The Watchers is apparently based on a novel by A.M. Shine. I imagine the book is a lot better than the film. While the film has a somewhat interesting look, the forest is shot beautifully, and the production design is solid, everything else around it is lacking. Dakota Fanning leads the cast as Mina, a…
Tag: 2024
The Hitchcock Hotel (2024) – Stephanie Wrobel
A group of friends who haven’t seen one another since university are invited to an old friend’s renovated hotel, a tiny house that looks somewhat like the Bates Motel. In fact, the whole thing, book and hotel, is an homage to Hitchcock. There are secrets and reveals as the story plays out through its three…
Strange Harvest (2024) – Stuart Ortiz
So this found footage film, slipped by me. But when I came across it on streaming, I figured I would dig in. Once again, the phrase found footage doesn’t help to sell this one. It’s actually designed, production-wise to look like a well-made true crime documentary. The details to make it feel like a doc…
The Future Was Now (2024) – Chris Nashawaty
1982. What a summer at the movies. Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, E.T the Extraterrestrial, The Thing, The Road Warrior, Tron, Poltergeist, Blade Runner and Conan the Barbarian. Eight movies, all opening within weeks of each other, some on the same day, and a summer that brought geek culture into the mainstream in…
Wolfs (2024) – Jon Watts
Jon Watts wrote and directed this crime thriller with buddy overtones that shines with the banter and chemistry with its two stars, George Clooney and Brad Pitt. The two leading men play fixers who are summoned to a hotel, Margaret’s (Amy Ryan, who I always delight in seeing, she’s wonderful) Man (Clooney) is summoned by…
The God of the Woods (2024) – Liz Moore
Damn this book is good. It had popped up into my feed as a recommendation, and after reading the blurb I was in. I’m not going to say much storywise beyond the blurb because it’s wonderful to see how the narrative plays out. I am going to say, I loved the way Moore crafted her…
Presence (2024) – Steven Soderbergh
Steven Soderbergh is a director that likes to take chances and experiment with his craft, and Presence may be his best example of that to date. It surely won’t appeal to everyone, but there is a masterful hand at work here as the film tells its own style of ghost story. From it’s opening title…
We Used to Live Here (2024) – Marcus Kliewer
Some books not only take you in, but hint at a much bigger world behind the pages if you are willing to explore it. We Used to Live Here is one of those. It’s a spooky, unnerving tale, that is enmeshed in secrets and codes that eager readers can work to solve, and join online…
James (2024) – Percival Everett
Percival Everett offers a fresh perspective on Mark Twain’s adventure of Huck and Jim. Filled with humor, heartbreak, horror, and irony, Everett’s Pulitzer Prize winning novel is captivating, powerful and entertaining. Jim, as one will remember, is a runaway slave, and is later thought to have murdered Huck. The pair travel down the Mississippi tumbling…
The Day the Earth Blew Up (2024) – Peter Browngardt
I’m not sure what is going on with Warner Brothers, making a number of movies, completing them, then canceling their release only to use them as tax write-offs. We can only hope some day we’ll see the release of Batgirl, but happily, Ketchup Entertainment picked up Coyote vs. Acme and The Day the Earth Blew…
The Mind Reels 