killercharm

A noir flick based on a Hemingway story, the opening scene is magnificent. This is a b&w tale told in noir pacing through the bifurcated windshield of the 1940s. Two killers show up in a small-town diner looking for the Swede. They want to kill him; it's what they do, and they're not quiet about it. This is a story told in flash-back. One highlight is the Swede's downfall, the femme fatale, Ava Gardner at her peak. She no good. All the men around her, as she's only surrounded by men, are rough but she's the devil. She looks like a different species when you first set eyes on her. The room is full of men who roughly look and dress alike and then you see her, on the bed *surprise* looking like an alien being. She's all smooth purring greed, which is lust-adjacent, so. Fact is, everybody in this flick is tough as nails. The best friend cop, the jilted good-girl girlfriend, the insurance investigator, even the lone diner who faced the killers. In this noir world everyone has as an iron will that's a bit twisted.

This is a an engrossing space alien horror that grabs you and holds on. There's no dialog and you don't miss dialog. The aliens are great but it is the sound design that takes the cake in this flick. The aliens' movements and speech sounds and patterns are the ticket in this flick. A solitary young woman who is shunned by her townsfolk spends her time alone, thinking of her dead mother and sister. One night she is terrified to find space aliens in her house, they are rummaging around like they own the joint and have powers. The ending is lovely in that you can interpret it three ways and each of them is satisfying. Great movie.

Finally, a Gore Verbinksi movie I like, and it's an animated Chinatown (1974)! This flick has exquisite animation and writing, and Johnny Depp is just right for the part. He deftly plays a metrosexual theatre-type of a chameleon living what he thinks is his best life until he is catapulted out of his comfy-cozy existence as a kept pet into the middle of the desert. In his quest to return he encounters a Carlos Casteneda armadillo who points out that perhaps his former caged existence wasn't worth returning to because, for instance, he had no friends. His "friends" were plastic toys. The armadillo directs him on his new quest: water. It's a delightful depiction of an engaging story with a scrillion movie references, maybe more.

In an Argentine backwoods a rotten is found in a shack of a woman and her children. The rotten is a person that has been possessed for over a year. Now it's huge, swollen and barely looks human anymore; it's one of her sons. This is a wonderfully dreadful horror flick. It's about as good as Rugna's magnificent movie Terrified 2017, another Argentine gem of a horror movie. In this movie two brothers find the rotten and try to do the right thing but there are seven rules to follow or the rotten won't be killed but only further spread. The mood is tense and fearful throughout. The dread only grows until it gets close. Too close.

This is a Spanish xmas animation about a ne'er-do-much son of a rich and powerful postmaster general born with a silver spoon in his mouth, who is sent to the arctic circle by his father to run the local post office. He starts out working only because if he doesn't meet a seemingly impossible quota he will be stuck in this wilderness boondocks with little to no creature comforts. Luckily when he finally looks around at the lives others have to deal with he realizes what true hardship means. The animation is engrossing enough, the acting is good enough and the writing is good enough, but that's all.

A Colorado housewife is hypnotized at a party. During her session it becomes clear that she is something special when it comes to hypnotism; while under she recalls past lives! The party-goers split, with some finding the phenomenon interesting and some demanding it stop. The hypnotist is swept up by his new finding and decides to ask to keep hypnotizing her so he can document the case. He has to fight the powers that be and shore up backers every step of the way. This flick is based on the best-selling book by Morey Bernstein, which is in turn based on the real-life story of Virginia Tighe Morrow, a Pueblo, Colorado homemaker. This is an interesting enough movie and Theresa Wright always draws the attention. The rest of the cast not so much. The whole thing is rickety in its 50s rigidity. When you put the two together, the hinky cast and the 1950s condescension toward women, it can try a nerve or two, but, nonetheless, I find the movie interesting.

