Category: Movie Reviews

REVIEW: The Silence (2019)

Release Poster – Netflix

The following is a review of The Silence — Directed by John R. Leonetti.

John R. Leonetti’s The Silence — not to be confused with Martin Scorsese’s Silence, which has a similar title, or John Krasinski’s A Quiet Place and Susanne Bier’s Bird Box, both of which have similar plots — follows a family during an apocalyptic event in which prehistoric bat-like creatures have come out of hiding to attack and feast on anything and anyone they hear. Stanley Tucci plays the family father, Miranda Otto his wife, and Kiernan Shipka plays one of his children — a deaf teenager. Continue reading “REVIEW: The Silence (2019)” →

REVIEW: Unicorn Store (2019)

Release Poster – Netflix

The following is a review of Unicorn Store — Directed by Brie Larson.

Unicorn Store — Brie Larson’s directorial debut — had its original world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival back in 2017, but Larson had to wait until after she had become the titular hero of a superhero franchise before her directorial debut was distributed widely, now in April 2019. You can call it timing — good or otherwise — but, in any case, Brie Larson, an Oscar-winner and popular superhero actress, is now almost a household name. Unfortunately, I don’t think her debut feature, Unicorn Store, was worth the wait.
Continue reading “REVIEW: Unicorn Store (2019)” →

REVIEW: Shazam! (2019)

Theatrical Release Poster – Warner Bros. / New Line Cinema

The following is a review of Shazam! — Directed by David F. Sandberg.

It pleases me to say that the DC Cinematic Universe has turned a corner. For so long, Wonder Woman, the first film in the connected universe to receive a majority of positive reviews from film writers, seemed like an anomaly in the inconsistent universe where mixed reception was the best that you could hope for. James Wan’s Aquaman, however, was a big hit — one that indicated that perhaps the DC connected film universe still had life in it. And for Shazam! — a character most audiences will be unfamiliar with — DC and Warner Bros. borrowed yet another director from the Conjuring-film universe, Swedish David F. Sandberg, who, thankfully, has made a huge homerun hit for the weakened connected universe.
Continue reading “REVIEW: Shazam! (2019)” →

REVIEW: Pet Sematary (2019)

Theatrical Release Poster – Paramount Pictures

The following is a review of Pet Sematary — Directed by Kevin Kölsch & Dennis Widmeyer.

A couple of months ago, I decided to rewatch Mary Lambert’s 1989 adaptation of Stephen King’s Pet Sematary. My father is a big fan of that film, but, I hadn’t seen it in years, and I barely remembered if I even liked it. Much to my father’s disappointment, I really didn’t enjoy rewatching Lambert’s film. This experience, I’ll be honest, actually made me more excited for this year’s remake. Perhaps I would now get the Pet Sematary film to ‘call my own.’ While I ultimately do, based on my first viewing, believe Kölsch and Widmeyer’s 2019-version is better and more effective than Lambert’s film, I was still very disappointed by what they gave us here. Continue reading “REVIEW: Pet Sematary (2019)” →

REVIEW: The Inventor: Out for Blood in Silicon Valley (2019 – Documentary)

Release Poster – HBO

The following is a review of The Inventor: Out for Blood in Silicon Valley — Directed by Alex Gibney.

In 2019, we’ve already been given multiple tantalizing tales of young entrepreneurs revealed to be con artists, phoneys, or fraudsters. Call them what you will, but, with the two documentaries about the catastrophic ‘Fyre festival’ and now this documentary about a wannabe-disruptor and con artist in the biomedical industry, I find myself thinking about the loopholes these young people jumped through and how investors were fooled into making them frontmen, leaders, and innovators. In the case of The Inventor, it is not so much about incompetence but more about deception and how investors were deceived into propping up a transfixing, deep-voiced, and intense Stanford drop-out with delusions of grandeur, even as she spouted out incredibly vague descriptions of her grand idea. Continue reading “REVIEW: The Inventor: Out for Blood in Silicon Valley (2019 – Documentary)” →

REVIEW: The Highwaymen (2019)

Release Poster – Netflix

The following is a review of The Highwaymen — Directed by John Lee Hancock.

Set in 1934, The Highwaymen, from director John Lee Hancock (The Blind Side; Saving Mr. Banks), tells the story of two former Texas Rangers, Frank Hamer (played by Kevin Costner) and Maney Gault (played by Woody Harrelson) who were hired by Texas governor ‘Ma’ Ferguson (played by Kathy Bates) to stop the notorious criminals Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow by any means necessary. Continue reading “REVIEW: The Highwaymen (2019)” →

REVIEW: Dronningen (2019)

Danish Theatrical Release Poster – Nordisk Film

The following is a review of the Danish film ‘Dronningen‘ (international title: Queen of Hearts) — Directed by May el-Toukhy.

Dronningen is a disturbing and twisted tragedy about double-standards, hypocrisy, and gender-roles from the female Danish-Egyptian filmmaker May el-Toukhy. The Danish film — and controversial conversation starter — stars the outstanding actress and critical darling Trine Dyrholm in the leading role as Anne, a Danish lawyer and mother of two girls. Anne is married to the Swedish doctor Peter (played by Magnus Krepper, who recently appeared in the Danish film Før Frosten), who has a 17-year old troublemaking son, Gustav (played by Gustav Lindh), from a previous marriage in Sweden.

Continue reading “REVIEW: Dronningen (2019)” →

REVIEW: The Dirt (2019)

Release Poster – Netflix

The following is a review of Netflix’ The Dirt — Directed by Jeff Tremaine.

Based on the tell-all biography-of-the-same-name, which is co-authored by the band, Jeff Tremaine’s The Dirt tells the rise-and-fall-and-rise-again story of hair metal band Mötley Crüe, which included drummer Tommy Lee (played by Machine Gun Kelly), guitarist Mick Mars (played by Iwan Rheon), lead singer Vince Neil (played by Daniel Webber), and bassist Nikki Sixx (played by Douglas Booth).
Continue reading “REVIEW: The Dirt (2019)” →

REVIEW: Antoine Griezmann: The Making of a Legend (2019 – Documentary)

Release Poster – Netflix

The following is a quick review of Antoine Griezmann: The Making of a Legend — Directed by Alex Dell & Damien Piscarel.

The Making of a Legend is a French one-hour Netflix documentary about a famous French football player named Antoine Griezmann, who, in recent years, has become one of the frontmen for the French national team and a world-class player in Spain. In this documentary, Alex Dell and Damien Piscarel tell you the story of how Griezmann went from being a dismissed French talent to becoming a star player for the French national team that won the World Cup last year. Continue reading “REVIEW: Antoine Griezmann: The Making of a Legend (2019 – Documentary)” →

REVIEW: Waiting for the Punchline (2019 – Documentary)

Poster – Rooster Teeth

The following is a short review of the RT Doc ‘Waiting for the Punchline‘ — Directed by Mat Hames.

Nick Scarpino is a co-founder of the San Francisco-based online entertainment company Kinda Funny. Before he began appearing on-camera during podcasts for Kinda Funny, he was most comfortable behind the scenes as a producer. Having found an audience and a sufficient amount of confidence, Scarpino, in early 2017, revealed to the other members of Kinda Funny that he wanted to try stand-up comedy. This documentary, Mat Hames’ Waiting for the Punchline, details his experience as a San Francisco stand-up who desperately wants a chance to do comedy on the stage of a notable San Francisco comedy club. Continue reading “REVIEW: Waiting for the Punchline (2019 – Documentary)” →