A horror film from newcomer director/co-writer Natalie Erika James called Relic builds tension and anxiety through the film’s run time and avoids many of the old cliches in this take on the haunted house formula.

When Edna (Robyn Nevin) disappears, her daughter Kay (Emily Mortimer) and granddaughter Sam (Bella Heathcote) head to their old family home to see if they can figure out what happened.  When Edna returned after a few days missing, fears of dementia begin to take hold.  Soon though, they realize that something more sinister was going on.

There is a lot of psychological thriller involved in this film, which helps create a slow burn tense tone and a feeling of uncertainty about what is going on.  It does not feel the need to explain everything that is happening, which I like.  It allows the audience to make those own judgments of what is occurring.

The film has a lot to say about the onslaught of dementia and the way an elderly person can change and become someone you do not know.  They just do it here in a more supernatural manner.  Good horror uses these types of metaphors to get their message across.

The movie avoided the use of jump scares and instead built the stress naturally and was able to keep the audience off kilter.  The characters here were the important part of the story and helped bring a connection with the viewer as things continued to devolve.

Relic is a horror movie that has something to say and it does so with a singular voice and a frightening message.  The conclusion of the film can stay with you for awhile.  Great performances in the three actresses help to make this a great horror movie.  I am not sure I like the title “Relic” for this movie though.

4 stars

I subscribed to the free 7-day trial of Apple TV + is weekend, specifically, for one reason.  I found out that the new Tom Hanks World War II film from Sony Pictures, Greyhound, had been purchased by Apple TV + and would debut on the streaming service.  What better way to check out a free trial than for a Tom Hanks film.

Hanks expressed some disappointment that the film was not receiving a theatrical release and I can understand why.  The film would certainly have more of an epic feel on the big screen than it does on the TV screens.  Although, I did not find that it subtracted from the viewing experience, I could understand how it might add to it.

Greyhound tells the true story of the Battle of the Atlantic, considered to be one of the longest and most complex naval battles in history.  In the early days of America’s involvement in WWII, the inexperienced Commander Ernest Krause (Tom Hanks) led an international convoy of Allied ships across the Northern Atlantic while being pursued by a wolfpack of German u-boats.

Greyhound is a sparse 90-minutes in run time, which tends to be the opposite of typical World War II films.  With that run time, the pacing of the film is exceptional.  There is so much that happens in the time that you scarcely have time to take a breath.  Greyhound effectively uses their time to tell the story.

However, one of the drawbacks to this type of storytelling is that, with the exclusion of Commander Krause, there are very few characters that are more than faces on the screen.  Tom Hanks has the most development, but most everyone else is simply there to follow orders.  Even a scene during a burial at sea seemed less emotional than it should have been because the victims were not people that we had a connection with, outside of the fact that they were on this ship.

Still, the look of this film is amazing, with beautiful scenes upon the water and dramatic recreations of the dogfights going down between the Greyhound and the u-boats.  Cinematically, Greyhound is a marvel.

If you are a fan of war movies, Greyhound is an effective story that is a quick and enjoyable watch.  Tom Hanks is great as always and the visuals are stunning.

3.8 stars

I had never heard of this movie.  Today, I was watching SEN Live on the SEN Network on YouTube when host Kristian Harloff gave a movie review about a film he watched on Hulu, called Palm Springs.

He mentioned that he really loved the movie and that he felt like it was the best movie he had seen so far in 2020.  I have always liked Andy Samberg, so I put this on my list to see.

Although I may not agree with him about it being the best movie of the year so far, I would say that Kristian was right about one thing.  This is excellent.

Nyles (Andy Samberg) is at a friend’s wedding when something strange happens.  He hooks up with the depressed maid of honor Sarah (Cristin Milioti), but their tryst is interrupted by Roy (J.K. Simmons).  Nyles runs into a cave and yells to Sarah to not come inside.  She ignores him and gets caught in a surreal world.

This is a funny film with a new twist on the Groundhog Day trope that we have seen plenty of times in films.  Both Samberg and Milioti are great in their roles and their desperation is just one of the emotions they go through as each day resets to the beginning.  Milioti especially shows some serious emotion as she is continuously returned to the moment of shame that she feels.

I also loved J.K. Simmons’ roles here.  He steals every scene he is in and brings a credibility to the film.

There was a lot of clever writing that does not get bogged down with the functionality of the plot.  The relationship with Nyles and Sarah carries the rom-com through every situation.  It is funny and entertaining.  It moves quickly and uses each minute effectively.  I never would have seen this, but I am very pleased that I did.

