Shameless Self Expression

Although I’m personally not terribly interested in the subject of lethal injection itself, this 2015 documentary from Will Francome and Mark Pizzey does at least focus on a few different points of view on the topic of capital punishment. However, the downside in that is that the film ends up just a tad unfocussed at times. For the most part it focuses on lethal injection, but it also tries to cram in some other stuff, albeit stuff that was more interesting to me, personally. It’s ultimately not as strong as it could’ve been. It’s still worth a look if you’re interested in the subject matter, or if you want to see Florida State’s Attorney Angela Corey make herself look absolutely horrid for accusing a victim’s mother of being more concerned with publicity than in the proper punishment for her child’s murderer. You don’t get to do that to a person who has gone through such a tragedy. The film is on its surest ground when dealing with wrongful convictions and the agonising wait ...

Set in near-future Canada where two sisters (Ellen Page and Evan Rachel Wood) are left to fend for themselves on their property in the woods, while there appears to be a massive electricity outage. An outage that lasts months, with their supplies running out, and two sisters with different ideas on how to use said supplies. Oh look, Michael Eklund has just turned up on their property. He sure looks friendly. Callum Keith Rennie is the girls’ father, Wendy Crewson plays their mother in flashbacks, and Max Minghella plays a nice guy Page is dating who wants her to go away with him to Boston. Good performances and nice photography don’t quite get this 2015 adaptation of the Jean Hegland near-future sci-fi/drama from writer-director Patricia Rozema ( “When Night is Falling” , “Mansfield Park” ) over the line. A lot of oestrogen in front of and behind the camera doesn’t add enough of a difference to counter the fact that this has been done to death. The main conflict meanwhile, is...

The story of the DeFeo family murders in a house later purchased by the Lutz family of hucksters who supposedly experienced some spooky stuff that inspired a book that was turned into the film “The Amityville Horror” . Diane Franklin and bullying Paul Ben-Victor are the volatile parents, John Robinson (looking completely different from his debut performance in “Elephant” ) is their troubled son, whilst Burt Young and Lainie Kazan are the superfluous grandparents. Although the Lutz family are shameless bullshit artists whom no one hopefully believes anymore (original author Jay Anson deserves some of the scorn too, admittedly), the 1979 film “The Amityville Horror” can at least claim to be a decent and iconic haunted/evil house movie. I’d go so far as to say that it’s a bit underrated, if entirely stupid. The house was scary as fuck, and the film worked OK for what it was. The sequels were almost entirely dreadful (I seem to recall the 3D one being tolerable at least), the re...

The story of astronaut Neil Armstrong (Ryan Gosling), who is about to go down in history being the first man to walk on the moon, circa 1969. Among the famous characters, Corey Stoll plays Buzz Aldrin, Shea Whigham is Gus Grissom, Pablo Schreiber plays the infamous Jim Lovell, whilst Jason Clarke is Armstrong’s friend and neighbour, Ed White. Ciaran Hinds and Kyle Chandler play the NASA men on the ground, whilst Claire Foy plays Armstrong’s nervy wife. Real-life Astronaut movies aren’t particularly my bag, the most popular ones like “The Right Stuff” and “Apollo 13” left me particularly cold. I won’t count “Hidden Figures” since it’s entirely about figures on the ground, but I liked that film nonetheless. I’ve gotta say I entered into this 2018 flick from director Damien Chazelle ( “Whiplash” , “La La Land” ) and screenwriter Josh Singer ( “The Fifth Estate” , “Spotlight” , “The Post” ) rather trepidatiously, as the film didn’t especially set the box-office alight nor were...

Clint Eastwood is macho detective Wes Block, a divorced father of two (Alison Eastwood and Jenny Beck) investigating some kinky serial homicides of hookers. He becomes involved with a feminist self-defence instructor named Beryl (Genevieve Bujold), but also has connections to several of the hookers. Intimate and rather lurid connections with them, in fact. Seems he and the killer have a thing or two in kinky common. Dan Hedaya plays a fellow cop, and Rebecca Perle plays an ice block-sucking hooker. This 1984 kinky crime-thriller from writer-director Richard Tuggle (whose only other film credits were writing the terrific “Escape From Alcatraz” , and directing the Anthony Michael Hall flick “Out of Bounds” ) is a sleazy bore with an uncomfortably cast Clint Eastwood at his most wooden in one of his worst films. Less “Dirty Harry” and more Z-grade 80s Charles Bronson thriller Cannon fodder, Eastwood is either unwilling or incapable of delivering the kind of 3-D performance requ...

Adonis Creed (Michael B. Jordan) wins the title, and finds himself immediately targeted by a familiar and hated name: Drago. This time it’s up-and-coming Viktor Drago (Florian Munteanu), son of hardened Russian boxer Ivan Drago (Dolph Lundgren). Ivan of course being the terrible (shut up) killer of Adonis’ father Apollo Creed in “Rocky IV” . Adonis’ mentor (and Ivan Drago’s conqueror) Rocky Balboa (Sly Stallone), thinks it would be a grave (literally) mistake for Adonis to take the fight. Meanwhile, Adonis’ squeeze Bianca is pregnant with their first child. I rather enjoyed the first “Creed” , it was easily the best “Rocky” film since “Rocky III” . However, that’s obviously faint praise at the end there. I don’t think it entirely managed to fit both the Rocky and Creed characters’ stories into a fully comfortable whole to where it was a really good film. Part of that is due to the almost complete lack of threat/conflict in the form of an opponent for Jordan’s Adonis Creed...

Although it seems to be largely an American phenomenon, you’ve probably heard about how missing kids’ photos have adorned milk cartons over the years (A brilliant idea, whoever came up with it, by the way). This 2014 documentary by David Beilinson is about the first such missing kid, 12 year-old newspaper boy Johnny Gosch. Actually, it’s predominantly concerned with his loving, tirelessly crusading mother Noreen. I must admit I did not immediately warm to Noreen in this film. An early piece of news footage showing Noreen addressing the media in the hopes of getting information about the whereabouts of her son seemed forced and fake to me. It seemed like Noreen was something out of a corny made-for-TV movie. She was saying words that I just didn’t think a worried mother would ever really say. I was suspicious. Based on every other moment in the film with Noreen, I feel ashamed for questioning her for even a second. I don’t know what was going on in that press conference footage, but...

Smart high school student Scott Baio gets involved in an explosion at the school science lab, which leaves him with newfound special powers: Telekinesis. Enter opportunistic best friend Willie Aames who sees dollar signs in his bud’s special powers. Felice Schachter plays a geeky girl clearly crushing on Baio, Heather Thomas is the school hottie, Scatman Crothers the alcoholic sports coach. A pre- “Charles in Charge” team-up of Scott Baio and Willie ‘Bibleman’ Aames, idols for teen girls of the 80s, this 1982 film from Robert J. Rosenthal (whose only other directing effort was a previous comedy called “Malibu Beach” ) and his co-writer Bruce Rubin (who wrote “Blood Rage” after this and…that’s about it) has a bit of a cult following. One of the few 80s sex comedies I’d yet to see, it proved to be a massive disappointment. It’s stupid, boring, and aside from some clearly post-production nudity, closer to one of those goofy Disney comedies Kurt Russell made early in his career...