2021 movie diary
The plague, year 2.
…
So, best of the year
—
The new (to me):
Goodnight Mommy
It’s a Disaster
Brightburn
Host
Deerskin
The Stepfather
Down Terrace
Next of Kin
Ms .45
Daughters of Darkness
Fade to Black
Dragged across Concrete
—
The old (rewatched, that is to say)
The Hills Have Eyes
Dia de la Bestia
Die Hard 2
Piranha
Alligator (just an all time classic, way underrated)
Class of 1984
Ginger Snaps
Audition
Slither
Misery
The Omen
Halloween 3
Mandy
Child’s Play
—
The Bad:
Leprechaun
Leprechaun Back 2 the Hood
Blade Trinity
Edge of the Axe
Troll
Troll 2
The Space Between Us
Ghoulies
Ghoulies Go to College
Perfect Stranger
Don’t Say a Word
Space Truckers
Critters 3
Sledgehammer
Things
Spookies
Tammy and the T-Rex
The House by the Cemetery
—
The underrated:
The Dentist
Rawhead Rex
Robot Jox
Basket Case
Christmas Evil
…
So, best of the year
—
The new (to me):
Goodnight Mommy
It’s a Disaster
Brightburn
Host
Deerskin
The Stepfather
Down Terrace
Next of Kin
Ms .45
Daughters of Darkness
Fade to Black
Dragged across Concrete
—
The old (rewatched, that is to say)
The Hills Have Eyes
Dia de la Bestia
Die Hard 2
Piranha
Alligator (just an all time classic, way underrated)
Class of 1984
Ginger Snaps
Audition
Slither
Misery
The Omen
Halloween 3
Mandy
Child’s Play
—
The Bad:
Leprechaun
Leprechaun Back 2 the Hood
Blade Trinity
Edge of the Axe
Troll
Troll 2
The Space Between Us
Ghoulies
Ghoulies Go to College
Perfect Stranger
Don’t Say a Word
Space Truckers
Critters 3
Sledgehammer
Things
Spookies
Tammy and the T-Rex
The House by the Cemetery
—
The underrated:
The Dentist
Rawhead Rex
Robot Jox
Basket Case
Christmas Evil
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- DirectorSteven AyromlooiStarsWarwick DavisTangi MillerLaz AlonsoWhen Emily Woodrow and her friends happen on a treasure chest full of gold coins, they fail to heed the warnings of a wise old psychic, who had foretold that they would encounter trouble with a very nasty and protective Leprechaun.Man this is weak. A hodgepodge of hood movie cliches shambling across the screen, pursued by a wee little man. Watch “Tales from the Hood” instead. Watch practically anything instead.
Warwick Davis is cheesy, and his makeup is spotty, but he is giving his all to a movie unworthy of the effort. That level of commitment is not matched by much else in the flick; the heroine is especially forgettable, a blank space of a character on page and in performance. Page Kennedy and Laz Alonso, both talented actors, fare little better, the former in a buffoonish comedic relief role, the latter a boring romantic interest for the boring heroine. Stupid tv, be more funny. - DirectorDavid S. GoyerStarsWesley SnipesKris KristoffersonParker PoseyBlade, now a wanted man by the FBI, must join forces with the Nightstalkers to face his most challenging enemy yet: Dracula.Snipes is looking pretty checked out here. Jessica Biel and Deadpool frequently take the spotlight, and it’s a poor substitute; he gets some amusing lines in, but neither character’s sassy “fuck you” mallrat energy can compare to effortless cool of Blade when Snipes is on. It’s too bad that here he is very far from on indeed. Weak action, middling effects, forgettable villains, nothing new in terms of story or ideas.
- DirectorMichael DowseStarsPaul SpenceDavid LawrenceGordon SkillingHeadbangers Terry and Dean explore the depths of friendship, and the art and science of drinking beer like a man.Mockumentary following a pair of metal heads as one of them grapples with testicular cancer. I think you have to be Canadian for this one. You have to be something that I am not, anyway.
- DirectorRenny HarlinStarsBruce WillisWilliam AthertonBonnie BedeliaJohn McClane attempts to avert disaster as rogue military operatives seize control of Dulles International Airport in Washington, D.C.The praise for Die Hard often delves into hyperbole. Die Hard 2 is not as tight in its storytelling, and is a tad bit shabbier, with ADR punchlines and twists that beggar belief. But I enjoy it, possibly more.
