Vicaria is a brilliant teenager who believes death is a disease that can be cured. After the brutal murder of her brother, she embarks on a dangerous journey to bring him back to life.
Somewhere in The Angry Black Girl and Her Monster there is a very interesting idea with a solid movie, but unfortunately it’s not fully present here.
Laya DeLeon Hayes gives a solid performance and can quickly switch her tone in performance easily, her talent especially shown with the first half of the movie where it shines. Speaking of which the first half of the movie is quite interesting, it’s a take on the classic Frankenstein story while also including themes of police, drugs, education, socio-economic conditions and a few more. It definitely seemed like the movie was going to explore these ideas and combine them with the whole Frankenstein story…unfortunately that’s not what happened.
Instead it comes off like the movie completely folds and turns into a very generic slasher and creature feature type of movie during it’s second half. It completely abandons the ideas from the first half and goes in the most generic route possible, the monster itself isn’t really all that much either. Think of any generic monster you have seen and you are more than likely correct, it’s an absolute shame to because there was definitely something here. It quite honestly feels like two completely different scrips from two different movies.
At the very least the acting from the rest of the cast is quite great and the movie itself at least looks nice and does a pretty decent job of using it’s location to it’s advantage. But story wise this falls off a cliff during the second half incredibly hard.
The Angry Black Girl and Her Monster is available on all VOD platforms.
Encouraged by his fiancee, a man and his father spend the weekend with her wealthy and exceedingly eccentric family. The gathering soon develops into a culture clash, allowing father and son to discover the true meaning of family.
You ever get those movies where you watch it and then say “hey that wasn’t that bad!” and then slowly but surely come to realize “oh god that was actually awful” that’s my experience with About My Father.
Honestly I really don’t have anything insightful to say about this one mostly because there just isn’t a whole lot to say, it’s a bad studio comedy that was sent out one weekend and nobody talked about it. I will say Robert De Niro is quite great and I really have to give him credit, no matter how bad a movie is he always makes his performance work and that’s the case here. There’s some genuinely great jokes here and a majority of it come from De Niro. Kim Cattrall is also quite a lot of fun as well.
The main issue with About My Father is that outside of De Niro and Cattrall everything else is very dull and really doesn’t have much going on, we have seen the same sort of story before but done far better. We have seen these exact sort of characters but once again done far better and a lot of the humor that doesn’t involve De Niro fails to land.
About My Father is available on all VOD platforms.
Hello everyone and happy new month! I recently turned 29 (yesterday) and I’m here to show you guys my most anticipated films of July 2023! July this year is sort of the opposite of June, while June was a very busy month with blockbuster after blockbuster coming out July is more of a relaxed month. However there are some films coming soon that are some of the most anticipated of the entire year such as Barbie and Oppenheimer.
Before we get to the list let me quickly mentioning a film I saw at Sundance that I do recommend you check out.
Theater Camp – July 14th (Theaters)
Now on to the list!
17. Sympathy For The Devil – July 28th (VOD)
16. Quicksand – July 14th (Shudder)
15. Bird Box Barcelona – July 14th (Netflix)
14. Final Cut – July 14th (Theaters)
13. The Beanie Bubble – July 28th (Apple TV+)
12. Resident Evil Death Island – July 25th (VOD)
11. Earth Mama – July 7th (Theaters)
10. God is A Bullet – July 11th (VOD)
9. Insidious: The Red Door – July 7th (Theaters)
8. Revoir Paris – July 25th (VOD)
7. Joy Ride – July 7th (Theaters)
6. Susie Searches – July 28th (Theaters and VOD)
5. Talk To Me – July 28th (Theaters)
4. Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning Part One – July 12th (Theaters)
After having a nervous breakdown that caused the cancellation of her last tour, an aspiring pop star begins a complicated relationship with a self-help guru and the head of a contemporary cult.
I don’t normally make TV show reviews, outside of the MCU shows and a few Star Wars shows, but with the whole controversy surrounding Sam Levinson and The Weekend’s “The Idol” I knew I had to throw my hat into the ring. Let’s talk a bit about the background first, for starters the show was in development for awhile. Which was mainly due to the many people involved not knowing which direction to take the show. Originally Amy Seimetz (director of She Dies Tomorrow) was supposed to be the show’s director.
Amy Seimetz wanted a more woman-led story (which would have been far better than what we got) while Sam Levinson and The Weekend wanted a more graphic and in The Weekend’s own words “felt the show was heading too much into a female perspective” so the script was redone which leads us to the Cannes Film Festival where the controversy really gets underway.
