Saint Maude and now Love Lies Bleeding? Rose Glass got the juice! I’m gonna watch anything she does from here till the end.
This movie was an experience. I love the vibe, two souls with a lightning connection that just create chaos around them. This is going to be re-watched again and again.
That touch of horror with the bad acid/steroid trip was beautifully executed.
Saint Maude and now Love Lies Bleeding? Rose Glass got the juice! I’m gonna watch anything she does from here till the end.
This movie was an experience. I love the vibe, two souls with a lightning connection that just create chaos around them. This is going to be re-watched again and again.
That touch of horror with the bad acid/steroid trip was beautifully executed.
Saint Maude and now Love Lies Bleeding? Rose Glass got the juice! I’m gonna watch anything she does from here till the end.
This movie was a fucking experience. I love the vibe, two souls with a lightning connection that just create chaos around them. This is going to be re-watched again and again.
That touch of horror with the bad acid/steroid trip was beautifully executed.
Saint Maude and now Love Lies Bleeding? Rose Glass got the juice! I’m gonna watch anything she does from here till the end.
This movie was a fucking experience. I love the vibe, two souls with a lightning connection that just create chaos around them. This is going to be re-watched again and again.
That touch of horror with the bad acid/steroid trip was beautifully executed.
The part with Jesse Plemons was one of the most nerve-wracking scenes I’ve seen in a long time
Also want to give props to the sound design. In my theater every single bullet was LOUD and impactful. I honestly jumped in my seat a few times just from getting startled by the gunshots after more quiet moments.
I think people complaining about the choice not to elaborate on the politics behind the civil war are kind of missing the point. War on the ground is not political. It's people killing people trying to kill them (and often killing anyone they happen to run across, combatant or not). No ideology can rationalize slaughter. This isn't a film about why a war breaks out. It's about life and death in a war zone, but instead of a third-world country we can feel superior to, it's the formerly United States of America.
The Wolf Behind the Door is a sensational film in every way I can think of. Starting with the great performances, which will mark the career of the entire cast (especially Leandra Leal, here she is spectacular), which was brilliantly directed by Fernando Coimbra. I recommend that you read as little as possible about the film, especially because it is based on real events, but that you don't forget to watch this impactful work of Brazilian cinema.
This movie feels more like a slow burn horror movie than a drama. The last 30 minutes are absolutely horrifying.
A film dealing with a dramatic subject that is unfortunately still relevant today, which shows us in an intelligent and fair way the difficulty of human and family relationships through violence.
It is an incredibly nothing movie.
The entire set-up was so pointless I thought I missed something.
So they're on Earth, 65 million years ago. Adam Driver is a space man. There are no humans on Earth.
So you just KNOW that this movie is going to be some silly "first man" story and will lead to the advent of human life on Earth.
NOPE. It doesn't matter. At all. They escape Earth, The End. I guess we just evolved independently, even though there are other humans already out in space?
This aspect just kind of blew my mind. Just... why?
There is basically no story, there's no character, there isn't really much anything. I'd love to see a real copy of the script because I imagine it's like 5 pages.
It feels like a weirdly big budget adaptation of a forgotten mid-budget video game from like 2005.
I don't know how they talked Driver into this. I'm guessing they managed some trickery by only having to pay basically one real actor in the whole movie and everything else be CG, letting them spend a relatively large percentage of their budget on him.
I wasn't expecting a masterpiece, obviously, but it was just such a waste of time.
Really solid crime story here. Very smartly written; all the performances were great. Especially Elizabeth Olsen. Probably her best performance since Martha Marcy May Marlene.
Taylor Sheridan has written three great movies and this was a very strong directorial debut. I can't wait to see what's next for him, because thus far he's been killing it.
I'm really glad they didn't go the serial killer route. It was just a terrible set of circumstances and some downright evil decisions made by some drunk guys. Nothing premeditated, no connection to the death of Jeremy Renner's daughter, no super creepy killer who stalks the police, just a really sad and fucked up situation. And that really speaks to the nature of the problem in the rez- it's not there are some particularly evil Indians killing the women - it's that there are just a litany of problems that are stacked against the population every single day, and they often combine to create deadly situations.
