The Hatchet Wielding Hitchhiker | Movie Review

If you were alive in the United States in 2013, you probably remember this story. It is the epitome of the phrase “going viral.” And now Netflix has released a documentary about it called The Hatchet Wielding Hitchhiker.

In February 2013, Kai Lawrence was hitchhiking around California. He caught a ride with Jett Simmons McBride, who crashed his car into a construction worker, pinning him against a truck. When a woman who witnessed the accident got out to help, McBride attacked her. Heroically, Kai attacked McBride with a hatchet he was carrying, saving the woman from harm. After an interview with a reporter from the local news station, Kai’s story went viral. But what happened to Kai after his rocket to stardom stalled?

I remember this story vividly. Like most of the country, I also got a kick out of Kai. And like most viral news stories, I forgot about him almost immediately. I seem to recall reading some article about him being arrested for murder but I wasn’t interested enough to really read it. In short, this documentary seemed targeted to someone like me.

The documentary doesn’t actually talk to Kai himself. Instead, it revolves around all of the people that surrounded Kai at the time, as well as some of his family members. We hear from the reporter that originally broke the Kai story, who seems to be the only person that Kai still talks to. We also hear from the variety of people in the entertainment business that wanted to make Kai a superstar. People that wanted to give him a reality show or booked him for talk shows or just wanted a piece of the viral Kai cake.

While all of this is interesting in a way, it does feel like we don’t get to know Kai as a person. We only get to see him through the lenses of these people that wanted something from him. Jessob Reisbeck, the original reporter that broke the story, is the only one that doesn’t seem to want something from Kai. The only reason he is involved in the story is he is the only person Kai will talk with so Reisbeck ends up as a sort of go-between for Kai and the rest of the world.

We do hear from Kai’s mother and a friend who knew him in school but both of those stories feel fake. Shirley McGillvary, Kai’s mother, sounds like she is only telling stories that don’t make her look like a terrible mom. But her stories don’t make her look all that good either. I can’t tell if she really abused Kai when he was a child or if she was just overwhelmed by motherhood. As for Kai’s school friend, he barely gives us any backstory about Kai’s childhood. He was only there to throw his two cents into a Netflix documentary.

Overall, I thought The Hatchet Wielding Hitchhiker did a decent job of telling the story of Kai. However, without talking to Kai himself, it’s difficult to tell how much of the documentary is true. If it isn’t on film, it very well may be a lie. A lot of people seemed to want a piece of Kai and that makes me feel bad for him. Not bad enough to believe that he didn’t murder Joseph Galfy in May 2013. But it is possible that Kai was attacked like he claims. Everyone seemed to want a piece of him at the time and that just sucks.

Shin Ultraman | Movie Review

Whenever we can, my husband and I try to go see any Japanese movies aired by Fathom Events. We saw Shin Godzilla back in 2016. This week we saw Shin Ultraman. Both movies were made by Shinji Higuchi and Hideaki Anno. A third movie is scheduled to be released in Japan later this year but let’s not get ahead of ourselves. First, Shin Ultraman.

Giant monsters called kaiju are attacking Japan. The government has formed a taskforce called S-Class Species Suppression Protocol or SSSP to handle them. During a particularly difficult kaiju attack, an extraterrestrial in the shape of a giant human appears and dispatches the beast. But now the SSSP has a new problem - is Ultraman a friend or foe?

In an attempt to reboot the original series into one 2-hour movie, the kaiju fights are very short. The movie starts with a list of kaiju and how they were killed. Ultraman fights two kaiju then the first “big bad” is introduced. Yes, there is more than one Big Bad. There are actually three Big Bad enemies. Ultraman fights five enemies in total. Unfortunately, the kaiju fights are usually the focus of tokusatsu movies. By minimizing the fights, the movie seems to drag a lot.

Since the fights are so short, the time is filled with a lot of talking. We aren’t given the time to see the kaiju or Ultraman or the baddies do much so it has to be explained to us. This also makes the movie drag. Seriously, this was the longest 2-hour movie I have ever watched.

But there are some good parts. Masami Nagasawa was wonderful as Hiroko Asami. She brought the perfect amount of humor to a movie that sorely needed it. Everyone else was fine but it really was Nagasawa that made Shin Ultraman worth watching. OK, really she is the only good part.

