Kandisha and The Last Letter From Your Lover (2021) Movie Reviews!

After the devastating loss of her child, Nyla (Amira Casar) takes on a case involving a vengeful spirit called Kandisha.

Alexandre Bustillo and Julien Maury are both directors I truly like despite not really directing anything great since Inside (which is fantastic) however Kandisha is a step in the right direction. Although it does feel a lot like Candyman the movie is still pretty decent and manages to stand out of one of Shudder’s better movies. The acting is overall decent, the writing is solid with a few pretty decent scares. The story itself does take a bit to get going and for the most part isn’t really anything new, but at least Kandisha tries to have it’s own identity. Not much else to say decent watch!

Kandisha is now available on Shudder!

6/10 C+

After finding a trove of love letters from the 1960s, a journalist sets out to solve the mystery of a secret affair.

It’s kinda baffling to see that The Last Letter From Your Lover is directed by Augustine Frizzell the director who did Never Goin Back (2018) plus it was her directional debut! It was an incredible film and I couldn’t wait to see what she would do next….this was just not her style. Yes Frizzell gives the movie a nice aesthetic and at least filmmaking wise the movie isn’t too bad. Plus Shailene Woodley and Felicity Jones were both pretty solid, everything else felt very below average. The writing felt way too generic for it’s own good, this is the same story that’s been told before but done more poorly (I get it’s an adaption but still this has been done so many times already) the chemistry is just not there and the movie ultimately ends up being very forgettable by the end. This is the sort of thing where Netflix just said “look we don’t have anything big to release at the moment let’s put this out” and I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if this was the mindset. It’s not a bad movie but not something to check out immediately unless your a die hard fan of the genre.

The Last Letter From Your Lover is now available on Netflix!

5/10 C

Black Widow (2021) Movie Review!

Natasha Romanoff confronts the darker parts of her ledger when a dangerous conspiracy with ties to her past arises.

A Black Widow solo movie was an obvious choice to happen at some point….it’s too bad it happened way too late. With that said Black Widow is one of those MCU movies where I lost interest for quite some time until maybe a couple weeks before it’s release when I became interested. Black Widow unfortunately does very little to change up anything in the MCU, I’ll start with what I really liked because I certainly don’t think this is a bad movie by any means. The opening I thought was actually pretty well done combined with the cover of “Smells Like Teen Spirit (which was actually used in the trailer for The Gallows) was pretty great and a very dark atmosphere to it….it’s just a huge shame the rest of the movie couldn’t live up to that. Florence Pugh gives a fantastic performance and is the reason why I would say to check it out if you want. She has so much power in her role and really delivers whenever she’s on screen, she continues to show why she’s one of the best actresses working today. I will give Black Widow this it definitely makes me excited to see Florence Pugh’s future in the MCU. Finally there’s a few action scenes which I liked nothing mind blowing but a lot of fun and then the end credit scene which I won’t spoil but I found it interesting. Now on to the problems I had with Black Widow, for starters the movie itself felt like it was playing way too safe to the point where it starts to dip into below average territory. The pacing was dreadful combine that with the running time that goes by painstakingly slow and it becomes a very uninteresting movie. The writing while it does have it’s moments is really nothing special at all, the biggest problem however is with the villain “Taskmaster” which is another case of the MCU taking a fantastic villain that has so much potential and completely failing. The only way I’m going to be able to talk about this is if I give some slight spoilers so skip if you haven’t seen it! Anyway the reveal of Taskmaster is completely ridiculous it’s a character who had a total of 3 lines in the entire movie, I am all for changing the character however said character must have actual development and build up which isn’t what happened here. It’s the equivalent of Roy Burns being reveled as the killer in Friday The 13th: A New Beginning a character who had a total of one scene (as far as I remember). So seeing this happen in Black Widow is very baffling to be quite honest, finally there’s the rest of the cast which all do a fair job but nothing absolutely spectacular Rachel Weisz I will say other than Florence Pugh is another standout! Overall Black Widow is one of the movies in the MCU that really could have been more, however they went with the safest option. Being safe is not always a bad thing and I get the MCU is going to have it’s not so good movies like any other franchise. However by the end Black Widow only leaves you with being excited for Florence Pugh and not much else.

