Spontaneous (2020)

Get ready for the outrageous coming-of-age love story about growing up…and blowing up. When students in their school begin exploding (literally), seniors Mara and Dylan struggle to survive in a world where each moment may be their last.

Spontaneous is quite honestly one of the biggest surprises in 2020 (when it comes to film), on the surface it may seem like another high school movie with a bizarre premise of students literally exploding. However there is much more to the film the whole exploding idea can be seen as representing school shootings, those who accidentally overdosed or climate change, in the film Katherine Langford, Charlie Plummer and many others are worried, depressed, scared, develop anxiety because of seeing their friends die, which in a lot of ways is how the younger generation is reacting to the three topics I named earlier. That could be me reading a lot into the film but it definitely shares a lot of connections. As for the acting it’s pretty incredible Charlie Plummer and Katherine Langford are both fantastic, especially Langford who has really shown she has some serious talent it really makes me excited to see what she will do next! The writing is also really well done, with tons of emotional, heartwarming, cute and some surprisingly depressing moments it really adds power to the film and by the end it leaves a pretty big impression on the viewer. Spontaneous also feels very grounded when it comes to the writing, it feels like they actually got writers who know how teenagers talk and act (which only adds to what I said earlier) overall Spontaneous is a unique film that I definitely recommend giving a watch!!

9/10 A

American Pie Girl’s Rules

It’s Senior year at East Great Falls. Annie, Kayla, Michelle, and Stephanie decide to harness their girl power and band together to get what they want their last year of high school.

I’m seriously impressed of how many of American Pie films there are, this movie makes the 9th film of the franchise. I went into this movie not expecting much at all, however I actually found this movie to be pretty okay? I thought the cast did a fine enough job with what that they had, there were a few okay jokes that I actually liked. However the movie does fall into the trap this franchise has been suffering from for a long time now…being the exact same thing over and over again! While it is better than most of the other spinoff films, it feels almost identical to some of the main series movies. I mostly liked this film mainly due to Madison Pettis, Lizze Broadway, Natasha Behnam and Piper Curda their chemistry between each other worked really well and was the best thing about this film by far! Overall if you are a die hard fan of the franchise you will love this movie, it does it’s job fine enough and could have been easily worse so at least there’s that.

6/10 C+

A Rainy Day In New York (2020)

A young couple arrives in New York for a weekend where they are met with bad weather and a series of adventures.

So it’s finally time to actually sit down and talk about this film huh? A Rainy Day In New York has faced delays ever since 2018, you have probably heard of this movie being on release schedules only to be taken off afterwards. It was delayed mostly due to two factors, one the #Metoo movement (rightfully so) and two it was having a hard time finding someone to actually release it in America. So how is the actual film? Well Selena Gomez is actually the best acted in the film and she’s genuinely great too, I was actually very surprised if I’m going to be quite honest. I haven’t really cared much for her film roles other then Spring Breakers (by far her best) and Fundamentals Of Caregiving but she did a solid job. Elle Fanning definitely comes in a close second, she worked with what she had and for the most part did pretty well. Timothee Chalamet however…was pretty terrible, I really don’t know how to describe his acting in this movie but it felt like he really didn’t care at all. It kind of felt like he was held at gun point, it was some of the worst acting by him I’ve seen. The movie itself is just not interesting, it’s a great movie if you want to fall asleep. Waiting for something to actually happen in this movie is like waiting for your turn at a amusement park ride, it’s also one of those films where clearly the writers have no idea how 20 something years old know how to talk, a lot of the lines just don’t feel believable at all. What else can I really say? A Rainy Day In New York it’s a terrible movie that nobody is going to look back at, it’s always going to be known as “that one Woody Allen film that got constantly delayed and has Selena Gomez in it.”

3/10 D-

Eternal Beauty (2020)

After Jane (Sally Hawkins) falls into a state of despair over her schizophrenia, she encounters new sources of love and life with surprising results.

