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Thanksgiving (2023)
If it was an obscure 80s slasher, you'd love it. Stop whining.
This is a slasher movie. That's all it is. It's not trying to be smart, it's not trying to boggle the mind with perfectly crafted writing and storytelling. It's not trying to subvert any expectations. It's genre filmmaking (or rather subgenre filmmaking) and it hits all the requisite beats of your classic, typical, somewhat derivative post-Halloween slasher movie.
There is loads of negativity towards this movie, which is highly hypocritical because this movie is really no different than any of your typical one-off, non-franchised B-movie slashers of the early 1980s (My Bloody Valentine, The Howling, etc). Had it been made in like, 1983, it would be a cult classic today. It fits right in with those singular slasher movies that did their job being a solid slasher and just never got a sequel. Will this get a sequel? Maybe. Hope not. Doesn't need it. I'd like to think Eli Roth knows there's just not enough meat left on the bone left here and decides to just make another decent slasher movie, because that's exactly what this is. A perfectly serviceable slasher movie.
Go watch a Christopher Nolan movie or something if you want to see a great piece of film that meets your video essay film nerd wannabe screenwriter expectations. This movie is not the place to do that.
Halloween Ends (2022)
Halloween 3: interesting horror movie, very bad Halloween movie.
In 1982, the 3rd Halloween got weird. 40 years later, this one did too.
For decades, we hated Halloween III because it didn't have enough Michael Myers (none of course), it had a completely bizarre story, a cast of annoying or weird characters, a new villain, yet it had Halloween in the title.
Of course, we all eventually came around to it decades later and it's now a lovable cult classic in the horror genre, a strange one-off B-movie with some great special effects, classic scenes, goofy writing, and an interesting atmosphere. We just had to get over the fact that it was a Halloween movie in name only.
Halloween Ends doesn't have enough Michael Myers, has a completely bizarre story, a cast of annoying or weird characters, a new villain, and it even uses the same opening credit style as Halloween III. It's clearly trying to be the experimental entry in this new trilogy like Halloween III was 40 years ago, and I think it's attempting to bank off the goodwill that Halloween III finally earned from the fanbase after decades of being misunderstood and written off. "Perhaps they'll accept Halloween Ends with open arms, too, no matter how bad it gets... just like with Halloween III!" I can see the writers thinking, as they dream up some of the most nonsensical dialogue, character choices, and storytelling I've seen in recent memory. It's a rough watch and I had several laughs during scenes that were taking themselves incredibly seriously despite some absolutely bonkers circumstances happening onscreen.
The one truly significant difference between Halloween III and Halloween Ends, however, is that this is not going to be a cult classic movie, and even if you pretend it's not a Halloween movie and just watch it on its own merits, it's still an objectively ridiculous piece of filmmaking. It will never be bad-cool in the Halloween III way, and it will never be so-bad-it's-good in the Troll 2 kind of way. It is not memorable, it is not likable, and it only serves to further tarnish the franchise that this new trilogy came thisclose to turning around.
I look forward to the next Halloween movie. I love seeing Michael Myers onscreen, and I hope I don't have to wait another 10 years to see him again. Even if it's as perplexing as this movie.
Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (2022)
Inception for kids
It's a great movie if you like watching your favorite famous people move their hands in weird ways to shoot big red CGI orbs at each other during fight scenes. In between those parts, it's a highly convoluted time jumping/universe hopping story centered around Wandavision wanting to see her kids, who have the hilariously uncreative names of Billy and Tommy. The protagonist (who somehow feels like he has second billing to Wanda), Dr. Strange, a time-traveling British guy who is a Doctor who isn't a Doctor Who, is mostly on screen to move his hands, shoot CGI things out of his hands at people, and be sarcastic when he's not asking people questions about what he is supposed to be doing-at one point in an extremely dialogue-heavy expositional scene, he asks John Krasinski how he can get to a book he's looking for that is incredibly crucial to drive the story forward. John Krasinski reminds Strange that he made himself a huge loophole out of like, time warp magic or something that allows him to just get directly to the book, which we never saw onscreen or heard about at any point beforehand. It's just tossed in to bail out whoever wrote themselves into a corner with the screenplay. Dr. Strange is pretty much just like, "oh yeah, that's right!" and the movie shamelessly plows forward (it prompted a huge belly laugh from me and is far and away my favorite part of this movie).
