At the Movies with Kane and BN

[Kane52630]

Companion

I just know someone is making a super smutty fanfic on tumblr of Iris and Ava from Ex Machina.

This was a fantastic sci-fi horror romcom that even if you know going in that Sophie Thatcher is a robot companion from the trailers, you will still be surprised at some of the twists and turns this movie makes. It definitely reminds me of movies like Ex Machina and A.I. Artificial Intelligence, but also some of the Black Mirror episodes like The Entire History of You, White Christmas, and USS Callister that deal with toxic relationships in a tech world. The movie is also super comedic at times which helps balance the movie while also keeping the obvious social commentary intact. Sophie Thatcher is incredible in this and the performance definitely reminded me of Alicia Vikander in Ex Machina but also Scarlett Johansson in Under the Skin. Jack Quaid, Lukas Gage, Megan Suri, and Harvey Guillén were also really good in this and with that other twist, keeps it from being too predictable with what happens early on in the movie. Overall, great film and I'm curious to see what Drew Hancock does next as a director.
4/5

 

[Kane52630]

Heart Eyes

I imagine The Miner from My Bloody Valentine hate watching this and then going all Soulja Boy on it in his letterboxd review.

This was really fun and funny for a clever slasher romcom by the guy who directed Werewolves Within. It's a movie that on paper sounds incredible but in execution probably fumbles the bag but thankfully it's not this one. It goes in tradition with a holiday-themed killer and it uses Valentine's Day pretty effectively and also uses the Scream comedic metaness with the straightforward 80s American giallo-ness. The rom-com aspect is actually more interesting and well done than I was expecting it to be. Olivia Holt and Mason Gooding are really good in it and their chemistry is better than any Hallmark Channel romcom. It's done in a self-aware kind of way that keeps it fun and light while also giving you pretty intense gore and kills. I will say I think the only problem I have is they don't give you enough of those kills and some of them just move on so quickly. And I thought the 3rd act needed some work but that part was still fun. Overall, a solid horror slasher that works way more than it doesn't.
3.5/5

 

[Kane52630]

Dog Man

I don't think anybody really understands that this is straight up Robocop for kids.

A super fun and hyperactive animated kids movie that's based on the same author as Captain Underpants. It's exactly the kind of animated kids movie that you would see nowadays but wouldn't have the cleverness or jokiness to pull it off like this one does. Love the art style animation and the zaniness that feels like you're watching a comic book come to life. I thought this was the best use of Pete Davidson and Lil Rel Howery and their comedic timing. The only thing that sorta brings this down a midge is it does too much in the 3rd act even though that is the point of this property. Overall, definitely worth seeking out if you love the hyperactive kids stuff like the Lego Movies.
3.5/5

 

[Kane52630]

Love Hurts

To quote the great Marshawn Lynch who did nothing wrong in this movie, "I'm just here so I won't get fine."

Unfortunately, it's average mediocrity with some cool fights despite a great cast like this. It's one of these action comedies (or just comedies in general) that tries to be as broad as possible and as uncomplicated as you can get with drab narration and all. The story itself is so lazy and uninteresting that you are just waiting for the action to pick up. Ke Huy Quan was only good when he was in a fight scene, Ariana DeBose continues to let her agent pick projects where she sucks, Daniel Wu was just cashing a check doing the least, but I will say the only highlights for me were Marshawn Lynch, Mustafa Shakir (who should have been Blade a long time ago), and Lio Tipton who looks like Emma Stone here for some reason. Outside of that, it's a pure nothing burger of a movie. Overall, pretty forgettable outside of the Hong Kong style fight scenes.
2.5/5

 

[Kane52630]

I’m Still Here

It is a really well-polished, well-directed, and somewhat overtly sentimental political bio-drama about former congressman Rubens Paiva, his wife Eunice Paiva, and their family during the Brazilian dictatorship in 1970 Rio de Janeiro. It's a movie that is solely centered around the wife, played by Fernanda Torres, and what she has to struggle with as her husband is essentially kidnapped by the military.

I thought all the performances were really good, especially with the kid actors they got as well as Fernanda Torres who is fantastic in it. It's one of these movies that definitely has a Spielberg quality sheen to it when it comes to the family unit drama and how the family interacts with each other. Sometimes it really works but sometimes it comes off as "polaroid picture perfect" for the family dynamic. I thought the most interesting part of the movie was during the middle when Fernanda Torres had to face the military and what resulted after that.

