Insidious: The Last Key

Alright everyone, for the final review of this year’s “Halloween Month,” let’s look at the latest stinker that came out at the beginning of this year, “Insidious: The Last Key.”

Roger Moore started his review by saying, “God help me, but I found the climax to “Insidious: The Last Key” to be quite moving.”

At least for a horror sequel or in this case a sequel to a prequel.

Moore said, “Sure, much of what’s come before that, an hour and 40ish minutes of backstory, lulling detail, inane banter and scenes one can only describe as “filler” interrupted by quick-cut soundtrack-amplified SHOCKS, is a bore.”

A lot of what Blumhouse Pictures and screenwriter Leigh Whannell are worried with nowadays is working each new film (this is the fourth) into “The Insidious Universe.” Moore stated, “Then there’s the job of giving Whannell, a sometime actor who found his true calling with “Saw,” another acting role where he gets to be the nerdy ghostbuster awkwardly creeping on starlets half his age (he’s about to turn 40).”

With these other tasks to complain about, is it any reason these movies have downgraded from a smart “Poltergeist” difference into a tired, idea-wasted formula was a supporting cast that’s grown past “cute” that can’t find a new scare to keep it going?

A backstory shows us the abusive, working class childhood of our main character, Elise, reprised by Lin Shaye. Young Elise (Ava Kolker, who you might remember from “Girl Meets World”) could see and hear the spirits in the Five Keys, New Mexico house she and her afraid brother Christian (Pierce Pope) grew up in. Her mother, played by Tessa Ferrer, understood. However, her tough, prison-guard dad, played by Josh Stewart, didn’t like Elise’s brilliant descriptions of death sentences at the prison, which she didn’t see.

Dad beat Elise with a cane, and those spirits in the house? They murdered her mom.

Fifty-seven years later, Elise gets a call from the new owner of the same house. No, she can’t go back there to remove the ghosts. She can’t, but she will, because we would not have this sequel.

She calls her supernatural expert colleagues who helped set up Spectral Sightings with her, Specs (Whannell) and Tucker (Angus Sampson).

“She’s psychic, we’re the sidekicks!”

They’ll find out why this house is haunted and Elise’s lasting guilt over the brother (Bruce Davison plays Christian as an adult) she left behind. Yes, there’s a key, a door to unlock and an emergency whistle her mother had gave to her to retrieve.

Horror actress Lin Shaye, who is thankful to her career being the sister to New Line Cinema founder Robert Shaye, is great to see at the core of these movies. However, in the original films, she was the cavalry, coming to save whoever was really needed to free themselves of supernatural problems, a supporting actress who only had to make a huge impact in a few scenes. Moore said, “She’s no Helen Mirren and making her carry these movies is a burden she’s not up to.”

Put her in a scene with horror great Bruce Davison, a successful character actor, and he underplays/appeal’s her right off the screen.

The colleagues have displayed their entire back of character and acting tricks. They’re not as tough as Elise, and if she doesn’t make them wear white shirts and ties, they don’t blend in at all. The originality’s gone and they’re not appealing any more. Giving them a supernatural tracking RV doesn’t help.

Moore noted, “The ghosts are the long-fingered ghouls with skeletal faces so popular in the genre these days.”

Everything adds up to a movie that has no right to the moving payoff Whannell has made, a nice resolution to a movie that isn’t really worth seeing to get to that resolution.

As you might have guessed, this is the worst in the series. I don’t understand why they felt like they needed to go backwards, when they could have just stopped or moved forward from how the second film ended. The worst part about this: this film did well in the box office that a fifth film is in development. Stop making movie sequels to this franchise, just end it already! This is a horrible franchise.

Thank goodness I’m done with that review. Anyways, Happy Halloween everyone! Hopefully everyone has great plans tonight, they picked out a costume that they can go trick-or-treating in, but make sure not to get too much candy or you will seriously need to go to the dentist. Still, make sure to enjoy tonight and watch plenty of horror films or enjoy any haunted house you go to. This year’s “Halloween Month” actually turned out to be easier on me, which I’m happy I decided to do this now.

In the meantime, I will see everyone next month where I start back on my traditional Friday reviews. Stay tuned to see what I have in store for everyone next month.

Death Becomes Her

Hollywood seems to be the one place where they are crazy about the youth. Where else do people over 30 (actors and writers) feel like they should lie about their age to protect their careers? It’s exactly where plastic surgeons and personal trainers have real job security. David Ansen said in his review, “If fear of aging is as American as apple pie, it's in part because Hollywood, hand in hand with Madison Avenue, has trained us so well to associate happiness, desirability and fun with the sight of a firm tush.” Robert Zemeckis, one of the great directors, has obviously seen this difficulty firsthand. He has made that fear, that obsession, the subject of his black comedy “Death Becomes Her,” released in 1992, where Meryl Streep and Goldie Hawn (Kurt Russell's girlfriend and Kate Hudson’s mother), one that is engaged with pride, the other by revenge, make, as Ansen says, “a Faustian bargain for eternal youth.”

The spoof starts off to a bad and happy start as it sets up the rivalry between the useless, trimming actress Madeline Ashton (Meryl Streep) and her plain childhood friend Helen Sharp (the great Goldie Hawn). When Madeline steals and marries Helen’s fiancé, the famous plastic surgeon Ernest Menville, played by Bruce Willis, and Ansen mentions, “nothing like having the best nip-and-tuck man around the house,” Helen goes into a abrupt decline, gaining 200 pounds and ending up in a mental hospital. What gets her out of depression is the thought of revenge, and when we next see her, seven years later, she has turned her 50-year-old self into a slim and glamorous author of a beauty guide. Ansen said, “And she is ready to ensnare the bedraggled, alcoholic Menville, wretchedly married to Madeline, into her murderous plot.”

Until this time, Zemeckis’s film has a striking resemblance to Streep’s 1989 comedy, “She-Devil.” She’s mainly playing the same self-involved, arrogant character, and playing her with funny evil passion. However, now the film takes a Gothic spin, with a cameo by Isabella Rossellini as the mysterious source of an elixir that will keep Madeline alive, and rejuvenated, forever, even after she’s been murdered.

