Holidate

‘Holidate’ is a 2020 Netflix original romantic/comedy that’s arrived just in times for the holidays. With October over, the scary movies move over for the Christmas movies, and this is the first Christmassy one of the season. ‘Holidate’ is a pretty simple concept, a holidate is a date just for holidays only. ‘Holidate’ follows the story of Sloane and Jackson, two people who are sick of dating but don’t want to be single on the holidays. After meeting each other in the mall, they decide to be each other’s holidates. This includes all holidays, Christmas, new years, valentines day, St. Patrick’s Day etc.. ‘Holidate’ stars Emma Roberts (American Horror Story), Luke Bracey (Point Break), Kristin Chenoweth (RV), King Bach (The Babysitter), and Manish Dayal (The Resident).

I said this one is a Christmassy movie and not a Christmas movie because the fact it covers all the holidays. However our story starts with Christmas and ends with Christmas, so close enough. I’m not a big fan of rom/com, but this one looked pretty good, and I like the original concept of this movie. ‘Holidate’ follows a typical rom/com plot, the main stars don’t like each other, but then they slowly start to fall for each other, but because of some stupid reason they can’t be together. The movie even takes a shot at themselves by saying this is the basic plot of all rom/com’s, which is pretty funny. Luke Bracey is funny, he reminds me a lot of Chris Hemsworth, same accent, same sense of humor, and similar mannerisms. I’m already a fan of Emma Roberts from her roles in American Horror Story. Overall it’s not as funny as I would have hoped for, but Bracey and Roberts have a good connection and the movie works for it. It’s a good kickoff for the Christmas movie season. I give it a 7/10.

The Empty Man

‘The Empty Man’ is a 2020 horror movie starring James Badge Dale (The Kitchen), Stephen Root (Office Space), Sasha Frolova (Red Sparrow), and Marin Ireland ( Sneaky Pete). The Empty Man is a supernatural spirit that is basically manifested from bad thoughts. You summon the empty man by blowing into an empty bottle on a bridge. The first day you hear the empty man, the second day you see him, and the third he gets you. When a group of disappearances occur, a one time detective looks into it, only to find out he may have bitten off more than he can chew.

I went and saw this one on Halloween night and what’s a better way to spend Halloween than watching a scary movie. ‘The Empty Man’ is an interesting one, it really doesn’t fit the horror genre. It’s more of a crime/mystery movie with a splash of supernatural substance thrown into it, it reminds me a little of ‘The Grudge’. The story is great and the acting is solid, the problem is the run time. It’s just shy of being a two and a half hour movie, which is crazy for a movie labeled a horror film, I can’t think of another one with that run length. Even a really scary one, if it’s not a very solid story, it’ll lose peoples interest. This is what happens with ‘The Empty Man’, it’s a great story but not strong enough for the run time. If they trimmed the fat, it would be an amazing film, but it’s about 45 min or so too long. Because of that it’s a mixed film that makes you just kind of shrug and say ehh at the end. I give it a 6/10

BORAT SUBSEQUENT MOVIEFILM

‘BORAT: SUBSEQUENT MOVIEFILM ‘ is the sequel to ‘Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan’ or which everyone knows as ‘Borat’, I didn’t even know the first ‘Borat’ had that long of a title, I just knew it simply as ‘Borat’. It’s been fourteen years since the first ‘Borat’. This is a sequel I didn’t know was coming but, it was one we all needed. Other than staring Sacha Baron Cohen, Borat himself, we get introduced to Maria Bakalova, who plays Borat’s daughter Sandra Jessica Parker Sagdiyev. Borat 2 starts out as explaining where Borat has been the past 14 years, after returning back to Kazakhstan, his country is so ashamed of him for putting them in bad light that they send him to the Gulag. Kazakhstan now wants to get in America’s good grace by sending Borat back to America to bring Mike Pence a gift. Not any gift though, Kazakhstan’s top celebrity monkey. Sandra Jessica Parker Sagdiyev sneaks into the crate the monkey is stored in on it’s way to America. She eats the monkey in order to survive, so now with no monkey Borat must offer Mike Pence his daughter instead.

I could argue the two most influential movies of my generation are ‘Napoleon Dynamite’, and ‘Borat’, both came out when I was in high school, and like both, kids were walking around doing the voices and quoting the movie. Still to this day both are still quoted and the Borat voice is still a thing. So when Borat 2 came out, I had to watch it, and I was not alone. Opening weekend over 1.6 million houses tuned in to watch Borat 2, in the words of Borat I would say that was a “great success”. Like the first one Borat is crude and has a lot of wtf moments, but that’s just Borat. This one gets more political and takes a lot of jabs at the republican party, and one thing I do have to say is it is dirty how they tried to trap Rudy Giuliani. You have to see the scene to know what I’m talking about, he was laying back tucking his shirt in. It’s clear as day nothing more. Overall this movie is great, it’s hilarious, and major props to Sacha Baron Cohen on being able to still trick people in 2020 especially after his sky rocket to fame after the first Borat. I give it an 8/10.

