There are two different types of people in the world. When asked if they’ve seen Darren Aronofsky’s (The Wrestler, Black Swan) mother, there is a group of people who will say no. And then there is the group of people who look at you with a bizarre look on their face and shamingly say, “Yeah,” and hope you don’t ask any follow-up questions. And that’s not to say they are embarrassed by admitting that they’ve seen the movie (we’ve all been at a theater before when we walk out with our heads down, hoping that we don’t see anybody that we know because we don’t want them to know we just paid to see a movie that bad, but because the film is so far out there that a follow-up question asking the person what they thought about it or if they liked it might allow them to draw conclusions about us. Aronofsky makes movies that you either love or hate. I adored The Wrestler and Black Swan but passionately hated Noah.
Category Archives: Mystery
Wind River (2017)
There are so many takeaways from Taylor Sheridan’s Wind River that I don’t even know which one to bring out first. Though flawed, this is the best movie of 2017 through the first eight months of the year. It is an epic masterpiece that might be missed by the typical moviegoer who is so overwhelmed with the commercialization of movies like Wonder Woman, Spider-Man: Homecoming, and War of the Planet of the Apes that they might not even know it existed, let alone a movie that it might be interested in seeing. In a 2017 Hollywood that has seen a massive uptake in remakes, reboots, sequels, and prequels, it’s becoming increasingly more difficult to find originality in a story and then, if you do, for that originality to come out in a way that encourages you to see it again and, hopefully, has a lasting impact on your life. That is what Sheridan, an incredibly gifted screenwriter, has done in his first film behind the camera. The memorable Sicario and Oscar-nominated Hell or High Water are already to his screenwriting credit. It’s unlikely that Wind River will receive the same box office success as his first movie or the same critical acclaim come Oscar season as his second, but this is one hell of a directorial debut.
Lights Out (2016)
Lights Out is based on a 2-minute and 41-second short by directing newcomer David F. Sandberg. Creepy from its opening scene to its final second, which will creep you out, the film got the funding to be developed into a full-length movie that stars not one but two well-known actresses. Unfortunately, the 2016 release flew under the radar. I hadn’t heard of the movie until I listened to The Film Vault, a movie podcast site that inspired the Six Pack feature on my blog. If you’re a person who watches a lot of movies, the Film Vault is a weekly must-listen-to. Hosts Anderson and Bryan review all the recent films while doing a Top Five segment each week (top five stabbings, top five divas, top five movies we can’t wait to show our kids, etc.). Also, they assign each other movies that the other one probably would never see and require each other to follow through on these assignments. Like almost all podcasts, it can get a little long at times, and sometimes, the movies they discuss are so obscure that you might have only seen two or three of the 15+ films they discuss each week. But if you watch many movies, even if you don’t necessarily agree with their lists entirely, you’ll be introduced to many movies you’ve never heard of. And, if nothing else, you’ll at least be intrigued to research some of these films to learn more. That’s precisely what happened to me with Lights Out.
Continue reading Lights Out (2016)
Alien: Covenant (2017)
Ridley Scott’s (Gladiator, The Martian) brainchild franchise proves a few things. First, the Alien series still has legs, its sequels continue evolving, and Scott has no plans to let his baby fall into the wrong hands again. Ridley’s monster first burst onto the screen in 1979’s Alien, a movie that did for space travel what Steven Spielberg’s Jaws did for swimming on beaches. It certainly wasn’t the first movie set on a spaceship. But, if it wasn’t the first horror film set in space, it was undoubtedly the first one we all remembered as the first one. And, just as the tagline of the original movie poster suggests, In Space, No One Can Hear You Scream, nothing can be more accurate as we sit down and prepare ourselves for one of the Alien movies.
The Wall (2017)
First things first, if you think you’re going into this seeing a John Cena movie, you will be sorely disappointed. This movie is similar to 127 Hours, Cast Away, I Am Legend, or All Is Lost in that it revolves almost entirely around a single character. However, some significant differences exist between this one and those just stated. There are no flashback scenes. This movie is done almost entirely in real time. And it occurs in a single location, though 127 Hours, for the most part, does as well. The Wall is similar, though, in that each of the mentioned movies experiences extreme periods of hopelessness during a part of or a majority of the movie. The Wall isn’t nearly as good as these other movies, but it was unique enough to hold your interest. Whereas 127 Hours was based on a true story, where All Is Lost is easily believable, and where I Am Legend is more of a science fiction movie for which we must suspend our belief, The Wall falls somewhere in between. I loved that it was just 81 minutes long. It didn’t need to be any longer, so why drag something out when it doesn’t have to be? And the first 20 minutes were completely engrossing. I knew little about the movie but not enough to know where it was going. But then it took a turn for the weird that took the believability aspect out of it and turned it into a game of cat and mouse that, while entertaining, was not something I’d expect out of my war movies.