4 stars

Good Luck, Have Fun, Don't Die

Just don't do anything

dir: Gore Verbinski

2026

Rarely have I started watching a film and enjoyed it initially, and then had that enjoyment plummet so quickly and completely, as with this fucking flick.

I literally gasped at how rapidly it went terrible, but part of me wonders whether that was the actual point?

To anyone who’s watched movies over the last 40 years or so, almost every element of the film will be familiar, but its point isn’t just to plunder the back catalogue: it’s to make a heartfelt plea to the audience to not pre-emptively embrace AI in all its vile glory.

They know it’s a losing battle, because social media is too seductive and the average consumer (ie. American) is too lazy and thoughtless to see the techno-apocalypse that they are ushering in to existence. And the makers and extruders of entertainment products want to save time and money by not paying people and instead engaging slop generators to generate slop.

So maybe that’s why it’s not a coincidence that this script and many of the visuals feel like they were generated by a soulless sequence of algorithms and prompts that ‘borrowed’ all that it could from a myriad of other, better movies.

As I said earlier, it’s starts off okay. Sam Rockwell, even in something as misguided as this, is always a delight, or at least often a delight, and he delighted me here. Looking like a retro-futurist crazy homeless person (deliberately intended to recall Bruce Willis’ character from 12 Monkeys bursts into a diner called Norm’s, and starts haranguing the other diners. He tells them that he’s from the future, and that he needs the help of a number of them in order to prevent an AI from destroying the world.

Rating:

4 stars

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501 reads

Shell

Lousy sequel to Marcel the Shell with Shoes On

dir: Max Minghella

2024

When I randomly found out about a film I’d never heard of, that was made around the same time as The Substance, with similar themes and a body horror aesthetic, only starring Elisabeth Moss and released without much if any fanfare, I was surprised. Astounded, even.

I mean, she’s a pretty big star, maybe not in movies, but she’s been in pretty well known tv series, from Mad Men to Handmaid’s Tale to Shining Girls to some incomprehensible spy series on Amazon whose name escapes me. She’s a somebody, probably better known than Demi Moore was when their two rival films came out. So I was still a bit perplexed.

And then I watched the flick. Now I understand why it was buried.

It’s pretty shit.

That explains it.

Actor Max Minghella, somewhat known, and son of acclaimed director Anthony Minghella, didn’t inherit any of his father’s directorial abilities, because this flick is poorly directed, poorly constructed, poorly shot and put together and not well thought out. It’s a real shame.

Once I realised just how crappy this was going to be, I wondered if they were going to go the “so bad it’s secretly good / deliberately bad because we want it to be a camp classic!” route, but it’s not a camp anything. It’s just unironically bad – bad.

Films and tv series that focus on the insanity of businesses that profit from tormenting women based on their insecurities is a rich, fertile, endlessly renewable resource. We know this because films keep telling us how society only values women for their beauty and their youth, and once they lose those they’re less than worthless and they’re a burden on society. Instead of interrogating the underpinning misogyny inherent in the patriarchal systems that force these expectations upon women, most flicks are content to just go down the “ain’t they vain bitches?” path and blame them for what comes next, which is usually body horror stuff to emphasise the fear of the monstrous feminine.

The Substance was hardly a feminist masterpiece, but what it did do is use its strong visuals to tell a bonkers story not about how far someone will go to stay youthful, but more so how idiotic it would be to create a younger version of yourself through technology and then turn into a hideous mound monster that shoots milk everywhere.

Shell isn’t even as clever as that. The premise here is, an aging actress is bullied into starting a regimen / undergoes genetic manipulation, and for a minute it makes her look a bit younger, but then she starts mutating. Did you ever think there would be side effects to remaining forever young? That never occurred to nobody ever!

Moss plays an actress who’s not getting the roles anymore. She was on a series when she was younger, but now struggles to even get auditions.

It’s because she’s not in her thirties anymore, okay? And maybe she’s not as slender as her heyday on the show Hannah Has a Heart, but she’s still putting herself out there!

What is additionally funny, or at least funny to me, is Elisabeth Moss, multi-talented, multi-awarded actor is actually pregnant playing a role in a movie where agents, casting people, random people on the street are telling her she looks like shit, and she pretty much agrees with them in order to make it believable that she’d undergo this bizarre procedure.

