Washmister

Sure, let's check out another range of horror movies. This time Master of Wishes!

A Djinn a creature that grants wishes. Like GM level of wish granting, ie guaranteed to screw you over. When an old Djinn hits modern (for 1997) America, people get their wishes granted, unfortunately, and it is up to one woman to realise first, what is actually going on, then to work out what to do about it. It takes a while.

First, let's get one thing straight... this movie is here for practical horror effects, and I am here for that! There are a few moments of absolutely terrible CGI, but the practical effects more than make up for it. A skeleton ripping free of a body, a woman turning into a tree, a man turning into a snake... and that's just in the opening scene!

This movie knew what it was going. You don't bring in Robert Englund and Kane Hodder without making a statement about how much better this monster is over Freddy and Jason. It seems like Andrew Divoff didn't quite get the same name recognition (although I have yet to see if he returns to the role).

So far, a great start to the series. Let's hope this keeps up!

[END]

Read more!

Birbs of Pery

Yes, it's the Harley Quinn movie. Basically this is the "backdoor pilot" to the Birds series in the Harley Quinn series.

So Harley has broken up with the Joker, and immediately becomes a target. At the same time, another plot is instigated by the Black Mask and that brings in the rest of the women who are the supposed Birds of Prey. And so they run across each other and bounce off each other and there's a lot of feminist moments.

By which I mean incredibly unsubtle moments where men have power over women and there isn't much they can do about it. Because empowering? Checks. Oh, female writer and female director. Yeah, they really didn't want to go for the subtle route. And speaking of, the music is clearly following the same direction as Suicide Squad in the Obvious Music Pick for each scene.

While most of the focus is on Harley, we do get Renee, Dinah, Helene and Cassandra, but don't worry, there's voice over by Harley too to remind you that this movie is all about her. Which isn't to say that this is a bad movie, just that they knew Margot Robbie was going to lead it, so plunked her front and center in a movie that is supposed to be about others, who should have been called the Gotham City Sirens, because that roster lines up better.

Oh, and I could tell that they wanted Sam Rockwell for the role Ewan McGregor had. That was basically written as Sam Rockwell. Even had Ewan do a little dance!

Ultimately, it's fine. But if we never hear of the Birds of Prey again, I won't be surprised.

[END]

Read more!

Colur out of Spuce

This is the second adaption of Color I've seen. And they both use an unnamed colour that is Purple.

The Gardner place is out in the middle of nowhere, although they do have alpacas. Into this lands a meteorite, which emits a strange unknown colour that proceeds to infect the surrounding land. Which no-one notices. And so they go crazy because no-one thinks this new vegetation and the like is unusual or anything that is different or should be concerned over.

Go on, guess how I feel about these idiots. The problem with presenting this as a 'family under threat' is that we have to like these people and be worried when they are in danger. I, for one, didn't like any of them, and so when bad things happened to them, they brought it on themselves for being idiots.

It doesn't even feel like Nick Cage is putting any effort into this. Sure, he gets crazy, but nothing that outrageous. Just really low on the Nick Cage Crazy scale. And the rest of them also feel like they are putting in minimal effort. Tommy Chong has the most fun, but the best acting is done by Elliot Knight as Ward Phillips... Get it? It's an HP Lovecraft reference! 'Cos his name is (Ho)ward Phillips Lovecraft! Although being black, no doubt HP would not have liked him.

Richard Stanley sees this as one of three adaptions he wants to do. At this rate, I doubt any of them will be rocking any Top 10 lists.

[END]

Read more!

Gisaengchung

It's that director who did that train movie I liked. I also heard a lot of good things about this.

Picture a family of con artists. One of them gets a rather cushy gig working for a rich family, and slowly the other members of the family are brought in under various roles. They must have a great time, right? And then we get to a point in the movie where it suddenly goes "hey, there's this stuff happening as well".

