Black Christmas (2019) - Movie Review/Rant

Black Christmas is the latest horror film from Blumhouse.  Blumhouse over the years have become the biggest studio name in horror and over the past couple years they have been very good.  Of course there have been a few missteps along the way like Ma and Truth or Dare, but other films like Halloween (2018) and Happy Death Day have been okay and others like Get Out, Us, Split, Happy Death Day 2U have been pretty damn great!  Going into this I was a bit nervous, it's a PG-13 slasher film for one, you could say Happy Death Day is a PG-13 slasher film, which it is, but those movies focus more on comedy and creativity in their stories rather than the kills.  Another thing that made me nervous were the terrible trailers.  This movie was horrendous.  I could not find a single redeeming quality in this entire film.  This isn't really even a horror film.  This is an SJW feminazi, #metoo movement propaganda film, with elements of a slasher movie in it.  This movie shoves its political messages so far down your throat, fucking just beats you over the head with it, this movie has no idea what subtlety is.  I have never seen a movie this unnecessarily politically charged.  I skipped a movie that came out earlier this year called Hustlers. Why did I skip that movie?  The very same reason why I should have skipped this one.  It was a film that seemed more interested in gaining social justice brownie points rather than entertaining its audience and actually telling a worthwhile story.  Slasher films are not particularly known for strong stories but I know they can be entertaining, that's why I love franchises like Friday the 13th and A Nightmare on Elm Street.  Black Christmas is not interested in either being entertaining or telling a good story.  The kills in the film are so badly executed and so quick that you have a "you blink and you miss" situation.  Because of its PG-13 rating, there can't be any gore or brutality.  The acting is not good at all.  I didn't like any of the characters.  The only people I can see liking this film are hardcore feminists who think men are the lowest form of life on Earth.  As you can tell, I HATED this film.  You're no longer the worst piece of shit of 2019 Charlie's Angels, Black Christmas took that place!  Don't go and see this, fucking skip it and make it fail as badly as Charlie's Angels did, this movie belongs in hell.

Grade:  F

Run time:  92 min

MPAA:  PG-13 (for violence, terror, thematic content involving sexual assault, language, sexual material and drinking)

Studio:  Universal Pictures 

Bad Santa - Movie Review (Contains Spoilers)

I was really thinking about what movie I should start with for a bunch of Christmas movie reviews I want to do, I was thinking about Better Watch Out, but that would be an extremely vague review as that is a movie I want people who haven't seen it to go into that knowing as little as possible, I was thinking of Die Hard, but I want to save my all time favorite Christmas movie for Christmas Day, and Home Alone would be too predictable, so I decided to start with one of my favorite comedies, Bad Santa.  Bad Santa is a hilarious, endlessly quotable comedy that seriously never gets old.  It features a wonderfully cold, douchy, and funny performance by Billy Bob Thornton, who plays the main character, Willie, an alcoholic, sex addicted loser who robs shopping malls every year on the night of Christmas Eve, with the help of his black midget sidekick, Marcus (played by Tony Cox).  Later into the movie, Willie befriends an 8 year old boy named Thurman Merman (fucking hilarious name, I wonder if he ever got bullied because of the name), who has got to be the most idiotic kids ever, but steals a lot of the scenes in the film.  He willingly lets Willie steal money from his father's safe (you find out his father is in prison), like wow!  Willie's reactions to Thurman's shit is gold, a lot of the film's best comedy comes from the banter between Willie and Thurman.  Everyone is great in the film, from Bernie Mac who plays the guy on Willie and Marcus' case, John Ritter as their pussy ass boss, there is so much good talent here!  This film isn't for everyone though, if you hate movies with tons of swearing, movies that make light of otherwise depressing situations, don't watch it, it will piss you off.  I am going to end it here, make it short and sweet like usual, Bad Santa is a wonderful comedy, I watch it every year.  This movie is timeless to me, after years of enjoying it, it's still a hilarious movie.

