Ghosts Of The Ozarks: The 90s Want Their CGI Back

Written by Luke Barnes

Summary

In post-civil war Arkansas supernatural frights seem to be around every turn.

I understand that not every film is given a multimillion dollar budget, but this film looks like it was made from the change found down the back of someone’s sofa. I won’t harp on about this, but I do think even with a small budget this film could have done a lot more with its effects and scares if it possessed some more imagination, sadly money doesn’t seem to be the only thing in short supply.

I have no idea why David Arquette and Tim Blake Nelson are in this film, maybe it is a Movie 43 type deal and they are being coerced. Neither is given very much to do and both have to suffer through a terrible script. Which for the most part is a hodgepodge of different genre cliches and stereotypes with nothing ever coming close to originality.

There was a brief moment after I realised that this film was bad wherein I was optimistic that maybe it would be so bad it is good, however that optimism was soon stripped from me and I was just left with a mediocre bad film.

Overall, this film should probably have come out in January, it would have fit right in.

Pros.

A few interesting ideas

Cons.

Said cool idea remain undeveloped

It isn’t scary

It looks awful

It wastes its cast

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The Book Of Boba Fett: In The Name Of Honor

2/5

Written by Luke Barnes

Summary

The war between Boba Fett, played by Temuera Morrison, and the Pike Syndicate finally comes to blows.

This was one hell of a mixed bag.

On the one hand you had the Grogu and Din, played by Pedro Pascal, stuff, which was really sweet and well done and honestly also quite effecting. As well as some great action set pieces that felt intense and bloody, and had a nice heft to them that helped you forget you were in Disney era star wars where blasters are set to stun half the time.

However, on the other and infinitely worse hand you had the Mods at their most insufferable, lecturing Boba Fett, an experienced mercenary, on battle tactics and social justice and being far too prominent during the final battle. The social justice message of the Mods really makes me dislike them, and it takes me out of the show and makes me feel like Hollywood Z listers are talking down to the fans. I understand that Robert Rodriguez likes to push diversity in his kids films now, and for the most part that is admirable and well done, but here it is forced down your throat by characters that never fit into the universe. Also surely if it was a diverse street gang they would have at least some alien members? No? That seems well thought through.

Moreover, this episode has Boba learn that it was in fact the pikes that killed his beloved Tuscan Raider tribe, yet can he avenge them? No, no he can’t. Instead the show has to once again take the action and badass moment away from Fett and give it to Fennec Shand, played by Ming-Na Wen, which feels illogical and like a slap in the face to anyone invested in the show. To not give this to Boba means his character journey is not ended in any meaningful way.

Finally, and perhaps most egregiously of all they kill off Cobb Vanth, played by Timothy Olyphant, off-screen…… The last episode had him survive his injuries, what happened? Honestly this made me want to turn off the finale.

Overall, Boba Fett spent more time in a bacta tank then doing anything even remotely cool.

Pros.

Grogu

The action

Cons.

The Mods

Cad Bane’s awful death that looked hilariously bad

Not finishing Boba’s character arc

Cobb Vanth

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The Love Guru: The Film That Killed Mike Myers’ Career

0.5/5

Written by Luke Barnes

Summary

A love guru, played by Mike Myers, is tasked with restoring a hockey team that has fallen on hard times due to personal issues.

This is the film that killed Mike Myers’ career, this is the film that potentially stopped us from ever having a Shrek 5, if that doesn’t make you hate this film I don’t know what will.

How Mike Myers and everyone else involved could ever have thought this film would be funny is beyond me. Not only is the lead a culturally appropriated stereotype, but every joke in the film is so deeply juvenile and crass you would be surprised that it wasn’t written by teenagers.

Worse yet this film really struggles with knowing when it is time to let a joke end, and repeats the same unfunny jokes over and over again hoping in vein that it might suddenly become funny, sadly no such luck, instead you are driven to the point of irritation.

Somewhat bafflingly Myers, who even in his worst films is still likeable, manages to be totally unlikeable here and often comes across as feeling smug whilst on-screen. I guess he was just so certain that this film was going to be a huge hit that he just got ahead of himself.

Overall, there exists a universe out there where this film never got made and we got a Shrek 5 instead.

Pros.

It’s at least short

Cons.

It’s not funny

It is repetitive

Myers isn’t likeable

The side characters are boring cliches

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Dirty Grandpa: A Whole New Side To Robert De Niro

3/5

Written by Luke Barnes

Summary

A man, played by Zac Efron, and his Grandfather, played by Robert De Niro, travel cross country together and get into some hijinks.