Rating:

4 stars

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1089 reads

Die My Love

Just die already, let's get this over with

dir: Lynne Ramsay

2025

This flick could not be more different from the other two I watched and reviewed recently, even though it is about the same themes, regarding motherhood, regarding alienation, regarding the world that destroys young mothers and leaves them helpless once they actually have that first baby.

After watching three films in a row about this very issue, I have to say, I am now certain I don’t want to have any more babies. If was on the fence before, I’m pretty sure it’s the worst possible thing any woman can do for herself.

Of course, I am already a parent, and more importantly, I am not a woman, so I cannot ever be a mother or that particular victim of the patriarchy that suffers most. That brings me some relief, but it doesn’t make me feel any better for the squillions of women who go through these experiences, or much worse.

It comes as a major surprise to me that, of the three, Die, My Love is the worst, the absolutely worst rendering of what happens to a woman who becomes a first time mother in a rural Montana area, whose art (writing, she’s a writer, don’t you know) needs to be cast aside as she deals with the all-consuming reality of being a mum.

Except…

What stands out about this telling is that she, the mum, played by Jennifer Lawrence, doesn’t seem that fazed, under pressure, or overwhelmed. People keep assuming she has post-partum depression or anxiety, keep offering support, and she’s like “nah, that’s not what’s happening”. She doesn’t seem to dislike the baby boy, or hanging out with him, doing dumb stuff with him, or dislike the pressures of being a mum at all. She’s just bored.

She doesn’t seem to like being in Montana, Big Sky Country, that much. Previously from New York City, she doesn’t really see any point ingratiating herself with her husband’s family or friends, and resents small talk with locals, or with anyone, really. She especially hates being asked about her writing, like most writers.

So what happens for the rest of the movie? She acts out, perpetually doing weird, dumb or dangerous shit.

Why? Well, there’s the rub.

Rating:

4 stars

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533 reads

The Naked Gun

I can't tell who the sexy octopus is

dir: Akiva Schaffer

2025

I was a fool to think that just because some people said this was funny, that I would find it funny. ‘Funny’ is more subjective than beauty, sleaze or profundity. Cuteness, hotness, cringe – now they’re universal.

There’s also the factor that seeing something on your own is never the same experience as watching something funny with other people. The collective energy makes a big difference. The involuntary, unconscious group dynamics can take you out of yourself and deliver you a very different experience. Duh, I know you’re thinking, no shit, Sherlock.

I didn’t have the luxury of watching this flick in a cinema. And no-one else at my place was awake to watch this with. So alone I trudged through this relatively brisk 85 minute movie, not laughing at what I am told is a steady stream of gags in the style of the classic Zucker – Abrams – Zucker movies like Kentucky Fried Movie, Flying High, Top Secret, Hot Shots and all those other pieces of shit, including the original Naked Gun movies with Leslie Nielsen.

Nah, that’s not fair, I take that back. I laughed at plenty of those when I was a child. I’ll laugh at anything. Finding stuff funny isn’t some elitist, rarefied pursuit like fox hunting or snorting caviar. Everyone laughs at fart jokes. Not all fart jokes, but the right ones, the most unexpected?

I laughed at some stuff here. Just not that often.

This was less like watching a modern version of those specific films from the past, and more like watching a couple of episodes of Family Guy back to back. I’ve seen plenty of episodes of that animated show, and I probably chuckled a few times, but it’s pretty mediocre in the scheme of things. The New Naked Gun does benefit from having Liam Neeson in the lead role, because you don’t expect him to be funny, and when he is, it’s surprising! I’ve seen him be funny in things (intentionally), including guest roles in The Simpsons and in Derry Girls, and in some other cameos here or there. But putting the whole flick on his massive shoulders, well, now that’s risky.

Rating:

4 stars

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621 reads

Eddington

Pedro Pascal should be in everything Exhibit #1436

dir: Ari Aster

2025

I did not like this film at all, at fucking all.

It’s bad enough to be made to remember the horrible pandemic days, and the stupidity that abounded. But to do something so, so lazy with it seems almost negligent, almost actionable.

I know how insane those days were. Those of us who lived through it, as opposed to the millions who died from it that we seem to have completely forgotten about, remember a time of fear, of confusion, of longing both for connection and for isolation, and from that ferment sprung lots of crazy ideas and crazier behaviours.