I REALLY wanted to like this one, but it was aggressively mid for me. It felt like a very boiler plate demon movie but it had a good creature design and a thoughtful metaphor for the conflict between traditional culture and the pressure to assimilate.
Reminded me more of Under the Shadow, or even Drag Me to Hell, in that it was a fun way to teach people about demons from cultures underrepresented in Western media.
Really bummed out because I am always rooting for horror movies that aren’t part of a franchise with diverse casts/cultural backgrounds.
Impressively boring for a film about a killer swimming pool. It had some nice shots in the pool and the acting was decent but the script was just so lame.
I think the biggest issue is that it took itself way too seriously. The concept is so absurd that it should've been campy and fun, like M3GAN or Malignant, but this was clearly trying to be a Real Horror Movie for the most part.
It's also padded to shit. This could've lost 20 minutes and been a tight 80 minute movie and been all the better for it. By the time Kerry Condon is googling the past of the house I was just totally checked out.
PG-13 rating also made it feel very tame. The pool party scene should've been like the climax of Piranha 3D with just a bunch of gory kills in the pool with people unable to escape, or even PG-13 it would've been interesting if the pool just disappeared a shit ton of people at once and the surviving families were left to make sense of it, but that's probably a totally different movie.
Also the Marco Polo scene was laughable. Girl, the second the music cuts out and the pool starts flickering (she would've been able to see that through her eyelids), I would've opened my eyes.
Some short films should just stay short films.
An Irish horror film about a group of young outcasts trapped together as part of a sinister medical trial.
It's a great concept and reminded me of a JG Ballard short story I read once. It's a little uneven in its pacing and characterization, but also has some great visuals and creative moments as everything descends into madness.
If anything, I'd have liked to see it take a trippier, darker and more experimental approach, and perhaps do more interesting things with the soundtrack, but is a solid horror.
I'd give it a solid 6/10.
I enjoyed it enough! I liked the pretentious dialogue and thought it was fitting for the characters, the sets were gorgeous, and the whole scene where Martin Freeman drives to Jenna Ortega’s house in the rain while “Lover You Should’ve Come Over” plays was ethereal. The main things I didn’t like were how the character of Miller’s wife is truly awful from the start but there’s little indication he or anyone else has a problem with her behavior (I felt gaslit until the end when he finally calls her vile lol), how the coach friend acted like he was innocent and didn’t cross boundaries with Winnie despite the fact that he totally did, and the abruptness of the ending. I would’ve much preferred an ending with deeper moral reflection and clearer resolution.
This was a film with guts. It wasn't afraid to go places and break taboos in new ways to unleash utter chaos. The second half of the movie is a little less crazy because it goes over board with fleshing out the lore, but the first half is just one "did they really just do that?" moment after the next. As soon as that bit with the dog happened , I knew I had to be ready for anything.
The brothers being bumbling idiots trying to help, but always making things worse gave it a little Evil Dead feeling. The inventiveness of some of the gore also reminds me of Evil Dead. This is darker and less comedy driven even if there are a few funny moments sprinkled in to stop the tension from being murder on the audience.
This movie did a really good job in putting you into the shoes of the 2 lead characters. Every action feels like it'll lead to something sinister down the road. Lots of unexpected turns. A very solid, engaging, tight claustrophobic thriller that slowly closes in on you. Henwick and Garner absolutely kill it, and Hugo Weaving as the drunk, incompetent bar owner was perfect. So many characters that you want to trust and like but can't fully commit to, like I'm sure how the girls felt. There's a constant and balanced sense of uneasiness that was pretty unique.
This a a remake of a Spanish movie (El Desconocido), just watch that instead.
1BR is about a girl who moves into a new apartment complex in L.A. Her father wants her to stay at home, but she's following her dream of designing costumes in Hollywood. Everything seems perfect at her new apartment, everyone there is super nice, and she even has a crush on the guy down the hall. But of course, being a horror movie, things aren't exactly what they seem on the surface.