- DirectorMichael DowseStarsDavid LawrenceJamil JabrilTerra HazeltonTerry and Dean head north to make sweet cash in the oil patch.I watched these mostly to have a gander at the divine Terra Hazleton; she ain’t in Fubar the first, but I had to watch that one for completion’s sake. This is a looser, shabbier flick than the first one, which is really saying something; it has the same mockumentary style, with handheld camera and characters occasionally speaking directly to the camera, but with less concern for who is documenting the action or why. Which largely is an improvement; aside from one great black comic moment, the first one was constrained by the format. But it gets a bit too loose, breaking the format for rock video interludes and a confounding dream sequence that add little of value.
- DirectorLes ClarkStarsKeenan WynnShort animation dealing with the doubts young people have about venereal diseases.From the magical world of Disney.
- DirectorRob SavageStarsHaley BishopJemma MooreEmma Louise WebbSix friends hire a medium to hold a seance via Zoom during lockdown, but they get far more than they bargained for as things quickly go wrong.Tight storytelling. A lean horror flick that exploits every possibility of its premise and tidily wraps thing up in under an hour.
- DirectorLew LehmanStarsSammy SnydersJeannie EliasSonja SmitsA solitary and strange preteen boy wreaks revenge on his harassers when he makes a disturbing discovery in the depth of a forest.Neighborhood weirdo Jamie discovers a hole in the ground with carnivorous beasties living in it, and decides to feed his numerous bullies to the creatures at the behest of his demonic talking teddy bear. There’s a lack of cohesion here, with no thread connecting these two outlandish elements, and that disjointedness comes to a head with a 70’s ending both thuddingly obvious and lazily contrived. The writing is not very good. The scenes where he cajoles his victims into the woods and contrives to have them fall in the pit all suffer especially: Jamie is not a credible threat, and is even less credible as a trickster. The wacky music playing as he dumps a cranky old lady or an obnoxious brat into the crevasse is a bit much, too, trying too hard to hit a black comic note.
Still, though this movie lacks competent craftsmanship, it has an eerieness that makes it at times oddly compelling, magnified by a deep streak of misanthropy. There are glimmers too of empathy for this sad, lonely kid that illuminate the writer’s original concept, of a sympathetic portrait of a troubled autistic child pushed to murderous resentment by bullying and ostracism. - DirectorBaz LuhrmannStarsNicole KidmanEwan McGregorJohn LeguizamoA poor Bohemian poet in 1890s Paris falls for a beautiful courtesan and nightclub star coveted by a jealous duke.Probably Luhrmann’s best. Give him serious material, like Shakespeare or Gatsby, and his technicolor MTV stylings are a gaudy distraction. Give him this cornball plot about a star crossed romance between an aspiring writer and a hooker with a heart of gold, and the gaudiness is clearly and fittingly the point. What’s that Canadian weirdo who does these kind of swooningly cinematic pastiches? Guy Madden. He’s like a Guy Madden if he were a Hollywood guy through and through.
- DirectorJohn HyamsStarsJules WillcoxMarc MenchacaAnthony HealdA recently widowed traveler is kidnapped by a cold-blooded killer, only to escape into the wilderness, where she is forced to battle against the elements as her pursuer closes in on her.Lean thriller finds a young widow stalked by a stranger on a lonely northwest highway. I was hoping for something that better fit Hyams’ hype as a new psychotronic sensation. Though this is not a fault of the film, it did not meet this expectation. So I might rate it higher on future viewing. Hyams, Cronenberg, Cosmatos... this second generation of filmmakers sure is carrying the torch of cult cinema.
- DirectorClaudio FragassoStarsMichael Paul StephensonGeorge HardyMargo PreyA vacationing family discovers that the entire town they're visiting is inhabited by goblins, disguised as humans, who plan to eat them.This needs to be a midnight movie, in a group setting. First thing in the morning, it is a conspicuous waste of time.
