I Love Boosters: Glamorising Theft

Summary: one Hollywood luvies take on capitalism.

Let’s get one thing clear stealing from shops doesn’t make you a modern day Robin Hood, it makes you a criminal. When you take things from shop it costs jobs and possibly even branches. You may not care as corporations are evil, but those workers still have to go home and tell their kids why they won’t eat tonight.

Boots Riley screams capitalism is evil whilst making a film, a hugely capitalist endeavour, the irony appears lost. Riley thinks encouraging audiences to steal from shops and some form of socialist fightback is a great message when it’s really not well thought through.

Of course race has to play into it as God forbid a black director make a film that is not about being black, the black experience, racism, systemic oppression, slavery or something along those lines.

The villain is a white woman who the film labels a fake feminist, she is rich and so not a comrade, also this film is a male director presenting women tearing down other women, as a purity test. There is something deeply messed up about a male director saying who is a proper feminist and who isn’t and then making it about money.

Once again we are shown at the box office that preaching doesn’t pay off, if Riley wants to go and steal from his local store that’s on him, but to waste millions of dollars trying to promote criminality is just a waste of everyone’s time and money.

Overall, morally bankrupt.

1/5

Pros.

Keke Palmer is great

Cons.

The characters are unlikable

The message is awful

It promotes criminality

It is a male director tearing down women

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Cinema Issues: Marvel Doesn’t Seem To Understand The X-Men

We have talked previously about the deviant morality in Hollywood and how a lot of modern screen writers cannot understand right from wrong. Well to this point consider Jean Grey in Brand New Day she is a murderer, she throws a man in front of a taxi, she drives a tank into a building full of people and blows it up amongst other things. However, the writers say she is just acting in rage so it’s fine and that she didn’t kill anyone directly, which is untrue.

Not only does this horribly butcher the character, please look at the comics wherein Jean’s sister is actually kidnapped notice how she handles it there, notice how she doesn’t endanger civilians and throw them in front of cars, it also shows they don’t understand the X-Men.

The idea that something bad has happened to you therefore you can fly into a rage and do whatever you like consequence free, is simply not true it is the philosophy of kids and progressives. Even when you’re upset you have to make moral choices and must hold yourself to that line. When Uncle Ben died did Spider-Man kill the killer, no. Did he go around throwing people in front of taxis for no reason, no. Yet jean did.

This reflects the fact that Hollywood no longer understands the concept of good vs bad, they only understand the concept of getting what they want and lashing out if they don’t get it. That philosophy of Hollywood and the left is why when they are offended they scream death threats at people, Jean Grey herein is a manifestation of that.

In the world of the X-Men the idea is that the world fears and hates them but they do good and risk their lives to save regular humans. If the X-Men are throwing random people in front of taxis then the world will be right to fear them and that fundamentally isn’t the X-Men at all. You could argue she hasn’t met Charles Xavier yet but the film presents her as being an adult she should still have a moral compass and shouldn’t need Charles to teach morality to her.

This all comes on the heels of the X-Men director for the MCU’s attempt at these characters saying that they will showing new stuff never before seen on screen. That is a colossal red flag, yes there are many great X-Men comics that haven’t been adapted however, it is almost certain they don’t mean that, they likely mean they’ll make up new adventures for these characters. With the way in which they introduced Jean Grey being so out of character and just so wrong this fills us with concern.

The butchering of Jean’s character isn’t the worst of it, it is the precedent it sets that is by far the more troubling thing.

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Leviticus: Taking Aim At The Wrong People

Summary: two young LGBTQ teens face the supernatural and prejudice.

Lets be blunt in the West most LGBTQ+ teens do not face being forced into conversion therapy, maybe in backwoods areas living about 50 years in the past but not in the modern west, and that includes Australia.

By and large most sects of Christianity have also come to accept LGBTQ people, not that you would know from this film. In many ways the horror herein is a means to attack Christianity even though it has long since accepted them. There could be an idea made that they are too afraid to go after the groups that do not accept them as that would be un-pc the Church makes for a better target.

The horror here is nothing new, they try and say it is different as it features LGBTQ characters and themes but honestly queer horror has evolved far beyond this sort of thing. In many ways this film is based around putting identity first and trying to make a statement but that has been done before what this film is trying to say has been said better before.

The real issue here is that this film feels like it is trying to mimic other queer horror films from the recent past.

Overall, one or two good scares but by and large just more of the same you have seen before.

1.5/5

A few good scares

It is well paced

Cons.

It is repetitive

The commentary feels outdated

It is directing ire in the wrong direction

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Cinema Issues: Career Suicide The Story Of Yahya Abdul-Mateen ii and Mahershala Ali

Recently Marvel has come under attack from stars of projects that didn’t happen in the case of Ali and from stars of shows that did not get renewed in the case of Abdul-Manteen, the accusation is the same, as the black show or film was not made, or renewed therefore racism. This is the very peak of entitled, you are not owed a project or a second season, the fact that shows like Eyes of Wakanda are made, and that Black Panther and Sam Wilson are central to the Marvel universe show that there is no racism going on.

