When a Delta Force team is ambushed in enemy territory, a rookie officer refuses to abandon them. Their only hope lies with an Air Force drone pilot as the eyes in the sky during a brutal 48-hour battle for survival.
Land Of Bad is directed by William Eubank director of Love (2011), The Signal (2014), Underwater (2020) and Paranormal Activity: Next of Kin (2021).
I was actually a bit surprised to see William Eubank’s name come up with this movie, I actually quite like some of Eubank’s work such as The Signal (2014) and Underwater (2020). I was very interested to see how this one would be and it’s quite honestly while it’s not anything new and is basically Lone Survivor there’s a decent amount to like here.
Liam Hemsworth is a pretty solid lead he shines the most when it comes to the action scenes. Russell Crowe steals the show and even has a subplot where he goes vegan grocery shopping for his pregnant wife. Which admittedly feels completely odd when it cuts back to JJ Kinney (played by Liam Hemsworth) getting tortured by the villain of the movie, it does take away a lot of the serious tone of the movie which will no doubt absolutely ruin it for some.
I will say it’s a fun B movie with some great action scenes that are actually well done. There’s a great amount of suspense during the first half that fits quite well with the atmosphere, unfortunately the rest of the movie either has very bad editing or is filled to the brim with war movie cliches.
There’s not much else to say here I definitely think Land Of Bad has it’s positives but is unfortunately a bit too familiar and too messy (at least towards the end) to really recommend.
Chronicles the highly scrutinised love life of actor and singer Jennifer Lopez, including her relationships and personal healing journey.
This Is Me Now or This Is Me Now: A Love Story is directed by Dave Meyers director of Foolish (1999) and believe it or not The Hitcher (2007). The film is based on Jennifer Lopez’s ninth album of the same name.
This Is Me Now is bonkers and I honestly have to give Jennifer Lopez some credit here, it’s not everyday you see Fat Joe playing a therapist, a bunch of celebrities such as Post Malone, Kim Petras, Trevor Noah, Keke Palmer, Jane Fonda, Neil deGrasse Tyson and a few others playing zodiac signs and dub themselves as “the Zodiacal Council” and some of the most unintentional hilariously bad voiceover narration you could imagine.
Having that said the movie is pretty much a 65 minute collection of the songs from Lopez’s new album with a plot that is vaguely a story. From what I could gather is about Lopez’s love life but then quickly goes into madness once zodiac signs get involved. The whole music video portion of the movie is about what you expect, sure some of the songs are great but the music video portion of it is bland and not particularly memorable.
I absolutely respect what Jennifer Lopez is going for here, making a very unconventional approach to music films like this, however it becomes way too silly and at times a bit self indulgent like it’s trying to say something meaningful. I’m sure this meant something to Jennifer Lopez as a way to show how her personal love life has gotten better over the years. But everyone else watching I’m not exactly sure if they can really feel the same way.
With that said This Is Me Now is very bizarre and I actually do recommend giving this one watch, it’s the perfect movie to gather a group of friends together and truly witness how off the rails this gets.
A misunderstood teenager and a reanimated Victorian corpse embark on a murderous journey together to find love, happiness, and a few missing body parts.
Lisa Frankenstein is directed by Zelda Williams who is the daughter of the late Robin Williams. This film is her directorial debut!
When I heard Zelda Williams was going to direct a film I was immediately interested and after watching I absolutely can’t wait to see what she does next, because Lisa Frankenstein is a lot of fun and quite fantastic as well. The film is written by Diablo Cody who wrote Juno (2007), Jennifer’s Body (2009) and a few others. Jennifer’s Body is a film that’s gained a massive cult following over the years and I’ll start out by saying that if you loved Jennifer’s Body then you are in luck because Diablo Cody does the same sort of thing here while being a bit different.
Kathryn Newton gives her best performance so far of her career, she plays Lisa Swallows an incredibly fun character who unknowingly revives a monster which is played by Cole Sprouse, Newton completely captures the style, atmosphere and energy the film is going for. Her screen presence is just so much fun here that really compliments the story being told as well as the atmosphere. Her constant mood changes becomes a quite solid character story that is told throughout the film, granted it isn’t anything incredibly complex but it’s definitely there and works.
Cole Sprouse plays the monster and while he gets pretty much no lines, he’s actually quite great as the monster. The interactions between Sprouse and Newton are genuinely funny which really comes from both their deliveries with the script. The monster is a fun character who over the course of the movie gets a few pieces of character moments which are pretty investing.
The style of the film is fantastic, between the costumes, production design, filming and such it’s all top notch. It’s if you took Tim Burton’s film’s particular Edward Scissorhands (1990) and Warm Bodies (2013) and mixed them together, you get something quite beautiful to look at and actually ends up at the point of being bizarre. If it’s one thing Lisa Frankenstein is it’s a lot of fun, Diablo Cody’s script truly works wonders here and offers so much. Zelda Williams also has a clever eye for style that brings so much chaotic energy to a lot of scenes that end up being genuinely hilarious.
