The sixth movie in the Terminator franchise but chronologically the third, Dark Fate has a steep hill to climb. The last three movies ranged from alright to oof, what happened? I don’t think anyone remembers Rise of the Machines and while Genisys has its faults, it’s not bad. There’s no need to mention Salvation. That’s not a good batting average when the first two Terminator films are classics. Dark Fate is the third crack at reviving this 35 year old franchise.

So, how do you do it a third time? You ignore everything that was released in the last 17 years. It’s gotten too complex and sloppy. None of the last three movies happened, this is a direct sequel to T2: Judgement Day. And that movie is awesome. So, how do you make a good Terminator sequel? Keep everything that people liked about the first two movies and mix them together to add to the formula. This recipe worked on me, Dark Fate is an exciting ride.

Dark Fate is about humanity’s hubris. No matter what, we will create Artificial Intelligence that becomes self-aware and takes over to wipe us out. The other inevitability is mankind will always fight back. In T2, Sara and John Connor successfully stopped Judgement Day from occurring in August of 1997. But terminators are still sent back in time to kill John, and one ends up succeeding, leaving Sara alone in her fight until the present day. A new model of terminator–the REV-9–is sent to today after new target, Dani Ramos. The human rebellion from the future sends an augmented human soldier named Grace to defend Dani from the new threat. Grace finds Dani first and the two link up with Sara Connor to continue the fight against the machines across the decades.

Linda Hamilton rules. It’s awesome to see her play Sara again and this story fills in what has happened to her since the end of T2. The way they get her and a T-800 (Arnold Schwarzenegger as “Carl”!) to work together again is creative and brings back that uneasy partnership from T2. Grace as the new protector is a great addition as she’s not a cyborg, but a human that’s been heavily augmented to be able to stand up to a terminator. This removes the robot “learning” about being human from T2–which doesn’t need to be rehashed–and adds a compassionate, engaging, and relatable character right away. Plus, I love Mackenzie Davis from the show Halt and Catch Fire. She is a terrific badass heroine.

The REV-9 (“Gabriel” in human form played by Gabriel Luna) is a hybrid of the T-800 and the T-1000 terminator technology. A endoskeleton core with a liquid/nano skin that can separate and function away from the endoskeleton. This movie literally mixes the threats of the first two movies together to make a new, yet familiar, lethal threat.

Dani (Natalia Reyes) takes the role of John Connor. An innocent person thrust into the madness of being hunted for being the apparent savior of the human race. Reyes plays the part of the average person. Her struggle to come to grips with being hunted by a robot, and protected by two robots; the fear of being attacked all the time and forced to run at every moment is a visceral one. While she is the “replacement” of John, she handles it differently. She’s more confident and quicker to take part in controlling her fate.

For anyone that seen Terminator and T2, you can see the structure of both movies in what I’ve described. Characters are similar but expanded. The stakes are the same but the situation has been altered to make this third round happen. A lot of the intrigue in the story comes from finding out what Sara and John ended up accomplishing and what Sara has been doing since.

Placed between the lore and plot are awesome action scenes. There are some phenomenal special effects in this movie. And there is a lot of variety. A chase movie through and through, the settings are always changed to offer different battle scenarios and strategies to keep things interesting against a villian that is so hard to stop. While some backgrounds and other large CG elements (the airplane sequence comes to mind) can give you that weird CG plastic look that gives things away, much of it is incredible. Close up shots look believable, the effects of the REV- 9 are brilliant and make this new terminator look fierce and futuristic. The combination of the classic physical endoskeleton (now matte black!) and the liquid body opens the doors to wild fight scenes. There is a realistic sense of weight, power, impact, and scale when Grace, the REV-9 and Carl fight. Half the time they are partially or all CG, but it’s hard to tell.

Having a cast of five with different physical capabilities also adds variety and higher stakes. From the bottom, two are human, so they are very squishy. Dani has no self-defense training, so she has to be extra careful. Sara is a master marksman, with a gun and some range she’s dangerous. She can’t let a machine get close, she has no physical power. Grace is incredibly strong, a monster fighter, and can take a lot of damage. But she has limits that are way below a terminator. The REV-9 and T-800 “Carl” are juggernauts.

The physics are really well done which is a major accomplishment. When CG objects move around fast, go airborne, collide with things, it’s often easy to tell when the CG elements are swapped in. A film turns into a video game. That ruins the illusion and that doesn’t happen much in Dark Fate. Sure, the REV-9 does impossible things with its liquid half and gets thrown around with tremendous force, but it looks like it’s moving as it should. The digital face replacement for placing actor’s faces over stuntmen and women is cutting edge. I was constantly impressed by the action here, it totally carries the torch from Terminator 2 (and to be honest, the action in this entire franchise has always been great).

I liked everything about Dark Fate. The cast is fantastic, I like every character. Great dialog, believable reactions. Each new and remixed element is smartly placed and utilized. If the last three movies didn’t exist, I think this movie would have been way more anticipated and done much better in theatres. Like the X-Men franchise, too many felt burned by too many sub-par entries so they stayed away.

Speaking of X-Men, this is what Dark Phoenix wanted to be. A resurrection and quality culmination of characters that people love. Everything that Phoenix did wrong, Dark Fate did right. This also brings me to another movie I recently watched, Toy Story 4.

That movie feels like a definitive end for the franchise and Dark Fate does too. Those characters have told their story and at the very least, there is nothing more for Arnold to do with Terminator. He’s one of the best parts of this movie and that makes it a complete story for him. While they have room to use Linda Hamilton in a possible sequel (she was not in the last three so Sara hasn’t been overused) his time is done. No more CG Arnold T-800 reconstructions. In order to move the franchise forward, drastic things need to be done to do so. Remixing won’t work again and ultimately it’s probably for the best that Dark Fate is how this franchise goes out with a bang.