Black Widow is now in theaters and on Disney Plus Premier Access!

5/10 C

Space Jam: A New Legacy (2021) Movie Review!

A rogue artificial intelligence kidnaps the son of famed basketball player LeBron James, who then has to work with Bugs Bunny to win a basketball game.

Get ready because this is going to be a long one, a sequel to Space Jam was inevitable whenever the topic of “movies that will most likely get sequels” or “sequels we want to see” Space Jam was always there. Fast forward to 2021 and the sequel is out and look I’m not going to act like the first movie is some sort of masterpiece, in fact I’m not even a fan of the first movie It was one of those movies where I liked it as a kid but now it’s really not good. However the first movie at least tried (Michael Jordan was horrendous however) the same can’t be said for Space Jam: A New Legacy. So to start off if you spent time on Twitter and saw the number of cameos in the movie…it’s just as painful as they look. Each and every single one of them feels forced there’s going to be spoilers of what some of them are so skip ahead if you do not want to read! The cameos in question is pretty much anything that Warner Bros owns from Rick And Morty, Mad Max Fury Road, Superman, Austin Powers and several others heck during the basketball game you can see numerous characters like The Iron Giant, The Flintstones, Batman villains, the Clockwork Orange crew (yes Alex and his gang are for whatever reason there) and a ton of others. (END OF SPOILERS HERE!) I feel like my friend said it best about this movie “this is the equivalent of a rich kid coming into show and tell and instead of showing one item he or she decides to show like 50 items.” This is the type of filmmaking that I consider not filmmaking, it’s nothing but a million dollar studio looking down at the audience and saying “look how much IPs we own!!” The worst part about it is none of these cameos do anything for the story at all, they are all just there without any rhyme or reason. The only thing I can say I liked in this huge mess was the animation, I thought it was actually well done and gave the characters the energy they usually have. There were one or two jokes that were okay but the rest of the jokes didn’t land at all, I know I say “this movie was not funny” quite often but trust me when I say that a majority of these jokes were horrendous. During the first act of the movie they already use a Big Chungus meme which completely comes out of nowhere, let’s get to the acting, writing and story. The acting is complete garbage LeBron James’s performance was quite awful, it feels like he’s not trying at all, with no energy or effort put into it at all. On the other hand Don Cheadle gives a “it’s so bad it’s hilarious” type performance he truly looks like he’s having a blast which is something refreshing to see, the writing and story are both terrible and a complete total mess. Random plots just happen for no other reason which brings me back to the cameos, you can feel the desperation in the writing when it comes to the cameos to the point where it’s embarrassing. Did I forget to mention that it’s 2 hours long? A huge giant commercial for HBO Max and the rest of Warner Bros IPs, with horrendous pacing that feels like you are sitting through a 4 hour commercial on loop. I have nothing else to say Space Jam: A New Legacy is a disaster, this is what happens when a studio resorts to one of the lost common denominator of filmmaking, hadn’t been for the animation and Don Cheadle this movie would have absolutely gotten my lowest rating.

Space Jam: A New Legacy is now in theaters and HBO Max!

1/10 F

Fear Street Part Three: 1666 (2021) Movie Review!

The origins of Sarah Fier’s curse are finally revealed as history comes full circle on a night that changes the lives of Shadysiders forever.

