Category: REVIEWS

Theo Conroy (Kevin Bacon) is a successful middle-aged man whose marriage to his much younger actress wife, Susanna (Amanda Seyfried) is shredding at the seams, frayed by her secretiveness, his jealousy, and the shadow of his past. In an effort to repair their relationship, Theo and Susanna book a vacation at a stunning, remote modern home in the Welsh countryside for themselves and their six-year-old daughter, Ella (Avery Essex). What at first seems like a perfect retreat distorts into a perfect nightmare when Theo’s grasp on reality begins to unravel and he suspects that a sinister force within the house knows more than he or Susanna have revealed, even to each other.

A friend of mine sent me the trailer for You Should Have Left and said to watch it and tell him what I thought about it. Usually, I don’t like to watch trailers for movies too much anymore, as I find that they can give away a lot of details about the plot and show some of the best scenes in the film, lessening the impact and surprise of the actual film. But, I figured I would give it a watch and see what I thought.

After watching it, I had to admit that I found it to be genuinely intriguing and looked like a return to form for Koepp. Best known for his script work on excellent movies such as Jurassic Park, Spider-Man, and Panic Room, I was hoping that this latest film of his, which he also directed, would be a return to form for him after the less than stellar Tom Cruise-lead The Mummy film back in 2017. Well, in a massively disappointing twist, You Should Have Left was awful. It’s without a doubt his worst film in many years.

It starts off decent enough with a creepy atmosphere that is built up right off the bat as we watch a young girl seeing weird things happening in her bedroom, with the ominous title card popping up shortly afterward. Long, dark hallways and the cold of the night is captured beautifully by cinematographer Angus Hudson, making for a chilling feel.

Where the movie falters mainly, however, is its screenplay. It’s a film with a running time of just ninety-three minutes including credits, and forty minutes of that running time is wasted. We see many scenes of Kevin Bacon’s character Theo and Amanda Seyfried’s character Susanna settling into their massive new home and getting accustomed to things.

Susanna will take their young daughter Ella out for walks while Theo stays back in the house and writes journal entries. Theo eventually suspects Susanna of cheating on him after he discovers that she has two cellphones, which leads him to discreetly look at her messages while she is in the bath. Scenes like this happen back to back with no story progression. After a while, it became incredibly frustrating when I realized that the entire film was essentially building to nothing.

After the forty minute mark, it felt as if Koepp finally realized that he had to do something of interest with this story before it was over, so he made the third act feature Kevin Bacon hallucinating and walking around seemingly never-ending corridors. It’s not only headache-inducing, but it’s just boring to watch. Not to mention the actual ending itself barely makes any sense. It’s one of those endings where you can tell the filmmaker’s thought it was much deeper and thought-provoking than it actually is.

This is not a wholly terrible movie though. The performances are actually quite strong, namely from Bacon and Seyfried. I personally found Seyfried to have the strongest performance in the film. She is asked to act with just her facial expressions at times and pulls it off greatly. She almost makes it look easy. It was great to see her deliver her all here, but I just wished that this great performance was in a movie deserving of her talent.

Plus, as I mentioned earlier, the opening few scenes were a little bit interesting and started out promising enough. It has some atmospheric and clever cinematography at times, but when you boil it all down, those two positives aren’t nearly enough to form a great movie. At the end of the day, all movies need to tell great stories, and this one simply didn’t.

You Should Have Left is a boring and convoluted mess due to its bland and uneventful screenplay that wastes its strong cast and ultimately leads nowhere.

Treasure hunting buddies Moses (David Wysocki) and Fink (David Wall) on a lifelong search for a legendary ghost ship along the Mexican border, stumble into the crosshairs of a drug kingpin, his enigmatic assassin, a band of lost children and a huge pile of dirty cash. The pair have their friendship tested as they must choose between their dreams of fortune or doing the right thing. 

One of the hardest things to pinpoint with Gold Dust is who exactly it is for. The adventure narrative and lifelong buddy relationship between Moses and Fink would lend itself to a family-oriented movie. The former being an almost childlike grown-up who often pesters his friend, while the latter is the straight man with a somewhat immature lifegoal.

The chemistry is fun and often comedic and easily the best part of the movie. It’s just a shame when the focus is on the questionably accented drug baron and his mute enforcer, the tone becomes muddled. It’s hard to reconcile the quirky, well-worn adventure narrative with the exaggerated antagonists, who seem to have wandered out of a Joe Carnahan knock-off.

One of the most striking elements of Gold Dust is Egor Povolotskiy’s gorgeous photography. The desert locations look incredible and there’s a deft use of light and colour which is complimented by the tactile costumes and Beyond Thunderdome’esque garb of the orphan children. Gold Dust makes use of classical music with Jessy Ribordy’s score often subtly placed to commendable effect.

Writer, director, producer and star, David Wall delivers a serviceable (if a little rote) movie that doesn’t quite gel at times. The tone is inconsistent, the performances vary from Wall and Wysocki’s great chemistry and rapport to characters/ performances that don’t quite fit.

The younger actors are all solid, but the audience would have benefitted from more in-depth characterisation. There’s a decent family adventure in there somewhere but it’s just not teased out enough either comedically or emotionally.

While I wasn’t particularly taken by Gold Dust, I’d be interested to see what Wall works on next. There’s the seed of a good movie here and I’m hopeful that this will come to fruition somewhere in the future.

Isaac Aptaker and Elizabeth Berger’s Love, Victor focuses on a new student at Creekwood High School, Victor Salazar (Michael Cimino). The series follows his journey of self-discovery: facing challenges at home and struggling with his sexual orientation. He reaches out to Simon Spier (Nick Robinson) when it seems too difficult for him to navigate through high school.