Rian Johnson needs to keep making his own original movies where he isn’t held down by someone else’s rules and expectations. He got swarmed by a legion of sourpusses for The Last Jedi and with Knives Out he gets to have a blast in his own world and gives us another terrific original story to watch.

Harlan Thrombey is a wildly successful mystery novel writer with a large family that has come to rely on him a lot over the years. At his untimely and rather gruesome death, it brings them all together to his home to go over the last will and testament where they are all met by an unexpected guest. Harlan’s death is seen as suicide and this brings the local police in to ask questions and they are accompanied by detective Benoit Blanc, an expert in sniffing out…murder.

I suspect foul play. I have eliminated no suspects.

Writer/Director Rian Johnson-one of my favorite working today-has crafted a really fun and engaging murder mystery with a stacked cast (check that IMDB page!) with more than a few surprises. The big narrative shock is that you find out who killed Harlan in the first act of the movie. The ponderous nature of the narrative that unfolds is that Benoit doesn’t know who hired him. He received an envelope of money with a note that Harlan was murdered and his expertise is needed to find out who did it. But with what’s publicly known about Harlan’s murder how does the mystery tipster know Harlan was murdered? Someone in the house has a lot of secrets. As Benoit digs in, the tapestry of murder, setups and goblin levels of greedy family members is woven before you.

Knives Out is an original, well told story that has tons of foreshadowing, excitement, intrigue, and suspense from start to finish. The entire cast looks like they had a blast, Daniel Craig as Benoit in particular. There’s a lot to notice on re-viewings so this movie is worth watching more than once. I only had one hang up on my viewing. Near the end of the film, there is narration to explain the actions of the Evil Doer that seemed to give the Evil Doer more information than they could have known at the time. I had to watch that part a few times to understand it and I think it’s just poorly worded (Mr. Johnson, I offer my editing and content reviewing services for any of your future projects).

Not enough murder mysteries like this are made for TV and film anymore and that’s a shame. When done well, they are incredibly engaging and memorable. Rian managed to also mix in some really funny lines. Witty and clever, these quick moments highlight character personalities in an efficient manner. There are around a dozen main characters so there is a lot to manage. Just about everyone gets their chance to shine. There isn’t a single wasted moment and even as you learn more about what happened, there is more for you to try and figure out on your own. While so much is seemingly given to you at the start, a lot is held back and at the end, it all comes together really well.

I think this stands up right next to the legendary Clue movie that came out way back in 1985. In fact, if you are a Clue fan, drop whatever you are doing and get your Knives Out right now.

On with the quick hits!

Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbes and Shaw– I liked this way more than I thought I would. Dwayne Johnson can make just about anything work and the pairing of him and Jason Statham as Shaw is a potent mix. Statham has done a lot of action movies and his best role is Shaw. Giving him the foil of Hobbes makes his character work at his most surly and best. The set up to give them their own duo movie is easy: a biological weapon is on the loose, Hobbes is put on the case and Shaw’s sister is the rogue agent so Shaw is pulled into the save the world orbit. With Fast and Furious in the title, it checks all the boxes of the franchise. I liked the escalation of action, it works it’s way up to cartoon levels pretty late in the film. The movie also tries to be funny all the time and sometimes succeeds. Your mileage will vary in how much you laugh as Hobbes and Shaw’s bickering is always stupid and goofy. I don’t think I’m saying anything surprising in the 9th movie of a nearly twenty-year-old series. Silly fun, one of the better entries in the series.

X-Men: Dark Phoenix– This movie got absolutely trashed when it came out. I can honestly say, it’s not a bad movie. The problem is that it never gets any better than ‘good’ making it a movie that you can skip and not miss anything. The X-Men film franchise is a weird one. It has more misses than hits. A reboot of sorts started in 2011 with First Class while Wolverine got his own movies where only one of those was worth watching. Then 2014, Days of Future Past was a solid entry, everyone hated Apocalypse in 2016 and Dark Phoenix tries to do something worthwhile in the last entry of this cast before Disney/Marvel takes the rains.

The problem is, the story in this is far too simple and for as big as the cast is, there aren’t enough characters to care about. Many characters have very little to do–they are there for action scenes–they say very little and even have nothing to say (I don’t think Quicksilver speaks at all and then gets injured). So they feel like a waste. Mystique is a major character but she’s so different from her comic book self that it feels wrong. Jennifer Lawrence does everything she can with what she’s given but it’s hard to care about it. It doesn’t help that the previous movie wasn’t good so there’s a large gap of when anyone cared about her or any of these characters. Sophie Turner does her best work as Jean, she’s got the best scenes with James McAvoy as Professor X. Nicholas Holt is the other highlight as Hank but his scenes are too few and far between.

Everything whips by quickly and after two hours it doesn’t feel like anything with weight happens. At the beginning Jean gets–possessed is I guess the best word to use for it–and she starts to lose control of her now greatly amplified powers. It seems to be triggered by anger, which isn’t interesting. She runs off, a fight to bring her back happens, she finds out a secret about her past that Professor X has kept from her making her madder. It’s there that the best and more important conflict is and not enough is done with it. Her teammates, who have known her for years show basic concern for her, but no time is spent with them.

The worst is the alien antagonists that are boring and come across as a tacked-on afterthought. They show up out of nowhere and the absolute minimal amount of information about them and their motives are given in the entire story. So you don’t care about them. They became the fodder for the last action scene of the movie. And while that action scene is fantastic, the final showdown with Jean and head baddie is anti-climatic and dull. The end doesn’t land as well as it should so the movie and this franchise feels like it simply fades away, just in time for the credits to roll. Really disappointing.