Certainly is one of those movies where you can’t imagine that it was made with serious intentions. For fuck’s sake, at the climax young Joshua is menaced by an evil witch who wants to feed him disgusting vegetable slop, but he causes her and her burlap sack-clad minions to melt into goo by voraciously chomping down on a baloney sandwich he’s had squirreled away in his pocket for almost two days. But on Best Worst Movie the filmmakers are deadly serious about their little movie, with the writer confiding proudly that it was inspired by the scourge of vegetarianism. So go figure. - DirectorPeter ChelsomStarsGary OldmanAsa ButterfieldCarla GuginoThe first human born on Mars travels to Earth for the first time, experiencing the wonders of the planet through fresh eyes. He embarks on an adventure with a street-smart girl to discover how he came to be.In this dopy teenjerker, a sort of “Man Who Fell to Earth” for the Snapchat set, a willowy naïf born on Mars travels to earth to seek out his online girlfriend, a surly foster child in Colorado who looks, conservatively, like a damn 30-something. Ah, but though his bones have been strengthened surgically by the grafting of carbon rods, his heart literally cannot handle our gravity, so their love is cruelly star-crossed.
This is a picture that is oddly apathetic, not just to the usual boring science stuff, but to these awful characters and even their feeble super sad love story. Can’t say I blame it, but when you can’t justify the existence of your own movie, well, then why did you make it? And why should we watch it? Besides the lulz of course. The endless, epic lulz. - DirectorStewart RaffillStarsDenise RichardsTheo ForsettPaul WalkerAn evil scientist implants the brain of murdered high-school student Michael into a Tyrannosaurus. He escapes, wreaks vengeance on his high-school tormentors, and reunites with his sweetheart Tammy.Last Drive In double feature for Valentine’s Day. From Steward Raffill, the visionary director who brought you “Mac and Me” and “Mannequin: On the Move”, comes this 90’s teenybopper comedy with Denise Richards and Paul Walker in their starring debuts. She’s a cheerleader trying to fend off a stalker ex-boyfriend, he’s the hunky football player who’s just caught her eye, but too soon their love story comes seemingly to a tragic end as he gets mauled by a lion and kidnapped from the ICU by a nutty doctor (Bernie from “Weekend at Bernie’s”) who implants his brain in an animatronic T-Rex. I think we’ve all been there before.
- DirectorPete DocterKemp PowersStarsJamie FoxxTina FeyGraham NortonJoe is a middle-school band teacher whose life hasn't quite gone the way he expected. His true passion is jazz. But when he travels to another realm to help someone find their passion, he soon discovers what it means to have soul.Wish I had the chance to see this on the big screen. A Pixar movie is an event; but with such high expectations, they are graded on a curve. So... it just didn't hang together as I thought it should. These movies are good at toying with expectations; the S.O. was surprised that the character dies. I in turn was disappointed when the troubled young soul Joe is assigned to mentor winds up in his comatose body, and his winds up in a plump therapy cat. This is a bit silly, and I suspect it's a broadly comic sop to the actual kids in the audience, many of whom might not care about adult fears of death and unfulfillment.
Now, this is a fair bit into the movie, and prior to that episode I thought it was really quite great. And even afterwards, it has some strong moments. It does in fact come together quite well. Reasonably well, anyway. But the wacky body swap comedy feels like a shortcut, an easy way to get there.
But who knows, on subsequent viewings I might put this in the top tier of Pixar, with Up and Inside Out. - DirectorHélène CattetBruno ForzaniStarsKlaus TangeUrsula BedenaJoe KoenerReturning home from a business trip to discover his wife missing, a man delves deeper and deeper into a surreal kaleidoscope of half-baked leads, seduction, deceit, and murder. Does anyone in the building know something?I’ve been eager to see this, having been wowed by Cattet and Forzani’s “Let the Corpses Tan”, a bizarre crime flick with style up the wazoo. It’s a bit harder to sit through; the style-to-substance ratio is very high indeed here, starting with a standard giallo scenario and spiraling into absurdly recursive loops. A businessman returns home to find his wife missing; he encounters a shadow-shrouded woman from upstairs, who tells him of her husband’s strange disappearance while investigating the crawlspace between floors, and then meets a surly detective, who shortly after meeting him tells him of an old case involving a mysterious woman dressed all in red. It only gets weirder and more disconnected from there. A later set piece has the protagonist woken from a nightmare of mutilation again and again and again by a ringing door buzzer. Certainly provides a number of arresting images and a few creepy moments, but this gives me a stronger appreciation of Peter Strickland, who is able to weave this stylistic flair into bold and surprising storytelling. Cattet and Forzani just seem to enjoy an exercise in style for its own sake.