Grade:  A+

Run time:  98 min

MPAA:  R (for pervasive language, strong sexual content, and some violence)

Studio:  Dimension Films, The Weinstein Company 

Casino Royale - Movie Review

Because No Time to Die is coming out in April, it makes sense to review every Daniel Craig James Bond film leading up to that film.  Casino Royale came out in 2006, directed by Martin Campbell and is the first film to star Daniel Craig as James Bond.  The movie tells the story of Bond's first mission as 007, where he must defeat a private banker who is funding terrorists in a high stakes Poker game.  I am going to get right into this one, this is my favorite James Bond film of all time.  Not a single James Bond film before or after is as intense, riveting, or haunting as Casino Royale is, Skyfall comes extremely close but I will review that another time.  This movie has a terrific story, perfect pace, and absolutely exhilerating action sequences.  At 144 minutes, this movie never feels long.  The action is brutal, exciting, I never wanted the action scenes to end, despite how great the story is.  There's even tons of tension in the poker scenes.  This film is also surprisingly violent for a PG-13.  There's occasionally blood when people die, there is very brutal hand to hand combat, there is also a torture scene where Bond is naked, strapped to a chair and repeatedly hit in the balls.  I think this is one of the most violent PG-13 movies ever made.  This is also one of the very few Bond films that really makes James Bond feel like a human being and not a superhero with tons of silly gadgets.  He feels like a genuine character.  He is vulnerable, he gets his ass handed to him, he is not invincible here.  This film also has the best Bond villian ever.  While he does villainous things, he's just a normal guy in a tough situation as he owes terrorists large sums of money.  In the end, Casino Royale is an incredible Bond film, an exhilerating action movie.  This film is perfect.

Grade:  A+

MPAA:  PG-13 (for intense sequences of violent action, a scene of torture, sexual content and nudity)

Run time:  144 min

Studio:  MGM, Columbia Pictures 

Frozen 2 - Movie Review

Ah shit, here we go again.  Frozen 2 is the sequel to Frozen, which came out 6 years ago.  It tells the story of all the main characters from the first movie going to an enchanted autumn bound forest to find the origin of Elsa's powers to save their kingdom.  There has been so much surrounding this movie, because of how beloved the first movie was.  I wasn't that hyped for this due to the fact that I only found the first one to be okay and Disney has not been impressing me this year.  For movies, Disney only had 2 good ones this year in my opinion, Avengers: Endgame and Toy Story 4.  Frozen 2 is unfortunately another dud by Disney in 2019.  I did not enjoy this movie, and that is mainly due to the plot.  This movie has a very uninteresting, boring plot, and this movie is ungodly boring.  The story was never engaging, some characters are either useless or boring or annoying.  I almost fell asleep a few times throughout this movie.  Let's get into some characters shall we?  Elsa as a character is even worse here than she was in the first one, Elsa in the first one was just very underdeveloped, Elsa in this film has to be with Anna in order for her to be remotely interesting. Like the great Jeremy Jahns says, Elsa is basically a boring goth girl. Anna is by far the best character in the movie, she is just so full of life and is actually a fun character.  Kristof is fucking useless, he has a bunch of cringe worthy scenes involving wanting to propose to Anna, but of course something happens to make him not just fucking do it.  He has also the worst, most forgettable song in the movie, and then after his song is over, he fucks off and stays gone until the final act comes along where they finally make him useful just because it's convenient to the script.  And finally, fucking Olaf.  I HAVE BEEN WAITING FOR THIS ONE!  I FUCKING HATED HIM IN THIS MOVIE!  Olaf was fine in the first film, he did his part in the first one perfectly fine.  In this fucking thing, I wanted to take a fucking blowtorch and fucking just use it on him until he turns into a fucking puddle.  SPOILER ALERT:  Olaf does melt at one point in the movie but instead of making normal movie critics like me happy, they decide to pander to little brat kids and bring him back.  Fucking entitled little shits.  Lastly, this film felt super anticlimactic.  It feels like it just ends out of nowhere. Now after all the bitching about this movie sucking ass, was there anything I liked?  A few things.  The animation here is fucking great!  Of course I liked Anna, she's the best character as I mentioned before.  There are a few neat action scenes.  The 3D was well utilized.  The movie is not badly made.  I did somewhat like a couple songs.  That's about it.  In the end, you should just stick with the first film, the first film is 100x the film this one is.  This movie is just boring, lifeless, passionless.  Although it's a far better female led movie than Charlie's Angels. 

