NOTE: Here is my review from Soda & Telepaths that was posted back on September 25th, 2020
Brazen (2022) – Lifeless
Released: 13th January
Seen: 23rd January
Normally I wouldn’t expect to be dealing with this until June, that’s the pattern that Netflix has created with their release of Lifetime Wannabes like Hostage House, Dangerous Lies and Secret Obsession. I was meant to have a few months before I had to deal with this bullshit, there was meant to be time to mentally prepare for the onslaught of bad plotting and bad acting one expects from this “midday movie made on a budget of couch cushion change by a writer who had 5 hours to complete the entire script” but nope, 2022 sucks and therefore we have to deal with Brazen now because why not?
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The Boys S02E02 Review – Proper Preparation and Planning
NOTE: Here is my review from Soda & Telepaths that was posted back on September 22nd, 2020
The Boys S02E02 – “Proper Preparation and Planning” Synopsis
With the Super Terrorist still on the loose, Billy Butcher and the deputy director of the CIA make a deal. If Billy and The Boys can capture the Super Terrorist then the CIA will help Billy find his wife AND clear their criminal records. While this is going on, Starlight is part of a press tour with Stormfront and Meave to celebrate three women being part of The Seven but things go a little sour when A-Train wakes up from his coma (the one he fell in at the end of last season). Finally, The Deep is spending a little more time with his new friends and goes on an existential trip which naturally leads to a one on one discussion with his gills.
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The Boys S02E01 Review – The Big Ride
NOTE: Here is my review from Soda & Telepaths that was posted back on September 21st, 2020
The Boys S02E01 – “The Big Ride” Synopsis
After the murder of Madelyn Stillwell, which has been successfully pinned on Billy Butcher, the Boys have gone into hiding. Living underground in a bunker, they’re slowly planning their next move. Currently, the best plan of action involves getting some Compound V and exposing Vaught. In charge of getting the Compound V is Starlight, who has officially gone full double agent and is helping Hughie while maintaining appearances with The Seven. Unfortunately, there also happens to be a Super Terrorist that’s just turned up with telepathic abilities which are already causing a few problems for the main gang. Now The Boys need to track down this telepathic supe without the help of their former leader Billy, who is just offscreen somewhere.
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Project Power (2020) – A Fun Pill To Swallow
NOTE: Here is my review from Soda & Telepaths that was posted back on August 23, 2020
For the last decade or so, the Superhero genre has dominated the cinemas. It felt like every couple of months there was some new Marvel or DC property coming out that would be the only thing worth talking about in the world of cinema. This year was meant to be no exception, with movies like Black Widow, Wonder Woman 1984 and The New Mutants scheduled to drop roughly three months into the ongoing apocalypse we’ve decided to have instead.
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Bad Boys For Life (2020)
NOTE: So for the last 2 years I’ve been producing reviews for Soda & Telepaths who sadly closed their doors at the end of 2021. Thus, I now have a large amount of assorted reviews from the last 2 years that need somewhere to go and so they will be put here… slowly, on days I don’t have a new review to put up so I won’t flood anyone’s page/emails with a dozen reviews.
These are as close to how they were over on S&T, though that site had a different layout and style I had to work within so it might not be exactly 1 for 1. Also, in some cases, old reviews might have been deleted from the site before I got to them (like this one) and I have to rely on old notes I took.
With all that in mind, here is my first review for S&T that was posted back on January 16th, 2020.
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House Of Gucci (2022) – Camp Couture
Released: 1st January
Seen: 2nd January
Camp is not an easy thing to properly explain. I could assign you the legendary Notes On Camp essay by Susan Sontag and that might get it across, or we could go with the description that John Waters gives in his episode of The Simpsons “The tragically ludicrous, the ludicrously tragic”. It’s not easy to call out what is and isn’t camp, though there is no real midground on camp. Either something is camp or it’s not (there is no such thing as subtle camp, if someone tells you otherwise then beat them with a tent pole) and it’s sometimes it’s hard to call… not in this case though, House of Gucci is so fucking camp that it’s accepting kids for a summer program right now.
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The Guilty (2021) – All Too OK
Released: 1st October
Seen: 27th November
While some films have large elaborate casts, there are those that are designed specifically to focus on a single performance. When these are done right, they can lead to some genuinely fascinating films with incredible central performances, we had one earlier this year with Oxygen, which bore a lot of similarities to Buried. The trick is to somehow maintain an audience’s intrigue for an hour and a half with only one performer and one location. Joining that group of films is The Guilty, a film that gives Jake Gyllenhaal a chance to show off just what he can do… interesting choice to release it around the time we’re apparently meant to hate him because a song said so, but hey that’s how things happen sometimes.
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Red Notice (2021) – S’fine
Released: 12th November
Seen: 12th November
Usually a film begins with a script or an idea, going through a lot of pre-production before they even think about casting but sometimes there are films that are made entirely around a single cast member. Those films that are either designed to really show off what an actor can do or just to play to their strengths… Red Notice is that latter film and it’s so ridiculously simple that it’s almost impossible to truly hate, but probably won’t be up there on the “best of the year” lists either.
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Wrath Of Man (2021) – That’s Some Good Wrath
Released: 29th April
Seen: 5th November
Guy Ritchie is one of those directors who can be a lot of fun when he really wants to be, presenting an over the top world of blokey blokes doing obscene amounts of violence to each other while yelling as many assorted curse words as they can imagine in thick English accents. When he’s at his best, he creates great things like The Gentlemen, a rip roaring grand old time that I still regularly think about to this day (especially Fletcher, one of the best characters Guy Ritchie has ever created and one of the best performances Hugh Grant will ever give in his life). When he’s at his worst, he phones in absolute garbage like Aladdin, which is still a pale, painful imitation of a classic film that didn’t need a remake. So, what does just an average Guy Ritchie film look like? Probably something like Wrath Of Man… which, hilariously, is itself a remake.
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