A young married couple’s life turns upside down after secrets are revealed about each other’s past.
Role Play is a prime example of an already not very good movie getting completely broken from it’s third act.
Kaley Cuoco is solid here, she gives yet another fun performance. Even if I’m not always a fan of the movies she’s in she does manage to give the performance life and that’s no exception here. David Oyelowo is also pretty solid as well, his character is quite bland but he manages to make it work for the most part.
Role Play starts out with a plot we have seen plenty of times before a hired killer leading a double life and keeping her family in the dark about it. This concept has been done numerous times before and definitely done better as well, as I said earlier it’s mostly Cuoco and Otelowo who keep this movie from completely falling apart during the first two acts of the movie.
However after that the movie crumbles, between an absolutely ridiculous motive, very poor action scenes, a lot of unfunny humor and just incredibly painful dialogue during the third act. Role Play falls so hard on its face that it never gets back up. It’s a shame because there were some decent ideas during the first bit of the movie that whether intentional or not was still at least interesting. Taking this whole double life aspect and having symbolize the marriage of Emma (Cuoco) and Dave (Otelowo) is at the very least something, but we aren’t given any meaningful development on that and instead get a horrendous ending.
Overall Role Play is terrible, there’s decent enough ideas here that might have been done countless times before. But there was still potential to do something great here, but that potential is never met here.
The Anti-Monitor (the Monitor’s evil counterpart) is released into the DC Multiverse and begins to destroy the different Earths that compose it. The Monitor attempts to recruit heroes from across the Multiverse to fight back.
Justice League: Crisis On Infinite Earths Part One is part of the eighth and final installment of the Tomorrowverse…yes you read that correctly, apparently the Tomorrowverse is already ending after only previously having seven installments. To say that this series wasn’t rushed would be lying, it started out promising enough with the first films such as Superman: Man Of Tomorrow, Justice Society: World War II and Batman: The Long Halloween Parts 1 and 2. After that things went downhill and even got progressively worse. Say what you will about the DCAU despite the quality of a lot of the installments there was 16 movies and there was some sort of plan.
Justice League: Crisis On Infinite Earths Part One really does not feel like this big finale at all, while there are still two more parts that are coming this year. A lot of the movie is being introduced to characters who either haven’t seen in awhile, or haven’t seen at all in this universe. There’s a couple throwbacks to the DCAU which is nice I guess but that’s not nearly enough to really matter.
The voice acting is decent enough here, there isn’t a performance that particularly stands out unfortunately, the animation is definitely a hit or miss. There’s times where it looks fine and then others where you can really tell they went with the most simple and bland form of animation just to get this movie out there at the beginning of the year.
I will say there was a few character moments that did work pretty okay, the movie definitely prioritizes character over plot which I guess would be fine if a lot of the other characters had a lot more time to be fully fleshed out from previous installments. But I think the movie does an okay job with The Flash in particular as there are some genuinely touching scenes.
Overall most of the problems with this movie isn’t necessarily the movie’s fault, it’s the completely rushed universe making a lot of these character moments not really matter to the viewer. Hopefully Part 2 is a bit better..
Justice League: Crisis On Infinite Earths Part One is available on all VOD platforms.
Forced into early retirement by a degenerative illness, former baseball player Ray Waller moves into a new house with his wife and two children. He hopes that the backyard swimming pool will be fun for the kids and provide physical therapy for himself. However, a dark secret from the home’s past soon unleashes a malevolent force that drags the family into the depths of inescapable terror.
Night Swim is directed by Bryce McGuire and is based on the 2014 short film of the same name which was directed by McGuire and Rod Blackhurst.
Night Swim is the very definition of a first week of January horror movie, granted that doesn’t always mean the movie is going to be bad. Just last year M3GAN released and that was quite great, so I went in with an open mind that maybe Night Swim which is about a possessed swimming pool could at the very least be fun…that’s unfortunately not what happened here.
The only positive I can really give this movie is Kerry Condon’s performance and even then that’s being generous, she really isn’t given anything interesting to do and really just serves as the typical wife character that a lot of these bad studio horror movies always have.
What almost immediately kills Night Swim is that the movie itself takes itself way too seriously, despite being about a possessed swimming pool the movie goes for this serious tone that you would find in a lot of haunted house movies but instead of a house it’s a swimming pool. Somebody actually summed this movie up quite well when they said that Night Swim is if you took out Ryan Reynolds from the 2005 remake of Amityville and made it terrible.
