It Feeds

This Canadian dropped last year and it's a banger of a horror movie - a cross between Smile and Stranger Things. Ashley Greene plays Cynthia, a woman who runs a psychiatry practice out of her home and when traditional methods don't work, Cynthia has a gift, the ability to go into her patients' minds. Her daughter Jordan (Ellie O'Brien) has this power too, as did her late husband. One day a young girl, Riley (Shayelin Martin - from Wild Goat Surf), bursts into Cynthia's home begging for help. She sees a creature, and it's feeding off of her. The creature is terrifying - similar to a blackened version of Smile's entity. The visuals in this movie are great. The set pieces are top notch. Horror fans should love this. Cynthia is reluctant to help as it did her husband in for doing something similar - there is a Conjuring feel to this also. Cynthia's ability to enter the mind leads to an Inception dream-within-the-dream scenario. So when I say the visuals are great, we get all this crazy Nightmare on Elm Street/Dream Demon imagery too. Cynthia also has a friend, Agatha (Juno Rinaldi) who is there for comic relief. Rinaldi's performance is great and gives off a goofy Scooby-Doo Daphne vibe; I loved her. If you are hungry for horror, It Feeds will fill you up. Catch it streaming on CRAVE or rent it from Movies 'N Stuff. 

Beware Boiúna

Giant creature-features have been entertaining us since King Kong in 1933. There seemed to be an explosion of giant bugs and monster movies, post WWII, in the nuclear era - Godzilla, Them!, The Blob, etc. 1975 gave us Jaws - a bazillion shark movies have since followed. 1993 gave us Jurassic Park. 1997 gave us Anaconda, which spawned many sequels and the tepidly humorous reboot with the same title last year. 1999 gave us Lake Placid - giant croc. This year we have Hungry - a killer hippopotamus movie, and Beware Boiúna, a giant killer snake movie. Hungry is okay, but Beware Boiúna is fantastic, if you enjoy these kinds of films. I am always up for a giant killer snake movie. Most of these films have a tongue-in-cheek cheekiness to them, an almost winking at the camera that this is completely ridiculous. Beware Boiúna doesn't wink, it doesn't even blink - its eyes are wide open with terror! What's it all about? A group of doctors are on a humanitarian mission to check out small villages along the Amazon River, do health checks on the locals, provide medicine, vaccines, treatments, and advice. They run into the bad guys, who are out surveying the land and you know it's for no good. They have a run in with each other and then they have a run-in with the big-ass snake. It's a bit shaky-camera at times but that's okay. I won't spoil any of it, but this one strikes quickly and swallows you whole. Indiana Jones would hate it; you will love it. Get bit by this one in theatres now or rent it when available from Movies 'N Stuff. 

I Came By

A guy breaks into a house and discovers something dubious is going on. I feel like I have seen this premise many times before, which is why I didn't bother watching it when it came out. Yes, that's the basic plot of I Came By. Toby (George MacKay) and his best mate (it's a British movie), Jay (Percelle Ascott) are B&E graffiti artists who don't rob anyone, they are just making a political statement. They break into the homes of the super wealthy and tag a large wall with "I came by" in stylish graffiti cursive. They seem to take pride in beating home security systems. Suddenly Jay announces he is out of any further social disruptions, he has a child on the way and can't risk going to jail. Toby is on his own. And he has his sights set on a judge, Hector Blake (Hugh Bonneville). And that's all I'm telling you. Giddy up. This one went to places I didn't expect at all. In fact, it took me by surprise a few times. It kind of gutted me and left me thinking about the film for long after. And the interactions between Toby and his mother, Jay and his girlfriend felt really well drawn out. These people felt real and the story packed a lot in within a short timeframe. I was really impressed. Director and co-writer, Babak Anvari is someone I need to pay attention to. And Hugh Bonneville as the villain was fantastic. I hated him - perfect. This film was a complete surprise. Break into this house, now streaming on Netflix. 

Riders of Justice

2020 was a strange year for the world, and somehow I missed this film. Riders of Justice stars Mads Mikkelsen as Markus, a highly skilled military veteran who has some deep-seated anger issues. He has a poor relationship with his daughter Mathilde (Andrea Heick Gadeberg), which he is trying to correct. He finds himself pulled back home to investigate a crime along with three nerds, who give off an X-Files Lone Gunmen/Big Bang Theory vibe. They are hilarious. One of them, Otto (Nikolaj Lie Kaas), believes that an accident was no accident, but the police won't believe him. He enlists the help of two of his nerd friends and Markus to help take down a motorcycle gang, the Riders of Justice, who he believes are behind the crime - the killing of an informant a week before the case is to go to trial. I have tried to convey the plot without actually telling you anything because I would like you to go in blind, without knowing anything. I simply had a ball with this movie. I love Mads Mikkelsen, and this is one of his best and funniest things he has done because he plays the role straight. The three other gentlemen get into silly arguments over nerd stuff, and it's fantastic. I howled with laughter. Everyone in this movie has trauma, or some form of mental baggage/illness. In fact, the three nerds pretend to be therapists working with Markus on his anger issues so his daughter Mathilde doesn't know what they are really up to - killing motorcycle gang members. It's violent and thrilling and funny as hell. This is the therapy you need. I simply loved Riders of Justice. Catch it streaming or go rent it from Movies 'N Stuff. 