What is going on is that these stars of colour think they can throw around accusations in order to get what they want, but as the case of Blake Lively will tell you that is a dumb strategy to try. First to Abdul-Manteen’s argument of optics, black shows are not the only ones being cancelled or not renewed for season two, look at Hawkeye, look at the scrapped sequel for the Eternals, but this is an inconvenient fact.

The movie going public are well aware of actors like this trying to claim to be the victim whilst they live in their mansions, and they are starting to get sick of it. The fact is the black audience, in countries that matter to the box office, so the collective west and large Asian markets, is so small that they could boycott the next wave of Marvel projects and it would not effect the bottom line at all, Africa as a market does not matter to the box office at all. All of that is to say, that trying to claim you’re an abused black man because you didn’t get a film or second season is not a winning strategy.

Moreover, look what happened to other ‘stars’ who ran their mouth about Disney/Marvel and had an acrimonious divorce with the studio, Tatiana Maslany’s She Hulk might as well be non-canon with a lot of the events of her show having been ignored. Then there is the case of Oscar Issac who threw away the chance of Moon Knight ever getting a second season after he came after Disney for suspending Jimmy Kimmel. Blade can get a new film post Secret Wars with Snipes, Ali has put himself out of business, and if Disney ever did want to bring back Simon Williams there are plenty of other actors who could take over the part.

Behaving in the way these two men have, with the level of entitlement and using their race as a card to mean they cannot be fired and that they must be given things is disgusting. The idea of equality is that everyone is treated the same so if Issac and Maslany can get themselves fired and their characters written off so should these two men.

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Practical Magic: Lesbian Sisters

Summary: two young women navigate the world of men and love by way of magic.

So let’s get this out of the way earlier, there are a number of scenes where it looks like the two lead sisters are going to kiss and it is weird. Throughout the history of witches in horror particularly when it is not the old crone there is implied lesbianism, and sometimes that’s okay, but other times it feels like male titillation. There is nothing wrong with titillation but when the two leads are sisters it’s weird. Kidman and Bullock’s sister characters are far too close.

The film itself feels as though someone couldn’t decide on a structural level what this was supposed to be. It is based on a novel so perhaps the issues are from that. You have essentially two competing stories you have the curse placed on the Owens women where if they find love they die and you have the fact that Kidman’s character is going out with an abusive guy who they then kill and he comes back. This doesn’t just feel like a film of two halves it feels like two different films of different genres sown together. It doesn’t work as tonally it is too mismatched.

The ending of the film wherein the town that had attacked and belittled the sisters for being witches turns around and helps them out doesn’t cut the mustard. Neither does the fact that in the final sequence of the film they jump off a roof using magic to not die and not one person goes wait what witches are real.

Overall, whilst there are some moments of cozy comfort it feels like a more icky and poorly thought through relic of yesteryear.

2.5/5

Pros.

It’s watchable

Kidman and Bullock

There is charm

Cons.

It totally doesn’t work

The creepy stuff with the sisters

The ending

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One Night Only: Remember When Men Weren’t A Joke?

Summary: for one night a year sex is legal, two people try to make it work.

Owen is told at the offset of the film that his girlfriend wants to sleep with someone else, then he goes to stay at his mother’s who wants him out so she can get down. After that he is robbed by a woman who takes his clothes, when he finally meets Allie and they are about to have sex this is then denied them. Allie’s journey is far more about her coming out of her shell, daring to sing in public, ultimately to grow as a person. Notice the difference one is about empowerment the other is about humiliation.

You might have heard that a lot of the nudity and sex scenes where cut out of this film, we did a Cinema Issues about it, because audiences don’t want to see nudity unless it’s Sydney Sweeney in Gluck’s last film. For the most part this is not a steamy affair, it is oddly clinical and depressing and maybe that is a comment on modern dating but this film is supposed to be a rom-com, yet there is nothing romantic or funny about it.

Monica Barbaro does her best to keep the film together but this is really DOA on arrival.

Overall, more modern slop to avoid.

1/5

Pros

Barbaro

Cons

It is dull

It doesn’t have anything fresh to say

The male humiliation

The ending is cheap

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Cinema Issues: American’s Fear Of Sex Scenes

Wil Gluck’s new film One Night Only is about the one night a year where sex is allowed, it is literally about sex, yet despite this the man who directed Anyone But You and had Sydney Sweeney take her top off says he has removed a lot of the nudity and sex scenes from the movie.