While I do believe that a lot of the reactions of the show were overblown saying how it was “torture porn” or comparing it to the likes of A Serbian Film or Salo 120 Days Of Sodom, that still doesn’t mean it wasn’t edgy. There are plenty of very try hard scenes that even the most try hard disturbing movie such as The Bunny Game (2011) would point its finger and laugh at.
Sam Levinson had a previous success with Euphoria which I genuinely really liked, season 2 left a lot more to be desired but there were still a decent amount of episodes that I quite liked (Episode 7 of Season 2 is one of the best of the show.) what got me interested in the Idol was the cast, Lily Rose Depp, Suzanna Son, Rachel Sennott, Hari Nef, Daniel Levy and Jeannie Kim. It was an absolute stacked cast filled to the brim with talent but as the series goes on you quickly realize the show does not take advantage of that at all.
Let’s start with episode one since this series is only five episodes, episode one is the most bare bones you can get, granted there are a few decent things here such as Lily Rose Depp (get used to her being in the positive section she’s phenomenal throughout the series), the few minutes Jeannie Kim gets is pretty alright but ultimately doesn’t amount to anything. Daniel Levy is pretty decent here as well which is the most screen time he ever gets throughout the series. Rachel Sennott is probably the best part about this episode, she really tries to make the script work and actually does manage to get some quite great moments in there. Finally there’s the ending which is fine enough, everything else however blows there’s one line in particular talking about loving rape and it’s about as edgy as you think it is.
Eli Roth and Hank Azaria in particular are pretty awful here, Azaria for some reason is given this accent that’s truly awful and Roth spews some of the worst dialogue of the show. The episode tries to make it look like Jeannie Kim’s character Dyanne is going to have a major role but that’s absolutely not the case here, she gets very little screen time throughout the series. Honestly the main problem with episode one is that it really doesn’t do anything, it especially gets worse when The Weekend’s character Tedros shows up, The Weekend easily has the worst performance out of everyone in the cast and delivers edgy line after edgy line.
Episode 2 is actually quite an improvement but still suffers from terrible writing and the whole Tedros plot a common theme you are going to be noticing, the positives are once again Rachel Sennott, Lily Rose Depp who is given a fantastic scene where the show does actually try to capture its commentary on the music industry. Where we see her character Jocelyn really overworking and trying really hard to keep going, between the bruises, atmosphere and music it is quite a strong scene that really stands out as one of the show’s most memorable.
Finally we have the introduction to Suzanna Son and her character Chloe who’s perhaps one of the show’s highlights heck it could be argued she’s the best part of the show. Suzanna Son gives the show another very memorable scene where she sings Family, it’s truly a beautiful scene that actually ends the episode quite strongly. Between Suzanna Son’s beautiful voice and acting she truly was a great choice for the show.
As I said earlier the Tedros stuff really hurts this episode which is a shame, it’s more very bad dialogue that really doesn’t go anywhere and the whole Jocelyn and Tedros part is more or less the exact same sort of stuff that was in episode one.
Episode 3 is hands down the worst episode of the show, this honestly felt like filler which is certainly strange given that there’s only five episodes. Outside of Lily Rose Depp giving a very strong closing scene to the episode there really isn’t anything here that stands out at all, Jeannie appears once, Suzanna Son says a few lines and the dialogue is atrocious. Tedros encourages Jocelyn to use her trauma in her music which leads to a bondage session while using the hairbrush her mother abused her with. The episode attempts to give backstory but it’s not done well at all and it’s just poorly edited.
Episode four is probably the best of the show to be quite honest, while it’s not great it’s at the very least interesting. Things actually do happen here and there’s plenty of moments here that are quite great. Suzanna Son gets a decent amount of screentime again and gets to sing which is always fantastic, her scene with Da’Vine Joy (who is finally given something to do) is genuinely fantastic. Lily Rose Depp is once quite excellent here and there’s one scene involving Troye Sivan that actually did surprise me, Sivan’s acting is genuinely pretty strong here, not a whole lot of complains here.
Spoiler warning for episode five
Finally there’s episode five which leaves a lot more to be desired, honestly the biggest problem here is that the episode contradicts itself, the first half of this episode is fine enough. There’s some great singing from Suzanna Son and Lily Rose Depp gives a phenomenal performance. Then the second half of the episode shows up where Jocelyn for no reason at all forgives Tedros for everything he’s done, the show makes Tedros out to be a victim which is truly laughable and baffling at the same time. It completely assassinates Jocelyn as a character and truly makes her whole character arc seem rather pointless.