I liked the movie a lot. The acting was pretty good, and there were just about as many psychological moments as jump-scares. You could tell the movie was a little low-budget, but it felt like they pulled off a lot with what they had. There were a couple times where it almost started to drag in the middle, but it was few and far between.
The payoff is very satisfying, one of those where you're really cheering on the main girl. Most horror movies, I'm rooting for the bad guy. This one took a couple dips in the pacing, but overall I was all in.
I could have used maybe one or two more scenes of violence/gore, but that's just personal preference, I like my horror pretty dark. One other thing (and it's a spoiler) I would have changed was the last 30 seconds of the movie. I loved the surprise twist that every house on the block was part of the cult, but I feel like they should have had neighbors from every house running out in the street before she started running. That's also just a personal preference, I lean towards the bleak endings in horror movies that take themselves seriously.
I give it 8/10 stars, which is solid for me. It had things you've probably seen before in horror movies, but it was all presented really well for such a low budget film. And it's not often that I'm genuinely invested in the survival of a main character, her acting was really good, and her character's journey was really satisfying by the end.
Never thought the animation and music (both soundtrack and original score) could get any better. But they went even crazier with this one. Such a spectacle.
True blue Spider-Man fans will go gaga on this with the bevy of Spider-People, the lore, and endless Easter eggs throughout the movie.
Oscar Isaac shined in this film. Shameik Moore and Hailee Steinfeld were brilliant, as expected.
Into the Spider-Verse got dethroned as the best Spider-Man movie of all time by this film. Looking forward to Beyond the Spider-Verse.
Overall I really liked the show, it was a great representation of the game and managed to capture the essence of it really well. Bella Ramsey was absolutely the best part for me, absolutely killed it as Ellie and gave the best performance in my opinion.
I will say I feel like the pacing was kinda off throughout the series, some parts went way to fast and others were too slow. I feel like if we got just like 30 more minutes of building the relationship between Joel and Ellie it would’ve been a bit more impactful overall, the montage after leaving Tommy’s place just didn’t really do it for me.
Hopefully with the success of season 1 they’ll get much more time/episodes for season 2. I’d really love to get more new Joel and Ellie scenes there.
I had an absolute blast with this one. I don't think it quite reaches the heights of Searching, but it absolutely justifies its existence and then some. It almost feels odd to say about movie like this, but there's a real formal elegance to the craft here. Searching and now Missing are really the height of the "digital interface" genre. These movies are engaging in a way that actually feels incredibly novel and fun. There's a "Where's Waldo?" element at play that almost makes you feel like you can "solve" the movie before it guides you to the end. Of course, that's an inherent element of any thriller, but here it feels so much more tangible. And the best part is that while it might be labelled a gimmick, it's really just a brilliant use of the audio-visual medium that is film. If every frame counts and is supposed to advance story, then movies like Missing should be seen as exemplary achievements in film. That might be a tad hyperbolic, but I'm just really jazzed that a genre like this now exists.
To get to the movie, it basically delivers on everything I signed up for. My suspension of disbelief was definitely stretched a bit more than I was expecting, especially when this movie begins to veer into the horror genre, but never so much that I wanted to get off the ride. There were also certainly some little plot elements that felt contrived or convenient, but given the experience I was expecting from this movie (a fun thrill-ride) I was never totally put off.
The fact that this movie, amidst all the fun, also provides some incisive and thoughtful commentary on our current digital age - in terms of how it's commoditized, how it desensitizes us, how despite our greater connectivity our humanity hasn't necessarily increased, etc. - is a beautiful cherry on top! What really landed the plane for me with Missing were the emotional beats that the movie managed to pay off in the end. A thumb reaction to a message, and a father-son reunion both brought a giant smile to my face and reassured me that I was in the safe hands of thoughtful storytellers throughout this movie. While this wasn't quite as mind-blowing as Searching, I do think this was a very worthy successor, and overall another successful entry in this genre of movies.
Damn! This might be my favorite episode yet. Great adaption of the winter section here.
