Currently browsing the "Science Fiction/Fantasy" category.

Review: Venom: Let There Be Carnage

I was having one of those days… the kind that sorta deserves to be capped off with a screening of a film called Venom: Let There Be Carnage. So off I went– to a masked, limited-capacity screening of a sequel to a movie that I found pleasantly surprising in 2018. Does Venom 2 live up to its predecessor? No. Is it worth venturing into a theater to see? Probably not. Is it worth seeing if you simply must catch every movie featuring a Marvel comic book character as soon as it hits the big screen? Sure. You know who you are.

Quickie Review: Zone 414

I like a good sci-fi flick. And the blurb for this one sounded intriguing: “Set in the near future, private detective David Carmichael is hired by Marlon Veidt, an eccentric businessman, to track down his missing daughter. David teams up with Jane, a highly advanced A.I. to solve the mystery.”  That it stars Guy Pierce also made me think it might be worth a look. But boy was I wrong! Not that the story is all that bad, but the longer I watched, the more I realized that someone had watched Blade Runner one too many times and was incapable to coming up with their own story. And then, in his feature debut director Andrew Baird chose to go with a ripped off look and feel from the same film. Why, why, why?

Quickie Review: Free Guy

Free Guy is goofy, sincere and fun, probably even more so if you’re into gaming. Personally, I didn’t know an “NPC” from a “Player One,” so it took me a bit longer to embrace the virtual videogame world on display in Free Guy. But in fairly short order, the story and the characters grew on me, and by the end, I was all in – rooting for characters of both the real and the programmed variety, especially our ‘every guy’ hero, Guy, aka “Blue Shirt Guy”, played by Ryan Reynolds (Deadpool).

Quickie Review: Annette

It’s been a couple of weeks since I watched Annette and frankly I’m still processing. I’d love to be able to recommend it because it’s got music! And Academy-Award nominee Adam Driver! And Academy-Award winner Marion Cotillard!

If only it made sense (at least to the average person). Alas, Annette is just too odd to put into words. Maybe if I broke out into song instead. Nah. My head might ‘splode. Or my cat may turn into a singing marionette. Valid concerns if you’ve seen Annette.

Review: The Suicide Squad

What a difference a ‘The’ makes?! I was not a fan of 2016’s Suicide Squad and had my doubts about watching another group of warped DC Comic Universe villains being forced into another suicidal superheroic mission. So I approached the film with extreme caution, low expectations, and no idea if it was supposed to be a sequel, a reboot, or something else entirely. I’m still not sure about that last one. But The Suicide Squad does generally work as a standalone–even though some characters are back, some are not, and many don’t survive past the first 15 minutes.

Review: Nine Days

Nine Days is quite the contemplative film. It dabbles in some high-concept existentialism and evokes themes explored in both 1998’s observational psychological drama The Truman Show and this year’s Oscar-winning animated movie Soul.  Chew on that for a while. Then go check it out.

Review: Black Widow

It’s been a looooong time coming to get Russian spy-turned-Avenger Black Widow aka Natasha Romanov’s backstory onto the big screen. And now Marvel fans can breathe a sigh of relief. The combination origin story and fill-in-the-gap between Captain America: Civil War and Avengers: Infinity War is a satisfying, action-packed spy thriller with a dysfunctional family dynamic that is both toxic and amusing. If you lost me at ‘Avenger, ‘Black Widow’, ‘Captain America’, or ‘Infinity War’, then you probably haven’t been waiting on the edge of your post-vaccination seat to see this in theaters. And that’s okay. If you’re not into Marvel movies, move on. Black Widow requires a certain base knowledge of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) to maximize the entertainment value and fully appreciate Natasha’s history – and potential legacy. (note: It’s not a spoiler to remind folks that Natasha met a tragic, self-sacrificing end in Avengers: Endgame.)

Quickie Review: The Tomorrow War

Hey, look – it’s Chris Pratt! In a sci-fi movie! With big mean monsters! How… familiar!

The biggest difference between The Tomorrow War and some of Pratt’s other big action dramas (Guardians of the Galaxy, Jurassic World, Passengers) is that it’s not opening in theaters. It’s being released on Amazon Prime. That could be part of the reason I wasn’t exactly blown away. It’s possible my mere 42” TV screen diminished the film’s impact, though not its audio levels. It got very loud in my living room during battle sequences. Sorry neighbors!

Arty Chick’s Seven Flicks: Week 15

What a group of films I have for you this week! There’s an end of the world love story set in Los Angeles and a twisted sister rivalry in old Hollywood. I’ve included the quintessential DC political drama and an Italian Fascist-era classic. And there are 3 musicals: one set in Nazi-era Berlin, another about a doomed love in France, and the last, a Chinese love triangle on a film set.

The films are: Miracle Mile ,What Ever Happened to Baby Jane, All the President’s Men, Cabaret, The Conformist, The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, and Perhaps Love.

Review: Undine

This romantic drama from director Christian Petzold reunties actors Paula Beer (Franz) and Franz Rogowski who starred together in his film Transit a couple of years ago. She plays Undine, a historian in a Berlin museum who lectures select audiences about the city’s urban design. He’s Christoph, a commercial diver who meets her just after she’s been dumped by her current boyfriend (Jacob Matschenz, “Charité”) who she’s told, “If you leave me, I’ll have to kill you.” In a well-known European folk tale, Undine is a water nymph who who becomes human when she falls in love with a man but has to kill him and return to the deep if he is unfaithful to her. In the film, Undine slowly reveals her true self through a beautiful and bittersweet fantasy-tinged love story.