Last Minute Movie Watches of 2022

A few extra movie reviews to share that you might want to check out before we head into 2023. 

I love a good whodunnit movie, and so the first Knives Out was a total blast to watch with intriguing characters and a great story.  Rian Johnson is back again in the director’s chair to present us with Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery

We welcome back to the screen, world-famous detective Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig) as he travels to Greece this time to solve a new case, involving tech billionaire Miles Bron (Edward Norton) and his privileged bunch of has-been socialites. 

This sequel had its moments of enjoyment, mainly thanks to Daniel Craig and Edward Norton’s performances, with a few laughs from others, like alpha-male, Duke Cody (Dave Bautista). Mirroring a lot of narcissism qualities that are abundantly obvious in many leaders and trendy gurus, if you haven’t kept up with the kombucha craze or have any familiarity with cancel culture, you may not laugh as hard as others would.  Despite some twists, the casting fell short for me though, as there wasn’t as many layers to peel back as I would have hoped.

When you mix Home Alone, The Ref, and Die Hard together, you’ll get just a taste of  Violent Night directed by Norwegian director Tommy Wirkola.

No one expects to get a taste of their own medicine on Christmas eve, but one wealthy family is held hostage by a team of mercenaries who are not interested in spreading any holiday cheer. What could have been a total train wreck in this film, turns into a sleigh ride of insanity,  but in the best possible way. 

Without spoiling much, let’s just say Santa (played by David Harbour) deserves all the milk and cookies he wants for his performance. Although the amount of brutal kills were pretty intense and graphic, there’s more to the film than just horror. There’s a beautiful bond between Santa and Trudy (Leah Brady) that might be expected, but still brings a sense of spirit and magic to the screen.

Love Birds is an uplifting New Zealand film that has the right amount of comedy and romance. It’s light-hearted and rather predictable of what we’d witness in a rom-com, but it’s still joyful. When failing at love and floundering through life, it doesn’t seem so bad when a shelduck comes to the rescue.  Doug (Rhys Darby) and Holly (Sally Hawkins) are lovely on-screen together.  With the epic soundtrack of Queen, in the end, we all just need somebody to love. 

Troll is a Norwegian film directed by Roar Uthaug that in some ways could be a template for many mythical creatures who are awakened after years in captivity or due to humans tampering with nature. 

This time we are set-up looking at deep into the beautiful mountain of Dovre, where folklore tales about creatures made of earth and stone (trolls) are shared between father, Tobias (Gard B. Eidsvold) and his daughter Nora (Ine Marie Wilmann).  Fast-forward to 20 years later, estranged from her father, Nora is a leading paleontologist and a sudden explosion awakens a massive troll who is ready to destroy everything in its path.

The movie is action-packed, with some comedic relief added in from Andreas, (Kim Falck) and awesome cinematography to keep the entertainment level high.  Gard is great at story-telling in a way that we can really feel like we’re transported in time, where imagination and the wonder of childhood never gets curtailed by growing up. 

Nora’s rekindled bond with her father is endearing and holds a special place in the film. We watch as she wrestles with conflicting emotions, yet still holding echoing words of her father to “look with your heart, not with your eyes.”

💜Special mention:  Ms. Marvel, created by Bisha K. Ali

My husband binge-watched all 6 episodes and told me that I really need to watch this. 

Episode 1 just grabbed me. "Let's go to Episode 2, then leave the rest for the next day," I said. Well, this mini series was so exceptionally good that I got hooked into all of them in a single evening.

The characters are so layered and expressive in their roles. What a wonderful casting overall, especially Kamala - Ms Marvel (Iman Vellani) and her mother, Muneeba (Zenobia Shroff).  I loved their connection so much.  

I could really appreciate the cultural aspects too, the humour that went along with it, and the emotional scenes that just weaved so effortlessly throughout.   

Every episode is filled with such great dialogue and a lot of self-reflective moments that are very relatable at various stages of life. I don't think this is just inspiring for the younger generations, but also the older ones too. 

Of course, there are some great action-packed battles and superhero moments of awe, as well as a head-bopping soundtrack too.  

We are reminded from a beautiful quote by Sheikh Abdullah in the show that "good is not something you are, It is something you do."

💜Have you seen any of these?  Drop me a note in the comments, or send me an email using my webform on the side and also let me know what you've been watching!

Seasons Of Change: 2022 Halloween Flicks

Hello my Ghoulish fiends! Halloween is just around the corner and whether you are excited for trick-or-treaters, plan to get dressed up in your favourite costumes, or intend to spend quiet time honouring  our spirited souls, it's always good to include a movie or two in the mix!  

I'm excited to share a few new ones that have popped up this year, as well as some old favourites. You can always transport back to my other blog posting that has even more movies and nostalgic series that bring me joy especially during the Halloween season.

With only a run time of 53 minutes, Werewolf By Night was a lovely little homage to many Universal Classic monster flicks, combined with some Twilight Zone eeriness. The monster hunter characters were great, in particular Jack (played by Gael García Bernal) who has an interesting role as a lycanthrope superhero of sorts. This short tale had such fantastic cinematography and black and white effects. It is definitely worth a watch.  I hope Marvel comes out with more of these, in particular something extra vampy.

Halloween Ends...or has it?  If you're not familiar with this horror-ific franchise, I would suggest to watch the other films to just delve more into the saga of Michael Myers. Although in this one, they do a rewind of some pivotal kill scenes, plus a rehashing of the tragedies in the town of Haddonfield,  so you are not going in totally blind. 

There was plenty of suspense throughout the film, a few irritants tossed in, but definitely a lot of brutal scenes that might have you squirm in your seat if you're more of the squeamish type, so stay alert, my friends. 

