Gemini Man

Gemini Man aka the movie you know from the trailer that showed Will Smith fighting Will Smith. Some of you saw this in theaters, many saw it in 3D and then many saw it also in 120 frames per second. I however did not see this movie in theaters, why? I honestly do not recall what I did besides seeing this movie, I do remember that I had grown tired of seeing the trailer for it. Usually when I see a trailer played that many times its over compensating for the quality of the movie. Now lets talk about director Ang Lee's most recent technology experiment, I say that because to me each of his movies is like a little kid who got into a film expo saw something he felt was cutting edge and said I want to make a movie around that technology, here it is de-aging. By now we have seen de-aging effects being used quite often Samuel Jackson in Captain Marvel and several actors in The Irishman to name a couple. You know from the trailers that your going to see Will Smith fight a younger Will Smith, we know from the context in the trailer, Will Smith knows nothing of this other him that means its not a son, but a clone. Ang Lee could of went the way of The 6th Day where Arnold Schwarzenegger fights a clone of him self that is the same age, however he chose to go with Will fighting a younger version of himself, this of course adds a little more to the humanistic side of the story which is cloning a person and then raising that clone in the shadow of the real person. Before we get into what I thought of the de-aging, lets talk about the actual movie, Will Smith plays an exceptionally skilled sharpshooter that has over 70 kills under his belt, which is starting to weigh on him and decides it is time to retire. There are those that are not happy he's leaving and then there are some that consider him a loose string that needs to be plucked away from their ulterior motive. Enter Clive Owen the head of an elite group of a black ops paramilitary group named Gemini, there you go now you get the title, because you guessed it Will Smith 2.0 works for them. After a couple associates of Smith's are off'd he puts the puzzle together quickly, gathers up Mary Elizabeth Winstead and Benedict Wong, then quickly escapes with unknowingly a clone in tow. This is where I feel Ang Lee likes his toys, because the plot it's not intricate and you have some interesting characters though we never get to spend time with them because Ang Lee is making a Bourne lite movie he's not used to making. There are a couple decent action scenes notable the motorcycle chase and a fight in some catacombs, though I felt like I'm watching a scene designed to be Smith v Smith. Will say, look its a different use of a will, acting wise to me everyone did well especially Benedict Wong, loved his character. [Spoiler Alert] There is not just one clone and the first one looks better than the second one, though many of the close up of the clone there was just something off and I felt it was de-aging via CG because there is just something missing in the eyes and around the cheeks his face took on a putty like look to me. The issues I had with it though, I do acknowledge that Ang Lee is taking chances and giving us something new not in the form of story telling but deliverance of the material with the high frame rate that was a very big thing he wanted it shown in theaters with, I did not see his one with the frame rate though I have seen others and it just looks too real not cinematic for my tastes almost like I'm watching a 4K video on YouTube its almost like too clean if that makes sense. I wasn't challenged intellectually with this movie, but that is not to say I was bored, I think this movie got a little more negativity than it deserves largely due to technical choices. It entertained me throughout, which is all we can ask for a movie truly to do and that was what they started as a way to entertain which this does, good example of always watch a movie to make your opinion. I had very negative outlook for this movie, largely due to watching reviews, I am a sucker for clone movies whether good or bad, I enjoy the ethical debate they instill into the movies. C.

