Shameless Self Expression

The title characters (led by Andre Gower’s Sean) are pre-teens who obsess over movie monsters, especially those of the Universal Horror cycle. The gang, and Sean’s younger sister (played by the adorable Ashley Bank) discover an old diary written in German, so they give it to their scary-looking elderly, German neighbour (Leonardo Cimino, as a ‘survivor’ of another sort of ‘monstrosity’) to translate. This leads them on a quest to obtain an all-powerful amulet, however, there are others seeking this amulet; Count Dracula (Duncan Regehr), who has just fended off Prof. Van Helsing (Jack Gwillim) leads The Wolfman (Carl Thibault in makeup, Jon Gries in human form), The ‘Gill Man’ AKA “The Creature From the Black Lagoon” (FX man Tom Woodruff Jr.), The Mummy (Michael Reid MacKay), and Frankenstein’s Monster (an unrecognisable Tom Noonan) in an attempt to acquire the amulet and see that Evil holds the balance of power for eternity! ‘The Monster’, however, proves to be not a bad sort, and

Set during the Gold Rush era, the title characters played by Joaquin Phoenix and John C. Reilly are henchmen doing grunt work for someone known only as The Commodore (a thoroughly wasted – and wordless – Rutger Hauer). Phoenix plays the irritable and short-fused one, with Reilly his more laidback, sensible brother who would really rather not be in the killing business anymore. Nonetheless they are currently in search of a nerdy, chatty chemist named Kermit Warm (Riz Ahmed) who was supposed to be delivered to the brothers by a florid bounty hunter named Morris (Jake Gyllenhaal). However, Morris has been seduced by Kermit’s promise of a guaranteed gold-finding chemical formula. Several interesting actors are stuck in this decidedly un interesting offbeat western from director Jacques Audiard ( “A Prophet” ) and his co-writer Thomas Bidegain ( “A Prophet” ). Based on a 2011 novel, the performances are generally fine, especially those by dependable John C. Reilly (who was apparen