drive by review collection #2 (Maniac, Heathers, Strange Magic, Justice League Dark, Rings)
I’ve had some free time lately (hah), and have used said free time to see some movies I’ve never seen before. I meant what I said about keeping up with mini-reviews of new (to me) movies, so here we go:
Maniac: Elijah Wood continues being the creepiest little hobbit ever by stalking women and brutally murdering them. The P.O.V camera is ingenious and makes the uncomfortable scenes extremely uncomfortable. Like super gross, had-to-turn-away-a-few-times uncomfortable. Great movie which is basically a darker take on The Voices and I will probably never need to watch again because yikes.
Heathers: The inspiration for Mean Girls which isn’t nearly as awesome (but is also not for my generation, so there you go). Speaking of which, this movie is aggressively 80s: shoulder pads, big hair, teachers smoking in schools, kids wearing trench coats in schools, kids bringing guns to schools… clearly this movie came from a different era. Oh, and Christian Slater is basically Jack Nicholson. And probably gets woobiefied by the fangirls, even though he’s a domestic terrorist.
Strange Magic: Not!Epic with meh music, a messy plot, poor writing and a desperate need for a discussion about consent. This movie is one of the worst I’ve seen in a while, despite some real talent in the cast (Kristin Chenoweth). The whole film feels cheap and lazy. On the plus side, the Bog King was a surprisingly interesting character who I really enjoyed, and the movie got a lot better over half-way through when he became the focus of the story. The first half is pretty insufferable though. Like, I can barely stress how difficult it was to get through. I recommend watching it like I did: with friends to make fun of it. Or with copious amounts of alcohol.
Justice League Dark: DC Animated’s second R-rated flick, focused on the titular team… and Batman, of course. A strong showing from Constantine and Zatanna, and a very unfortunate shout-out to Dogma that just… did not need to be a thing. At all. Far better than The Killing Joke’s first half, and inferior to it’s second. A full review (with pictures!) will be forthcoming. You guys know how I love to write bloated, opinionated recaps on DC animated stuff.
Rings: Saw this in theaters. I remember the original films…sorta. I remember Naomi Watts was in them, and that she had a creepy kid, and the whole “seven dayssss” thing. I always gets the English ghost’s name (Samara) mixed up with the Japanese onryo’s (Sadako). Oh, right… we’re talking about this film though. Uh….well, it distracted me early on with a conversation about the story of Orpheus with a reference to Hades as “the Devil”, which isn’t exactly an accurate analogue, and I’m enough of a pretentious asshole that it bothered me for a minute. Vincent D’Onofrio is in this, and he’s excellent. The protagonist is less so. I’m not sure if she’s a bad actress with an inability to emote, or her accent makes her seem like it’s the case. I’m leaning towards the latter. A decent mystery with a somewhat surprising plot twist regarding D’Onofrio’s character, but not actually scary in the slightest.
Maniac: Elijah Wood continues being the creepiest little hobbit ever by stalking women and brutally murdering them. The P.O.V camera is ingenious and makes the uncomfortable scenes extremely uncomfortable. Like super gross, had-to-turn-away-a-few-times uncomfortable. Great movie which is basically a darker take on The Voices and I will probably never need to watch again because yikes.
Heathers: The inspiration for Mean Girls which isn’t nearly as awesome (but is also not for my generation, so there you go). Speaking of which, this movie is aggressively 80s: shoulder pads, big hair, teachers smoking in schools, kids wearing trench coats in schools, kids bringing guns to schools… clearly this movie came from a different era. Oh, and Christian Slater is basically Jack Nicholson. And probably gets woobiefied by the fangirls, even though he’s a domestic terrorist.
Strange Magic: Not!Epic with meh music, a messy plot, poor writing and a desperate need for a discussion about consent. This movie is one of the worst I’ve seen in a while, despite some real talent in the cast (Kristin Chenoweth). The whole film feels cheap and lazy. On the plus side, the Bog King was a surprisingly interesting character who I really enjoyed, and the movie got a lot better over half-way through when he became the focus of the story. The first half is pretty insufferable though. Like, I can barely stress how difficult it was to get through. I recommend watching it like I did: with friends to make fun of it. Or with copious amounts of alcohol.
Justice League Dark: DC Animated’s second R-rated flick, focused on the titular team… and Batman, of course. A strong showing from Constantine and Zatanna, and a very unfortunate shout-out to Dogma that just… did not need to be a thing. At all. Far better than The Killing Joke’s first half, and inferior to it’s second. A full review (with pictures!) will be forthcoming. You guys know how I love to write bloated, opinionated recaps on DC animated stuff.
Rings: Saw this in theaters. I remember the original films…sorta. I remember Naomi Watts was in them, and that she had a creepy kid, and the whole “seven dayssss” thing. I always gets the English ghost’s name (Samara) mixed up with the Japanese onryo’s (Sadako). Oh, right… we’re talking about this film though. Uh….well, it distracted me early on with a conversation about the story of Orpheus with a reference to Hades as “the Devil”, which isn’t exactly an accurate analogue, and I’m enough of a pretentious asshole that it bothered me for a minute. Vincent D’Onofrio is in this, and he’s excellent. The protagonist is less so. I’m not sure if she’s a bad actress with an inability to emote, or her accent makes her seem like it’s the case. I’m leaning towards the latter. A decent mystery with a somewhat surprising plot twist regarding D’Onofrio’s character, but not actually scary in the slightest.