What you are left with is a complete and total mess that was honestly a missed opportunity, Night Swim actually had potential to be a campy horror movie that is about a killer object that might have went on to be somewhat of a cult hit. But unfortunately this really acts like a traditional terrible studio horror movie, every cliche in the book is here terrible jumpscares, the very forgettable family, plus you have the terrible script that gives absolutely nobody involved to work with.
I wish there was more to be said here, but when you take a haunted house story and then proceed to copy and paste but with a swimming pool you are really not given all that much to say.
A rogue insurgent assassinates foreign journalists and makes it look like the CIA is responsible. Coaxed out of retirement to clear the agency’s name, a deadly operative must confront his checkered past while unraveling an international conspiracy.
The Bricklayer is directed by Renny Harlin who’s directed Die Hard 2 (1990), Deep Blue Sea (1999), Cutthroat Island (1995), Exorcist: The Beginning (2004), The Legend Of Hercules (2014) and many others.
I am really struggling what to exactly say here because there really isn’t not that much to The Bricklayer (horrible name by the way), Aaron Eckhart and Nina Dobrev are both fine enough and work the best they can with such an unimaginative script. The movie is essentially any given action movie with a big action movie star that ends up getting released on VOD platforms, granted those types of movies can be so bad they end up being hilarious…but not this one!
The main problem with The Bricklayer is just about everything you would expect happens, it’s a very bland CIA action movie that has a few fine enough moments and that’s really about it, I understand these types of movies don’t have a whole lot to work with a lot of the time, but the least they could do is actually be entertaining or at the very least be memorable because that’s not happening here.
Not much else to say here, other then this was the first 2024 film I watched this year…
An artist grieving the loss of his famous writer husband takes his two best friends on a trip to Paris, where they unpack messy secrets and hard truths
Good Grief is Dan Levy’s directorial debut and the movie pretty much lets you know what it’s about right from the start…exploring how some people deal with loss and grief. Something that has been done countless times before in film but it’s always interesting to see different perspectives on the topic.
Dan Levy shows a lot of promise as a director, he tells a very sincere and honest story of his character Marc going through the loss of his boyfriend Oliver (played by Luke Evans), the performances are also quite great. Dan Levy is of course charming as always, Ruth Negga and Himesh Patel are quite solid in the supporting roles. The chemistry between Levy, Negga and Patel as friends really comes off very natural which makes the movie more grounded which is huge plus if you are trying to tell a story like this.
The movie itself surprisingly looks quite great, the sweaters are honestly eye catching combined with the setting it helps the movie standout. I say surprising because a lot of Netflix movies tend to have the exact same look to them and this visual style that gets old after awhile, but here it’s definitely more eye catching and actually fits with the story being told.
Good Grief’s issues are mainly the humor that falls flat and certain scenes that go on for a bit too long, there should have been a bit more time in the oven when it comes to editing because a lot of scenes do go on for way too long as the camera just lingers at times.
Admittedly Good Grief is not really saying anything new about loss or grief, but I don’t think it really needs to. This is clearly a personal project for Dan Levy and he does quite a great job of inviting the viewer over to hear how he deals with loss and grief, it also helps that he’s such a likable performer along with the rest of the cast.
In 1972, a Uruguayan flight crashes in the remote heart of the Andes, forcing survivors to become each other’s best hope.
Society Of The Snow is directed by J. A. Bayona who’s directed The Orphanage (2007), The Impossible (2012), A Monster Calls (2016) and Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom (2018). Society Of The Snow is about the Uruguayan 1972 Andes flight disaster, the film is also an adaption to Pablo Vierci’s book of the same name.
In terms of telling events of a disaster Society Of The Snow isn’t doing anything new, the Uruguayan flight disaster has been told through film a couple times before most notably Alive (1993) directed by Frank Marshall or the one with Ethan Hawke as some people like to call it. What is different however is the way Society Of The Snow goes about telling what happened, it documents the accounts of all 16 survivors many of which the author Pablo Vierci knew from his childhood.
Society Of The Snow is a much more personal telling of the disaster which ultimately hits the viewer much harder, especially when it comes to fantastic performances from everyone in the cast. They all do this fantastic job of making their performances as grounded as possible and really brings you into the film, the sound combined with the crash’s impact is a huge gut punch to the viewer. It’s something that a lot of the tellings of this disaster are missing…the impact especially with such an incredible survival story you want to master the impact which this film does.
