Month: November 2021

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Movie Review

The Siege of Fort William Henry (2021) Movie Review

Director: Erik Swanson

Plot: In 1757 a French army of 9,000 men, including almost 2,000 of their American Indian allies, laid siege to Fort William Henry, on Lake George in the New York Frontier. These event inspired “The Last of the Mohicans”

Runtime: 1 Hour 3 Minutes

There may be spoilers in the rest of the review

Thoughts on The Siege of Fort William Henry

Thoughts – The Siege of Fort William Henry is a documentary that looks to tell a more neutral story to what happened in the Siege of Fort William Henry, showing the lead up to the battles, along with how the English and French saw the events unfolding, showing that the conflict was built up from the English behaviour to the much calmer French, leading to the famous side to the bigger battle in history. This documentary does a good job at showing the balance between two of the three sides involved in the battle, showing how neither wanted the body count the battle left. This will give out a more accurate history lesson to what most people have been taught, which is important for showing everyone that we can learn from the past, rather than continuing to make the same mistakes.

Final Thoughts – The Siege of Fort William Henry is a interesting history lesson.

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Movie Review

Ted Bundy: American Boogeyman (2021) Movie Review ‘Disturbing Thriller’

Ted Bundy: American Boogeyman – Disturbing Thriller

 

Director: Daniel Farrands

Writer: Daniel Farrands (Screenplay)

Starring: Chad Michael Murray, Holland Roden, Jake Hays, Lin Shaye, Greer Grammer, Olivia DeLaurentis, Julianna Collins, Gianna Adams

Plot: The intrepid FBI agents Kathleen McChesney and Robert Ressler, organize one of the largest manhunt in history to apprehend America’s most infamous serial killer, Ted Bundy.

Runtime: 1 Hour 50 Minutes

There may be spoilers in the rest of the review

Story: Ted Bundy: American Boogeyman starts as we see how Ted Bundy (Murray) hunted down the women who would become his victims, with his stranger in need of help routine. FBI agents Kathleen McChesney (Roden) and Robert Ressler (Hays) lead the hunt for the Ted, knowing the serial killer is building up a huge body count.

After catching Bundy, it only takes him a few years to escape and get back on the run again, targeting a sorority house, as Kathleen finds herself trying to track him down before he escapes once again.

Thoughts on Ted Bundy American Boogeyman

Thoughts – Ted Bundy: American Boogeyman is another look into the horrendous crimes that Ted Bundy, putting the focus on the hunt and build up to the Omega College incident, seeing how close he gets to the victims and the Agents getting close to catching him. This is going to be a film that asks the bigger questions, why are we still making so many movies about Ted Bundy, one of the worst men in human history. Chad Michael Murray does give us a genuine terrifying performance, which will see him get certain moments to go into the full disturbing mode. When we get onto the FBI agent side of the film, we deal with the typical sexist that is and was seen towards a female agency, instead of focusing enough on the hunt. This could easily be one of the films that will grab the attention of people who want to know more about the killer and at least holds back on any of the sexual assaults he committed.

Final Thoughts – Ted Bundy: American Boogeyman is a disturbing look into Bundy’s crimes.

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Movie Review

Red Snow (2021) Movie Review ‘Fun Christmas Horror’

Red Snow – Fun Christmas Horror

 

Director: Sean Nichols Lynch

Writer: Sean Nichols Lynch (Screenplay)

Starring: Dennice Cisneros, Nico Bellamy, Laura Kennon, Vernon Wells, Alan Silva, Edward Ewell

Plot: A struggling vampire romance novelist must defend herself against real-life vampires during Christmas in Lake Tahoe.

Runtime: 1 Hour 20 Minutes

There may be spoilers in the rest of the review

Story: Red Snow starts as vampire novelist living on Lake Tahoe finds herself getting a visit from a real vampire Luke (Bellamy) that crashes into her house. Julius King (Wells) has been hunting down the vampires for years, with Olivia helping Luke recover.

When the rest of Luke’s gang of vampires arrive, Jackie (Kennon) and Brock (Silva), Luke needs to decide whether to support them or help Olivia out.

Thoughts on Red Snow

Characters & Performances – Olivia is a vampire novelist who lives alone in Lake Tahoe, where she dreams of having one of her novels published, but is used to the rejection. When she helps nurse an injured vampire back to health, she starts to learn more about vampires, but will also need to fight back against other deadlier vampires. Dennice Cisneros will bring the best performance in the film, being the lonely figure early on and turning into the fighter by the end of the film. Luke is the injured vampire that lands on the doorstep of Olivia, he teaches her about what real vampires are, warning her about people coming for him and making her believe whatever she wants. Nico Bellamy does bring this vampire figure to life, adding the mystery about who he really is. Jackie and Brock are the other vampires searching for an injured Luke, while waiting to Julius King the vampire hunter that has tracked the three down.