In many ways this is a bad film, however, for me at least it crosses over into so bad it is good territory. Many have condemned this film as racist, sexist and homophobic, and whilst all those things are valid and true there is also something perversely entertaining about watching an actor with such a storied career as De Niro humiliate himself like this, especially as it all seems in good fun.

Though the film often fails at its attempts to be funny through edgy joke after edgy joke there are some laughs to be had, this mainly happens when the film isn’t trying to be funny yet is unintentionally hilarious at the same time. Moreover, Aubrey Plaza is a comedic force in this film and steals almost every scene she is in. Though this isn’t Plaza’s funniest performance it certainly is up there, I thought she was by far and away the silver lining of this film.

Overall, something about this film just makes me laugh, and whilst I will never say it is a good film it is certainly so hilariously bad it is heading that way.

Pros.

De Niro doing his best Danny DeVito impersonation

Plaza

Unintentionally hilarious

Cons.

There are quite a number of troublesome moments

It has pacing issues and the second act drags

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Piranha 3DD: How Many Sex Jokes Does It Take To Be Funny? This Film Never Found Out

1/5

Written by Luke Barnes

Summary

A film about objectifying women and then watching evil fish rip them apart.

Just from looking at a poster you know that this film knows who it is playing to…. Horny people going to get their titillation at the cinema, as well as those of us whose guilty pleasure is schlocky B movie esque horror. Both of whom will be slightly let down by this film.

In many ways this film tries to be tongue in cheek with its vulgar voyeuristic side, but struggles often to make its creepy camera angles feel in any way like self-satire or parody. In this vein the film is awash with poor female representation, despite having a female lead in Danielle Panabaker, it’s female characters are mostly given stereotypical roles and are ranked in importance under how they look more so than anything else.

Panabaker’s involvement with this is disappointing as she has proven from her other roles that she is a really talented actor, so here it feels as though she is slumming it. Yes, maybe she just wanted the cash, but it still saddens me to see her brought low like this.

Overall, self-referencing your own perviness does not somehow make it less bad.

Pros.

Some B movie esque charm to be found if you look deep enough.

Cons.

The poor female representation

It does nothing to distinguish itself from its predecessor

Panabaker deserves better

It has pacing issues

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Bite Me: The Love Between A Vampire And Her Auditor

4/5

Written by Luke Barnes

Summary

A vampire, played by Naomi McDougall Jones, and her IRS auditor, played by Christian Coulson, fall in love.

Surprisingly, I thought this was both a good vampire film as well as a touching romantic comedy. Often horror romance films are difficult to land, Life After Beth, did a good job of it, but many others have tried and failed, this however, gets it right.

I really enjoyed the absurdity of the premise, a vampire who gets audited and then falls in love. The very idea makes me laugh. Moreover, I enjoyed the rom-com elements and thought that the two leads had great chemistry together and became more and more of a believable couple as the film progressed.

As far as it being a vampire film, it certainly fell more into the comedy horror sub-genre than anything more hardcore. There certainly is What We Do In The Shadows vibes here, and these are used to great effect for a number of good jokes and set ups.

Overall, a lovely, refreshingly original film.

Pros.

It is funny

It is sweet

I enjoy what they do with the vampire element

The leads have good chemistry

Cons.

Minor pacing issues

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The Woman In The House Across The Street From The Girl In The Window: You’ll Need A Lot Of Wine To Get Through This

2.5/5

Written by Luke Barnes

Summary

A parody that forgets to parody and becomes what it sets out to mock.

What is this show?

It isn’t quite a comedy, it isn’t quite a thriller, what does it want to be and why do we have to witness it’s journey of self-discovery?

The only reason this gets half marks is because through it all Kirsten Bell is trying her hardest. Through every bad joke, through every dumb twist that the show thinks proves it is better than what it is mocking, and even through the incredibly predictable finale, Bell holds it all together and makes it bearable.

I understand that book based thriller films like The Woman In The Window are bad, but that doesn’t mean the parody of them will be good. No, for the most part this series devolves into simply copying these thrillers and thinking that for some reason it is above them and won’t fall into the same trap, this is obviously not the case and never was going to be.

Moreover, this series doesn’t seem to understand what parody is, admittedly maybe I am comparing it to the Movie films which in my mind are far better stand-ups of what they were trying to spoof than this. The knowing jokes in this show mostly fall flat and feel like the most baseline observational jokes you could write, they could have played up the camp, the strangeness, hell anything to make this better than it is.

Overall, it is watchable and watched as a binge it even has its moments, but it is average at best and if you stop watching it you are unlikely to return.