It’s nice to see Zemeckis making a comedy with this type of edge again. Ansen noted, “"Death Becomes Her," written by Martin Donovan and David Koepp, returns to the abrasive mode of Zemeckis's underrated "Used Cars" (1980).” However, it also has a similarity to the cartoonish physical twists of his “Who Framed Roger Rabbit,” as he has some amazing special effects: Streep shows up with her head, literally, on backward, and Hawn walks along with a see-through hole in her stomach. Zemeckis has always liked technical challenges. Once again he masters them with great style.

Ansen said, “Yet oddly, the more fantastical and grotesque this comedy becomes, the more conventional it seems-and the less it has to say. Somewhere in the middle of the movie, the characters take a back seat to the pyrotechnics, reality is replaced by cliffhangers and Gothic claptrap, and the laughs start to dry up. Satire needs a social context, but the filmmakers have little to say about the culture that created these age-obsessed women.” Still, even when “Death Becomes Her” goes off course, it stays worth watching. The actors are never less than fun to watch. Watch it for the enjoyment of Streep’s and Hawn’s healthy, self-mocking performances, for the chance to see Willis neatly play against type and, not the least of it, for the amazing confused cameo by Sydney Pollack as a doctor trying to fight with the fact that his walking, talking patient is actually dead.

This is definitely a funny movie that everyone should see, if they want to steer away from all the scary stuff out there. Similarly to how “Ghostbusters” is, this one is definitely an enjoyable film that I think everyone will love, especially if they are a Zemeckis fan or a fan of any of the actors in here. Don’t miss the chance to see this movie.

Now with that said, look out tomorrow for the finale of this year’s “Halloween Month.”

A Clockwork Orange

There is something about this stylish look at modern English society – one that is filled with reckless love, drugs and violence – that is scarier than all the chaos, awkwardness, muggings and rapes it shows on the screen. Dennis Schwartz said in his review, “I think that something has to do with the fear we have of trusting the young people depicted in the film with the future of the country.” Stanley Kubrick, seriously, looks like he is targeting the ideals of the community and at the politicians who are oblivious about what to do about the violence we have seen every day in a society that appears to be a radically one, where crimes are mainly done by teens. Schwartz mentioned, “He questions society's responses to deterring crime: by their social reforms, their organized religions, their scientific experiments, their political meddling (from the Right and the Left), and by making prisons as the solution to all society's problems.”

That “A Clockwork Orange” has stood the test of time and is as important seeing in 2018 as it was when it first came out in 1971, is showing that society has not changed much since that time and that the film has opened up some thoughts in our minds about how we as a society still can’t deal with the seriousness of the problems marked.

The film is done with so much stylish colors, especially the orange background as the film’s title tells. It is so appealing to look at that it appears shameful that we are shown so much violence, as it looks like even the violence shown and choreographed is very entertaining for the serious message it is trying to tell. Schwartz noted, “One might expect a musical film to be taking place, if one were not aware that Kubrick was the director.”

The droogs (Malcolm McDowell, Warren Clarke, James Marcus and Michael Tarn) as they call themselves, are sitting in their favorite Korova milk bar place, drinking their drug-spiked mild and bordered by white-fiber glass nude furniture and statues of obedient women kneeling. Schwartz noted, “They are wearing white trousers and white suspenders to match, with black combat boots and derbies, and have billy-clubs at their sides.” Every night they perform stylized but mindless various crimes. Their thinking is that they can whatever they want forcefully. Love is the simple in-and-out act, if they want a car they just steal it, and if they don’t like someone, they just beat them. Schwartz mentioned, “These school-age kids do not necessarily come from bad homes--So, why are they so alienated from society, is the sixty-four dollar question!”

In the first act of the film, we see a poor drunk man (Paul Farrell) get beaten up for being a beggar, a stylized gang fight, a terrible rape (Adrienne Corri) and paralyzing her writer husband (Patrick Magee), killing a wealthy superior woman called the Catlady who runs a health farm (Miriam Karlin) with giant artifact of a man’s private, and finally, the fighting for control of the gang among the team.

The leader of the droogs, Alex de Large (McDowell), lives at the graffiti house Municipal Flatblock 18a Linear North with his stylish older mom (Sheila Raynor), who has purple-dyed hair, and with his working-class father (Philip Stone). Both parents do not know how to get Alex properly ready for school. The school adviser, played by Aubrey Morris, is obviously gay, who can’t relate very well to the disturbed Alex. Music, specifically Ludwig Van Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, gets Alex ready for love and violence. It is his theme in life, the very joy of his living, the inspiration for his insane dreams. The other type of music that plays a large part in Alex’s life is from “Singin’ in the Rain,” which he happily sings during the rape and is played as the credits roll at the end of the film when Alex is apparently cured. That is, he is able to have his violent loving dreams again.

Schwartz said, “In this rather cynical and probing look at societal attitudes and what can only be termed as a dehumanized society that Kubrick sees all around him, the harshest comments are reserved for the scientific experiments conducted on Alex so that he will be conditioned out of his criminal impulses.” These experiments were tested where he is given a fourteen-year prison sentence for murdering the Catlady. He was put in prison when his fellow droogs, Georgie (Marcus) and Dim (Clarke), upset with him antagonizing them go against him during an incident and knock him over the head with a milk bottle, letting the police arrest him.

Schwartz said, “The "experimental therapy" treatment Alex agrees to that gives the convicted killer a chance for an early release is backed by the new right-wing government in power, as the Machiavellian Minister of the Interior (Anthony Sharp) worms his way into the headlines hypocritically claiming that his administration will put a stop to the criminal by controlling his thoughts.” When an inappropriate thought is made, the patient will have a serious sick reaction which stops him from performing the act.