One of the biggest surprise hits of the summer of 2018 was that of Greg Berlanti’s sweet LGBTQ coming-of-age tale, Love, Simon. It was a movie that swept me away and impressed me greatly. It’s a breezy watch but is packed full of tons of emotion and heart that will make even the most hardened of film watchers get teary-eyed during certain scenes.

That’s why I was a little bit curious when it was announced that there would be a spinoff television series in the future that would focus on a new student at Simon’s high school that goes through similar issues that he did. On one hand, I had high expectations since the original film was so good and had faith that the minds behind the show would do a good job. But on the other hand, I recognized that I should keep my expectations in check just in case something went wrong in the script or storytelling department.

Thankfully, I can say that Love, Victor is an exceptionally fun show, although it doesn’t come anywhere near the levels of greatness that the film it’s based on achieved. This series does play things a little bit too safe, and for a little while, the show feels like it loses its focus a little bit. There were some episodes that felt like they really didn’t need to even exist because they felt like filler. The story that they are telling doesn’t warrant a ten-episode series. Although I did have fun along the way for the most part, I have to admit that I think it would have worked better as an actual film.

By far the biggest praise that I can give this show is its character development and its performances. Victor Salazar was a kid that I genuinely felt like I knew by the time not even the fifth episode was over. He obviously gets the most development and it was nice to see how well the screenwriters did with making every single character come alive and feel real.

Something that the creators of this series did excellently though, was make Victor’s family feel grounded and have issues. In Love, Simon, many people pointed out that Simon’s family felt picture-perfect like they didn’t have even the slightest flaw. They heard you loud and clear. Victor’s family goes through quite the rocky relationship throughout the course of ten episodes, and they don’t shy away from getting a little bit dark and depressing at times.

But, to be truthful, this whole thing was not perfect. It has some excellent character development, especially for a show aimed towards teenagers, in particular, it can often be quite funny, but its story was just not as interesting as it could have been.

One last point I want to make is that our lead protagonist Victor goes to the exact same high school that Simon went to in the 2018 film, Creekwood High School. Despite the setting being the same, we practically see none of the same locations from the film in this show, prompting me to think that Love, Victor was shot in an entirely different studio/school. There were some moments where I was questioning how this was the same place that Simon attended. The layout doesn’t look similar at all. It’s a nitpick for sure, but it’s something that I couldn’t help but notice during my binge.

If you’re a fan of the movie, you should give this a shot. It probably won’t blow you away like you may have hoped it would, but it’s still a cute and fun adventure to go on, even if its story isn’t the most interesting.

Love, Victor makes up for its familiar and safe story with cute romantic beats and a fun cast of characters that feel alive and grounded.

Bittersweet and whimsical, a story in the same vein as those told by Ivor Cutler, or  Jean-Pierre Jeunet  (Amelie, 2001). This ten minute short is, as the title suggests, a tale about a Poet and a Plant.

The Poet and the Plant is narrated by Sarah Snook (Steve Jobs, 2015; Black Mirror, 2016). It is Written and directed by Tom Basis and Robert Summerlin, who also plays the eponymous Poet.

It plays as though Jonathan Richman is in one of Aesop’s Fables. He is a man struggling to breathe life into his writing and his house plants alike. Basis and Summerlin describe it as “A meditation on true love, loneliness, and listening.”

If you’d like to make it a struggling-artist-short double bill, try Victor in Paradise by Brendan McHugh

A poet loves his new houseplant so much he kills it. A meditation on true love, loneliness, and listening. And an allegory for modern man’s relationship with nature, and how it can heal.

ROBERT SUMMERLIN is a French-American poet, artist, and environmentalist. His hope is that his creative projects play a part in creating a more peaceful and happy planet. In 2017 he was accepted into The Aspen Institute’s Poetry Workshop.

TOM BASIS is an Israeli-American writer and director. He has put his name to several major campaigns in fashion, design, and technology, and has collaborated with top-tier companies at the forefront of their fields, such as Marchesa and Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. Tom’s most recent projects include a series of 360° films for IBM Watson.

Norman (Jordan Waller) is a butcher with Polish heritage living in the UK. He owns his own business and spends most of the working day preparing the meat just like his mother taught him. Annabelle (Kathryn Wilder) is a part time actress who seems to have found fame as the face of a stool softening product, it’s not her ideal acting role, but she keeps trying to find better work until she makes her big break.

Norman and Annabelle are twins and despite their differences, they have to get together for their mother’s funeral. However, after a slip of the tongue by a relative, Norman and Annabelle find out that they’re adopted and their mother lives in a place called Two Heads Creek – in Australia.

Two Heads Creek is a British/Australian horror comedy written by Jordan Waller and directed by Australian Jesse O’ Brian. As Norman and Annabelle venture to the other side of the world they’re unsure what to expect. Norman is ever hopeful with a rose-tinted view of his real mother, while Annabelle just wants to be anywhere where she’s not recognised.

Norman is also the quintessentially polite Englishman, whereas Annabelle’s point of view is a little less politically correct. Together they eventually find Two Heads Creek and it’s not exactly the idyllic Australian holiday destination they were expecting.

The cast of Two Heads Creek are all very good in their roles, in particular Norman and Annabelle who have chemistry and the script helps to give the audience the idea that they may really be related. However, the movie does take quite a while to get going and in the meantime the audience is greeted by the Two Heads Creek locals and the Australian stereotypes come thick and fast.

For horror fans, they may have to wait a while, but like the Antipodean clichés, the blood and gore comes thick and fast for those who have the patience to wait and it may all be worth it in the end.

However, for those who are interested in plot and characters, the reasoning behind the horror takes a little while to sink in, but when it does and the villains are revealed for their evil motives, the audience may realise all too late that the plot is rather thin.