Movie Review : "Blade Runner 2049 "

The fact this sequel came decades after the fact is weird. They are large shoes to fill. The first film is one of the best Sci-fi films ever made. That's an impossibly high bar for a film to live up to.It drags, ins some place so this film is far from flawless. It is Beautifully filmed. This time around there is a stark more post-apocalyptic feel, than the dark sleek landscape that was bleeding neon on the screen in the first film. There is a little of that urban landscape, but they wander much further from in this movie and it begins to feel more like an installment of Mad Max. What I liked the most about the first film is how it feels like a Phillip K Dick book reads. “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep” was the first Dick novel I read so that factors into the nostalgia.

The acting was hit or miss. Harrison lived up to his legacy and steals the show. Ryan Gosling makes more sense as a robot. His action is just as stiff , but here it works. Jared Leto feels like he wants to be Robert De Niro from Angel Heart, and though I nodded off a few times his motives in regards to what he was going to do once he got this child, were unclear. It was a better performance than ‘Suicide Squad” , but he seems to have been on auto pilot since “Dallas Buyers Club”. The relationships with the a.i’s is strained at best. The synching of the two girls was a great spectacle that I wish I had been high for , but didn’t carry much emotionally. Perhaps that was the point, for cyborg relations to be detached.

This is not an action movie or space opera. The violence that does occur works best when it is on a smaller scale, like the murder in the police office. The larger scale the violence is the more hollywood it feels. The deliberate fake outs work into the overall story they are trying to tell and doesn’t feel contrived in it’s ah-ha reveal. It ends with hope rather than bleakness, which might not be what I prefer from my dystopias , but it works for the movie. Scott has said that the world of Alien ties into Blade Runner. He also said of the next Alien installment that will tie Covenant into the first film, that he wanted to focus more on the a.i’s so this is the perfect chance for him to blend those two worlds. But as far as how this movie stand on it’s own. Perhaps it is not worth the sting of 16 dollar tickets, but is certainly worth seeing for the cost of a matinee as it lends itself to a big screen, there are some scenes that would be worthy of IMAX. Not the best movie ever made, and the jury is still out on how it will fare against other movies 2017 still holds. If you are a fan of the first film then it is highly recommended, even if you are suffering from re-boot, re-make fatigue.

Movie Review : "mother !"

Though the trailers I saw in theaters for “Mother” tried to sell this as a horror movie  with lines like “You won’t forget where you were when you saw Mother” (of course not you were in the god damn movie theater) it is not a horror , though it plays on similar sensations as a horror movie. The buzz surrounded the film due to the fact it was directed by Darren Aronofsky , who also brought us “Requiem For A Dream” and “the Black Swan”. The latter being almost more of a horror movie than this film. It feels more like a Lars Von Trier film and has a similarly unsettling chaos in the surreal narrative as “Antichrist”. Funny enough the heavy handed religious layers make Jennifer Lawrence seem like the Anti-christ when she pretty fuck says “Fuck You” to the concept of forgiveness and burns it all down.

I am sure the Bible Thumpers who also double as hipsters will start trying to make the most out of a bad situation when they are sorting through the Biblical outline, that will have you going “Ok, there was Cain and Abel, now when is the flood coming?” But the the films real message is actually what makes it endearing to me. It gives Christianity the middle finger and asks the dumbfounded audience “Do you see how fucking crazy this concept of religion is?”  when you take those concepts and apply them literally rather than metaphorically, they whole things is beyond nuts and this film paints a picture of that. So in this rejection of the Christ concept it’s almost as satanic as “the Witch”, but is far from being as good as that movie.

So what of the horror elements? Well there is an element of the invasive neighbors from “Rosemary’s Baby”. Aronofsky even admitted that “Rosemary’s Baby” was an influence on this movue.  If the thought of having tons of uninvited guests makes you have an anxiety attack then this movie will terrify you. There is some psychological terror as Jennifer Lawrence’s character loses her shit. I did like the Madonna to whore descent, which was almost a rape scene, and there was a dynamic at times that reminded me of ‘Straw Dogs” until Javier  Bardem’s character begins much like the path the Church took to believe his own hype. Even though this was not a horror movie, it was not a bad film as it made me feel something, bad movies don’t make me feel anything. I support the fact this movie is a middle finger to Christianity and think more movies should have the balls to step out and do that. So it was a success in that regard. If you are looking for an art house horror movie , you will have to wait until Lars Von Trier releases  his serial killer film “the House that Jack Built”.

Movie Review : "Cult of Chucky"

I will be the first to admit the Chucky movies have not always been my favorite. The first Child’s Play was good for what it was, when I saw it. Bride of Chucky for all it’s cheese was still the only sequel of note up to this point. Now fast forward to current day where I have a 7 year old little girl who likes Chucky as of all the other slashers or as she called them as a child “trick tricks” he is the most digestible to her, though she does have a fascination with Ghostface from the Scream movies, yet another horror franchise that panders to people who might not normally like horror.  So I watched the Curse of Chucky with her and noticed it was well made and I would add scarier than Cult of Chucky.

Cult of Chucky in terms of cinematic quality or eye-candy is exceeds the previous film. There a moments of camera that are quite pretty, some slow motion scene and bright vibrant blood. Yet there is never a sense of menace. I am not sure if I just could not get invested in the characters. But the stakes never felt high enough to get scared. This was an entertaining movie. It falls quite short of another retro revival in “Leatherface”, but for what it is went above and beyond in terms of technical ability. The premise of the movie, I suppose if I did spoiler alerts this would be one, is that they supernatural element is dialed up as the Spirit of Chucky and inhabit humans or multiple dolls at once. The franchise winks at itself bringing Jennifer Tilly in to reprise her role as Tiffany, though she does more in her human form.

The movie is set in a mental institution which makes most of the characters ripe for the picking. The depictions of mental illness are pretty stereotyped and I think by taking a more clinical approach they could have given the movies more depth and had you more invested in the characters. The movie instead chose to run off of the novelty in the concept. When things take a turn in the films final act, there are somethings that are not totally resolved. If it sounds like I am being harsh on the film , the truth is this movie was better than it had any right to be considering the premise and the legacy of the other films. The door was of course left wide open for yet another sequel which I would be fine with considering how well they did with this one. I would be highly suspect of anyone who puts this at the top of their horror movie of the year list, but think it certainly holds it own against things like Insidious sequels.