Alex comes back to the world as an apparent “changed” man with a physical hatred to the following: love, Beethoven’s Ninth and violence. There is a strong enough reaction to these things that cause him to vomit. However, he quickly finds out that he cannot go back home, that he must pay for his sinful acts, and in his mission to make up for his past. The same poor man he once attacked now gets other poor men to fight back; the police who help him from this attack are his former droogs Dim and Georgie. They now take him out into the woods and tell him about the surprise at their current job, by telling him they are now old enough to have these jobs. Schwartz said, “By mistake, he enters the house of the writer he once attacked, and will be used by that writer's left-wing group for political revenge against the government they can't stand.” They get Alex to try and kill himself with the loud sound of Beethoven’s Ninth. Schwartz said, “Alex survives his fall with broken bones and the renewed friendship with the minister, who descries that former treatment blaming the doctors who experimented on him for their foolish plan.” On top of that, he arrests the writer as a political insubordinate, and retreats Alex to be the same before. He does all of this so that his team can keep being in office.

Kubrick’s look at society is an overly pessimistic one. There is something evil out there, but what to do about it, that is the question left unanswered. For Kubrick, at least we better think about what we doing to ourselves, before we can’t do that. The scariest part of the film was that all the severity of violence and cultural disgrace, are pretty close to what the standards of society actually are.

Schwartz noted, “I was left feeling unsure of how to take the film's message.” Was there a moral uncertainty done toward the violence? Or, is Kubrick just being a moralist, blaming everybody? There doesn’t look like there is a lot to think about as other ways to handle the problem with the teens. Schwartz ended his review by saying, “The film adaption from Anthony Burgess' dystopian novel results in a pure Kubrick, over-indulgent, brilliantly visual and graphic film (the sets alone could tell the story). The jargon language used (called Nadsat-an onomatopoetic combination of English, Russian, and slang) made for a most arresting film, one that can't be put aside without thinking about what kind of impact it makes on how we view such moral and ethical problems. But I just don't think we come away knowing anything more about what to do about these problems than before seeing the film. Nevertheless, it was a visual joyride, something that is terrifyingly pertinent in an eerie sort of way; a memorable film, one that has become ingrained in our culture and must be looked upon as one of those 'important' films that one should see. I just didn't think it reached the level of some of Kubrick's other masterpieces (2001, Paths of Glory, The Killing, Eyes Wide Shut, and Dr.Strangelove) that, for me, were on more solid intellectual footing.”

Be careful when watching this movie because it is insane. Everything that is shown in the movie is just pure madness that you’ll be shocked when watching this. After watching this, I don’t think you’ll need to watch it again. This is probably one of those films that you only need to watch once and never need to see it again. However, if you watch it again, you have a stronger stomach then I do. This is not a film that you should skip over. Check it out and see for yourself.

Now with that said, look out tomorrow where I look at another classic in “Halloween Month.”

Halloween (2018)

Tonight I went and saw the new “Halloween” movie, which came out last week, and now I will let everyone know what I thought about it.

Slasher films have never been particularly scary, even in their prime around 1975-85, which David Gordon Green’s “Halloween” tries to celebrate. Richard von Busack said in his review, “Like flaunting the silly Satanic emblems of heavy metal, it was more of a tribal custom—and the deeper you were in the country, the more their paraphernalia repelled boors and evangelicals.”

Busack continued, “John Carpenter's Halloween (1978) flaunted the same old Knifey McKniferson that all later sequels and ripoffs came to use. But it was better looking than it needed to be, and keyed up with an unsettling synth score.” It’s main star, Jamie Lee Curtis, had a scary traumatic experience, getting viewers into the right state of mind even before the teens get killed.

The 2018 movie ignores all of the sequels, saying that Michael Myers has been in a hidden state since he was arrested at the end of the original “Halloween.” We see him, played by Nick Castle and James Jude Courtney, in a mental asylum, where the patients are chained to cement blocks the size of car engine blocks. His inner murderer is summoned by two British podcasters calling themselves investigative journalists, played by Rhian Rees and Jefferson Hall. To try and make him speak, they wave Myers’ now rundown pale mask at him.

Laurie Strode, reprised by Curtis, always knew he’d come back. She’s now old and hiding in a house in the woods she build. Dealing with the visiting English reporters, Laurie shakes off the guilt about how her own daughter Karen was taken away by child services when she was 12: “If she’s prepared for the horror of this world, I can live with that.” Being haunted by an immortal murderer might be hard to think of. Busack said, “It's a little easier to understand the horror of being raised in a bunker by a prepper.”

Now an adult and married, Karen, played by Judy Greer, is a mother trying to keep everything normal, and not doing a good job. It’s evident that Michael’s last victim will be Laurie’s granddaughter Allyson, played by Andi Matichak. The men will be the victims, from Alyson’s father (Toby Huss), filled with dad jokes, to psychiatrist Dr. Ranbir Sartain (Haluk Bilginer) and Deputy Frank Hawkins (Will Patton), to Cameron (Dylan Arnold), Alison’s boyfriend, who’s Halloween costume is Bonnie Parker while Allyson goes to Clyde Barrow. Busack noted, “Green and his co-writers are aware of the gender-switch in this slasher for 2018: the men die, and the women turn the tide.”

Busack continued, “Green (Pete's Dragon, et al) isn't a brilliant pop-up engineer, but he provides a great deal of texture, and a credible idea of how the cycle of violence turns. The vivid autumnal colors give this a chill, and the titles are played over a reverse time lapse of a jack o'lantern rotting: coming back from the grave, or at least the compost heap.”

Myers, nicknamed “The Shape” to make an already scary threat even more, is filled with the usual contradictions. Busack noted, “He lumbers like Frankenstein's monster and yet he's faster than the eye can see.” Green gives the film some room with quiet moments, such as the nice dialogue between Allyson’s friend Vicky (Virginia Gardner) and the young boy she’s babysitting (Jibrail Nantambu). Two slacking cops on watch (Charlie Benton and Christopher Allen Nelson) discuss sandwiches. One says that it’s the bread wrapping that makes it a sandwich. Inside could be anything from Vietnamese tidbits to peanut butter. Busack mentioned, “As critic J. Hoberman once noted, the slasher audience was the most democratic audience in the world: They didn't care who got it, as long as someone got it.”

