"Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire" - Review

Years after the events of the 1980s, and a few years after a new "generation" of pest controllers dealt with the plot once again; a band of plucky Studio Executives (Gil Kenan, Jason Blumenfeld and Jason Reitman) band together in order to squeeze blood from a stone where the very idea of nostalgia and corporate expansion of it, is antithetical to the original film. I don't even like the first one that much!

A soulless source of corporate drivel, fuelled excessively by nostalgia (for a project that was, basically, just about greedy 80s pest controllers accidentally saving the world with the timing of their grift) painting its protagonists as heroes for the sole reason that they are the ones the audience remembers.
Now taking place in the modern day after an especially cynical, "tug at the heartstrings because one of the cast is dead, and let's waste Bob Gunton" legacy sequel, the film struggles to justify its own existence. The plot is a carbon copy of the first film (an evil, unspecified entity seeks to enthrall all ghosts and take over the world, and an ordinary guy civilian must step up to the plate in the interim, even being called "The Fire Master" this time around) but peppered with a dozen or so ideas to pretend as if it was written, and to give screentime to its myriad of hastily sketched characters rather than arcs. Our protagonists are essentially merely present for proceedings, Carrie Coon receiving about 8 lines and having no arc beyond the (quite justifiable) "Daughter, stay at home because you are 15, and thus it is illegal for you to work with us"; Paul Rudd gets a scene and a half about taking on the mantle of stepfather (almost certainly a Gil Kenan addition, watch "Monster House" instead) before just having a "Wow she called me dad!" line at the end, no payoff, just "huh, guess that's done!"; Finn Wolfhard is here, and sits in the basement. Slimer is there. Also, Finn Wolfhard wants to drive the car in the opening scene. Then in the final scene Carrie Coon throws Finn Wolfhard the keys. Way to use Finn Wolfhard guys...
McKenna Grace almost gets the throughline and story: she has a relationship with a burned up ghost (Emily Alyn Lynd, really relishing her "Nora Zehetner" energy, and making me wish for more Nora Zehetner movies, and wanting to watch "Doctor Sleep" again), which could be sweet and touching and gentle in the right hands, and given room to breathe, but like all things here it is underwritten, and serves only to have an "oh no! She was using her, and is conflicted!" cursory reveal halfway through, removing tension, stakes, drama and comedy.
Slimer is in it.
Dan Akroyd and Ernie Hudson get, again, perfunctory lines about "maybe we're old..." but they go nowehere, and the introduction of a ghost research lab serves entirely to justify not just Ernie Hudson but the rest of the supporting cast, and maybe the threadbare plot.
Bill Murray says things. I guess they're funny? I never really got the Bill Murray hype, he has done some good movies, and some bad movies.
Janine the secretary wears a Ghostbuster uniform! That's cool, right guys? That's a joke! That's an arc, right? Right?
Celeste O'Connor, the token non-binary actor and the token black actor in the new cast, is present. They are there, they are in the lab, they technically are in the film. Once again, Hollywood wastes the excellent Celeste O'Connor, so I suppose they are at least keeping to tradition.
Kumail Nanjani threatens to make the film funny, as a lovable waster who must save the world after pawning off his grandmother's Ghost Guardian Gear for 50 bucks, that could have been fun. He got a few smirks out of me.
And I must give my sincere thanks to James Acaster: not just in general, he's bloody brilliant, but for getting the token laugh, the only actual joke in this film.

"Madame Web" - Review

Paramedic Cassie Webb (Dakota Johnson) has a terrible bedside manner and general awkwardness about her. When she falls into a river and is rescued by her partner (Adam Scott), she realises that she has the ability to see the future! Things get worse, for our plucky little weirdo, when she has visions of three women cosplaying as teenagers (Sydney Sweeney, Isabela Merced, and Celeste O'Connor) being tracked, hunted and murdered by a barefoot goblin named Ezekial Sims (Tahar Rahim), who may have a connection to her past. Webb must go on the run with these kids, master her powers, and find a way to stop him...

Nobody expected this to be good. But I will give it this: it's a lot better than "Argylle".
It's surprisingly coherant, I was following it scene to scene, it was never out and out incompetent, it was merely a bland and forgettable, underwritten exercise in pondering why the writers of "Morbius", "Gods of Egypt", "The Last Witch Hunter" and "Dracula Untold" keep being allowed to commit their works to the screen. The film is almost good when the three girls (superfluous characters, but welcome additions to the proceedings) are giving each other shit, bantering and bandying about with each other. Their characters are underwritten archetypes (O'Connor is the sassy, punky rebellious rich kid, Sweeney is the quiet, meek girl, Merced is the science geek) but with the little material that they have, the three steal the show. Johnson plays Webb with what can only be described as a dare: she deliberately gives the worst possible line reading, layered in sarcasm in every scene, and it kind of works as a massive prank on the makers of the film?
There's little to say about the film, in all honestly. Hyperbolic "content" goblins have their knives out describing this as "the worst film yet", and you and I and even they know that that is not anywhere near the truth. It just washes through you. The 2003 setting (I TOLD you this was going to be a thing!) is never quite prominent enough or timely enough to work, and is relegated to a few uses of a Beyonce poster and a couple of lines here and there though, INFURIATINGLY, they use "Toxic", a song which was not released until 2004. But I'll allow it, because it's "Toxic".
The use of stolen NSA surveillance technology is a cute enough little commentary, but again it's never really used or dwelt upon and is there to help our villain do his schemes. But I did appreciate that I knew what the villain was doing and why, it's you know, worryingly rare? I know that Rahim can act: I've seen "A Prophet", so it has to be a scripting issue.
Adam Scott is a genuine, unironic highlight, even if he's playing "Uncle Ben" for absolutely no reason other than corporate mandated links to a superhero I don't actually like that much but whom Sony are trying to sell a series of movies on teasing his appearance. It's corporate swill, but Scott is a funny and engaging performer, and again the film threatens to have interesting things when it's the girls staying at his place and becomes "Ben Wyatt babysitting some kids".
I honestly love Isabela Merced, and Celeste O'Connor to death and am delighted to see them getting more work and paycheques, and I like Sydney Sweeney from "Anyone But You" (though here she's dressed in a fetishised approximation of a schoolgirl, somebody's kink I'm sure), and I wish the actors in this and director SJ Clarkson all of the best in whatever their future projects are. It never soars, but it never nosedives into oblivion either. It just treads water.

