Escape Room (2019) – Get Me Out Of Here

Released: 7th February
Seen: 4th February (Advanced Screening)

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In 1997 there was a film released called Cube, a glorious little horror film about six strangers waking up in a cube that turned out to be part of a gigantic maze. During the 90’s horror resurgence this was one of the big markers of change, showing you could basically create a tense powerful horror film that relied on people being intelligent instead of just being the dumb jock and the virgin girl. They also dealt with things like suspicion, doubt and the general fear that comes from not knowing which room is going to carve you up into tiny pieces like a box-shaped blender, creating a sense of tension that built every time they would enter a new room and find a new math puzzle. That’s right, it’s a horror film and everyone tries to save themselves with complicated mathematics. It’s a genuinely brilliant thrill ride and I highly recommend it… because that’s basically what Escape Room is, except Escape Room wishes that it was as intelligent as Cube was.

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The Mule (2019) – No Relation to Gladys the Groovy

Released: 24th January
Seen: 2nd February

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In 2014, the New York Times printed an article titled “The Sinaloa Cartels 90-year-old Drug Mule” about a man named Leo Sharp who spent around a decade as one of the biggest drug runners for El Chapo. Dubbed Tata (The Grandfather), Leo would drive around the country in an old truck with hundreds of pounds of cocaine in the back. He’d go undetected due to his age, his clean record and by how fragile he could appear. The article itself is a fascinating read, exploring just how a senior citizen could go from being a veteran to transporting potentially thousands of kilos of cocaine. It’s a tale that seems tailor-made to be a movie and I guess Clint Eastwood thought that too because now we get a film about the 90-year-old drug mule and honestly, it’s not that bad.

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Velvet Buzzsaw (2019) – Did Somebody Mention Art?

Released: 1st February
Seen: 1st February

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According to Urban Dictionary, the term “Velvet Buzzsaw” is a term with two possible meanings. The first one is a slang term for vagina (Which the dictionary itself uses in the sentence “As the conversation became sexually charged, she could feel her Velvet Buzzsaw begin to hum”). The second being an extreme oral sex technique where the male essentially motorboats the aforementioned vagina, meaning it’s theoretically possible to Velvet Chainsaw a Velvet Chainsaw. Interestingly, both these meanings of the term predate the conception of this movie by decades and neither one really has anything to do with the actual content of the film. It’s a vulgar title that elicits an image that the film itself chooses not to use; it merely refers to it when one female character explains that she used to take that on as a name in a moment that implies it reflects on her past. It’s a nickname that links her to female art groups like Pussy Riot, an artist group that intentionally chose a name that suggests sexuality in order to gain attention so that their message can be heard.  Now, I bring all this up to show you the disconnect between this film and the very idea it’s trying to explore… that art critique done for the purposes of profit is a crime worthy of the death of the critic and all those who might profit from their work. This idea makes this a fun film to try and talk about, but let’s see what happens.

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Glass (2019) – Shattered

Released: 17th January
Seen: 17th January

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In 2000, M. Night Shyamalan brought out the movie Unbreakable. Unbreakable was a movie that posed the question “What if superheroes were real people?” roughly 8 years before anyone had even contemplated the idea of a Marvel Cinematic Universe. While it barely made its budget back domestically, the film is considered one of the best superhero films made and was made back when the name M. Night Shyamalan didn’t immediately elicit a groan from paying customers. Then in 2016, Split came out and was a huge success and basically rehabilitated M. Night’s image after a string of disasters. It also had a scene at the end of it that told the audience that Split and Unbreakable were in the same universe and it was only a matter of time before the main characters from both movies would have to meet… but did they have to meet in a place like this?

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Peppermint (2018) – Not Exactly Minty Fresh

Released: 15th November
Seen: 21st December

You know what’s really difficult about writing these reviews? Figuring out how to start them. Sometimes it comes easy, there’s a really good comparison I can make to give the reader a quick idea of the direction I might go in or there’s a half decent joke I can build too. Sometimes though, there’s nothing. Sometimes, there is no really good comparison or a bit of weird history, sometimes a film just pops up out of nowhere and surprises you with its release, mildly impresses you with how it’s telling a well-told story and then… nothing. It’s not that it’s awful, it just kind of happens to be there and there isn’t exactly that much to say about it that would make a good lead into the main portion of the review.

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Robin Hood (2018) – They Roam About The Forest Looking For Fights

Released: 21st November
Seen: 12th December

 A little over a year ago I watched a film called King Arthur: Legend of the Sword, a retelling of the iconic tale of King Arthur and how he became the legend that we know him as. It was a very fun, albeit critically panned, film that utilized the director’s style to try and breathe some new life into a tale that’s been told so many times that it’s almost comical to think that someone decided that they really needed to retell it… it also bombed spectacularly. SO, what if we did the exact same thing, didn’t use Guy Ritchie as the director and picked that other famous and well-retold story about the medieval era hero who’s pretty good with a weapon? Oh, that would be a bad idea because of obvious reasons? Well, screw that, let’s do it anyway because there is no possible way this could go badly.

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Mom and Dad (2018) – Hello Murder, Hello Furder

Released: 19th January
Seen: 4th December (Catch-Up Screening)

This year might be the best year Nicolas Cage has had in a very long time, this year he’s put his names on such amazing films as Teen Titans Go! To The Movies, Mandy and Spider-Man: Into The Spiderverse, films where he’s been allowed to have a lot of fun and either deliver a really clever vocal performance or just be the pure maniacal insane man we kind of love. Mom and Dad combines both of those performance styles for what is arguably his best role of the year, and one of the most delightfully dark films in recent memory.

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Widows (2018) – Nobody Thought They Had The Balls To Pull This Off

Released: 22nd November
Seen: 27th November

Official Trailer for Widows (2018)

One of the standard genre’s that is almost always guaranteed to be a really good time is the heist film. For some reason, we all just enjoy a movie where a bunch of criminals stick it to someone higher in the social food chain while also making a ton of money. Widows is certainly going to fit that standard mould, a bunch of people plan to steal a large amount of money that will stick it to the people above them in the social food chain and that would be good enough. It would be enough if Widows was just a standard heist film but it also happened to star a group of amazing women, that would be good enough… but this is a Steve McQueen film, good enough doesn’t cut it here.

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Bad Times At The El Royale (2018) – The Royale Without Cheese

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Released: 11th October
Seen: 12th October

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Right on the borderline between California and Nevada, there stands a hotel that’s perfectly divided between the two states. That hotel is called the El Royale and it has one heck of a bad history, a history that’s been meticulously recorded on orders from the Management. One particularly dreary night, a bunch of strangers walk into the hotel. Each one hiding a secret that they are unwilling to share with anyone, but the night is young and there is no telling just what secrets will be revealed at the El Royale tonight.

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Mandy

Released: 21st September
Seen: 21st September

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There are some horror movies that work best if you’re already a fan of the genre. Movies like Scream or Cabin in the Woods are films that mostly work for people who aren’t complete horror nuts but fans appreciate them on a very different level and get a whole different kind of enjoyment out of them because they are familiar with what those films are referencing and, therefore, get a better surprise when those films subvert the tropes that they’re referencing. Mandy is a film that definitely fits into that group, it might work wonderfully for non-genre fans but for fans of Horror and especially fans of 70’s-80’s horror, it’s something special.

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