Busack commented, “So per Hoberman, the killings are the bread.” However, the filling in this sandwich is Curtis’ one strength and weakness leading up to one of her PTSD breakdowns at a celebratory dinner for Allyson. Her Laurie is both weak and frightening.

It’s easy to see why some fans were dissatisfied with this: They went to see a horror film and they started to see a drama. Some of the murders have emotions to them. Some of it is a little frustrating. Busack said, “Laurie, who turned her house into a stockade of closed-circuit cameras and floodlights, nevertheless keeps the interiors dark; most people wouldn't give that monster a square inch of shadow.”

“Halloween” isn’t scary, but like the film that made it, it’s moody. Busack ended his review by saying, “What does survive is the malice endemic to the genre. Here is the pessimistic side of the ancient cinematic pleasure of watching Buster Keaton or 007 bouncing back from certain death. Here, instead are a series of morbid resurrections, featuring the unkillable quality of motiveless, mute, faceless evil.”

Now in all honesty, I think this might be the third best in the franchise. I don’t think the original two movies will ever be topped, but this one is perfect to watch after the original movie. If you watch the 1981 “Halloween II” or this movie, either one will leave you satisfied with how it ended. However, the more I think about it, I think this new movie might be the best of all the sequels. I don’t think anymore need to be made, but if they are planning anything else, I wouldn’t be surprised. However, I can finally say that I like a movie in this franchise after a long string of bad sequels. To reassure everyone, you are safe enough to go to the theaters to watch this movie and not feel like you wasted your money watching this.

Thank you for joining in on my review tonight. Stay tuned next week to see what movies I will end “Halloween Month” off with.

The Predator

“The Predator,” which came out last month, knows how to suck you in.

Andrew Todd said in his review, “Kicking off with a bang in the middle of a space battle, an aggressive, semi-retro score soaring in the background, the latest installment of the sci-fi franchise is committed to showing more Predator-y action than any previous entry. Writer-director Shane Black’s ode to the 1987 original (in which he co-starred) uses its alien sports-hunters’ weird bodies and lethal technology in ways many have been waiting to see for over 30 years. Creative, bloody and often hilarious kills, new additions to Predator lore and a surprising quantity of cool sci-fi nonsense are thrown around with the glee of a fan let loose in a multimillion-dollar playground.”

The first time we see a Predator on Earth, it’s camouflaged, shown by a drop of blood that falls on its disguise from a severed victim hanging from the tree above. The action only becomes more graphic. Spines are torn, heads are decapitated, bodies are ripped, and there are Predator dogs and new, 11-foot Predator hybrids. Needless to say Predator fans, to a point that there are Predator fans this year, will love it. It’s the R-rated movie they’ve wanted for a long time, made by people who evidently wanted this movie.

“The Predator’s” story pulls together four storylines that crash halfway through. The major one is with sniper (Boyd Holbrook, so much talent that can’t tell a joke) who meets a Predator in the jungle, and is thrown with a group of “loonies” (Thomas Jane, Keegan-Michael Key, Alfie Allen, Trevante Rhodes and Augusto Aguilera) the military doesn’t want to deal with. Before being thrown to them, he mails a Predator machine to himself, which goes to his autistic son Rory, played by Jacob Tremblay, giving a serious role that doesn’t feel right for this movie. We also meet the alien-researching biologist Casey Bracket (an excellent Olivia Munn), brought to a military research project led by the inconsiderate, Nicorette-chewing Traeger (a scene-stealer Sterling K. Brown). Then there’s an enhanced Predator tracking a rogue member of its own kind. “The Predator” has a lot happening, and not everything goes with the same weight.

Depending on where you put it, this is the third, the fourth, or the sixth film in the Predator franchise, but technically, “The Predator” is some sort of midquel, referencing on the past films and referencing on franchise principles. Todd stated, “Its cast of twitchy, self-consciously idiosyncratic misfits (every one of whom is introduced via a signature prop or tic, which is as irritating as it is efficient) is far from the musclebound Bad Dudes of the original, though they’re still afforded more than a small dose of bro-y camaraderie.” The presence of a bigger, badder Predator looks knowingly, hilariously stupid. Even the characters are Predator fans, either because of scientific purposes or just because they’re awesome.

If anything, “The Predator’s” biggest problem as a sequel is trying too hard. Todd noted, “It’s definitely a Shane Black film, taking place at Halloween instead of his signature Christmas setting, and popping with colorful, comedic, cigar-chomping dialogue.” (A kid gets to say the F word, which is a joy.) However, while the fan service is kept low-key, this is not “Solo: A Star Wars Story,” the amount of in-jokes will either satisfy or annoy longtime fans. So many Schwarzenegger one-liners are reworded and thrown out there. Jake Busey plays the character his father created in “Predator 2.” At one point, a character skeptically asks, “Have you seen the new Predator?” Todd said, “All this stuff is fun, but at a certain point, the meta-comedy crosses the 22 Jump Street threshold.”

Sadly, those who have seen the new Predator won’t have anything held against them by saying “yes, and it’s got some problems.” Todd said, “The movie’s hacked-to-pieces pacing has the editorial grace of a wrist-blade through the neck.” The Predator-only story lacks any direction and doesn’t make a lot of sense, with characters having to say the silly complex goals of their alien enemies mainly so that the audience can follow along. While the cast may have started out as interesting, three-dimensional characters, so some are still extremely watchable, you get the feeling that their development is not finished. Todd noted, “Even the beat-by-beat editing is choppy as heck, with some sequences moving so quickly from gag to gag that it’s clear large chunks of connective tissue are straight-up missing. The movie culminates in a bizarre, sequel-baiting ending that is almost certain to disappoint many viewers, whether it actually generates a sequel or not.”

Where “The Predator” gets really strange, and though it’s most likely to be gutted in online forums, is in its thematic substance. Todd noted, “Central to the movie is the notion of machismo and its various causes and effects. The Loonies echo Schwarzenegger’s crew from the original film, but each is a subversion in some way, with PTSD a common thread through all of them.” Sadly, the movie itself is focused on giving kill after kill that its likable tries to challenge its manly look is buried under, sadly, manly look. Characters show hints at times, but the endless pace of the edit gets to suck us in before they can really show it.