Hearing the perspectives of all the survivors combined with the cinematography that truly captures the film’s atmosphere is truly haunting yet powerful, some people like to say that the “Uruguayan flight disaster is one of the greatest survival stories ever told” and it’s quite hard to disagree. What these people had to go through and what they had to do to survive or try to keep each other alive is truly sad with them having no choice but cannibalize the bodies of the people who sadly did not make it. The film does such a great job of exploring this part of the disaster without coming off as exploitive or shocking, it’s done in such a honest and respectful way that shows nobody wanted to do this but had no other choice.
Overall Society Of The Snow is incredibly solid, it may run for a bit too long and there are some slight pacing issues however it is such solid film that tells the disaster incredibly well. Definitely recommend giving this one a watch.
2024 is looking to be such a great year for film, the lineup in certain months and a lot of films that are confirmed to release this year but don’t have a release date is insane….but first we have to get through January.
A lot of the films on this list are technically 2023 films, just ones that got a limited release or are being submitted into the Oscars best foreign film category. If I left out those movies there would only be 5 movies on this list.
Before I start there is one film coming out this month that I saw last year at Sundance that I absolutely recommend checking it out which is
Sometimes I Think About Dying – A fantastic film that I think a lot of people are going to find incredibly relatable. Excellent performances from Daisy Ridley and Dave Merheje, very stylish shots with a lot variety and some quite fascinating character work. If you get the chance make sure to see this one January 26th.
Now the list.
10. Miller’s Girl – January 26th (Theaters) honestly I’m only seeing this for Jenna Ortega and I do hope it’s trashy fun.
9. He Went That Way – January 5th (Theaters) and January 12th (VOD)
8. Destroy All Neighbors – January 12th (Shudder)
7. Good Grief – January 5th (Netflix)
6. The Kitchen – January 19th (Netflix)
5. I.S.S. – January 19th (Theaters)
4. Society Of Snow – Out Now (Netflix)
3. The Peasants – January 26th (Theaters)
2. Totem – January 26th (Theaters)
1. Housekeeping For Beginners – January 26th (Theaters)
One final thing, I’m going to be posting my Top 30 Best Films of 2023 probably towards the end of the month. There’s a few more releases I want to see before finalizing the list.
Brought back to life by an unorthodox scientist, a young woman runs off with a lawyer on a whirlwind adventure across the continents. Free from the prejudices of her times, she grows steadfast in her purpose to stand for equality and liberation.
Poor Things is directed by Yorgos Lanthimos a director who has constantly shown time and time again that he can deliver some absolutely fascinating films such as Dogtooth (2009), The Lobster (2015), The Killing Of A Sacred Deer (2017), The Favourite (2018) and a few others. Lanthimos is absolutely one of the best directors working today and he shows that even more with Poor Things.
Let’s get the obvious out of the way that you have probably already have heard by now, but it can’t be understated how incredible Emma Stone’s performance as Bella Baxter. It’s the very definition of a career best performance that is incredibly striking, humorous and truly captivating. Stone’s acting brings so much life to Bella Baxter that truly makes her one of the best written characters from a film this year. This is easily a type of performance that could have easily went wrong in a lot of ways, but the way Stone naturally builds the character from the ground up throughout the film as Bella goes through in evolution is truly fascinating and hits every single note storywise. Bella is a character who easily wins the viewer over the very second she is introduced and want to see her explore the world she’s in as well as wanting her to reach her goals.
Mark Ruffalo who plays Duncan Wedderburn also gives a career best performance, he’s absolutely hysterical and gives so many memorable moments that take his acting talent and combine it with his comedic timing incredibly well. He does such a fantastic job of playing this buffoon who wants to be taken seriously but ends up being hilarious and I mean that in the best way possible because that’s ultimately what Duncan is as a character.
Willem Dafoe and Ramy Youusef are also pretty strong here as well, although Dafoe who plays Dr. Godwin Baxter or “God” is missing through a huge portion of the film he still plays a very important part of the story and is still fantastic. You can never go wrong with having Willem Dafoe in your film and he absolutely feels like a natural fit in Lanthimos’s strange world. Youusef works incredibly well with Willem Dafoe when they are on screen together and actually do have a couple hilarious lines between one another, Youusef is also really charming and fits quite well with the rest of the cast. His character Max McCandles and his bond with Bella is really nice to watch and is actually quite comedic.
