are clips you want to watch over again on YouTube.
- Layer Cake-First time I’ve ever watched it, if they wouldn’t have given it such a bad name I think it would have done way better. This was the transitional movie for Craig to be Bond. I already want to see it again. You’re engaged the entire movie and not sure where they’re going next and who’s on who’s side but it’s fun the entire time. Great ending too.
- The Bank Job- I forgot I even watched this, just like most people forgot it was ever made. Incredible true story but done very safe and by the numbers. Nothing revolutionary here aside from the fact it really happened.
- The American- Interesting movie. I give points for trying something very quiet and reserved. It takes patience, not a fun movie, but an interesting one. I’d watch it again.
- Kill the Irishman- You want to talk safe and by the numbers. This is again one of those interesting stories turned into a straight to DVD type of production. Very typical. Melodramatic music, themes, characters, shots, and scenes you’ve seen many times before and moments you expect minutes before it happens.
- The Crow-Finally saw this after decades of it being released. I know him better as Sting. They ripped this movie off so hard. The movie ripped me off as well, not one crow in the whole movie. All ravens, he even quotes The Raven. This movie is all style, no substance. I knew there was a reason I never saw it as a kid. But this was the kick-off to my Halloween Horror watchathon. So you know it only gets worse.
- Texas Chainsaw Massacre- Finally saw this movie as well. The way things are going with me catching up on popular movies, Die Hard may finally be in my future. Anyway, I got to see this Leatherhead character that I fought against many times in Mortal Kombat X. The movie itself is slow and corny as fuck. Every cliche with horror is here in the beginning. Kids being too nosy and one by one dying, girl screaming and running away at the end, the person you seek refuge from is in on it, some filmmakers got lucky and stumbled into the horror game early before it was too cliche. The Leatherface thing is done well and must have been really scary at the time. Plus the whole fake lead in with the true story thing probably scared people as well. I know idiots that still believe it’s a true story.
- Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2- So why not watch the 2nd one since I’m on a roll. My brother said it scared him as a kid. So we watched it together. Wow, it’s amazing how much a pussy you can be as a kid. This movie is a complete joke. I mean that in a sense that it’s a comedy, but also in the sense that it’s not funny and just frustratingly annoying. Return of the Living Dead is a good example of funny and scary, this doesn’t work.
- Halloween-Again, all the cliches but they did it early and their killer is well done. People in this town are so dumb. Myers just stares at them creepily and they just roll their eyes at him like he’s a dweeb. Then they die later one by one as they always think their friend is pranking them but turns out it’s him. Where did he get these powers from? The music helps it as well. Never realized how much Friday the 13th ripped this movie off. All they did was switch location.
- The Hills Have Eyes- I couldn’t get a hold of the original so I had to watch the remake. I’m going to assume this is the one with better creature makeup and effects. I was impressed they went as far as they did with the whole murder of the family and rape thing. Figured the MPAA would scare them off and tame it down. Cliche wimpy guy saves the day thing which was hard to believe, but the fact they went as far as they did with the massacre part still impresses me. I’m sure it had more to do with not sacrificing the plot of the original movie if anything.
- Alien-Yes, I’ve never seen this movie before either. I’ve seen Aliens dozens of times, had all the toys and some of the videogames as well. But never saw the original. I never saw the point if it only had one alien, when I could watch Aliens and see hundreds of them and a queen. Plus I already knew about the twists with facehugger, chestbursters, acid blood, and what it looked like. Now I see what was great about it, it’s another movie. The sci-fi exploration, the ambiance you only get through a slow tempo from the first movie. Seeing the beauty of the spaceship they travel in as well as the one they explore, and especially the mythic-ness of the space jockey. There’s other intelligent life out there, not just this one xenomorph monster. Too bad they fucked it up with Prometheus.
- Aliens-Seen it many times but many scenes I forgot. Like Ripley in hypersleep so long that her daughter’s dead from old age, the exploration on the space colony as well as the colonists, all this fucking around with each other the troops do and things they say, a turret scene taking down hundreds of aliens, then I realize I’m watching an extended cut of the movie with newly added scenes. The movie has so much going on you get desensitized and the hedonistic adaptation makes the movie mean less to you. It’s a good problem to have, but I feel they could space out more of the scenes so they could hit you harder. But it’s a great movie regardless. And the deleted scene about her losing her daughter made the final fight mean a lot more to me this time.