The same could be said of the film’s two female characters: Munn’s Casey starts out cornered by men who don’t understand women, then becomes almost as tough as they are. Yvonne Strahovski’s character is just forgotten about halfway through. Munn’s character was just there to be a strong woman who can go up with the film’s men, but in here, it looks like we’re meant to laugh along with the men objectifying her. Todd noted, “Unfortunately, the scene that was cut due to featuring Black’s friend and real-life sex offender Steven Wilder may have actually mitigated some of these issues, serving as Munn’s character’s introduction and setting up important character attributes that in the finished cut appear out of nowhere.”

Finally, as you might think from a movie whose characters call themselves “loonies,” “The Predator” has a type of loaded relationship with mental illness. Todd said, “Beyond the jokes at disordered characters’ expense (the Tourette’s-focused of which I assume Black felt he could get away with, given he has Tourette’s himself), the chopped-up script grossly simplifies complex issues.” Maybe Black and co-writer Fred Dekker had more sensitivity in an earlier version, but the released version of “The Predator” has some cringeworthy crimes in today’s age. As predicted early on, Tremblay’s character’s autism isn’t just part of the character, but a plot point, with autism eventually said to be, as said by Munn’s character, “the next step on the evolutionary ladder.” Todd said, “That may have been intended to lift up a misunderstood condition, but it ultimately succeeds only in exacerbating the othering of it.” Added to another character wanting to kill himself being cast as heroic, it’s going to make discussion, and not in the movie’s favor.

Many of these problems won’t affect “The Predator’s” main audience, obviously. For the most part, this is a fun, demonstrative, R-rated film, and full of Shane Black-type jokes that mostly work and gore curbs that almost always do. Longtime fans of the franchise will get exactly what they’ve been wanting for years. However, the movie as a whole feels like it’s gone through endless cuts, filled with rewrites and edits into a formless, unclear mess. It just looks like, like the leftovers of a Predator kill, a formless, unclear mess with so many gnarly parts all around in it.

Despite the issues that I do acknowledge that it does have, it’s still a lot of fun and you should see it if it’s still playing in the theater. If not, you can wait for it on DVD and rent it, if you feel like you don’t want to see the film. Still, I think people who have waited eight years for another Predator movie will have an enjoyable time. However, if people end up not liking this film, I completely understand.

We have now finished talking about these franchises; wait until next week to see what films I will end “Halloween Month” off with.

Alien: Covenant

To say that “Prometheus,” Ridley Scott’s “Alien” prequel released in 2012, split audiences would be an understatement. Matt Brunson said in his review, “Championed in some quarters for expanding the franchise’s mythology and lambasted in others for being too cerebral, the film was subjected to mixed word-of-mouth and saw its box office plummet after a strong opening weekend.” That’s sad, seeing that the first good movie in the franchise since James Cameron’s magnum opus “Aliens” was released back in 1986.

Maybe thinking about the criticism yet not completely wanting to bring the franchise down more, Scott came back with “Alien: Covenant,” a 2017 movie that puts more action in the midst while also keeping the philosophical part there. Brunson noted, “Ironically, Scott will doubtless still get blasted by the naysayers, since fanboys are sure to gripe about the mixing and matching of styles.” However, more detecting audiences will find this a great experience, and if it consists of some great “Alien/Aliens” moments a little too mindlessly, the same thing happened with the original Lucas movies in “Star Wars: The Force Awakens,” and that worked out great.

Once again, the crew of a space ship, in this film, Covenant, a ship with two thousand sleeping members to a distant planet ready for civilization, answers a mysterious call originating from an unknown source. Wanting the origin, the crew members, including the tough Daniels (Katherine Waterston), nervous leader Oram (Billy Crudup) and the android Walter (Michael Fassbender), see their on a planet that looks perfectly right for the human race. Then they encounter David, also played by Michael Fassbender, the android from the mission said in “Prometheus.” No major spoilers here, but I’ll tell you we find out what happened with the main character Elizabeth Shaw, what happened with the Engineers and how the Xenomorph aliens will again be put in the middle of this.

Brunson said, “Working in references to Milton, Michelangelo and Percy Shelley’s “Ozymandias” rather than to Marvel, mutants and Depp’s Jack Sparrow, it’s clear that Alien: Covenant isn’t a typical summer blockbuster (and one more reason why confused fanboys will run screaming into the night).” With that said, credit the new team of writers for referencing the character come to fruition by Fassbender in the last film. Brunson said, “David is one of the most complex and fascinating characters in the entire Alien franchise, and most of the story’s existential angst, ironic developments, and role inversions all link back to him. Fassbender again excels in the part, and his double duty in also portraying Walter (a completely different style of replicant) is endlessly intriguing.” Other cast members aren’t really intriguing, however I should say that, against all expectations, Danny McBride plays a character (Covenant pilot Tennessee) who we don’t want to see immediately murdered by the aliens.

When it comes to controlling suspenseful parts, Scott stays on the top of his game, with at least two amazing parts that are directed for the highest payoff. That’s not to say there aren’t some mistakes in here. Brunson said, “The climactic skirmish on top of a moving vessel comes off as overkill, and there’s a plot twist so obvious that even someone with the I.Q. of a slug (or a Trump supporter; take your pick) should be able to figure it out.” However, despite the occasional mistake can’t prevent “Alien: Covenant” from accomplishing its mission as a fun summer entertainment.

I feel like this was in the same vein as “Alien,” where it takes time to develop. At first, it is slow-paced, but does eventually pick up. I’m not sure if I like this over “Prometheus,” but that is debatable. I might say yes, but I would have to re-watch both of them to know for sure. However, I still think this is one that everyone should check out. I’m not going to say this is a great movie, seeing how it is a mess and is all over the place, and I acknowledge that, but it’s the best attempt since the two originals in the franchise.

Now with that said, check in Friday where I talk about the newest installment in the Predator franchise. I’m sorry for posting this late, but I “really” overslept today and had to go to work, so my day was thrown off. Hopefully that won’t happen again so we can continue with “Halloween Month.”

