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In case you haven’t seen the intro from my entry dated
1/26/19 (it’s in my archives whenever you want to read it), I’m no longer going
to review every single movie I see. I’m
going to review one, with the occasional bonus, and just give ratings for the
rest from now on (unless I decide to pick it up again in the future). You can always ask me why I gave the ratings
for the films without reviews though (via comments or the e-mail addresses under
the ‘About Me’ section).
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Twisted Metal (Season
One) OK/G
I don’t remember actually playing the videogame this Peacock
series is based on, but I do remember when it came out. All I knew about the game was that there were
cars and an evil clown (the latter is sure to always pique my interest). Now, I’ve never been the biggest fan of
entertainment adapted from videogames; I’m not really a fan of any of the Resident Evil flicks (the ones I saw; I
don’t even know which ones I didn’t see), the Silent Hill movies, the Mortal
Kombats, and wasn’t a fan of the latest Super
Mario Bros. Movie (and Mario Kart from Nintendo 64 is one of my all-time
favorites). Hell, I’ve never truly been
what one might call a gamer (the aforementioned Mario Kart and this one bowling
game from PSone are probably my favorites).
That doesn’t mean I won’t check out entertainment based on them
though. I was curious about this one
solely because there was an evil clown involved. Said evil clown (Sweet Tooth) is a bit
whimsical, but is responsible for some bloody mayhem (so was Pennywise, for
that matter). Sweet Tooth is only one
character amongst several though in a post-apocalyptic America wherein people
try to survive while some get violent (you know the drill in these kinds of
stories). Anthony Mackie (8 Mile) plays a “milkman” tasked with
traveling through this landscape from what used to be California to New Chicago
to retrieve a package with promises of a reward once returned. I will say that I actually enjoyed this
series more than I thought I would and never felt like I was forcing myself to
continue with the ten episodes (roughly 30-minutes each, give or take). It’s fairly engaging with worthy
characterizations. And there is
violence, as I’m sure there is in the videogame. The story obviously isn’t over (no
confirmation of a season two, as of this writing) and I’d be willing to give it
at least one more visit (we all know how franchises can overstay their welcome). 8/10/2023
Bonus reviews:
River Wild EH
They seriously remade the 1994 film of the same name (with The in front)? I wasn’t even a fan of that film despite all
the names involved (Kevin Bacon, Meryl Streep, David Strathairn, Joseph
Mazzello, John C. Reilly). I remember
being disappointed when it came out because I felt it fell short (I was only in
6th grade too). I read this
is supposed to be a reimagining, but remake, reimagining, whatever! The circumstances may be a bit different
here, but there is still a villain, a river, a raft, and danger (both human and
water). Even as a standalone film, this
is rather lame. Don’t waste your time
with this un-un-unnecessary remake/reimagining/whatever. 8/9/2023
Scare Package II: Rad Chad’s Revenge EH
I didn’t review the predecessor (Scare Package) in this blog, but here’s what I said about it in an
Instagram post---I
love anthology films, if I never made that clear before. They're not always
good though and this collection was just okay. There's gore, that's for sure,
some of it gross, some of it impressive, obviously low-budget (maybe
middle-budget), but the tone doesn't mesh well with the content. It's a bit too
silly for my tastes and the whole self-referential thing for horror movies is
old hat by now, thus ineffective. The wraparound segment seems to have three
separate parts (they are actually separate in the credits) and there are 5
other tales, so I'm not sure if it's 8 segments or 6 (including the wraparound);
the promo art says 7. Their hearts are in the right place and having a video
store (something long gone that none of us truly appreciated until they became
obsolete) in the wraparound segment (at least one of them) is awesome, but this
anthology film was merely just okay, like I said, and it's never a good sign if
you can't wait for a film to be over long before it actually is. I've seen
worse though. Available on Shudder. I gave it an OK rating in
my ‘Ratings Only’ blog. Like many
sequels, as you can see from my rating, this was worse. For those of you that actually saw the first
one and thought it was meta (and it was), this ratchets up the meta-ness by
like 500 (I know sequels try to outdo their predecessors, but this one really
went for it in that department). I
thought I was watching another Scary
Movie. It is still an anthology film,
like the first one, but the wraparound segment takes up about half the run-time
(if not more). Even though it is an
anthology film (mostly), it’s still wise to watch Scare Package first (despite some flashbacks being provided
here). Rad Chad is a video store clerk
returning from the first one and the wraparound segment here parodies the Saw films, in addition to others, but
largely the Saw films. Parodies are so overdone. The first film was meta, yes (as mentioned),
and was far from perfect, but it was okay (as mentioned). I didn’t enjoy this sequel much at all (as
hinted). 8/6/2023
The Slumber Party OK
(haiku review)
Disney+ movie.
The Hangover for
young teens.
Harmless for that group. 8/8/2023
Other
movies I've seen and their ratings (see above):
Brooklyn 45 >>>OK
(Shudder)
Celia (1989) >>>EH
Disquiet >>>EH
Gator Bait >>>EH
Huesera: The Bone Woman >>>EH/OK
(In
Spanish with subtitles)
Influencer >>>EH/OK
(Shudder)
Lyle >>>EH
My Cherry Pie
>>>EH
Pizza (2005) >>>OK
Sharksploitation >>>G
(Shudder)
Taurus
>>>VB
---Sean O. 8/11/2023