Eli– Available on Netflix, this one turned out to be a lot of fun. Eli is a young boy with a severe auto-immune disease. He’s basically allergic to everything, he breaks out into a red rash and can’t breathe. If he goes outside, he has to wear a hazmat suit to keep himself safe. After years of living in a plastic bubble, his parents have found a doctor who specializes in his condition and they travel to her converted home for the cure. Along with the doctor and her two nurses, they are the only people in the sanitary facility…until Eli is visited by a dark presence on the first night. All the adults don’t believe what Eli is telling them and he has to piece together what’s going on by himself.

As you can see those are some classic horror setups. The build-up to the haunted house is quite good and there are some genuinely creepy and tense scenes with Eli being on his own at night. During the day isn’t much better has he is put through stressful procedures by the doctor. Night and day the kid is physically and emotionally tested. I really liked the reveal of what is going on, I was tricked twice before it all comes together. Well done direction and special effects make each moment stand out and believable. I especially love the end with a great payoff that sets up a very different sequel. I’m totally on board to see where this team of filmmakers would go with it. Gore and violence are kept to a minimum with the most intense visuals (that are really impressive) kept for the end. I think it’s tastefully done and fitting for a climax. Smart move as I think being more restrained makes this more approachable to a bigger audience.

Good Boys– Max, Lucas, and Thor are best friends starting the sixth grade. Peer pressure to be cool and grow up as fast as possible is in full effect. When Max manages to get all of them invited to the cool kid’s party (it’s kissing party!) it triggers the race to find out how to kiss a girl before the party. That snowballs into losing a drone, skipping school, getting mixed up with drugs and chased around town by angry high school girls.

This movie was way better than I thought it would be. It’s a fitting title, the kids are good boys and most of the laughs come from the innocence of eleven-year-olds confidently claiming they know everything. It’s a time when puberty starts for many, everything and everyone around you is changing and “leaving” childhood behind seems like the thing to do. The kids are great, it feels like they’ve known each other their whole lives and watching them curse through the whole crazy ordeal is a blast. The funny thing is that kids the age of the main characters aren’t the audience for this, there is cursing all over the place and sex jokes stuffed everywhere possible. It’s kind of like a tamer version of The Hangover. The line of going too far is skated up to but never crossed. There is a lot of cursing, but it’s not mean tirades or gross. There’s no violence. There’s just situational absurdity about friends going through a day they will never forget and they all learn about themselves at the end of it. A big and pleasant surprise, I recommend it.

Spiderman does what a spider can! Following the events of the universe-altering Endgame movie, Far From Home finds Peter Parker without Tony Stark to mentor him. With the weight of the world off his shoulders for a bit, Peter wants a break from wearing the spandex suit. Looking forward to a trip to you Europe with his classmates, he sees it as the perfect chance to take a vacation, be a kid, a tell MJ how he feels about her. But where ever a Spider goes, trouble seemingly follows.

Along with the amazing powers Peter has, Tony gives him another great responsibility: E.D.I.T.H. A networked supercomputer with a frightening amount of surveillance and weapons capability that’s accessed with voice commands via sunglasses that were built and obviously styled by Tony himself. While trying to juggle the everyday American teenager stuff, this is an overwhelming amount of pressure to put on a kid who is in the middle of identity and purpose-in-life crisis. Also, he really, really likes this girl and doesn’t know how to handle it.

Enter Quentin Beck aka Mysterio. He comes flying in like a new Tony Stark, blasting a large elemental monster with some kind of green energy from his hands. Sure he’s got what looks like a fishbowl on his head but his armor is really cool. Peter teams up with Mysterio to defend an attack on the first stop of his European trip. It goes well and Peter makes a new friend with a kindred spirit. Quentin is a good guy, a fellow hero who fights to help people. Peter quickly trusts him, thinking it’s what Tony would want and expect him to do. And that proves to be a big problem.

The coolest part of Spiderman is that his powers make him incredibly agile. He can move and this fight in ways no one else can, so that makes for some inventive and unique fight and action sequences. This movie is full of them and each one builds on the other. The visuals are all on point so there’s nothing really there that breaks the illusion of the insanity on screen.

The cast is all terrific, all the classmates return from Homecoming so there is an instant and fun familiarity to get back into. Jake Gyllenhall is perfectly cast as Mysterio, as is the modernization of his powers. Far From Home also stands well as a solo movie, you don’t have to have seen Homecoming and enough of the set up from what happened in Endgame is given to get newcomers up to speed.

There’s nothing for me to complain about here, the Tom Holland run of Spiderman continues to be a blast and a lot of universe progress is made with this movie. More, please!

Director Bong Joon Ho continues his ascension into the top tier of filmmakers with his latest called Parasite. Storywise, it’s a simple concept. The Kim family, living on the lower side of the economic scale, con their way into working for a wealthy family, the Parks. Soon after settling in with the Parks, something happens that threatens to ruin everything for the Kims.

This is an amazingly fun movie that is pulled off to perfection. The building blocks of the Kim’s scam are expertly placed. Each family member, starting with the son, has a believable way in and the introduction of the next family member into the fold is also smartly done. This kind of movie has been done before so it becomes a matter of what new direction can they do here to make it a story worth telling? The fun of Parasite is watching each step of the plan come together. Then, you wait on pins and needles to see what’s going to push over the first domino into a disaster. Finally, the anticipation on how it concludes. Can they stick the landing? The hook that sets off the tragedy of the story is just as well done as the setup, as is the ending. This script is so well thought out and executed that I was impressed with every scene–there’s a purpose to every single thing you are shown.

