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Triviagrasshopper
Reviews
Early Release (2017)
Amazon Prime v Lifetime Movie Network
Props to Amazon Prime for changing the title to something that doesn't make you roll your eyes when you see the name of what LMN is airing while scrolling through your channel guide.
Empty Cradle
Gone In The Night
Mother, May I Sleep With Danger?
She Cried No
She Fought Alone
She Woke Up
Victim Of The Night
A Friend To Die For
If Someone Had Known
Those are the movies I loved as a teenager because the titles reminded me of Christopher Pike & RL Stine books:
Swim Instructor Nightmare?
The Girl In The Basement?
Killer Stepmom?
Deadly Garage Sale?
The Wrong Blind Date?
The Wrong High School Sweetheart?
Deadly Dance Competition?
Seriously? Lifetime seems to have just stopped caring about creating titles that will entice someone to read the descriptions of the plots and watch. If Amazon Prime hadn't changed the title to Early Release I would have just rolled my eyes and chuckled at the original title before continuing scrolling. This is certainly a better movie than what LMN usually makes now. WTF Lifetime? Do you know how many people are missing out on seeing good movies because if the title sounds ridiculous - the movie itself probably is too.
Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle (2017)
Utterly Hilarious!
Really wishing I hadn't been a snob when I heard this movie was going forward. Topping OG Jumanji? Impossible. Not wasting my time with a remake/spin-off that would tarnish an iconic Robin Williams classic. Robin Williams would have begged for a cameo if he'd been alive to read the script. Jack Black playing a teenage girl? HILARIOUS. They managed to build a sequel that not only holds its own against the original, but isn't really a sequel. I wasn't constantly comparing it to the original. Aside from the backbone of the original Jumanji (the name, the character trapped for 20 + years in the game, etc) storyline, they managed to make it better yet still pay homage to the original. I didn't feel like I was watching a rip-off of the first movie. I haven't even watched the 3rd movie yet but I'm already hoping there's plans for a 4th in the works.
The Suicide Squad (2021)
TDK?????
Am I the only one who's wondering if TDK can detach ANY part of his body?
All I heard about this movie was negative. I'm only 30min in but I'm loving it. Idris Elba is hysterical! I loved the humor. The Weasel killed 27 children. I got it: the old children's rhyme 'Pop Goes the Weasel.'
Alive (1993)
Great Expectations.......
There are way more positive reviews than negative as of 10/2021 but of the negative, the complaints are trivial. This isn't a documentary. It's BASED ON the actual event. It doesn't promise a 100% factual portrayal. It's a movie. It has a script. After 72 days:
They'd be weak.
Dehydrated.
Their teeth would be covered with grime & plaque.
Their hair would be longer.
They'd be volatile from isolation, starvation, pain from their injuries.
They used the wreckage for shelter. Imagine what it smelled like to sit amongst people who hadn't bathed in 72 days.
Do people honestly believe they ran out of food/water but not cigarettes for 72 days?
IT'S A MOVIE. I feel sorry for those who don't understand that and keep in mind as you watch. You missed out on a great film. I watched the Anniversary DVD w/amazing extra features that included interviews with the real survivors as well as them returning to the actual crash site 30 years later. They even spoke to the farmer who described the moment he saw the two survivors on his land. Running and screaming at him. The real Nando was also the technical advisor for the film. Ethan Hawke was able to learn about the character he was playing and how he reacted to the situations they found themselves in. It's kind of hard not to see Nando & Canessa as the "heroes" of the film. The real Nando was the youngest survivor. He was only 19 when he trekked through those mountains. He lost his mother & sister in the crash. Perhaps it was the fact that he was so young and had his whole future ahead of him. Witnessing life being ripped away from so many people through no fault of their own is sobering. He said he was determined to walk out of those mountains so that his father didn't have to spend another moment believing the love of his life and 2 children had perished. What really surprised me was finding out that the survivors remain close friends. They still live near each other. They still hang out. They still play Rugby together. They share a bond no one can truly comprehend unless they were part of the ordeal they went through. It's also heartbreaking that they see the relatives of those who didn't survive regularly because they still live in the same town. That's a hard pill to swallow. Being a survivor of that crash put their lives on a course they didn't choose, but they choose accepting it instead of pushing it away. There a moment in the film where the others are waiting, huddled in the wreckage in total silence. That's when it hits you. That moment. WE know what they don't. They have no clue if Nando & Canessa are even still alive or if they're all just waiting to die from starvation or exposure. Did they have any hope left? It's been 72 days. They've all been presumed dead by the authorities and their loved ones. No one was searching for them. They survived a plane crash. They survived their injuries. Sub-zero temperatures. A blizzard. An avalanche that only 16 of them survived. They resorted to one of the most abhorrent, taboo acts a human is capable of. How desperate were they? Did they give in to try to survive, were they just so weak and hopeless by that point that hunger & desperation got the better of them? Who would know they resorted to eating their friends if they believed they'd never be found? Did they even think they weren't just hallucinating when that silence was broken? Unexpectedly, I burst into tears out of nowhere seeing the helicopters arriving to rescued them. What was it like for them?
It was really touching to find out that those little red shoes being split up so they could be reunited after being rescued was a real thing. Why were those even on board the place since there were no children aboard? Nando smother had purchased them as a gift. They were in her luggage. This isn't just a a movie about survival. It's a movie about endurance. Strength. Spirituality. Resolve. Hope. And acceptance on so many levels. Give yourself a chance to experience what this film offers. It's enlightening.