Why? Well because audiences don’t want to watch that according to Gluck. Anyone But You, Wuthering Heights, and any number of other erotic thrillers begs to differ with Mr Gluck. However the deeper reason seems to be America’s growing prudishness around sex, a lot of the people defending Gluck say it takes away from the story, the story is about sex, they say that you can watch porn for that, a film’s sex scene establishes character relationships and is not real hardcore pornography. Frankly, if you think there is a comparison between a film sex scene and porn then you belong about 400 years ago in the puritan past.

There is this idea of oh audiences are uncomfortable watching them, Gluck puts this forward to. Why are you uncomfortable with something as normal as sex, if you can’t handle it the issue is with you, you should stick to watching kids films rather than trying to censor sex as a whole. Does it make you uncomfortable as it shows you what you aren’t having or it shows you people whose bodies don’t look like yours? That’s a you problem. Is it because you can only go to the cinema with other people be it friends or your significant other, once again the fact you can’t go on your own is your problem.

Once again we see the strange needless prudishness coming out of America that has always been there, one of our writers said that they have seen it their whole life, however from this writers European perspective it seems both ridiculous and karenlike. When One Night Only fails hopefully so will Gluck’s career.

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The Ice Cream Man: Eli Roth Is Back On Form

Summary: an evil ice cream man is giving kids ice cream that makes them kill their parents.

Thanksgiving was a good film, but it has been a while since we last heard from Eli Roth so expectations were high for this film and for the most part he delivered.

Now there is a hullabaloo about oh no the film uses AI, to that we say grow up most films do and just don’t tell you, see Supergirl. If you think the effects shots in Brand New Day didn’t have any AI involvement then you need to put the beverage down and get serious.

The thing that is perhaps the hardest to understand is what the tone is, as the film is both very dark and also very silly, you could argue it is a comedy horror perhaps. Once you adjust to it it’s okay.

The film feels both fresh but also like it is calling back to A Nightmare On Elm Street in one key way.

The best thing the film does is how it ends, it ends in a way not typical at all for horror films, as the villain basically wins, most films have the killer stopped, the demon exorcised, the ghost sent on etc, this does not.

One thing that was not so good about the film was a line of dialogue where a 12 year old girl says “I’m a 12 year old girl of course I know how to make myself sick”. Bulimia is a very serious condition and it should not be made light off particularly with teens who are often prone to eating disorders and suicidality. It’s a throwaway line it’s not like they dwell on it but it’s a clumsy line that harms an otherwise good film.

4/5

Pros.

The ending

The gore

The tone once you adjust

The Ice Cream Man

Cons.

The Bulimia line

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Cinema Issues: The Death Of Marvel’s Disney + Dreams

News has broken that other than Daredevil Born Again no other series will be returning to Disney +, despite all those fake leaker accounts promising Hawkeye season 2. There’ll be some one offs and mini series, but by and large the focus will shift to animation as it is cheaper and easier to do.

As you can imagine people are upset, why won’t we get another season of Wonder Man despite the fact it flopped. However, this move is great for Marvel, you shouldn’t have to watch a 6 hours series in order to understand a film you want to watch as such stopping it is for the best.

Moreover, a hell of a lot of the things that happened in the Disney + shows either were never referenced again or were just written out, looking at you Hulk’s son and Kingpin losing an eye. The fact is a lot of these series just weren’t good at all, and so it makes sense to cast them off. When they did mix in with the proper MCU films it was generally in so much as providing a supporting character or explaining a motive, they just weren’t needed.

There are also a lot of reasons why Disney and marvel as a brand want to remove themselves from Marvel’s Disney + offerings and a lot of this comes down to politics. Both Tatiana Maslany and Oscar Issac have publicly attacked Disney in the press and online and as such She Hulk and Moon Knight died there and then, She Hulk has been heavily ignored and vast parts of it simply seem to be non-canon now.

In many ways Disney leaving this arena whilst they still have some of their credibility left is a win, let’s hope Wonder Man, Riri Williams, She Hulk and the rest stay buried forever and don’t pop up for a jump scare in the next Avengers film.

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Paw Patrol The Dino Movie: Brain Rot For Kids

Summary: the animals find other older animals.

This is soulless if this is what constitutes animation these days then the practice should be shelved permanently. There is no depth in the characters or their bonds, or their dialogue, it is just the most obvious vapid platitudes.

This feels like a glorified advert with the animals needing to get new vehicles and have the disabled dog who was already riding a t-rex, have it upgraded to sell more toys. It was incredibly cynical.

The villain is maybe on screen for about 5 minutes and is just silly without any real motivation, they are also stopped incredibly easily showing no real stakes at all in that.

When you look at a film like Minons and Monsters and compare it to this you can see the difference, one is designed to sell toys and to rot kids brains the other goes a bit deeper, has characters and has a story to tell.

Overall, the series and films need to stop.

0.5/5

Pros.

It has a few unintentionally funny moments

Cons.

It’s shallow and vapid

It doesn’t have characters it has a tick box list of traits

The villain is weak

The pacing is awful

It is just an advert

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