Lots of foreshadowing to Part 2 in this episode. The way David talked about how “a crazy man killed that young girl’s father” was a great nod to what’s coming. And the daughter wanting revenge. They’re really leaning into vengeance, the cycle of violence, and “what is justice?” Even David telling Ellie she has a “violent heart” is eye-opening. It’s making clear the overarching themes.
Scott Shephard found a really great balance of the eerie/predatory side of David paired with that calm demeanor that makes you understand why people look to him as a leader. His one-on-one conversation with Ellie in the jail cell was so so creepy.
They’ve slowly been building to it all season, but this episode finally reveals the extent of how brutal Joel can be. Next episode should kick it up another notch.
And my god—what a performance from Bella during the Steakhouse sequence. Absolutely brutal and heart wrenching.
Neil wrote a really beautiful episode here.
Storm Reid was excellent casting for Riley. A great combination of the snark, sarcasm and magnetic energy Riley needs, while still hitting the emotional chords of the story. She played off Bella really well.
The “Take On Me” inclusion made me smile.
(Also love all the just general set dressings that allude to the game. Savage Starlight. Dawn of the Wolf. Macho Nacho. The wolf/clown mask.)
A small part of me wishes we got some sort of confirmation of whether or not Ellie had to actually kill Riley herself when she starts to turn (while also recognizing that she is not turning) or if she just left her behind. It’s always been one of those mysteries I’ve been morbidly curious about. I took Ellie’s comment a few episodes ago about “not her first kill” being reference to her first human kill, and her having to say goodbye to Riley is such a relevant moment in Ellie’s life that adds layers to her survivors guilt and reasons for why she so desperately wants to believe in the cure. I certainly understand the reasons behind why they leave the story on a more poetic ending, instead of showcasing the brutality of what actually happened on screen, but it is undoubtedly one of Ellie’s saddest and most impactful moments of her lifetime so I’ve always wondered if we’d ever learn how exactly Ellie had to leave her.
EDIT: Also loved Craig’s commentary on how Ellie’s first experience with “loss” manifests in rage and anger. An interesting viewpoint and foreshadowing considering what’s to come in the adaption of Part 2.
EDIT 2: Gustavo’s score felt especially poignant in this episode, too. So good.
Honestly, I enjoyed the hell out of this movie. Subjectively, yes the book is better.
But the way Shyamalan changed the story structure makes sense for a mainstream audience. And he does it really well. I’ve seen other comments of people saying Shyamalan directed the crap out of this movie, and yes he did. I’d say this is probably his best yet.
My only nit-picks are that the “invaders” don’t seem to be as passionate as they are portrayed in the book. As the narrative continues in the book, the tension gets ratcheted up so freakin high. You really question if these “invaders” are really there to do some divine intervention for the world, or if it’s just an intricate hate crime.
I saw someone else said that Leonard didn’t seem to get as desperate towards the end of the movie like he does in the book. And yes, I totally agree.
I feel like the stuff having to do with Redmond got cut too short as well. It goes on for a while in the book, wondering what their true motives are after learning who Redmond actually is. I loved seeing Rupert Grint in a movie again, so I was hoping they would’ve gave him more stuff to do.
But I get it, you can only put so much into a movie that is also in the original source material and still try and keep people’s attention.
All in all though, nit-picks aside, I loved this movie. I loved the Dads, I loved the girl who played Wen (I love that Hollywood is getting great kid actors), and I loved how it ended up.
Praise for Paul Tremblay (the author) as well! His first novel to get the movie treatment!
Now they need to adapt A Head Full of Ghosts!
This might be an unpopular opinion, but I'm really enjoying how toned down the violence is, because it really grounds the experience. Yeeting him off a second story catwalk and onto rebar is spectacle, but a simple stab wound in a quiet encounter really drives home how high the stakes are when the violence is so mundane. When it comes without spectacle or massive budgets. It reminds people of what violence actually is and forces them to connect with the intimacy of it, and I think this is something that's been a long time coming. I'm not the type to blame media for society's ills, but I do believe it could be doing more to impress upon people the consequences and nuance of violence, and The Last Of Us is a masterclass in this kind of storytelling.