Eternal Beauty is truly something special, it takes a very heavy subject that is really hard to master in film and turns into something hard hitting and beautiful at the same time, Sally Hawkins character Jane has schizophrenia and we see her struggling with it throughout the film. What I really appreciate is how realistic the portrayal of schizophrenia is, Craig Roberts did a magnificent job when it comes to making it as real as possible. There are tons of touching moments from the chemistry of Sally Hawkins and David Thewlis, the writing feels as natural as possible, the family struggles are believable and emotional. Jane’s relationship with her family feels very real, it shows the harsh reality of how some families or people in general treat people with schizophrenia. It’s extremely sad but at the same time the film does have a lot of heartwarming moments, the acting all around is fantastic Sally Hawkins is absolutely perfect and as I said before gives a very realistic performance, David Thewlis is fantastic as well as Penelope Wilton!! Craig Roberts as the director is flawless, he truly knows how to create a very raw experience and how to tell a sad but beautiful story that it’s emotional and quite honestly inspiring at times. Overall Eternal Beauty is a film that you always think about as soon as it ends, give Eternal Beauty a watch as soon as you can!!

10/10 A+

Vampires Vs The Bronx (2020)

A group of young friends from the Bronx fight to save their neighborhood from gentrification…and vampires.

Vampires Vs The Bronx is another one of the Netflix’s horror movie release lineup for Halloween….and it’s surprisingly quite a good one. I went into this movie with very little expectations, I’ll say this the trailer does not do this movie justice at all. The cast is pretty great what really works is the chemistry between all the characters which helps the movie stand up, a big surprise is that at times Vampires Vs The Bronx has some actual clever writing commenting on issues such as when your poor you can easily be forgotten. What’s even better is the film incorporates that into the story making it actually pretty clever, I will say that some of the jokes are a huge hit or miss. At times it throws in some good jokes and other times you have eye rolling moments. Vampires Vs The Bronx is at it’s best when it has character moments or when it comments on real issues, the vampires themselves aren’t too bad either!! Overall Vampires Vs The Bronx is surprisingly very solid and a lot of fun, I can definitely see this film becoming a favorite to watch during Halloween season by many in years to come.

7/10 B

12 Hour Shift (2020)

Bodies start to pile up when a drug-user nurse and her cousin try to find a replacement kidney for an organ trafficker.

12 Hour Shift I actually thought looked sort of decent from the trailers and it had some potential…unfortunately it’s not that great, 12 Hour Shift started out pretty okay but quickly went downhill. First off none of the characters are likable at all, which isn’t necessarily a flaw but how the movie goes about it is just sloppy. It’s almost like two completely different people made this movie and had no idea what to do with it, the movie also got really mean spirited out of nowhere, I’m not even 100% sure what they were trying to go for. There is some comedy thrown in but none of it is really funny or clever at all, what really saves this movie is mostly the acting and some of the filming, as much as I don’t like the characters I can’t deny that the cast actually did the best they could with a very unimaginative script. Overall I can definitely see why one would like 12 Hour Shift, but it just wasn’t for me at all. If it sounds like something that would interest you, by all means check it out. I also don’t think it’s a terrible movie, I just think it’s a movie that just didn’t come together at the end.

4/10 D+

Happy Halloween Scooby Doo! (2020)

Scooby-Doo and the team gather again to solve the mystery of gigantic proportions and save Crystal Cove.

I’m going to keep this short, Happy Halloween Scooby-Doo is refreshing after the mess of a movie Scoob which came out earlier this year. This time the crossover is with Elvira and Bill Nye the science guy, both of which fit in pretty well! The jokes are the typical Scooby-Doo humor and that’s a good thing, you can’t help but just laugh at it! What I appreciate about this movie is it actually gives Daphne a bigger role, a lot of the times she really doesn’t get much to do in some of the movies. But here she is actually used pretty well, I was honestly pretty surprised so I give credit where credit is due. Otherwise it’s a typical Scooby-Doo movie extremely harmless fun that at the same time is very charming, any Scooby-Doo fan will love it.

7/10 B

Scare Me (2020)

During a power outage, two strangers tell scary stories. The more Fred and Fanny commit to their tales, the more the stories come to life in their Catskills cabin. The horrors of reality manifest when Fred confronts his ultimate fear.

