THE ART OF SELF DEFENSE (2019)

Written & Directed By: Riley Stearns

Cinematography: Michael Ragen

Editor: Sarah Beth Shapiro

Cast: Jesse Eisenberg, Alessandro Nivola, Imogen Poots, Steve Terada, David Zellner, Philip Andre Botello, Jason Burkey, Mike Brooks, CJ Rush

One night, Casey, a scrawny, bookish accountant, is beaten up for no apparent reason by a motorcycle gang. Traumatized, he sets out to ensure this doesn’t happen again. Then he stumbles across a karate school. He joins but progress is slow. Then the teacher starts to force him to be more aggressive.


This Seems more like an existential comedy of various tones that stay at a certain level no matter the emotion. 

How someone can get lost in a leader, hobby, or subculture that accepts you or makes you feel confident. How martial arts can have that hold on you and what happens if you take it too seriously and corn under the influence of a charismatic leader.

The film at times is homoerotic and misogynistic. As we watch an alpha must defeat before can move forward. The film keeps changing at first inspirational leader become a kind of enemy. Who by the end epitomizes the main character’s fear.

The characters all seem to some degree lost and lonely. Where it seems martial arts gives them not only purpose but a place to belong. Not To mention a discipline to follow that they lack. 

The film is an absurdist comedy that starts off in a recognizable reality but gets looser and crazier the longer it goes along.

The power of influence and what some people will do to stay in power to have that strength and feeling. As they might fail in other places. So that this is all they may have. 

Not to mention what it means to be an alpha in a society that seems to want most to be beta’s through that lust and desire to be the leader and it seems to control your own destiny. 

This is also a bone-dry comedy that gets outlandish but you follow it especially. As it always keeps its Composure and stays within its tone.

A very dry film that feels more like a cult novel than a natural film. As it all Comes together at first feels so distant and you want to know more about the characters. 

Grade: B- 

VIVARIUM (2020)

Directed By: Lorcan Finnegan
Written By: Garrett Shanley
Story By: Lorcan Finnegan & Garett Shanley 
Cinematography: MacGregor
Editor: Tony Cranston

Cast: Jesse Eisenberg, Imogen Poots, Jonathan Aris, Eanna Hardwicke

A young couple is thinking about buying their starter home. And to this end, they visit a real estate agency where they are received by a strange sales agent, who accompanies them to a new, mysterious, peculiar housing development to show them a single-family home. There they get trapped in a surreal, maze-like nightmare.


The film Plays as a mystery with no answers though gives you everything you need to know in the opening scene 

While the film Certainly has many ideas and great visuals in what feels like a kind of fantasy tale. It becomes just as frustrating as the characters feel throughout watching it.

As the films give us a mystery to keep us intrigued but that is about it. As Jesse Eisenberg’s character, it keeps digging itself deeper though it offers no explanation. Which ends up feeling like why should we care and with offering no kind of answers but trying to make it more mysterious it gets annoying and we can’t even feel much for these characters who are trapped.

After a while, it feels like this film is mostly a showcase for the director and screenwriter rather than making them engaging or logical. 

It seems rather more interested in impressing rather than being a story or even a film. So that it can leave the audience cold And unfulfilled. 

The film gives clues that this is rather weird by the make-up and loom of the real estate agent. So it alerts us that there is something afoot.

The scenes with them Raising a child who is supposed to be a mimic but you can tell His voice even when normal is a voice overtakes you out of the film.

The film has an intriguing central idea. Then just seems hesitant to move on and instead just chooses not to explain its point and Leaves it to be freaky or weird and visual. So never making its points.

Which can be intriguing but here it seems Lazy. As for all that they show and tell they can’t back it up and would have to explain why. That it might not all fit together.

So instead the movie comes off as a study that we are watching personally for what? Who knows but that is not what you expect and makes it all the more challenging. So that it plays almost like a fictional documentary only more observant as we never get any explanations or testimonials.

It’s A shame as both actors I truly like but the way it plays anyone could have played these roles. As they are front and center they don’t have much to play with and could be anybody. They are barely likable and don’t have any personality. 

