Movie Review: Halloween Ends

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Throughout 44 years of these ridiculous, absurd, and mostly bad movies, the one central theme with all of them is that this Michael Meyers murderer who wears a mask seems to get killed over and over again, and then somehow he is not dead when he should definitely be dead. The question has always been, is it really necessary to be this ridiculous? When is dead, really dead? Why stretch medical science to new absurd levels with every Halloween movie?

The stupidest of all of the movies that include Michael Meyers being killed off is “Halloween H20: 20 Years Later”, released in 1998. At the end of this movie, after Laurie Strode and Meyers fall down a ravine in a van, she decapitated him with an ax. So how could there have been so many more Halloween movies? As far as I have heard, medical science has never figured out how to reattach a head.

The 13th and hopefully final Halloween movie is called “Halloween Ends”, the follow-up to last year’s “Halloween Kills” – both movies were filmed at the same time starting over 3 years ago. This last movie adds an additional copycat killer who is a young man named Corey falsely accused of killing a young boy while babysitting. Due to the injustice of how he is treated and bullied by the people in this small town, he befriends Meyers who is hiding in a sewer system – where else? This additional killer means much less screen time for Meyers who has most of his scenes at the end of this film with Laurie Strode, played once again by Jamie Lee Curtis – who has promised on several talk shows that this is in fact the merciful end to this series of 13 stupid movies.

I saved money on this film by streaming it on Peacock for 4.99 rather than paying full price in the theater. The other advantage of streaming is that you can fast-forward through the boring and too-bad-to-sit- through scenes.

The critics on Rotten Tomatoes this time around are correct with their low 40% ratings for this movie, that is only for the most die-hard fans of this franchise.

Movie Review: Amsterdam

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So how does a movie disaster like “Amsterdam” happen? For those of us on the outside looking in, we can only speculate.

David O. Russell has written and directed several great movies, including “Joy” – 2015 (outstanding), “Silver Linings Playbook” – 2012 (outstanding), and “American Hustle” – 2013 (good). Writing a screenplay can take a very long time, especially if the writer is a perfectionist – which is probably the case with Russell.

So what does a highly respected screenwriter do, after so much hard work, and writing for so long, when he/she realizes that they created a bad screenplay? After all of that time and effort very often a screenplay can still eventually result in a garbage end result – which is why screenwriting is such a difficult art form. So then how do you rationalize and justify so much time and hard work wasted and still make a movie that is bad? The only solution is to use your clout as a writer/director to call in favors from all of your friends to rescue what is a very bad script and ultimately a very bad movie. The thinking here is, let’s invite “ALL” of the most famous actors in Hollywood – to hopefully offset the inevitable bad reviews that will come out. Just maybe this strategy will rescue the box office, especially if you have Robert De Niro in this movie with a small part. De Niro agreed to make this movie because he was a major part of Silver Linings Playbook and Joy, which are two outstanding David O Russel films. De Niro respects and likes David O. Russel, so even after reading a very bad script, he agreed to make this bad movie, to help his friend. The other rationalization for the other actors is to do a favor for Russell, so maybe in the future, you would be considered for another major project.

Amsterdam is about 3 friends who meet during World War I and then become suspects in a murder in 1933. The story is told with disjointed flashbacks that start in 1933, then go back to World War I, and then back again to 1933. De Niro plays a politician who appears mostly at the end of this confusing disaster of a story. Not only is this mess boring and slow, it mostly is too convoluted, with too many characters, and too many sub-stories, resulting in a payoff that mostly makes no sense. After sitting through 2 hours of this, most of the audience is too deep in a coma to even care how all of this garbage turns out.

The list of big-name actors in this film is very long, including Taylor Swift, Chris Rock, Michael Shannon, Anya Taylor-Joy, Margot Robbie, Zoe Saldana, Robert De Niro, Rami Malek, Mike Myers, John David Washington and Christian Bale. This is probably the longest list of currently relevant actors appearing in the same movie – in many years. Unfortunately, all of these highly skilled actors will never be able to rescue any screenplay this bad.

The Rotten Tomatoes rating for this waste of two hours is a correct 33%, with my rating at 20% mainly because this was all so hard to sit through. Run from this bad movie experience which is a nightmare to watch.

Netflix Movie Review: Blonde

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The only upside of the new Netflix movie “Blonde” is the realization that 60 years after Marilyn Monroe died, she is still relevant and producers are still making major motion pictures about her tragic life.

A childhood with no father and a mother who wound up in a mental institution, it is a fluke – even despite Monroe’s movie star looks, that she ever wound up as one of the most famous actresses in the history of film. The problem with the new Netflix biopic “Blonde” is that we all already knew about Marilyn Monroe’s tragic life – all this movie does is tell a well-known depressing story very badly. The other problem with Blonde is that the star of this movie Ana de Armas gives a performance so strong that it would have been nominated for an Academy Award – were it not for the fact that this movie is so bad. Like Whitney Houston, Marilyn Monroe did not have the thick skin necessary to deal with the harsh critics and constant pursuit of the paparazzi. It was her delicate personality that led to Monroe’s tragic life, drug use, and 3 divorces.

There is significant nudity in this movie by de Armas and at least one scene that was extremely inappropriate, considering the important aspects of Monroe’s tragic career. Monroe was married 3 times, the last marriage was to Joe Dimaggio and yet there was no mention of Dimaggio in this film – yet another major flaw. For some other odd reason, this film changes from black and white to color in several areas, adding another major annoyance that prevents this movie from being a respected biopic of Marilyn Monroe’s life. This film is also way too long, clocking in at 2 hours and 46 minutes – for a movie that should only be about 2 hours long.

The critics are unanimous across the board – giving very bad reviews to this film with low 42% ratings, with the IMDB ratings a very low 5.6. For me, it took several attempts to get through this mess, watching different parts over several days. Unfortunately, this one is a big miss, despite de Armas impressive performance.