There are a number of characters who are important parts in what we will call the story of this movie, but the character development just isn't there for us to buy into any particular motivations or desires that they may or may not express throughout the movie in regards to why they are doing what they are doing onscreen. And for the record, I'm not even referring to all of the Easter eggs and crossovers and cameos peppered in-just the mostly disposed-of side characters who for some reason are given notable significance in a number of scenes in this movie that are clearly meant to be turning points in the story, which fall a bit flat because we don't really care about the people involved. Also, Bruce Campbell is here, because Sam Raimi. If it's any testament to the screenplay and how fast and loose it plays with all of its characters, he is arguably equally as important as, say, the big giant bipedal cow/bull guy or John Krasinski in the grand scheme of this story. There's a lot going on here and to try to keep tabs on all of it is a fools errand. Sit back and let it happen to you. Watch this movie the way you watched movies when you were a little kid. Just watch the big loud fights and the bright colors. Cheer for the good guy even if you don't know why. Doesn't matter.
I can go on and on about this movie and trash it for being a really goofy screenplay and complain about nitpicky issues, but I'm not. That's not the point here. Ultimately, it's just another Marvel product like the shirts and the toys. It's made to appeal to the widest audience as possible, it's very clearly something that's made for children to watch despite some of the darker Sam Raimi horror-ish touches (most are CGI ridiculousness, some of them look really cool in brief flashes), and it succeeds in that department-it's a movie for people who do not think too much about what they're seeing and like to see big loud things happen that look really cool, of which there's a lot here.
If we want to look at what this movie is trying to do creatively with the screenplay, character choices, and storytelling, while also appealing to extremely broad, lowest common denominator blockbuster movie sensibilities, it's probably best summed up as Inception for kids. That's as complimentary as I can possibly be.
Space Jam: A New Legacy (2021)
Fails where the original Space Jam succeeded--being a watchable movie
The original Space Jam, if we remember, was this super exciting movie where we got to see the Looney Tunes intellectual property outside of their domain and interacting with the real world and THE Michael Jordan. Real celebrities and sports stars played themselves in the movie. It was meta, self-referential, and irreverent towards pop culture at the time. These concepts were really exciting in the 1990s-look at what Scream did with horror cliches, and what Casper did with celebrity cameos around the same time period. We loved it, and Space Jam capitalized on all of this stuff while still giving us a fun, watchable movie. The unfortunately can't be said for this new Space Jam.
The original Space Jam managed to fit a pretty lean, economical screenplay around these pop culture references and goofy distractions--there's a very, very clear three-act structure with some A, B, and C storylines running throughout that generally all carry through pretty clear arcs and wrap themselves up sufficiently without much head-scratching afterwards. You can go back and watch the original and see that it is well-paced, there's nothing that feels unnecessary that makes the story drag or raise a bunch of questions, and it does a satisfactory job of just being a fun movie. It's an extremely easy watch. It's not a "good" movie, but it's a well executed family fun movie that hits all of its beats and gets out without overstaying its welcome. The acting is lousy and it feels like a cheesy 90s time capsule, because of course it is. But it is entertaining. It does its main job of just being a watchable movie.
Going into the new Space Jam, I expected nothing except a watchable movie and getting to see Lebron goof around with the Looney Tunes, as well as the occasional pop culture gags/distractions.
What I got, however, was a really, really tough watch.
Lebron is written as a mean, domineering, out of touch father and his very first introduction onscreen is extremely unflattering as a result, which makes our protagonist highly unlikable from the very start.