Shin Ultraman really is a Japanese movie for a Japanese audience. While that isn’t a bad thing, we were shown an interview with the director, Shinji Higuchi, before the movie. Higuchi noted the differences between Japanese audiences and American audiences and he hoped that American audiences would enjoy his movie. I didn’t hate the movie. As a matter of fact, I did find a lot of it quite enjoyable. But I’m not sure a lot of people would feel the same.

M3gan | Movie Review

What better way to unwind from the holiday season than a movie about a murderous robotic doll? I have been looking forward to this movie but was it worth it?

Gemma (Allison Williams) develops robotic toys for children. When her sister and brother-in-law are killed in a car accident, her niece, Cady (Violet McGraw), comes to live with her. Seeing that Cady is having difficulty transitioning to life without her parents, Gemma gives her the robotic friend prototype she is working on, codenamed M3gan. M3gan is perfect - she listens, she teaches, she protects. But maybe she is a little too perfect.

While M3gan isn’t the perfect movie, it is a lot of fun. On the positive side, M3gan isn’t the scary Chucky-style doll killer we are used to. Instead of a serial killer doll, we are faced with an AI who is fulfilling their duties to the extreme. This isn’t anything new. We see it in movies like Wall-E or Alien. In M3gan’s case, her duty was to protect Cady’s emotional and physical well-being. When those things are threatened, M3gan removes them. As a result, we actually cheer on M3gan’s murderous tendencies for the most part.

Thankfully, I don’t think there are too many negatives to the movie. Lydia (Amy Usherwood), the therapist that comes in to evaluate Cady, is awful. There is a scene where Lydia wants to watch Gemma play with Cady but then she contradicts everything she says. Lydia says to let Cady lead the play session (basically telling Gemma to not tell Cady how to play with a toy) then she, herself, tells Cady how to play. I understand why Lydia has to exist in the movie. I think it would have been better if she wasn’t so intolerable the first time we meet her. It makes all of the other interactions with her cringey.

I also wish that Gemma’s co-workers, Tess (Jen Van Epps) and Cole (Brian Jordan Alvarez), were used a bit better. We only ever see them in the robotic lab. Considering that M3gan is now out in the world, they could have made the trip to Gemma’s house to give feedback on how they think M3gan is progressing. As it is, they have to make calls on M3gan’s behavior solely based on what Gemma tells them. They get biased information instead of getting the information for themselves.

With all of that in mind, I still highly enjoyed M3gan. It was a great story about attachments children make and the role parents play in their lives. I will probably watch it again when it comes to a streaming service.

X | Movie Review

My husband and I watched X awhile ago. Originally, I wasn’t planning on writing a review for it, but then the sequel came out and I figured I might as well review them both.

The year is 1979. A group of filmmakers travels to a farmhouse in Texas to film a new pornographic movie. Their movie, The Farmer’s Daughter, is directed by Wayne Gilroy (Martin Henderson) and stars Bobby-Lynne (Brittany Snow) and Jackson Hole (Scott Mescudi). Wayne’s girlfriend, Maxine Minx (Mia Goth), will also appear in the film. However, Lorraine (Jenna Ortega) is only there to help her director boyfriend, RJ (Owen Campbell). That is, until she gets drawn in by the allure of the sex scenes. Then she wants to take part as well. Meanwhile, Howard (Stephen Ure), the owner of the farmhouse, is rather mean to the group. But it’s his wife, Pearl (Mia Goth), that they really need to avoid.

Like most A24 films, X is an unusual type of movie. Even though there are movies about making porn movies, they don’t quite follow the same format as X. We do see sex scenes (there is only one scene of full frontal nudity and it’s not related to The Farmer’s Daughter) but, for the most part, they don’t come across as sexy. They come across as almost robotic, which is probably pretty accurate for the porn industry. Something that needs to be done in order to become a rich and famous star.

In addition, the villain in this slasher film isn’t someone who can chase young adults across a farm in order to murder them. And still, most of the cast still ends up dead. It’s an interesting twist on the slasher genre of horror movie that definitely keeps you on your toes. Just when you think that the killer can’t possibly do something, that something happens anyway.

While I want to recommend X, it’s a difficult movie to actually recommend. It’s one of those movies that people will either love or hate. It is A24, after all. With that said, this is the middle film of a trilogy. The prequel, Pearl, came out on September 16 and the sequel, Maxxxine, will be coming out next year. You might want to wait until all three movies are out before watching this one.

Do Revenge | Movie Review

As I was scrolling through Netflix, trying to find a movie or series to talk about, I came across Do Revenge. Led by Maya Hawke from Stranger Things and Camila Mendes from Riverdale, I just knew I had to check it out.

