Climax (2018) (French Subtitles)
2.85 out of 4stars
"French dancers gather in a remote, empty school building to rehearse on a wintry night. The all-night celebration morphs into a hallucinatory nightmare when they learn their sangria is laced with LSD."
A non-stop horror/drama that is best viewed as an artistic experience. It's a visual and emotional treat. The vast majority of the film is improvised and the vast majority of 'actors' are non-actor dancers. That said it, it works. You get the feeling of being in an improvisational dance practice alongside it's 20something aged members having personal and gossip conversations and events over the course of the 'drug fueled' 'soap opera-esque' night that throws you for a loop in mostly the best way possible. The long shots and first hand following camera work/angles of characters and events occurring to them work very well. Only real quip being the last 25minutes or so of the film being headache inducing for me, mostly from a long period of literally 180degrees upside down camera shooting view.
Gremlins (1984)
2.85 out of 4stars
"A young man inadvertently breaks three important rules concerning his new pet and unleashes a horde of malevolently mischievous monsters on a small town."
It's fun rambunctious critter hijinks, nothing truly more, with a target audience issue of sorts. If you haven't see the movie and are an adult, read no further. If you have young children, then use the following as discretionary information for their viewing. There are gleefully childish elements at hand like a cute/cuddly little protagonist named Gizmo that enjoys singings, watching TV, and shouts "bright light" when it bright light's presence. Even the evil gremlins get their day care to elementary school aged 'freak on' with words of "yum yum", mimicking, tricycle riding, dangling from fans/antennas, and even watching/singing along to Snow White and the 7 Dwarves. But then there are the parts I would call "PG-13 worthy"(especially 40 years ago or so, when PG-13 was first introduced), including a 1minute 'shocking' sequence early on that involved decapitation, slightly graphic intentional blendering, explosion by microwave, stabbings, and a strangling. Slasher-esque for sure. Getting past that pre-teen nightmare fuel, you have more things that you might not want your 8-10year old exposed to like gun-use/murder, cross-bows, chainsaws, smoking, drinking, and a sequence that involved melted flesh and a newly dead skeleton. Ultimately, probably a film best suited for the 13year old+ crowd with an inner child still alive in them. I thoroughly enjoyed it.
The Card Counter (2021)
2.80 out of 4stars
"A revenge thriller that tells the story of an ex-military interrogator turned gambler haunted by the ghosts of his past."
Isaac is great, arguably under-utilized, in his portrayal of a man who's penally paid for his past sins, yet has mental scars that may forever haunt his soul. Daily life becomes escapism for him, and a structured low-risk/low-reward nomadic casino to casino card counting lifestyle is his preferred choice (maybe optimal choice given his non-hirable prison background) to live out his time. The fateful meeting of a vengeful 20 something and the face of high stakes poker backers gives him hope for penance or at least the prevention of another soul destroyed by his past military sect's actions. A great dialogue centric slow burn drama ensues, yet is let down by a rushed and underwritten 3rd act that takes place of the course of roughly 4 scenes. There was opportunity for a powerful finale that was undercut by a lack of writer imagination or wrongful directorial/writer choice (or even possibly producer limitations?). All I know is in layman's terms, it's a finale that's gonna piss a lot of people off, not necessarily from the sequence of events that occur, but how they are portrayed. I also would have liked a vaster example of the flashback scenes and evidential crimes that Isaac did to further hammer home the messages and story we were seeing.
Malignant (2021)
2.35 out of 4stars
"Madison is paralyzed by shocking visions of grisly murders, and her torment worsens as she discovers that these waking dreams are in fact terrifying realities."
A stylized, yet cliche ridden and mostly predictable horror murder mystery. Probably the weakest non-sequel horror movie Wan has been "direct-ly" tied too since Dead Silence. That said, it has a twist that you think you might kind of know, but you couldn't possibly guess because it's more odd than you would imagine, in a good way alongside a great finale.