When it comes to the commentary about authoritarianism, I feel like they could have done it better and have something more to say about it. I think something like Seed of the Sacred Fig both share very similar qualities about authoritarianism affecting the family household and think Seed has more to say in the current moment than this movie does. Overall, really good in a really traditional award season kind of way but I ended up wanting more out of it.
3.5/5

 

[Kane52630]

Hard Truths

I would pay big money to have Pansy show up during the White House press briefings just to grill them.

It is a fantastic character drama that explores a hardened person who is stricken with grief, anguish, and resentment and who takes it out on everyone and also how that affects everyone close to her. Marianne Jean-Baptiste gives an incredible performance and manages to dial it up to an eleven while also delivering small and intimate scenes that dig in deeper with her character. I also really enjoy any time she has to share a scene with Michele Austin who plays her sister and both of them really elevate each other with each scene. There's a lot of comedy that is fun on the surface but they also linger on some of it just enough for Marianne Jean-Baptiste to give it a little more depth to the scene. I love how humanistic the writing is by Mike Leigh and with the way each scene is constructed and performed, it feels very real and honest to itself and the characters. Overall, I really enjoyed it and it's definitely worth its praise.
4/5

 

[Kane52630]

Apartment 7A

I can't tell if that's a really good wig or a really bad wig because we all know what Julia Garner's hair actually looks like.

This was a pretty middling and aggravatingly mediocre prequel to Rosemary's Baby that's centered around the Terry Gionoffrio character that appears in the movie. Despite some great set designs and some camera work, it's got a very clean, sterile, and high-def look to the movie that feels inauthentic especially if you're comparing it to Rosemary's Baby which is the complete opposite of that. Even trying not to compare it to Rosemary's Baby, the movie sometimes works and sometimes it doesn't, especially when it comes to the horror aspect of the movie that comes off as goofy and silly, looking at you bedazzled demon. Julia Garner does give a good performance but everyone else feels like they're doing a parody of the movie. There's a version of this movie where it could have been as audacious and captivating as The First Omen but it fails to be one and it ends up being more or less yet another streaming horror prequel. Overall, not awful but pretty forgettable.
2.5/5

 

[Kane52630]

Captain America: Brave New World

I don't care what anybody says, that person looked exactly like the Renegade Virus from Are You Afraid of the Dark ...and honestly? Cool on them pulling it off.

Optimistically what I can only say is with all the rushed reshoots, rewrites, and inflated budget poured into this trying to make it as best as they can... It could have been so much worse, I guess *points to Sony's Marvel-verse*. It's middling, to say the least, and there is a version that I can kinda see where they were trying to go with it. Where The Winter Solider was (I guess) inspired by Three Days of a Condor, Brave New World was so obviously trying to make an MCU version of the Manchurian Candidate. And with the elements they used here with certain characters that get revealed later, it does make sense in a way. This movie is also desperately trying to be The Winter Solider in so many ways just by how much they mirror each other in setting and characters except this one kinda falls short.

I don't know if Anthony Mackie as Captain America was really carrying this movie and I think his MCU show has better moments that explore his character more when he's not in the suit. Didn't really care for Danny Ramirez as the new Falcon even though they were trying their best to show their friendship and bond in the movie. Harrison Ford as President Ross is basically doing Air Force One again but not as well and not as interesting even though there are a couple of moments that I wish they dug in more. Shira Haas, as Sabra, was actually pretty awful and really inconsistent in terms of her character in the story. I feel like they could have deleted her character entirely and sub in a certain Avenger in her place and it would have made the movie so much better. I feel like there were only two characters that I found very interesting and fun to watch within the context of the story and they were Carl Lumbly as Isaiah Bradley and Giancarlo Esposito as the Serpent Society leader.