- Alien 3-Tried to give it another go, still sucks. Let’s get this straight, after that triumphant ending where you’re so emotionally hit, and they escape for a new future, it’s now immediately destroyed. They’re all dead, Ripley is implanted with an alien in her, she’s stuck on a prison planet where guys want to rape her even though a facehugger already did that, and you get to watch a facehugger burst out of a dog. How fucking depressing are they trying to be? Is this why studios are so safe now? In retaliation to the insane shit they did back in the day? Now that I know who Charles Dance is, it was interesting to see a younger red-headed version of him play a good character, Ripley falls for, and of course, he’s killed cause we need to be more depressing. I actually watched the new assembly cut. Instead of a dog, the alien comes out of a dead ox. They can come out of dead animals? And it doesn’t really resemble an ox much besides being four-legged. And it doesn’t add or take from the story other than being a bit less depressing. And this time the alien doesn’t pop out of her chest as she kills herself. The original scene seemed kind of cool as a kid, but logically it makes sense to cut that out. But so bad I couldn’t bring myself to watch Alien Resurrection. I haven’t’ seen it since it was in theatres, I’m sure better it’s than this one, but I know it wasn’t good. Just like I knew this would suck again.
- The Heretic-Decided to take a chance on this because I’ve written an occult movie and wanted to see what else was out there. Man if this is my competition I’ll be good. I need to make mine fast and help those that want to see a good occult movie. This seemed like some cheap WWE Films kind of movie made in Canada. I at least got the last part right. The demon design is pretty cool, but everything else is pretty basic.
- The Tenant- Polanski not only directs this but stars in it as well. Not sure why, but he does. He does well and there are some actually creepy scenes in it.
- Repulsion- I heard this was also part of his apartment trilogy and one of his earlier works so I decided to watch it. Very slow but interesting and well done. Got some cool creepy imagery here as well.
- Rosemary’s Baby-Second time I’ve ever watched it. I forgot a lot about it. It’s very well done but nothing is actually scary.
- Last House on the Left-For some reason I had a nightmare about this before I actually watched it. I presume from all the hype about this movie. First of all, it’s not scary but actually a very dark comedy, that I’m guessing inspired the Devil’s Rejects. Second of all, it’s got nothing to do with the last house or any house left or right. It’s more like last weed dealer on the left, watch out for him. The 3rd act is crazy and that’s all I’ll say. It’s definitely a fun movie and smart to make on a low budget. Definitely watch it, creators score points for making this.
- Predator-Never saw this all the way through, just scenes here and there. Clever to make the horror movie victims total badasses. This way your first act isn’t a bunch of horny pot head teenagers that take a wrong turn, it’s total commando badasses in a siege. What you’d usually see in the third act of a movie is the first act. Fun 80’s movie.
- Predator 2- The Good: It introduces way more weaponry and lore into the predator franchise, and that final scene with all the predators (most expensive scene by the way) was epic to me as a kid. The Bad: Just not near as compelling to have these LA cops compared to jungle commandos. Also, Arnold has to use traps and outsmart the predator, but Danny Glover beats the Predator in hand to hand combat with its own weapon. Get the fuck out of here.
- Last House on the Left (2009)-Why not watch the remake since I watched the original. This was well done in a serious way and changes up some of the characters as well. Definitely worth seeing both. They both work in their own way. I love the end credits song as well.
- Night of the Living Dead (1990)-Finally watched this for the first time since a kid. I remember this being frightening as well as the ultimate zombie movie. I also thought the epilogue was interesting with the humans ironically becoming villains. Now that I’m an adult, the movie was too on the nose. Overly exaggerated, one-dimensional characters. The super selfish guy, the zombie hunting red necks, the girl who goes from introvert to badass. But horror movies are for kids anyway, so why not.
- 25 Sets- I like Aaron Berg’s crowd work a lot and the fact that he goes after the pc bullies in the comedy community so I watched this. It was fun seeing more of his stuff, and what NYC comedy is like. I often think about moving out there and was wondering if this would detour or encourage me. Didn’t’ really do either. But definitely worth a watch.
- Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956) -One of the praised movies ever and one of the corniest as well. This was required viewing for my Dan O’Bannon screenwriting book as are many others on this list. Like a drawn out twilight zone episode.
- Dracula (1931)-I liked the design of the castle and the simplicity of the setup. Bella Legosi originated a creative and distinctive idea of Dracula that will never go away. But the stupid bat effects and the dumb spider thing they used looked so cartoonishly dumb. You’d think they’d hide it or try to cut away from it quickly but they keep the camera on the stupid bats for a long time. Dan O’Bannon wanted this to be seen as an example of a bad script and he was right about that. After the intro, it falls off the rails. Dracula goes to England for no real purpose, preys on a specific family for no reason, and the ending climax is completely stupid and anticlimactic. I do like the absence of music and black and white for horror, especially when he and his wives lumber around. That’s one good thing going for rit.
- Bram Stoker’s Dracula-So this fixes the special effects problem, and the story…somewhat. At least gives him a motivation for England, even if it’s stupid. A great intro, great costumes, great practical effects, all to lose to terrible casting and no chemistry. Keanu Reeves is now seen as cool but this is back when he started getting the reputation of being Ted Theodore Logan in real life. It’s like an SNL sketch watching him act with such a terrible English accent opposite Gary Oldman as Dracula. Oldman and Ryder have no chemistry and it just comes out of nowhere that she’s in love with him and wasn’t for certain if she just looks like his widow or really is, if so, that’s also kind of weird even within the verisimilitude of this world.
- Nosferatu (1922)-I heard this was one of the scariest movies of all time still. Of course, that was a lie, but I watched it anyway. I think if I would’ve played my own horror music instead of letting it just loop the music in the video it would’ve been much better, but the looping organ took away from it. We all know how over the top silent movie acting is. The actor playing Count Orlok did an amazing job though, and looked genuinely creepy and imposing at 6’3.
- Nosferatu (1979)-Watched Herzog do his version with his own creepy actor Klaus Kinski, though he’s 7 inches shorter than the original. This was done with a more human approach to the vampire that now with the rights to Dracula, so he goes by Dracula. This vampire seems to want to die and is done with the misery of being undead. The scene with all the rats was impressive, but sad they had to dye them all another color, and you know there had to have been some cruelty involved to get them to what they were doing in that movie. Slow movie, but it’s okay. I can’t say which to recommend. Either work for what they’re going for.
- Shadow of the Vampire-A third movie about Nosferatu. The take is a “what if” the director of Nosferatu had used an actual vampire and not an actor. Based on the rumors of Max Shrek being a vampire and not a real person. Defoe does a great job and was cast as the Green Goblin based on this performance. Even though I feel Horror and Comedy are extremely similar, Horror Comedy is hard to pull off. To be both funny and have moments of horror is difficult, but this is one of the few movies that pull it off. It has moments of dread, drama, comedy, all of it. My main problem is that this Count Orlok has buck teeth instead of fangs. It’s just weird. He’s also short like Kinski as well.
- El Camino-An unnecessary movie, capitalizing on past fame, just like Star Wars. But unlike Star Wars, it’s not a terrible sequel. It’s just there. It has a few cool scenes but other than that, you don’t miss anything not seeing it.
- Casablanca-Been hearing about this movie forever. I don’t like a lot of older movies because of how corny the dialogue, acting, and themes are, but this movie wasn’t bad. So somewhere between the hype of this movie supposedly being the best movie ever, and me expecting it to suck, it met in between. Much like Star Wars and Home Alone, the cast thought it was terrible and expected nothing to happen. I find it funny that Bergman is so much taller than Bogart that she has to squat down to make the much older man look like a great love interest.
- Van Helsing-I knew this was going to be stupid but I’ve watched so many vampire movies at this point I almost feel like I have to finish them all off. And I have a story I wrote about a witch hunter so I wanted to see if there was anything from this I thought could give me ideas. The only ideas I saw were what not to ever do. Though I don’t think I would do anything in this movie. I guess it’s supposed to be extremely dumb, the tragedy at the end kind of came out of nowhere. And what’s with all the swinging. There’s more swinging here than in every Spiderman movie combined.