Swallow

Unless you were able to attend one of the festivals that played this or live by a drive-in theater showing it, you are going to have to rent this on a streaming platform, because movie theaters are still closed due to COVID-19...end rant. Haley Bennett has recently just married Austin Stowell, who’s family is well to do and has bought them a nice big shiny contemporary house to live in and now thanks to her husband she does not have to work and can work on pursuing her passion of art. Except when she becomes pregnant she starts to learn that not working and being under this family umbrella she doesn’t necessarily get to make all the decisions she wants and being treated how she would like to be treated. It leads to her developing a disorder called Pica, if you are unfamiliar what this is I’ll give you the definition, an eating disorder where a person eats things (usually in animate objects) that a not considered food. Before this movie I was vaguely aware of this disorder, I have heard about it, but, not to the extent that this movie takes it. We are talking a marble, battery and dirt just to name a couple, it was uncomfortable watching this movie, but, in a good way. I had to take a break half way and just recollect myself, you see her putting these in her mouth and then fishing them out of the toilet when they come out the other end and she has kind of a trophy gallery on her stand of the things she has swallowed. When I said it was in a good way being uncomfortable, its due to the fact that when this first starts happening, I was like what the serious F*’@ is she doing, very quickly she is ushered by the family to see a therapist, where as she starts discussing her upbringing you can begin to see what it has done to her mentally and partly why she is doing this. Haley Bennett is the whole movie, her very relaxed, calm demeanor about everything and when she goes into her swallowing objects its such effortless mentality she is displaying doing this. Then while this is going on with her you have the family giving ultimatums to the extent of go to rehab or divorce, Elizabeth Marvel plays the mother in-law with a beat where you aren’t quite sure is she on her side or her son’s side. So, you get this great debate that different viewers may get from this movie over is the family being controlling of her because of this or is it that they are protecting the child she is carrying. It’s gonna be difficult for many to stomach this movie, though it is such a different subject matter, at least I have never seen represented in a movie and as put off as I was at the imagery of her ingesting these things, the film as a whole is very well lit and has wonderful color palette with nice up close shots of her object, I was transfixed and had to watch to see what was going to happen to her. B. Of course after watching this I had to go and see what basis in reality this movie is and I found sites that said one-fourth of pregnant women may develop a form of Pica due to anemia or iron deficiency resulting from the pregnancy.

Freaks

Right away we are put into a dilapidated house with Emile Hirsch and his daughter, Lexy Kolker, where it has a vibe similar to a movie like Room where you feel she is being held captive by Emile. They are father and daughter though and he is protecting her from the outside world where he says people want to kill them if they go outside and you here him telling her to try and act normal. Slowly as reveals start to happen, Lexy Kolker is not an ordinary child, she has some kind of power that we are not quite sure what it is. Bruce Dern comes into the picture as a man driving an ice cream truck trying to lure her outside and I do not know about you, my mind instantly goes to creepy old man trying to kidnap little girl, wrong, its her grandfather. Venturing with her grandfather into the world it appears its not as bad as her father makes it out to be, or is it. You see she is what is referred to in this movie as a “freak” a human with superpowers, think X-Men sort of with some Brightburn and you get the gist of what’s going down, Emile Hirsch has created a time bubble to keep his daughter safe as long as he can stay awake, oh yeah, forgot to mention her mother is being held inside a mountain where they take “freaks” and she is about to be put down, except her daughter has the ability to control other people and visit other people’s environments. I understand this sounds all over the place, to talk about this movie without giving any spoilers is kind of hard, already gave a way a couple, oops my bad. Somehow though it all manages to work out and with some nifty visual effects along the way. What I liked about this was it constantly keeps unraveling itself and opening up more and more defying some predictions I had as to what was happening. If you have the time to give the movie and actually actively watch, I think you’ll be entertained. B.

Extraction

I have grown to be skeptical of direct to Netflix movies, they always tend to be more hit or miss for me. But, I have been watching a lot of dramatic ones lately and wanted some just turn off the mind action, blow s*!# up type of movie. This one did not let me down, Chris Hemsworth plays a for higher mercenary who takes a contract to rescue the son of a drug dealer that has been taken hostage in India. What he does not realize is that this kid is wanted by many more individuals and he has gotten himself into a bigger situation than anyone thought going into the mission. John Wick showed us what action movies could do under the direction of a former stunt coordinator and now it is happening once again, this time helmed by Sam Hargrave a stunt coordinator that worked on many of the Marvel films has now stepped behind the lens and brings the level of action from the John Wick films into a more real world environment with mercenaries instead of assassins. This is a movie that does not let up it is hard hitting action for a good majority of it, because to be honest the plot is not that great and the main character is not quite as developed as John Wick himself, it makes up for with action though. From breach and clearing residences to one of the best car chases that I have seen in years. The pairing of Hargrave and Hemsworth is perfect as they have worked together before with Marvel, the director knows what Hemsworth is capable of performing and then gets that ability without the comedy elements that Thor usually exhibits. This is one that I wish we would have had the ability to see in theaters because I feel especially in like a Dolby format that the action would be that much fuller with a screen encompassing my field of vision and the shots, punches and engines in full surround. It’s not an intricate storyline and the characters could use some more defining, but, if your looking for some popcorn munching action, the way this movie is shot and put together on a technical level is another helping to redefine what action movies can be, highly recommend for someone wanting a dose of some adrenaline action. C.