The final part of the Fear Street trilogy is here, and while it is a decent way to end the trilogy I don’t think it’s as strong as the previous two movies. The first half of the movie tries to be The Witch but doesn’t do a good job at it at all, I completely understand what they were going for but it just didn’t work. The acting definitely helped the first half of the movie move along as it was pretty solid all around, I think what hurt the first half of the movie was the dialogue at times it really did not fit the setting they were going for, the second half of the movie however I thought was pretty solid. It brought back what the last two movies had which ended up being an enjoyable ride with some great kills and tension. The biggest flaw with this movie is that like how I compared the two parts of the movie feel like they were made by two completely different directors, one wanted a slow Witch type feel movie which didn’t work and the other wanted what the last two Fear Street movies are fun slasher movies. It may sound like I didn’t like this one but that’s not the case I did enjoy for what it was the acting as I said was very solid throughout, the second half is a ton of fun and the movie wraps up the trilogy quite nicely!

Fear Street Part Three is now available on Netflix!

7/10 B

Fear Street Part Two: 1978 (2021) Movie Review!

A summer of fun turns into a gruesome fight for survival as a killer terrorizes Camp Nightwing in the cursed town of Shadyside.

Fear Street Part One: 1994 was a throwback to the Scream era of slasher films, Fear Street Part Two: 1978 is a throwback to late 70s and the 80s slasher films. Like the first movie 1978 does a fantastic job of showing a tribute to the time period it’s presenting. Sadie Sink does a fantastic job in her role as well as the rest of the cast, the kills are classic in every single way possible. They are a ton of fun to watch and are surprisingly quite great, once again the soundtrack is fantastic and really delivers when it comes to capturing the time period, it’s energetic and makes you feel like your in that era. What’s nice is that you get to know each character, some definitely get more development than others. So when the kills actually do happen there’s more of an impact to them, as far as which movie is better I definitely prefer this film over the first one (although I loved the first) it’s a beautiful love letter to the slasher genre that I recommend checking out!!

Fear Street Part Two: 1978 is now available on Netflix!

9/10 A

Gunpowder Milkshake (2021) Movie Review!

Three generations of women fight back against those who could take everything from them.

After I finished watching Gunpowder Milkshake I thought it was pretty solid, but the more I thought about it the more I found a ton of flaws. What I did like was Karen Gillan she gives a pretty strong role that I can easily see her being in several more action movies to come. The soundtrack is also really strong, a lot of it matches the tone the movie is going for which is definitely appreciated. I will say out of a lot of the John Wick clones that have been released over the years this is definitely one of the better ones but still ends up not really doing it’s own thing. This is where many of the problems come in, while the action scenes are fun and are shot pretty okay the movie is still clearly trying to be John Wick and not it’s own thing. Which is a shame because this is the type of movie where it most definitely could have been it’s own thing, if this movie had a more seasoned director and the writing was a lot more original I feel this would have hit it out of the park.

Gunpowder Milkshake is now available on Netflix!

5/10 C

The Tomorrow War (2021) Movie Review!

A family man is drafted to fight in a future war where the fate of humanity relies on his ability to confront the past.

The Tomorrow War is the end result when you try to make your movie as unnecessarily big as possible, it’s clear they were trying to go all out with this movie a lot of it didn’t stick. I’ll give credit where credit is due the action scenes were entertaining and I thought some of the monsters were pretty neat especially some of the designs. Despite Chris Pratt’s performance being almost identical to a lot of other movies in his career he wasn’t terrible, what ultimately hurts this movie is the very generic plot combined with the running time. The movie is 2 hours and 20 minutes and it’s unfortunately one of those movies where you feel the running time going by painfully slow, it doesn’t help that the characters aren’t interesting at the slightest and the writing doesn’t really do much for the movie at all. It’s just kind of there to tell a very generic story and to move it along to the finish line, it’s a shame because The Tomorrow War definitely had potential but it suffers from either lazy or safe decisions that hold it back from being anything good. Unless you are a die hard Chris Pratt fan I don’t recommend this one, it’s not one of the worst of the year (far from it) but it is one of the most forgettable.

The Tomorrow War is now available on Amazon Prime Video!

5/10 C

America The Motion Picture (2021) Movie Review!