- Brothers Grimm-Another movie about monster hunting, that’s why I watched it. I remember thinking it looked stupid in the movie trailers, but not Van Helsing dumb. It’s made by Terry Gilliam so that should mean something. Yes, it’s a bit smarter, beautiful backgrounds, but terrible CGI. The prologue is so rushed it comes off weird. The romance part is forced, just a dumb movie all around.
- Brazil- I was told to see this if I was to fully appreciate Gilliam’s brilliance. And I saw his brilliance…as a set decorator. The movie looks amazing and has some incredible staging of scenes that make you feel like you’re in another world or a dream. But the story is so stupid. This romance is even more forced.
- Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters-Okay, now it’s the last of my monster hunting movies. And for good reason. This is beyond Van Helsing dumb. I remember it looking stupid in the trailer, the name sounding dumb, but thought I’d give it a chance and see if they’re at least something decent. Maybe it would at least good witch designs. But most of the witches looked like Whitewalker extras. There were a few cool looking ones that were barely in it. This prologue was even more rushed than Grimm, the romance even more forced. Just stupid shit they’re trying to franchise. Hopefully, it’s the last but it looks like they’re making a series out of it possibly.
- Candyman-I was told this was one of the scariest movies ever by a few people so I decided to check it out. I remember it looking like another stupid slasher movie with a dumb name when I was a kid from the few scenes I saw. Turns out I was right. While you can tell the director has skills, based on the shots, and it has an original setting. It’s basically Bloody Mary, with some race stuff, wrongful accusal, and losing your mind stuff thrown in. Which just makes the story kind of dumb as well. The real life Candy Man of Houston is a really interesting story.
- A Doll’s House-I used to always get this title confused with the next movie I’m reviewing. Being a theatre major I heard of this play so many times so glad to finally see what the hell everyone is talking about. Turns out this is an old Scandinavian play. A youngish Anthony Hopkins was in this production. Controversial at its time I guess since it was about a woman standing up for herself. It’s a decent play. Something you respect more than enjoy.
- Welcome to the Dollhouse-I saw this movie trailer when it first came out and remember feeling so sorry for the girl. So bad I dreaded watching it as if I was about to see Schindler’s List. But she seems to just keep moving along as if she’s so used to it that nothing phases her. Like a guy threatening to rape her, her sister being missing yet still trying to ask out a boy. people writing mean shit on her locker and just goes as if as nothing happened, people insulting her while on stage after her sister was missing. I guess they have to do it like that for it to not be too depressing and have some black humor.
- Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon-This was in my book of movie scripts to review. Said it was an Eastern movie with a Western script structure. I don’t know what an eastern script structure is. How do they not have three acts? Does the ending come first there? I’m trying to learn more about that but still haven’t found anything. When I saw this movie when it first came out on DVD I remember it being underwhelming and boring. Maybe because it was so hyped up being the biggest overseas movie at the time ever in the theatres. I guess I expected some next level Jet Li movie. I watched it this time and thought it was an amazing movie.
- Strange Thing About the Johnson’s-Was told to see Ari Aster’s short films so here they are. This one is the first. If you look this up on YouTube, you’ll see people reacting to it as well. There’s a good reason. Once you make it past that part of the gimmick of the narrative, you see it was filmed well, but survives basically off its gimmick. But it’s still a good watch.
- TDF Really Works-This was just a dumb sketch, you can pass this.
- Beau-I can’t tell what even happened, but it was short. So that’s something.
- Munchausen-This is a well-worn story that was shot brilliantly. It’s shot kind of hokey but at the same time has amazing transition effects. Which I think is basically the gimmick of this one.
- Basically-This was entertaining. The star of this went on to star in the Marvellous Miss Maisel. Some show I’ve never watched. Sad life that I’ve never really encountered but I sure exists.
- The Turtles Head-Pretty ridiculous movie. I can’t really talk about it without giving stuff away. But it’s not crazy that the guy wrote TDF and Strange Things about the Johnson’s wrote this.
- C’est La Vie-It’s like Basically except with a crazy homeless guy. He’s not gone onto star in a huge Amazon Prime show as of yet.