The geopolitical side of the movie feels undercooked and some parts kinda worked while others feel like they had it reshoot 5 different times. What they introduced in the movie and all the other Marvel easter eggs they put in to set up future stuff was fun to see. I think this being Sam Wilson's Captain America movie, it feels like he is trying to untangle a bunch of previous storylines from The Incredible Hulk, Eternals, and even mirroring The Winter Solider... there's not enough of his movie in the movie. Even from an action standpoint, this doesn't really offer you anything new except for Red Hulk fighting Sam Wilson. And some of the CGI and greenscreen are so obviously telling that they had to reshoot this movie so many times. Overall, I'm kinda in between giving this two and a half stars and three stars, but I will say I didn't really hate it on the level of Quantumania. It's just not what you want from a Captain America movie where it's giving you reheated microwave food.
2.5/5

 

[Kane52630]

Paddington

How come nobody told me Nicole Kidman gave us another Batman Forever level camp performance in the last 10 years?

Took me forever but I finally got around to seeing the first movie years after seeing the masterpiece known as Paddington 2 and it unsurprisingly lives up to what I thought this movie was going to be. It's a fantastic movie from start to finish and they do such a good job doing the immigrant experience through the lens of a CGI bear. A lot of the funny bits really work and all the scenes with Paddington and the Brown family were really fun and Paul King does capture a lot of that heart in the movie. It balances the heart with the silliness and the camp with Nicole Kidman basically playing Cruella de Vil. She's great and while I think Hugh Grant takes that fun villain to a whole other level in the sequel, she isn't in it a whole lot which I thought was smart. If anything I think the CGI was actually impressive for 2014, but you do notice the blending of the real environments to be off when you're seeing it today. Overall, while it doesn't reach to the levels of Paddington 2 (and honestly what movie can?) this still was so good.
4/5

 

[Kane52630]

Paddington in Peru

Paddington was in the Amazon with Madame Web's mom when she was researching spiders right before she died.

Fun movie but it is a fool's errand to match what Paddington 2 was able to accomplish especially since Paul King didn't come back to direct this one. You can feel it being broader as you're watching it and it's leaning in on the jokes more than telling a heartwarming story at the center. It still has a lot of the pop creatively that you see in the last two movies and that does carry this above a lot of other family movies that don't try as hard. I thought everyone was fine and a lot of the jokes do land. Emily Mortimer was fine in it as the recast but she's no Sally Hawkins. The movie's big star feels like they split the bed between Olivia Colman and Antonio Banderas who are both camping it up really well, but I feel like it took the focus away from the family even more. And while both were fun to watch they still couldn't compete with what Hugh Grant did in 2. Overall, it's still a great movie but it's not the 5/5 masterpiece that Paddington 2 was.
3.5/5

 

[Kane52630]

Flight Risk

Mark Walberg's forehead was longer than this film's script.

Holy sh** this was so bad. This is like if two dumpuary movies did a fusion dance and this movie is the result. This feels like Mel Gibson got it made just so it can be featured in a How Did This Get Made? episode. I like how this movie lets you know what you're in for when the first shot of this was AI generated and the second thing you see is a badly done CGI moose from the '90s. It's so cheaply done and it's so desperately wants to be Speed in a small plane. Mark Walberg is overdoing it and is honestly the only thing that keeps it being entertaining in a bad way. Topher Grace's only note was to play it as if Jesse Eisenberg was the most annoying person on the planet. And you can see Michelle Dockery questioning why she signed up for this movie as you're watching it which was fun. Also, for the eventual Bollywood remake, they should just reuse the audio of the pilot on the radio and not change a single word and it would fit so much better. Overall, it's one of the better "so bad it's good" movies we got recently.
1.5/5

 

[Kane52630]

The Gorge

You would think Anya would have run out of paper on that notebook by the 3rd month.

It's a sci-fi action thriller and a romcom with a Rear Window & Annihilation setup that sounds cool on paper but it doesn't work as well as you think it would. I thought it started off kinda weak and by the time you get to the first obvious twist you start to figure out what kind of movie this is.

It's directed by Scott Derrickson who I like but it's written by the same guy who did The Tomorrow War and Deadfall so it's got some spotty moments in the script that could have been better executed. It also feels like AppleTV+ greenlit this movie during the Covid days and it finally got made even though it looks like it could have gone to theaters.