This flick ultimately says the same thing zombie flicks say, disaster flicks say, war movies say – it doesn’t matter what the external threat is, the real threat is the stupidity and viciousness of regular people. People have their petty insecurities, their compulsions, their fetishes, and from this springs awful actions when opportunities arise.

I am pretty sure Ari Aster, infamous for Hereditary and Midsommar, less so for Beau is Afraid (of his Mother), thought he was making some provocative when he made this. He thought he was really going to deliver us some hot zeitgeist-y satire calculated to offend both the easily offended and types more settled in their beliefs and prejudices. This flick is about as provocative as vaping, as shocking as mocking vegetarians, as fierce as saying the kids of today have too many tattoos and piercings.

Rating:

4 stars

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791 reads

Havoc

Cry Havoc! And let loose the dogs of boredom

dir: Gareth Evans

2025

It’s… it’s not good.

Why, yes, I did have sky high expectations based on this chap’s previous work. So if anyone’s at fault, it’s me. Certainly not the director or the star of this misbegotten amalgamation of every action film from the last forty years.

I can see what he was going for, I honestly can. Before I even read a word of an interview where Evans specifically says he wanted to capture the feel and the energy of John Woo flicks from the late 80s early 90s (more A Better Tomorrow, The Killer and Hard Boiled rather than his Hollywood flicks), I could tell.

But that’s not what we’ve got. What we’ve got is Tom Hardy playing a corrupt cop who mumbles his way through a flick constructed with city scenes that are, honest to goodness, computer generated rather than filmed on a city street. Like, I could have recorded that same kind of second unit filler footage on my phone, and it would have looked better, and no-one would be able to tell it was downtown Melbourne if I got the angle right.

This film tries to transpire in a generic American city, and yet it was made in Wales. In fucking Wales! Why aren’t there Welsh people talking about being The Only Gay in the Village or saying elaborate pronunciations of Welsh names like Myfanwy or Owain Glyndwr out loud?

Rating:

4 stars

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1500 reads

V/H/S Beyond

Beyond entertainment, beyond attention harvesting...

dirs: Jay Cheel, Jordan Downey, Virat Pal, Justin Martinez, Justin & Christian Long, Kate Siegel and probably a few other people from a bus that was just passing through the neighbourhood…

2024

The latest in a long line of V/H/S horrorish anthologies, this is this year’s instalment, I guess. Let’s hope it’s an annual thing.

There is a whole lot of fuckery going on here. Some good, some not so good, but that is the nature of anthologies. If what you’re watching isn’t thrilling you, wait a few minutes, and something else will be playing soon. You’d think this would be the way to capture the attention of people with short attention spans, but let’s be honest none of “the youth” are watching a “movie” or this “movie”: they’d rather be watching 30 two minute vids in a row on Youtube instead.

So, these are presumably made for old horror heads like me. I greeted the new instalment in this series, after having really enjoyed the most recent one V/H/S 1985 with interest, as that one struck me as a strong uptick in quality (compared to earlier instalments).

When you get your hopes up, you’re inevitably setting yourself up for a fall. The moral of the story is, you’re a fool for getting your hopes up, so never get your hopes up, ever. You’re climbing a tree of anticipation and then sawing off branches you settled upon, because the universe remains supremely indifferent to your hopes and dreams.

The tack they took here was about having something more of a sci-fi focus, as in, the boogieman / thing that kills a bunch of people in almost every instance is an alien of some description, or a robot, or both. Not everything is as cut and dried as having a Big Bad that eats people’s faces that happens to be from elsewhere in the cosmos: but in practice it doesn’t amount to that much of a difference.

If something is chomping on your brains, I guess it doesn’t matter much if it’s a dinosaur, an armadillo, a cyborg, a zombie or a grey skinned alien, the end result is pretty much the same.

Rating:

4 stars

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1277 reads

The Crow

Why so serious and shitty, huh?

dir: Rupert Sanders

2024

Thirty years have passed since the original film came out. Inexplicably it became and remains something of a cult classic amongst sad, chubby people my age, you know, people just like me.

I went and saw the movie in the theatre with my girlfriend at the time. The relationship did not last long past the end of the film, I don’t think. She did not enjoy the experience, at all.

