When neighbors John and Levi witness supernatural events in their La apartment building, they realize documenting the paranormal could inject some fame and fortune into their wasted lives.
Something In The Dirt is definitely a film that I’m going to have to rewatch when it officially comes out, because I still have no idea if this worked for me or not. Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead are both directors I absolutely respect even if I don’t like all of their work they take the horror and sci-fi genre and do something completely new with them. They continue doing that here with Something In The Dirt, the performances are quite great the leading roles being the directors, the writing is actually pretty strong and does lead into some very compelling moments, finally the cinematography compliments the film actually quite well it fits this mysterious trippy theme the movie is going for. The main flaw with Something In The Dirt is it does lose you at times, there are moments where it completely takes you out of the movie it’s mostly due to giving the viewer a little too much information at a time, plus this is a example of a movie where you really have to connect with it. Unfortunately I didn’t really connect with it all that well, the story was interesting but completely lost me during a lot of moments. I absolutely appreciate it for what it is even if I’m not entirely sure what it truly is.
Something In The Dirt currently has no release date.
A woman (Karen Gillan) who, upon receiving a terminal diagnosis, opts for a cloning procedure to ease her loss on her friends and family. When she makes a sudden and miraculous recovery, her attempts to have her clone decommissioned fail and lead to a court-mandated duel to the death.
Dual is by far the most disappointing film from Sundance, it was one of my most anticipated of the festival and unfortunately it’s just not strong enough. Granted there are some good bits here Karen Gillian’s deadpan performance actually worked pretty well here despite the humor being a major issue and Aaron Paul is also really great as well. The cinematography is quite great and makes the film look pretty big, but unfortunately the movie doesn’t take advantage of that and really holds itself back from doing anything interesting. The opening scene is quite great, it gives a taste of the movie’s world the first half of the movie I have to say was quite interesting. I liked the many ideas the movie was going for and at times they worked unfortunately the end result of the build up is very disappointing, the ending feels like a complete cop out and makes the rest of the movie seem rather pointless. Some people are going to love the humor however it just wasn’t for me at all, I understand what they were trying to go for with this emotionless acting and type of humor. But a lot of it just wasn’t funny or didn’t lead into something special, somewhere in Dual there is a good movie but it’s just refusing to show itself unfortunately. I’m sure some people might get something out of this one, perhaps I’ll give this one another watch when it releases to audiences but for now this was massively disappointing.
Dual currently has no release date but is set to be released this year.
To find out if his reality is a physical or mental construct, Mr. Anderson, aka Neo, will have to choose to follow the white rabbit once more. If he’s learned anything, it’s that choice, while an illusion, is still the only way out of — or into — the Matrix. Neo already knows what he has to do, but what he doesn’t yet know is that the Matrix is stronger, more secure and far more dangerous than ever before.
I might not be the biggest Matrix fanatic out there, but when the trailer the newest installment in the series Matrix Resurrections I was pretty excited! Luckily it did not disappoint at all, right off the bat the film itself is very meta which presents several interesting ideas that work very well here. The cast all do a fantastic job seeing Keanu Reeves as Neo again is truly an amazing sight to see, the direction is very strong with a lot of dialogue that’s very bold. The character moments combined with the action scenes truly give this movie a lot of strength and makes it visually interesting. Speaking of which the visuals did not disappoint at all, what makes this one successful is that it trades in some action scenes for character moments that work to the film’s advantage. The film itself reads as a film where Lana Wachowski just doesn’t care what anyone thinks and makes a film, which I actually found to be quite great. It’s a very bold blockbuster that succeeds in a lot of categories! Overall The Matrix Resurrections is a fantastic film that I highly recommend giving a watch!
The Matrix Resurrections is in theaters and on HBO Max!
A decorated Marine goes on a rescue mission to save his two young sons from a mysterious threat. As their journey takes them in increasingly dangerous directions, the boys will need to leave their childhoods behind.
Encounter is a very nice surprise, it’s a Sci-Fi film that tweaks the genre a bit to make things interesting! Riz Ahmed as usual gives a really strong performance, Ahmed does such a fantastic job of giving his character a lot of depth and strength. The filming is beautifully done and captures a ton of jaw dropping moments that compliment the film well, the only main criticism I have with Encounter is I do wish the movie spent a little more time building up for the third act, as some scenes do feel a bit out of place and the third act does feel like something is missing. But outside of that Encounter is a very solid Sci-Fi movie that does a very solid job of giving the genre some new life.