Story – The story here follows a vampire novelist who finds herself helping an injured vampire back to health, giving her an up close and personal story with vampires where everything she thought she knew isn’t what is needed to fight back against them. This is a story that will look to examine the legends of vampires in a more modern era, showing that if they are real, they are nothing like what have been written about. When it comes to seeing how everything unfolds it does show the change Olivia must go through as she learns about how nothing is out of her limitation with vampires being real, helping her improve herself in her career with the events in the film.

Themes – Red Snow is a horror comedy that will look to redefine the vampire world, by rubbishing the rules set out before, trying to bring the vampire legacy into reality. The comedy comes from seeing how Olivia must react to each situation, giving us comedy throughout. the film uses the Lake Tahoe setting shows the vampires have picked a more isolated location to hunt, with the idea of lesser sunlight to operate in.

Final Thoughts – Red Snow is a fun horror comedy that will look to bring a modern view on vampires.

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Movie Review

ABC Film Challenge – Adventure – V – Against the Dark (2009) Movie Review

Director: Richard Crudo

Writer: Matthew Klickstein (Screenplay)

Starring: Steven Seagal, Tanoai Reed, Jenna Harrison, Danny Midwinter, Emma Catherwood, Stephen Hagan

Plot: Katana master Tao leads a special ops squad of ex-military vigilantes on a massacre mission, their target: vampires on an post apocalyptic globe. Tao is the survivors’ only hope and he knows the only cure is execution.


Tagline – He lives by the sword. They will die by it.

Runtime: 1 Hour 24 Minutes

There may be spoilers in the rest of the review

Story: Against the Dark starts as we meet a group of survivors of a virus which has turned most of the population into vampires, roaming the country at night, with the only safety coming by daylight. A group of survivors hiding out in a hospital meet another group of survivors, as they look to plan their escape.

This plan comes under threat when the vampire zombies start entering the building and human hunter Tao (Seagal) turns up with his team to deal with the problem.

Thoughts on Against the Dark

Thoughts – Against the Dark is a vampire zombie action horror movie that will take us to a world where the vampire zombies roam the Earth, with our survivors inside of hospital hiding, before their safety come sunder threat. It will give us the groups of survivors that are all facing different threats, while being unsure of who to trust when they come into contact with others. The groups might well become typical ones that don’t offer up anything fresh, with most of the characters feeling flat for the most part. The singular location of the hospital does bring the threat of danger in any room, while others are more about finding the essential part of life. When we look at the performances, nobody gets to make the impact required in the film, mostly because the characters aren’t the most interesting, with most feeling like rip offs of other popular franchises.

Final Thoughts – Against the Dark is an easy to watch even if a bit flat action horror film.

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Movie Review

The Strings (2020) Movie Review ‘Slow Build’

The Strings – Slow Burner

 

Director: Ryan Glover

Writer: Ryan Glover, Krista Dzialoszynski (Screenplay)

Starring: Teagan Johnston, Jenna Schaefer, April Aliermo, Lora Bidner, Toby Hendy, Tara Niewiadomski

Plot: In the dead of winter, a musician travels to a remote cottage to work on new material, but soon finds herself under attack from a mysterious dark presence.


Tagline – Catherine will see beyond reality… Catherine will see beyond death… Catherine will see…

Runtime: 1 Hour 34 Minutes

There may be spoilers in the rest of the review

Story: The Strings starts as musician Catherine (Johnston) travels to a remote cottage to work on her latest project, with the idea of being away from the world to get over a recent break up.

As Catherine works on her music, she starts to get an uneasy feeling around the cottage, which slowly starts to get closer to her, as she looks for answers to ease her mind.

Thoughts on The Strings

Characters & Performances – Catherine is the musician looking to escape to work on her next project in a remote cottage, she is using tis a chance to recharge from things that haven’t gone to plan in her life. She is enjoying the peace, but finds herself becoming increasingly paranoid that she isn’t alone in this cottage, finding herself not sleeping, losing her sense of reality. Teagan Johnston does well in this leading role, with most of her scenes feeling like exploring scenes, well also including the emotional broken moments she has been through. When it comes to the supporting cast, we only get small meetings with people, a friend on the phone, a photographer who gets close to Catherine. Sadly none of the supporting cast get enough to do in the film.