This science-fiction horror story is a giant paint-by-numbers exercise in mediocrity until one fantastic moment at the end. As fab as that last moment is, it's not worth the rest of the disappointing movie. In this near-future story humanity has run out of energy and people are dropping in droves. They set up a super duper collider that is so dangerous it has to be at a remove from Earth. They've run a number of unsuccessful tries, but once they become successful at running it for a fraction of a second things start to die, things start to kill. The whole story on the orbiting ship is ho-hum, one so-so death after another. This is the least of the Cloverfield flicks.

Devastating documentary about Anthony Sowell, the unbelievably sleazy serial killer who had his way with Cleveland because the police didn't care to spend the time and energy to investigate missing women who were drug addicts, sex workers, poor, of color...they didn't stand a chance in that environment and Sowell knew it. He stashed the women's bodies all over his filthy house, holding his whole neighborhood hostage to the nasty smell emanating from his messed-up house. One of his victims, Vanessa Gay, who is a survivor is so awesome in her testimony and in her outlook. She faces odds I could never imagine and is impressive. The movie is well written, well-paced and engrossing to the end.

This is a documentary with heart, big bursting heart. To watch these children living in the squalor they find themselves in - the girls wash dishes on the floor, there are no windows, they move to the next room when men come to see their mother so they only have to hear her make her living as a sex worker and not have to watch it - is heart breaking. To watch Zana Briski do what she can is heart lifting. Even in this tiny world where nobody has much if anything the boys are still given preferential treatment. Here they are at the bottom and they still buy into the myth that the boys should deserve and the girls work. The directors present this world in a way that grabs you and keeps you interested. They present the kids and their world intimately. They give the kids cameras and teach them photography and let them loose. The shots these kids take are wonderful and communicate their place in the world and their view.

Somewhat reminiscent of Flowers in the Attic, this is a great Spanish, English-language psychological horror mystery set in 1968. The Brit family of a convicted felon who escapes prison flees across the pond to live in rural Maine, USA. They must fly under the radar lest their violent father find them. When their ailing mother dies the four children must band together to keep legal off their backs until the oldest turns 21 and comes into ownership of the house. This house that they live in, that their mother was brought up in, has a ghost. This is an enchanting movie about a sweet family with a love story between the oldest boy and Allie, played by Anya Taylor-Joy, thrown in. The two pointy-lipped powerhouse females are outstanding. They each of them, Anya Taylor-Joy and Mia Goth both debuted in movies to beat. The VVitch and Nymphomaniac are so good and the women were both mind-blowing in their debut roles. They each of them bring it here in this flick and the casting is a joy to behold. On top of that the story delivers delicious tension that ratchets up nicely.

I knew there was a hidden scene. This is a flick about a group of 20-somethings who converge at one of their parents' big rich house to hold a hurricane party. They're all trust-fund babies and they constantly talk trash about each other. Two of them bring their new S. O., thereby introducing unknowns. They start to play a game of what I know as Killer (or Murder) and what they call Bodies Bodies Bodies. Then one of them winds up dead. From that moment it's like they all loose they mind. In trying to figure out who dunnit they go mental and jump rails into real murder. This movie is slick; it's fun to watch, especially trying to follow in the darkened scenes, but it's not all that. A24 is so spot on that this near miss, even though it might be my least favorite A24 production, is still pretty good.

The truism that one learns more from the edges than from the center is pounded home in 21st century horror cinema. In this and many Blumhouse Productions movies there is attention paid to the details wherein we find god. This movie is a knock-out. It is beautifully shot, lit, edited, I'll say produced in an attempt to cover the bases. Serial killing is presented as a replacement for cutting. We have graduated to killing others from hurting ourselves. Two quantum leaps in one move. Seems too heady to me. Methinks they'll get caught, especially if they skipped the cutting stage, the one where you learn to hide things, things like evidence on yourself, your tools, the blood - when cutting happens and as it continues to bleed. That learning helps you to hit the ground running when you graduate to serial killing. Well, of course things get dodgy when our hero (!) makes the biggest mistake that you learn NEVER to commit and that is he kills someone he knows. He had to be saved like the baby he is. With these three characters (mother, son and wife) it becomes a culture. Sad. See what happens when you self-diagnose and self-medicate?