4.2 stars 

About a month ago I was at my comic shop and I saw a collected group of issues on the table of an Image series called The Old Guard.  It looked interesting, but I had never heard of it before.  I asked the shop crew about it and they told me it was a bout immortal mercenaries and that it was coming to Netflix..  It interested me, so I picked it up.  I loved the series, written by Greg Rucka and I have started picking up the follow up series.

Then I looked into the Netflix thing and I found out that it was going to be a film on the streaming service and it was going to star Charlize Theron.

I was so in.

Charlize Theron has been awesome lately with her kick ass action films, from Mad Max: Fury Road to Atomic Blonde.  Seeing her play Andy from the comic really felt great to me.

I was not disappointed with the adaptation on Netflix.

A group of mercenaries who heal quickly and are immortal are led by Andy (Charlize Theron).  Nile (Kiki Layne), a marine who discovers that she, too, is an immortal, is recruited by Andy’s group.  Meanwhile, Copley (Chiwetel Ejiofor) tries to hire the group to rescue kidnapped children, but it turns out that he has ulterior motives.

I enjoyed this movie and I feel as if the film does a really strong job of adapting the comic to the screen.  Part of that, I am sure, is that Greg Rucka wrote this screenplay.  Neither the film or the comic dives deeply into how this happens to these people, but that was not important.  There are references to their past, just enough to not load the movie.

There is some very good action in the film.  I heard some criticism of the way the action is filmed, but I did not find that an issue.  There may have been some shaky cam, but it was not enough to disrupt my viewing or to make it difficult to see what was happening.

The cast is strong.  Along with Theron and Ejiofor, Matthias Schoenaerts plays group member Booker.  Kiki Layne was fantastic as the new character, Nile.  Marwan Kenzari and Luca Marinelli play the couple, Joe and Nicky.  They have a great chemistry.  Harry Melling’s Merrick as the main villain here is a bit over-the-top, and cartoony, but it does not pull me out of the movie.

The film is clearly set up for a sequel and I sure hope that it will be so.  The Old Guard is a fun film with a great premise.

4 stars 

As I was searching for the movie to watch this afternoon, I came across a Hulu original called Delivered.  It turned out to be from the Hulu horror movie series “Into the Dark” and I had really enjoyed one (Pooka Lives) from earlier in the year.  I gave this one a chance.  Unfortunately, this one did not turn out as fun as Pooka was.

Delivered did not have the humorous tone of Pooka Lives!, which is fine.  Horror does not have to be comedic to work in a series like this.  However, there is just not much more here either outside of gross shocks and disgusting imagery.

Val (Natalie Paul) is very pregnant and she is preparing, with her husband Tom (Michael Cassidy), for a difficult birth.  Val does not seem to be excited about the pregnancy.  They meet another pregnant woman at a birthing class named Jenny (Tina Majorino) and they become friends.  However, when Jenny invites the couple over to her isolated house for dinner, she kills Tom and kidnaps Jenny, chaining her to the floor.

We know almost nothing about Val before she is taken captive, except that she had another man named Riley (Micah Joe Parker) who has been hanging around.  We discover the basic story between them later, but it is such an afterthought that it is just included here to try and gain some plot points instead of developing character.

We learn a little more about Jenny and why she was so bat-crap crazy.  He back story is horrible, but also really does not feature into the film outside of a moment or two.  It is very surface level for the motivation and she feels fake in the end.

It did not help that there was one moment in the movie that Val had knocked Jenny out.  I was screaming at the screen to finish her off, but Val chose to run off instead.  From that point on, I was more upset about her own failure and stupidity than her current situation.

Then, the final act was as gross and unnecessary of a scene as you are going to find in a movie.  It also made so little sense that when the film tries to get this past you, it is so ridiculous and obnoxious that it would have ruined a good movie, which this already was not.  There was so much wrong with that scene, both from a logical point of view to a moral point of view that it is hard to not feel either offended or stupider.  Legitimately,  this was a massive failure.

Val had been having these dreams throughout the movie, which stopped being surprising very early.  They were so obvious that they served zero purpose.  Then the film practically ripped off the cringe-inducing scene from Misery, but truthfully, even that did not create difficulty for Val.

There were just so many times that I wanted Val to try and do something to escape, but she always just seemed to be on the bed and cry.  The one time she found something was just a waste as she luckily found the details of Jenny’s past.  Nice of Jenny to keep those newspaper clippings in the same room that she was keeping Jenny.

The more I write and reflect on what I saw, the more upset I become.  This is on Hulu, but do not go searching for it.  There are so many other, much better films to watch than this crapfest.

1.5 stars

Reportedly, Disney won the rights to Hamilton, the Broadway play which becomes a pop culture phenomenon, with a bid of $75 million dollars.  Disney had intended on releasing this film in 2021, but, with the issues of COVID-19, they chose to drop it on Disney + over the 2020 Fourth of July weekend.

