Tag: film

REVIEW: While moving, ‘Memory’ often feels distant

When there’s hardships aplenty, sometimes a human connection is what can get a person through.

Writer and director Michel Franco’s new film “Memory” shows just that, as two broken people find each other and form a relationship. The film opens by introducing Sylvia, a single mother and recovering alcoholic who works in an adult care home. While she’s been sober for years and able to manage her daily life, she still deals from trauma in her past.

The movie picks up with her meeting a man, Saul (Peter Sarsgaard), who has early onset dementia. This leads to their first encounters being difficult, but as time goes on, they grow closer. While the relationship brings them some happiness, though, there are still struggles for both.

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REVIEW: Don’t bother with a dip, ‘Night Swim’ is a skip

A film from Blumhouse Productions kicked off both 2023 and 2024. The difference is that “M3gan” was a much better experience than “Night Swim.”

The new horror stars Kerry Condon and Wyatt Russell as Eve and Ray Waller, who begin the movie in the market for a new house. Their search for a new home comes after Ray had to retire from Major League Baseball due to an illness.

The home they end up buying appears to be a great fit, as the pool in the backyard will be helpful for Ray’s physical therapy. Things at the new home start off well enough, with the family of four enjoying the luxury of having a pool. However, creepy things begin happening and paranormal sights are seen.

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REVIEW: Story of ‘Rustin’ is important, but told without cinematic flair

Sometimes a film comes along that does something positive by shining a light on a hidden figure, but doesn’t do so in extraordinary fashion.

This movie is an example. It tells the story of Bayard Rustin (Colman Domingo), who was the lead organizer for the March on Washington in 1963. The event is now most well known for Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech and a subsequent meeting with President John F. Kennedy.

Getting to those historic moments took an immense amount of planning and mobilization, though, and Rustin was at the center of it all. The film dramatizes this, as well as Rustin’s experience as a gay man during a time where he had to keep his relationships hidden.

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REVIEW: Despite strong filmmaking, ‘Zone of Interest’ loses momentum

During the Nuremberg Trials, Rudolf Höss admitted that well over a million people were killed while he was commandant at Auschwitz. As this film shows, he had no issue maintaining a regular life next door.

Set in 1943, “The Zone of Interest” follows Höss (Christian Friedel) not inside the infamous camp, but rather at home with his family. While he was in charge of the camp, his residence was right beside it, only separated by a high concrete wall.

As the film demonstrates, the proximity to a place of extermination did not hinder the Höss family from living an average life, where the patriarch went off to work in the morning while his wife tended to the children and kept busy with a garden. They did all of this all while hearing the sounds from the camp.

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REVIEW: ‘Iron Claw’ is mostly effective in showing family drama and trauma

Wrestling may be theatrical and scripted, but the physical and mental toll is very real, as this film shows.

“The Iron Claw” tells the story of the Von Erich family, which has produced multiple generations of professional wrestlers. The origins of wrestling in the family go back to its patriarch, Fritz (Holt McCallany), who was a professional in the 50s and 60s. In addition to his career, Fritz became the father to several sons.

Once his time in the ring was done, he decided to push wrestling on his kids, Kevin (Zac Efron), Kerry (Jeremy Allen White), David (Harris Dickinson) and Mike (Stanley Simons). Fritz doesn’t just stop at tough physical training, though, as he also uses manipulation and pushes his sons too far, leading to tragic consequences.

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Ten Worst Films of 2023

The past year was one where I didn’t see as many films as usual and that meant missing out on a few releases.

For better or for worse, these included pictures such as “The Flash” and “Indiana Jones: The Dial of Destiny,” among others. I still saw plenty of flicks, though, and as usual, some of them were a chore to sit through.

Here are the roughest films that were released in 2023 that I experienced.

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REVIEW: Snyder’s ‘Rebel Moon’ is a soulless sci-fi slog

This film was “Rebel Moon – Part One,” so a Part Two is surely on the way. Netflix can keep it, one was enough.

“Rebel Moon,” directed by Zack Snyder, unsurprisingly starts on a moon. More specifically, it’s a remote moon populated by small farming villages. One of those villages is where Kora (Sofia Boutella), a former soldier, is residing for a more peaceful life.

That life is upended, though, when a ship from the militaristic galactic empire arrives and demands the villagers produce rations for its army as its in the midst of a conflict with rebels. With a threat of violence if the demand is not met, a village farmer partners with Kora to find warriors throughout the galaxy to defend the community.

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REVIEW: ‘Poor Things’ is positively weird and wonderful

When director Yorgos Lanthimos makes a film, you can usually expect it will make a person laugh, think and be taken aback. “Poor Things” is another example, and it’s also pretty damn good.

Willem Dafoe portrays scientist and surgeon Dr. Godwin Baxter in the film. Early on in the movie, we learn that the latest experiment by Dr. Baxter, a sort of Frankenstein-like mad scientist, was the resurrection of a young woman who had jumped off a bridge.

To do so, Baxter utilizes a brain that he recovered from the baby that the woman was pregnant with and calls the revived being Bella (Emma Stone). The experiment results in Bella getting a crash course in living, as her intelligence rapidly develops while she’s learning about life experiences and the world around her.

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REVIEW: ‘Aquaman’ sequel is generic superhero CGI slop

At last, we have come to the final chapter in the DCEU.

“The Lost Kingdom,” takes place  few years after Aquaman, AKA Arthur Curry (Jason Momoa), became king of Atlantis and prevented a war between the ocean and surface worlds. Now a husband to Mera (Amber Heard) and father to a baby son, Arthur is trying to find a good balance between being a monarch and a dad.

At the same time, a threat emerges in the form of an old enemy, Black Manta (Yahya Abdul-Mateen). After losing to Arthur in part 1, Manta is out for revenge and plans to do so with an evil trident. To stop the villain, Arthur partners with his brother, Orm (Patrick Wilson), who he defeated for the throne.

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REVIEW: ‘Nimona’ is an awesome animated adventure

Production issues nearly sidelined this film. Thank goodness it was revived and released on Netflix.

“Nimona” is set in a kingdom where the past meets the future. While the kingdom has all the makings of a medieval state in function, the movie is set in a high-tech world, with knights using hovercraft and advance technology.

The movie centers on one such knight, Ballister (Riz Ahmed), who finds himself framed for killing the queen of the kingdom. He meets an unlikely ally, though, in an unruly shapeshifter named Nimona (Chloe Grace Moretz) who has been shunned by the society at large for her abilities.

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