jake scott

This movie is such an apt depiction of everything that is currently wrong with mainstream movies coming out of Hollywood these days. It has the same snarky, "tongue-in-cheek" delivery in its dialogue that so many movies of it's kind has. It features a lot of the same meta humor that has been overused in so many MCU movies the past 10 years. It's cast, led by Dwayne Johnson and trickling all the way to down to the smallest bit part is about as predictable as you'd expect, as there is quite literally nothing about this movie that is creative or surprising, whatsoever. It's a movie that simply has nothing to offer.

Gladiator 2 fails to recapture the magic of the first film and it instead meanders aimless through an overwrought, over long big budget set action spectacle that doesn't feel like it was worth the reported budget, overall.

Jeepers Creepers can best be described in a tag line that says "Our 2 main protagonists make the dumbest decisions possible for an hour and a half and then it ends". It offers very little in thrills or chills, and it features some of the worst attempts at "tongue-in-cheek" dialogue that is clearly trying to capitalize on the post-modern revelations achieved by Wes Craven's "A New Nightmare" and "Scream". The problem is there's no hint of subtlety or wit, these moments are handled with such heavy handed that there's no other way to react to these parts than just give an eye roll. There's a part in the movie where a character says something a long the lines of "this is the point in a horror movie when a character does something really stupid", and it doesn't work as some sort of charming, self awareness nod by the screenwriters, as an audience member you're just thinking "yeah, that is a really dumb decision, why are the writers so lazy they're having our characters put in these positions in the dumbest way possible." The movie should have a better script rather than just acknowledge how bad it is.

There really was no point in making a Joker sequel to begin with and nothing about Joker: Folie a Deux justifies it's existence, either. I'll start by saying that the musical element of this movie adds nothing, in fact, it hinders any possible tension or drama the movie might have had in the first place. Joaquin Pheonix's performance is fine, and really every performance in the movie is solid and the cast is made up primarily of great actors but they have nothing to work with. The material simply isn't there. The narrative has no focus and by the end of the movie, not to spoil anything, will leave you with an overwhelming feeling of "what was the point of this movie?" And I don't have an answer for that, either.

Tim Burton and Michael Keaton are back like they never left with this new legacy sequel to the beloved Beetlejuice, bringing the satire, insanity and energy that huddled the 1988 film.

Matt Walsh hilariously pokes fun at the absurdity of manufactured racial tension in America with this new documentary.

Longlegs is stylish, while not being too flashy, and maintains its creepy concept thanks in large part to a tightly written script, and exceptional performances from both Maika Monroe and Nicolas Cage.

Cuckoo is a movie that is clearly trying to attempt something different and creative, and I think for the most part the film succeeds in terms of genre filmmaking. There certainly are some rather interesting horror set pieces that get your heart rate up and gets under your skin. The only problem is that while these set pieces are well done, unfortunately the story and character development is not as tightly executed and the second half of the movie falls flat because of it. There's a severe lack of tension in the third act of the movie because it's not clear what the motivations of any of the characters are, it's quite confusing and the film doesn't flesh any of these ideas out. It's frustrating because Cuckoo certainly isn't a bad film, there are some solid performances, impressive visuals and there is a clear and distinct voice behind the camera, but it's missing ingredient is lost somewhere in the plot and subtext work.

A solid entry in this years horror/thriller category, offering both scares and thrills, but most importantly, a concise and compelling narrative that feels fresh and original in a current horror landscape where that is too few and far in between.

The Idea of You falters both as a comedy and romance, offering very little other than surface level attempts at both that fail miserably. It's a movie that's extremely shallow, preachy and treats its audience as if it's unintelligent and needs the script to directly spell out every idea the film has barely realized. The performance and characters are also quite lackluster, Anne Hathaway and Nicholas Galitzine have no chemistry whatsoever, and the way that both characters are written, how their story develops, leaves very little to grasp onto as to why the two characters are even in love to begin with. Again, the movie is very shallow and lacks depth in the way that a lot of cheap, paperback romance novels are.