The Idol acts like it’s saying something profound about the music industry but in reality is saying things that have either already been said in a far better way or completely contradicts itself, it’s such a shame to because there absolutely was potential here. With every strong moment with Suzanna Son or Lily Rose Depp there’s at least ten horrible moments of The Weekend poorly acting.
None of these characters are given proper development at all, most of them are given one singular character trait and that’s all there is to their character. It’s mostly the Jocelyn and Tedros show, Tedros being such a dull and unlikable character that’s main purpose to be as edgy and shocking as possible. Jocelyn just did not get nearly enough development as she should have, the show keeps mentioning about her rough past and her mother, which is fine and great but we are given very surface level information about it. How does it help her with her career? How else did her mother impact her? Where else did she grow up? There’s so many other questions that the audience is just not given.
It’s a shame because had Amy Seimetz stayed on and the show was released when she was the director I actually think this could have been quite great, Seimetz’s direction would have solved a lot of the character development issues especially with Lily Rose Depp who as I said earlier needed the development. As it stands The Idol is a massive disappointment. There’s some fantastic music, some really strong performances from Lilly Rose Depp, Suzanna Son and Rachel Sennott but really not much else unfortunately.
Following a writer on his world famous fictional play about a grieving father who travels with his tech-obsessed family to small rural Asteroid City to compete in a junior stargazing event, only to have his world view disrupted forever.
Asteroid City is directed by Wes Anderson a director that has shown time and time again he always has something a bit different up his sleeve, even when some of films don’t fully land I still always appreciate the artistry that went into making them. Asteroid City is something completely different that combines so many different elements that it ends up being one of my favorite films so far in his career.
To start with the opening credits perfectly summarize the type of atmosphere and style you are going to get with this film, the opening song “Last Train to San Fernando” by Johnny Duncan & His Bluegrass Boys (it was in the trailer) perfectly captures the atmosphere of the film, it’s beautifully used and such a fun song to open with, I’ve had this song stuck in my head ever since I saw last week and the more I think about the scene the more I truly love it. It does everything an opening credits scene should do, get the viewer invested and give a sort of thesis like statement atmosphere wise.
The cast are all phenomenal here, once again Wes Anderson uses his style but does a few things differently, a few notable performances include Jason Schwartzman who plays Augie Steenback is phenomenal and is one of my absolute favorite performances so far this year, he gives a raw performance that really blends in with the rest of the cast. Steve Carell is hilarious, Jack Ryan and Grace Edwards have fantastic chemistry. Plus Jack Ryan and Jason Schwartzman are quite hilarious together, plus they have some interactions that are genuinely touching that really bring the heart of the film. Maya Hawke while not a main character absolutely nails her role every time she’s on screen with such a fun performance that really captures her character quite well.
Tom Hanks is also quite strong here, with some pretty hilarious moments and is actually a very different type of role than he usually does, Bryan Cranston does a fantastic job at capturing the whole 1950s TV host who really makes certain portions of the film actually feel like you are watching 1950s Television. Finally there’s Margot Robbie who although gets one scene that scene in particular is a huge standout in the film that’s incredibly beautiful and quite meaningful as well.
There’s two very different styles going on here in Asteroid City, the first one being a style that really looks like a beautiful painting combined with a Looney Tunes cartoon particularly Wile E. Coyote and The Roadrunner cartoons and I mean that in a very positive way. What Wes Anderson decides to do with this style is quite fascinating, he brings so many interactions between the several characters with a huge amount of detail. Aliens are also brought into the mix which takes the approach that Jordan Peele’s film Nope did where the film is analogue to find more life which also relates to creative processes, much like Nope this film really succeeds in doing that masterfully and asks a few other questions as well.
The other style being used here is actually quite interesting it’s this black and white style, one of the main ideas is that the film Asteroid City is a play in the universe the film takes place in, meaning we get to see the actors and actresses in this portion of the film as well. It’s a very interesting blend between the two very different styles the play’s events being depicted in stylized color as well as widescreen, while the television special is in black and white Academy ratio. It has this old Vs new type feel to it that I absolutely love when films go for, both styles compliment each other incredibly well and really bring in their own ideas.