Scare Me is quite different which is very refreshing to see, there’s a lot in Scare Me that works really well! The biggest thing being the small cast, Aya Cash, Chris Redd and Josh Ruben all do a really solid job Aya Cash being the standout. Scare Me has some genuinely good humor that I found myself laughing a few times, as for the premise I thought it was done pretty well! My biggest issue however is it does lose steam towards the end, as it goes on the movie kind of just gets weaker and weaker. That’s mostly due to the premise itself kind of getting tired by the end. The writing is for the most part pretty good, but it does have it’s problems especially when it’s trying to be hip it comes off as trying to hard. I thought the characters were pretty well done again Aya Cash being the best, Scare Me is one of those movies your either going to like or hate. I recommend giving this one a look especially since it is something much different.

6/10 C+

Cats & Dogs 3: Paws Unite (2020)

A supervillain parrot hatches a devious scheme to break the long-standing truce between cats and dogs.

There’s two big questions when it comes to Cats & Dogs 3: Paws Unite, number one how the hell is Sean McNamara still finding work? This is the same guy who did the Bratz movie and several other garbage (Soul Surfer being his best) and number two is who asked for this? The first Cats & Dogs that came out in 2001 doesn’t hold up at all but at least it knew what it wanted to be. Kitty Galore which came out 9 years later in 2010 was one of the worst movies of the 2010s is highly considered one of the worst films of all time and it’s not hard to see why. Now 10 years later we have Paws Unite, which in some cases it’s worse than Kitty Galore but the overall movie is better. Kitty Galore was actually a theater release while this was a straight to digital on a Tuesday. Anyway the movie itself is as bad as you would expect the acting and voice acting are horrendous and some of the worst of the year, the writing is god awful with way too many fart jokes. The visual effects for the animals mouth’s moving is somehow worse than Kitty Galore. That’s probably due to a budget issue but that’s not an excuse seeing how this came from Warner Brothers Home Entertainment….I’m not joking. That’s what baffles me about this trainwreck it came from a huge studio so there is absolutely no excuse. Paws Unite is a completely different story that takes place 10 years after the last movie, the characters are terrible…they are pretty much walking talking early 2000s cliches. There’s the dog who’s supposed to be an old man, the main character dog, a cat thrown into the mix and then a bunch of other useless characters who don’t do anything but make stupid jokes. As I said before the visual effects are horrendous, they feel like they are straight out of the early 2000s, which is just amazing to me because the first movie came out in 2001 and they somehow look WORSE than the effects used back then. Overall what else can I possibly say? It’s Cats & Dogs 3 nobody asked for this heck nobody asked for this to become a series, but hey if Norm Of The North, Escape Plan, Puppet Master, Amityville, Children Of The Corn and many others can get thousands of sequels so can Cats & Dog. Please skip this movie at all costs it’s not worth your time and if you have kids I can assure you there are better options out there.

Disgrace To Cinema F

The Babysitter: Killer Queen (2020)

Two years after Cole survived a satanic blood cult, he’s living another nightmare: high school. And the demons from his past? Still making his life hell.

I honestly think McG needs to stick with horror because that’s where he is best at, the first Babysitter movie was a huge surprise and quickly became a favorite to watch around Halloween time in the horror community. His next movie was Rim Of The World which In short was a disaster and one of the worst of Netflix’s library, so I was worried about The Babysitter Killer Queen. Not only is The Babysitter Killer Queen a very solid movie but it’s actually one of those rare horror sequels that are better than the original. The acting (for the most part) was fine enough a few standouts are Jenna Ortega, Judah Lewis and Emily Alyn Lind. Everyone else wasn’t too bad with the exception of Bella Thorne who was just terrible, the humor actually worked well. Some jokes didn’t work nearly as well as others, but I did laugh so I’ll give credit where credit is due. Like the first movie it’s a ton of fun, the movie never takes itself seriously it knows what it’s trying to accomplish and for the most part it does just that. I feel like this need to be said while on the surface it may look completely different the movie does follow the first movie very closely, instead of a house where most of the movie took place in the first film it’s an island. Usually I would be completely against this but I’m this case I’m not. I think the formula does work well and creates the fun type of movie. Overall if you are a fan of the first film you will love this one!

8/10 B+