Directed by Louis Leterrier — Screenplay by Dan Mazeau and Justin Lin — Story by Dan Mazeau, Justin Lin, and Zach Dean.
Louis Leterrier’s Fast X follows Dominic Toretto (played by Vin Diesel) and his team — which consists of family, friends, and former villains (all of whom Dom considers to be ‘family,’ of course) — as they are put in danger when an unknown crazy enemy from their past named Dante Reyes (played by Jason Momoa) seeks vengeance.
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Directed by Simon Cellan Jones — Screenplay by David Coggeshall.
Simon Cellan Jones’ The Family Plan follows Dan Morgan (played by Mark Wahlberg), a car salesman who lives in Buffalo, New York with his wife Jessica (played by Michelle Monaghan), as well as his children Nina (played by Zoe Colletti), Kyle (played by Van Crosby), and Max (played by Iliana Norris and Vienna Norris). They seem like a normal family, but, in reality (and unbeknownst to his family), Dan isn’t the patriarch of the family’s real name and he is actually hiding from his associates from his past life as a hired assassin. When, one day, a picture of him is posted to the internet, he and his family are targeted. In an attempt to keep his family safe, he makes up an impromptu family vacation and has to keep hitmen off their backs on-the-go. Dan has to work up the courage to tell his family the truth, and, while they are on their road trip, he sees new sides of his beloved family.
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Directed by Ole Bornedal — Screenplay by Ole Bornedal.
The long-awaited sequel to the once locally groundbreaking Danish horror hit Nattevagten (international title: Nightwatch — though not to be confused with the American remake of the same name also directed by Ole Bornedal) starring Nikolaj Coster-Waldau — long before he became a part of a global sensation with Game of Thrones — is finally here. Back then Ole Bornedal shook audiences with a fresh horror film that showed the local film industry that, of course, strong Danish filmmakers have it within themselves to make competent horror films, even though the Danish film industry only rarely shows that it is capable of such things. Even today effective Danish horror films are few and far between. So, has Ole Bornedal caught lightning in a bottle yet again with his horror sequel? Well, to a certain extent. While Nattevagten: Dæmoner Går i Arv (international title: Nightwatch – Demons Are Forever) admittedly does suffer from familiarity, it is still a fairly entertaining sequel about the next generation trying to clear up their parents’ mistakes.
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Directed by William Friedkin — Screenplay by Walon Green.
Based on Georges Arnaud’s French novel Le Salaire de la peur, William Friedkin’s Sorcerer follows four very different individuals from all over the world– the Mexican assassin named Nilo (played by Francisco Rabal), a Palestinian militant named Kassem (played by Amidou), a French investment banker named Victor Manzon (played by Bruno Cremer), and an Irish-American gang member and driver named Jackie Scanlon (played by Roy Scheider) — as they all eventually find themselves in a remote village in Colombia. Here they are all trying to hide away from their old lives, and they desperately want to build new lives for themselves. However, their wages are insufficient. However, one day a lucrative job becomes available as an oil well has exploded. An American oil company now needs four drivers to risk life and limb by driving highly unstable dynamite through the unpaved jungles of Colombia. Of course, the film’s four leads line up to take part in the risky endeavor.
Continue reading “Sorcerer (1977) | CLASSIC REVIEW”
Directed by Ole Bornedal — Screenplay by Ole Bornedal.
In a couple of days, the long-awaited sequel to the Danish cult horror film Ole Bornedal’s Nattevagten will be released. The original film, which later resulted in the English-languaged remake (also directed by Ole Bornedal) Nightwatch starring Ewan McGregor, is one that I hadn’t seen in several years, so I was curious whether or not it would still hold up. Is the Danish cult genre film still as good as I remember it being? Well, yes and no.
Continue reading “Nattevagten (1994) | RETRO REVIEW”
Directed by Ira Sachs — Screenplay by Mauricio Zacharias, Ira Sachs, and Arlette Langmann.
Ira Sachs’ Passages follows Tomas (played by Franz Rogowski), a German filmmaker who lives in Paris, at the end of the production of his latest film. At the subsequent wrap party, Tomas’ partner Martin (played by Ben Whishaw), an English printer, refuses to go out on the dance floor with him, but Agathe (played by Adèle Exarchopoulos), a young primary school teacher, would very much like to dance with Tomas. In the heat of the moment, Tomas and Agathe lock eyes, share a connection and go to Agathe’s home where they have sex. The next morning Tomas arrives back at his and Martin’s apartment, and, though his instinct is to initially be deceitful about what had happened, Tomas fairly quickly decides to come clean (and quite directly) to Martin about what had happened and how he feels about it. An inwardly upset Martin kisses Tomas, and they continue their relationship, which only seems more doomed when Tomas carries on with his dalliance with Agathe. As Tomas’ relationship with Agathe intensifies, whereas his relationship with Martin deteriorates, Tomas tries to control his love life in a way that doesn’t take the emotional well-being of others into account.