Lastly there’s the writing and direction which are both phenomenal, there’s truly some powerful themes being tackled here such as not understanding the character your playing motivations Jason Schwartzman’s character Jones Hall who plays Augie in the play is frustrated because he doesn’t know the motivation. When he meets Margot Robbie’s character an actress who was originally going to be in the play but was cut. This was the scene I was referring to earlier and it’s just phenomenal and quite honestly one of my favorite scenes I’ve seen from a film so far this year. The writing is also quite hilarious with tons of moments that perfectly blend the dramatic moments with the comedic ones.
Overall Asteroid City is a phenomenal film that I loved so much more than I was expecting, as I said before this is definitely one of my favorites from Wes Anderson and most definitely a highlight from this year thus far.
On the brink of losing her childhood home, a desperate woman agrees to date a wealthy couple’s introverted and awkward 19-year-old son. However, he proves to be more of a challenge than she expected, and time is running out before she loses it all.
No Hard Feelings is the very definition of a fun little film that is a nice throwback to the raunchy films of the 2000s. While No Hard Feelings might not be the most hilarious raunchy comedy in the world, it more then makes up for that with tons of elements and performances that are truly a blast of fun.
Jennifer Lawrence is what sells this film by far and is the film’s strongest part about it. Jennifer Lawrence hasn’t done a comedic role in awhile (we do not talk about Don’t Look Up) and she still is genuinely hilarious. What’s a bit surprising to me is that the film actually has a lot of heart, we get a lot more than surface level information about Jennifer Lawrence’s character. Which is typically not something you usually get with raunchy comedies.
Andrew Barth Feldman is also quite fantastic as well, his performance really blends well with Jennifer Lawrence and the two have really strong chemistry together, Feldman is also quite entertaining there’s tons of jokes here that he delivered really well plus having his own style to them as well. A standout scene is Feldman singing Maneater (1982) by the American duo Hall & Oats, wonderful use of the song and is a scene that really shocked me mainly because of how great and touching it really was.
The writing is definitely surprising, while not every single joke lands perfectly as I said earlier there’s a huge amount of heart in the film that was not really expected. But it gives the film the extra push it needs to really standout, plus the many jokes that do land are genuinely hilarious. Most of all what makes the film work is just how fun it really is. There’s this whole element of after the film ends you and your friends talk about which scene you loved the most and list your favorite hilarious moments. That’s captured quite well here and it’s truly a beautiful thing to see.
Overall No Hard Feelings is a very straight to the point and a really fun raunchy comedy that isn’t just a throwback film but stands alongside the rest of the films of the genre, I can easily see this one become sort of a classic that gets talked about on social media very often. Check this one out!
Follows a dominatrix and Hal, her wealthy client, and the disaster that ensues when Hal tries to end their relationship.
Sanctuary is definitely quite a ride from beginning to end that is yet another case of a fascinating one location type of film.
Both Margaret Qualley and Christopher Abbott work phenomenally together, they both compliment each other well and just bring this chemistry that truly is powerful.
Margaret Qualley’s performance is yet another prime example of why she’s one of the most interesting actresses currently working today, she is able to masterfully control how quickly her character can go from seductive or calculating to being quite vulnerable. It’s truly fascinating and really gives the film this wild ride factor to it.
Christopher Abbott is also quite great as well and is another key factor of why Sanctuary works so well as a film, his interactions with Margaret Qualley is truly investing and creates some genuinely powerful moments that are quite raw.
Both Margaret Qualley and Christopher Abbott work phenomenally together, they both compliment each other well and just bring this chemistry that truly is powerful. Especially when you combine the camera movements, there’s many sweeping camera motions that really bring the viewer in for a closer look.
Most of the film relies on the chemistry between Qualley and Abbott and it’s so well done here, through their performances we get to see the film comment on topics such as power in relation to gender and wealth, it’s told in a pretty unique way through the performances and atmosphere of the film. Which can quickly change from being a casual conversation to an atmosphere that could feel a bit claustrophobic.
The ending is going to be a hit or miss for some people, even if it didn’t completely work for me I do appreciate it going for something a bit different than what was expected. I definitely recommend giving this one a go.
When a headstrong street orphan unwittingly taps into hidden powers, he discovers he might be the only person alive who can protect a reincarnated goddess who was sent to watch over humanity.