MJ in the original Space Jam was written as not only a loving father, but they managed to also successfully portray the greatest athlete of all time as an underdog, and we totally buy it. They even leveraged the actual events of his real life into the story to ground him and make him likable, and it paid dividends in the final product. It was a very, very shrewd way of using a meta approach to effectively drive storytelling forward. In this case, Lebron is kinda rude and makes his own kid resent him as a result. There is no attempt made at grounding Lebron's character in any way like MJ was. Lebron doesn't need to be an underdog per se, but give us something about him as a real person to root for at least. We got nothing from this screenplay in this regard.
A little later on, the main conflict arises and I watch Lebron get sucked into the serververse by Don Cheadle to go on a frantic search for his kid. I'm basically going "wait, why is he suddenly so emotionally invested in this? He has been nothing but cold, mean, and distant with this kid the entire time." There was nothing particularly meaningful developed between Lebron and his son before the kid goes missing, so it's tough to buy that Lebron is just devastated that the kid is gone. On top of this, a completely unnecessary and extremely poorly fleshed out wrinkle is added as a way to raise the stakes--he has to find the son or else his millions of instagram followers get stuck in the server forever. The social media followers were and are never a part of the story and are simply thrown in to raise the stakes because the kid being gone clearly wasn't enough to get an audience invested (this is being used as a crutch for poor character development). It's a tough narrative sell and I don't buy it.
In Space Jam 1, the motivations were incredibly simple yet effective: Michael has to get back in time for his baseball game. His family, who he deeply loves, will worry about him. The NBA players will lose their talent if he doesn't. They will all be slaves on Moron Mountain. All of these things are sufficiently developed and explained beforehand, so when they are used as leverage to raise the stakes for MJ, we totally buy it and are invested. These stakes feel real and scary, and we root so hard for the Tune Squad as a result. This new Space Jam story makes the old Space Jam screenplay feel like an economical masterpiece on par with Die Hard.
I don't worry about the son's plight in this new Space Jam, because every interaction with the most important adult in his life (the movie's protagonist Lebron) that he's had up to this point has been extremely negative and the villain is the only adult in the movie who overtly connects with him on a personal level and encourages him in his pursuits. Being stuck in the server forever with a very supportive Don Cheadle and his cute lovable Pixar-style sidekick looks and feels like a far better option here--it doesn't feel like he's been kidnapped or is being held against his will whatsoever. The son is very, very clearly enjoying his time in captivity and it just kills the sort of damsel in distress archetype it's shooting for here. It's really, really bizarre to see a kidnapped kid enjoying his time and never, ever once asking, "where is my dad?" or maybe saying, "let me out of here, I want to go home." What is going on here?
The movie is absolutely loaded with forced, hamfisted, and genuinely corny (not in a funny dad joke way) references to existing Warner Brothers IP. I believe I counted four (4) overt references to The Matrix of all things (remember in the late 90s when it was common to see a Matrix slo-mo bullet dodge reference? It obviously got old quickly, even back then). These all honestly get very old, very fast. There's too much, none of the references are creative or particularly funny, and they really do make the movie drag along more than it already is. It all just serves as filler. The same goes for the insane amount of CGI effects in this movie. I marveled at it, not only for how much work went into it by the artists, but also at how utterly unnecessary it was and how much it dragged out scenes to be way longer than they needed to be so that we could wait on actors to wave their hands and arms all over the place to interact with the CG stuff. If there's any way a CGI thing can be used, it is. There's zero discretion in this regard. It's pure filler and incredibly distracting most of the time. With all due respect to the artists and the hours they put in, its a huge technological achievement but incredibly over the top as a result. You really get the sense that this is what the movie is built around, rather than all of it being built around a movie.
The original Space Jam has occasional cameos and some breaking of the fourth wall, and uses the Looney Tunes IP and some minor corporate product placement as part of the meta/self referential pop culture shtick it was doing. Some of these ideas and sequences have aged better than others, sure, but none of it feels unnecessarily forced or crazy over the top and it all went over fairly well originally without detracting from the story or taking time away from developing characters. They were built around the movie--the movie was not built around it.
TL;DR: Ultimately, the new space jam fails where the original Space Jam succeeded--in being a watchable movie.