Well we are here! The final month of 2021, what a year it has been! We have seen fantastic films that I’m excited to talk about when I do my top 100 best films of the year and we have seen terrible movies that I’ll be talking about with my top 100 worst films of the year. But before all that let’s talk December 2021! It’s a month that is filled with very interesting releases that I’m quite excited to see, since the format I did last time was successful and a lot of people loved it I will be sticking with that. Name the movie and release date then move on to the next movie. There’s only so many times I can say “I’m super excited for this movie” or “I saw the trailer and I’m hyped” until it becomes redundant. So here’s the list folks!
20. Mother/Android – December 17th (Hulu)
19. Silent Night – December 3rd (VOD)
18. Swan Song – December 17th (Apple TV+)
17. Shaun The Sheep: The Flight Before Christmas – December 3rd (Netflix)
16. Being The Ricardos – December 10th (Theater) and December 21st (Amazon Prime Video)
15. The Unforgivable – December 10th (Netflix)
14. Spider-Man No Way Home – December 17th (Theater)
13. Bendetta – December 3rd (Theater) and December 21st (VOD)
12. Flee – December 3rd (Theaters)
11. The Hand Of God – December 3rd (Theater) and December 15th (Netflix)
10. The Novice – December 17th (VOD)
9. Red Rocket – December 10th (Theaters)
8. Matrix Resurrections – December 22nd (Theaters and HBO Max)
7. The Lost Daughter – December 17th (Theater) and December 31st (Netflix)
6. Don’t Look Up – December 10th (Theater) and December 24th (Netflix)
5. Memoria – December 26th (Theaters)
4. The Tragedy Of MacBeth – December 25th (Theater) and January 14th (Apple TV+)
3. The Power Of The Dog – December 1st (Netflix)
2. Nightmare Alley – December 17th (Theaters)
1. Licorice Pizza – December 25th (Theaters)
And there you have it! I will be making a list of films I need to watch and review before I finalize my best and worst list very soon! Some 2021 films are going to be releasing in 2022 as usual so it will be a wait. But I promise you the lists will be worth it as I’m going to make things more interesting!
Paul Atreides, a brilliant and gifted young man born into a great destiny beyond his understanding, must travel to the most dangerous planet in the universe to ensure the future of his family and his people. As malevolent forces explode into conflict over the planet’s exclusive supply of the most precious resource in existence, only those who can conquer their own fear will survive.
Denis Villeneuve’s Dune has been one of the most anticipated films for the longest time now, mostly due to Villeneuve’s ability to take a familiar Sci-Fi story (Blade Runner 2049) or Sci-Fi and other films in general (Arrival, Sicario, Enemy, Incendies and Prisoners) and do an incredible job with it. Dune is no exception, but before we get to the directing let’s talk about what else makes this film incredible. First off the character development is largely different than you see in other films, which I find to be quite unique. The use of a ton of quiet moments and show the emotions of the characters in the scene that’s currently going on adds some real power to them. It makes you feel like you are part of the journey along with the characters, the acting and writing both feel incredibly raw which isn’t something you often get in a lot of Sci-Fi films. I’m not going to go over every single actor in the film but I will go over the ones who I thought were the strongest, Timothée Chalamet did a fantastic job as Paul Atreides this is something much different than the type of performances that he usually does. So it is very refreshing to see him try something new and it payed off really well, he plays the part of a young hero very well and really captures what being a hero is about. Jason Momoa and Oscar Isaac are both fantastic here, both give some of the most powerful and striking scenes of the film as well as some very important ones. It’s really great to see two incredible actors at their best giving some of the best performances of the year. Finally Rebecca Ferguson who easily gives the best performance of the film, she does a masterful job as Lady Jessica and becomes the character, it’s truly beautiful and captures several of the best moments of Dune. If there is going to be one person who gets nominated when award season begins (which is next month) make it be Rebecca Ferguson. The writing is incredibly strong as I said before it feels very raw and does not feel manufactured at all, it feels like a character study combined with the events of the story. The direction from Denis Villeneuve is masterful, once again Villeneuve shows that he’s one of the best filmmakers working today. He took a familiar Sci-Fi story and made it his own from the ground up. His directing style especially works here, combine that with the cinematography and the visuals and you have yourself a masterfully made film. The cinematography and visuals are both gorgeous, both transport you into the world of which Dune is takes place and it really does feel like your there! Overall Dune is an outstanding film that succeeds on every single level, I highly recommend giving this one a watch! Looking forward to see what’s in store for Part 2!
A scientist at the Pergamon Museum in Berlin is persuaded to participate in a study to get funding for her research. For three weeks, she must live with a humanoid robot designed to be the perfect life partner for her.