"A Good Person" - Review

Allison (Florence Pugh) has a perfect life, but when all that crashes around her, and she finds herself seemingly at her lowest point, she forms an unlikely relationship with retired ex-cop Daniel (Morgan Freeman) and others...

I'm not sure that I can ever accept anybody's assertions that Marvel movies are jarring in their tone, whiplash and constant quips. At least, not whilst this hipster bullshit exists. Zacharus Braffacus has created not a film, but an amalgamation of the worst impulses of shoe-gazing, indie-adjacent sanitised nonsense; bloated and RUTHLESS with its running time, whilst simultaneously having nothing of importance to say or offer to the world. Like a Jake Bugg album made manifest: its emptiness is matched only by its pretentious swings at things of importance, and the delusions that it is "important" or even noteworthy, he thinks he's the next Jim Jarmusch with a political bent, but in actual fact is more like Vincent Gallo with a budget.
We follow the wrong character, Florence Pugh's drug addicted, survivor's guilt ridden Pharmaceutical Sales Rep (we get it, Zack, you were in "Scrubs", how cute a gag) not as a character or a harrowing portrait of addiction, but a fetishistic view of a hip cool, indie girl he REALLY wants to fuck (she wears Nick Cave t-shirts and has fun quippy facts to spout off whilst being self-deprecating. I'm pretty sure he thinks that "Juno" is a documentary), and who is broken but able to be fixed if the right thing comes along! It's like misery-porn, but he pussies out and can't even do that right: his attempts at swinging at the very real opioid epidemic in America are weak, limp and run out of steam halfway through, he lacks the stomach, clarity and basic fucking knowledge to pull it off. In something like, say, "Animals" (a fantastic effort by David Dastmalchian) we see the suffering, horror, grimness, grime, and yet genuine humanity through it all. Braff resorts to hysterical flushings of pills and weak, pathetic insults from a crack smoking school acquaintance played by Alex Wolff, who is admittedly welcome.
Where those he tries to emulate (Jim Jarmusch, Joe Swanberg, Amy Seimetz, Kelly Reichardt, David Gordon Green) will happily make an engaging film of vignettes and "days in the life" of characters told through little moments or odd encounters and make it enthralling and be in the service of an arc or plot; Zachariah Braffariah has missed the memo, and resorts to mumbling, shoegazing and a BLOATED middle act. His worst impulses and tendencies come out in the dialogue, which schizophrenically flickers between excerpts from "Juno", quippy one liners, faux-philosophical fortune-cookie poetry, and attempts to get the scene moving. The beginning (wherein our heroine plays piano and sings at her own engagement party) has particularly cringe-worthy exposition and clunky first-draft film student poetry; but is preceded by a 30 second Morgan Freeman narration about how model trains are different to real life in that you can control it all; and is then followed by vaguely sketched, bareley registered sitcom-level dialogue in the car. It continues this whiplash all the way through, and despite a dedicated (I wouldn't say good) performance from Pugh, the script is atrocious. Morgan Freeman is Morgan Freeman: you hire him, you get him, but again, we follow the wrong character in these proceedings, and there was a moment when I thought: "If they make him a magical old black man who changes her, I'm walking", and to be fair I almost walked out after the train monologue at the start.
And if you think his dialogue is bad, his plotting and editing are worse. My particular favourite was her in the bar, speaking with the junkies, getting high, feeling bad, and the camera cutting to a pinball machine reading: "I Am Invincible".
Transcendental, next level shit from Zachigan Braffigan. The Truffaut of our time.
As a positive, Celeste O'Connor is in this, and I like them as an actor.
Cannot recommend, unless you have a party and need the guests to leave, in which case put this on and they will IMMEDIATELY evacuate the building.

"Freaky" Review - From the Vaults

 "Freaky"

The Blissfield Butcher is on the loose! When he attacks high school wallflower Millie Kessler (Kathryn Newton) with a magic dagger, she wakes up in his body (Vince Vaughn) and he wakes up in hers! Now she has only 24 hours to convince her friends Joshua and Nyla (Misha Osherovich and Celeste O'Connor) that she is not the wanted-serial killer, find the dagger, swap back and all before getting caught by the police, or before the deranged maniacal butcher can do any more harm to the school or her love interest Booker (Uriah Shelton)!

And all before the Homecoming Dance!

This movie rules.

It's a strangely progressive, very funny film. It's all about otherness, whilst still being a damn fun tongue-in-cheek slasher movie throwback. It's knowing and cuts through the bullshit, but never demeans or belittles its characters, and the performances across the board are sublime. 

Special note will obviously go to Vince Vaughn (who I am glad is doing stranger, odder stuff like this) for his very funny performance as Millie as well as being a genuinely great and kind of scary slasher villain; but Kathryn Newton is the real star here, and Misha Osherovich steals the show as the openly gay, incredibly camp best friend.

In case you didn't know this movie was not heterosexual: Misha Osherovich is fabulous.

I highly recommend this.

Celeste O'Connor. This movie is totally hetero.