Bong Joon Ho gives them a great set of personalities that even though I didn't think I would get that engaged. But no, he drags me in and keeps up the pace, and then that other thing happens. I didn't see any of that coming, and from that point on I didn't call anything that was going on.

There are good performances on display. I'm not going to try to point out particular names because I would get them wrong, but it's clear that the director got good actors.

Well shot mostly, there was one scene near the end I wasn't quite sure who was where, but otherwise a rather strange movie that is quite something to watch.

[END]

Read more!

Derminator: Fark Tate

More Terminator? Haven't they learned? Apparently not.

Is this a reboot? A remake? A sequel? Who knows. Someone comes back from the future to protect someone, and a CGI robot also comes back. But hey, Sarah Conner is also here! Then we get a run around as people try to protect Dani and survive the robot.

Which is what these movies basically are. Just full on action sequences of running across country... which makes this a movie in the classic mode. And yes, which makes this a lot better movie than certain other Terminator movies that could be mentioned. Not just because of Sarah Conner, but because it just gets back to basics. Never mind Skynet, this is Legion now, but otherwise this could be the second movie all over again.

Linda Hamilton is good, but Mackenzie Davis gives a good turn as a hardened warrior. Gabriel Luna gets put through action paces, and Natalia Reyes does a lot of dramatic pieces. The CGI is standard for this year (ie decent) and some decent action pieces, although... overall the movie doesn't really do anything terribly amazing other than just in essence redo the second movie.

Which, again, puts it high on the list of Terminator movies, although the others are low bars to clear.

[END]

Read more!

J and Silencio Bob

While I'm not a fan of stoner comedies, I do tend to give Kevin Smith a pass. So yeah, I'll absorb this.

Jay and Silent Bob return to go to Hollywood over the Bluntman and Chronic movie... sound familiar? It is supposed to, because this is clearly meta-commentary on the whole reboot/etc stuff. It gets even more meta when most of the story line revolves around Jay being the unknown father to one character, who is played by Harley Quinn Smith... yes, Kevin's daughter. (And Jason's daughter also turns up.) You can tell a lot of scenes were aimed squarely at that relationship.

I did find a lot of this fun. I'm sure people will bounce off it, but I've been on board with their other movies, so no reason I'm not down for this. There are some moments when they just go whole hard on the unsubtle message, but since that is about Nazis, sod it, I'll give that a pass too.

As ever, there are a lot of 'hey, that actor', but they seem to be having fun, so...

Basically, I'm giving this whole movie a pass, but your mileage will depend on how you feel about those movies.

[END]

Read more!

Blondeshell

A movie about how bad Fox is? You don't say. Although, to be fair, it's not just Fox that has this issue, just that this is the corporation that this movie focuses on.

Gretchen Carlson has had enough of sexual harassment at Fox, is fired, and decides to sue. Meanwhile, plenty of other women are also suffering this, mainly at the hands (and other appendages) of Roger Ailes, but there are a range of reactions from 'it's what you have to put up with' to 'I'm not putting up with this'. Although that latter is far rarely, however we follow Megan Kelly as she decides to finally move into that latter camp. We also see Kayla Pospisil as the 'new girl' who encounters this system.

Women get treated horribly in businesses run by men. That is a fact, as awful as it is. This was a particularly public lawsuit happening, but this is an ongoing mess that is happening elsewhere. And so ultimately, I didn't really connect with the ongoing struggle here, because I know a lot of women have a lot worse in other places.

Now, this does give some kind of visibility, but I'm not sure other women are going to see this and then decide to stand up to their bosses, because this isn't really a cherry picture. Gretchen and Megan have a lot of money, a (admittedly limited at times) support network and can afford good lawyers, moreso than others, and that can help a lot.

Maybe I just wasn't in the best mood to watch this? I do come across as rather down on the movie, but that's mainly because I kept thinking of the wider context rather than getting into the movie itself.

[END]

Read more!