Spiral: From the Book of Saw (2021)
The Ending Leaves You at the Beginning.
The end of Spiral is exactly what I imagine it felt like for Dr. Gordon to wake up with his leg chained to a pipe in a dirty bathroom. A roofied WTeverlovingF just happened to me? Where am it & how the F did I get here? I'm a diehard fan of the Saw franchise. I read that Chris Rock is a fan too, which led to him getting this spin-off made. Aside from them actually referring to Jigsaw there's no correlation to how the movie was basically about a (VERY easily guessed early on) copycat killer creating weak traps that the REAL Jigsaw killer would find offensive. I didn't watch this expecting it to be like another Saw movie. It's not supposed to be, but it IS supposed to be inspired by the franchise. Spiral is about revenge. Not justice. Jigsaws traps were designed to atone. In Spiral- they were about suffering to exact revenge. Chris Rock- stick to what you know because horror is not the genre you belong in. You're too jaded as a black man in Hollywood to pull off being an angry cop. Samuel L. Jackson- Mother***cer! This wasn't Shaft! What's your excuse for participating in this abomination? Did you lose a bet? You were more believable as a billionaire adrenaline junkie avalanche survivor in Deep Blue Sea that was so self-righteous a shark grabbed your a$$ from land to rip apart in order to shut you up than Chris Rock's crooked cop father. Aren't you almost the same age?
Why did Chris Rock look like he was wearing a fu**ing wax mask of his former self? CONCEALER mother**cker! Get some! I feel like Chris Rock should be forced to pay restitution to James Wan & Leigh Whannell for violating the sanctity of the horror franchise they brought to life.
Gone (2012)
WHY?
It's Amanda Seyfried's performance that tanks this movie. She was great. Truly. But when you have a great actress playing a role in a film so poorly written, it ruins the whole thing. There's a balance that has to be achieved when writing a screenplay of what you need the audience to know about the characters and the situations they find themselves in, and what to leave open for them to interpret.
This film was just missing too many key details. The concept was great, but it seemed like the story was rushed beyond the deadline Jill has to find Molly. We get flashbacks of Jill's abduction. They're intriguing at first and make you want to know what's next but then- no follow through. For example:
Obviously "Jim" is a serial killer who abducts women while they sleep, tie them up and leaves them in a hole in the middle of a forest all day long, until nightfall when he then kills them.
WHY? We get absolutely ZERO info to help understand why he does what he does. Was he abused as a boy? Did a woman break his heart? Did he suffer from some type of trauma or mental illness? "It's time." That's all we get. Jill finds an open bag of dog food at the apartment "Jim" moved out of and immediately we see a flashback of her in the hole finding a bowl of dog food and flipping it over.
What's the significance of it? Why does he need to leave a bowl of dog food for his victims who only live until the sun goes down? What does he do all day after he leaves them in the hole? Sit by and listen to them desperately yell and cry for help? How does he choose these specific women? When did he start killing? Even the story he tells Jill about as she's driving to meet him to rescue Molly makes no sense. Was he the father of the girl in the story, or was he really the kid in the story? There's a vast difference between leaving something open to interpretation for the viewer to fill in, and lazy writing making it seem like they never had a reason in the first place. If they'd provided a bit of context this could have been a really great movie.
All Hallows' Eve (2013)
I watched it for free but still want a refund.
Man. Where to start? The clown had potential. Creepy even though it was no Tim Curry or Bill Skarsgard. But he had potential. That's where it ended though. The babysitter's acting wasn't horrible, until the last 3 minutes. But the stories? Oy. The first one simply made no sense. It had no conclusion, as did the second story. That alien was more of a robot. No fear factor whatsoever. The last story COULD have been good had the actress playing the costume designer been able to fake anything except her calling herself an actress. The gas station attendant was more believable. Maybe I'm too much of a horror critic, but right now I'm wishing I could get the past 1:23 minutes of my life back.
Bohemian Rhapsody (2018)
Absolutely Phenomenal
The only person who could play Freddie Mercury better than Rami Malek would be Freddie Mercury himself. I was blown away by the cast of Bohemian Rhapsody. The story was incredibly well written and there was never a lull. The cast meshed together so well and I think that made their ability to perform playing legends like Queen even better. This was the first time I've seen Rami Malek's acting but I know he's been on the radar for years. His ability to transform into Freddie Mercury goes beyond makeup & wardrobe. His mannerisms and the confidence you know Freddie Mercury for having were so important for whatever Actor ended up with the part to nail. The efforts they made to recreate their iconic Live Aid performance was incredible. There were times when I actually became overwhelmed watching Rami Malek play Freddie. He was one of the most talented musicians in history and it's a huge task to try living up to that but it was like Rami Malek was born to play this role. He was just that incredible. It's especially apparent at the end of the film where old footage of Freddie Mercury performing with Queen is played as the credits roll. I got my intro to Queen after begging my mom to buy me Wayne's World when I was 12. Until last year when the announcement this biopic was in the works I didn't even realize I was a Queen fan. I clicked on a Queen greatest hits album that was trending on iTunes only to discover that songs I'd been listening to whenever they came on the radio were not by different bands as I had thought. Queen was just so exceptionally talented that their sound never stopped evolving and it was impossible to hear a song by them and know right away who the artist is. If you're debating seeing this movie, stop. Get in your car, and go to the theater. Zero regrets. If Rami Malek doesn't at least earn a Best Actor nomination for his role as Freddie Mercury this year I won't even bother watching the Academy Awards. Personally, I think they ought to just give it to him now. He's was simply the perfect man to play Freddie.