Story – The story here follows a musician who is looking to getaway to create some fresh music and get away from her previous life problems only to find herself dealing with a dark presence. This story does come off very slow, with the emotional problems and needing to escape from life being clear and understanding. The problems come with the lack of much going on around haunting side of the story, not much gets explained and by the end of the film, you will feel like there should be a lot more going on.

Themes – The Strings is a horror that does create the very impressive location being used to create the isolation and tension through the film. When it comes to the pure horror of the film, we are left waiting for the big moment, which will get a good pay off, despite the slow build to it.

Final Thoughts – The Strings is a slow building horror that struggles to keep everything on the edge of your seat needed.

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ABC Film Challenge

ABC Film Challenge – Adventure – U – Underworld Franchise – Movie Recommendation

ABC Film Challenge

Adventure

U

Underworldunderworld

Underworld bought us a new battle between vampires and werewolves, one that will bring together in a new glossed over world, which is filled with the action adventure ideas. This is a franchise that has gone on to give us plenty of films that will be enjoyable to watch.

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Movie Review

The Music of Silence (2017) Movie Review

Director: Michael Radford

Writer: Anna Pavignano, Michael Radford, Andrea Bocelli (Screenplay) Andrea Bocelli (Autobiography)

Starring: Antonio Banderas, Jordi Molla, Toby Sebastian, Luisa Ranieri, Alessandro Sperduti, Antonella Attili

Plot: Born with a serious eye condition that eventually leads to his blindness, Bocelli nevertheless rises above the challenges, driven by great ambitions towards his passion. The silent pursuit of his daily mission continues.


Tagline – The Unforgettable True Story of Andrea Bocelli

Runtime: 1 Hour 55 Minutes

There may be spoilers in the rest of the review

Verdict: Interesting Biopic

Story: The Music of Silence starts when Sandro (Molla) and Edi (Ranieri) welcome their first son to the world, only after a year of wondering what might be wrong with him, they discover Amos is blind, before eventually finding comfort in music.

As Amos (Sebastian) builds a reputation which sees him turn heads all over the local area, when his teenage years hit, his voice changes, but his passion for music is just as important to him, this is until he finds a new voice that makes him standout from a crowd.

Thoughts on The Music of Silence

Characters – Amos was born blind and struggled to find his place as a child until he found music, he has a voice of an angel which gains him a following, only he never gets his break, every time he thinks he is about to get a chance he finds himself fall, he needs the break to help himself become the star his talent deserves him to be. Sandro is Amos’ father who hasn’t always been as supportive as he could, but didn’t know how to find the best for his son. Maestro is the man that helps Amos look to improve his voice and find his own sound.

Performances – Toby Sebastian is the strongest of the performers in this film, with somebody as big as Antonio Banderas you would have expected to see more screen time for him, only for him like everyone else, just not getting enough time to make an impact.

Story – The story here follows the life of Amos, his struggles with dealing with being blind at a young age and how his passion for music inspired him despite the struggles he would have to come up against to make sure he makes it in the industry. The story isn’t the strongest with how it is told, because we don’t see many or any true breaks Amos is getting, just waiting for the massive moment which would make his career, we go through parts of the personal life, only they don’t seem like they are as important to what happens with his career.

Biopic/Music – The biopic side of the film isn’t the strongest with how it unfolds, though the music once he is let out is beautiful.

Settings – The film uses the settings to show the life that Amos would have had to live through to get to where he was in life, he has the ups and downs, with this shown with where he is living.


Scene of the Movie – The big performance.

That Moment That Annoyed Me – It is slower with how everything unfolds.

Final Thoughts – This does have beautiful music, only to goes along at such a slow pass it just doesn’t end up giving the emotional impact of the man’s journey.

Overall: Standard Biopic.

Categories
Movie Review

ABC Film Challenge – Adventure – T – Time Trap (2017) Movie Review

Director: Mark Dennis, Ben Foster

Writer: Mark Dennis (Screenplay)

Starring: Reiley McClendon, Cassidy Gifford, Brianne Howey, Olivia Draguicevich, Max Wright, Andrew Wilson

Plot: A professor enters a cave and goes missing. Some of his students come looking for him and get trapped in the cave as well.


Tagline – Deep in the unknown, where time stands still, the only way to survive is to escape to the future.

Runtime: 1 Hour 27 Minutes

There may be spoilers in the rest of the review

Story: Time Trap starts when Professor Hopper (Wilson) goes in search of a newly discovered cave only for him not to return, Taylor (McClendon), Jackie (Howe) his teaching assistants want to go in search for him, bringing along Cara (Gifford), Veeves (Draguicevich) and Furby (Wright) to help with school projects.

Once inside the cave the five find themselves trapped in a world where not everything is making as much sense as it should.