The History of Concrete

John Wilson. A generic enough sounding name. I had never heard of him or his HBO series How to with John Wilson. He must have some sort of cult following because I saw his documentary The History of Concrete on a Sunday night at the Mayfair Theatre and it was full of people; the most I had seen in a very long time. I went because I had seen the trailer and it looked amusing. It's not, it's hilarious. I haven't laughed as much since Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie. It's not really the history of concrete. I mean, technically, yes, sort of. But really, it's a portrait of America in the same way Borat is a portrait of America. Although there are no fictional characters. This is John Wilson interacting with all the strange and silly that America has to offer. The film starts with him attending a Hallmark movie seminar about how to make a Hallmark movie. Bizarre, funny, and somewhat sad. This pretty much describes all the different segments which make up The History of Concrete. To name just a few, he covers the Sri Chinmoy Self-Transcendence 3100 Mile Race; an annual race in Queens, New York, consisting of 5,649 laps around a single city block over two months. This is run on concrete. He goes to a concrete convention where there are brick-wall-making competitions (like a firefighter thing). Wilson, to acquire more funding for his documentary, is required to make his film a music biography, so he finds Jack Macco, a rock musician who has a cover band and sells liquor as his day job. Bizarre, funny, and somewhat sad. Wilson's narrations that join all his segments are paired with quick visual gags that come as fast and as corny as Airplane! jokes. He is clever and very funny. The film also serves as a warning about the crumbling infrastructure of America and the environmental disaster of the world's coastlines caused by the consumption of sand for China's rapid concrete growth. Some heavy facts here. Bizarre, funny, and somewhat sad. It will hit you like a ton of cartoon bricks. Catch it in theatres now or rent it from Movies 'N Stuff when available. 

Resident Evil

My second favourite film of last year was Weapons, written and directed by Zach Cregger. He has followed that film with this, a remake and a reimagining of Resident Evil - the long-running franchise that was written and directed by Paul W.S. Anderson and starred the pouty Milla Jovovich. I have a soft spot for these films, although I can say, I don't believe I saw more than the first three. Anyway, I was happy to see a fresh take from someone like Cregger. What he has given us is something like Martin Scorsese's After Hours crossed with Carolie Fargeat's The Substance. After Hours was a story of an average Joe just trying to get home. Resident Evil is a story about an average Joe, in this case, Bryan (Austin Abrams - who played the junkie in Weapons), trying to deliver a package. Scorsese and Cregger both place their protagonists in absurd situations, and this is what provides the comedy, how they react to the crazy situations they find themselves in. Yes, Resident Evil is a horror film, and it is scary at times, but it's also hilarious. I had a ball watching Austin Abrams who can play a goofus like nobody else. He brings a naive buffoonery to his character and I love watching him. I think he is a brilliant actor. So there is that, but then there are the monsters and the blood. John Carpenter's The Thing has a famous scene of a man's head detaching and turning into a bug/spider. In Resident Evil they reattach and form a tornado ball of Cirque du Soleil spinning limbs. Then there is The Substance level of blood and gore. It's pretty wild. The nursery scene is something else; code red. Resident Evil is no Weapons but it's still a bloody good time. Catch it in theatres now or rent from Movies 'N Stuff when available.  

The Weight

Ethan Hawke is one of those actors I will follow wherever he chooses to go. Those destinations have landed me at The Purge, Born to Be Blue, Maudie, First Reformed, The Black Phone, Leave the World Behind, and Blue Moon, just to name a few great ones of the last thirteen years of Hawke's career. There have been a few flat tires and dead ends along the way, but Hawke is someone who consistently picks interesting material to star in. And now we have The Weight. Life changing? No. Highly entertaining? Yes. Hawke plays Samuel Murphy, a single dad who is down on his luck during the Great Depression in 1933. Kicked out of their apartment, Samuel and his young daughter find themselves looking for a home. Samuel gets thrown into the slammer for assaulting a cop and his daughter is thrown into foster care. Samuel is sentenced to hard labour, building a road, breaking rocks with a sledgehammer. The big bad boss man of this prison outfit is J.J. Clancy (Russell Crowe). J.J. finds out quickly that Samuel is one smart cookie - he can fix all aspects of a car and can move a massive stone using his noggin. J.J. offers Samuel early release so he can get his daughter back if he illegally moves (steals) some gold from point A to point B. Samuel agrees and picks a crew to help him, all with the promise of early parole. Thus the adventure ensues. It's kind of like Cool Hand Luke meets Sorcerer, with maybe a little Deliverance and Sometimes a Great Notion thrown in. Violent and bloody at times, I found myself squirming as Samuel tries to remove the wedding ring from his swollen hand. It's a prison-heist-thriller and it's worth its weight in gold (see what I did there?). Catch it in theatres now or rent it from Movies 'N Stuff when available.