This is pretty much a tale of the have and the have nots. The Park’s seemingly have everything and the Kim’s are struggling to make ends meet week to week. Their semi-underground apartment (it’s a basement) only gives them a sliver of a view to the outside world. And practically everyday that view is ruined by a drunk man relieving himself next to their kitchen. The Park’s, on the other hand, have floor to ceiling windows in their gigantic home, and beautiful landscaping in a posh neighborhood. So when the son, Woo, starts weaseling his way into tutoring the Park’s daughter thanks to one of his friends, you understand this kid wanting to do anything to advance himself, which will help his family.

The beginning of the movie perfectly establishes the Kim family. The four of them are a tight-knit family and they’re easy to like. One of my favorite scenes is when Woo goes to meet Mrs. Park to interview for the tutoring gig. With a forged document in his hand thanks to the handiwork of his sister, Jung, he stops and smiles at his father. He proclaims that it isn’t a fake, he just printed it out a year early. He’s going to get this great paying job, save up, go to the school where the forgery says he’s been attending, and everything will get better for them. This is just what he has to do to start the rest of his life. So while what he’s doing is shady, you’re on his side. Now, while he gets his sister in pretty easily, it’s bringing in the Kim parents where things turn much more dishonest and morally awful.

And that’s the brilliant pivot of the movie. Things are going well for the Kim’s, they are working hard and for the first time in a while see a bright future for themselves. With four great incomes, they’re making real money. It’s only at this point where they briefly ponder what’s happened to the good people they got fired. The moral question is asked and shortly after, their con blows up in their face in an unexpected way (I didn’t see it coming at all). I won’t say anything more about the twist because I think you need to go into it blind for the most impact. I will say that the twist brings in an additional terrific layer of compassion and parallels to the plight of others in the world that makes you think. I think the ending is brilliant as well, giving an elegant answer while also leaving it open ended.

Every actor in this movie is fantastic and the production is often gorgeous. Bong Joon Ho is a phenomenal director. He frames things so well, knows exactly when and how to move a camera to focus attention, raise drama, and unconsciously push the viewer through the story the way he wants you to with seemingly no effort. Few directors can match his finesse.

Highly recommended, easily one of the best movies of 2019 and it deserves every Oscar it won.

JoJo Beltzer is a ten-year-old boy in the Hitler Youth during the tail end of World War II. Entranced and surrounded by Nazi propaganda, his imaginary friend is Adolph Hitler. He gets hurt at a training camp for kids and at home, he discovers that his mother is hiding a Jewish girl.

A remarkable movie in every measure, I’m not sure how many filmmakers could pull this story off. Writer/Director Taika Waititi fuses comedy and dramatics into a brilliant mix to tell the story of a boy coming to the realization that when you look past the hate you are told, we’re all the same–people who want to be happy and live free.

First and foremost, this is a hilarious satire that skewers the Nazi movement while focusing on a small family during this insane time. There is a mountain of physical gags and brilliant one-liners throughout the whole movie that also offer commentary on the entire stupid Nazi ethos.

“I said to draw where Jews live. This is just a stupid picture of my head.” “Yeah, that’s where we live.”

The script quickly navigates from silly to serious like a dance that’s really impressive to watch. When Jojo finds Elsa hiding in a crawlspace upstairs, he’s shocked and terrified of her. With all the stories he’s been told about Jews being literal monsters, he’s afraid for his and his mother’s safety. Elisa rolls with this, at first scaring him into not telling his mother or anyone else. It’s a tough balancing act for Jojo to walk on, wanting to protect his mother from the authorities from finding out she’s a Jewish sympathizer while his inner Adolph keeps showing up to remind him of his duties to protect Nazi Germany. As the days go by, he talks to her more and more and Elisa indulges Jojo by embellishing all of the rediculous tales (Jews sleep upsidedown like bats, they have horns, tails and scales, can read minds…the list goes on) to the point where he writes it all down for a book on Jews (Yoohoo Jews). Over time they talk about real things and get to know each other. This begins to change Jojo’s world view.

Jojo has been told that his father is off fighting for Nazi Germany, so it’s only him and his mother. She’s a gentle and loving person who doesn’t think twice about helping Elsa but must hide as much as she can from Jojo to keep them both safe. While her young son follows the song of Nazi propaganda, she knows that’s not her son’s true nature and tempers his outbursts every chance she can. Elsa picks up on Jojo’s nature too at one point telling him “You’re not a Nazi, Jojo. You’re a ten-year-old kid who likes dressing up in a funny uniform and wants to be part of a club.”

Along with this terrific script is the amazing cast. The three main leads, Roman Griffin Davis as Jojo, Thomasin McKenzie as Elsa, and Scarlett Johansson as Jojo’s mother Rosie, are all brilliant. Roman is a ridiculously good actor for his age and he lights up every single scene he’s in. As the main character the entire movie rides on him, so give this kid some awards, please. Thomasin brings incredible courage and warmth to Elsa and this might be my favorite role I’ve seen Scarlett play. I really believed her as Jojo’s mother and her path through the movie was incredibly touching.

This movie looked great from the trailers and it exceeded my expectations. It went in directions I didn’t expect, made me laugh out loud and stole my heart. An absolute winner of a film in my book.

Better late than never edition!

Gehenna– This was a fun low budget horror movie. A real estate developer goes on a location scout where she and four others find a bunker from World War II. Once inside, they become trapped by evil spirits and the race is on to figure a way out.

Mostly a ghost story, Gehenna uses darkness and claustrophobia to great effect. The excellent make-up effects are also worth bringing up. Since the movie called for very few locations, it looks like a bulk of the budget was available for quality creature effects which are quite gruesome and do the most to sell the story. The worst quality of the film is the acting, which slides around from good to bad through the entire runtime.