I Care a Lot (2020)
Solid cast undermined by lousy writing
I don't want to spend more time on this review than the writer/director did on rewrites for what felt like a second draft script, so I'll just point out a couple of major red flags verrrry early on in this movie that told me that I was in for a completely mediocre experience.
-The first act contains 2 (TWO!) montages, which immediately signals to me that we have problems with exposition and we need to go back to the script and actually write during our first act. Two montages covering significant events in character's stories so early in a film that are purely there to move plot and aren't in it for comedic effect or some other stylistic/artistic reason is a big no no. That was prime character-building material during prime character-building time, and we couldn't seem to get it on the page in scenes and dialogue. Strike one.
-The first-person narration in the first act from the main lead character is abandoned at some point, never to be seen again. Why did we start this movie off like Gone Girl (this director wanted to do his own hacky version of that movie I think) and then ditch the first-person narration that we leaned so heavily on for early exposition? And where/when was it coming from? Our lead character dies at the end, so it isn't from the future, and she's not keeping a diary or something throughout her diamond-hiding quest, so... why's it there? Lazy writing? Cuz we're having first act exposition/character development issues and are relying on narration and montages? Strike two.
-The third strike is for some of the really head scratching moments I had. These were seriously distracting from story and dialogue and were all annoying or frustrating to some degree:
1. Why does the lead very noticeably keep switching between driving a Jeep SUV and a BMW sedan as her main mode of transportation with absolutely no explanation? This seems nitpicky, but I think others who picked up on this will back me up on it. It comes across as just bad continuity.
2. Why is the vaping so weirdly prominent? If it's the writer/director's attempt at an archetypical Edward G. Robinson cigar, then that is probably the most cringeworthy character choice I've seen in recent memory.
3. What the hell was the purpose of the whole tooth in milk sequence and why did it get so much screen time in the climactic part of the third act? This was almost a whole third act B-plot in and of itself and can only be described as distracting nonsensical filler. I'm sincerely stumped on this one.
In conclusion: The acting is solid given what they had to work with (plenty of bad writing and cringey dialogue to go around), the cast is surprisingly good (why did they all agree to do this?), and the script needed to be punched up big time. The end product felt like a direct-to-DVD release. This was a tough watch. 2/10.
Halloween (2018)
A first act spent on developing disposable characters should've been used to set up a controversial twist.
Major spoilers. Move on. Read this when you're ready.
I only want to review the plot twist of this newest Halloween sequel. The film in totality is pretty awesome and I have no real interest in diving into the rest since it's otherwise pretty good, but it has become clear to me after really ruminating over this film for the past couple of days after seeing it that the plot twist could have been a really interesting surprise as opposed to a poorly executed and near-fatal distraction from an otherwise good entry into such a celebrated horror franchise. Read on to hear my thoughts on how and why this could have been a better-executed twist.
The character in question, the "New Loomis" as Laurie Strode mistakenly and questionably refers to (as I explain later), is Dr. Sartain, introduced in the first act as the doctor of Michael Myers who took the reins from old man Loomis after his passing.
Sartain is introduced as a completely sensible and incredibly knowledgeable character who the screenwriters utilize as a tool for plot exposition in the first act, explaining to the British podcasting duo (and through osmosis, the audience) why Loomis is gone and why he is the guy who is looking after Michael now. He is never once given any sort of dialogue or unsettling scene that can clue us, the audience, in on what his true intentions are later on or why he matters so much to this film. It is a delicate balance for a screenwriter to give an audience *just enough* to anticipate a character's actions with dread, yet still morbidly satisfy the audience when a character lives up to our darkest expectations, and Dr. Sartain is one of those characters--unfortunately, we don't get the exposition necessary to give us something to suspect (or expect) about Sartain. The first act is crucial to laying out these kinds of connections, suspicions, and foreshadowing clues, and unfortunately, this opportunity is squandered.
