Stimulating, combustible, nauseating, and repulsive are all perfect adjectives to describe director, writer, co-producer, and co-editor Coralie Fargeat’s (Revenge) explorative and provocative The Substance. This film doesn’t just knock on the door of critiques of the societal obsession with youth and beauty but blows off its shutters. The Substance offers no subtlety in its themes. This film is designed to make its audiences feel as squeamish as the entertainment industry’s treatment of women, particularly older women. The impossible beauty standards and society’s preoccupation with youth (particularly young, attractive women) are nothing new. Fargeat meticulously brings this to the forefront and apologizes for nothing. Nor should she.
Category Archives: Horror
A Quiet Place: Day One (2024)
Disappointing. That’s the word I would use to sum up A Quiet Place: Day One, the prequel to A Quiet Place and the third movie in the successful trilogy. John Krasinski wrote and directed both A Quiet Place and A Quiet Place Part II. Krasinski only has producer credits for the final installment. We felt his absence. A Quiet Place: Day One lacked originality, coherence, and suspense. It was a cash grab, which I played into. Michael Sarnoski (fresh of writing and directing credits of his debut film, Pig).
Godzilla Minus One (2023)
Finally! This is what a Godzilla movie was meant to be! Since 1954, there have been 37 movies with “Godzilla” in the title, with another (Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire) set for a 2024 release. Of the 37, only four are animated. Almost all are Japanese-made. The handful of American-made films, including Godzilla (1998), Godzilla (2014), Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019), and Godzilla vs. Kong (2021), are mediocre at best. These films failed to execute in many ways, something Takashi Yamazaki’s (Lupin III: The First, Destiny: The Tale of Kamakura) nearly impeccable Godzilla Minus One does not.
Bones and All (2022)
If a story about a pair of two young, hungry lovers devouring the flesh from a still-warm body that one of them has just killed sounds like your cup of tea, Luca Guadagnino’s (Call Me by Your Name, I Am Love) Bones and All is the movie for you. If a plot line that revolves around cannibalism revolts you, this would be a hard pass. In either case, if there’s one December. 2022 release to skip the concessions on, that film is Bones and All.
The Menu (2022)
Mark Mylod’s (What’s Your Number?, The Big White) The Menu is far from a movie that usually interests me. It’s exceptionally outrageously strange while still trying to come across as something meant to be believable. I’m also not much of a fan of dark humor. Films like American Psycho, This Is The End, Burn After Reading, Blazing Saddles, The Cabin in the Woods, Little Miss Sunshine, The Favourite, Birdman, In Bruges, Inglorious Bastards, The Grand Budapest Hotel, Being John Malkovich, Borat, A Simple Favor, Hail, Caesar!, Hot Fuzz, Shaun of the Dead, The Cable Guy, Jo Jo Rabbit, The Ref, Trainspotting, The Big Lebowski, Funny Games, The War of the Roses, Adaptation, Heathers, Rushmore, Death to Smoochy, Snatch, Knives Out, Observe and Report, O Brother Where Art Thou?, Game Night, or The Lobster don’t do it for me.