Monthly Archives: August 2024

Movie Review: Blink Twice

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So how does a bad movie get greenlighted for production? Considering the money involved, the number of people, and the great risk of losing money, anyone would think that there are checks and balances to avoid a highly probable financial disaster. In the case of the new and bad “Blink Twice”, this film was made most likely because of the clout of the director and co-writer Zoe Kravitz, who has been in the movie industry for well over 10 years, and her finance Channing Tatum, who is the lead character in this film. When you have contacts and clout, you can get funding, and call in favors to get other famous actors in your movie, even if the entire concept is as horrendous as this one is.

The logline for this film reads like a legal excerpt from the Cosby rape and sexual abuse trial from a few years ago. “A billionaire who owns an island tricks several women into joining him and a group of his friends for a weekend retreat where the women are drugged, sexually assaulted, and then given other drugs so they forget what happened”. How an idea this bad, years in the making, could ever have been made into a movie is at a minimum outrageous, especially considering news stories concerning Bill Cosby, Jeffrey Epstein, R. Kelly, and most recently, P. Diddy.

This film stars Channing Tatum as Slater, the billionaire, most likely inspired by the late Jeffrey Epstein who tricks women into traveling to his island. Haley Joel Osment, plays Tom, one of the friends of Slater on the island. Naomi Ackie plays Frida, one of the many female victims, and Adria Arjona as Sarah – another victim. Christian Slater has a small part in this movie, as one of the friends of Slater who live on the island, and Geena Davis as Stacy, another victim of sexual assault in a rare appearance in a movie in recent years – as I wondered why she would pick this train wreck to make any attempt at a movie comeback. This entire movie is violent and in many areas disgusting, with most of the characters wandering around drunk either from alcohol or drugs. Why Zoe Kravitz would choose this terrible idea to write and then direct her first movie makes no sense.

Most amazing about this film is that the Rotten Tomatoes rating is a way too high 79%, that makes zero sense. This movie is 10% at best, only for some of the acting, and should be missed by everyone and never should have been made. A better title for this two hour mess should have been “Blink and close your eyes” so you never see a second of this very bad movie.

Movie Review: Alien: Romulus

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Somewhere in the world, there are companies that warehouse and store movie sets and equipment used in past films. From the opening scenes of the new movie “Alien: Romulus” it was like revisiting the sets of the original Alien (1979) or the sequel Aliens (1986), including the old computer monitors and related equipment. Regarding science fiction movies and arguably the greatest Alien creature ever created, these first two Alien films are the all-time standards and the beginning of the almost 50-year franchise of Alien movies.

The latest Alien movie “Alien: Romulus” has many reminders of the first two Alien movies and a character from the original movie named Ash, who is an android played by the late Ian Holm, using AI. From my memory of the original Alien from 1979, I remembered that the spaceship that Ash was on blew up. Given this fact, how could he now appear in this movie – with a timeline some 20 years after the original story?

This story is about a group of younger astronauts on a ship some 67 light years from Earth. Their mission is about trying to retrieve a valuable specimen on their space station called Romulus. Soon after they dock with another space station, where they encounter deadly alien creatures known as deadly Xenomorphs and face-huggers, that attach themselves to the face of a human host where they implant an alien that grows rapidly and explodes from the chest of the victim – one of the most impressive ideas in the history of horror movies.

That cast for this latest Alien installment includes Rain, played by Cailee Spaeny – who has an impressive start to her young acting career – having appeared in several major movie releases in the last 2 years. The android character of Andy is played very well by David Jonsson, who is close friends with Rain. The other characters have relatively small roles including Kay, played by Isabela Merced. Because Kay is pregnant, the new idea introduced in this story is that when a human is implanted with an Alien while pregnant, a new combination of Alien/Human creatures is created – something never seen before in all the many Alien movies. This idea is the only original one within this entire film.

Towards the end of this story, the climax includes too many ideas from the second Aliens movie, that I thought were contrived and lacked any attempt at originality.

Overall I thought this latest Alien movie was just OK, and I was surprised at the high 82% rating for this movie, with my rating about 70% and a very marginal recommendation only for fans of the Alien franchise.

Movie Review: It Ends With Us

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For the movie career of Blake Lively, the new movie “It Ends With Us”, represents the first time she has been the lead actor in any major motion picture. It Ends With Us, is based on the best-selling book, written by Coleen Hoover. This is a love story, a story about friendship and domestic abuse.

This movie will remind most of one of the many Lifetime romantic movies and during this film, the story seems to struggle when trying to be more than just another TV movie. The message of this story of domestic abuse with the main character Lilly Bloom, played by Blake Lively trapped in an abusive relationship with her husband Ryle Kincaid, played by Justin Baldoni, is that people stay in bad relationships because they believe it is the path of least resistance. Far too often this turns out to be the exact wrong decision.

The signature moment of this story is when Allysa, Lilly Bloom’s friend, played by Jennie Slade, asks her, why do you stay the victim of a domestic abuser? Her answer was simple and profound, “It is easier to stay”. How many people in the world ruin their lives by staying with the exact wrong person, risking verbal and physical abuse because the logistics of separation and divorce seem worse than the abuse they are suffering? Many of us know of situations like this firsthand, a tragedy that happens far too often, resulting in lifelong damage to the children within an abusive marriage. The other message of this story is that Lilly Bloom’s mother was also a victim of domestic abuse and history repeats itself with Lilly’s husband Ryle.

All of the domestic violence in this story has to do with her husband’s jealousy of Lilly’s boyfriend from her teenage years, Atlas, played by Brandon Sklenar. After Lilly opens a flower shop in Boston, she runs into Atlas who runs a restaurant nearby unexpectedly, and this causes great conflict between Lilly and Ryle leading to every incident of domestic violence, due to Ryle’s jealousy.

In the beginning, the violence Lilly endures seems accidental, but later more intentional, as her husband promises, “This will never happen again”. The ending of this movie was also profound, with a perfect conclusion that ends with the line that is the title of this movie “It Ends With Us”. I also thought that the acting was good throughout, even though there were too many times when this story seemed more like a Lifetime TV movie rather than a major motion picture.

I am sure that the screenwriters of this film, including Colleen Hoover were hoping to win a best adapted screenplay Oscar for this movie, but unfortunately the Rotten Tomatoes overall low critical ratings of only 57%. have probably killed any chance for a nomination. I thought this movie was good, with a powerful message and solid acting with my rating of 82% and a recommendation.