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littlebrownclown
Reviews
Matriarch (2018)
Opposite Views
My friend was absolutely riveted to this movie from start to finish...while I was shopping on Etsy on my phone. Whenever I looked up, Matriarch just seemed like a relatively typical, but atmospheric, thriller, while my friend literally couldn't tear his eyes away from it to see what I was going to buy. The only interesting part for me was the ghost reveal at the end. My friend was shocked silly, while I was only mildly surprised. I may have missed a lot, but there are some wildly talented artists on Etsy and the movie didn't compare. Even reading the rave reviews afterwards on IMDB didn't move me, while my friend had a few tears in his eyes at the end. As soon as the movie was over, he fell almost immediately asleep in his chair, while I'm sitting here writing a review. I just woke him up to read my review to him and he laughed, so it was sort of worth it.
The Russian Bride (2018)
Unexpected Edge of My Seat
This movie is a slow descent into madness that carried me along at an easy pace, until it seemed all hope was lost and I thought I knew what was to come. Then, wow, I was sitting up straight on the edge of my seat 'til the brutal end. The fierceness of what began to happen eventually transported me out of the film into the real world in a welcome way. For the many children whose lives are stolen across the globe for the sake of their organs, some with parents who would give their lives to find them, and others whose parents never really cared, I wish for someone like the mother in this film to have the opportunity to do absolutely EVERYTHING THEY CAN to save them. The avenging angel of justice this mother became at the end is what every child deserves when the forces of evil are aligned against them. I was glad the dog helped, too.
Instant Family (2018)
High Five!
I just saw Instant Family tonight and I want one, too! This movie is so satisfying on many levels. If you've ever dreamed about fostering or adopting kids and you wonder how it will change your life, this is a good look behind the scenes. Love like this is messy and frustrating and confusing and hard, but that's just your heart going through growing pains. Kids have the most gigantic hearts in the world and when they've been let down so many times, their love is like a rainbow exploding to life in sparkling glory when they finally start to relax, hope, trust and love again. There are so many treasures like them waiting to be found in this world, and the journey is full of both adventure and aggravation. Did you think finding a fortune of fulfillment would be easy? No, because "the things that matter are hard."
This movie made me think in a welcome way. I thought it was just going to be a comedy and it turned into an entire experience. Ugly truths are spoken with a gripping clarity, hilarious support group confessions make you laugh so hard you cry, and moments on the edge of boundless hope cause you to root for the family out loud. You are truly able to put yourself in the shoes of each character and feel like you understand WHY. Nothing seems fake or skipped or hurried. Once in a while, Hollywood gets it really, really right and I'm happy to have gone on the ride.
Bumblebee (2018)
The Buzz Lived Up to the Hype!
I almost saw Escape Room tonight, instead of Bumblebee (due to my disillusionment with the Transformers movie franchise), and I'm so glad I read a critic's review and changed my mind at the last minute.
If you grew up in the 80s and you love the feel of the era, this movie takes you all the way back. As some have said, it could have actually been made in the 80s and it would have been a gigantic blockbuster. I stared in wonder at things I'd completely forgotten about...Mr. T cereal, etc. There were so many hilarious scenes where I laughed so hard I cried. Nothing was overdone and everything FIT. Hailee Steinfeld (Charlie) was THE perfect, damaged girl trying to recover from her father's death, while the rest of the family seems to have moved on with the new stepdad (who annoys the crap out of her with his positivity). She doesn't seem to fit in with her own family, her classmates, or even at her job. No one seems to SEE her, until she takes home a (free) yellow Herbie from the junkyard and gets him up and running again. The Herbie turns out to be Bumblebee, who has forgotten who he is, and finding out is a super fun, funny, warm and exciting trip. The movie made me want to LIVE IN IT. There was a moment when she and her new friend/neighbor were riding along the coast in Bumblebee and she opened the top, they both stood up in the seats and put their hands up in the air. The camera pans back and it 100% captured the wild, carefree feeling of the 80s. I teared up in happiness as I remembered what it felt like to be a teenager with no worries, no real responsibilities, no true awareness of what the world held, and only the open road before me.
One of my favorite scenes is when Charlie's mom takes Bumblebee-Herbie to the vet with the dog in the back while Charlie is sleeping. When she wakes up and finds out from her brother where Bumblebee went and she knows he's going to blow his cover somehow, she races along and catches up to them on her moped. As she's approaching the car, Bumblebee takes his hand out of the trunk and starts waving at her...just this big, metal hand waving at her from the trunk, while she's freaking out thinking her mom's going to see it in the rearview mirror. Bumblebee then starts trying to wave at the dog, who's up in the back window. I want a POSTER of that one scene...it was that funny and sweet.