Instead, the entire first act is spent on setting up the motivations and developing the characters of the (entirely disposable and unnecessary) podcasters on one level, and on a more utilitarian and much more necessary level, the first act is utilized as a device to give Michael his mask and essentially get him to Haddonfield on October 31. It is crucial to get Michael from the loony bin and into the mask and overalls as expediently and sensibly as possible in these films, so kudos to Danny McBride and Co for doing this. Unfortunately, the characters used to do this were the podcasters, who are disposable characters and are given way, way too much screen time and are the first major characters we meet, which sets up certain expectations for these characters that are ultimately deflated and sabotaged when all that happens to them is they are murdered in the Halloween 4-homage truck stop bathroom early in the first act.
Meanwhile, we basically see nothing of "New Loomis" until the bus crash that introduces act two, which he survives with some injury. Again, we have no reason to suspect anything of the doctor. I found myself as a viewer sympathetic towards Sartain when he is mistakenly shot by a bystander and seems to be on the verge of death as a result. If his arc were set up correctly, I would have felt somewhat of a sense of suspicion as to why the bus crashed and he was the lone survivor. Instead, I just watch the movie and feel for the doctor.
Soon after, a major mistake is made by the screenwriter. Laurie Strode, upon meeting the good doctor near the end of the first act, refers to him as "the new Loomis." This is a huge problem with lasting ramifications given the character arc of Dr. Sartain. To fans of previous Halloween timelines, Dr. Loomis was a good man who wanted Michael to be exterminated, destroyed, removed from the world by any means possible, even at the expense of his life and safety. He saw Michael as simply an embodiment of evil who would only go on to harm others in his pursuit to kill and he wanted him wiped from the earth. So when the anchor of the entire Halloween universe, our most pure and trustworthy Final Girl Laurie Strode, explicitly names Sartain as "New Loomis," we can rest easy knowing he, in fact, is *The New Loomis*. He embodies the same ethos as the late, great Donald Pleasance's character. He is the New Loomis and we have no reason to think otherwise, because we implicitly trust the character who bestows this moniker upon Sartain. Except, inexplicably, he is so totally not New Loomis, and we as the audience are subject to a horribly clunky plot twist as a result.
Sartain, as we learn way, way too late into the second act, actually wants Michael to live, to go out and kill in Sartain's presence, so Sartain can see him kill "in the wild." He has absolutely no redeemable moral qualities whatsoever, unlike the good doctor whom he replaced. He wants Michael to kill innocent people and wants to study Michael doing so so intensely that he is willing to see what it actually feels like to do what Michael does--and damn it, he actually does. He murders a man in cold blood with a highly contrived scalpel-blade-hidden-inside-a-ballpoint-pen contraption he keeps in his pocket, and even dons Michael's mask to feel the full effect of his murderous actions. It is an utterly ridiculous turn of events and really sours the film until it is thankfully saved by the brilliant cat-and-mouse chase sequence inside Laurie's rural house in the woods outside Haddonfield that pits her against her ultimate nemesis, the *only* villain this franchise has room for, The Shape.
And that leads me to my final thoughts on Halloween 2018. I give credit to the screenwriters for taking a major chance with a long-dormant horror franchise, I just wish that the first act was spent more on developing Dr. Sartain, a monumentally crucial character in this film, rather than the disposable and almost entirely useless podcaster characters. We could have developed a creeping, sneaking suspicion of Sartain's motivations throughout the first act that culminated in a satisfying murderous twist at the beginning of the third act, but instead we are treated with a highly questionable turn of events that come entirely out of left field that nearly ruin this film and raise some serious questions for the inevitable sequel. The Halloween franchise only has room for one villain--Michael Myers. Any attempt to subvert this unavoidable fact with a poorly-executed plot twist will only serve to muddy up the formula with convoluted film canon and put Halloween on track for more questionable sequels, which was the reason we had to wait all this time for such a good entry into the Halloween franchise in the first place. I sincerely hope the powers that be can learn from the mistakes of the past (and the mistakes of this sequel) to build upon and contribute to a horror franchise that continues to be as frustrating as it is promising. 7/10.