A Star is Born

Well everyone, tonight at work I saw the new musical “A Star is Born,” which came out on the fifth. Now that I have seen it, I will let everyone know what I thought about it.

There’s a scene early into Bradley Cooper’s crowd-pleaser that purifies what it’s really about and why it will interest audiences till the ending. Cooper’s Jackson Maine, an alternative-country singer with a little heavier guitar, is getting drunk in a drag club after a show when he meets pop artist Lady Gaga’s Ally. Having worked at the club before, and now waitressing somewhere else, she’s come back to sing a song, a surprising version of La Vie en Rose. Brain Tallerico said in his review, “She sashays her way down the bar and ends up locking eyes with Maine as her vocals continue to rise.” He is speechless by her talent, but there’s something deeper in that first sight, something inexpressible. Not long after, while Ally is getting ready to leave with Maine to have another drink, he plays a heartfelt song of his own for the club owner, and she comes out as he’s finishing, looking as his vocals goes emotionally deep. These are two people who fall in love with each other’s talent as much as anything else, inspired by one another in a way that singers often are. This story has been told so many times in the past, and influenced other similar romances, but Cooper and Gaga find a way to make this look bright and new. You can see it in their eyes.

Before that first night is done, Jackson has realized the power of Ally’s talent, even hearing her sing part of a song she wrote that will eventually become a huge hit for both of them. These beginning parts of “A Star is Born,” especially the first where Ally sings in front of a Maine audience, are amazing. Tallerico said, “There’s an unforced chemistry between Cooper and Lady Gaga that makes these characters easy to root for, and I’ll admit to a natural affinity for stories of true talent finally coming out of the shadows. The real Gaga knows a thing or two about how one rises from waitress to superstar, and she nails the blend of apprehension and confidence that this kind of thing takes.” Obviously, Ally is nervous to go on stage or write songs, but she also feels she’s really darn good at it. Tallerico described, “She’s no mere wallflower watered by a confident man. She’s a force of nature who Jackson gives the encouragement to do her thing.”

As you could tell, the story of every version of “A Star is Born” is basically the same where it’s about one star rising while another falls. The first time we see Jackson, he’s doing drugs, and he’s badly alcoholic. Tallerico said, “He allows his demons even more space as he watches his partner achieve massive fame with a form of pop that he finds shallow.” Cooper does some of the best work of his career as the type of man who’s always restless. A friend played by Dave Chappelle tries to tell him that every man needs to eventually settle down and stay somewhere instead of keep moving on again, but Jackson can’t keep still. He’s one of those addicts who give any excuse to mess things up. Tallerico described, “He is as self-sabotaging as he is talented, but Cooper avoids just enough of the clichés of the "alcoholism movie" to keep him real. It’s an excellent performance, one that balances Gaga’s in fascinating ways. As she becomes more of a pop legend and he maintains his whiskey-drinking aesthetic, it’s easy to see them pulling apart but the performers keep us believing that these people care about and even need each other.” Sometimes the same need that makes us rise can eventually make us fall.

“A Star is Born” gets lost a little in the second half as Ally becomes the popular one. Tallerico said, “Some of the pop fame material doesn’t work, especially a misjudged “SNL” musical performance, as it seems to almost treat what Ally (and even Gaga herself in the real world) do a bit too superficially. The movie seems to agree too easily with Jackson’s belief that pop is disposable. It isn’t always. And the triangle that forms between Ally, Jackson, and Ally’s manager is the most clichéd and least effective aspect of the film.” Thankfully, Cooper the director gets back on track in the end, bringing his first directing film to have an emotional ending that despite who hasn’t seen the previous versions will be able to guess what’s coming, but be inspired with nonetheless.

Tallerico noted, “Cynics may be tempted to rip apart “A Star is Born” but there’s just too much that’s been done right here for them to sound legit. (A friend joked, “It’s a musical even angry people can like.”) It's about the people.” What is common with actors who become directors, Cooper knows how to direct his cast, getting great work from Gaga, Sam Elliott, Andrew Dice Clay, Michael Harney, Rafi Gavron, Rebecca Field, Shangela Laquifa Wadley, William Belli, Greg Grunbert, Ron Rifkin, comedian Eddie Griffin and Luenell. Expect cameos from Marlon Williams, Brandi Carlile, Halsey, Alec Baldwin and Don Roy King. Tallerico noted, “And the film is anchored by its heart-baring music—Cooper wisely allows Gaga to sing complete songs more than once, while also holding his own as a singer himself.” A lot of people go to the movies for the characters, people they can feel like they know and maybe even care about, and “A Star is Born” gives two of the most memorable this year. It’s a film that believes in the power of a song to attract the listener in a way that can change their lives. This will be a great movie for those who believe in that.

I can’t recall the last time I saw a musical in the theaters, but this one is definitely not one to miss. If it’s still playing in a theater near you, don’t miss your chance to go see it because you will fall in love with it. Surprisingly, it’s one of the best movies I have seen this year, and definitely one that I wouldn’t say I don’t want to see again. Also, for the first time in a while, I was the only one watching it in the theater. I’m not a fan of Lady Gaga’s music, but she was amazing in this movie. I might even think about getting the soundtrack to this movie because I just loved the songs.

Stay tuned later today when I review the “Prometheus” sequel.

First Man

Tonight at work, I got to see the new “First Man” movie, which came out 11 days ago, and I will let everyone know what I thought about it.

Why doesn’t this movie show astronaut Neil Armstrong placing the American flag on the moon? Peter Travers noted in his review, “That was the question nagging away at folks in Venice after the premiere of First Man, Damien Chazelle’s bluntly visceral and deeply empathetic look at the Apollo 11 mission that culminated on July 21, 1969, when Armstrong became the first man ever to walk on the lunar surface. The answer comes down to the filmmaker’s approach to the material, which favors men over machinery and the personal over the political. The Stars and Stripes certainly get their moment in the sun in the movie’s thrilling final moments, sure. But it’s not America First boosterism that motivates Chazelle, as much as what the moon landing meant to Armstrong and a global audience that responded emotionally to the hope inherent in the concept of aspiring to the heavens.”