- The Lives of Others- A film I’ve seen marketed for years but just now finally watched it because it was on the IMDb top 250 list. It definitely deserved a spot. The acting, cinematography, story are all amazing. The cast even had real-life experience with the subject at hand.
- The Irishman-A lot of hype for this movie. So much that I accidentally watched Kill the Irishman. I watched it with my grandparents so it added an extra dimension of sadness watching characters get old and waste away. My grandpa is too tired to finish the movie and has to leave, though, at three hours, not many can last that long. Either too old to stay up or too young to pay attention to. That’s peoples biggest complaint is the running time even though people binge-watch seasons of a show regularly nowadays. I did notice the movie was very slow but it all added up at the end. After seeing Once Upon a Time in America, nothing can be as tedious as that movie. The de-aging wasn’t very good either. It at best took Deniro from looking seventy to looking good for seventy.
- Prisoners- Another movie I discovered from the IMDb top 250. Made by Denis Villeneuve, who made Blade Runner 2049, Arrival, and the new Dune movie coming out this year. I’m reading the book right now so we’ll see how that all turns out. Anyway, a really good movie. Acting, cinematography, story. Great twists and turns and gives character hard choices that make you wonder what you would do.
- Rise of Skywalker-Terrible. All the sequels have been so bad they make the prequels look good. They all sucked in their own way. Force Awakens sucked for just copying A New Hope and making a worse version of it. Last Jedi sucked by just trying to be clever and subverting our expectations. But all that did was undo most of the set up from the other terrible movie, get very convoluted, bring up more questions than answers, and force the next one to bury this one. If you want to subvert expectations have a stormtrooper have good accuracy or make a good sequel. Now onto this one, it sucked by just being a terrible story. It’s all-flash. They just kept chasing McGuffins to another McGuffin, the characters had nothing to do, then added more characters, then made you think characters were dead only to bring them back to life, had lots of purposeless scenes, rushed a lot of stuff, corniest dialogue ever, and added nothing new beyond red stormtroopers and horses on star destroyers, which is just dumb. What they do to Luke makes him look like he can’t make up his mind.
- Marriage Story-Adam Driver reappears to put his acting in a movie that will take advantage of it. Really good movie. Some of the dialogue a little overwritten, but Baumbach’s been guilty of that since Kicking and Screaming. Very apparent in the Scarlett Johannson monologue. The movie was too long as well. But the level of authenticity that comes from the actual cast’s divorce stories, that clever intro, the irony of a love story in a divorce makes this a great movie. Must see at least once. I love the Adam Driver singing scene as well.
- Uncut Gems-So much hype for this movie I actually saw it in theatres instead of waiting for it to be available online. There’s even hype for the Safdie brothers who I’d never heard of. Well made movie, crazy pace to match the lifestyle, the ending ended the only way it could with the theme and character choices. Kevin Garnett did really well playing himself, which not every athlete can do well. Shaq couldn’t. Jordan was barely passable in Space Jam. I didn’t even know Garnett was retired since I don’t watch sports. Adam Sandler did well carrying the movie. Not the great movie that I was hyped to see, but after that much hype there’s no way it could deliver. But that’s the only way people were going to watch something in theatres competing with Star Wars so I know why they did it.
- The Witcher-It’s decent. I only played Witcher 3 and the expansions. I’m planning on playing the others and reading the books as well. Geralt looks and sounds just like he did in the game. Not as fun as he was in the game, more brooding. Maybe that’s how the books were. I’m so used to the game I have to accept the books were a bit different sometimes, even though the game was pretty spot on from what I’m told. The weird part was how they turned a lot of characters black, or Indian, or Asian. Which was not how they were in the games or books from what I’ve researched. Now they’ll probably do that in the new Lord of the Rings series on Amazon. I don’t really like forced diversity when it doesn’t make sense within the verisimilitude (I really like using that word). I don’t see other people mentioning it cause I guess they’re scared they’ll get called racist and be attacked by cancel culture. I find it distracting on the show. The CGI is really impressive for the most part. The episode 3 monster fight was amazing. I find Triss boring, Yennefer annoying, but there’s a lot to be impressed by so I should quit nitpicking so much I guess. People act like its up there with Game of Thrones. It’s not. More like a much better version of Hercules the Legendary Journeys.