Fabrice Du Welz is a director to watch, so far he's three for three. In this magnificent revenge-action-thriller flick Jacob King, a South African man living in Cape Town, flies to LA to help his sister Bianca after receiving her frantic phone call for help. She has something "they" want. When he arrives at her apartment she has disappeared. No one wants to help, but he does receive a disturbing message to look for his beloved sister in the morgue. This movie is a brutal tale. King dispenses as much pain as he must to learn his sister's story, but the pain that shows through the brother's eyes is akin to horror.

I have come to expect more from Christopher Landon, but this is ok - it's diverting enough. It's no Freaky but more like a family friendly version, like a live-action Casper the Ghost. In this ghost story the family that moves into the Chicagoland haunted house finds a sweet mute guy ghost in the attic who can't remember his life. When the vids they make of their ghost - Ernest - go viral all hell breaks loose. The CIA comes after him and the kid who bonded with Ernest the ghost, Winston, tries to help him find his answers. All this brouhaha over the ghost grows Winston up and he even finds love.

This SF movie is a delightful Star Trek parody drenched in wicked humor and wicked cool acting. In this Star Trek world the beloved show is called Galaxy Quest. It was cancelled years ago. At one of their conventions the star, who played the captain, is approached by actual space aliens in need who have mistaken their broadcast for historical documents, for one thing the aliens don't have make-believe stories in their culture. He doesn't think they're real until he wakes up in their space sport. It's cleverly written and giggly. You can feel the love for Star Trek, it's suffused throughout the flick.

This is the Marilyn Monroe movie. This is the one where she glows. She glows in other flicks but this is the one. In some scenes she doesn't even look real. Her costumes are cantilevered to her bod and her hair and makeup never look better. In this darling movie Marilyn Monroe and Jane Russell are a couple of singing and dancing dolls who are just looking to fall in love, that's all. One has eyes for manly men and one has eyes for diamonds. Marilyn is the whole movie: her walk, her talk, her fake dancing, and her condescension for those who don't think like her are all priceless and hilarious.

This quintessential mid-sixties movie isn't actually a comedy. There's nothing funny in it. Instead it's just fun to look at the overblown costumes and décor. There's also a great dance scene wherein Ms. MacLaine shows her chops and they're impressive. It's one of the hare-brained 60s flicks where the preposterous premise is supposed to pass for humor but it's just preposterous. This one is that the heroine, played by Shirley MacLaine, keeps marrying men who are happy until she gets ahold of them and they get rich. The riches destroy their happiness. She's only happy when she can get rid of the millions and land a loser.

Highly entertaining B movie with a true scream queen, Susan Tyrrell, at the helm. She has raised her orphaned nephew since his very young childhood, when his parents were killed in an awful car accident. She was babysitting when it happened and she just kept right on living in the house and raising the boy. She loves him like he's her own and he loves his auntie. Only thing is she's a tad jealous when it comes to her nephew. She doesn't even want him to go to college because that would mean leaving her alone. She's not down with that and she especially isn't down with him having a girlfriend. Of course he has a girl and she's not safe, not as long as she's in the auntie's sights, but then, who is.

This is a sweet and silly Sherlock Holmes story with Michael Caine as Holmes and Ben Kingsley as Dr. Watson. The two are delightful together, as they are with Pat Keen as Mrs. Hudson. In this Sherlock Holmes story they are combating a counterfeiting ring that is printing five-pound banknotes. We meet Prof. Moriarty, who is slick, portrayed by Paul Freeman. Lo, he's at the helm of this counterfeit ring. As usual he's vicious and is not to be trifled with. This Holmes is actually a dunce, hired by Dr. Watson to be the front man. This Dr. Watson is actually the one solving the crimes and Holmes is a womanizing drunk, but a lovable drunk. When it appears that Dr. Watson has been killed it sounds a wake up alarm inside Holmes, who finally steps up.