See You Yesterday [Review]

This is a movie that came out last year and was nominated for best first feature and won best first screenplay at the Film Independent Spirit Awards this year, it is available on Netflix to watch, I remember seeing it on Netflix browsing through titles and never gave much thought to watching it. However, being a member of Film Independent I have the opportunity to attend what they call Coffee Talks which is where a member of Film Independent moderates a discussion of the film with the filmmakers and then does a little audience Q&A at the end. Living in Florida on the complete opposite coast of all the action in Hollywood, I was never able to attend many of these events until recently due to COVID-19 they are all taking place on the Zoom platform, at least that good came out of the situation we are in, giving myself the opportunity to attend events such as this where it was a discussion with the director and write (Stefon Bristol) and the other writer (Fredrica Bailey). Signing up for this Q&A I realized pretty quickly that I should actually watch the film that I am going to have them talking about. What if teenagers figured out time travel? How would they direct that ability? That is the underlying story of this film, yes I said underlying, first and foremost it is about police brutality. The movie revolves around two teenage students who are both extremely gifted when it comes to technology and science, Eden Duncan-Smith and Dante Crichlow, who have figured out time travel and put it into a wearable backpack device. Their focus is using it to when a science fair until Astro who plays Eden Duncan-Smith's brother is fatally shot by a police officer over mistaken identity for a robbery suspect. To save her brother the two are able to jump back twenty-four hours and try to stop the shooting from taking place, thus saving her brothers life, until their interference in time creates ripples that have far worsening effects, resulting in them having to do several jumps to try and set the timeline back. Taking place in Brooklyn this movie doesn't try to explain it rules of time travel or go deeply into how their technology functions, instead it asks audience to just go with it as the main focus is to draw attention to police brutality and prejudices occurring in areas such as Brooklyn, doing this with a science-fiction film as the driving factor is actually quite brilliant as it delivers a subject that has been represented by several movies recently, but, using a different genre to engage a whole other audience. This is the first feature film to be be directed by Stefon Bristol and for both writers himself and Fredrica Bailey, which is apparent during the film as there are some continuity errors and some scene setups that don't quite line up because of the time paradoxes created, though even for advanced filmmakers anytime your playing with time travel this becomes a factor. Its not a shiny polished film, as I said though the idea is to draw light to a societal problem occurring in our world and the characters surrounding that main idea are strong and the time travel aspect just makes it feel fresh. Resulting in you can either watch this movie from a science-fiction stand point or from a culturally conscious dramatic point of view. Its under an hour and half which works well it doesn't add any unnecessary fluff, its a good watch especially if you want to introduce pre-teens to the subject of what is police brutality and overreach without using a long tense dramatic alternative. C.

We Summon the Darkness

Alexandra Daddario, Maddi Hassan and Amy Forsyth are on a road trip to attend a music performance from a metal band when on the road a van on pranksters tosses out a container from the van at the girls. Little did the girls know that they would be seeing that van again in the parking lot of the little venue where the band is playing, three guys (Keenan Johnson, Logan Miller and Austin Swift) make the van home as they tell that they are following the band tour going from place to place. Three girls and three guys you can see from a mile away these two groups are gonna be hanging out for a while. It is decided that the guys will be following the girls to Alexandra Diddario’s father’s place not to far away. This is where the movie decides to start upping the tension and thriller factor hoping to bring audiences into a twist, though the setup for said twist is seen coming and just does not make that impact it could have, I mean come on look at the poster art or for COVID purposes the VUDU graphic, its clear the girls are gonna be up to more than just flirty metal music fans. Early on in the movie it is dropped a couple times that there have been satanic killings happening around the country and when we see their interactions with different people from the gas station attendant where they get gas to the boys in the van, its easy to tell these girls have more to them they are laying on and it turns out to be true. The problem I had was once things start going wrong and the horror/killing aspect of the movie kicks into full gear, I just couldn’t have given a crap about any of the characters if they lived or died and with a horror movie you need at least one character to champion through if they live or die, there are times that they tried to create a dramatic tie between Alexandra and Keeanan though its just not well written and most of the direction feels lazy. Johnny Knoxville’s character as Alexandra’s father was probably the most interesting character in the movie, yet we hardly get to know about him and his beliefs which may have helped out on the motive of why these girl’s did what they did. I mean if this was included in a streaming service and your genre of choice is the slasher horror/thriller category, its a quick movie that may satisfy, though I feel there is enough to also have a group with some drinks and snacks to just make fun of it the whole time, I mean one decides the best weapon is like a boat trolling motor and propeller to kill with. My recommendation is to just go and rewatch The Craft. D.