I’m Your Man is definitely an interesting film about an interaction between a human and a humanoid robot, it goes into far more detail than just asking “can a robot learn to love?” It dives into many themes and asks several different questions along the way, the acting all around is very strong especially Dan Stevens who does a very convincing job as a robot. The writing is very strong combined with a ton of sweet and powerful moments, the film gets it’s points across rather really well. What makes the film even stronger is you see the bond between human and robot throughout the film in great detail, making you as the viewer care about the relationship between the two. Overall I’m Your Man is a very sweet film that’s very refreshing in the romance genre, highly recommend this one!
I’m Your Man is now available on all VOD Platforms!
A private investigator of the mind navigates the darkly alluring world of the past by helping his clients access lost memories. His life is forever changed as he uncovers a violent conspiracy while trying to solve the mystery behind a missing client.
Reminiscence is a prime example of a frustrating movie, it has all the right elements to make a great sci-fi film. But ends up falling down so many holes that a lot of sci-fi movies end up, luckily this movie isn’t all that bad. Hugh Jackman and Rebecca Ferguson are both quite fantastic in their roles, the chemistry is very strong and they both dive as deep as they can in their characters. The filming is also quite great, not every scene is a winner but for the most part there does seem to be an attempt to create a special world as well as to make it interesting. That’s where Reminiscence ends for me, I like what Lisa Joy was going for and at times I do think she actually succeeded, however the writing really does not help in a lot of cases. The writing felt a little too weak at times when it was begging to be much stronger, a lot of the other characters were kind of just there to move the plot forward. What ultimately hurts Reminiscence however is the pacing, one of the worst things that can happen to a sc-fi movie is the pacing is a complete mess and that the story itself gets less and less interesting as it goes on. Which is unfortunately what happened to Reminiscence, the story started out interesting but lost it’s steam as it went on. Overall Reminiscence is not a terrible movie, it’s just a very forgettable one that had a lot of potential.
Reminiscence is now available in theaters and on HBO Max!
A young woman unleashes terrifying demons when supernatural forces at the root of a decades-old rift between mother and daughter are ruthlessly revealed.
Neil Blomkamp once was one of those directors who were potentially going to have a “best working today” status District 9 was fantastic and even led to a best picture nomination, Elysium while it wasn’t as good as District 9 I still thought was a solid enough movie and actually a quite interesting one. But then Chappie happened…it was a very disappointing mess that had some great ideas but was not executed very well as well as some very poor acting. Ever since then Blomkamp has tried to get projects off the ground such as Alien, that’s until the pandemic when he was working on a movie in secret the first full length feature since 2015.
Demonic falls into a similar hole as Chappie did, it has great ideas but unfortunately none of it comes together. The idea of a dreamscape demonic possession is a great one, it’s just too bad that the movie does it in the most bare bones way possible. Acting wise Nathalie Boltt does a fine enough job as for everyone else they just feel kind of there. The writing is what hurts Demonic the most, it’s clear this movie wants to do several different things at once, it tries to put similar elements that films like Inception have done except not as good. The dreamscape demonic possession premise ends up becoming way too familiar and isn’t any different than your typical demonic possession movie, it doesn’t help that the writing also doesn’t give the actors and actresses much to work with, a lot of it is very surface level dialogue that ultimately hurts the pacing the longer it goes on. Overall Demonic is a disappointment, that I really wanted to be a great movie and be Neil Blomkamp’s film to completely switch things around. Sadly that isn’t the case here Demonic is just your traditional demonic possession that may seem like it’s bringing new ideas to the table but sadly doesn’t take advantage of said ideas.
Demonic is now available on all VOD Platforms!
3/10 D-
A devastated husband vows to bring justice to the people responsible for his wife’s death while protecting the only family he has left, his daughter.
Talking about these Netflix movies is starting to become very tiring due to a lot of them being almost the exact same thing as each other. Sweet Girl is another lousy attempt at trying to be Netflix’s next big action movie, Jason Momoa and Isabela Merced are both solid in their roles and actually have a few touching moments that are nice to see. However the action scenes are very cheap and are poorly put together, the twist is ridiculous and comes right out of nowhere it feels like a last second idea that they just shoehorned into the movie. A lot of this movie can be boiled down to “seen it done before and done far better” the writing is sloppy and ends up leading to the twist I described earlier, overall there really isn’t much else to this movie. Unless you are a completionist who is trying to watch every single Netflix Original Movie skip this one.
How is it August already? So to cut to the chase, August’s lineup is not the strongest sure there’s the obvious ones like The Suicide Squad, Coda, Candyman and a few others but it’s not as big as some of the other months have been. With that said the ones that are on the list I am really excited for, so let’s get right to it!
As always let’s start at the bottom and work our way up to the top!
