Movie Review: Reminders of Him

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The new movie “Reminders of Him” is receiving low Rotten Tomatoes ratings from the critics of 59%. The reason is that this is a tearjerker-type movie that we have seen before, about a young woman, Kenna, who is driving a car while drunk and getting into an accident with her boyfriend, Scotty, and he dies from his injuries. Even though the accident was not specifically caused by her being drunk, she is sent to jail for seven years, then has a child in prison, and once released, the story begins about her life of squalor and wondering if she will ever see her child again. This story is based on the best-selling book Reminders of Him by Coleen Hoover.

The critics are mostly trashing this movie, mainly because it lacks an original, tragic, tear-jerker story idea, but they overlook the very good messages this story conveys. If you ever drink and drive and someone dies, you will go to jail. Driving is never something to take for granted. When you drive, your life is in your own hands and the hands of someone else who might make a tragic mistake. There are always two sides to a story, and in the case of this film, Scotty’s parents, played by Bradley Whitford and Lauren Graham, hate Kenna, played by Maika Monroe. This is because they do not know the full story of what happened the day their son was killed in a car accident when Kenna was driving.

The acting in this film is very good, including Tyriq Withers, who plays Ledger Ward, Scotty’s best friend, who becomes involved with Kenna and eventually helps Kenna to see her daughter again.

Once again, the critics missed the mark with their opinions of this solid story with a 59% rating. My rating is 80% and a strong recommendation to see this movie.

Movie Review: The Bride!

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The movie “The Bride of Frankenstein” was released in 1935, directed by James Whale, starring Boris Karloff as Frankenstein and Elsa Lanchester as the Bride. This new version, written and directed by Maggie Gyllenhaal, is much different from the original and has way too many “let’s be different, strange, and crazy” dialogue, action, and acting scenes, which is the unfortunate new direction for too many movies released in the last few years.

“The Bride!” stars Jessie Buckley as Ida, who will definitely win the Best Actress Oscar next week for “Hamnet” and is now in great demand due to her great performance. However, in my opinion, this was not a good role for a film scheduled to release right before you win an Oscar. While there are moments that require great acting ability in this film, the story is too insane, weird, disturbing, and in too many areas disgusting, making it surprising that anyone in this well-known cast agreed to act in this movie.

The Bride! also stars Christian Bale as Frank, Annette Bening as Dr. Euphronius, with Penélope Cruz and Peter Sarsgaard (Maggie Gyllenhaal’s husband) as two police officers who are searching for Frank and Ida during the second half of this movie. Why these well-known actors read the script and agreed to act in this movie is a mystery. This is simply not a good movie.

Maggie Gyllenhaal’s brother Jake Gyllenhaal plays a 1930’s famous actor/singer, Ronnie Reed, who is a favorite of both Ida and Frank as they attend several movie musicals starring Reed, adding another dimension of weird and strange to this already crazy enough movie.

The low Rotten Tomatoes ratings for this movie of 60% are both understandable and correct. This was a hard 2-hour film to sit through, and looking at my watch was a big part of this experience. I agree with the mostly bad critical reviews and do not recommend this film. I hope that the weird and different new trend in movies eventually goes away and things get back to normal.

Movie Review: Scream 7

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The Scream movie franchise is now 30 years old, with the release of the original “Scream” in late 1996. All of the movies in this series are about the same, horrific stabbings and death, with the victim often running for their lives until finally caught and stabbed more times than is ever necessary to cause their demise. The plots are often idiotic, with a huge surprise ending, “who is the killer or killers?”, that are always ridiculous and illogical based on the entire plot of the movie.

While the new “Scream 7” movie is better than the last one, it is still very stupid, with some death scenes that will remind some of the “Final Destination” movie franchise, which is famous for its imaginative death special effects. This movie has a few death scenes at the crazy level of a Final Destination, with an overkill ending involving two pistols that has to be seen to be believed. There are once again too many scenes where a character should definately be dead, but either does not die, or comes back from the dead.

For this new edition, Neve Campbell is back as Sydney Evans, after missing Scream 6, because she was insulted by the amount of money they offered her. Considering her ambitious acting career that started with the TV series “Party of Five”, over 30 years ago, she has to be embarrassed to be so well known from a horror movie series this idiotic. However, when it comes to money and the precarious profession of acting in Hollywood, nobody can be blamed for cashing in when a money opportunity comes along.

After being almost killed in the last Scream movie, Courtney Cox is once again playing the reporter Gale Weathers, and is the only cast member to have appeared in all seven Scream movies. Relative newcomer Isabel May plays Tatum Evans, Sydney Evans’ daughter, and is most likely the actor who will take over this series, unless this whole movie franchise mercifully dies after seven stupid films. In the end, if one of these movies makes enough money, they will make another one.

The Rotten Tomatoes ratings are an accurate and very low 33%. I agree with this rating and do not recommend this movie, even for the most die-hard Scream fans.