The first act does start out a bit on the slow side, which does stop Lisa Frankenstein from reaching it’s full potential, however that is nowhere near enough to stop it from being a blast of fun. I absolutely love what was crafted here and cannot wait to see what Zelda Williams has in store next.
Three British teenage girls go on a rites-of-passage holiday – drinking, clubbing and hooking up, in what should be the best summer of their lives.
How To Have Sex is directed by Molly Manning Walker which is her directorial debut.
The party scene is absolutely nuts and very dangerous (especially for women), I don’t think you needed me to tell you that. But the reason I say that is because that’s one of the key parts of How To Have Sex a film that takes the direction of films such as The Florida Project or Never Rarely Sometimes Always where they capture heartbreaking situations and very raw everyday interactions. In this case How To Have Sex explores and show the honest truth about party going and how absolutely dangerous it can end up being.
Everyone in the cast does a phenomenal job, each give a very raw performance that makes the film all the more disturbing and powerful. But the clear standout is Mia McKenna-Bruce as Tara an incredibly well written character that we follow throughout the film. Tara is a 16 year old who wants to be just like her friends who already lost their virginity, peer pressure of course comes into play when her and her friends plan on having “the best summer ever” which involves drinking, clubbing and sex.
Mia McKenna-Bruce gives a masterful performance that I can only imagine how many women relate to, what’s shown in this film is very real and Mia does an incredible job. We see the highs and lows of Tara during the summer which really brings the viewer on a ride that becomes quite unpredictable. Which leads to some of the most powerful moments of the film that McKenna absolutely nails, the quiet moments where she’s just thinking to herself on what just happened are truly some of the biggest highlights that are never going to leave my mind.
The beginning of the film does a lot of what Harmony Korine’s Spring Breakers (2013) show a lot of party scenes, neon lights, a booming electronic score and so on. It’s quite effective here because it shows the glamor of it all, when you look at neon lights with a DJ and people going absolutely nuts your first thought is “hey that looks like fun” so the movie reels in the viewer to think this might be fun when in reality things are going to get disturbing and much more serious. It’s a technique that Manning Walker absolutely nails and by the end of the film makes you really rethink your mindset of the party scene equaling fun.
Throughout the film the disturbing nature of the film slowly but surely creeps in as well as a theme of betrayal, there’s one scene in particular I’m not going to spoil here but it will absolutely make you get incredibly angry. When I mean betrayal I mean so called friends who got Tara in this situation in the first place just not caring about her safety, the sad part about this is it’s unfortunately very real. Some friends completely ditch others during wild party going and don’t check on their friends they are supposed to. You can absolutely see the pain and feeling of betrayal on Tara’s face as the film goes on which only displays more of McKenna-Bruce’s incredible acting.
Overall How To Have Sex is horrifying film that I truly do think is an important watch. Between Molly Manning Walker’s natural direction, the terrifying script and Mia McKenna-Bruce’s incredible performance that will bring you to tears. It’s an uncomfortable watch that truly is brilliant.
New York sportswriter Mack devises successful hookup techniques with friend Adam and their crew, but when she unexpectedly falls head over heels for one of her targets, they all must learn what it takes to go from simply scoring to playing for keeps.
Players is directed by Trish Sie director of Step Up: All In (2014), Pitch Perfect 3 (2017), The Sleepover (2020) and Sitting In Bars With Cake (2023).
Players is a typical Netflix romantic comedy affair meaning there is very little to comment on. The only couple of highlights here are Gina Rodriguez who gives a much better performance than this movie deserves. I also do like the friend dynamics of the friend group in the movie, when the movie is focused on the friends discussing their plans or them just cheering on for one another it’s actually not that bad. Even if we don’t learn a whole lot about Mack’s (played by Gina Rodriguez) friends you still buy their friendship and the group as a whole are charming.
It’s a shame the movie trades that in for incredibly dull romantic comedy cliches, Tom Ellis’s character Nick is not interesting at the slightest and is unfortunately a major focus of the movie. Ellis does a fine enough job but his character ultimately becomes another forgettable asshole character who Mack learns isn’t such a nice guy. If you watch at least 20 minutes of Players you know exactly what’s going to end up happening.
Overall Players has parts of it that could have actually been quite great if they were expanded upon. Instead this is nothing more than streaming movie fodder that will get forgotten about after Valentine’s Day.
Obsessed with reshooting the ending of his film, director Kim must deal with the censorship authorities, actor complaints and producers who can’t understand the new ending.
Cobweb is directed by Kim Jee-woon director of The Good, The Bad, The Weird (2008), I Saw The Devil (2010), A Tale Of Two Sisters (2003) and several others.
