Category Archives: All Movie Reviews

Action/Thriller, All Movie Reviews, Comedy, Like It, Long Reviews (>400 Words)

Cocaine Bear (2023) Movie Review

Cocaine Bear is the type of movie that “works well in the room,” so to speak. The pitch to Universal on this probably went over like gangbusters. It’s a fun premise with an undeniably eye-catching title, and a film that could be marketed to a college crowd during a slow box office weekend. It is a movie about a bear that does cocaine and wreaks havoc on a forest full of people. That’s not the most difficult movie to find an audience for. And judging solely on one theater in a small market during the film’s Thursday night preview screening, it looks like it did in fact reach that audience.

I saw two movies on this Thursday. One was Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania in its second weekend; the other was Cocaine Bear. Ant-Man, a huge release with a massive budget that is part of one of the most profitable franchises of all time, was attended by me and two others. Cocaine Bear, meanwhile, was Continue reading Cocaine Bear (2023) Movie Review →

Action/Thriller, All Movie Reviews, Leave it, Long Reviews (>400 Words), Psychotronic

Act of Violence upon a Young Journalist (1988) is a Cult Film You’ve Never Heard Of

This is installment five in our “Psychotronic Cinema” series. (What is psychotronic cinema?)

Act of Violence upon a Young Journalist is a cult film object from Uruguay, but it is relatively unknown in the U.S. It circulated in some film circles in South America, seemingly years after its original direct-to-video release in 1988. A documentary was made a couple years ago, called Straight to VHS (directed by Emilio Silva Torres), that documented the strange absence of the film’s director, Manuel Lamas, from public life, which has rendered details on the film’s production and its release scant.

The doc is good, although I don’t think it answers as many questions as it asks. What makes the doc and its distribution important is that Continue reading Act of Violence upon a Young Journalist (1988) is a Cult Film You’ve Never Heard Of →

All Movie Reviews, Documentary, Like It, Long Reviews (>400 Words), Psychotronic

Koyaanisqatsi (1982) is a Psychotronic Film — Review

This is the fourth installment in our “Psychotronic Cinema” series. (What is psychotronic cinema?)

More than anything else, I am reviewing Koyaanisqatsi because it delights me that it (and the second in the trilogy, Powaqqatsi) are in The Psychotronic Video Guide. It is such an odd addition, and it makes me wonder what about it is, in fact, “psychotronic.” The film is not generically of a piece with other psychotronic film (although, as I’ve mentioned before this term encompasses quite a breadth of genres), and its non-narrative documentary style hews it closer to the arthouse than to the late-night cable time slot.

Perhaps its music and rhythmic sense of movement lends itself to a certain, let’s say, chilled out demographic.

Michael Weldon (originator of the term “psychotronic”) writes that the style and score of Koyaanisqatsi was influential culturally, especially in television commercials. This could point us to a tension that presents as psychotronic. If psychotronia’s guiding principle is Continue reading Koyaanisqatsi (1982) is a Psychotronic Film — Review →

All Movie Reviews, Leave it, Long Reviews (>400 Words), Romance

Magic Mike’s Last Dance (2023) Movie Review

At the risk of starting off way too in the weeds into Magic Mike lore, it was the reprise of Ginuwine’s “Pony” toward the end of Magic Mike’s Last Dance that cemented for me why this trilogy capper left me so underwhelmed. “Pony” became something of a theme song for the Magic Mike films, it being the signature song the titular male entertainer Mike Lane (Channing Tatum) dances too in the first film. It returns in this third installment, and it is certainly there solely as a fan nod. Thematically, the song holds a special meaning in Mike’s tumultuous journey through the exploitative and soul-crushing realities of late-stage capitalism, a meaning that is entirely lost in Last Dance.

In Magic Mike XXL, Mike performs a brief dance to the song when it comes on in his workshop – he begins the second film fighting for Continue reading Magic Mike’s Last Dance (2023) Movie Review →

All Movie Reviews, Leave it, Long Reviews (>400 Words), Psychotronic

After Last Season (2009) Is (Maybe) the Most Ambitious Bad Movie Ever Made

This is the third installment of the “Psychotronic Cinema” series. (What is psychotronic cinema?)

After Last Season is both notorious in certain online circles and a relatively unknown entity. Certain YouTubers have amplified its visibility over the last few years (and last few weeks, incidentally), but it still certainly hasn’t risen to the badfilm echelons occupied by the likes of Tommy Wiseau and Neil Breen.

But it deserves to be in that lowly pantheon.

