Director Noah Baumbach’s “The Squid and the Whale” explores the prospect of a family at war, and a family that will likely always be at war. Director Baumbach has a lot to say about family and how parents can decide what kind of people we ultimately grow up to be. “The Squid and the Whale” is a weird, darkly comic and often demented look at how the eternal grudge of a man and his ex-wife will likely keep their sons at odds with then and one another for the rest of their lives. Director Baumbach contorts the dynamic of a grudging family, but also stays true to a lot of themes that find two sons on a diverging road and a dark path. Jessie Eisenberg is great here as the son of Jeff Daniels’ Bernard, an educated often pompous individual who has a keen sense of attempting to make his equals feel inferior.
John Wick: Chapter 2 (2017)
Every time he thinks he’s out, they pull him back in! Keanu Reeves’ action starring vehicle “John Wick” ended up being one of the best films of 2014, and three years later, we’re granted what is essentially “The Empire Strikes Back” of the John Wick saga. When John Wick went in to retirement, violence found him once and he wrought unholy vengeance one last time. Now that he’s been a few years in exile, living alone with his trusty pit bull, his past has returned once again. Italian gangster Santino D’Antonio shows up at John’s door aware of his mission of vengeance and now plans to take advantage of a decades old blood oath he made to him when he was working as an assassin. Handing him a very sacred reminder called a “marker” with John’s own blood in it, he plans to hold him to his oath, despite John’s protests.
Francis X. Bushman: King of the Movies
100 years ago, Francis X. Bushman was one of the top stars of the movie industry. Today, he is either mostly forgotten or only remembered for his least characteristic role as the villainous Messala in the 1925 version of “Ben-Hur.” On this episode, film historian Lon Davis recalls Bushman’s turbulent film career – which was full of amazing scandals – and his late-life comeback on TV, including appearances on “You Bet Your Life” and “Batman.”
“The Online Movie Show” is produced at the Platinum Wolfe Studios.
Deserted (2016)
After her release from jail for her mother’s murder, Jae goes back home to live with her brother. As she is highly uncomfortable there, she decides to go with him and some friends to a music festival in the desert. After encountering mechanical difficulties, they meet a group of guys traveling in an RV and get lost in the desert. The beautiful location and landscape has them at ease at first until they realize they are lost and at risk of dying from the elements. Written and directed by Ashley Avis, Deserted is one mellow movie where the lead is looking for herself as much as her way out of the desert. The film processes in a slow fashion yet does not feel long or boring. It follows Jae and her brother Robin along with old and new friends. The dialogue seems genuine for the great majority of the film with a few hiccups that barely feel like such. The characters don’t have much background from the start and a few bits and pieces are discovered along the way which works with the lead’s search of self.
VooDoo (2017)
Dani arrives in California to visit her cousin for a month and have some fun away from her worries and her past. The two girls do fun tourist things and prank each other, until something goes wrong, very, very wrong. As things go from bad to worse, the film explores voodoo, the supernatural, and hell, all through a found footage lens. The story created by writer/director Tom Costabile has a lot of good ideas and some truly unnerving imagery and moments. The opening with the voodoo curse being put into place goes from interesting to freaky fairly fast. The film itself then takes a little bit to establish the two cousins and the other players around them (including an unnecessary but not annoying cameo by Ron Jeremy) until one pranks leads to all hell breaking loose.
XX (2017)
“XX” is yet another horror anthology, this time featuring four horror segments directed by women, all of which revolve around concepts mostly associated with women. While “XX” garners the recurring theme of motherhood, the tales themselves are based around feminine or maternal concepts that are twisted for the genre. “The Box” is a loose allegory for anorexia, “The Birthday Party” is about status, “Don’t Fall” is kind an allegory for menstruation, while “Her Only Living Son” is about a mother’s unwillingness to let go of her son and let him realize his destiny. The four very talented female filmmakers were given complete freedom and as a result we have a pretty stellar horror film, all things considering.
The Bootleg Files: That Certain Feeling
BOOTLEG FILES 577: “That Certain Feeling” (1956 comedy starring Bob Hope, Eva Marie Saint and Pearl Bailey).
LAST SEEN: An unauthorized video dupe is on YouTube.
AMERICAN HOME VIDEO: None.
REASON FOR BOOTLEG STATUS: A possible problem with rights clearance.
CHANCES OF SEEING A COMMERCIAL DVD RELEASE: Not likely at this time.
During the early 1950s, a sense of staleness began to permeate Bob Hope’s film output. Movies like “My Favorite Spy,” “Off Limits,” “Here Come the Girls” and “Casanova’s Big Night” were burdened with a mechanical indifference, and even a reteaming with Bing Crosby and Dorothy Lamour in “Road to Bali” carried a sense of been-there/done-that. Yes, there were flashes of inspiration here and there, especially when Hope was paired with co-stars that matched his vibrancy – most notably in his instant-classic song-and-dance routine with James Cagney in “The Seven Little Foys.” But, for the most part, the fun was deflating and Hope’s star ranking at the box office was taking a slide.