It’ll take more than a bad movie to bring the “Suicide Squad” down. Deep down there’s still a great movie to be made with this concept. “Assault on Arkham” showed it, and “Hell to Pay” proves it. You don’t have to make this group the center of the DC Universe fighting massive gods. They can just be super powered thugs doing the slimy stuff like stealing Lex Luthor’s chunk of Kryptonite, or breaking in to Batman’s fortress to steal incriminating evidence he has to bring down Amanda Waller. Something neat in the same vein happens in “Hell to Pay” when the group are assigned to track down a maguffin that is both silly and clever.
Category Archives: Movie Reviews
Death Wish (2018)
“Death Wish” was a silly movie in its time and it’s a ridiculous concept now. The mere fact that Eli Roth and Joe Carnahan are behind this only serves the film’s premise that it’s an immature, sophomoric male fantasy about solving all of life’s problems with a gun. Bruce Willis’s character Paul Kersey is able to breeze in and out of night clubs and crowded ghettos with only a black hood and shoots down people like it’s a hobby. “Death Wish” then tries to make it very sexual, as Paul begins as this somewhat impotent, pacifistic gentleman whose manhood slowly advances as he embraces the gun.
Lowlife (2017)
A motel owner, a luchador, and a group of criminals all see their lives interconnecting in ways they never expected.
Goodnight, Gracie (2017)
As a little girl reads in bed, she hears an ominous noise from outside her room. Going to investigate leads to a nasty surprise.
Written and directed by Stellan Kendrick, Goodnight, Gracie is a short film that clocks in under 5 minutes, giving itself just enough time to create a story and shock just a little bit, then leave a quick and effective impression. The film manages to attain its goals in that short period of time. The writing and direction show careful writing of the story and a good grasp of suspense and shock. The way this short is built gives its story maximum effect through the set-up discovery, and ending. It shows that sometimes less is indeed more and that not all stories need a two-hour runtime to be effective.
I Kill Giants (2017)
A young girl escapes to an imaginary world where she can fight and defeat giants to save the world when her real life gets too hard. As her home life is less than ideal and the school bullies intensity their attacks, she retreats further and further into her imagination.
Mexico Barbaro II (2017) [San Diego Latino Film Festival 2018]
In the second installment of the Mexico Barbaro anthologies, a series of short stories interconnect in a the world of Mexican fear. This second anthology is more connected through story and style through each of the filmmakers collaborating with the others. The different shorts within the anthology include 8 visions from 9 directors.
Top Knot Detective (2017) [Boston Underground Film Festival 2018]
Top Knot Detective was a short-lived television series in Japan that has now achieved cult status around the world. This film examines why it became so while definitely not being all that great of a show. It also looks into the rise and fall of its star and costars.