I thought as bad as Anya Taylor Joy's accent work is here, I thought the romcom aspect with Miles Teller mostly works in that middle section of the movie even if it's cheesy as hell. The second half of the movie feels like a straight-up video game that would be super popular like Fallout. There are some cool moments and cool creature designs that I thought elevated the movie but I will say I thought the big bad was pretty generic overall. And I thought the score by Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross was pretty cool. Overall, it's just slightly above average and nothing more.
3/5

 

[Kane52630]

Love Me

A movie that understands that we all know that one annoying couple who loves to talk about what they got at Whole Foods or Trader's Joes... Also, this movie could have gone in a completely different direction if she looked up the dark web.

A decent enough sci-fi/post-apocalyptic/rom-drama that has a very interesting premise and concept. It's essentially taking the same premise of Wall-E and uses it to talk about relationships in the social media age. This is probably not for people who despise AI and influencer culture because that's pretty much the crux of the movie where this is a relationship drama between a weather buoy played by Kristen Stewart and a satellite containing all the data of human civilization played by Steven Yeun. As much as I like the concept, I think this should have been shortened to a Black Mirror episode because I feel like the movie has some moments that could have been better if it was shorter. The movie overstays its welcome and I feel like they were making scenes to stretch the concept. Overall, I dug it but it could have been better executed.
3/5

 

[Kane52630]

Back in Action

You know it's bad out here when they're doing product placement for Mentos as if it was still 1993. Maybe they should have gotten something even more irrelevant, like Big Red chew.

Yet another terrible big budget netflix streaming movie with two big stars that was meant to be Cameron Diaz's comeback movie. It's also yet another action spy comedy that is so broad and generic and safe for families, that it's meant to not do anything interesting. A lot of the humor is pretty basic gen z/boomer stuff and they had an opportunity to be more self-aware of all the spy tropes they crammed into this, but they don't really go for it. You never buy the romantic chemistry between Jamie Foxx and Cameron Diaz once and not to mention they have such a bizarre 15-year flashback where they don't age them younger at all. They made Andrew Scott do this terrible spy agent British accent even though he's Irish. And they also made Glenn Close British once again and it's as bad as you think. And it's got yet another wasted Kyle Chandler role. The only person who is in the right movie is Jamie Demetriou and he's not in it enough. Overall, it's as bad as it gets for a big Netflix movie like this.
1.5/5

 

[Kane52630]

The Monkey

I can't explain it but the real estate agent in this movie and Aunt Martha Thomas from Sleepaway Camp are probably best friends.

A super dark and comedic gorefest that is extremely fun and silly. The Final Destination comparisons are obvious, but I thought this has more of a Sam Raimi feel to it along with something like Tucker and Dale vs Evil and even older Coen Brothers movies. There's also a tiny bit of Psycho Goreman and Peter Jackson's Dead Alive in there in terms of practical effects gooeyness. This probably won't win anybody over if they're already not an Oz Perkins fan but I thought this movie was way more in his wheelhouse where it is a lot more playful. And honestly, as much as I dug Longlegs, this felt more appropriate for Nic Cage to pop up in (preferably that hilarious opening scene). I thought Theo James and Christian Convery were great doing double duty playing twin brothers in the present day and in 1999. I kinda wish Tatiana Maslany was in it more but I thought she was really good who plays the mom. I will say if there are any issues I had it was some of the pacing in the middle and the story could have introduced a different element that would have made the movie even more crazy but I thought the story was fine generally. Overall, it's a lot of fun... It's exactly the kind of camp gore horror zaniness that we need right now.
4/5

 

[Kane52630]

Mickey 17

[Mickey 17 when Mickey 18 walks in]

Bong Joon-ho does what any best picture and best director winner does, make his own weirdo movie and this was it and it's as good as I was hoping it would be. It's more or less a compilation of his themes from all of his films about capitalism, classism, and environmentalism like Snowpeicer, Okja, The Host, and even Parasite. And with this one, it is overtly comical and satirical and shares the same kind of sentiment as Starship Troopers or Idiocracy. Once again Bong Joon-ho does an amazing job constructing this world and it's many different layers that come with the story and commentary about cloning ethics, capitalistic space exploration, experimentation, indigenous rights, and mainly what does it mean to be a person. The whole Crepers creature design was great and I love how they increasingly become important to the plot. Love the performances between Robert Pattinson, Naomi Ackie, Steven Yeun, and Anamaria Vartolomei. I actually really enjoyed the Mark Ruffalo and Toni Collette's performances and they were just what the movie needed even if they went off a little too much into campy villains. Overall, while I think this might be right under Parasite and Snowpericer for me, this is one of the better sci-fi films recently and one of the better movies of this year.
4/5

 

[Kane52630]

The Electric State

Walt Disney being the sole reason for a dystopian future is incredibly appt.