Beanpole Review

Whew, this was a struggle to get through, not that it was bad, it is kind of a slow burn about two women that is quite emotionally deep at times. The story takes its name from the character Iya played by Viktoria Miroshnichenko who is a tall sort of lanky girl, which the community they live in refer to her as a beanpole due to her stature. Let me set the scene for you, it is set just post World War II in Russian, oh yeah its a Russian language film that is about 130 minutes (that might have had an effect on my getting through this), Iya works in a hospital that treats soldiers that have lost limbs or the ability to fully move in one case. She has a small boy that lives with her in a small room in a shared building, aka, has to take baths in a community bathing room. Just after a tragic event with the boy, we meet Masha (Vasilisa Perelygina) the boys real mother who has just returned from serving in the Army. Iya and Masha served in an anti-aircraft unit where they met and formed a strong friendship, Iya was discharged for medical reasons and still suffers from freezing up unexpectedly at times a result akin to a form of PTSD. Coming back and finding that her son died under her friends care, Masha, feels that her friend basically owes her a child and sets that plan into motion. This brings the two girls into a whirlwind of emotions that brings the audience into the mix, they at times are now closer than ever, while at the same time the reason they are becoming closer is creating friction pushing them away. I mentioned that it took me a while to get through this, actually is was a full afternoon, one of the reasons is it does unfold and move slowly. It is a heavy movie that does not loosen up and I resulted to having to press pause step away for a little bit then move forward a little bit and take another break. This is the first film for both leading actresses and they are what is golden about the movie, the emotions they are able to portray and work through the movie for new actresses is quite extraordinary. Directed by Kantemir Balagou, he is able to effectively transport audiences back to Leningrad in 1945, there for me was just some pacing issues and some off choices on shot setups, again though this is a Russian made film obviously they are gonna be shooting films different than films made stateside, was this a movie for me no, though I do appreciate it as an International Film and the craft work that went into making it. C.

Sea Fever

The beginning of the year gave us an alien like confined, isolation, horror thriller based underwater and now we have one on the surface of the water.

From first time feature film director Neasa Harriman comes a decently competent sci-fi  survival thriller on the high seas. I am sure you could classify it as a horror film at IMDB has it listed as one of the genres to describe it, for me I would say more thriller than horror, there are a couple gore scenes,  for the most part its more the tension of who will be next or what is this thing doing. Let’s start at the beginning where we meet Hermoine Corfield’s character, Siobhán, who is working on her doctorate and is told by her professor she must go on a fishing trawler to finish her studies against her wanting to stay in the lab on campus. She is not warmly welcomed by the crew consisting of Connie Nielsen, Dougray Scott, Olwen Fouéré, Jack Hickey and Ardalan Esmaili because she is a red head, if you are not familiar with maritime myths, it is considered bad luck to have a red head on your vessel. Even though this movie is set off the Irish coast where red heads are not uncommon, it is still bad luck to have them on board, which is foreboding because that is just what they encounter a bunch of bad luck or is it a certain captain trying to skirt the rules. You see as they are putting out to see they are warned by the coast guard they are entering an exclusion zone, which unknown to the rest of the crew they have just entered against being told not to. If you are reading this then you probably know movies pretty well and know that doing what your not told, hiding it from everyone else, surely something is bound to go wrong. They encounter something that has latched onto their ship and has started an infection of the crew and one by one the start to be killed off by this thing. This movie is taking cues from a little bit of Alien mashing it up with a little bit of The Thing, you have a creature killing of members of the crew in a confined space, which the director is able to work with very well, it is not the largest fishing trawler but you get the sense of where everything is happening and can see enough to know what is going on. If anything this movie has become more relevant without it even knowing it was going to be, cause I am sure the release date was planned in advance, this is another film that was suppose to be releasing into theaters instead it had the sad honor of going straight to VOD. At the time of writing this we are still going through COVID-19 stay(safer)-at-home orders where we are distancing for the greater good, well as crew becomes infected our main character, Siobhán, specializes in predicting behaviors and knows that they cannot go back home until they know they are not infected any longer, aka stay-on-the-boat to keep from spreading what they have found on the mainland. Movies like this are one of my favorite genre’s, Alien, Leviathan and even Life(2017) are some of my favorite movies, your combining survival horror with the science fiction of sci-fi creatures. Earlier I said this played more thriller to me than horror and that is because a lot of this is trying to see who has it, what is it and focus more on social interactions with the crew than action. There are as I said a couple gore scenes for those that want that kind of stuff, to me less is more, some are gonna be put off by the conversations in the movie, trying to develop more character and bonds with them then focus on running and screaming. If your into movies like those I mentioned, I would check this out, the creature has an interesting design and has the relevant message going for it and even treads into the mankind encroachment on the environment if that is something up your alley. C.