Drea (Camila Mendes) is one of the popular girls at Rosehill Country Day High School. When her boyfriend shares an intimate video she made for him, her life is all but ruined. At tennis camp that summer, Drea meets Eleanor (Maya Hawke), who is transferring to Rosehill next year. The two soon find out that they have both been terribly wronged by people they thought were friends. So they team up to take down each other’s bullies.

Do Revenge is based on the Alfred Hitchcock movie, Strangers on a Train. While I’ve never seen the movie myself, I am familiar with the plot. Familiar enough that I actually thought it was the plot to a completely different movie. My bad.

Where Strangers on a Train dealt with adults and actual murder, Do Revenge takes the plot to high school and goes with social murder instead of physical harm. And I actually think this movie handles the change quite well. There is an additional twist toward the end that Hitchcock did not have in his movie, which I think raises the stakes a bit. There definitely were some parts that kept me on the edge of my seat. I thought I knew what was going to happen but it was worse than I thought.

The acting in Netflix original movies can be hit or miss. Thankfully, this one is a hit. Hawke’s Eleanor starts off as an awkward newcomer but Hawke is able to pull over the amazing transformation into one of the “cool kids” and make us believe that she would get accepted into their group. Meanwhile, Mendes is perfect as Hawke’s conniving counterpart. Adding to the talent is Sarah Michelle Gellar as the school’s headmistress, Austin Abrams as Drea’s ex-boyfriend Max, and Alisha Boe as Drea’s ex-best friend Tara. All of them are their own special brand of terribleness.

Yes, Do Revenge should be on your “must see” list. Even if you can’t get into the high school drama, which you know you will, you will absolutely fall in love with the soundtrack. I found myself singing along more than once. For me, that is always a sign of a good show. Take the plunge and add it to your Netflix queue.

Pinocchio | Movie Review

Disney is really into their live action remakes nowadays. The latest one, Pinocchio, was released on Disney+ on September 8. After watching it, I understand why they chose not to release it in theaters.

Geppetto (Tom Hanks) is an old woodcarver in a small Italian village. One night, a cricket named Jiminy (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) wanders into Geppetto’s house. The insect finds the old man putting the finishing touches on a wooden marionette named Pinocchio (Benjamin Evan Ainsworth). Before going to sleep that night, Geppetto makes a wish on the evening star. As he slumbers, the Blue Fairy (Cynthia Erivo) visits to bring Pinocchio to life. She assigns Jiminy as Pinocchio’s conscience as she leaves. Pinocchio, wanting to be a real boy, tries his best to learn the right way to live his life.

There are a lot of people that didn’t like this movie. This is, after all, almost a beat by beat remake of the 1940 animated version. There are a few new characters. Most notably, Fabiana (Kyanne Lamaya) and her puppet Sabina (Jaquita Ta’le), who work at Stromboli’s (Giuseppe Battiston) puppet show, and Sofia (Lorraine Bracco), a seagull who befriends Geppetto. But I’m not sure they were enough to really differentiate the live action from the original.

Personally, I didn’t hate the movie. But I didn’t love it either. There were a lot of scenes where I had trouble hearing what Geppetto was saying because Hanks kept mumbling all of the lines. It was the main reason I ended up watching the movie with subtitles on. In addition, the big scene where the kids are getting scooped up to go to Pleasure Island is so dark that I couldn’t tell who was who. It made it a little difficult to tell the kids apart from each other, except for Lampwick (Lewin Lloyd) because Pinocchio says his name every five seconds.

With that said, there were some very good parts. Fabiana and Sabina were perfect. I loved them so much. Casting Keegan-Michael Key as Honest John was brilliant. He is so good in evil roles. Finally, while I was originally confused about Monstro (thanks original Pinocchio), I loved his design. Instead of just being a giant whale, they actually made him a giant sea monster with tentacles and rows of sharp teeth. It definitely made him a bit more fearsome than the original designs.

Would I recommend watching the live action version over the animated version? Probably not. However, you aren’t going to hate yourself if you decide to watch this one instead. I don’t understand why it seems to get as much hate as it does. There are absolutely worse live action remakes out there. I’m looking at you, Beauty and the Beast.

Elvis | Movie Review

A lot of people know the story of Elvis Presley, right? A small town white boy learns how to sing like the black people around him then he makes it big. With Baz Luhrmann’s new movie, Elvis, we hear the tale from Elvis’s manager, Colonel Tom Parker.