Excruciatingly average. It's sadly the best thing the Russo brothers have done post Endgame and even then it's not that great. This movie felt like the Russo brothers wanted to be Steven Spielberg doing E.T., A.I., and Ready Player One while also trying to do Paul Verhoeven's Robocop and Starship Troopers and it doesn't work. I will say I enjoyed maybe the first 15 minutes of it, it's one of those movies where everything surrounding the two main leads is actually kinda interesting and the script could have made it something more special. Millie Bobby Brown and Chris Pratt couldn't be more miscast in this and they really aren't giving you anything to grab on to and make you care for these characters. Pratt is basically playing Star-Lord without a punch-up writer and Millie Bobby Brown is really showing off she's not as great of an actress as she is on Stranger Things. It's also got a stacked supporting cast and I thought some of them worked. And while people are jumping on the hate bandwagon and pointing out how expensive it is, the CGI does look pretty good and they do a good job shooting a lot of it on location. Overall, not the worst thing I've ever seen but this could have been great if it had better leads and a better script with some better dialogue.
2.5/5

 

[Kane52630]

You’re Cordially Invited

It's a pretty fun yet forgettable comedy that is so obviously made for streaming. I will say I thought this would be so much worse than it actually is and some of the jokes and bits did work for me. Will Ferrell and Reese Witherspoon were okay, but I thought the supporting cast was fun to watch between Geraldine Viswanathan, Meredith Hagner, Celia Weston, Keyla Monterroso Mejia, and Jack McBrayer. That being said, you can tell a lot of it was adlib and some parts were ADR'd in the last second for comic relief. The whole conceit is ridiculous but I thought they did a better job than I've seen other comedies do. Overall, just average.
2.5/5

 

[Kane52630]

Novocaine

Who knew I was watching Jack Quaid and Ray Nicholson vying for best neobaby.

A fun and breezy action comedy that's in the vein of something like Deadpool or Joe Lynch's Mayhem or even Baby Driver. I thought the setup and gimmick worked for the most part, it does start off pretty standard and straightforward, but I did like the change up in the later part of the movie. Jack Quaid is still playing Hughie from The Boys but he's still good and fun to watch. Amber Midthuder is great in everything she's in, Jacob Batalon was fine, and I thought Ray Nicholson continues to show off he can be a solid actor if he wants to between this and Smile 2. I thought the action was decent and it really works when it gets pretty gory. That being said, I do think they could have done more inventive stuff with the humor and slapstick. Overall, fun time at the movies.
3.5/5

 

[Kane52630]

Black Bag

Maybe the black bag was the friends we met, interrogated, and lied detected along the way.

A talkative heavy spy thriller that is more or less like watching spy agents go through couples therapy in Soderbergh's mind. It feels very paired down budget-wise compared to other spy thrillers, but the set pieces and set designs are really well thought out. It's a movie that is entirely built on the performances and they were really good between Michael Fassbender, Cate Blanchett, Marisa Abela, Regé-Jean Page, Naomie Harris, and Pierce Brosnan. They do a good job of keeping you guessing about who is the double agent even though you kinda suss out a couple of options. While there's some great camera work, especially at the beginning with that one-take scene, I still can't get through the astigmatic lighting and lenses he chose for this movie. Overall, while I think I enjoyed Presence much more, this was another solid but typical Stephen Soderbergh movie.
3.5/5

 

[Kane52630]

The Phantom

Billy Zane should slam evil on all of Hollywood for letting him down.

