Category: 2.5 stars
Average.
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Don’t Look Up (2021)
If nothing is done soon, global warming and climate change will kill us all. The sea levels will rise, severe weather patterns will become more common, entire ecosystems will be destroyed, and more disastrous things are in our future. Our entire way of life is at risk and there not only are people who are apathetic to these problems, but some actively ignore the warning signs and say nothing is wrong. It’s an absolutely maddening situation. And that’s basically the plot of Don’t Look Up, only it’s a comet and not rising global temperatures. Interesting premise, but not the best…
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A Puppy for Christmas (2016)
Christmas means many things to many people, but its true meaning is to be in a relationship with someone who will help you decorate a tree for the holidays. Oh, you doubt me? Then why are there a million different Christmas romances where that’s the message? Checkmate. In this particular case, A Puppy for Christmas is about finding your one true Christmas love AND adopting the worst puppy ever. Just a garbage dog. Girl, you’re ruining your life with this animal.
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Santa Jaws (2018)
Ho ho ho! Merry December! That’s right, the guy who hisses like a frightened possum when he hears Christmas music before Thanksgiving is setting up another month dedicated to winter-themed holiday movies. But I’m not dedicating the entire month to it, as The Cabinet of Caligari and The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari remake indicate. Anyway, remember that poorly planned Shark Week I did back in August? It was an excuse to cover most of the films on the “Shark Bait: 6 Killer Shark Films” DVD pack I picked up during quarantine. I had previously covered Ghost Shark, but that week…
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Fire City: End of Days (2015)
I honestly don’t remember how Fire City: End of Days came up on my radar. The director’s done stuff, but nothing that would make him stand out as a director. The writers have done little else. And none of the actors are really big names or in really big things. But I was still drawn to the film, mostly because it looked like it had some cool looking monsters. And it did! But basically nothing else worth watching.
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Needle in a Timestack (2021)
Sure seems like there’s a trend of me watching a non-horror movie during October–a month I just devote to nothing but horror films–that makes me go, “Oh, I have to talk about this.” Last year was Are We Not Cats, and this year it’s the amazingly titled Needle in a Timestack. Teams of people read that name and thought, “This is perfectly acceptable”? Remarkable. Anyway, it’s a movie about time travel and it’s… certainly something.
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Book of Blood (2009)
Not every movie in this interlude near the middle of the Hellbound Halloween is going to have ties to Hellraiser. The previous two films–Nightbreed and Lord of Illusions–are connected through comics and novels, but that still counts (sort of). Book of Blood, however, is just a ghost story. It does have ties to other films, but no obvious connection to Pinhead and his ilk. They can’t all fit the theme perfectly.
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Hellraiser: Bloodline (1996)
Welcome back to the Hellbound Halloween! Today’s entry is the fourth film in the Hellraiser franchise, Hellraiser: Bloodline. Man, we’re making good time with all this–four down and only six more to go. At this rate I’ll be done well before October is over! Hm, if only I had planned for that eventuality and had some tricks up my sleeve… Anyway, let’s talk about a film directed by Alan Smithee. Oh, that’s never a good sign.
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Tell Tale (2009)
I want to say that I found this movie by looking up superhero movies. Tell Tale is a film written by Mr. Dave Callaham, who is credited as the writer on Wonder Woman 1984, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, and the upcoming Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse 2. Hell, Callaham also wrote 2021’s Mortal Kombat and all four The Expendables movies–no, you’re not having a stroke, the fourth one hasn’t come out yet. Or that I found it looking up movies based on Edgar Allan Poe stories. All those are things I would talk about here, so it…
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Beethoven’s 5th (2003)
In a sane world, this would be the last Beethoven movie. Sure, in a saner world there would would only have been the original movie and none of these sequels, but either way that’s not the world we live in. No, when both The Land Before Time and Air Bud franchises have 14 movies each, we clearly live under the oppressive boot of capitalism, taking your nostalgia and trying to wring as much profit out of it as it can. So here we are with Beethoven’s 5th, the film that feels like a Scooby-Doo episode. Maybe that’s why I didn’t…
Chwineka Watches 