Another favorite scene was when she tries to teach Bumblebee how to hide when they're alone on the beach. It is so, so, so hilarious when she "hides" behind a rock and tells him to hide, only to discover he's curled up in a ball facing her on the beach with his big face looking right at her.
Nostalgia aside, the action sequences were totally believable and gripping. At one point, when it seemed like all hope was lost and the military was dragging Bumblebee away, after John Cena's character threw Charlie aside and hurt her, and a defeated Bumblebee looks up and sees her (after being immobilized by the Decepticons moments earlier, who left him for dead), seeing his fists grip and pulverize the concrete and watching him stand and tear off the hooks was awesome. There were so many moments when you wish you were IN the movie that it's crazy.
In the end, Charlie and Bumblebee help each other find themselves and the strength to get up and fight again. They give each other a voice in a world that tries to silence them. Depression turns into delight, and the entire movie franchise gets new life. As some have said, forget all of the other movies and start making new ones where this one left off. Travis Knight is a movie rockstar!
(Oh, and the fact that there wasn't any cursing that I can remember and no sexual innuendos or scenes was something I thought Hollywood forgot how to successfully deliver.)
Jackals (2017)
Haunting *** Jackals Could Have Been a 10+
I love 80's movies. I like how the stories unfold, the characters are developed, and the endings are complete. Since Jackals was set in the 80's and had a great plotline, I wish they would have done a better job of filling in some of those blanks. I've seen movie quality decline so much over the years that it's a genuine shame to me when something could have been so very good with more storyline or character development. All the right ingredients are there, but there are too many chefs in the kitchen or the wrong one at the stove. Nowadays, plots that sound promising so often take wrong turns or hit dead ends...movies based on books are dumbed down to the lowest common audience denominator...and scenes are abruptly shortened that once would have been fully explored.
I get it. Time has moved on and people and their attention spans have changed. Just look at TV show theme songs, for example. There were some great theme songs for TV shows for years. The theme song was considered an important part of the show because it was recognizable, memorable, and created a sensory/auditory bond (similar to an aroma associated with a particular favorite food item). Theme songs were a little too long at times and they tended to be shortened across the life of a series, but they were also subconsciously comforting and engaging because you were readied for what came next. Now, you usually see the title of a show flashed on the screen with a couple of notes of music (if that). It's comical for the most part. Everybody's too busy to sit around waiting for theme songs to play and TV time costs too much and viewers might flip the channel during a song, of course. I say all this to sort of explain why Jackals both haunts and frustrates me.
I rented Jackals from Redbox and it sounded very interesting, not to mention the cover art was fascinatingly chilling. The movie has been described by many others here, so I don't need to dissect a play-by-play. I'll just say that the situations were believable, but the depths left unexplored left me longing for more. Maybe it was designed to do so, but I want a movie dinner, not a movie appetizer, when a movie has such promise.
It would have been so much more chilling and fulfilling to see some of the demise of the son after he joined the cult and pledged his allegiance to their sinister leader. HOW does someone go from being rebellious and miserable in life, but having a decent family, to joining forces with a murderous cult that personally slaughters their own loved ones? Imagination is a great device, but not if it's an unnecessary substitute for rich character or plot development.
Some have criticized the behavior of the family and, especially, the Marine deprogrammer because they were apparently not prepared for the savagery and lengths the cult would go to to retrieve their member, but who would have been back in the 80's?
I can even understand how the son was rabidly devoted to the cult for most of the movie because he'd have to be to stomach what they do. I think he cracked a bit when his parents went to save his brother one by one and he knew what his cult would do to them. I think he cracked after he saw the body of a cult member fall to the floor dead before him. I wish the cracking had included more emotion, instead of mostly words, excess blinking, and non-violent interaction, but that was probably a realistic version of how a person would act in real life. Telling his ex to take their daughter and run out the back during his few moments of clarity before he returned to the cult was about all he could do, short of running with them if he wasn't going to fight the cult or kill them as the cult would expect him to do. But, I still don't know WHY he made the choice he did. Did he want to flee with them in that moment, but he knew they would all be killed so he returned to the cult as a sacrifice hoping they wouldn't find his ex and daughter? Did he simply say a final goodbye to them hoping they would get away before returning to the cult? I don't think he set a trap for them, as some have said, because he wouldn't have let them get away to begin with.
And that is why the ending sucks. We knew there were cult members everywhere, so they would have been guarding the back. We knew it'd be iffy if his ex and daughter made it, but the Jackals might have been called off once he walked out of the cabin. When the Jackal shows up in the headlights behind her, is one of their own vehicles coming down the road? Or, do the headlights signal salvation in the form of a good Samaritan? Is the Jackal frozen because he's going to kill the driver and take the girl and her daughter in the next few moments or is the Jackal frozen because he's a few moments too late? Knowing what we do about the ferocity and relentlessness of the Jackals, though, there is not much hope that she and her daughter survived. Evil took everything with no remorse in the end. The son kissed the hand of and bowed down to the leader who authorized the torturous slaughter of his parents and brother...and, we realize there will never again be anyone on the face of the earth who loves him enough to try to save him. His fate is essentially sealed.