I’m a huge fan of Kim Jee-Woon’s work, with I Saw The Devil (2010) being one of my favorite films of all time I was very excited to finally sit down and watch Cobweb. While the film is not going to completely work for everyone, it absolutely worked for me and what mainly makes the film work is the amount of passion of it all. Both in Jee-Woon’s direction and the main character Kim Ki-yeol’s passion to finish his film Cobweb the way he wants and make it a masterpiece.
The performances are all fantastic In Cobweb especially Song Kang-ho’s performance as the earlier mentioned Kim Ki-yeol a director who wishes to complete his film the way he wants. What we have here is a very skillfully crafted and quite comedic meta commentary on film and directors wanting to create their vision. The film absolutely nails this down quite well and really delivers some quite memorable moments throughout, the film goes off the rails with its comedy quite often which only compliments the film’s themes quite well.
The clever use of sequences alternating is impressive and masterful work from Kee Jee-woon. The scenes in color depict events that happen while the crew is filming under time constraints as well as censorship, the actors are visibly reluctant and at times are even called in at the last minute. The sequences in black and white are of the studio shooting scenes, it’s a spectacular balance between the two that really paint a powerful picture. Kim Ki-yeol goes so mad he starts boarding up the doors so his actors can’t leave or not have any distractions that get in the way of him making his masterpiece. It’s played in this soap opera and comedic way that makes the film work due to the writing and the performances.
Overall Cobweb is an incredibly fun ride from beginning to end, as I said it may not work for everyone but if it sounds like your thing i recommend giving it a go.
Recently incarcerated, Baron strikes up a friendship with his new cellmate, a man with a history of prison breaks. As they hatch a plan to escape, Baron recalls how he met the love of his life and how they came up with a scheme to rob a bank.
Marmalade is directed by Keir O’Donnell which is his directorial debut.
I honestly had no idea what to expect from Marmalade going in, what got my attention was the cast as well as O’Donnell an actor who has done quite a bit of work (Wedding Crashers, Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes, The Break-Up, Gifted and many others) being in the director’s chair. Despite a couple missteps this was definitely a huge surprise.
Joe Kerry, Camila Morrone and Aldis Hodge all give quite fantastic performances, each of them bring something special to the table. Kerry and Morrone completely nail every single scene the two are together in, they capture this line of being surprisingly wholesome while being absolutely insane. Joey Kerry’s character Baron talking about how much his mother means to him and doing anything he can to insure his mother’s health and safety is touching and quite meaningful as well.
Camila Morrone is truly fun here, her character Marmalade is a great mix with Baron and the two ooze with chemistry. The little moments of Marmalade and Baron talking about each other’s past, family and why they need the money so bad is some incredibly strong character work that really shows the acting talent of Kerry and Morrone. The conversation between Kerry and Aldis Hodge is quite great as well, there’s so many character moments, emotional moments and a lot of dialogue heavy clues that paint a pretty interesting picture that happens later in the film.
I do think the movie does suffer from the first act being a bit too generic, Marmalade starts out as very typical heist drama movie where the main characters plan out the heist. However when the second act rolls around that’s when the movie gets interesting, there are a ton of plot twists that are cleverly written into the story. The script from Keir O’Donnell manages to take a familiar heist movie and turn into something quite different from what we normally see.
Between the strong performances, the plot twists and O’Donnell’s direction and writing. Marmalade is definitely something worth checking out if you haven’t seen it!
A teen living with her strong-willed mother must take her brother to a specialized facility. She strikes up an unlikely friendship with an eccentric activist at protests surrounding a landmark medical case.
Suncoast is directed by Laura Chinn which is her directorial debut. The film is a semi-autobiographical her brother Max was diagnosed with brain cancer when Chinn was a teenager six years after being cared for by Chinn and her family. Max entered hospice care in 2005 at Suncoast a facility in Florida.
Suncoast is a film about grieving and loss, while that might not be a new concept Laura Chinn clearly knows how to put it into film as she has experienced it. The performances for starters really bring out the film’s themes, Nico Park absolutely hits it out of the park with her performance as Doris. Throughout the film we follow Doris in a familiar yet still very fascinating coming of age story like way, we see her go to school, try and make friends, interact with others and have conversations with Laura Linney and Woody Harrelson mostly. Nico Park truly brings such a natural performance that really does feel like a teenager having conflicting feelings about what is currently going on, trying to keep everything inside before just letting it all out in the end. It’s such a touching performance that really captured the heart of this film.
Laura Liney as Kristine is another huge part that holds this film together, her performance as Doris’s mother truly captures a very destroyed and grieving mother who knows her son could die at any moment. Much like Nico Park’s performance there’s this natural element to Liney’s performance that makes it all the more powerful and meaningful, the mother and daughter bond is very raw and comes across as incredibly natural. There’s several moments where the script from Laura Chinn allows Laura Liney to completely go all out and deliver some of the best acting from a film so far this year.
