Tag: Brian Cox

MORGAN (2016)

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Directed By: Luke Scott

Written By: Seth Owen 

Cinematography: Mark Patten 

Editor: Laura Jennings 

Cast: Kate Mara, Anya Taylor-Joy, Rose Leslie, Toby Jones, Michelle Yeoh, Garret Hudlund, Paul Giamatti, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Brian Cox 

A corporate risk-management consultant must decide whether or not to terminate an artificially created humanoid being.

In this grand cinema study, there are some Films you know a bit about. Yet manage to avoid or skip for some reason or another.  then when looking For Something new, you finally decide to give the film a chance. Sometimes it truly does work For the better, but other times you remember why you Wanted To skip it in the first place.

It isn’t necessarily bad, but it just feels like a waste of time or a wasted opportunity, especially considering what it had. This is one of those films unfortunately it’s more of the latter.

One of the more shocking appeals of the movie is in looking back at this film. It has such a stacked cast for a film That doesn’t

Offer much in the form Of material for them to work with. It comes off as a workman and everyone seems more here for a paycheck.

Those looking for a horror film might be disappointed as though its Advertisements make it look That way and there is violence the film is more like a strictly science fiction tale.

Which is what is at least admirable about the film.

This feels like one of the first of more recent trends of films about androids and AI and how much humanity exists in them. Surrounded by humans who go about being absent, if any humanity at all or trying to show none for the supposed greater good.

It doesn’t offer enough material to be truly thought-provoking and lacks action throughout  to truly be a genre picture 

In the final act, the film Finally Releases the violence and gives the audience what it has been waiting for most of the characters you have come to know will most likely become

Victims. They pay the price, In different ideologies, and pick the wrong side which proves fatal because of choosing to show their humanity.

It feels especially cruel to one character who truly fights back and gets the most violent death in a scene that feels cut down because of how gory it could get. While any action resorts to a BOURNE IDENTITY intensity with bad club music to accompany the action for those brief Moments only that feel like it’s coming from another film

Jennifer Jason Leigh is only in a few scenes and seems here to be punished more than anything else. which seems to be a trend in her more recent roles. As of 2025 most of the cast signed up for the same feet, but they have a few more scenes and more to do.

The film offers a perfect example of corporate culture versus a family and a more nurturing culture.

It does offer a sensational ending that wasn’t expected though hinted at throughout 

Grade: D+

THE ELECTRIC STATE (2025)

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Directed By: Joe Russo & Anthony Russo

Written by: Christopher Markus And Stephen McFeely

Based on the Graphic Novel By: Simon Stalenhag

Cinematography: Stephen F. Windon 

Editor: Jeffrey Ford 

Cast: Millie Bobby Brown, Chris Pratt, Stanley Tucci, Giancarlo Esposito, Colman Domingo, Jason Alexander, Ke Huy Quan, Holly Hunter, Woody Harrelson, Billy Gardell

the story takes place in a reimagined version of 1997. With humans isolated in their VR helmets and a continuing battle against a strange breed of monstruous drones in the wake of a technological meltdown, a teenage girl named Michelle and a robot travel the West Coast of the U.S in search of the girl’s missing brother.

Why does a film about freedom and living life to the fullest and the power of human connection. Feel so stale, lifeless abd boring. Though has very impressive special effects. We can see where the money went into this $320 million Prodcution, but was it worth it? 

Do the Russo brothers just look at budgets rather then scripts. Then look for the gimmick. As they seek like filmmakers from the 90’s given chances for modern times. Pure Hollywood  filmmakers even with their independent films. 

They seem to be Artists for the businessmen running studios. Only their interests are different than what audiences want except for THE AVENGERS movies. 

The electric state feels like their attempt at a big budget amblin film that even spielberg would say is too artificial and JJ Abrams would reject. As there is not enough mysterious elements 

Chris Pratt is pretty much lead by the paychecks he gives his performances but in films, No one really wants to see or more of the same. The spark is there but the material isn’t and he’s not convincing enough for people to watch just for him

Just as Chris Evans seems to be a prostitute for Netflix ok an escort. As he seems to Find his fit in the film world . Though seems to be a down to earth human being.

Millie Bobby Brown seems desperate to find a better role and Wanda will not have her type cast and allow her to break out of her biggest role so far which is playing 11 on Stranger Things. Unfortunately this was not the right one. As it gives her little to truly sink her teeth into even as the lead 

This film tries to come up with emotions with a tale that feels familiar and tired. Though it comes across hollow. Only here to sbowniff the effects. As this film seems to beleivenrhe old mantra “IF YOU BUILD IT THEY WILL COME” unfortunately not enough came.

This is perfectly set I a lenas a family film, but for something that is such a big production. It shouldn’t feel this disposable and shallow. Nor as always does it really need to be as long as it is. 

One can be all for exploring a world but it diesn’t have to go this deep where we are jistbtrying to show off instead of moving the story forward. 

The film has no sense of pacing and in general just feels bloated and lazy as it doesn’t really make itself quite clear and wants to be 1 million different things but never decides on any as well as there being no dramatic pacing 

it seems to just copy the graphic novel, and whatever it lacks, the filmmakers can blame it on the source material.