Storywise, it’s a neat little tale that’s revealed through the objects that the characters find in the bunker. And since this is a ghost story, the evil spirits bring out the worst fears in the unfortunate people who found this damned space. The secret of the movie is set up well but it’s easy to figue it out long before the characters do, so I ended up waiting a while for them to catch on. I think the secret works well but the movie treats you like an idiot as it holds your hand and spells it out exactly for the last few minutes. I don’t know how anyone couldn’t figure it out on their own so the last bit felt like a waste of time. So yeah, this movie does have its fair share of flaws but it’s a good watch.

The Autopsy of Jane Doe– This is a surprisingly great movie! Father and son coroners, Tom and Austin, get the body of a young woman from the police who just found her at a crime scene. Along with the multiple murders at a local residence, she was found half buried in the basement. It’s a strange crime scene and the police ask Tom to finish the autopsy and get the report to them in the morning so they have something to tell the media.

So Tom and his son get to work on Jane Doe and with each step, they discover more bizarre clues. For example, she has no trauma visible on the outside–her skin is in perfect condition–but the internal damage is shocking. As they get closer to the truth the secrets of Jane Doe start to come for them.

The concept for this movie is terrific and each element is done really well. Fantastic make-up effects, the pacing is perfect, and it’s really creepy. Much like Gehenna, the entire movie takes place in almost one location so a lot of the budget went to the terrific special effects. Unlike Gehenna, the acting is terrific, the very small cast lead by Brian Cox and Emile Hirsch.

The gore is limited, kept mostly to the autopsy work, and the movie doesn’t rely on it for its scares. It’s much more location and the growing presence of an evil force that creeps up on you. I really liked the reveal of who Jane most likely is and the end works really well. A treat of a movie.

In the Tall Grass– This one lands right in the middle of the road for me. A good concept that is probably better off as a short story as there’s not enough to it. Even at about 90 minutes, it felt too long.

Becky and Cal are siblings driving through Kansas on their way to California. Becky is pregnant and Cal pulls the car over when she gets sick. On the side of the road, they hear a boy in the field of tall grass yelling for help. He can’t find his way out, so the two decided to go in to help him out.

With the story by Stephen King and his son Joe Hill, you can pretty much guess what happens. The field is not a normal field, it’s inhabited by some kind of being or spirit that’s sole purpose is trapping people for…some reason? And the people drawn into this field, maybe they have some secrets of their own? Yeah, they do.

There’s a good amount of backstory to the characters strewn about to give more depth to people teleporting around a field which is…okay? I can’t think of a stand out scene and I didn’t find it scary at all. Every angle of this felt like it’s been done before and done better elsewhere. Digital effects take over in the last half and they look alright. Gore and violence are middle of the road with the exception of one grisly death. If you skip this one I don’t think you’re missing anything.

Happy Death Day– Take the movie Groundhog Day, set it on a college campus, and add a murderer and you have this fun movie. Tree Glebman wakes up in a boy’s dorm room on her birthday. She goes through the day and is murdered by someone wearing all black and the mask of the school mascot. On her death, she wakes up back in the boy’s dorm room and lives through the same day until she can stop her murderer. A pretty clever movie, enough is done to keep you guessing on who the murderer is and Tree is a smart character. She works to widdle down her suspect list and naturally finds out clues and picks up on things that are wrong. My guess is that this script was worked on for a while, it’s way more clever than I thought it would be. Rated PG-13, this movie is light on violence and almost absent of gore. The most you see is a knife handle sticking out of someone. More thriller than a horror movie, this is a good movie for scaredy-cats (it’s not scary at all) to watch with their friends who like horror movies.

Happy Death Day 2U– The sequel starts on the same morning as the original. Ryan, the roommate of Carter, opens this movie by showing the audience where he goes after Tree leaves Carter’s room. The big hook of the movie is that it explains what caused Tree’s time loop–Ryan’s science thesis project. Just when Tree thinks she’s out, Ryan ends up making it worse and before long it’s more than just Tree’s life on the line in this alternative timeline. This movie almost changes genres, adding science fiction to the thriller aspects while keeping the dash of horror movie influences. I give credit for the effort in making this movie stand out and unique. By pushing the time idea, it remixes the events of the first movie offering different routes for the characters to take and changing the mystery of who the killer is. I did find it weird and disappointing that despite Ryan being the focal point of the movie at the start, he falls to the wayside and Tree headlines the movie again. That said, what they do for Tree is well done and interesting. She doesn’t do the same motions as the first film and more opportunities are made with the timeline change to give more depth of her character. She has to make a few hard choices which help make for a more interesting story in the end. While I like the first one more, this is a worthy sequel.

Green Room– A punk band travels to the woods of Portland, Oregon on a last ditch effort to make some money on their sputtering tour. The gig is at a neo-nazi bar but they’re reassured they’ll be playing early in the day so the crowd won’t be too gnarly, the contact at the venue is cool, and the amount money they’ll get for playing a few songs will be enough for them to get back home. The kids end up seeing something bad–essentially being at the wrong place at the wrong time–and they are forced to fight for their survival. This movie is awesome from start to finish. A good set-up with a fun cast you get to know and like quickly and then the decent into chaos ratchets up perfectly. Patrick Stewart is in this with a role I’ve never seen him do before. The late great Anton Yelchin is fantastic in this as well so watching this kept me at the edge of my seat the entire time. There’s a good amount of violence and gore on display but it isn’t gratuitous which I think was a good move. What’s there sells the horror and that’s enough. The whole movie takes place almost entirely in one location and the set is used really well. The band tries various ways to get out so the pacing has these great peaks and valleys of action. The only thing I didn’t like is that I didn’t watch this movie sooner.

Have you ever heard the saying “The feel good movie of the year”? Joker isn’t that movie. As one would expect, nothing good happens to the man we watch become the Joker.

