October movie reviews

In theaters:

THE SOCIAL RECKONING

Many years after The Social Network, a film that's very good if a bit overrated (the people who talk it up as one of the greatest films of the 2000s so far are nuts), comes this sequel, which only carries over writer turned director Aaron Sorkin. 

I have no idea what purpose this film serves. While the previous film was all about the beginning of Facebook, this is a smaller story of a whistle-blower (Mikey Madison) and a journalist (Jeremy Allen White) exposing how Facebook cares more about engagement and clicks than it does about its users. I mean...yeah...duh. Even if we didn't know this, we knew this. FB has been a cesspool. There's a basically useless storyline here with Zuckerberg (Jeremy Strong in for Jesse Eisenberg) preparing to testify to Congress. The Madison-White stuff is fine, I guess. Mikey is a soothing presence. But this film is so inconsequential, and the ending is treated like Facebook was an evil entity that got defeated. Spoiler: it wasn't.

All of that would be forgivable if the film had that usual snappy, fun Sorkin dialogue. But the words don't crackle here at all. Very disappointing. 

WHALEFALL

Poor Austin Abrams. First, he's running from zombies in Resident Evil, and now here he gets swallowed up by a whale. Most of this movie is set inside the whale, as Abrams has to figure out how to get out. The film is padded with flashbacks to him and his dad (Josh Brolin being a total dick). The novelty of the premise goes a long way, and the film at times turns the suspense screws well. 

CLAYFACE

The latest from DC, this is a low-budget villain origin. An actor (the new to me Tom Rhys Harries) is brutally scarred after crossing a mob boss, and takes experimental drugs to fix his face, which winds up leaving him able to change his appearance.

I really liked the setup. It's like The Substance with a comic book spin. Naomi Ackie is terrific as the scientist whose untested drugs are used. The villains are generic, but then Clayface becomes the villain (or antihero depending on your perspective) and there are some terrific scenes of him exacting revenge, the highlight being a dazzlingly choreographed sequence at a club.

Everything else:

UNDERTONE

An absolute nothing of a horror movie where a podcast host hears what are supposed to be spooky recordings and...that's it. That's the movie  and what a colossally boring one. 

VERITY

Trashy but not trashy enough melodrama with Dakota Johnson and the way overqualified Anne Hathaway. The whole thing takes itself way too seriously. 

DIGGER

This one had a ton of pre-release hype cause it has Tom Cruise breaking away from action guy to do a bizarre role under a ton of makeup, and under the direction of the often acclaimed Alejandro Inarritu. But sometimes only talented people can make something this uniquely horrible. I was briefly with this one early out of pure curiosity, but then an early reveal sends the whole enterprise crashing down as fast and as completely as anything I've ever seen. It is a painful film to get through, one so far up its own pretentious ass it can't possibly be enjoyed. 

THE FRIDAY THE 13TH FRANCHISE

I vowed this spooky season to dive into at least one of the classic horror franchises I hadn't really seen. I had only seen Jason X and Freddy vs Jason. So I watched the rest, the 9 movies in the original run, plus the 2009 remake.

Good lord. These are not good movies.

The only ones I sort of enjoyed were the ones that mixed it up a bit (part 4 with a weird Corey Feldman character, part 7 has Jason vs a telekinetic girl) but they are so empty and repetitive. Jason Goes To Hell was a particularly heinous act against cinema. The slick remake at least had Danielle Panabaker. 

HALLOWEEN 1 AND 2 (THE ROB ZOMBIE ONES)

Never had the slightest interest in these when they originally came out in 2007 and 2009. I was pretty much right. Rob Zombie is a very poor and trashy in a bad way filmmaker, totally uninterested in anything but gore and sadism. Part 1 does a full Michael Myers origin story for its first half, and that's the best part of either film because at least it's something different. The rest is just generic slasher stuff. Scout Taylor-Compton is profoundly annoying as this iteration's Laurie Strode. Malcolm McDowell is not a very interesting Loomis. Cool seeing one of my early actress crushes Danielle Harris (and how) in these. A handful of solid kills. But you can see why the 2nd one made a lot less money, and they never made any more in this particular version.