2022 Movies
The Long NightDirector: Rich Ragsdale
Star: Scout Taylor-Compton, Deborah Kara Unger Very low budget, but pretty effective thriller. A young couple heads out to a house in the country, that the adopted woman learned was part of her past. Soon after their arrival, cloaked, hooded, and skulled beings start to surround the house a la The Strangers. Some of the spooks are a bit silly and never explained (electronic glitches, possession-like control), but the story is ultimately effective, scary, and I definitely found myself hoping it is successful enough for Ragsdale to make a sequel. Pretty cool! B |
MoonfallDirector: Roland Emmerich
Star: Patrick Wilson, Halle Berry, John Bradley Roland Emmerich is so confusing to me. He can make some of the greatest disaster movies ever (Independence Day, The Day After Tommorrow), and some of the worst (Godzilla, Independence Day: Resurgence). When he strays from his formula, he can be effective (The Patriot, Anonymous) and he can be terrible (Stonewall). Moonfall is his formula, and it is among his worst. It is just a complete mess. Of course...the effects are entertaining...as they always are...but this is so poorly written that I was audibly sighing, a LOT. Most of the disaster-isms are recycled, anti-gravity stuff from ID4-2, and how the B-story people, whom we care ZERO about, act, was infuriating. Wilson and Berry have a thankless job of being good looking astronauts who are only there to pilot the plot along. Bradley is actually a bright point of the film, even if his character is so familiar that he could have been plucked from ANY other Emmerich film...the guy no one believes...until they put the fate of the Earth in his hands. D |
RRRDir: S.S. Rajamouli
Stars: N.T. Rama Rao Jr., Ram Charan RRR is precisely why I am a movie fanatic. It has been many years since I watched a movie so epic, so ridiculous, and one that filled me with so much joy, that even at a 3-hour runtime, I could not get enough of it. It tells the story of two men. One is an officer in the British Army in 1920s occupied India. The other is a man who is looking for a kidnapped girl from his village...taken by the Governor and his wife. Straightforward no? You keep thinking that! Because the feast for the ears, eyes, and soul that unfolds will astonish you. The goings on throughout the adventure that is RRR are as absurd as any Marvel movie, but it feels like it comes from the heart and passion of filmmaking 1000 fold. The music, the CGI beasts, the outrageous stunts...I can't wait to visit it all again! A |