Film Review : "Halloween Kills"

The good news is Halloween Kills is better than the 2018 film. David Gordon Green returns to direct , and Jamie Lee Curtis is also Laurie Strode again. I can not say stars as she does not get a great deal of screen time. This affects a shift in tone that plays into this being a better movie. It picks up right where the 2018 film left off. Not only does it do that but it back tracks to 1976 so the night He came home. This director wants to feel like he has left a thumb print on the ore of Michael Myers so goes back to retcon things to meet his vision.  This is where Hollywood allows things to go wrong with legacy franchises. There is a story to be told here. This does not offer the final chapter you think it is going to.  Hollywood needs to understand that if it is not broken it does not need to be fixed. In some ways they do grasp this concept and work off a theme that makes Michael Myers great, though in terms of storytelling this film has a lot to be desired.

This film marks the first time I have ever fallen asleep while watching a Halloween movie for the first time. The beginning is pretty decent and makes you think the film might have promise, then it wanders off in the middle. The girl power theme of the 2018 film is not only nowhere to be found but this movie shows they never get the job done right to begin with. You think Jamie Lee Curtis is a bad ass who stands a chance against Myers? This film says think again. It is also worth noting that whenever Myers is on screen the movie is at least decent. Instead we get some character being developed that we really do not need. Most of the time this knife fodder is trying to get their neighbors to band together and hunt Micheal down for what he did to their town.  

 

The end is worthwhile and this movie would have been good if the middle section had been handled better. It is a good thing this is Cutis’ last movie , as she spent most of it in a hospital bed looking haggard. There is not much about the characters to make you care if they live or die, that is aside from Micheal who I found myself rooting for when the odds were against him. I am a pretty big fan of this franchise , but the editing and script were both a mess, making this movie hard to follow or care about during the middle section.  They left the door open for Michael's story to continue. Hopefully they will milk  one last movie out , because I feel like he deserves a better ending. 

Film Review : 'Dune" 2021

 I was aware of Frank Herbert's 1965 novel as a kid before seeing the David Lynch film in 1984. My father kept an ever changing stack of  sci-fi paper backs in the bathroom and the covers of the Dune series were much different  than the others. When he took me to  see the movie , it was a surreal experience much different than what I had seen before. With other science fiction movies the emphasis was how the world and technology changed around mankind , but with Dune the emphasis was how man changed more than technology. There were little in the way of comic relief robots . Space ships seemed also obligatory rather than the focal point. ;Lynch's version has a steam punk feel before we we even the term steam punk.  Denis Villeneuve has done something very  different but manages to stay true to the story and capture the tone of the books, though if you have only seen Lynch's film all the moments are still in tact. 

What works is the scope he captured everything in. What worked in his take on "Blade Runner" works here, even though this is a much different future. The wardrobe choices were a little hit or miss, I think I like Lynch's costumes better. The acting is pretty on point. In some ways I think it is tailored a little too much to oblige the tastes of mainstream sci-fi pedestrians. There has to be lasers and explosions. There has to be the big battle scenes. I do not think this movie would be boring if these things were handled a little differently, but if you as which director did a better job of creating something the likes of which you had never seen before, then that would go to David Lynch. Hands down he is the more creative of the two. Denis is more of a dress up some source material and make it look weather beaten with beauty. 

I think the biggest problem with this movie is how it is marketed. It just kind of ends and leaves things not resolved , not just sets it up for a sequel , but is incomplete without one. If it was Dune part one, and you knew this was all set up, then it would have felt better to me. I think the pacing of the film could have been more balanced as well. I was never bored, but this quest for the girl of my dreams  with the blue eyes  was a little too heavy handed. Paul's hero's journey was too brooding teen. Not to say there should not have been a little of that, it just felt off. Aside from that I will give it another shot in theaters. It does seem to rely on wowing you with visuals than leaning into the story like Lynch's but this version dumbed things down for generations who do not read  and need things more spelled out, but when youy are hungry to put butts in seats and sell them pop corn to justify what had to have been a god emperor sized budget I guess that is Hollywood for you.     

Film Review : Candy Man 2021

 

Originally  slated for a 2020 release, Covid the theater releases off kilter and tis movie which would have ridden the coat tail of the more topical issues of the year, instead was laid bare with the grievous issues in it's writing glaring like the open wounds depicted over the course of the film. This is a sequel that ignores the other sequels so it is a re-boot in that sense. This short story by Clive Barker had already been milked for all it's worth. Lagging behind "Hell Raiser" and "Lord of Illusions" in terms of film adaptions of Barker's work, this movie would have done best if Jordan Peele had been left as a producer only and not allowed to participate in the writing.

They key to good writing of ay kind and perhaps the golden rule of story telling is to show me do not tell me. Instead we get the sub text of topics like gentrification pushed too heavy handed into the fore front, so it felt like you were being preached at rather than watching a horror movie. These topics came up in a more organic fashion back when Barker originally write this. Well not this particular piece, though they would have done better if it had. The start of the movie could have been OK, but as the film progressed rather than creating a sense of dread, things took a jagged turn. I called the protagonist's  descent early on and nothing felt like an unexpected turn. Some of the shots were ok and perhaps some where on the cutting room floor there is a better edit of this movie. 

Much like the emperor not wearing any clothes there will be those who want this to be a good movie so badly due to the nostalgia they have attached to the original that they will even tell you this is a good movie. I have seen people post things on line as absurd as it's the best horror movie of the year, which if this was remotely true would be a sad state of affairs' for horror in 2021. When you strip away the politics this movie is unsure how they want want to tell the story they are trying to tell and hope winks at their homage is enough to make you forget this. Well you can fool some of the the people some of the time, but you can not fool all the people all the time. In short , I would not pay theater prices to see this movie, even if "Candy Man' is your favorite movie which in that case I hope you would be able to be objective enough to raise the bar higher for what you want to see when this property is brought to the screen,. but these days that might be asking too much from people.   

Film Review : "the Green Knight"

The trailer for this movie had my hopes high along with the fact it is the same production company that brought you the VVitch , which is one of my favorite movies. This fact is deceptive since Eggers the writer and director has nothing to do with this movie. Read that again, this has nothing to do with the VVitch in terms of being a horror movie or what went into the writing and directing of this film. Writing wise it is based on the Arthurian Legend of the Green Knight , so I am still game given the fact that  swords and castles are firmly in my wheelhouse of interest. 

If I had instead gone into this knowing how  proud they are of the  fact they have vegan costumes , then I might have been more prepared for the tone of things to come. Lets start with the protagonist. The first Arthurian “hero” who does nothing heroic, in fact he has no redeeming qualities at all. He can not fight. If you let the kid from “Killing the Sacred Deer’ rob you then you are beyond a pussy and have no right to hold any sword or be considered a knight. By the end of the movie we are rooting against him. At least I was hoping he would get his head chopped off. Most of the movie he runs from his own shadow like a little bitch and while he does dive in the water to find a skull that is about all he has going for him. 

Then there is the fact that he makes this pilgrimage for nothing. Its a slow movie that leads to nothing. Sure there is some creepy atmosphere and some cool shots, but if I had paid 15 bucks to see this in the theater I would have been pissed as hell. I am pissed that I wasted the time that I did not watch it,. That is two hours of my life that would have been much better spent doing something else. If you see this on anyone’s top 10 horror movies of 2021 list , do not trust another word that person writes. Terrible might be a strong word as it made me feel something which was pissed, I would say worthless is a better term for this film.