Wendy Review

Wendy as you may have either guessed from the title or saw the trailer is a re-imaging of the Peter Pan story. For me this is more of using Peter Pan as inspiration for the story rather than calling it a re-imaging or as some call it a new interpretation of the classic story. Yes, you have characters named Wendy and Peter, yes there is the island where kids can not age and the idea of never losing your inner child. The movie starts where a young boy named Thomas wanders off and boards a train and skip forward several years, has never returned, when a young girl named Wendy and her twin brothers (Douglas and James) hop on a train in the middle of the night. Finding a young boy on the train named Peter they are kicked out of the moving train over water, where a boat awaits to take them to a mystical island. On this island are two populations, children who never grow up and old people who stopped believing. The two live on separate sides of the island as the children play and run about, with a fondness and protection of a large fish-like creature named 'Mother', while the older inhabitants are trying to get their youthfulness back by capturing 'Mother' believing eating her flesh will bring back their youth.

This is a hard movie to try and explain as it is one that to me has to be experienced to understand, It is very obvious that the filmmaker behind Beast of the Southern Wild is behind this from the look and feel of the movie once it starts it has that whimsical feel while still having a worn, rusty, aesthetic. There were times I felt this was a Peter Pan movie and other times if the characters had different names, I would just take it as a fantastical youth adventure film as there are enough changes to the story. What is still there though is the messages about keeping hope and youthful joy in your lives as your grow up that J.M. Barrie with his classic story instilled on the world. There are tons of messages, takeaways or symbolic meanings that can be interpreted from watching this if you sit and think on every thing. As with Beasts of the Southern Wild the children in the movie are for the most part all unknowns, however I can see one or two of them coming out of this into the spotlight as Quvenzhané Wallis has become a common name in the film world. As beautiful as the island is and the rich production design of combining fantasy with an almost dystopian aesthetic, there were a couple problems I had with the movie which are mostly pacing related, I felt the beginning dragged on a little bit and towards the middle it also slowed down as we waited for the conflict to start. There is also some use of handy cam work that results in shaky cam at times that I think other setups would have worked better. Though if you watch the making of this movie and read a little bit about it, the island they filmed scenes on called Montserrat was severely devesated from a volcanic eruptions in the 1990's and the remote locations made it hard to get to safely except for the more critical cast and crew, so, while I was not a fan of some shaky cam moments, I get that you have to the best with what you have to work with.  Most will say its another Peter Pan movie and skip it alone on that merit, which I can  kind of understand then you will have those that are put off by the trailers and the look of the film, those that have seen Beasts of the Southern Wild and enjoyed it or recognized the passion the filmmakers had to craft that one will enjoy Wendy. I do not think its worth going out of your way to  watch or pay the theater at home fee I did unless you are in the latter group I mentioned, I do feel though it will be worth a watch on a streaming service you subscribe to once it becomes available on it, if you are looking for something outside the mainstream studios. C.