Gotham City is a rough place to live in. Arthur Fleck is one of its citizens and every day is a challenge. Struggling to make ends meet while living and caring for his ill mother, Arthur doesn’t have too much to look forward to. He has to maintain his own psych meds along with his mother’s medication and scrape up enough money for rent and food. There are times when he forgoes food to ensure his mother has something to eat. He takes small jobs as a clown (store sales, hospital visits) with his ultimate dream to be a stand-up comedian. He also has a condition called Pseudobulbar Affect which causes him to laugh uncontrollably at inappropriate times. The highlight of his day is watching the Murray Franklin Show with his mom.

The movie wastes no time in starting Arthur’s descent into madness. He’s mugged and held financially responsible for the loss of the store’s sign. A co-worker gives him a gun for protection and the man soon lies about the gun to make Arthur look worse when he gets caught with it, leading to the loss of his job at the entertainer placement agency. Layer by layer, a man who for a long time has questioned his place and identity in the world gets more and more taken from him. This pollutes his mind and when cornered on the subway, he fights back with violence. At first spooked by the ordeal, he quickly comes to terms with it–with no remorse. On top of that, news of what he did hits the media and while no one knows it was him who killed those men, for the first time he feel useful. That he’s done something that people have noticed, he’s changed the world. Even though that change is bad, the feeling becomes intoxicating and he becomes more aggressive.

Joker isn’t the first movie to explore a person psychologically breaking, so it doesn’t really tread new ground in that regard. The main character being from comic books changes the expectations though. But let’s be clear, this isn’t a superhero movie. Despite the Joker not having a definitive origin (there are many stories over the decades) everyone knows what he is in the end: a monster. So where this movie goes is no surprise. With all of the violence reported in the world today, it makes a character like this all the more topical and scary.

And the movie does use the fear of mental illness as one of it’s biggest attention-grabbing features. “‘Crazy’ people are dangerous” is the lazy and untrue go-to idea everyone tends to lean on. I never got the feeling that it exploited this idea though as Arthur is a complex character. I was watching someone’s world fall away bit by bit and left with not knowing which way was up anymore. When someone needs help and they have no support, it compounds problems.

Arthur’s problems aren’t simple. Pseudobulbar Affect–caused by brain trauma or other brain degeneration conditions–is painful both physically and emotionally. He gasps for air, he chokes on his saliva, and it’s embarrassing because it’s loud and uncontrollable. It’s a social nightmare he’s had to deal with for as long as he can remember. Long before we meet him, Arthur has been struggling. Then he loses his social worker due to budget cuts, removing his access to his medication and one of the few people he’s able to talk to about his life. Couple that with physical violence and a massive revelation about his mother, Arthur loses any kind of grounding he ever had. I never got the impression that I was supposed to be sympathetic to what Arthur does.

I will say that Joker has a very narrow view of the world. The whole thing is from Arthur’s perspective and it never looks past what he sees. What happens around Arthur–due to his actions–the movie never explores. So any kind of social commentary is pretty vapid.

I see the arc of Arthur to be a bit like Erik Killmonger, the villain from Black Panther (for me the biggest highlight of that movie). Their backgrounds are completely different but the storytelling goal is the same, to give you plausible history and reasoning to make you understand why the antagonist wants to cause so much harm. You can understand what they are saying but recognize that it doesn’t justify what they are doing.

Nor do I think Joker glorifies violence as none of it is celebrated and there are no allusions to it being good or helpful.

I did find this to be one of the most suspenseful movies I’ve seen in awhile. Joaquin Phoenix is going to get a ton of acting award nominations for playing Arthur. I give him my highest praise as I completely forgot it was him on screen. He moves differently, he has all of these personal tics that become noticeable as you watch. The character truly changes from the beginning to the end. Arthur does his best to try to fit in, he’s constantly at war with himself. It’s like he’s so unsure of who he is, he looks to other people to mimic how they behave. He’s just guessing how to get by, like “Is this it? Is this ‘normal?'”

It’s a fraught journey through two acts and when Arthur puts on the full Joker outfit in act 3, it really blew my mind. I was literally seeing the comic book villain on screen, it’s him. And that’s really scary. You don’t want to be anywhere near this guy. Even the big bads like Two Face, Penguin, and Killer Croc are really nervous around him. What is he going to do was all I could think of. Joker is anarchy and there he was in the flesh for the second time (Heath Ledger being the first).

I really liked seeing the mixture of current social issues and comic book Joker. Here, since this is the beginning of the character, he has no grand plans. He’s not filling balloons with poison gas or putting bombs around a city. Here he sees the start of being able to influence and manipulate people. That’s always been a huge part of the character. And there are real world parallels that the movie uses here. The influence of media, the rampant economic inequality that’s spurning anger, and the growing phenomenon of the mob mentality. Everyone is chanting for justice and for Joker, that’s cold blooded revenge.

Joker pulls on a few more familiar source material motifs. From the amazing hospital scene with Joker talking to Harvey Dent in The Dark Knight:

You know… You know what I’ve noticed? Nobody panics when things go “according to plan.” Even if the plan is horrifying! If, tomorrow, I tell the press that, like, a gang banger will get shot, or a truckload of soldiers will be blown up, nobody panics, because it’s all “part of the plan”. But when I say that one little old mayor will die, well then everyone loses their minds!
[Joker hands Two-Face a gun and points it at himself]
Introduce a little anarchy. Upset the established order, and everything becomes chaos. I’m an agent of chaos. Oh, and you know the thing about chaos? It’s fair!

This is basically what happens with Arthur’s confrontation on the subway with the men who turn out to work at Wayne Enterprises. People get abused and killed on the streets of Gotham all the time and no one bats an eye. But if it’s a well off white-collar worker? Tragic, headline news. This is one of Arthur’s biggest grievances with society and leads him to another keystone of the Joker manifesto: everyone sucks, everyone is mean, everyone is cruel.