Grade:  D+

MPAA:  PG (for action/peril, and some thematic elements)

Run time:  103 min

Studio:  Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures 

Bad Boys - Movie Review

Bad Boys is an action comedy film released in 1995, directed by Michael Bay, and stars Will Smith and Martin Lawrence as two cops who protect a witness to a murder while investigating a case of stolen heroin from their evidence storage room.  Because Bad Boys For Life is coming out in January 2020, I am going to review the original 2 Bad Boys movies, my review for Bad Boys II likely be up during the first week of December.  Bad Boys is a very fun movie.  It's basically a cop comedy with occasional bursts of action throughout.  Will Smith and Martin Lawrence has wonderful comedic chemistry, both of them bring plenty of laughs.  The acting is very good.  The action sequences are very fun to watch, very explosion heavy considering this is a Michael Bay movie.  One thing that really surprises me about Bad Boys is that while a Michael Bay movie, it doesn't entirely have an oversaturated color palette like most of his other movies like Transformers and Pain & Gain. Bad Boys is also extremely fast paced, there is hardly a dull moment in it, it's pretty much never boring.  As for issues I would say there could have been a better balance between the comedy and the action.  There could've been a bit more action in the film in my opinion, but that's about.  Bad Boys is a terrific 90s action comedy that's very entertaining, and features Will Smith and Martin Lawrence at their best.

Grade:  A

Run time:  119 min

MPAA:  R (for intense violent action and pervasive strong language)

Studio:  Columbia Pictures

Frozen - Movie Review

So Frozen came out 6 years ago already....wow time flies!  It has a pretty simple story, a newly crown queen ends up cursing her home with eternal winter, and her sister along with a man, his reindeer and a talking snowman must find her and undo everything she has done.  When this movie came out, it was huge!  There was no escaping this movie, and while I thought this movie was okay when I first saw it, I couldn't possibly watch it again because of how insanely overhyped it really was.  Now because Frozen 2 is coming out very, very soon, it made sense to re-watch the first one again before watching the sequel.  How is Frozen after all these years?  It's fine.  I think it's perfectly fine.  It's nowhere near as good as other Disney flicks like The Lion King, Beauty and the Beast or The Little Mermaid, or even recent ones like Moana and Zootopia, but as an animated film for young children I think it gets the job done well enough.  The animation is breathtaking, there's a few okay jokes sprinkled here and there, I loved most of the characters, especially Anna.  I love her character, she's one of those characters who just brings joy and life into every scene, and she is also the best developed character.  Kristoff is fine, he's enjoyable enough.  Olaf surprisingly isn't annoying, his song is also the best one in the movie in my opinion.  I will say though that the songs in this movie are mostly okay at best.  I will say the pacing for the most part is really good, very rarely was I bored watching it.  Problems with the movie though I would point out are that Elsa is not a memorable character.  They don't really develop her much beyond she had winter powers, she can make snowmen living beings, her parents died when she was a kid and the sings the song, Let It Go.  Which not only is that song horrendously overplayed, I already thought that song was terrible before it spread like a virus.  There isn't much to Elsa as a character at all, I really hope the sequel fixes that.  There's a song near the end of the movie that really stops the flow of the movie, it's pointless, it's unbelievably forgettable, that song could have been cut out of the movie entirely and the movie would have been slightly better.  Also this movie's villain is LAME!  The reveal of the villain is so lazy and cliched too, plus him as a character too was lame.  This movie overall is extremely predictable.  So overall I think Frozen is okay.  It definitely has problems but I know kids love this movie, and at least it doesn't treat kids like idiots.  It had a couple decent songs, a few decent jokes here and there, mostly good characters and amazing animation.  

Grade:  B

Run time:  102 min

MPAA:  PG (for some action and mild rude humor)

Studio:  Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures 

The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie - Movie Review

Welcome to my reviews for the SpongeBob movies leading up to The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge On the Run coming out in May, I am really looking forward to it, so it made sense to review the two movies that are already out.  I have been a massive SpongeBob fan for basically all my life, I grew up watching the show, the first 3 seasons are some of the best stuff children's television has to offer.  This is actually the 2nd movie I ever saw in theaters, the first being The Incredibles.   So 15 years later, how does this movie hold up?  I still really enjoy it.  It is still a very fun movie with lots of good comedy.  It's not perfect though, which I will get to in flaws, but let's talk about the good this movie has to offer.  The ice cream scene was great, I loved it, it was hilarious, and the hangover scene immediately after it was even better.  Patrick Star is by far the best part of the movie, he has all the best moments in the movie.  Another scene that was really funny was the "baby hunt" scene in the thug bar.  This movie is full of great memorable moments.  It's just a fun time.  The animation is also really good, it's far more polished than the show.  Also don't pretend the scene where SpongeBob and Patrick die didn't get you emotionally!  Any real SpongeBob fan would have felt that!  Also the David Hasselhoff bit in the final act was really good.  The voice acting is also really great, Jeffrey Tambor as King Neptune, Scarlett Johansson as Neptune's daughter, Mindy and Alec Baldwin as Dennis, the biker sent by Plankton to exterminate SpongeBob and Patrick, all REALLY good!  And last but certainly not least, the Goofy Goober rock scene at the end, who could possibly forget that!  As for flaws, I thought this movie could have done a lot more in terms for adult humor, the first 3 seasons were a gold mine for great adult humor.  Seriously, the first 3 seasons contain stuff like calling Squidward an ass by showing a donkey image on screen, attempting to make a health inspector so sick it could potentially kill him and then trying to hide the body, it even showed blood and internal organs the odd time.  This movie could have used more adult stuff like that, but the drunk ice cream and hangover was really all it had to offer.  Basically the movie felt very clean and sanitized compared to the first 3 seasons of the show.  So overall I think the first SpongeBob movie is very enjoyable, I for the most part love it, it has plenty of great moments, very memorable.  It's definitely a worthy companion to the show.