Grade: C+

BLACK CHRISTMAS (2019)

Directed By: Sophia Takal 
Written By: Sophia Takal, April Wolfe & Roy Lee
Cinematography: Mark Schwartzbard 
Editor: Ben Baudhuin & Jeff Betancourt 

Cast: Imogen Poots, Aleyse Shannon, Lily Donoghue, Brittany O’Grady, Cary Elwes, Caleb Eberhardt, Simon Mead, Madeline Adams, Zoe Robins, Ben Black

Hawthorne College is quieting down for the holidays. One by one, sorority girls on campus are being killed by an unknown stalker. But the killer is about to discover that this generation’s young women aren’t willing to become hapless victims as they mount a fight to the finish.


Not exactly a remake but it does involve a serial killer around Christmas when the college is empty stalking Mostly women.

The plot is Changed a bit here as it is almost an original film that might have kissed off fans of the movie. Where it seems like an ideology or a kind of feminist ideology took over more than the plot. 

That is ok if it still makes a thrilling movie but it comes off as weak. As it seems more interested in making a statement which is fine but the way it tries seems empty especially when Trying to fit it into a more blockbuster film. I applaud the message though it comes off as off-centered eventually.

As well. As the reveal of who the killers are and why with a kind of supernatural goo that I am guessing reading up On the film is toxic masculinity dripping through their veins as a kind of reaction to the Brett Kavanaugh hearings.

The metaphors feel too spot-on as they are not very subtle. The film has nerve but it also needs a bit more polish. 

One can see that the film was made for a certain audience to feel represented and to show empowerment for the female audience by watching it and can applaud the film for that point but as far as watching it and being entertaining. It had many problems and weaknesses that seems random and more ambiguous and random 

Which might be me and certain audience members might not be the right audience for this film as we were expecting something different and what is here doesn’t speak as strongly to us 

The film certainly comes off with no frills to feel more homegrown and a little more natural. The film’s style seems to have very little of it. This almost comes off as an episode of a horror television series where. 

There is a message in its heart but it seems to take over the narrative. Which would work better if not necessarily trying to be subversive. Instead burying it turns the audience off from what they were expecting and mad at what they have been served. Maybe if it was better overall I wouldn’t mind. 

Though in the end.  just as Off point as the message of the film. So is the filmmaking which seems less interested in horror and more uninterested and going through the motions when it comes to that aspect of the film.

Which feels like it has gone far off from what it was aimed at. That it feels silly and far fetched. In essence, it didn’t mix well and got too preachy.

Grade: D

SHE’S FUNNY THAT WAY (2015)

Shes_Funny_That_Way_Still

Directed By: Peter Bogdanovich
Written By: Peter Bogdanovich & Louise Stratten
Cinematography By: Yaron Orbach
Editor: Nick Moore & Pax Wassermann 


Cast: Owen Wilson, Imogen Poots, Kathryn Hahn, Jennifer Aniston, Rhys Ifans, Austin Pendelton, Will Forte, Illeana Douglas, Jennifer Esposito, Lucy Punch, Colleen Camp, Debi Mazar, Cybill Shepherd, Richard Lewis

*Please note that some trivia and facts have been republished from imdb among other sources In this review

On the set of a playwright’s new project, a love triangle forms between his wife, her ex-lover, and the call girl-turned-actress cast in the production.

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KNIGHT OF CUPS (2016)

knight

Written & Directed By: Terrence Malick
Cinematography By: Emmanuel Lubezki
Editor: A.J.Edwards, Keith Fraase, Geoffrey Richman & Mark Yoshikawa 

Cast: Christian Bale, Cate Blanchett, Wes Bentley, Brain Dennehy, Frieda Pinto, Natalie Portman, Teresa Palmer, Isabel Lucas, Imogen Poots, Armin Mueller-Stahl, Cherry Jones, Michael Wincott, Jason Clarke, Antonio Banderas, Thomas Lennon, Nick Offerman, Kevin Corrigan, Joel Kinnaman, Clifton Collins Jr, Dale Dehaan, Shea Whigham, Ryan O’Neal, Bruce Wagner, Joe Lo Truglio, Fabio, Jocelin Donahue, Joe Manganiello, Beau Garrett, Nick Kroll, Danny Strong

Once there was a young prince whose father, the king of the East, sent him down into Egypt to find a pearl. But when the prince arrived, the people poured him a cup. Drinking it, he forgot he was the son of a king, forgot about the pearl and fell into a deep sleep

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