Woody Harrelson’s performance as Paul a protester who meets Doris and builds a friendship with her is touching. While we aren’t given the most development of Paul (expanding upon the protests would have been quite interesting) what makes Paul work as a character is mainly Harrelson’s performance and how likable he is as a character. His interactions with Doris are sweet and actually have some genuinely funny moments that don’t take away from the film’s sadder moments.
The film itself is beautifully written and directed by Laura Chinn, while the movie does have a few hiccups in the road such as not going a bit further with some parts of the film (the protests mostly). That doesn’t take away how natural the film feels and the amount of heart it delivers, there’s so many touching moments that capture the issues of being a teenager. Powerful moments of wanting to grieve are present throughout, it’s heartbreaking story that absolutely captures the audience’s attention and while not being anything new is absolutely touching in every single way possible.
New student Cady Heron gets welcomed into the top of the social food chain by an elite group of popular girls called the Plastics, ruled by the conniving queen bee Regina George. However, when Cady makes the major misstep of falling for Regina’s ex-boyfriend, she soon finds herself caught in their crosshairs.
Mean Girls (2024) is directed by Samantha Jayne and Arturo Perez Jr. which is both of their directorial debut. The movie is based on the Broadway musical of the same name which is based on Mark Waters’s Mean Girls (2004).
It should go without saying that Mean Girls (2004) has built a massive following over the years, it’s a hilarious movie that still holds up today and is a prime example of high school film done right. I can’t comment on the quality of the Broadway show since I haven’t seen it, but it’s worth mentioning I know some people who liked it and others who did not. Despite the trailers not being very good for Mean Girls (2024) the movie itself is actually not bad, it definitely is heavily flawed which we will get into why. But I was decently surprised of how it turned out
For starters, I’m sure this has been repeated countless times in other reviews but it needs to be said how excellent Reneé Rapp really is as Regina George. Almost immediately when she enters the movie she completely captures what made Rachel McAdams’s portrayal so great, she puts in this natural feel that is striking, genuinely funny and has beautiful as well as exciting screen presence. Rapp captured this more modern Regina George while also having the spirit of the original, it’s truly great to see and definitely think Rapp’s performance is one of the highlights of the movie.
Auli’l Cravalho as Janis is quite great as well, while the script doesn’t change her character that much Cravalho is able to make it work with her acting which is quite great. Tim Meadows and Tina Fey reprise their roles from the original, both of which are quite great, they do the same sort of thing they did in the original movie but it’s nice to see them back.
The musical element of the movie is pretty great especially combined with the choreography and each of the songs matching the tone of each of the scenes, granted I don’t think any of the songs hit it out of the park. But they are fun to watch and are quite entertaining in their own right. Once again Reneé Rapp truly shines here.
Honestly the major problem here is the movie heavily relies on the original, it reuses a lot of the same scenes, same dialogue and even same jokes. While it is nice to see some of those iconic scenes and moments again, it does feel a bit cheap like the movie is holding back from doing something different. It’s a bit frustrating because that really does not give you a whole lot to comment on, sure there are a few moments where the movie does make certain scenes it’s own by putting it’s own twist on it. But it’s not enough to really say that the movie is much different from the original.
Despite that however I do think Mean Girls (2024) is decently fun, I’m sure this will go on to be somewhat of a cult hit especially by younger audiences. It’s a great time that I do think could have been better.
An aspiring art intern is invited on a last-minute work trip to London, where she meets a handsome stranger.
Upgraded is directed by Carlson Young who previously directed The Blazing World (2021).
I’m one of maybe like thirty people who saw The Blazing World (2021) and ended up really liking it so I was excited to see what Carlson Young would do next and I’m glad to see her explore a different genre. While yes when you really get down to it Upgraded is a weaker The Devil Wears Prada there’s a level of charm here that actually works quite well in the movie’s favor.
Camila Mendes gives a solid performance that actually shows a lot of her talent, I’m glad to see she’s given another script that actually gives her a lot to work with. It helps that Mendes’s character Ana is genuinely fun to watch, Mendes’s chemistry with Archie Renaux is also quite great and the two work quite well together. Marisa Tomei just seems like she’s having a blast in her performance which is genuinely funny whether it was unintentional or not.
The third act does stumble a bit with a lot of the usual cliches that ultimately make the movie feel a lot longer than it really is and the huge lie of this movie can be a bit too much for some people to really buy. But the movie is a silly romantic comedy that isn’t trying to take itself too seriously, there’s a decent amount of fun moments that make the movie work.
Overall Upgraded isn’t really anything new to the genre but it’s a fun time that works just enough to recommend to fans of the genre. This is probably something I’m never going to go back to but I can’t say I did not have fun with this movie.
Jerome Reviews... 