Thoughts on Time Trap

Characters – Taylor is the one that is leading the expedition to search for the professor, he tries to keep things contained and will look for the best solution when the group become trapped. Cara is the one with climbing experience that could help them look for answers, but it doesn’t always help. With Jackie and Veeves being the younger sibling put into a world they aren’t ready to be in, but drawn to the adventurous nature of the cave searching.

Performances – When we come to the performances nobody is really strong, while nobody is bad, they give us the type of performance you would expect from a movie that could easily have been a TV show.

Story – The story here follows 5 friends who go in search for a missing professor, only to find themselves thrown into a world they can’t explain, with no foreseeable route to escape from. This story is one that is way better than the basic description gives it, we get to look philosophical ideas about time travel and time passing by, the fountain of youth and it isn’t afraid to go brutal in what looks like a child friendly movie. This story has so much more going on, it almost feels like we could have spent more time in this world, learning more, diving into more and wanting more.

Adventure/Sci-Fi – The adventure side of this movie takes us to a world the character would never have imaged being able to be part of, showing us a world we could barely imagine, which plays into the sci-fi elements of everything involved with time travel.

Settings – The film keeps us inside the cave system, the more time spent there, the more secret we unlock through the film.

Special Effects – The effects might well be low budget, but they work very well for the film, bringing to life the different eras.


Scene of the Movie – The final destination.

That Moment That Annoyed Me – You can’t help but feel there would have been more people there with the truth.

Final Thoughts – This is a film that delivers much more than you would expect and could be one of the best looks at the idea of time passing by without knowing the reality outside being different.



Categories
Movie Review

Ashley Jones is Perfectly Normal (2021) Movie Review ‘Charming Comedy’

Ashley Jones is Perfectly Normal – Charming Comedy

 

Director: Thomas Bangert

Writer: Thomas Bangert, Kev Stock (Screenplay)

Starring: Hana Yuka Sano, Loa Allebach, Chris Yeschenko, Coby J Marcum, Hallie Newcomer, Marc Herrmann

Plot: Desperate to get her life back to normal after a surprisingly uncommon medical diagnosis, Ashley Jones is forced to examine what “normalcy” really means in a world of mistaken identities, very old, old friends, and poisoned meatballs.

Runtime: 1 Hour 22 Minutes

There may be spoilers in the rest of the review

Story: Ashley Jones is Perfectly Normal starts as we meet Ashley Jones (Sano) a reporter whose is living with Larry (Yeschenko) living a perfectly normal life of routine. Ashley’s life is about to change when she wakes up with Foreign Accent Syndrome, with a thick Japanese accent she never had before.

As Ashley sees her stable life start to fall apart, she starts to try and adapt to the changes, giving her a chance to recreate herself in the process after a chance encounter with Evie (Allebach) who claims to be over 500,000 years old.

Thoughts on Ashley Jones is Perfectly Normal

Characters & Performances – Ashley Jones is reporter, she has a perfectly normal life with her partner, her routine and her job, where everything ticks by as she plans. Here life changes when she gets the unexplained medical condition, Foreign Accent Syndrome, losing her American accent, now having a Japanese one. This will put her career, relationship and friendship position in question, as she looks to adapt to the changes, learning there is something better in life than being perfectly normal. Hana Yuka Sano is great in this leading role, where she must go through a range of emotions as she tries to find the cure to what is happening in her life. Evie is the stranger that Ashley meets, she claims to be 500,000 years old, having knowledge about history that not everyone should know, creating a mystery about whether she is telling the truth of not. Loa Allebach adds the mystery about her character, while balancing another side which could be more of the reality about her. When we look at the rest of the cast, we have Larry who is the partner of Ashley, who fills the routine life perfectly, Bruce is Ashley’s boss aiming to ratings over anything else.

Story – The story here follows a reporter who has a perfectly normal life until one day she has a new medical condition, which will see her needing to figure out what happened, creating a new version of herself along the way. This is a story told with narration, which does give us the ‘500 Days of Summer’ vibe about certain moments, while the main story will be a story of self-discovery, that highlights how easily people can get caught up in the middle of a safe normality life, never wanting to walk outside their comfort zone. The story will have plenty of cuts to different visions of life through the eyes of Ashley along the way.

Themes – Ashley Jones is Perfectly Normal is a comedy that will look to bring everyday life, as Ashley looks to learn about the change, with her imagination taking over how life could go for her, some will be darker than others, which are filled with cheer. Expectation vs reality if you like.

Final Thoughts – Ashley Jones is Perfectly Normal is an enjoyable comedy that will show how life doesn’t need to be perfectly normal.