Movie Review: The Bride!

Posted on March 7, 2026 by jjcwn • Posted in Drama, Horror • Tagged Chritian Bale, Maggie Gyllenhall, The Bride! • 1 Comment

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

Posted on February 28, 2026 by jjcwn • Posted in Drama, Horror • Tagged Courney Cox, Neve Campbell, Scream 7 • Leave a comment

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.

Movie Review: Send Help

Posted on January 30, 2026 by jjcwn • Posted in Drama, Horror • Tagged Rachel McAdams, Send Help • 1 Comment

The new movie “Send Help” at the start is all about the way too many unfortunate millions of us have to suffer as we have to make a living to buy food and shelter. The massive injustice, abuse, and disrespect some of us have to endure from a bad boss or deranged co-workers are some of the worst parts of making a living.

This movie reminded me of “The Devil Wears Prada”, released in 2006, which shows the abuse so many of us have to live through because we have no leverage. When someone else has the power to take away our income, we have to hold back our anger to avoid being fired. Dealing with a bad boss and abusive co-worker(s) is one of the greatest sources of extreme stress in our lives.

Send Help is the first movie I have ever seen that attempts to “turn the tables” on the abusive boss, and the back stabbling, credit taking co-workers, with an inspired and brilliant story idea that involves a private jet crashing on a deserted island where the abused employee Linda Liddle, played by Rachel McAdams tries to survive on an island with her scumbag boss, Bradley Preston, played by Dylan O’Brien. The scenes of the Jet decompressing and falling apart in mid-air and the crash on the deserted island are as good as the movie Cast Away starring Tom Hanks, released in 2000.

Linda Liddle is an employee of a financial company where the CEO recently died and his son, Bradly Preston takes over the company. Even though Linda is far and away the most brilliant and hard-working employee in the company, she does not dress or have the personality of the other employees, and because of this, she is disrespected and denied a Vice President position in the company after seven years in favor of a new employee who has been with the company for only 6 months. How many times in our lives have we been the victim of or witness to injustice like this? When something like this happens to any good person, regardless of how hard they worked and how much they deserve fair treatment, far too often, there is nothing that can be done to correct the injustice.

The scenes on the deserted island are at times extremely bloody and violent (one scene where Linda kills a wild boar), some are completely insane, one scene is both unexpected and stupid, and the ending, due to its craziness, is impossible to predict. The relationship between Laura and Bradly is at first very combative and rude, and later turns into an unexpected impromptu friendship, within the ongoing attempts to create twists and turns in this insane story. I was reminded of the famous quote, “When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.” — Maya Angelou. This is a truth that holds regardless of any extreme circumstance.

This is the first horror/drama/action movie that Rachel McAdams has starred in; her performance is both very well done and impressive expecially with many of the action scenes. Dylan O’Brien is also very good in this role, along with his evil laugh, playing a narcissistic, disgusting person who has no business being in charge of other people’s lives and careers.

The Rotten Tomatoes ratings for this movie are an extremely high 92%, I agree with this and highly recommend this film.