Yawn. This flick is a movie made for teens. That in itself isn't enough to keep me from liking a movie but this one doesn't keep my interest. It's based on a Stephen King story about a boy who befriends a millionaire who hires the boy to read to him. When the millionaire dies the boy, Craig, slips his cell into the coffin at the last minute when he goes to the funeral. As a wistful kind of way to communicate with the dead man Craig leaves him a call and lo and behold he later finds a text from Mr. Harrigan! At first he's convinced the man is buried alive but finally he comes to understand that that is not the case. What starts to happen is that if you are an enemy of Craig's Mr. Harrigan takes care of you, in a deadly kind of way. This movie leaves a lot to be desired. I wonder if the target audience likes it.

This is a basic B flat flick about a woman who is tricked into believing that she murdered her husband when in fact he is still alive. She is front and center following a trend of the 90s focusing on women in peril. She is convicted of the murder and loses her son to the woman she asks for help taking care of him while she serves time. She goes through hell and high water to find the despicable man she used to call hers. This movie is so flat, so undeveloped it goes over like a lead balloon. The direction and the acting makes me yawn. The last minute is the best part; for some reason I'm not quite sure of the hug is effective.

This is a hilariously fun Hammer flick. It's got great storytelling as well as great dancing. The shame about the dancing is that it is absurdly easy to see that the dancing isn't done by the beautiful Mr. Christopher Lee. This is one of the many reasons Hammer films never are great. The particular version of cost-cutting that they tend to choose are detrimental. Nonetheless there is much to enjoy in this Hammer flick. Mr. Lee plays the titular bad-guy with relish. Rasputin follows his nose until he reaches great heights, bedding all the women he can and leaving them in his wake. It's the story of the best bad-guy in history, the religious fanatic who had his own khlyst cult, which was even more perverse than the true khlysts. Besides his over indulgences in sex he also adores liquor. Once he cures the tsarevich of an attack of hemophilia the tsarina takes him under her wing. It's goofy, sloppy fun.

Great stuff that's most effective. It hits like a one-two punch. The acting and directing are razor sharp. The whole flick draws you in and won't let go. A tiny family of three experience a home invasion from what appears to be a cult. They claim that they are not a cult, that they are not even religious. Each of them has received visions that led them here. What their visions show is that the end of the world is nigh and the only way to stop it is for this tiny family to decide on an awful, despicable decision. They have to make an unfathomable choice in order to save humanity. How do you make this decision if you don't even believe these people?

It's worth the watch but only if you are inclined toward the messy kind of movies that the Cronenbergs make. This is the least of Mia Goth's flicks that I have seen. I dig the hell out of her but in this movie her voice and mannerisms came to grate on me, and not in the good way. Nonetheless there are moments wherein she is her usual delight. There are times where the whole movie is delightful but they don't last long. In this story we find ourselves on an island resort where the rich visitors can buy their way out of prison time or even the death penalty by paying for their effigy to be killed instead. Of course this leads to the complete loss of conscience, turning the rich visitors into evil caricatures of themselves. We watch as they descend as a group, turning on the newbie as a means of hazing. It doesn't ever get pretty, which is forgivable, but, worse, it never gets deep.

This is a movie of silly sweetness about an all American blond who determines to attend Harvard Law School when her boyfriend dumps her. He's about to start at Harvard and, if he's going to be a senator by the time he's 30 he needs a Jackie, not a Marilyn. After he dumps Elle, our heroine, he picks back up with his prep school girlfriend, who is also going to Harvard. The three of them find themselves sharing classes, and study groups until Elle the blond begins to prove herself. This flick is full of great actors who are just as silly as they can be and it's diverting. I can't say that much of it is actually funny but it's fun to look at.