- DirectorLuca BercoviciStarsPeter LiapisLisa PelikanMichael Des BarresA young man and his girlfriend move into an old mansion home, where he becomes possessed by a desire to control ancient demons.Yet another tedious stinker from Charlie Band and Empire Pictures. Will I never learn?
Here, some dopey college kid inherits the dilapidated estate of the parents he never knew, only to fall in thrall of his father’s evil spirit. He invites his dumb friends over for parties, and eventually they are attacked by tiny little monsters, because the concept of a tiny little monster on the rampage is the faithful lodestar that guides the course of the Full Moon Entertainment Cinematic Universe. And of course there are dwarves and puppets.
I must regretfully convey that the poster image, though repeated in the film, is a bit of a tease, as we are denied the pleasure of seeing a tiny monster swim up into the bowl of a toilet to attack someone. Truly, a loss to the world. Happily though, the concept does get the execution it deserves in part 2. - DirectorQuentin DupieuxStarsJean DujardinAdèle HaenelAlbert DelpyA man's obsession with his designer deerskin jacket causes him to blow his life savings and turn to crime.Wry, absurdist comedy. In the throes of a midlife crisis, sad sack Georges leaves his life behind and drives out to the mountains, where he takes up residence in a hotel and pays an obscene amount for a second-hand buckskin jacket. As a bonus, the seller fobs off a cheap camcorder on him as well. Shut out of his shared bank account by his wife, he cajoles a bartender and budding cineaste to spot him some money, pretending to be a filmmaker in the middle of a project. But the passion driving his project is a petty selfish kind of madness.
- DirectorJoe DanteStarsBradford DillmanHeather Menzies-UrichKevin McCarthyWhen flesh-eating piranhas are accidentally released into a summer resort's rivers, the guests become their next meal.John Sayles and Joe Dante. Better together. Dante has an anarchic, cartoonish sensibility: Sayles compliments that nicely, and brings a piercing wit to their projects. Keeps things smart but sprightly, fun but not overly silly. They ought to collaborate again. Don’t hold your breath, though.
Hey, I didn’t know this: filmed in Texas, in San Marcos, Wimberley and Seguin. Hence the product placement from Lone Star Beer. - DirectorAlbert BandStarsDamon MartinRoyal DanoPhil FondacaroThe Ghoulies wreak havoc at an amusement park, disposing of those who mistake them for mere fairground attractions.“Will I never learn?” I wrote the other day, bemoaning my viewing of Ghoulies. And no, looks like I won’t, ‘cause here I am watching Ghoulies II. But sometimes it pays to stick with it. Sometimes you get the Ghoulies movie that you deserve.
Not to say this is the Citizen Kane of Ghoulies pictures. It’s not, like, a legitimately good movie. Recently David Gordon Green suggested that he wanted to make a Ghoulies or Critters movie. That could be great. Or it could be another Littlest Reich. Gotta take your chances , I guess.
Anyway, Ghoulies the first is pretty bad. Lousy performances across the board, unpleasant and stupid characters, bad plotting. The creature effects were certainly nothing to write home about, and such small portions, too: for most of the movie they just stood there endlessly drooling and snarling, only wreaking proper havoc for the last 10, 20 minutes of the picture.
The effects here are a step up. For certain shots they use dodgy stop-motion effects, but those are few and far between. Whaddya gonna do, it was the 80’s. But the puppets here have reasonably good mobility, they have personality, they are at least a bit more expressive than the stiff, grubby little demons in the first movie. And the plot, though not exactly Shakespeare, is adequate: the Ghoulies stow away with a traveling carnival, they set up shop in the funhouse and start eating carnies and punters... what do you need, a roadmap? This is the movie that Ghoulies should have been. - DirectorRobert ButlerStarsRay LiottaLauren HollyBrendan GleesonAfter a shootout on a flight transporting prisoners, a flight attendant must outwit a smooth-talking serial killer and land the plane herself.Subpar “Die Hard” variation finds a flight attendant harassed by a serial killer during a stormy flight.
Begs the question: in a pinch, how much would you trust a known serial killer? If you’re a character in this movie, you might trust him a fair bit, especially if he said please and thank you and enjoyed “It’s a Wonderful Life”. Liotta certainly goes big here, but it’s hardly worth the effort for a movie that strains credibility at every turn. - DirectorErnest R. DickersonStarsBilly ZaneWilliam SadlerJada Pinkett SmithHigh-level demons collect low-level demons as warriors in attempt to obtain a key containing the blood of Christ. The key is guarded by immortal warriors called Demon Knights.Expansion to feature length does Tales from the Crypt no favors. Gone is the pitch black humor and the whole EC Comics ethos. Instead we get yet another variation on “Assault on Precinct 19”, with little of John Carpenter’s efficiency or style.