The film itself is this unhinged gothic fairytale type Frankenstein story that has so much creativity and imagination all over it, it definitely goes without saying that the film itself is beautiful. The amount of attention to detail is insane, every single frame of this film has this dreamlike look to it that you never want to wake up from due to how fascinating it looks. The film makes you want to explore each and every corner of its world, it’s truly mesmerizing and absolutely captivating to the eye. It’s a beautiful yet haunting world due to some of the creatures we see walking around which is fitting since this is directed by Lanthimos.
Speaking of which Lanthimos has directed some disturbing and quite weird films in the past, Poor Things is definitely on the more weird side of things, it’s much more abstract and the humor is definitely one of the center focuses, but it has everything that Lanthimos’s previous films had. The way Lanthimos tackles many different themes in each of his films is what makes you keep coming back to them and here is no exception. Poor Things has so many metaphors that are about Bella’s self discovery and sexual liberation that we see throughout Bella’s journey and it all ties together to present such a chaotic story that is truly beautiful and absolutely exciting. The way Lanthimos is able to grab the viewer’s attention with Bella’s journey is truly fascinating and manages to do it quite effortlessly. He’s able to do this in the most chaotic ways with tons of sex scenes that really act as character moments of their own, it’s part of how Bella slowly starts to discover herself and what she wants in the world.
I don’t want to say much else, because this is absolutely the type of film that you really need to see for yourself to really get the full impact. But just know that Poor Things is masterfully acted, written and directed. There’s so much layers to this film that I’m sure more people will slowly realize in years to come.
The true story of the inseparable Von Erich brothers, who make history in the intensely competitive world of professional wrestling in the early 1980s. Through tragedy and triumph, under the shadow of their domineering father and coach, the brothers seek larger-than-life immortality on the biggest stage in sports
The Iron Claw is directed by Sean Durkin director of The Nest (2020) and Martha Marcy May Marlene (2011). The film is based on the life of wrestler Kevin Von Erich and the Von Erich family.
I’ve said this before but I’m not a wrestling fan, but reading about the story of Kevin and his family is incredibly sad stuff. Between 1984 and 1993 3 of the five brothers Mike, Chris and Kerry died by suicide and another of the five David died of acute enteritis although this is heavily debated. There was another brother Jack Jr. who died in 1959 by drowning after an electrical shock long before the other brothers deaths. I bring Jack Jr. up because when people talk about the Von Erich deaths they are mostly talking about Mike, Chris, Kerry and David so I figured it’s worth pointing out.
The film itself mentions Jack Jr. In one scene which I thought was sweet and is admittedly one of the film’s very emotional moments. The film doesn’t include one of the brothers Chris, the reason given by Durkin is he was worried the film would be way too depressing and would never get made. To make up for Chris’s absence he incorporates his death with Mike who in real life Chris looked up to and ended his life because of Mike’s death effecting him so much. Some people might not like Chris’s absence and that’s completely understandable, I do think the film makes up for it with large amount of emotion capturing the absolute tragedy of this story.
The performances are all incredibly top notch nobody here gives a bad performance, Zac Efron plays Kevin Von Erich and gives one of the most touching performances I’ve seen from a film this year. It’s a devastating performance that captures the incredibly sad story of Kevin Von Erich, there’s so many moments here where you can absolutely feel the pain in his voice and body language. There’s another scene where Kevin Von Erich is having such a good time being married and dancing with his wife Pam Adikisson (played by Lily James) and his brothers Kerry (played by Jeremy Allen White), Mike (played by Stanley Simons and David (played by Harris Dickinson) this scene in particular is the finale of the happy moments of the film. And the way Zac Efron is able to capture both these times where Kevin is living a much happier life and when he’s surrounded by tragedy which he even goes as far as to consider that the “Von Erich curse” is real (which you really can’t blame him for that) is absolutely incredible and truly shows Efron’s talent as an actor.
Jeremy Allen White, Harrison Dickinson, Stanley Simons, Holt McCallany and Lily James are all fantastic here. White, Dickson and Simons do a phenomenal job of capturing the pain and tragedy of the brothers. They all bounce of each other well making this incredibly more sad to watch as the bond all the brothers have here is incredibly grounded. Holt McCallany plays Fritz Von Erich which again much like everyone else here he does such a fantastic job, although the film is much more focused on the brothers and less on the abuse Fritz caused on the brothers. It’s still very much implied through the brother’s facial expressions of clearly not wanting to do something but they want to make their father proud so they do it. Although Lily James isn’t a huge focus, she is still quite incredibly here and naturally fits incredibly well with the cast.