He cared enough not to kill his ex and their daughter, but not enough to save them or himself. She should have gotten away and lived to fight another day because the horrible implication (when you think it through based on the footage at the beginning) is that she and her daughter will be brought back to the son to be murdered by him. It will be his responsibility to seal his allegiance to the cult forever, as others had to seemingly do. The leader will demand that he has no safe haven to return to and no one else to care about in this world but them, especially after being taken.
With such a disturbing and horrific ending imagined to come, I NEEDED more development of the son. He was fascinating based on his convincing performance and the potential inherent in his character. Someone making the life choices he did before being put in such extreme circumstances and forced to choose between two universes would be very complex and fractured. I would have loved to see/understand more of that...which takes me back to wanting more development of his character pre-kidnapping. Was the only redeeming moment in all the horror his family experienced just the few minutes when he said goodbye to his ex and their daughter? Did everything in his heart and mind before and after those moments belong to the cult and everyone sacrificed themselves just for THAT? Would he really be able to live with that? Or, will he just sink back into the darkness with no regrets? Yes, this is a horror movie, but when you have great material, use it. People are not made of paper and images on a screen. People who join murderous cults, yet have families who love them, are fighting a battle of good vs. evil. This storyline was too real and too easy to try on for size for it to have such an abrupt and shockingly dark ending.
The Choice (2016)
Not a Fan of Nicholas Sparks, But a Fan of The Choice
I'm not a fan of Nicholas Sparks because I don't like romantic stories designed to pull your emotions like taffy in all directions. So, I watched this movie having no inkling of an idea that it was based on a Nicholas Sparks' book. It seemed like an easy, rainy, Saturday movie from the get-go. Teresa Palmer did a fabulous job of being a likable and believable character and Benjamin Walker played a role with emotional highs and lows expertly. When things started to feel like a runaway train near the end and I was afraid where everything was heading, I had to pause the movie and look it up online to see what it was about. That's when I found out the movie was based on his book. I never would have watched The Choice if I knew what it was about, but I'm pretty glad I saw this particular movie. It made for an enjoyable Saturday flick.
The Nun (2018)
The movie poster is the best part!
I just saw The Nun last night and it did not live up to the hype. The setting was perfectly historic and creepy and the novitiate was utterly convincing, but a sizable amount of potential was left sorely untapped.
Why was Valak chosen to be summoned from hell? What is his story? The investigation into the suicide and subsequent findings seemed fractured and hurried, and parts near the end should have been spread out earlier in the movie. For example, the unholy army of faceless nuns in the passageway that was disbanded by the priest lighting a burning cross on the floor scared me. They absolutely shouldn't have been saved that long when the movie was sorely lacking other-than-jump-scares. Also, it would have been far, far scarier for Valak to enter the priest's coffin from the bottom and slowly crawl up his body, than to have it simply show up behind his head and start strangling him. It seemed like The Nun showed up too often and too predictably, yet not enough and too randomly. An eye peeking around a corner would have eventually been scarier than knowing he would show up whenever there was a mirror nearby. And, the demonic child attacking the priest was just distracting and annoying. It wasn't scary and one time was enough.
Funny, now that I'm about to go to sleep, some scenes seem scarier, but in the moment, they were not.
Peppermint (2018)
Ashes to Phoenix
I am a fan of Alias, so I love Jennifer Garner in these roles. The plot sounded exciting and the previews were good, so I was ready to roll tonight at the theater. The movie was promising from the opening scene, so my hopes were high. As it unfolded, though, I felt slightly more disconnected from her character when the opposite should be true.
Maybe it's my fault for absolutely expecting to see some of the journey from ashes to phoenix, but I love back stories on why and HOW victims/survivors become vigilantes and avengers. Unfortunately, the best HOW I got was a YouTube video the cops found of her cage fighting during her years in hiding. Had the HOW she became such a ferocious, unstoppable force been included in the movie, I would have given it a 10. (Also, if the inhabitants of skid row worshipped her as their Angel of Justice, why didn't any of them TRY to stop the drug kingpin and his crew from killing her?)
Peppermint had unrealized potential that was probably filmed and later edited out in favor of more violent assassination scenes, but maybe not. Either way, being able to watch her development pre-emergence and put myself in her place as the avenger-in-training would have given me more value. Having said all of this, I would certainly be open to a Peppermint 2: Angel of Justice.