It did get me to start rewatching the show, so that’s a point in the movie’s favor. - DirectorAlejandro BruguésStarsAlexis Díaz de VillegasJorge MolinaAndros PerugorríaA group of slackers face an army of zombies. The Cuban government and media claim the living dead are dissidents revolting against the government.I am surprised by the brazen satire in this Cuban zom com. That’s more due to my own ignorance: in Cuba censorship is not the overbearing specter that it is in China, North Korea or Iran. But I just assumed communism = no free speech.
Hell, I learned more about Cuba from watching this than I ever did in school. Cuba it seems sent soldiers to fight in the Angolan civil war. After the Soviet Union dissolved the nation went through a depression called the Special Period. Why am I so ignorant of world history? Oh right: because America’s education system is badly broken. Good to have a scapegoat.
Juan and his buddy Lazaro are grifters from the Havana slums who see an opportunity when the dead begin to walk the earth. As Cuban authorities dismiss the ghouls as American-funded dissidents and insist that everything is under control, our heroes go into business, offering their services as zombie exterminators. - DirectorStuart GordonStarsGary GrahamAnne-Marie JohnsonPaul KosloIn the distant future, mankind has forsaken global wars for battles of single combat. The world has been divided into two opposing super powers, with each side represented by trained champions.Rating bumped from 3 to 5 stars.
“We are dead! We are robot jox!”
In the same year that Gary Graham starred in “Alien Nation”, essential as Riggs from “Lethal Weapon” but with a straight-laced alien for a partner, he also starred in Stuart Gordon’s seminal “Robot Jox”. Honestly, for an Empire Pictures flick about giant robots, pretty solid, with a good score and a script by novelist Joe Haldeman, author of “The Forever War”. Of course it was no big budget affair, made for a mere... ten million dollars?! Wait, what? Where did that ten million dollars go? Did anyone keep the receipts? This doesn’t look like a ten million dollar movie, not even in 1980’s dollars.
Ok, maybe a big budget at that time is more than I imagine, and the effects are, well, pretty decent. The stop-motion robots are pretty good, which is the important thing. There are a few clunky props, like Achilles’ flying car, and some unconvincing miniatures. Still, at ten mil, this was the most expensive picture Empire ever made, and they went bankrupt during production, go figure.
Ok, so per Wikipedia, Gordon has said that the budget was closer to 6.5 million. That is about a third the budget of, say, Tron or Iron Eagle. So that tracks.
Apparently Jean-Claude Van Damme and Vanessa Williams were considered for the leads. Oh, what could have been! - DirectorJames FoleyStarsHalle BerryBruce WillisGiovanni RibisiA journalist goes undercover to ferret out businessman Harrison Hill as her childhood friend's killer. Posing as one of his temps, she enters into a game of online cat-and-mouse.Tedious Joe Eszterhaus wannabe finds crusading journalist Berry setting out to investigate when a childhood friend turns up dead, setting her sights on a married ad executive who was having an affair with the dead girl. Everyone is a suspect, everyone is fucking around, but none of it has any weight or credibility. And the action, if you could call it that, mostly consists of Berry in honeypot mode engaging her mark in racy instant message chats, which she reads aloud for the benefit of any slow or illiterate moviegoers in the audience.
- DirectorGary FlederStarsMichael DouglasSean BeanBrittany MurphyWhen the daughter of a psychiatrist is kidnapped, he's horrified to discover that the abductors' demand is that he break through to a post traumatic stress disorder suffering young woman who knows a secret...Aughties thriller week (oh, you didn’t know it was aughties thriller week? Well too bad: it’s too late to get a t-shirt) goes out just as it began, with one heckuva whimper. Yesterday it was the convoluted cheese whiz of “Perfect Stranger”, today it was a paint by numbers Michael Douglas thriller, where he plays an intrepid psychologist who is forced to shake down an especially loopy patient at the behest of a villainous Eddard Stark when the fiend takes his daughter hostage. Also in the mix are his wife Famke Jansen, laid up in bed with her leg in a cast, and tough she-cop Jennifer Esposito, because why have one hero when you can have three?