After completing a space mission, an inexplicable disturbance causes two cosmonauts to crash land back to earth. One is faceless and comatose and the other has a symbiotic alien attached to him. A female doctor about to lose her license is coerced into psychoanalyzing the subject who has no memory or idea that an alien host resides within him. Her job is to cause scientific history by safely separating them. The alien arises during deep sleep and survives the length of an hour outside the cosmonaut. The alien is fiercely freaky and a bloodthirsty asshole. The surprises don't queef, the actors command and the whole is a serious Venom. The Russians may serve their drinks cold but their hearts beat warm. 22-Nov-2020

I'd watch it again. 16-Nov-2020

A noble effort that only fortifies its purpose at end. If they had formulated a way to keep the boy's character rebellious with a seeping heart I would have been better invested. The film makes you work for it. Sophia's legend is tasked with being grouchy, tired and sad, just like the film. 16-Nov-2020

Married At First Sight/90 Day Fiancee. Chinese immigrants curtail their visa wait by UPSing themselves to San Francisco. A father and his well-bred daughter. The goal is to find the man whose family promised the daughter betrothal. Prospect is a bad boy gangster, with gambling addictions, alcohol overconsumption and love for loose women. Picture bride's contract is traded like a football to the father of a son whose fucking Prospect's side piece. A third woman is gunning for the bachelor of Chinatown and the one that screams wife material the most but she is easily discarded. The lyrics refuse to gell. There are no rhythms or rhymes to make us remember them. The dance sequences fare better except that the bungle edits rendered the hard work flawed. San Francisco is a colored gingerbread house and even though the traditions are a bit sticky it's a pleasant world to live in. 11-Nov-2020

Glen Keane weaves plenty of magic but the story cremates it. The mythology does not resonate as an inspiring fairy tale that would empower a girl by sending her out of the stratosphere. The how to the moon was unbelievable. I know its fantasy but my brain didn't even want to. Doesn't it cost billions to get a man on the moon? The moon is "gummi land" ruled by the protagonist of the mythology. Chang'e is an exquisite piece of animation whose suffering and selfishness make the circumstances obsolete. I liked everything about home. Home is where the magic needed to happen.

(Why are rabbits only cute in animation?) 04-Nov-2020

Sudanese refugees receive asylum in England to a house that appears too good to be true. The film exposes the culture's frailties and their strengths by unrolling the past during the celebration of the present. Something is wrong with the house, the husband and the wife. I felt the spit from the hate and I was genuinely spooked. The backstory is the magnet that keeps the house scares from falling apart. Some the of visuals meandered, separated from the backbone and made little sense but the writing kept it in check. The director is exploring, Sope Dirisu is grinding and the reach for excellence is pretty close. 03-Nov-2020

Parents with two boys inject a marital separation into their situations. Jeff Daniels is the bitter dad that can't forgive marital indiscretions and uses the separation to win favors with the boys by turning them against their mother. Jeff slices exasperation, vulgarity, intellectual banality and the boredom of an unloved family man into a soul. Laura Linney is the studied wife who will discuss very intimate things with her children without realizing the added pressure she's pushing on them. She wants to live the liberated life that comes from besting her competition (husband) in his writing career and shoving it in his face whilst searching anywhere else for an orgasm. Linney is at her organic best. Jesse Eisenberg is the teen who is not yet a dork, kinda cute but is still creepy. He's on a sexual plight that has been curbed because of his parents' public history. He is the reason for the title and even though he's a dick, his heart sells it. Owen Kline is chilly as the kid masturbating and smearing his cum all over school, calling his dad "assman," telling mom she's ugly, cursing, laying out panties and becoming an alcoholic. Everyone is so busy competing for the other's love that love never comes. A child wants to make a parent proud as much as they want to best them. Anna Paquin is daddy's student who awakens men's desires by being a pixie and writing explicit stories about her vagina. May the best dad or son win. It's frankness felt liberating, the script was witty and smart, it went by too fast and Billy Baldwin whipped his hair back and forth. 25-Oct-2020

Gangster serving time in the army is released into a scam that involves sucker punching a widow for her money. The gangsters are divided by type but united by greed. The old timer that you can trust but has run out of gimmicks, the roughneck always by your side until the tide changes, there are tramp gangsters whose limitations and penchant for violence grants them misery, the stud with athletic edges that make the girls swoon is unmatched and most wanted and the moles destruct what the competition makes worthwhile. Garfield is thug sophistication, smarts with an aggressive charm and a daddy with a heart of gold that's going to generate much trouble. It isn't art but its tipping its hat to it. Faye Emerson scratches louder than Geraldine Fitzgerald's screams and "Mr. Gladys Kravitz" was funny. 11-Oct-2020

A journalist joins the sex trade in an effort to expose the leading traffickers in their country. She meanders, manipulates, swags, snitches and avoids having sex. The men are crime kings who grab it, beat it, sell it, crumple it up and dump it (usually underground.) The suspense is agonizing because the hurt is real and we can't do much about it. It's "Cuties" horrifyingly grown up. 07-Oct-2020

