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brandongeewill
Reviews
Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019)
No one ever eats in this movie
I loved the first one's focus on character and an early Speilbergian less-is-more approach. Then I found Kong Skull Island to be a throw-back genre loving hoot. I was so excited for this, and so let down by it's all of the monsters fighting everywhere all around the world all the time through shaky "steadycam" imitating Michael Bay (on a bad day). Another of those blockbusters where military ships are pingponging from continent to continent every few minutes, with zero logistical conflicts or hiccups, and no one in it ever sleeps or looks stressed out, and I swear you never see any of the hundreds of characters eat so much as a pickle in the over two hours.
Spiral: From the Book of Saw (2021)
Righteous Kill level bad
Like not even enjoyable, not even camp. With the level of talent in front of the camera (and I don't even care for Rock) this movie just had no business being as nothing as it is, not even straight to video 90s caliber.
A Quiet Place Part II (2020)
Try to not think and you'll enjoy this movie (and probably life) more
These movies are really pleasantly crafted, in that Speilbergian way--you just have to let them roll past your mind like a dream, without trying to assign knowledge you have when awake. Krasinski said these were written as a love letter to his kids, and on that level they're stellar. But, as an adult, it's just a challenge not to put those seconds of thought in, that knowledge of all the weapons we have, culturally and globally, and how if we're good at nothing else, it's using them, and one weapon quickly pulled out on cultural undesirables is the LRAD, which would've decimated both these film's plotlines, fast.
Clownhouse (1989)
Evil
Even if this movie wasn't terrible, it was made by a child molester, and stars a child he was molesting. This is all searchable. Stay away. Hollywood forgave him, of course. We don't have to.
Good Joe Bell (2020)
Coast to coast bull
When I saw this was the last movie Larry "Terms of Endearment" McMurtry wrote, I wanted to love it. And, the problem isn't in the script--if this had been filmed as the bleak tragedy it is, and not the heartwarming tearjerker it purports itself to be. Both the movie and true tragedy are about a guy who is a terrible father. He does the lowest level "acceptance" of his gay son, going through certain halfhearted motions (he doesn't like it when his son is booed for being a male cheeeader at the small town football game, and he kind of shakes his head before leaving, without doing a thing). He never actually has his son's back, when it matters. When the son kills himself, Joe feels real bad. As he should. It's like, your son killed himself, and you could've done more, and you didn't, so yes, continue to feel bad about that forever. So Joe decides to leave his other son and their mother, to "walk it off" (his grief) over states, Forrest Gump style. He will not listen to his partner, or his son, or anyone. Because, he is still, after the death of one son, a bad father to the other one. When he talks at schools, he has no real message (basically "Don't bully, it's bad"). He's not a good public speaker because he's not an honest public speaker--or man--never really claiming his part in the death of his son, which is the real, actual tragedy. But good Ole Joe makes it all about him. Oh, along the way he talks to another terrible dad, played by Gary Sinise, who seems to think pensively about being a terrible dad to his own gay son after Joe Bell talks about how bad of a dad he was. These are men who had and have every tool to step up and be the supportive and good dad, like many do, they just chose not to, like many others do. It's time to stop coddling these men when they finally admit they feel bad about being toxic, or mourn the fruits of their terribleness. This film could have been a great illustration of the tragedies that stem from a certain kind of man being toxic and lazy and unimaginative and boring--like this movie itself ends up being.
Mercy Black (2019)
Bad writing, cardboard cast, nothing-fest
I love Janeane Garofolo but if you start your horror movie with her as a child therapist, you're starting at a suspension-of-disbelief defecit. It doesn't get much better from there. Especially when the world's worst childrens' librarian shows up.
The Neptune Factor (1973)
Ban Gazarra, Ernest Borgnine, and superhuge seahorses in an undersea adventure/odyssey.
This is an adorable little kids movie from the '70's. 5 stars is pushin it for this one, though. It's not bad but its by no means good. It's just really endearing, in its own out-dated way.
So, OK, you've got Ben Gazarra, Ernest Borgnine, and superhuge seahorses in an undersea adventure/race-against-time-kind of thing. I wonder if the guys and 'bots over at MST3K ever got a hold on this one? It would be perfect material for them. It's lame in a wonderful way.
If you like Benny Gazzarra, and/or Ernest Borgnine, and would possibly be interested in seeing them marvel at superhuge seahorses when they're in this superdeep sea rift, then I think you should see this movie. No. I urge you to see it.
Hearts in Atlantis (2001)
There are good Stephen King adaptations out there. This is not one of them.
Another unfortunate case of one writer taking another's story, raping the h*ll out of it, and using just the characters and basic events for their own purposes. This movie seems eager to join the league of bland Stephen King adaptations.
It's simple, see, all you have to do is; take a Stephen King story, remove all irony and dark humor (in this case, all humor period), along with anything possibly offensive, dangerously crude, or sexual (which is about a fourth of anything King writes), add in a bunch of sappy, trite bullshit that washes away anything real from the characters and grinds them all down to a cliché, and boom, there you go.
Add in a boringly typical Anthony Hopkins performance void of any true emotion, just sappy bullshit sentimental faces, a mediocre child actor, and MAKE SURE to use the same flat three point lighting technique and film stock as every other bland Stephen King movie in recent memory.
Then you'll get this movie. What a waste.
There are good Stephen King adaptations out there. This is not one of them.