Before we get into things first a bit of history. Knights Of The Zodiac is based off of the anime series that ran from 1986-1989, as I said before in the past in some of reviews. I’m nowhere near as big with Anime as I once was but there are still a couple that I really like. One anime that I honestly completely forgot about was Knights Of The Zodiac, it wasn’t because of the quality or anything it’s just that I hadn’t seen or heard about it in years. I do remember watching a bit of the series when I was kid on Toonami and I remember liking it decently enough.
Apparently they made a 3D adaption called Knights Of The Zodiac: Saint Seiya which has 2 seasons, season 1 (2019-2020) and season 2 (2022), I haven’t seen the 3D series but from what I’ve read and heard it’s quite awful, but I guess they wanted to push it even further and bring in a live action movie.
Knights Of The Zodiac (2023) has very little going for it, honestly what got me interested was that Madison Iseman was casted, I loved her in the recent I Know What You Did Last Summer series (despite the flaws) unfortunately she’s not very good here and that’s mainly due to just how much of a mess script really is. Honestly the same can be said with a majority of the cast, they are given very little to work with and the only one who somewhat can get it to work is Famke Jansen, she definitely delivers the best moments of the movie but it’s unfortunately not quite enough to save the show.
In terms of story the movie really focuses on making this terrible origin story a very common problem that a lot of live action anime movies tend to have, I get it’s probably the best way to go about it when you are trying to introduce these characters to audiences who don’t watch anime. However there is no reason why they should always be this poorly written and this empty when comes to characters. Knights Of The Zodiac takes everything that was liked about the characters and turns them into very lifeless characters who are about as interesting as cardboard, as far as I’m aware this origin story that they made had absolutely nothing to do with the manga which makes this all the more puzzling as to why they even bothered in the first place.
I really wish there was more for me to say here, but a lot of this really speaks for itself. Knights Of The Zodiac is yet another horrendous live action anime adaption that both fans of the manga and anime plus people who have never even seen the series will absolutely dislike. Anything that was interesting about the original series is just not here at all, be sure to avoid this one.
Knights Of The Zodiac is available on all VOD platforms.
Back from the brink of death, commando Tyler Rake embarks on a dangerous mission to save a ruthless gangster’s imprisoned family.
I never thought Netflix’s first great film of 2023 would be Extraction 2, especially considering that the first movie did not work for me at all. But here we are I guess.
While Extraction 2 doesn’t really introduce anything new, what it does do is massively improve on what the first movie did wrong. Heck even with some of the positives from the first movie Extraction 2 improves on those as well. The action scenes went from being just okay to actually quite well done, especially with more graphic kills as well that are quite effective.
Chris Hemsworth is of course quite great here and works well with the rest of the cast who are also quite strong. The story is still a bit of a mess and the writing is very uneven at times. However it’s mostly the surprising amount of entertainment that Extraction 2 has that makes it work.
There’s so many fun stunts and action scenes that really combine well together that truly create something genuinely exciting and pretty large in scale as well, speaking of which the atmosphere and scale in this film is miles better than the first. Extraction for some reason did not have a lot of atmosphere outside of a handful of moments, Extraction 2 however keeps it’s atmosphere throughout the film and really nails down it’s scale as well.
While Extraction 2 doesn’t do anything new and the similarities between it and it’s predecessor are undeniable, I always appreciate when filmmakers (in this case Sam Hargrave) take the criticisms they were given and improve on them with a follow up. So i definitely have to give credit where credit is due, I say check this one out.
A novelist’s long-standing marriage is suddenly upended when she overhears her husband give his honest reaction to her latest book.
Nicole Holofcener has this ability to direct films that almost instantly connect the viewers to the characters, mainly due to the very raw and grounded situations the characters are in. That’s shown here in You Hurt My Feelings.
The cast is quite incredible here with Julia Louis-Dreyfus giving such a strong performance that is another prime example of how talented she is as an actress, Nicole Holofcener using her natural style combined with having Julia Louis-Dreyfus as the lead was a very wise decision as the results are quite excellent.
The film explores the tension between being supportive and brutally honest in relationships, topics that are very important for a healthy relationship. The film shows that well with Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Tobias Menzies who love each other but want to be completely honest with one another, but are scared to say it face to face especially after Beth (Dreyfus) overhears Don’s (Menzies) reaction about her latest book.
Even if the movie doesn’t have huge dramatic moments you might expect, or the humor is not as direct it really doesn’t need to be at all, it keeps things at a very grounded level that can make the viewer connect with the characters quite easily.
You Hurt My Feelings is available on all VOD platforms.
Jerome Reviews... 