Pros.

Bell

Riley

Some of the sillier elements

Cons.

It becomes what it is parodying

It is not funny

It is deeply played out

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Freddy Got Fingered: Proof That You Don’t Need Talent To Make It In Hollywood

0.5/5

Written by Luke Barnes

Summary

Proof that any old trash can become a film.

How did this get made? Who thought that this film was going to ever make money? I don’t care how popular the Tom Green Show was, this was always going to be a disaster and in many ways it seems it was sent out to die maybe as a tax write off.

Where to begin with why this film is a turd. I think probably it is best to start with the elephant in the room, the film’s name is a reference to a fake claim of male sexual abuse which serves as a catalyst for the film. This film uses this fake abuse as a joke, it is laughed at, when thought true and then later untrue, it downplays and downright ignores men’s suffering and uses it as a punchline. The fact that the lead, played by Tom Green, fakes claims of male sexual abuse to use to his advantage is all kinds of messed up and sends home a bad message to everyone that sees it.

Sadly, the bad taste doesn’t end there and the film goes out of its way to be as coarse, vulgar and needlessly offensive as it can be, as though by being provocative people will be tricked into thinking the film is something more than the desperate mess that it is.

Overall, a nasty film that shouldn’t have been made.

Pros.

If you close your eyes and listen to a podcast it really isn’t that bad

Cons.

It isn’t funny

It sends out bad messages on male sexual abuse

It also uses abuse as a joke

It is edgy for the sake of it

Green has no talent or business being an actor

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The Hobbit An Unexpected Journey: Greed Is Not Limited To Dragons

3/5

Written by Luke Barnes

Summary

The Lord Of The Ring’s disappointing cousin.

As some of you may know The Lord Of The Rings is one of my favourite trilogies ever, so much so that I may never review them: as even the concept of having to think critically about something I care so deeply about seems hard. However, the Hobbit and it’s various sequels are fair game.

Like many people when I watched An Unexpected Journey in the cinema for the first time I was mixed, and then in the short term afterwards I grew more negative towards the film. However, with time I found within me a fondness for this trilogy so I decided to go back to it, and after all these years I can honestly say that this film was okay, not great, not terrible.

This film has a lot going for it Tolkien’s fantastic world, strong source material and a good cast with the likes of Martin Freeman, Aiden Turner and Richard Armitage and for the most part these factors stop the film from being awful and even create positive feelings towards the Hobbit trilogy, then you get to the ending and yeah…….. Then you remember why everyone dislikes the Hobbit films.

The rather obvious issue with these films as many have pointed out in the past is the pacing. Now I have nothing against the long run times of these films, but I do take umbrage when I feel the audience is being exploited, as in to take a short story contained within one book and then turning it into three films. When we reach the end of the film and realise that we aren’t even going to see Smaug basically at all, it feels as though you have been cheated. It feels like a smack in the face and an executive laughing at you saying, ‘oh better come back for the sequel’.

This clear mentality is what I think really harms this film and its sequels.

Overall, exploitative but not without promise.

Pros.

The cast

The world

There is fun to be had

Cons.

The pacing

The unmistakable feeling of corporate greed

Sing: Seth MacFarlane Really Wants To Be Frank Sinatra

2/5

Written by Luke Barnes

Summary

A gang of animals perform in a singing competition.

In my review of this film’s sequel I said that I hadn’t seen the first film and I doubt I would gain much from going back and watching it, but regardless I knew this was outstanding so I went back and subjected myself to it. My findings being that this was actually better than the sequel, clearly Illumination at least tried with this one, whereas with the sequel they just needed to pump something out to help pay the costs of keeping Minions 2 on the shelf.

I will open by saying I didn’t think any of the voice actors did a particularly good job, in most cases I would be hard pressed to tell you who was who, and I do believe that most of the roles could have been played by any actor with very little different in quality. Moreover, I didn’t think any of the pointless side stories added anything to the characters or the film as whole other than to pad out the runtime.

The song’s were mostly just used in an irritating gimmicky way as they were in the sequel. The only one that I thought was well used was the cover of I’m Still Standing by Elton John sung by Taron Egerton. It wasn’t well used as in it added something to the film, no, it was well used in that it reminded me of Rocketman, a much better film.

The good side to this film is only attainable once one turns there brain off completely, at which time the film becomes mindless fun perhaps even so bad it is good.

Overall, mostly bad but if you turn your brain off it gets better.

Pros.

It is mindless fun

So bad it is good

Cons.

The characters and voice actors

The songs, for the most part

The side stories

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