And in the end, I think that last bit is what we’re all fighting against and the biggest message of this movie. Good versus evil means we all have to work together to make the decisions that keep us on the right track. Cynicism isn’t a virtue, don’t let that make you jaded, bitter, and isolated. The forgotten are people too, empathy goes a long way (which I think there is a huge lack of now with all the budget cuts to many social programs that will do way more harm than good). Work for other people the same way you would work for yourself. When society pulls up together, we all benefit.

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After last week’s crackling season preimere, I thought the train would keep barreling through but instead Sam Esmail turned the burners down to “keep ’em sizzlin'” which was a surprisingly good idea.

The show opens with Price giving the background of how Whiterose became so powerful, starting is opening in the late 80s when the Berlin Wall came down. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, it left an opportunity to fill in the power vacuum with an eager cabal of investors that Whiterose assembled. This group, called The Deus Group, is the conspiracy theorists Illumanity come to life. Deus runs the world behind the scenes but the rest of the investors were fooled into thinking they had any say in what the company did. Whiterose steered the ship from the start for the sole purpose of getting her Congo installation done. Price, having saved Elliot’s life from the OD, tells him there is nothing he can do, even pulling off the hack he wants to will barely dent TDG. Much like the late Angela, Elliot is too stubborn for that message. He convinces Price to try to get all the members together while he works on a way to hack the group when they are together. He just needs an appropriate entry point. Susan Jacobs, who worked for ECorp as a liaison for the Cypress Bank is the best bet, but she’s the one who had a bad run-in with Darlene…but no one knows that.

With some kind of plan in mind Elliot gets a call from Darlene. She got a call from the assisted living home informing them that their mother has died. To say the kids didn’t have a good relationship with their mother is one way to put it so neither are invested in having anything to do with her. Being last of kin, they are forced to handle their mother’s stuff.

This episode mostly serves as a reconciliation for Darlene and Elliot. They’ve been drifting different streams of misery for some time now, and those streams have come to merge. Elliot is so pre-occupied with tracking down Susan Jacobs, that he barely registers anything. Darlene gets pulled in as they start to clear her room. When Elliot finds his old Walkman in a drawer, it makes Darlene think and evaluate their past. They also stumble upon a bank receipt that says their mother had a safety deposit box, Darlene insists they go see what’s in it. Annoyed that his sister is putting any value to anything their mother had or has, he reluctantly goes with her. She needs some kind of closure, she can’t detach like Elliot. At an E Bank branch (ugh) there’s nothing to find.

This entire sequence was fascinating to watch. Fantastically written and acted, I liked how this experience brings the two siblings together. Back in Elliot’s orbit, she notices he’s much more fidgety than normal and manages to get him to talk about what he’s up to. That leads into her admitting–but not officially saying why–he won’t be able to find Jacobs. That’s a huge speedbump in the plan but this also puts Darlene back on the hacking team. Elliot won’t be doing this hail mary to stop Whiterose by himself. This conversation also drops a massive bomb on Elliot.

She mentions Fernando Vera, that he approached her outside Elliot’s apartment. Blindsided, he doesn’t recall her telling him that and she replies, you didn’t seem to care when I told you so I didn’t either…should I worry about him? Vera’s been gone a long time, the ordeal with him was horrific, so him sniffing around is bad news. Elliot doesn’t let on. He also doesn’t let on to his sheer panic that she didn’t tell him, Mr. Robot kept this info from him. When Darlene leaves, he confronts Mr. Robot about it and he swears up and down that he doesn’t know what Darlene is talking about. He hasn’t kept any secrets from Elliot. So that means, Elliot has a third personality…

This scene with Darlene shows off one of my favorite visual storytelling techniques Esmail uses. Here, right after she says Vera’s name, Elliot’s eyes flick away from her, off to the right. There, in the pews behind her, Mr. Robot sits. To Darlene, he’s just checked out, she doesn’t know where his mind went. She steps over, unknowingly blocking his view of Mr. Robot, into his line of sight, forcing him to focus on her. She knows how to reengage him when he retreats.

Earlier in this episode, when Elliot gets frustrated with Price, he tags out of the conversation. Mr. Robot has been shown to be sitting behind Elliot has he talks to Price, and he starts talking to Price instead. Last episode, a similar moment happens when Elliot gets frustrated with Darlene and he taps out, with Mr. Robot quickly taking over, taking care to talk to Darlene gently as she’s in a bad state of mind.

If you don’t watch the show, you’d think that it’s a three–person conversation, not two personalities of one person navigating challenging moments. It’s deftly done and a treat to watch with subtle set-ups and follow-throughs (Esmail is such a good director).

While Elliot is with his sister, Dom is doing as she told to keep the Dark Army happy. She’s being interviewed by a superior about her partner Santiago. As far as they know, he’s AWOL, only she knows he was murdered with an ax in front of her. Right when you think she’s going to tell them the truth, she goes with the lie, Santiago was working with a drug cartel. Janice calls her that night and Dom tells her that she’s 99.9% sure the agent believes the cover story. It turns out Janice is a real stickler for efficiency and has the agent killed. This woman really loves her job.

Finally, Price visits Whiterose (who is decorating a Christmas tree as Zhi Zhang) and pulls the only card he can to get the Deus Group members to gather quickly: he’s retiring. Whiterose is pissed–which Price rather likes–because this throws her timeline into chaos, she had no plans for this to happen. With about a week to go before the Congo delivery, everyone has their back pressed to the wall.