As Colonel Tom Parker (Tom Hanks) lies dying in a hospital room in 1997, he thinks back on how he met the King of Rock n’ Roll, Elvis Presley (Austin Butler), and how they effected each other’s lives.

I know that seems like a very short description of the movie but anything beyond that would just be a biography on Elvis’s life. The movie takes us from the time Parker meets Elvis in Louisiana in 1954 (with some flashbacks to Elvis as a child) through to the death of Elvis in 1977 and the death of Parker himself in 1997. Through that time we see the ups and the downs. The highs of Elvis loving performing in front of people to the downs of Elvis buckling under the pressure of everyone depending on him to continue making tons of money. They even include Parker filling Elvis with all sorts of drugs to make sure he could perform every single night. It was a sad, lonely life.

it’s no surprise that most people who have watched Elvis loved it. The movie was both written and directed by Baz Luhrmann, the man who famously brought us such brilliant movies as William Shakespeare’s Romeo + Juliet (you know, the one with Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes), Moulin Rouge!, and The Great Gatsby. Luhrmann is a master of flashy, stylish movies with amazing musical scores. If you have seen any of his previous works, you will see the same themes and styles here. Thankfully, Elvis Presley’s life, once he starts to get famous, is nothing but flashy and stylish. The glitter and gold of Las Vegas, chunky jewelry as far as the eye can see, and so many bedazzled outfits, you won’t be sure where a rhinestone doesn’t belong!

What I appreciate the most in this version of Elvis’s life story is that we get to see the parallels between the songs that Elvis has heard from various black people in his life and the songs that he himself released. A lot of the Elvis songs that we are all familiar with are songs that black people had recorded but weren’t able to get onto the radio due to the color of their skin. Now I’m not sure that Elvis was as accepted by the black community as he was in the movie - it would have been nice to have seen at least a few people be upset that a white boy made millions of dollars off of their songs - but it was nice to see that credit was given in some way. The movie will absolutely show Arthur Crudup (played by Gary Clark Jr. in the movie) singing “That’s All Right” then overlay it with Elvis recording that same exact song and becoming famous with it. And this happens multiple times in the movie with multiple different people.

With that said, I do think everyone should watch Elvis. It is a good movie. Butler and Hanks to a superb job as Elvis and Parker. The soundtrack is phenomenal, both the Elvis songs (which is part Butler’s voice and part actual Elvis) and the original songs that were thrown into various scenes. it may not be a completely truthful movie as it is intended to be from the point of view of the person that took the most advantage of the man but, from what I have read, the Presley family all approved of this movie and the way everyone was portrayed. That is good enough for me.

Moonfall | Movie Review

I don’t have an intro for Moonfall. My husband said he remembered wanting to watch it thanks to some trailer we saw before a movie. I don’t remember seeing the trailer or wanting to watch it. I watched it anyway.

During a 2011 mission to repair a satellite in space, the spaceship with astronauts Jocinda Fowler (Halle Berry), Brian Harper (Patrick Wilson), and Alan Marcus (Frank Fiola) is attacked by a swarming black mass. Marcus dies and Harper is disgracefully dismissed from NASA when he refuses to be silenced. Since Fowler was knocked unconscious during the attack, she can’t back up Harper’s story and the two are estranged. Ten years later, the moon begins to fall out of orbit. Conspiracy theorist KC Houseman (John Bradley) tries to tell NASA that the moon is an artificial megastructure but no one will listen. Fowler, now the Deputy Director at NASA, is tasked with finding a way to fix the moon’s orbit before it destroys the Earth. She turns to Harper and Houseman to help her save the planet and all of their families.

Yeah, that description doesn’t really do the movie justice. It is more terrible than I could fit into a small(ish) paragraph. Normally, I don’t give spoilers in case someone wants to watch a movie I review. There are going to be spoilers this time around. I don’t know how I could talk about the movie without revealing all of the secrets.

Moonfall is based on the crazy theory that the moon is a structure created by aliens with a white dwarf at the center powering it. And, no, that isn’t the craziest thing about the movie. We have, in no particular order: astronauts would be able to move around when a spaceship is spinning uncontrollably, cell phones that work no matter what else is happening on Earth, gravity randomly getting so weak that things are literally sucked up to the moon when it’s close, thanks to the low gravity cars (and people!) can leap over wide ravines, and Colorado is apparently where everyone goes when the shit hits the fan. Oh, and that there is a white dwarf INSIDE THE MOON. That isn’t all of the insanity, just the stuff I could think of off the top of my head. Honestly, the whole movie is insane.