Was it the best out of all the others? Not in the least, but I think we're all here for Jamie Lee Curtis. She was amazing, reprising her role as Laurie and letting us know that when it comes to her masked-murderous foe, Michael Myers, if you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen!

Teen Wolf is an 80's comedy and coming-of-age werewolf tale, starring the beloved Michael J. Fox, as Scott Howard, just your ordinary geeky guy who is trying to figure out who he is, with and without the all extra fur. Who doesn't love a werewolf who can play basketball? 

The wonderfully grotesque and pun-worthy Crypt Keeper is back to tell a tale in Bordello of Blood. Although rated poorly by many, I fondly recall this film with its heavy metal and glam soundtrack. It's a terribly corny flick, with raunchy humour, groan-worthy acting, but it's a great one to just sit back and have fun watching. 

Finally, we have The Hunger tv series, created by Jeff Fazio and presented b Tony and Ridley Scott. No one gave me chills down my spine like Terence Stamp, and in this horror anthology; The Hunger, he hosted each short story in a way that would surely tingle all your senses, like The Secret Shih-Than. 

This provocative British/Canadian series opened up quite a new world for me that I never knew existed before, but was incredibly liberating, even though subject matter was rather taboo at the time, and still might be today for certain types of people.   

If anyone remembers, it was aired here in Canada on a tv channel called Showtime - with its tagline Television Without Borders.  Every late Friday evening, they would have "Friday's Without Borders" which had content that pushed the limits for a more mature and rather open-minded audience. Taking over the series was the late, David Bowie, who in my opinion did a good job, but I'm still partial to the British charm of Mr. Stamp.  

💜Let me know what you'll be watching this Halloween or what plans you may have! I love hearing  from you, so drop a comment below, or feel free to privately e-mail me using my web form!

October Movie Buffet: Pick and Choose!

Are you ready for some October movies?  Spooky season is upon us but this blog will not be about Halloween films. If you're anxious though, you can check out my Fangs For The Memories - Halloween Favourites, as we've been delving into some of our favourites lately. 

Moving along, we’ve watched some interesting flicks lately that I wanted to blog about. Maybe you’ve seen them or perhaps you’ll give them a go. 

I’ll start off with You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger.  I was a little iffy when I noticed that Woody Allen was writing and directing this because his style is rather an acquired taste, one that often I don’t care for. However, it looked intriguing enough with a good cast, especially Anthony Hopkins and Gemma Jones.  

With the entanglement of marital distresses, identity crisis, broken authored-dreams, and of course a charlatan doing what they do best – sucking the last pennies out of the vulnerable, the movie pokes fun at a lot of these themes yet delicately also shows the darker side of erupting chaos within the characters. There’s a lot of uncomfortable laughs yet still manages to offer some reflection and optimism of restless situations. 

Next up, 30 Nights, directed by Tom Metz III  The old trope of sex becoming non-existent once your married and have kids is put to the ultimate test in this raw and hilarious independent flick that involves 30 nights of “assignments” to save a marriage.  

I didn’t think this was going to be as good as it was.  Super cast, especially Nick and Willia, played by Johnny Giacalone and Mandy Kaplan.  They had such great chemistry on-screen and every assignment they had to endure, it was passionately ridiculous. I also loved Dan Fogler who played Dr Ling, their zany sex therapist.   

Definitely for mature-audiences, but you may spruce up things in and out of the boudoir a bit after watching this – or you might realize 'good vibrations' are just meant for listening to The Beach Boys, and that’s a-okay too.

Old – M. Night Shyamalan.   Most of the movie was spent “wait, how can that happen? - “that makes no sense at all.”    There is that level of suspension of disbelief, like in practically all the Die Hard movies, but this one stretched the limits.  The characters were uninteresting,  the dialogue was tragic and although I figured out what was going to happen fairly early, I was quite bored, although one scene was so disgusting that I did jolt in my chair for a brief second and had to look away.  The movie wants to go deeper into moral and ethical dilemmas, but never quite makes the leap. 

Don’t You Forget About Me.  A documentary, directed by Matt Sadowski, all about a group of film makers who cultivate a plan to meet their beloved writer/director; John Hughes, who changed the landscape of movie-making forever with classics like The Breakfast Club, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, Pretty in Pink, etc.  

It is fascinating to see clips of past actors talking about their time with Hughes, especially a lot of introspective commentary from well-known actor, writer/director, Kevin Smith.  We also get a glimpse of the impact Hughes had on so many people, including many adolescents today.

Critics are always a reminder of how vulnerable we can be as humans and some are able to take the punches and others disappear never to be heard from again, in order to preserve any dignity they can still hold onto from the past. John Hughes died of a fatal heart attack, so although it was never confirmed, could there be a chance he died of a broken heart?

John Hughes' life remains a mystery and the only thing that appears to be real is the fact that he enjoyed pizza, at least twice a week. I can hear him say “a lovely cheese pizza just for me.” 

Lastly, Freeguy.  Watching the trailer I didn’t really have any interest, but Bill and I were curious to see whether it would be any good, and it was fantastic.  Creative concept, visually stunning effects, great characters, and those pull-at your-heart-string moments that are predictable, but they still just feel right.

Ryan Reynolds was awesome but I will say that  Antwan, played by Taika Waititi was my favourite character.  His razor sharp wit, charismatic weirdness is just unmatched.  If you have no idea who I am talking about, please check out Jo Jo Rabbit or the underrated, What We Do In The Shadows. 

So there you have a bunch of movies that you can watch while you’re chowing down on your Thanksgiving feast (some movies more suitable than others to watch WITHOUT the whole family, but you be the judge on that one)  this long weekend, or really whenever you want. 

💜Have you seen any of these? Leave me comments below, or if you're feeling shy, send me an email using my webform. I always love to hear your comments!