Grade:  A-

Run time:  87 min

MPAA:  PG (for some mild crude humor)

Studio:  Paramount Pictures

Charlie's Angels (2019) - Movie Review

So Charlie's Angels is the latest attempt at bringing these characters to the big screen, we have gotten 2 of them before with Cameron Diaz, Drew Barrymore and Lucy Liu in the early 2000s.  They were cheesy and silly but they worked for the most part, they knew they were silly, cheesy junk food entertainment.  This film stars Kristen Stewart, Naomi Scott, Ella Balinska, Patrick Stewart, and has a pretty simple plot.  When a young systems engineer blows the whistle on a dangerous technology, Charlie's Angels are called into action, putting their lives on the line to protect us all.  That's the basic jist of the movie.  This movie I wasn't planning to see but Ford v Ferrari wasn't in my area yet so I saw this instead.  God fucking damn it I wish I waited because this movie.....is a fucking trainwreck.  I hated this movie with a burning passion.  I thought Men in Black: International was a passionless, boring piece of shit, which it still is, but this makes THAT look like a cinematic masterpiece!  Oh this movie got onto my fucking nerves!  This is the worst movie I have seen this year, without question.  Okay, let's calm down, let's explain why this movie is beyond garbage.  This movie doesn't have a personality, it is so bland, so tacked on, so lazy, it felt like the studio gave a 12 year old rights to write the screenplay, which is actually an insult to 12 year olds because a fucking 12 year old can write better material than this. What it REALLY felt like was that a studio executive had a long day planning out future projects, was falling asleep in the conference room and somebody reminded him that a new Charlie's Angels movie had to be out soon so they looked at a random person and was like, "Fuck it, hire that random guy/girl who probably never took film production or creative writing classes in his life, they're good enough I guess."  There is no good humor, not once did I laugh, chuckle, or even smile.  This movie wastes its cast, particularly Patrick Stewart.  Seriously Patrick Stewart, what are you doing?  You were in Logan, you were in Green Room.  What's going on?  You went from the great movies I had mentioned to The Emoji Movie, and now this?  Get your shit together, pick better projects already, you are better than this, don't end up like Will Smith.  The action sequences and editing are by far my biggest issues with the movie.  The action sequences are atrocious.  Whoever edited this movie needs to find a different job, because you can't keep cutting the action sequences and editing the camera work in weird, awful ways and expect it to look good.  The fight choreography is also abysmal, there is no effort in the stunt work, the fighting itself is so obviously fake.  Let's set some examples for other action movies that actually put effort in fight choreography and stunt work, movies like John Wick, The Raid, Atomic Blonde, Kill Bill, the Mission: Impossible movies, are all examples on how to do action and stunts right.  Did I mention this movie was horrendously boring?  If this movie is good for anything, it's definitely a good Nyquil substitute.  I am going to wrap this up here.  In the end, Charlie's Angels is a fucking trainwreck disaster.  Everything about it sucks, the action, editing, performances, comedy, everything.  This movie is not worth anyone's time, and I am glad it is failing!  It made $8 million opening weekend on a $55 million budget, that's pathetic.  I also find it hilarious how Elizabeth Banks (who directed this trash) thinks this is failing because "men don't like watching women in action movies".  I guess Kill Bill, Wonder Woman, Alita: Battle Angel, and Underworld don't exist.

Grade:  F

Run time:  119 min

MPAA rating:  PG-13 (for action/violence, language and some suggestive material)

Studio:  Columbia Pictures