A Simplistic Review: Booksmart (2019)

Man...so people are pissed! Apparently no one saw "Booksmart" over the Memorial Day holiday weekend. The unofficial kickoff to the Summer movie season! People instead saw a live action Disney remake, the story of an unstoppable assassin and they even saw superheroes punch super-villains in the face instead of a film about white people with white problems...what a shock.

Look, I know people are already taking SIDES on "Booksmart." Excuses included;

It's Annapurna's fault for putting it out wide during the holiday. The audience is stupid and doesn't appreciate indie comedies. People aren't ready for female and/or queer leads in their coming-of-age comedies. The list goes on and on...

Honestly, "Booksmart" is fun. I laughed out loud a couple of times. But it's also a derivative story that I've seen before.

Yes, having extensive LGBTQ representation is great, but it's almost window dressing for the main story; friends at the end of their high school friendship. And the problem for so long is still using the LGBTQ community as the side gig to the problems of the straight community. Amy (played by Kaitlyn Dever) shows the struggle and anxiety of being gay, but it just seems to be...I don't know...selling it short. But what do I know, I'm a straight, married, white male.

I digress, I liked "Booksmart" butI also like "Superbad." I guess that shows where I'm at.

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A Simplistic Review: Under the Silver Lake

I see what David Robert Mitchell was doing here.

Hmm, or maybe I don't...regardless.

So you have this KOOKY film, "Under the Silver Lake," where you have Andrew Garfield doing his best impression of Jeff Daniels' The Dude, while he tries to figure out a conspiracy theory that would make Brian De Palma, Alfred Hitchcock and David Lynch blush.

On the surface, I really dig this flick. It's so.....KOOKY. It really has no purpose, it's mainly a series of vignettes that's held together by an insane premise, but it works if you stick with it.

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(Ep. 121): Fire Down Below - Movie Commentary: May 2019

We started this new year off with a film from 90's action star and serial eater, Steven Seagal's Hard to Kill! We continue the Seagal Saga with Fire Down Below, you know the EPA action film...no not that one...the other one...yeah there is another EPA action film.

Fire Down Below

1997 ‧ Thriller/Action ‧ 1h 45m

Description

When an EPA representative is discovered dead in a small Midwestern town, government agent Jack Taggart (Steven Seagal) goes undercover to check things out. He finds that local coal mogul Orin Hanner Sr. (Kris Kristofferson) is cutting financial corners by disposing of hazardous waste wherever he pleases and that local kids are falling ill because of this recklessness. Taggart then works to stop the shady activity and save the town, but Hanner and his thugs soon grow suspicious of him.

Initial release: December 13, 1997 (South Korea)

Director: Félix Enríquez Alcalá

Budget: 42 million USD

Box office: 16.2 million USD

Music composed by: Nick Glennie-Smith

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A Simplistic Review: John Wick Chapter 3: Parabellum

There is always a question of who is the BADDEST...

Lance Riddick is the BADDEST concierge.
Halle Berry and Angelica Houston are the BADDEST chicks.
Ian McShane is the BADDEST Hotel Manager.
Mark Dacascos has the BADDEST crew of Indonesian BADASSES this side of Southeast Asia.

oh...

Keanu Reeves is the BADDEST man in "John Wick Chapter 3: Parabellum."

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A Simplistic Review: Scary Stories (2019)

Censorship is nothing new. In fact it's a long held American TRADITION to censor things that we are afraid of or we think are doing to destroy the youth.

"We have to protect the youth!" said the old, out of touch white, and black, folk.

But there is also the TRADITION of fighting against the onslaught of people telling other people what to do.

Let's not forget about the TRADITION of tell stories that have been passed on from culture to culture to generations upon generations. "Scary Stories" is the documentary that will hit the nerve of nostalgia while also showing how the culture of censorship continues to plague us as a society.

Click HERE for our interview with the director of "Scary Stories," Cody Meirick. If you want to found out more about this film, click HERE. 

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A Simplistic Review: The Ranger (2018)

Well someone had to take these big city punks down a peg or two!

The MERIT badge for making a National Park Ranger the big bad in this 80s inspired "killer in the woods" romp goes to Jenn Wexler.

"The Ranger" is a tidy 80 minutes long and gets to the point without going over a pain-staking backstory for our heroine and how she fell into a gang of drug-dealing punk rockers.

Good gore, good villain, with a rocking soundtrack and score.

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