On my part I probably apologised hundreds of times for dragging her to such a terrible flick, but it was to no avail. Some relationships cannot be saved, some loves cannot be redeemed, even with the powers of supernatural crows or the support of tangential characters.

In case my language has been indelicate or ambiguous – the original Crow is a terrible movie. I don’t care what anyone says, what generous curve someone invents to grade against; by any metric of what makes a movie half decent, it fails on every level imaginable.

And yet – there was that soundtrack that people really, really liked. Some people even bought it (on tape) and listened to it thousands of times. There was the emotional frisson of sacrifice that came from the knowledge that the very talented lead Brandon Lee, son of Bruce Lee, died during the making of the film.

Some particularly pathetic people had posters of the talented Brandon Lee in full gothic gear and clown makeup on the walls of the flats and hovels they lived in for the rest of the 90s…

And by talented, I mean he was a talented martial artist, who was good in one other film he made (Rapid Fire), but put in a ludicrously arch and blundering performance as the “hero” of the title here. I mean, the dialogue is fucking wretched in this flick, and his performance and delivery is cringeworthy throughout. He says and does such dumb things throughout this whole goddamn flick.

And yet… They decided to make a new Crow. And it’s not even as bad as the original. It finds new, modern ways to be mediocre.

Its main, major sin is that it’s a dumb premise, and it’s a property that just really didn’t need to be resurrected.

Rating:

4 stars

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1366 reads

Argylle

What a stupid concept

dir: Matthew Vaughn

2024

Who is this movie for?

Sometimes the (imagined) answer can be illuminating, if you can get close to the movie production’s thinking. Mostly, it’s an excuse for baseless speculation and mean-spirited conjecture on the part of jerks just like me.

If I was to be cynical, and cavalier, which is not a state that comes naturally to me, I would guess that this was kinda sorta aimed at a middle-aged, middle-class ‘white’ female audience. The kind “they” imagine reads trashy thriller / romance novels in a bubble bath while drinking large glasses of wine. There might be the glow of candles present as well.

What I’m getting at is that this is an imagined category, not necessarily by creative people, but by the types of people who work in marketing. They imagine that there’s a market of abundant gin-soaked ladies who would want to burst into a cinema after a boozy afternoon in order to watch the same kind of wish-fulfilment action flicks that usually cater to men who watch in between picking up the remnants of chips or twisties that have fallen onto their chests. Maybe the crumbs fell inside their t-shirts even, which makes them even harder to get at.

Life is a struggle. But the imagined middle-aged woman, who, for some reason still really likes Barry White and all disco music in general, doesn’t like violent action flicks where people get shot in the head or have their limbs sliced off – they want the same kind of action (apparently), just without any blood and with lots and lots of colour.

Rating:

4 stars

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1227 reads

Divinity

That smell is less divinity and more inanity

dir: Eddie Alcazar

2023

Yeah…nah.

If this had come out 40 years ago, it might have become a cult classic. Since it came out last year, well, it’s just an odd, somewhat pointless pre-emptive artefact.

An old crazy scientist (Scott Bakula) talks about creating something that will give people immortality, if he can just crack it, crack something, some part of the equation.

That doesn’t work. But he has two sons, and one of them grows up to be Stephen Dorff. You remember, Hollywood megahunk Stephen Dorff? He played the villain in the original Blade movie? I’m sure he’s done something since then, though not sure what.

Anyway, he’s still around. He’s still relatively fit. Why shouldn’t he work?

He, too, is a scientist, but he’s advanced the ‘cure’ for aging beyond what his father achieved. It’s a product, called Divinity, and it’s sold in perfume-like bottles to the slavering masses.

It makes men gigantic and throbbing with muscles. It keeps women lithe and wrinkleless.

But either it’s making everyone sterile, or everyone is sterile anyway, because reasons.

Stephen Dorff’s character is called Jaxxon Pierce. When I was watching the flick, I just thought that they were saying “Jackson”, and it did not bother me. But when I looked it up, and saw the two Xs, my heart sank. Because that’s just terrible.

Rating:

4 stars

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1537 reads

4 stars

Good Luck, Have Fun, Don't Die

Shell

Die My Love

The Naked Gun

Eddington

Havoc

V/H/S Beyond

The Crow

Argylle

Divinity

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