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Directed by Francis Lawrence — Screenplay by Michael Lesslie and Michael Arndt.
Everything gets a prequel nowadays. There was a time when the word ‘prequel’ when brought up in daily conversation with film fans would usually be followed up by some criticism of the Star Wars prequel trilogy, which has since been reclaimed by the community that once turned its nose up at it. Now, however, prequels are to be expected. There is a whole trilogy of so-so-to-disappointing Harry Potter prequel films, the Hobbit trilogy (that often feels like it was explicitly designed to be a prequel to the Lord of the Rings films, instead of letting it be its own standalone thing), and, eventually, this trend would, of course, make its way to popular young adult fiction like Suzanne Collins’ The Hunger Games. The original film adaptations (or at least the first two) are immensely popular as they launched Jennifer Lawrence into stardom while, at the same time, making an American popcorn version of Kinji Fukusaku’s Battle Royale. For what it’s worth, I quite liked both the original Hunger Games adaptation and the first sequel subtitled Catching Fire, but when they then split the trilogy-capper Mockingjay into two parts, I wasn’t as interested. What I will say, though, is that watching the Hunger Games prequel reminded me why I really liked the franchise in the first place.
Continue reading “The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes (2023) | REVIEW”
Directed by Ángel Manuel Soto — Screenplay by Gareth Dunnet-Alcocer.
Blue Beetle isn’t just the live-action debut for the titular character, it also happens to be the 14th film in the DC Extended Universe (15th, if you count Zack Snyder’s Justice League), as well as the penultimate film in the very same cinematic universe, which is being remade or rebooted by James Gunn. This act of announcing that they are starting all over again has made this year’s DC superhero films essentially lame-ducks that fans and the general public don’t take seriously because people, naturally, don’t expect them to figure into the storyline going forward. It’s also a really sad thing because, one, this was meant to be the big screen debut for a lesser-known character that DC die-hards are excited about, and, two, this also happens to be the first DC live-action Latino superhero. In spite of the lame-duck nature of its story, it is a hugely important film precisely because it makes sure an underrepresented group in film now finally gets to see someone who looks like them as a great, big superhero in a feature film built around said hero. But they really deserved better because Blue Beetle is a stale superhero flick that has very little going for it in terms of originality.
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Directed by David Fincher — Screenplay by Andrew Kevin Walker.
No one does dark crime films quite like David Fincher. The world-class filmmaker who got his start as an assistant cameraman on The Return of the Jedi and as the director of several music videos (over the years he has won himself Grammy Awards for these efforts, as he has worked with artists like Madonna, Michael Jackson, The Rolling Stones, and others) before he eventually debuted with Alien 3, has made a lot of different kinds of films but some of his most popular efforts have been concerned with darkness, crime, and meticulousness, with films like Se7en (this film reunites him with Se7en writer Andrew Kevin Walker), The Game, Fight Club, Panic Room, Zodiac, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, and Gone Girl. With The Killer, the filmmaker’s twelfth feature film and second Netflix feature in a row, he has taken a story that admittedly may sound quite generic and turned it into something that is uniquely Fincher and quite good. Here he proves that even though Gone Girl came out almost ten years ago, Fincher’s expertise in the handling of this kind of material is a light that never goes out.
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Directed by Jessica Yu — Screenplay by Jen D’Angelo.
Jessica Yu’s Quiz Lady follows Anne (played by Awkwafina), a young woman with social anxiety and an obsession with a certain game show named ‘Can’t Stop the Quiz.’ One day, she is informed that her mother has fled the home that she was in and left for Macau presumably to gamble and get out of her gambling debt in America. This information also reaches Anne’s older sister Jenny (played by Sandra Oh), who is a decidedly more outgoing party girl, and they reconnect for a few days. On one of those days, Jenny secretly records and uploads a video of Anne watching her favorite game show. It becomes an instant hit online as Anne knows every single answer to every single question.
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I'm Jeffrey Rex 