21 February 2019: Abducted in Plain Sight

This review may contain spoilers.

Once we learn that they let “B” sleep in their daughter’s room to help him with his therapy, I stopped being sympathetic towards those parents. They’re selfish morons who were so caught up in their own drama they let their daughter’s life be ruined. I kind of wonder how the filmmaker wanted us to feel about the parents, though. 

I think we needed a little less of an attempt to make us sympathize with mom & dad, & a lot more from the FBI dude. There should’ve been a voice of reason weighing in more often. More police, more neighbors & less of B’s creepy brother.

24 December 2018: Dumplin'

I expected something precious & wholesome that I could safely watch with the in-laws, & that’s exactly what I got. Not surprising, considering the heavy Dolly influence. That woman is a goddamn saint. The lead here is charismatic & sweet. I knew I’d seen her in something very recently, then about halfway through I realized she plays Olympia in Bird Box, too.

21 December 2018: Bird Box

Much better than early reviews had me expecting. I was fine with most of the changes from the book, simply because it would’ve been difficult to translate the suspenseful moments to the screen without taking a lot of time to build tension. And there’s too much plot to get through for that, what with the duel timelines. I preferred the character of Malorie as she’s portrayed here to the Malorie of the novel, since we also didn’t really have time to let her character change over the course of the film. 

The most significant change for the better from the source material is John Malkovich’s character. The book paints him as almost totally unsympathetic & without merit, but here he’s just a person who’s sometimes at odds with the rest of the group, but whose motivations are understandable. 

One last thing - I haven’t seen Sandy B in anything in a while, & I was upset to notice that her face is looking a little immobile. I wish actresses wouldn’t feel pressured into getting filler, etc. They must know it limits their expressiveness. How sad that they consider it a fair trade-off.

24 November 2018: Cam

Unique, intense & lovely to look at. Kudos to the filmmakers & to Netflix & Blumhouse for releasing a movie that makes us root for a sex worker. The story totally falls apart at the climax, which is a real shame. This could’ve been a new classic.

1 November 2018: Apostle

Gareth Evans kills it when it comes to action sequences & gore, & there are plenty of both here. I was disappointed it wasn’t as atmospheric or creepy as Safe Haven, but this also didn’t have a shitty-looking cgi monster at the end, so it’s got that going for it.

15 October 2018: Hold the Dark

Not at all the movie I’d expected it to be. I was bracing myself for some kind of man v. nature adventure, but instead I got a crime thriller in the style of No Country for Old Men but much bleaker. Nice performance by Riley Keough & very effective action sequences, but the pacing is messy & the metaphysical stuff is half-baked. Seems Saulnier is better when he writes his own screenplays.