The film opens in a “hospital” where a man is getting an MRI. The “MRI scanner” appears to be constructed of paper (sheets of paper also line the walls). The actor playing the technician stumbles over her line and has to Continue reading After Last Season (2009) Is (Maybe) the Most Ambitious Bad Movie Ever Made →

2023 Academy Awards, All Movie Reviews, Leave it, Long Reviews (>400 Words), Short Films

2023 Oscar Nominated Live Action Short Film Reviews: Ivalu and Night Ride

It is round two of reviews for the Oscar-nominated Live Action Short Film category. In this edition, we look at Ivalu and Night Ride. Previously, we looked at The Red Suitcase and An Irish Goodbye.

Ivalu

“My sister…my blood.” Anders Walters’ Ivalu follows Pipaluk (Mila Heilmann Kreutzman), who wakes up one morning to find Continue reading 2023 Oscar Nominated Live Action Short Film Reviews: Ivalu and Night Ride →

Action/Thriller, All Movie Reviews, Drama, Like It, Long Reviews (>400 Words)

Knock at the Cabin (2023) Movie Review

I have never known what to do with M. Night Shyamalan’s career. You can’t fault the guy for trying to do unique things with the thriller genre. But there are recurring aspects of his filmmaking which have bothered me, and these problems came to a head with the one-two punch of Glass and Old. The writing, acting, and tone in those movies irk me.

On the other hand, Shyamalan has surprised me pleasantly on multiple occasions. Split is really well-shot and holds the tension. The Visit has a few memorable moments. Going back to the first act of his career, The Sixth Sense and Unbreakable both hold up well, I think. And Praying with Anger is Continue reading Knock at the Cabin (2023) Movie Review →

All Movie Reviews, Horror, Like It, Long Reviews (>400 Words), Psychotronic

The Collingswood Story (2002) is the First Screenlife Movie

This is the second installment in our “Psychotronic Cinema” series. (What is psychotronic cinema?)

The Collingswood Story has received something of a new lease on life with the continuing trend of “Screenlife” movies. Films which take place entirely on digital screen spaces find their origin point in 2002 with Collingswood. Though not Screenlife in the “pure” sense of taking place entirely on a screen (it’s maybe at 95%), Collingswood makes use of emergent technology in a relatively novel way – blocky early-2000s desktop aesthetic and all. A pandemic-era film like Host owes a great deal to this film, whose video chat technology amplifies a mood of isolation and loneliness.

Separate the film from its novelty, though, and Collingswood does not Continue reading The Collingswood Story (2002) is the First Screenlife Movie →

All Movie Reviews, Comedy, Leave it, Long Reviews (>400 Words), Psychotronic, Western

Greaser’s Palace (1972) is an (Unfulfilling) Weirdo’s Paradise

This is installment one in our “Psychotronic Cinema“ series.

The films in this series are “psychotronic,” a term borrowed from Michael J. Weldon’s magazine and encyclopedia. Psychotronic covers the wide swath of cinema that is either slightly out there or entirely bonkers – horror, science fiction, fantasy, exploitation, blockbusters, flops, low budgets, no budgets, thought-provoking, brain dead, beautiful, grotesque, bloody, breezy, sleazy, and so on. At the end of the day, what is considered “psychotronic” might come down to the eye test – you know one when it crosses your path.

After watching last year’s Sr., a Robert Downey Jr.-led documentary about his father, filmmaker Robert Downey (Sr.), I was enticed into catching up on some of the director’s offbeat filmography. It wasn’t the documentary itself that invited me to see Greaser’s Palace — neither the clips from the film nor the doc’s father-son bonding moments did it for me. Frankly, the doc felt a few ticks overdone, with its black and white cinematography and Robert Downey Jr. puppeteering some of the would-be heartwarming scenes.

What works about Sr. is the same thing that works (for me, at least) about Sr.’s films, and that’s Continue reading Greaser’s Palace (1972) is an (Unfulfilling) Weirdo’s Paradise →

All Movie Reviews, Horror, Like It, Long Reviews (>400 Words), Sci-Fi/Fantasy

Infinity Pool (2023) Movie Review

While I do find myself saying it quite often, I think “third act problems” is a strange statement. In most cases, a third act problem probably originates as a first or second act problem, as in, something needs to be resolved in the third act for the film to work and that does not happen. The third act reveals the problem, but it was an underlying structural problem that carries over across acts.

I make this distinction to say that Brandon Cronenberg’s Infinity Pool has major third act problems, but that these problems pertain to the film’s overall structure.

Cronenberg’s Possessor was my favorite horror movie of 2020. It is the type of film that does not give clarity to every angle of its story, but the overall Continue reading Infinity Pool (2023) Movie Review →