Director Jesse Moss and Amanda McBaine’s Nat Geo film “The Mission” is one of the most frustrating movies of the year. It’s a documentary that tip toes through its subject matter to its detriment, and avoids the outright reality of a situation that should have never happened and a life that should have never been taken. In 2018 American missionary John Chau was murdered in an illegal expedition to preach his religion to the isolated village of the Sentinelese tribe off the coast of India.
Tag Archives: Suspense
Oppenheimer (2023) [4K UHD/Blu-Ray]
Say what you want about Christopher Nolan, but his sense of theatrics and spectacle works wonders in exploring the calculated creation of the Atomic bomb, as well as the life story of J. Robert Oppenheimer. Arguably one of the most destructive figures in world history, “Oppenheimer” is simultaneously a biopic of Oppenheimer as well as a deep dive in to the development, and politics of the atomic bomb and how it changed the world drastically.
Peter & The Wolf (2023)
“Beware. For Wolves come in many disguises.”
Sergei Prokofiev’s classic musical fairy tale “Peter and the Wolf” is a story that’s been adapted, and adapted, and re-interpreted, and remade, and rebooted, for sheer decades. My first introduction to “Peter and the Wolf” was the animated adaptation from an episode of “Tiny Toons Adventures,” and since then the story pops up every now and then for modern audiences. This one is written by musician Gavin Friday and the one and only Bono, both of whom originally collaborated on this story to produce a book to benefit the Irish Hospice Foundation. Their version is brought to screen thanks to Gavin Friday who offers up a minimalist but beautiful truncated take on the original story.
Archaon: The Halloween Summoning (2020)
I’m all for more horror movies that are set on or around Halloween, but there should be more behind it. Despite the inclusion of Celtic folklore and Halloween mythology, Paul Ernest’s horror thriller is a bust. There’s a good concept behind “Archaon: The Halloween Summoning.” It’s just that the movie itself does absolutely nothing with it. It’s a horror movie that basks in its glacial pacing and paper thin, unlikable characters.
Hellraiser (1987) [LA&M Film Fetish Forum]
“What is your pleasure, sir?”
Clive Barker’s “Hellraiser” is a purely body horror tale about hedonism in its purest and most raw essence. Even today it’s a very erotic, but gruesome tale about the pursuit of pleasures of the flesh and how it links to a breed of entities that may or may not be pure evil. “Demons to some, Angels to others” Pinhead (technically named “Hellpriest”) proclaims is a representation of the how the cenobites reach deep down in to the pits of sexuality and kink. And no human can ever really be prepared to see what the practices of this otherworld army has in store for them.
Dan Curtis’ Dracula (1974)
DRACULA WEEK
Also known as “Dracula,” and “Bram Stoker’s Dracula,” Dan Curtis, the creator of “Dark Shadows” adapts (I use the term loosely) the bare essentials of Bram Stoker’s iconic novel. I say “the bare essentials” because for a movie written by Richard Matheson, there isn’t much that the movie strives for beside delivering a Dracula movie and nothing else. There’s no re-interpretation, or any kind of drastic changes to the narrative, save for Jonathan Harker’s fate, which is quite gruesome.
Aporia (2023) [Fantasia Film Festival 2023]
Often times time travel movies can get bogged down in particulars and more complicated ideas but “Aporia” is one of the few where there’s not so much of the focus on how, but as to the fallout. Writer-Director Jared Moshé prides himself in making “Aporia” a film that’s mainly about the consequences about time travel more than anything. “Aporia” is a fascinating and touching mix of films like “Primer,” and “Sliding Doors,” to where this version of time travel doesn’t so much reverse time, but alters the reality with it. “Aporia” offers a time travel movie that isn’t so much about altering time but about the ideas of destiny and death.