The Film seems to only offer an alternative history because in that way he can bring back 90s nostalgia for a certain audience that seems to be in currently

In other words this feels like the typical Netflix original movie with star power and figuring that will be enough and come  together with a simple high concept idea. It’s like the blockbuster filmmaking of the 1990’s. Taking a big and expensive gamble. Right out of the gate rather then building up to it or up on it.

Grade: D

VEROTIKA (2020)

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Written & Directed By: Glenn Danzig 
Cinematography: David Newbert 
Editor: Brian Cox 

Cast: Sean Kannan, Ashley Wisdom, Alice Tate, Kayden Kross, Natalia Borowsky, Kansas Bowling, Rachel Alig

Follows the surreal and bloody trilogy of erotic horror stories culled from Danzig’s comic.

Wow!!! I was warned about this film beforehand, but I couldn’t really have expected this. Some people, they will love this film for how bad it is. Nothing truly prepares you for this film. 

Where you have to wonder was it planned this way. As it is hard to take anything seriously. Though that might sound like fun. This is a movie that is not fun to sit through at all. Unless maybe you are just into seeing onscreen nudity. As very little throughout this movie makes any sense.

All the women in most of the roles look like professional topless or naked models. Other than making the film overtly sexual at all times 

In the first story for instance the main female has eyeballs where her nipples are why? As it is never explained and then somehow the albino spider becomes human-sized and then proceeds to murder women for no reason. He is obviously in a latex suit that looks like a bad Halloween costume. Though only strikes when the lead female goes to sleep. 

Every character in this first story has a foreign accent for no real reason and they come off as sex objects mroe than characters. As they are all scantily clad for little to no reason. 

The acting is horrible throughout like in an acting class. The bad dialogue doesn’t really help even when it includes it’s influences with many scenes where the camera just stays and lingers and the characters awkwardly stand around really doing nothing or their last action over again such as a head shake. 

There is a TV reporter who is dressed more like a private detective in the first story. Just as to why in the first story does the lead female go to a porno theater and photoshoot after her roommate is murdered. Then while at the porno theater falls asleep and is groped and nearly raped and once she wakes up just gives the guys a nasty look.

Throughout the film women are the only ones killed. Most of the characters wear wigs for no real reason. 

The film Has modern touches but an old school culture and scenery like the third last tale which is basically the tale of Elizabeth Bathory who believed that by bathing in the blood of virgins she would stay looking young forever and that is exactly what happens in the third story she picks her victims strip them (young women) then bathed in their blood in what feels like real-time. Then will slice open a throat and there to get blood sprayed on her face that is the whole story.

Any lack of nudity in the first story is supplanted in the second and third stories. Only in the second, we get another, what feels like real-time, dedicated to watching strippers do routines in a club That looks almost like a huge basement. 

This is the only segment of the film that feels serious as it is a thriller about a stripper who cuts off faces to put on her wall because she is disfigured and wears a mask when she performs. This is also one of the only segments with an actor of note Sean Kanan from KARATE KID 3 playing the detective on the case. 

I can understand this film is supposed to be more inspired by gothic old-school macabre horror anthologies but it comes across as more ridiculous than inspired. Even the first scene where we are introduced to our host seems there more to shock than to make sense.

The film is low budget and you can tell as it comes across more like a failed student film. This feels like a modern-day Ed Wood movie.

The tales don’t offer a moral or any kind of irony and definitely no twists but they leave room for the anthology host to make ghastly bad joke punchlines for the endings and not even deliver that creatively 

The only reason I could even see this film truly getting financed and recognized is that rock star Glenn Danzig directed it and seems to price the soundtrack. 

Even at 90 minutes, this film feels indulgent. It’s not even the type of film you can have fun picking apart. This movie isn’t fun to watch or sit through. This is one of the worst films I have seen this year and maybe one of the worst ever 

Grade: F

RUNNING WITH SCISSORS (2006)

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runningwithWritten & Directed By: Ryan Murphy
Based on The Memoir By: Augusten Burroughs
Cinematography: Christopher Baffa
Editor: Byron Smith 


Cast: Joseph Cross, Evan Rachel Wood, Brian Cox, Gwyneth Paltrow, Joseph Fiennes, Annette Bening, Jill Clayburgh, Patrick Wilson, Alec Baldwin, Gabrielle Union, Kristin Chenoweth, Dagmara Domincyzk, Colleen Camp 


The story of how a boy was abandoned by his mother and how he, later, abandoned her. The year he’ll be 14, the parents of Augusten Burroughs divorce, and his mother, who thinks of herself as a fine poet on the verge of fame, delivers him to the eccentric household of her psychiatrist, Dr. Finch. During that year, Augusten avoids school, keeps a journal, and practices cosmetology. His mother’s mental illness worsens, he takes an older lover, he finds friendship with Finch’s younger daughter, and he’s the occasional recipient of gifts from an unlikely benefactor. Can he survive to come of age?

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