The way the story is told here combined with the acting is what really makes this film, it’s told in such a focused and emotional way that quickly grabs the viewer’s heart. Right from the beginning there’s little subtle hints as to what’s going to happen, even if you haven’t heard the story of the Von Erichs you still have this feeling something is going to really hit you like a truck and that’s absolutely the case. Durkin does such as great job of making this as grounded as possible, which is important since this is based off of a true story. With a sad story like this you want to tell it in the most grounded way possibly and luckily that’s the case here.
The wrestling scenes are quite powerful and whether this was intentional or not in some ways really fit together with the tragedy of the story. The wrestling scenes have this extra gut punch where you can really feel and hear the impact, in a lot of other wrestling movies you can tell they are just action scenes. But here you really feel the brutality of it all it’s so well directed and the sound is incredibly sharp.
The final moments of the film is what absolutely got me to cry, I’m not going to spoil what’s said because it’s something you must hear for yourself to get the full impact. But the moments really sum up this film and really wrap up the film in such a beautiful and touching way. The ending is on the hopeful side with the film mentioning Kevin Von Erich having grandchildren and they constantly meet up, it’s truly touching and moments like this that really bring the viewer to tears.
A woman is suspected of her husband’s murder, and their blind son faces a moral dilemma as the sole witness.
Anatomy Of A Fall is directed by Justine Triet a director who admittedly I haven’t seen all of her work but from the ones I have seen such as Age Of Panic (2013), In Bed With Victoria (2016) and Sibyl (2019) I can tell she’s such an incredible filmmaker and that is no different with Anatomy Of A Fall. I went into Anatomy Of A Fall knowing as little as possible, all I really knew is it won the top prize at Cannes film festival (the Palme d’Or) and the praise surrounding Sandra Hüller and Justine Triet. Which after watching is very easy to see why.
The performances are absolutely phenomenal right from the beginning you can tell the direction of how these performances are going to go. Sandra Hüller from the very beginning gives one of the absolute best performances of the year, it’s such a raw, grounded and emotional performance that really makes you invest into her character Sandra Voyter. Voyter is a very interesting character that makes the viewer keep bouncing between did she kill her husband or was she innocent? It’s a question that never really leaves the viewer’s mind at all and that’s mainly due to how incredible the storytelling and Hüller’s performance really is. There’s one scene in particular that especially stands out which is “the argument scene” it’s between Sandra Voyter and Samuel Maleski (played by Samuel Thesis) both of which do a fantastic job bouncing off of each other and delivering such a powerful moment in this film. It seriously cannot be understated how incredible Hüller’s performance really is here especially when the rest of the film happens.
Milo Machado Graner who plays Voyter’s son Daniel is the best child performance of the year, even if you think you might know where the film could be going nothing will prepare you for when Daniel finally speaks in the courtroom. It’s such a powerful moment that really captures this chaotic but really quiet nature of the film, Daniel sharing his story in the courtroom while everyone else is silent is strangely haunting yet absolutely beautiful, the moments when Graner and Hüller are on screen together are truly some of the best in the film and really captures this mother and son bond that you can’t help but love.
What really builds this film together is the constant tension, between the flashback scenes and the courtroom scenes there’s so much going on that it really grabs the viewer’s attention almost immediately. I hinted at this earlier but Anatomy Of A Fall has this very quiet but chaotic nature to it that truly makes the film work in every single way, the film itself never gives the viewer flat out answers as to what’s going on or the ending result. It makes the viewer decide what they think happened and I believe that’s the best possible direction to end the film.
Justine Triet’s direction is masterful, raw and completely grounded. There’s so much emotion poured into this film filled with many layers such as relationships, the thoughts of each of the characters and past events all of which combined together create this painting much bigger than it seems. It might seem like a simple and straightforward story of a woman being framed for murder but it’s so much more than that, there’s so much exploration in each scene that you really can’t help but look around.
Overall Anatomy Of A Fall is one of the best films of the year as well as one of the best acted and directed, it’s a powerhouse of a film that absolutely must be seen.
Anatomy Of A Fall is available on all VOD platforms.
Jerome Reviews... 