Starting off there’s Mortal Kombat Legends Battle Of The Realms which is a direct sequel to Scorpion’s Revenge which came out last year (and it was quite a strong movie) it even made my best list last year! I’m glad they are doing a series of animated Mortal Kombat movies, I said in my review for Scorpion’s Revenge that I would love to see what they do next and here we are, can’t wait! It releases August 31st on all VOD platforms!
Cryptozoo I saw back in January at the Sundance film festival, this is one of the ones I’ve been waiting to rewatch for quite sometime. I even said in my review that I want to rewatch it mostly due to how strange and bizarre it really is. This is the type of movie that’s almost guarantee to divide audiences. It releases on all VOD Platforms August 20th!
Homeroom is a film I wanted to see at Sundance but due to my schedule being filled up I couldn’t get the chance. Luckily It has a release date, it looks really solid and I’ve heard it was great! It releases August 12th on Hulu!
Respect is finally going to release this month, Jennifer Hudson is going to do a fantastic job in her role as Aretha Franklin! Not much else to say here! It releases August 13th in theaters!
Reminiscence looks really promising between a really great cast (Hugh Jackman and Rebecca Ferguson), a really interesting premise and what looks like a pretty neat atmosphere. I truly hope this movie is great! It releases August 20th on HBO Max and in Theaters!
Annette a film that premiered at Cannes film festival and was met with very divided opinions, some people say it was a waste of time but appreciated the filmmaking. While others say it’s quite incredible and a lot of fun to watch. I’m very excited to check this one out!! Annette releases in theaters August 6th and on Amazon Prime Video August 20th!
There’s not a whole lot on The Witcher: Nightmare Of The Wolf, besides the trailer which is quite great! I do love The Witcher Netflix series and it does seem like they are taking a similar step like they did with the Castlevania Netflix series only that this is a movie. Which I absolutely loved the Castlevania Netflix series so here’s to hoping this is just as good!! It releases August 23rd on Netflix!
Demonic is Neil Blomkamp’s next film his last full length film was Chappie in 2015 this time he’s tackling the horror genre which I have always wanted to see how Blomkamp does the horror genre. The trailer itself looks very promising so I’m pretty excited about it! Demonic releases August 20th on all VOD Platforms!
While I was working on my list I had no idea what to do with Don’t Breathe 2, the marketing has been very awful however that’s because the trailers are misleading the film. Some people linked me to a interview with the director of the first movie Fede Alvarez pretty much saying the marketing is very misleading, I’m willing to trust Alvarez in this case plus he’s co-wrote this movie and he is one of the producers. I’m very excited for this one, I’m a huge fan of the first film that was a surprise hit in 2016! Don’t Breathe 2 releases August 13th in theaters!
The Night House looks really solid, I’m glad that it finally got release date! It has a lot of potential from the trailers, Rebecca Hall looks great and the story seems very interesting! It releases August 20th in theaters!
Speaking of movies that took forever to get a release date…Ema I’ve heard is quite fantastic, I’ve been avoiding trailers mostly due to people saying “the less you know about this movie going in the better” the plot sounds interesting so I’m down! Ema releases August 13th in theaters (and I think VOD don’t quote me on that)
No Man Of God I saw back in March for the SXSW film festival, It was one of my favorite films of the festival and I’m quite excited to rewatch it again. It’s definitely one of the best films about Ted Bundy, Luke Kirby and Elijah Wood both do an incredible job, I highly recommend seeing this one when it releases August 27th on all VOD Platforms!
Candyman is one of my most anticipated films of the entire year, I’ve been waiting to watch it since last year. The trailers are fantastic, the cast looks incredible and it does look like they are doing something different which is quite great! Candyman releases August 27th in theaters!
Every passing day I get more and more excited for The Suicide Squad, from the early reactions it sounds fantastic and a whole lot of fun. There’s also this wonder of “which characters are going to survive and which aren’t” it’s truly all a mystery which I really like! The Suicide Squad releases August 6th in theaters and on HBO Max!
Finally there’s Coda which I saw back at Sundance in January, in fact it was the very first film I saw at Sundance…..and it was one of the best films I saw! Coda is still sitting in my Top 10 Best Films Of 2021 list. It’s truly an incredible film that is such a win for representation when it comes to deaf actors, I cried at least 3 times during the film and I absolutely can not wait to watch it again! Please watch this film when it releases! Coda releases August 13th on Apple TV+
And that’s all she wrote! Despite only having 13 films on the list, August still looks like it can be fantastic when it comes to film! What will you be checking out this month? Are there any movies not on the list you are excited for?
Jerome Reviews... 