Forget about the flag controversy that is actually no controversy at all – instead, it’s better to focus on the actual facts that make “First Man” unforgettable and not one to skip. Travers noted, “There have been astronaut movies before, good (Apollo 13) and better (The Right Stuff). But few have been as much a triumph of the imagination fueled, not by FX but by indelible feeling, as this one.”

For Armstrong himself, and with the help of his family, the seven-year work up to the landing on the moon consisted of loss, sacrifice and failure – three things we don’t think about when we look at the traditional photo of Armstrong as one of the most famous icons. Travers noted, “First Man, bracingly adapted by Spotlight Oscar winner Josh Singer from the excellent 2005 book by James R. Hansen, makes something fresh, fallible and flesh-and-blood of its real-life cosmic pioneer.” He was obviously doing a job, but it was a job where he could have died. His family, his astronaut colleagues, and even Armstrong himself knew that. However, America was surprised, filled with bells and whistles.

Chazelle takes the specific liking of exploring space and literally places it into a small box. Travers mentioned, “That’s what the training simulator looks like that will catapult the Gemini astronauts into space.” Everything doesn’t get any less confined and scary when they board in the real ship. You feel sick and throw up just seeing it. Imagine what Armstrong (Ryan Gosling) went through along with the other Apollo 11 astronauts Buzz Aldrin (Corey Stoll) and Michael Collins (Lucas Haas). There was no guide for what they were going up against, only the brilliant memory of astronauts Ed White (Jason Clarke), Gus Grissom (Shea Whigham) and Roger B. Chaffe (Corey Michael Smith) exploding in the cockpit in the pre-flight test for the first Apollo mission.

Even in his own house, Armstrong is very familiar with tragedy. He and his wife, Janet (Claire Foy), recently had their young daughter Karen (Lucy Stafford) die from cancer. Now their two sons, Mark (Connor Armstrong) and Rick (Gavin Warren and Luke Winters), have to go through the chance that their dad will never come back. Even the good NASA astronaut, Neil is ready for the other chances. However, coping with the emotional problems on himself and his family is something he can’t tolerate. Travers mentioned, “Gosling digs deep to capture the courage and grieving heart of a reserved man who can’t always articulate his emotions. His implosive performance grounds the film in truth and a touching reality.” Jan finally makes him tell the truth as a husband and father – and Foy is amazing in this role, firmly telling Neil to talk to his sons about the dangers in this job. “I’m done,” she says, heavily, not wanting to bear the load alone. (Factually, Janet had passed away earlier this year. The performance is also a great posthumous tribute.) Travers is right when he says, “These home scenes in Houston leave an indelible impact about just what’s at stake without drifting into manipulative tearjerking.” Jan, who is always easing the other astronaut wives, is harder on the ones who wear a mask of audacity “You’re a bunch of guys making models out of balsa wood,” she says to the engineers and executives making the rules from the base. “You don’t have anything under control!”

Travers said, “Chazelle and Gosling, eons away from the musical romance of La La Land, work beautifully to anchor this epic character study in reality, no matter how harsh. Living in a bubble is impossible when the media is always pushing for access, government leaders are calling the astronaut program a waste of money, and Gil Scott-Heron’s satirical “Whitey on the Moon” wonders how the space race can really affect life on Earth.” Also, the movie asks challenging questions at each moment, with answers that are not given in the script. Clues are better picked from the scary images and sounds made by Chazelle’s team, including cinematographer Linus Sandgren, editor Tom Cross and composer Justin Hurwitz. Some might feel the film is too distant or not one to mention. However, the director gives us a closer look.

At the time when Armstrong walks on the moon, Chazelle’s film is on a surface of complete mystery. It’s not the words the astronaut says for announcing (“One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind”) or the size of the mission, or even the happiness of the crew (the movie really does not include the cheers from the people) that matters most. It could be an easy movement the astronaut made in memory of his daughter, or the silent glare of space, or the one person feeling what is there on the other end. Travers ended his review by saying, “Chazelle films First Man with a poet’s eye that cherishes the hush that comes when the dreams that you dare to dream really do come true.”

This is one of the most well-acted and powerful films that has ever come out in the past decade. It’s one that has to be seen because of how great of a film it was. Gosling really makes this film work so well, and if anyone is a fan of Neil Armstrong, you should see it. It’s nice to see something that isn’t based on some sort of pop culture thing, but on a historical event. However, if anyone feel they will get motion sickness from the effects they put in this film, it may be best not to show it to them. For everyone else, this is definitely not one to miss.

Now with that film reviewed, tune in tomorrow to look at the next review in “Halloween Month.”

Prometheus

Ridley Scott’s 2012 “Prometheus” is a splendid science-fiction film, all the more interesting because it asks questions about the origin of humans and doesn’t have the answers. It’s in the same vein of the great time of sci-fi, just like “Alien,” but making a world of its own. Roger Ebert said in his review, “I'm a pushover for material like this; it's a seamless blend of story, special effects and pitch-perfect casting, filmed in sane, effective 3-D that doesn't distract.”

A scene at the start shows a planet with evidently only one animal, a pale humanoid who tracks a high point surrounded by amazing scenery. This person eats something that causes excruciating purging and fast body crumble. The purge is thrown into the water, where it looks to turn into living cellular body. Where is this place? Is it Earth? Who is the person, and why is it alone and naked? Is the part a hallucination of the thought that life first arrived on Earth from outer space?

Moving to a human spaceship in the year 2093, making “Prometheus” for a flash-forward consisting more years than the start of “2001.” The trillion-dollar ship Prometheus is flying to a distant world, which looks headed to in prehistoric cave paintings. There’s reason to believe human life may have started there. It’s an Earth-sized moon revolving a giant planet, and it first looks like a disappointment: nothing growing, an atmosphere you can’t breathe. However, the crew sees straight lines on the grown, and all of us know this, nature makes no straight lines.