Needless to say, my husband laughed through most of the film. I spent more time going “What?” or “How the….” or throwing my hands at the screen nonsensically. I can’t, with good conscience, recommend that anyone watch Moonfall. However, if you really and truly want to see how bad it is, make sure you go into the movie with less than zero expectations. Think of the lowest expectations you have ever had for a movie, then go about ten times lower. Then you might be ready to sit through this 2-hour festival of ridiculousness.

Love In The Villa | Movie Review

Kat Graham from The Vampire Diaries and Tom Hopper from The Umbrella Academy are in a Netflix romcom. So Love in the Villa can’t be that bad, can it?

Julie (Kat Graham) is a third grade English teacher from Minneapolis. She books a dream trip to Verona, Italy, setting of her favorite story - Romeo & Juliet, with her boyfriend, Brandon (Raymond Ablack). When Brandon backs out of the trip at the last minute, Julie decides to go alone. After an awful trip, Julie arrives in Verona to find out that her villa has been double booked. With no other option, she has to share the villa with Charlie (Tom Hopper) for the next week.

Love in the Villa is another one of those ‘hate turns into love’ movies. A good portion of the movie consists of Julie and Charlie being absolutely terrible to each other. The argument culminates in a giant food fight where they basically destroy an apartment that neither of them owns. But, for some reason, the two decide to call a truce and spend some time not trying to kill each other.

Of all of the romcoms that I have watched, this one is not the worst. It’s pretty rare to see an amazingly good romcom. This is not one of those. However, it is definitely watchable. Both Graham and Hopper are decent actors and the script is not completely terrible, even though the writer (who is also the director) likes to litter random Italian all over the place. There isn’t a ton of chemistry, just a lot of unexplainable googly eyes when they happen to get their faces too close to each other. We do get a little bit of a third act twist but, honestly, that is probably the worst part of the movie.

Fans of Graham and Hopper will most likely love Villa. Everyone else that wants to watch it should do so with a glass of wine or their phone in hand. Something that will distract them from the bad parts but let them enjoy the good parts.

Jurassic World Dominion | Movie Review

I am not a giant fan of the Jurassic Park/Jurassic World series. Sure, I was amazed in 1993 when Jurassic Park came out and the graphics were stunning. But I didn’t particularly care about any of the movies that came after it. But you can watch all of the movies on Amazon Prime and my husband and I were bored…so we watched Jurassic World Dominion over the weekend.

Four years after the events in Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, dinosaurs are now living in the world alongside humans. Dr. Ellie Sattler (Laura Dern) finds out about giant locusts that are destroying crops around the United States. She turns to her old friend, Alan Grant (Sam Neill), for help. Together, they travel to Biosyn, a genetics company that set up a dinosaur preserve in Italy. Meanwhile, Claire (Bryce Dallas Howard) and Owen (Chris Pratt) are raising Maise Lockwood (Isabella Sermon). When Maise gets kidnapped by Biosyn operatives, they must travel to Italy to get her back.

This movie felt so much longer than it actually was. The runtime clocks in around 2 hours 27 minutes. And that felt about an hour too long. Adding to that, the science didn’t feel legit. Granted, I’m not a geneticist so I am completely out of my realm. The explanations they gave for Beta, Blue’s baby, and Maise both felt wrong. Not that the science has to be perfect to make a movie enjoyable. It just didn’t make this movie enjoyable.

Other things that seemed wrong in the movie: Why was Ellie, a paleobotanist, investigating the destruction of current day crops? Why did she turn to Alan, a paleontologist, when she found out about the giant insects? While you can squint your eyes a bit and maybe think that the insects could possibly be in Alan’s wheelhouse, the crops are definitely not in Ellie’s. I know they were brought in for nostalgia’s sake but at least give them an actual real reason to be there.

As for the Maise/Owen/Claire storyline, they all felt very wrong. We know they have lived together for four years but we don’t really see them interacting a whole lot before Maise gets kidnapped. I would have liked for the plot to focus more on setting them up as a family instead of pulling in Ellie/Alan/Ian as a throwback to Jurassic Park.

If you like the Jurassic World series, you might enjoy Dominion. While I didn’t enjoy the movie a lot, it doesn’t leave the series open for another movie. I appreciate that. I just wish the series could have ended with a bigger bang.