Making Sam deaf was a great example of how diversity and representation don't have to compromise a character. I'm not deaf myself, I don't know anyone who's deaf, and yet you won't hear anything negative from me about Sam being deaf, because 1) it's not my place to judge whether it's meaningful to those represented, and 2) they managed to keep everything that really mattered about him.
In fact, I'd argue Craig Mazin even elevated Sam's character and his dynamic with Henry by tying his deafness to his innocence. Sam can't hear the gunfire, explosions, screaming, and tough conversations that Henry has to deal with and protect Sam from. It ties into what Joel tells Henry about how being a kid is easier. What a great adaptation of this chapter in the story.
That moment where Sam is sitting on the edge of the bed and we don't know if he's turned was adapted brilliantly. In the show, Ellie knows he's infected, but when she calls out to him and gets no response, she doesn't know if he's okay, because he's deaf. Great example of incorporating representation into a story in an uncompromising and meaningful way.
The joke book being included in the show is fan-fucking-tastic. Also, that little joke at the end with Joel and Ellie, I so much want to believe that Pedro broke character and they kept it, but either way damn it was so good.
I saw a few people say that the episode was too short or filler. It had some really good pacing and storybeats in my opinion and sets up Henry and Sam perfectly.
Also saw some people say the acting was weaker than the games. Folks, some things don't translate well into adaptations. Look at Negan's introduction in the show and then look at his comic faithful introduction in the show, it sounds so bad compared to his show-adaptation. Joel and Ellie need to be set apart from their game-counterparts in many different ways to avoid comparison.
Overall, good episode.
What's interesting to me about this episode is that they sort of flipped Bill's purpose in the narrative. In the game, he was a cautionary tale for Joel. Joel was keeping everyone at arms' length, especially Ellie, because he was afraid that if he started to care about anyone, it would be a weakness and he'd die. Bill encouraged that mindset and told Joel to cut her loose. Then Joel had to see how Bill's strategy of shutting everyone out just left him alone and miserable and hated by the one person he loved. Yes, he survived, but Joel had to wonder if death was really worse than that.
Now in the show, Bill is almost an aspirational figure. He opened up, cared about someone, successfully protected that person, and then died when that person didn't need him anymore. And Joel is on the path to following in his footsteps.
Wow. What an episode - some cool things
-Absolutely nailed the clickers. Holy shit. Executed perfectly and SO scary.
-Soundtrack was amazing but what else can we expect.
-Love the change in Tess’s death.
-The creaking door when they left the initial room was a clicker sound. And there were a lot of fake outs with creaking and clicking building to the clicker encounter and it was masterfully done.
-So many gameplay call backs. Lifting Tess up, bandaging themselves, unpacking their bags etc
-There was a stuffed giraffe in the debris!
-The change to making the cordyceps an entire network is freaky. Loved that was who surrounded Tess compared to the soldiers in the game.
-Most revolting kiss in tv history
Sick (2022)
Had fairly low expectations for this one since it went straight to streaming on Peacock so maybe that's part of why I was so pleasantly surprised. You can definitely tell that Kevin Williamson (of Scream etc..) wrote this. Acting was good for the most part, pacing as well once things got started and the kills were well done. COVID intermixed smartly with the plot and not just used as a gimmick I thought.
I liked this movie! It subverted my expectations in a few places (in good, creative ways).
There were also some pretty violent and original kills - there are 2 that vividly spring to my mind which compelled me to turn to my wife and ask, “have you seen a kill like that? I haven’t seen a kill like that.”
Action set piece after action set piece - I’d recommend this one to people, particularly to those with familiarity and appreciation for Kevin Williamson.
-The first episode was straightforward, didn't feel like filler at all, it actually felt like it filled in the blanks with the first game
The acting especially with Sara, Joel and Ellie, these characters made it feel like I was at home with the last of us games
The classic game quotes were spot on perfect, it was like I was watching the cut scenes of the game
The cinematography was amazing, spot on, the level of detail in all aspects was perfect.
This episode felt like a movie, that's leading us into it's sequel
This is a solid 10/10 The acting was a solid 10/10
Can't wait for episode 2
