NOBODY
3.5 out of 5 stars
Bones breaking, bullets flying, & blood spilling – what else would you expect from the writer of the John Wick franchise & director of Hardcore Henry?! This fun & fanciful revenge action flick is fast-paced & darkly comedic w/ a nice family element mixed in. But it doesn’t get any better than Odenkirk’s bang-up performance of an unforeseen badass who takes a licking & keeps on ticking.
BOSS LEVEL
3 out of 5 stars
This screwball sci-fi actioner fits Grillo like a glove, giving him the perfect excuse to have a blast while cracking jokes & breaking bones. He plays a special forces guy who is stuck in a death loop where he’s murdered by all kinds of assassins & has no damn clue as to why – though his ex-wife’s work may have something to do w/ it. Don’t worry, he’s going to find out in the most ridiculously violent way he knows how w/ the help of director Carnahan’s unflinching energy & pace. And then, when you least expect it, you get hit w/ some touching moments of fatherhood. Co-starring Watts & Gibson, this plays like an electric, entertaining video game w/ no pause button.
BOOGIE
1.5 out of 5 stars
Whether this is an Asian American coming-of-age drama dealing w/ the strains of family & culture or an underdog sports movie about chasing your dreams, writer-director Huang can’t choose & ends up failing at both. There’s surely swagger & style on display, but it’s well weakened by a so-so story w/ unconvincing performances & an uneven script & tone. The emotion wanting to be extracted ain’t going to happen in Huang’s feature directorial debut as him & his team are shooting nothing but bricks.
WOJNAROWICZ
3 out of 5 stars
Wojnarowicz was a multimedia artist who played by his own rules, his work being intimate while never afraid to infuriate those he didn’t like anyway. Through film, tapes, journals, interviews & photographs, director McKim assembles an adoring yet uncompromising doc of Wojnarowicz’s personal & professional life. Though there’s really no separating the two.
We learn about his childhood misery, the loves of his life, his trailblazing art, & his complete candidness on the AIDS epidemic & America’s ignorance towards it. While your hope would be that this is going to be as fiery as its subject, McKim can’t fully make that happen. He does still capture Wojnarowicz’s anger & what he was up against during the turbulent times he was living in. There was no chance in hell he was going to be silent.
SHIVA BABY
3.5 out of 5 stars
Writer-director Seligman’s debut feature about a young girl who runs into everyone she doesn’t want to at the start of a shiva is equally sharp, funny & awkward. With a terrific cast around her, Sennott is fetching & shows off her impeccable comedic timing playing Danielle – a pretend babysitter maneuvering through an anxiety-filled, claustrophobic setting she can’t escape. It’s a feverish coming-of-age Jewish comedy full of lies & surprises that will make you wince in a weirdly wonderful way.
IN THE EARTH
1.5 out of 5 stars
Taking place during a pandemic similar to real life – a scientist & a park ranger go into the woods & it’s going to be hell for them to get back out. Writer-director Wheatley stuffs his story w/ hallucinations, some gross-out moments, & bit of creepiness, but it’s 100% style over substance. Absorbing atmosphere & insane imagery is all this folk horror film has going for itself. The rest is haphazard & hollow as our interest, together w/ Wheatley’s ideas of beliefs, nature, & isolation, both get deeply buried in the ground. And trust me when I say we severely suffer for it.
COME TRUE
2.5 out of 5 stars
From the start, writer/director Burns’ plot centering around a teen runaway who joins an assumedly innocent sleep study is intriguing w/ dark images & a superb atmosphere of dread; but the closer we get to its finale, the more weary & less thought-provoking this mind-trip becomes. This still is a slick sci-fi/horror that descends into sleep paralysis where haunting nightmares await. Though, when the big twist reveals itself in the last few seconds, flipping everything on its head, it comes awfully close to ruining everything we just watched.
ZACK SNYDER’S JUSTICE LEAGUE
3.5 out of 5 stars
The Snyder Cut isn’t a special sort of superhero epic, but damn if it ain’t an entertaining one. The Mother Box story is a lot more coherent, Steppenwolf is a more badass baddie, & the action is awesome. Now the four hour runtime is a little much, yet splitting this in to different parts actually helps with that. But the biggest & most noticeable difference is the absolute care shown to our heroes. Time is taken to tell each of their stories that soon combine to tell an united one. The depth is there this time around, & how sweet it is to watch Fisher & Miller get their due.
No matter how excessive or self-indulgent, fans will be wowed by the director’s original creative vision. Snyder pours all he has into this – for better or worse. Either way, he’s finally able to present the movie he wanted to make. It’s enrapturing in many aspects & very much improved in every aspect. This JL will easily be the only one remembered.
MOFFIE
3 out of 5 stars
Brummer plays a closeted teen South African soldier trying to go unnoticed while being put through hell during his mandatory two years of compulsory military service so to defend the homophobic & racist Apartheid regime. But his unanticipated affinity w/ a fellow recruit will put that in serious jeopardy. Co-writer/director Hermanus’s war drama could be more emotionally effective in its storytelling & having a narrow perspective is partly to blame. Regardless, it remains a brutal but empathetic look at fear of loving whoever you want & the impossibility of numbing one’s feelings when staring down the miseries of war w/ others & ourselves.
QUO VADIS, AIDA?
4 out of 5 stars
A harrowing, heart aching film that depicts the horrifying Srebrenica massacre through the eyes of a United Nations interpreter (played by a phenomenal Djuricic) who has a job to do, while desperately trying to keep her family safe within a UN camp where thousands are seeking shelter. Stuck in a feeling of helplessness, she’s being pulled in every which way by those who are suppose to provide protection & fellow citizens pleading w/ her to take them inside. You can feel Djuricic’s pain when seeing her slowly lose hope & become more frantic & frightened as those she works for repeatedly fail to do something…anything…to save innocent lives.
With its unbearable tension, your heart pounds & your stomach churns as Bosnia’s own writer- director Zbanic refuses to shy away from the devastation & human cost that comes w/ a war that has tried to bury its dark secrets. When the bloodshed is over, the trauma & memories don’t fade & will forever haunt the survivors, many of them continuing to search for the missing dead. The profound ending is a reminder of that & how peace is a very, very delicate thing.
VIOLATION
3.5 out of 5 stars
First off, if you don’t like brutality or feeling uncomfortable, then this isn’t for you. Written & directed by Sims-Fewer & Mancinelli, this disturbing rape-revenge thriller is bleak but gripping w/ a stellar lead performance from Sims-Fewer. She intensely exhibits (emotionally & physically) the damage of an ultimate betrayal where – in a moment’s notice – the life she knew is ripped away by those she trusted the most. The story’s structure is very effective & perhaps the movie’s biggest strength. It plays out like a puzzle, & when ultimately pieced together, we witness what trauma can unleash. And in this case, it’s a nasty dose of rage & ruthlessness.
Brandon Vick is a member of The Music City Film Critics’ Association, the resident film critic of the SoBros Network, and the star of The Vick’s Flicks Podcast. Follow him on Twitter @SirBrandonV and be sure to search #VicksFlicks for all of his latest movie reviews.
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