I have been very excited about seeing this since the release news came out.  The only knowledge I have about Hamilton is the use by Weird Al in his “Hamilton Polka” from a couple years ago.  Besides that, I had not had any exposure to the show.  What made me even more excited was the fact that this was going to be a recording of a live stage performance, filmed over three days, in 2016 instead of a big screen adaptation.

The play’s story is about the American Revolution and the initial days of the forming of the United States, focusing in on the contributions of Alexander Hamilton (Lin-Manuel Miranda).  The rivalry between Hamilton and Aaron Burr (Leslie Odom Jr) is specifically at the heart of the play.

I found myself more engaged with each passing scene and by the conclusion of the story, I had tears in my eyes from the powerhouse performances and the amazing music.

Speaking of the music, the play was nearly completely music and the lyrics were clever and downright genius.  I loved the compilation of the musical styles that Hamilton blended throughout the narrative, despite the music not being a historically accurate interpretation.  If you complain that the Founding Fathers do not rap or drop rhymes  then you are simply looking for something to complain about.  It’s fine if that is a style of music that you do not prefer, but do not use it as an excuse.

The choreography is out of this world and the stage set up works beautifully.  There is a rotating circle in the middle of the stage that is used to provide extremely wondrous shots.

Lin-Manuel Miranda does a great job in the role of Hamilton, but his level of singing comes up just a little shorter than the rest of the cast.  I am not saying that I hated every minute Miranda opened his mouth to sing, because that is not true.  He does a very admirable job, but the rest of the voices are so angelic it is difficult in comparison.

There is a major story thread with Alexander and his wife Eliza (Phillipa Soo) and her sister Angelica (Renée Elise Goldsberry) that provides a deep emotional drive of the film.  Both Soo and Goldsberry deliver songs that are some of the best of the soundtrack.

The true standout was Daveed Diggs, who played Thomas Jefferson (and actually also Marquis de Lafayette).  Diggs stole every scene he was in and brought a sincere arrogance to Thomas Jefferson.

The film was shot with an audience and it certainly showed.  The applause after songs helped provide the movie with a feeling of the energy that had to be powerful inside that theater.  It gave the home viewer an opportunity to get the feeling of what it was like inside the room where it happened.  I remember thinking while watching it that the energy in the theater must have been off the charts.

This is a brilliant musical that I am very pleased that I now have a chance to see.  I wish there were other musicals that would be filmed in this manner and find its way onto streaming services.  Hamilton is on Disney + and makes a great watch during the Fourth of July weekend.

4.75 stars

I love the TV show LOST so much.  I’ve written about that before.  I also love the character of Hugo “Hurley” Reyes and the actor Jorge Garcia, who portrayed the Oceanic 815 survivor.  When I saw that he was the lead of a new Netflix film, I was excited to see it.

At first, it was in dubbed English and I gave it a try in that way, but Jorge Garcia’s voice was not his own and I knew that was going to be distracting for me.  I do not like dubbed voices over a film anyway, but hearing a different voice coming out of Garcia’s body was just not going to work.  Thankfully, I was able to find a way to change back to the Spanish language with English subtitles.

Jorge Garcia played a man named Memo who was living with his uncle on an isolated Chilean sheep farm.  Memo rarely spoke and just went about his isolated life, showing a proclivity for a sparkly design.  However, he had a secret from his childhood.

Memo was a child singer, but when his father (Alejandro Goic) took Memo to an agent, they decided that Memo did not have the look they were looking for.  Instead, they had Memo be a ghost singer for Angelo (young Angelo- Vicente Alvarez, older Angelo-Gastón Pauls), a blonde-haired, blue eyed pretty young boy.  Memo had a bad reaction to what was going on.

As an adult Memo hid out with his uncle, a woman named Marta (Millaray Lobos) met Memo and started to get through his walls.  This would lead to a developing problem.

I was really impressed with the acting performance from Jorge Garcia.  He had a difficult job to do here as his amount of dialogue was going to be limited.  A lot of his emotions had to come from his face and his actions.  And he had a pretty good singing voice too.

The early part of the movie slowly built to the reveal of why Memo was where he was and why he was doing what he was doing.  The character of Memo is simple but broken.  There are some deep seeded issues inside of him making him more complex than you think.

There are some satisfying moments in the third act, but there feels like I wanted more than what they tell me.

This is a small story of a broken man whose past has affected his life and people around him.  Jorge Reyes is great in this movie, very impressive with his acting skills.  He takes it past Hurley, dude.

3.8 stars