The lines lead to a huge dome or pyramid, and the film will mostly take place inside the dome and Prometheus. However, let’s pause on the story and introduce two of the crew members: Elizabeth Shaw, played by Noomi Rapace, wears a cross around her neck and believes life must have had a divine origin. Her boyfriend, Charlie Holloway, played by Logan Marshall-Green, blames her, a scientist, of canceling centuries of Darwinism. What they find in the pyramid leaves the question open. Ebert mentioned, “Alien humanoids, in suspended animation, incredibly have DNA that's a perfect match for our own.” They can somehow have brought life to Earth – but why? From this moon where they hide inside their pyramid, or from another planet around a faraway star? Why did they stop here? What are they waiting for?

The film then starts horror scenes similar to “Alien,” although it depends more on action and gadgets than the film’s use of shadows and silence. Ebert admitted, “For me, the most spellbinding scenes involve the crew members exploring the passages and caverns inside the pyramid, obviously unvisited in aeons, and their experiences with some of the hibernating alien beings.” One of the main members of this crew is David, played by Michael Fassbender, an android, who knows or can figure out more or less everything, even alien languages, and is somewhat a walking, talking, completely fearless HAL 9000.

Ebert mentioned, “The alien race in "Prometheus" shares a body characteristic that reminds me of "Alien" and countless films since: Elements can detach from them and enter into other bodies as hostile parasites.” Elements can break from them and enter into other bodies as fierce parasites. This comes to a shocking part where Elizabeth, alone on the ship, finds out she is pregnant with a Xenomorph alien and somehow musters the courage to control a machine surgery device that removes it. Her later fight with a fading oxygen supply shows equal usefulness. Noomi Rapace continues here the tradition of strong femininity started by Sigourney Weaver in “Alien.”

Another strong woman is on the crew, Meredith Vickers, played by Charlieze Theron, a representative of the corporation that privately funded the Prometheus. She treats everyone like her employees, which they are, and believes she always speaks for what the company wants. The ship’s captain, Janek, played by Idris Elba, makes no self-importance of scientific knowledge like the others but is a no-nonsense working pilot. Janek has the most interesting arc, from the mocking hipster in his beginning parts into a man with the strength to feel the truth about what he’s seeing.

The most punishing part is how it plays with the role of these DNA twins. Did they create life on Earth? The possibility of two identical DNAs as a coincidence is unbelievable. Charlie goes at Elizabeth, thinking their existence doesn’t go with her beliefs. Her obvious answer: Where did they come from? Ebert ended his review by saying, “This puzzle is embedded in an adventure film that has staggering visuals, expert horror, mind-challenging ideas and enough unanswered questions to prime the inevitable sequel.”

This is a good movie, but it doesn’t answer all the questions from “Alien.” You should definitely check this one out and see it because it doesn’t really disappoint. As is already stated, the film doesn’t have an ending but does leave it open for a sequel. If you want to know how that was, stay tuned Wednesday in the next review of “Halloween Month.”

Predators

After the underwhelming “Alien vs. Predator” franchise, it didn’t look like there was a need to revive either franchise. Apparently the Robert Rodriguez 2010 produced “Predators” shows there’s still something left in the series thanks to some powerful and explosive action.

A group of different soldiers are put on an island with no memory of how they saw themselves landing.

The mercenary (Adrien Brody) unwillingly finds himself leading this team consisted of an Israeli soldier (Alice Braga), a Russian soldier (Oleg Taktarov), a death row prisoner (Walton Goggins), a Sierra Leona private army fighter (Mahershala Ali), a Mexican drug lord (Danny Trejo), a Yakuza member (Louis Ozawa Changchien) and a doctor (Topher Grace).

Not long after they get their weapons and come up with a plan for leaving the island, the group sees they are hunted by a group of Predators looking to be their victims.

Jeffrey Lyles noted in his review, “Director Nimród Antal, who previously handled the horror/thriller Vacancy, takes a similar approach and follows the structure of the Arnold Schwarzenegger film with the Predators taking out the soldiers one by one.”

Lyles continued, “First-time screenwriters Alex Litvak and Michael Finch make a slight misstep in their setup as they make the characters a little too interesting and not the standard action movie fodder archetypes that you don’t care once they start getting killed. Instead, the film is written as a What If? episode of Lost where Jack and company learn that aliens are on the island in addition to polar bears.”

The top-notch soldier method is plotting and could be an interesting action movie by itself without inserting any Predators. The biggest surprise is that Brody can play a realistic tough-guy.

With his thin build and scrawny face, Body doesn’t have that obvious leading man in the typical look of an action movie, but he sincerely proves worthy of this mission. Lyles mentioned, “You don’t get the sense that he’s “pretending to be a tough guy” and he instantly makes you accept him as a hard-edge mercenary.”

Though he was seen a lot in the film’s trailers, Laurence Fishburne has a fun, but overall too short cameo as Noland, a long-time survivor, of the Predator problem. Lyles said, “Sharp-eyed viewers will notice a few shot-outs to the Predators’ alien sparring partners throughout the film.”

The film’s setting looks great helped from principal filming done in Hawaii and though some of the special effects are a little weak and don’t have enough detail – stressing the film’s $40 million budget – Antal looked to smartly spend much of his supplies filming the action scenes, which are well done and clearly shot. Antal doesn’t get too visual over-editing and cutting the fights and the delectably basic method.

“Predators” doesn’t target for anything more than being a fun sci-fi and it really wins in that regard.

Unlike the last two movies in the franchise where the people were dealing with one Predator, this one has people go up against many Predators. I feel as though Robert Rodriguez was borrowing a page from James Cameron’s “Aliens” when he conceived this film. If you want a film that feels like it’s in the same vein as “Predator,” this film might give you that. You should still see it because, surprisingly, it’s a good movie. Especially with Adrien Brody saying Schwarzenegger’s line, “Come on, kill me. I’m here! Come on, do it now!” Although it’s not as well said as before, it’s still nice to hear that line.

Well everyone, there wasn’t another Predator movie for eight years, but before we get to that, I’m going back to the Alien franchise to talk about a couple of movies that take place in another universe. If you want to know what I thought about it, wait until next Monday for the next installment of this year’s “Halloween Month.”