A chainsaw-wielding George Washington teams with beer-loving bro Sam Adams to take down the Brits in a tongue-in-cheek riff on the American Revolution.

My friends and I talk about film quite a lot (what a shock!) somehow the topic of Netflix releases came up and I read the plot of America: The Motion Picture which we all agreed sounded like it could be fun in a trashy type way….it was not that. Instead of making something that’s at least enjoyable this movie goes out of it’s way to be as terrible and uninteresting as possible. This movie can be pretty much boiled down to someone’s terrible fanfiction of George Washington, Abraham Lincoln and so on. The writing is horrendous there was not one joke that landed all of it was either edgy, immature or just not funny at all. I feel like another good way to describe this movie is it feels like one of those terrible adult animation tv shows that came out in the 2010s. I really don’t know what else to say this was absolute garbage.

America The Motion Picture is now available on Netflix!

1/10 F

Zola (2021) Movie Review!

Zola, a Detroit waitress, is seduced into a weekend of stripping in Florida for some quick cash — but the trip becomes a sleepless 48-hour odyssey involving a nefarious friend, her pimp and her idiot boyfriend.

It took me a bit to finally sit down and decide what rating to give Zola, I’ve been thinking about it for 2 weeks now and the more I think about it the more I love it. Zola was one of my most anticipated films it was originally supposed to release in 2020 but due to COVID it was delayed to this year. Zola is based on a Twitter thread by Aziah Zola King and quite a popular one in fact it’s one of Twitter’s most iconic moments of the site, anyone who has a Twitter account probably has some sort of idea about the thread. The film itself is absolutely beautiful, the first thing I noticed which I was certainly not expecting from Zola is that it was filmed on a 16mm camera giving this film a 70s or 80s look to it. Which does bring a very interesting element into the film which is a past vs modern type feel to it. The modern part being the story is taking place in modern times while the filming is the past part as I said before, the performances are all fantastic! Taylour Paige and Riley Keough have fantastic chemistry between one another they both give these raw performances that are both shocking yet fascinating at the same time. Colman Domingo continues to show why he’s one of the best actors working today, he truly delivers on every single level and fits in extremely well with the rest of the cast. Nicholas Braun’s performance is really strong as well, he plays this awkward type which I feel he absolutely nailed those types of roles I find to be very hard to portray but this is definitely one of the most raw of it’s kind. The writing is incredible there’s so many scenes that truly standout the writing is strong, chaotic, energetic and very interesting as well. The music fits the scene that’s currently happening, it’s truly beautifully done a very nice touch is the song at the end which I won’t spoil! The detail in Zola is truly something special, combine that with the 16mm camera I mentioned before and you have yourself a film that goes out of it’s way to make sure the audience has as much detail as possible! Overall Zola is a fantastic film that is quite masterful Janicza Bravo did a fantastic job in the directors chair, because this film gave so many strong performances some of the best of the year. Zola is one of the best films of the year, definitely check this one out!

Zola is now available in theaters!

10/10 A+

Here Today (2021) Movie Review!

When veteran comedy writer Charlie Burnz meets New York singer Emma Payge, they form an unlikely yet touching friendship that kicks the generation gap aside and redefines the meaning of love and trust.

Here Today definitely had potential but unfortunately is ruined by a number of things, I will say that Billy Crystal and Tiffany Haddish do a fine enough of job and have a decent chemistry it’s nothing amazing but it works for the movie. However everything else is just terrible, the balance of comedy and drama is horrendous here. At one moment the movie is trying to take itself very seriously and then right after there’s a unfunny joke making several scenes feel very awkward. It’s like nobody could decide if they wanted to make this a drama or a comedy so they went with both and this was the end result. The writing wasn’t strong at all there was so much missing to make the chemistry between Haddish and Crystal even better, there’s a few sweet scenes that do work every once in awhile but that’s very far and few in between. Overall Here Today is very forgettable and not something I recommended watching!

Here Today is now available on VOD Platforms!

3/10 D-