October movie reviews

In theaters:

SMILE

A fairly well made horror in places, and led by a strong lead performance by Sosie Bacon. But it ticks some of my biggest horror movie pet peeves, from the annoyance of characters always doing first guess stupid things, to one of those "nope, this isn't over" endings. 

AMSTERDAM 

David O. Russell assembled one of the most incredible casts in any film in years for this sort of truth based conspiracy caper. The comedy never pops, and the story becomes deeply convoluted by the third act. But this movie is enjoyable because there is always at least one terrific actor on screen at all times, mostly doing interesting things. Top honors to Christian Bale, Margot Robbie, and, yes, Mike Myers. 

HALLOWEEN ENDS

I wasn't even sure I was going to see this, after Halloween 2018 and Halloween Kills were both awful. But it was a Friday with nothing else to see. I actually think this one was...watchable. It at least has a couple of ideas in it, albeit shoddily executed ones. The Michael Myers of it all is nearly an afterthought. Can we just let this franchise be done now? 

BLACK ADAM

The latest DC movie is just fine. It's not great, it's not awful. It feels like an early 2000s comic book movie, with a more simplified approach to telling its story. I know this was a Dwayne Johnson passion project, but I'm puzzled as to why considering this character removes almost all of his charisma and charm. More fun is the Justice Squad material, cause we get terrific performances by Pierce Brosnan and Aldis Hodge. We also get a lot of the gorgeous Sarah Shahi. I thought the movie was ending at one point that I liked, but then...nope, we still have a whole big action finale to go. And yes, Superman shows up in the credits. 


Everything else:

AMERICAN CARNAGE

Took a flyer on this one due to the presence of Jenna Ortega. It's a weird one. A bunch of Immigrant kids get forced into helping at a creepy old folks home that harbors a secret. It's a doublemeat palace kind of secret. It never really works as a horror movie or a satire. 

YES, GOD, YES

Natalia Dyer from Stranger Things is a really religious teen who starts to have a little of the old sexual awakening. I'm always all for a movie that mocks organized religion, though that topic has been done better in other films. 

THE LOST BOYS

Yeah I had never actually seen this before. It is SO 80's that I could practically smell the hairspray. I enjoyed it as cheesy 80's fun. There's some seriously bad acting in this (Corey Haim is awful) but some fun style. Jami Gertz is hot, but, as a sign of how fucking old I'm getting I thought Dianne Wiest was cute as hell. 

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