A truly fantastic 90s pulp swashbuckling action-adventure film that cribs off from Indiana Jones but also keeps in old-school superhero aesthetics and formula. It kinda goes hand in hand with other pulp action movies of the 90s between The Shadow, The Rocketeer, and The Mummy. I don't think we acknowledge enough how amazing Billy Zane is in this where he is simultaneously playing Batman, Captain America, Clark Kent, and Indiana Jones all rolled into one. The man has real old-school charisma and I thought the supporting cast was also fun and great with some surprises I didn't expect to show up. This feels like a blockbuster that only the 90s could make where it looks like a movie and it has some fun on location set pieces. And I feel even the Uncharted games lifted some scenes from this movie in particular. Overall, solid fun and I actually prefer this over The Shadow which is something I wasn't expecting.
4/5

 

[Kane52630]

Borderline

At this point I'm expecting Céline Dion's It's All Coming Back to Me Now to show up during Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey.

A fun and twisted romcom thriller that is working on a very limited budget but does some interesting things within those constraints. It's basically a crazy stalker movie that is set during a fictional 90s and Ray Nicholson plays the stalker who is obviously channeling his dad in this. I thought it was interesting they got Samara Weaving and Jimmie Fails obviously playing Madonna and Dennis Rodman without really playing them. I think the movie is trying to be one of those off-kilter indie thrillers from the 90s and some of the direction does work even though I do wish it had a little more going on. Samara Weaving is still great as always and I thought Alba Baptista stood out as the crazy sidekick. Overall, I probably admire it more on an indie filmmaking and acting level than the movie itself.
3/5

 

[Kane52630]

Snow White

Magic Mirror on the wall, who's the worst actor of them all? ... and was I the only one who thought of "whistle while you twerk" during that scene?

Very plain and very generic in a somewhat inoffensive way (aside from a couple of things). It's yet another Disney factory live-action slop that is still trying to cash in on their animated properties and with one they play it very straight with maybe a couple of scenes they made their own. Rachel Zegler is actually really great in this and while she's giving it her 110%, the rest of the movie is giving maybe 40%. The direction doesn't give her enough time to shine except for a couple of scenes like the lost in the woods and the main scene with dwarfs. Her original song is pretty decent in a classic Broadway sense, but again they don't really do enough directing-wise to make it feel extraordinary. I actually didn't mind the CGI dwarfs visually but they also don't give enough time to flesh them out as characters after the first scene. The new "prince" and the bandits were also not fully developed as characters. And then there's Gal Gadot... who is really awful and is the worst part of the movie by far. It's funny she doesn't get a lot of screen time comparatively but every time she shows up the movie sinks lower. She's like the complete opposite of Charlize Theron's Queen Ravenna. Overall, it's a shame because Rachel Zegler is insanely talented to be a part of something like this but this movie is not as bad as everyone is saying... at the same time this feels the most forgettable out of all the Disney live action movies.
2/5

 

[Kane52630]

Death of a Unicorn

Close enough, welcome back "Eddie Carr/RV" section from Lost World Jurassic Park.

A pretty fun and laid-back absurdist comedy with some gory horror moments. Maybe the closest thing you can compare this to is Glass Onion meets Jurassic Park. It's got the overt "eat the rich" commentary with the man vs nature plotting with unicorns. While it's got the A24 sticker on it, this feels more like a Neon release or something more in line with IFC Midnight/Shudder, It's nothing more or less than a fun but disposable comedy with some gnarly gore. The cast was pretty decent. Paul Rudd, Jenna Ortega, and Will Poulter were great in it. Téa Leoni, Richard E. Grant, Sunita Mani, and Anthony Carrigan got some fun moments. I will say the only major thing that held this back is that the CGI on the unicorn is very iffy. Overall, it's a solid movie if you don't go in with high expectations.
3.5/5

 

[Kane52630]

The Woman in the Yard

Who cares about that woman in the yard... how hard is it to write the letter R correctly?

This is pretty standard Blumhouse stuff that feels like 30 minutes too long. It has a solid premise that feels like a Twilight Zone episode meets The Babadook, and for the first 20 minutes, I thought it worked really well when it was just focusing on Danielle Deadwyler and her kids. You couldn't tell this was directed by Jaume Collet-Serra which was interesting, who hasn't done a horror movie in a while. I thought Danielle Deadwyler was pretty good and for the most part was the thing holding the movie somewhat together. I thought the supernatural element of the movie felt weak and underdeveloped and honestly felt too simple for its own good. I feel like if this story was told in a Creepshow-like anthology movie where it was only 20-30 minutes long, it would have worked so well. Overall, it was okay.
2.5/5