I recall watching the original Wrong Turn movie in the movie theater in 2003. I enjoyed the movie so much that I bought the DVD when I discovered it in the previously viewed movie bin a few years later. I went over fifteen years between viewings because I wanted to wait for that perfect dark and stormy night to revisit this gem of a film that introduced me to the slasher movie genre. Unfortunately, my rewatch of the movie fell flat. I thought the movie was so poorly made and cheesy that I couldn’t believe I had initially been spooked by it. However, as I look back, I realize this was because I had nothing to compare it against. Of course, there were the Friday the 13th, Nightmare On Elm Street, and Halloween movies, but those had all been established franchises well before I was born. And honestly, I had no interest in watching any of these.
Four Good Days (2020)
I sure did want to like Four Good Days, Rodrigo Garcia’s (Albert Nobbs, Passengers) Heroin-recovery-centered drama co-starring (Mila Kunis – Black Swan, The Book of Eli), and Glenn Close (Dangerous Liaisons, Fatal Attraction). It had everything I wanted in my heaving-hitting addiction dramas. It had a strung-out lead in 31-year-old Molly (Kunis) and that one person that, hopefully, all people have who will do anything to save this person they so dearly love. In this case, it is Molly’s mother, Deb (Close). The elements were in place for this to be a movie that knocked it out of the park. However, it was so severely flawed that it sometimes inadvertently detracted from the story it was trying to tell. As much as I struggled with its flimsy screenplay, its miscasting of Deb with Close, and its peculiar ending, it stuck with me so much that I wanted to go home immediately after watching it to review it. There is zero percent chance that Four Good Days ends in my 2020 Top Ten Movies of the Year list, but I fully imagine that I will remember every little bit about this movie at the end of the year as I do today (May 6th), and not for the wrong reasons.
Pig (2021)
Knowing little about it, I went into my local theater to watch Michael Sarnoski’s directorial debut, Pig. I saw it playing at my local theater, checked out its score on Rotten Tomatoes (97% and 95%), and then looked at the scores assigned by Richard Roeper (4/4 stars) and also the score on Roger Ebert’s website (also 4/4 stars). The movie poster made it look like a backwoods thriller. It was enough for me. I had no idea what the movie was even about. I recall when I saw David Fincher’s Se7en back in 1995. I knew nothing about that film, which is one reason I am still so mesmerized and starstruck by that film. Had I learned more about it, it still would have been a forever classic with me. But there was something about that journey of not knowing anything about it but being completely engrossed by it. The comparison between Se7en and Pig ends there but is a notable mention nonetheless.
The World to Come (2020)
Hope. Love. Tragedy. Despair. We desire the first pair of words. We dread the second pair. When we experience all five of these emotions in the order presented here, what comes after experiencing despair? Death? Rebirth? Complacency. If the suffering is deep enough, is any coming out of it? Do we even want to? Do we believe that we can find joy again? If we do, will we recognize it? Will we embrace it? In Mona Fastvold’s (The Sleepwalker) The World To Come, we spend 98 minutes with Abigail (Katherine Waterston – Mid90s, Alien: Covenant), a grieving mother who has spent the year before unsuccessfully trying to process her young daughter’s death.
Army of the Dead (2021)
Of all of the movies that have been released since the start of the March 2020 COVID-19 pandemic, Army of the Dead is the one that I Of all the films released since the start of the March 2020 COVID-19 pandemic, Army of the Dead is the one I watched at home that I most wished I had seen in the theater. As I watch this movie a week ahead of A Quiet Place 2 (a movie that should truly signify a return to the movie theaters), I almost wish I hadn’t had the option to watch Zack Snyder’s (Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, 300) on Netflix. I intended to go to the theater this weekend to see this film, only to see it sitting there as an option to stream with my Netflix subscription. It was both a blessing and a curse. Free is excellent, as is the ability to play and pause a movie as you see fit. But it is hard to beat the in-theater experience of a film that is supposed to be watched on the big screen.