Escape Plan- If you take out the hyper violence and gore out of Saw, you get this movie. What’s left is a surprisingly fun watch. You see the trailer and it’s impossible not to make the comparison. Instead of being kidnapped, the group of people here are brought together under the guise of being invited to win money by figuring out the world’s most difficult escape room. Then in typical murder mystery fashion they start making connections that they weren’t randomly chosen for this and the world building of who is doing this and why comes together at the end to set up a sequel or two. Making a PG-13 Saw movie is a pretty safe bet when it comes down to getting funding for a Hollywood movie. Even if it is far from original, it’s well made and it got the budget needed to do the script justice. The cast is good, the direction is solid, and the production design is really impressive. The entire movie takes place almost entirely in just a few “puzzle” rooms and they are all hyper detailed, unique, and are really the stars of the show. I’d say this is a good movie to watch on a rainy day and you just want to take it easy.

Jungle- I watched this because Daniel Radcliffe is in it and he’s great in basically everything. Based on the true survivor story of Jossi Ghinsberg, Radcliffe plays Jossi, a young man traveling the world as he figures out what he wants to do in life. When the movie starts he’s been on the road for months, been in many places around the world and makes a new friend named Kevin in Bolivia. The two run into Marcus, whom Kevin knows from his own journey around the world. Together they meet Karl, who says he can bring them to a remote Indian village in the jungle that basically no one in the outside world has seen and Jossi is all about going. He doesn’t want to do touristy stuff and this is the perfect chance to go on a real adventure. The others soon agree and a few days into the trip, it’s clear they’ve made a mistake following Karl. Jossi gets put through the ringer and you are with him every step of the way. Well made survival movie as great care was done to make each brutal step feel like it’s own unique challenge instead of one long montage of misery.

Glass- I loved Unbreakable when it came out and M. Night Shyamalan turning that one off into the start of a trilogy all these many years later has been a lot of fun to watch. Split was a wild romp with the great James McAvoy as the twists and turns of his character with 24 personalities unraveled on screen. I think the ideas in Glass bring it all to a really creative and enjoyable head with McAvoy returning as the monster, Samuel L. Jackson as the manipulator, and Bruce Willis as the super hero. With so many comic book movies coming out, it’s a real treat watching one that paints outside the lines. Shymalan is a big fan of comics and he gets to do his own thing while paying a lot of homage to the industry here. It’s light on action but no worse off for it. The character work is great and I really liked the reveal at the end. I’d recommend watching the first two movies if you haven’t to get the full enjoyment out of this one.

Captain Marvel- This is what you’d call a cookie cutter Marvel movie. No surprises in this comic book movie. It’s not that it’s bad, just kinda…there. It certainly looks good, the special effects doing their part to make the fantasy elements look real. But acting-wise, it falls short. Samuel L. Jackson is his charming self, happily glowing and sashaying through all his scenes. Brie Larson as the title character more or less sleepwalks her way through this. Most of the time it doesn’t seem like she’s having fun on set. She’s monotone through the whole movie until the last act where Carol Danvers shows some kind of personality. Everyone else felt pretty forgettable to me too. In the Marvel library, I think this is going to be a one and done for me (along with Black Panther and the first 2 Thor movies).

The end of the summer months means the TV schedule is pretty light so that gave me room to catch a few movies. Netflix keeps rolling out the hits and the fall TV season is starting soon so that means movies will be put on the back burner. Let’s get to it.

If Beale Street Could Talk- A beautiful but heartbreaking film. It’s the early 1970s New York City and 19 year old Tish and her 22 year old boyfriend, Fonny, are madly in love. One day Fonny is wrongly accused of a terrible crime and detained. While waiting for trial Tish tries everything to get him free while preparing for their first child to be born. Exceptional acting and cinematography bring this love story to poetic life but there are some strange decisions in the presentation. This half love story and half political/social justice strife tale is stitched together with stage production and voice over narration. Whenever the switch happened it took me right out of the movie and I lost interest. It feels like the movie abruptly changes genres (mediums, really) with melodramatic lighting and character exposition. Oddly awkward moments that mar an otherwise great movie.

Alita: Battle Angel– This turned out to be way more fun than I thought it was going to. Based on decades old manga series, director Robert Rodriquez helms this action fiesta. Alita is a cyborg that was found in a dump and revived by Dr. Dyso Ido. With her memory wiped, she comes to learn who she was and who she is as she gets tangled up with cyborg assassins and the mega corporation that runs Iron City. They used the Avatar motion capture technology to make this movie and as a result the visuals are amazing. Some of the best CGI around makes for some fantastic anime-action come to life. Alita is a lot of fun to follow around, there’s some neat world building that sets the stage for a lot more that I hope we’ll someday get to see. As far as action movies go, this is one of the best in a many years. Plus it’s a brand new world for Hollywood to explore so that makes it stand out more. Nothing else looks like this.

Creed II- I loved the first movie and this absolutely a worthy sequel. Adonis Creed is the heavyweight champion and as such he must defend his belt. From the other side of the planet comes his biggest threat–Viktor Drago–the son of Ivan Drago. While Rocky’s career went skyward after their astonishing fight in the 80s, Ivan went home a failure and his boxing career basically ended on the spot. Now, Ivan has been training his son to go win the success he never did by taking on the son of the man he killed in the ring 30 years ago. The challenge comes to Adonis as a sense of pride and revenge, how can he turn down a fight with this kind of legacy on the line? When Rocky steps away, wanting nothing to do with petty revenge, possibly repeating history that’s haunted him all this time, Adonis looks elsewhere for a new cornerman. A great movie on many levels, Dolph Lundren returns as Ivan and the guy they found to play Viktor, Florian Munteanu, is a hulk of a human being. He and Michael B. Jordan standing toe to toe perfectly mirrors the 1985 American movie classic, Rocky IV. While you can predict almost everything as it comes, it doesn’t keep this movie from being a great experience. I can’t see any Rocky fan not liking this picture.