White liberal tolerance is tested when daughter brings a black man home to marry. Sidney Poitier represented the culture as a man in love with a soul of a different pigmentation that he deserved to engage with. His idea for racial harmony and hopefully acceptance, was to lay the weight and fate of the marriage on white daddy's heart. The script was respectful and contemplative, hitting points from the heart and establishing strong voices for each character. Isabel Sanford hooted as the maid who has lost control of her household and the family she wove herself into. Katherine Hepburn's use of props and legend added quotes to her character, Spencer Tracy's suffering was real, Sidney Poitier had enigmatic charisma with everybody, Dorothy Houghton was a familial delicacy, Beah Richards was luminous and Roy Glenn was growling. It's greatest case isn't about racism but a parent's fear that their child is not choosing the safest life. My favorite speech is Poitier talking to his dad about who owes who. The father who demands payment and racial solidarity for the sacrifices of rearing him or the son who wants release for a choice he didn't make? The father may limit himself by being all about black but the son just wants to be a man. 26-Sep-2020

There is a threshold of high mentality professionals cannot consume or understand so they isolate, daze and shun the unwell from reality thinking it will make them better but they're just keeping them away from us. The insane asylum is the "soccer mom" equation incorporated as rehabilitive juice. If you keep the child's mind busy life wont hurt it. Nurse Ratched is neither monster or killer. She represents the woman in charge who will do what it takes to chase the crazy out of these fuckers and get herself a promotion. She does her job better than any man or human. Her hate for men keeps her in check as long as she can control them. Louise Fletcher is etched in subtlety. She's discernible, rational and a doctor's prescription. Her murderous thoughts are a delirious read. She spends a short time in the film but her character wafts through every room, corridor and human being begging for a moment's joy. Jack daddy legend is in it to disrupt it and kill her perfect employment record. He is a man with ownership rights and a threat to her profession. He has no mental issues that would require him to be there except that he hates work and wants to coast in a nut house. He is chaos and destruction but not insane. He hates life but he can survive it. He will inhale only the convivial parts of it. Booze, parties, women and trouble. He pretends, he awakens, parades his heart with glee and makes a team of his followers. Jack is there to free them of their haze and enlighten them with the cool parts of reality. But sadness breaks out and explosions erupt endangering their mental situation. Jack smiles, hates the world, speaks our language, slays our speech, breaks our hearts and is one of the funniest sarcastic mother fuckers of all time. Excellent across the board. 21-Sep-2020

A boy special enough to kill and protect. Michael Shannon, Joel Edgerton and Adam Driver are daddy courage serving ass whippings and child protection. Kirsten Dunst inhabits a mother's sacrifice without saying a word. Solid acting sustains the probability. Little boy holds back when he should and only releases to surprise us. The theory echoed and much of the discovery is amazing. There are things I don't biologically understand but the sci-fi thrills are enough to make you forget it. (The scenario I always dreamed of played out and it destroyed my functionality.) 20-Sep-2020

Pandemic anxiety coupled with protester violence makes for a scary zombie flick. There is no delineation because the action speaks for itself. The use of modern tech to create a different outcome is brilliant, the zombies are bone crushers and the direction is tireless. The ending from nowhere different prevents greatness because the last missed a master stroke. 14-Sep-2020

The tragedy of beauty versus beast. The purpose of beauty is to inspire us. If it touches you, you are beautiful in return. It's that perfect thing that exists like a God smack to the earth. The men want to devour it, the women prefer to absorb it and forget it but the younglings want to marry it at first sight. The sculptor who attempts to shape it, before full bloom, will burn his hands on the coffin he molds around it to keep it safe. A woman will always wake up. Beauty belongs to the world not encapsulated by a man who thinks he's just as beautiful because he licensed it. Fosse snips from Citizen Kane and gives it the hutzpah the classic lacked. Fosse's mastery is beauty, movement, thrill and dash. Eric Roberts gets inside our heads and makes us understand that hot greasy ass motherfucking psycho crooked legged cowboys with great hair have feelings. Fosse resoundingly echos him. Mariel Hemingway is neither thunder or lightning. She is a cloud of beauty that doesn't need announcement. Mariel's innocence allows the tragedy to happen and unfold. It has an ending Tarantino wouldn't touch and the original footage is brutal, salacious and true. Absolutely psycho. 12-Sep-2020

Children despise daddy's new love interest who is the sole survivor of a cult massacre. Looking her up on social media exacerbates the outlook. They think she's psycho but is she? Holed up alone while uncaring daddy launches on one of those emergency work things, the family is left to fend for themselves on a lodge stuck in a wintery field. Each side strikes a match, extinguished by victimhood and set ablaze by director pullback. Little girl screams were uncomfortably realistic which is the point. Worship is a force of magic that creates what soothes the mind (salvation) and kills it (judgment.) The kids, the girlfriend and the house perceive spirituality differently. (Alicia was excellent as the tired wife.) 29-Aug-2020