30 Miles from Nowhere

’30 Miles from Nowhere’ is a 2018 horror/thriller that you can find on VUDU starring, Carrie Preston (Claws), Rob Benedict (Waiting), Cathy Shim (Reno 911!), Marielle Scott (You), Seana Kofoed (American Princess), William Smillie (Chicago Fire), and Postell Pringle (Grand Theft Auto IV). Five college friends reunite for a friends funeral who happens to live in rural Wisconsin, and soon it becomes a fight for survival.

There’s a lot to unpack here, and it’s not so good. It has an ‘IT’ feeling at first, a group of friends get back together that haven’t seen each other in years. Instead of getting together to fight an evil clown they’re getting together for a friends funeral. The build up is very slow, with a lot of dialogue, which I believe dialogue is important. It builds up the scene and lets the viewer know important details, but this dialogue goes nowhere, and just muddles the story. Not only that the characters are very stereotypical. All this is within the first thirty minutes of the movie, once you get past this, the action starts to take place, if you can call it that. The jump scenes are terrible, it’s like they just added whatever they thought is scary and threw it into this movie, cockroaches, random blood, and rabid dogs. I’ve seen a lot worse movies, but this one isn’t good. My wife and I quote said “this wouldn’t scare a 12 year old.” I give it a 4/10, and the only reason it’s that high is because the ending manages to pull it in some.

The Owners

Since it’s Spooktober, I’m going to continue with the scary/horror movies, even though that’s the majority of what I watch anyway. ‘The Owners’ is a 2020 horror movie from England starring Maisie Williams (The New Mutants), Sylvester McCoy (Doctor Who), Rita Tushingham (Doctor Zhivago), and Andrew Ellis (Clink). Three friends decide to rob an elderly couples house, who are loaded, one of the friends girlfriends unwillingly gets involved when the elderly couple comes home earlier than expected. Things quickly go from bad to worse when the elderly couple decides to fight back.

There are several movies where robbers break in and it quickly goes wrong for them. For instance ‘Becky’, that I recently reviewed, or even the classic ‘Home Alone’ is the same presence. What separates ‘The Owners’ is the elderly couple turns out to be evil, and I mean evil. You’re cheering for the robbers to get away the whole time. This movie screws with your head, and has you glued to the TV wanting to find out what happens, and what exactly the elderly couple is hiding. I love horror movies that do this versus pointless gore and killing, a good horror film needs a strong plot behind it. The only downfall with ‘The Owners’ is it basically finishes up a hour in, then the last half hour feels dragged out, and it takes a weird turn towards the end. Overall it’s a solid horror movie and is worth checking out. The Plot is good, The acting is good, and it keeps you intrigued. You can check this one out at your local Redbox. I give it an 8/10.

Hubies Halloween

‘Hubies Halloween’ is a 2020 Netflix comedy exclusive from Happy Madison Productions. Anytime you see Happy Madison Productions you know Adam Sandler is bringing the whole crew, I love it. It’s like watching ‘American Horror Story’ and seeing what character your favorite actor/actress is playing this season. ‘Hubies Halloween’ stars Kevin James, Steve Buscemi, Rob Schneider, Maya Rudolph, Jackie Sandler, and the Big man himself Shaq, as per usual as most his movies. Outside the normal crew it also stars Ben Stiller (Dodgeball), Kenan Thompson (Kenan & Kel), Tim Medows (Son of Zorn), Ray Liotta (Goodfellas), Michael Chiklis (Gotham), and Julie Brown (Modern Family). This cast is loaded.

‘Hubies Halloween’ follows Hubie (Sandler), a man who has been bullied by the entire town his whole life. Nevertheless, he still loves his town and feels it’s his duty to protect its citizens when weird things start happening on Halloween.

‘Hubies Halloween’ is a lighthearted, feel good, Halloween movie, think along the lines of ‘Ernest Scared Stupid’, but mixed with ‘The Warriors’, and ‘Halloween.’ Adam Sandler brings back his ‘Little Nicky’ style voice, which is a little annoying at times, it makes it hard to understand what he’s saying. I find Adam Sandler funnier without the voice, but some people might like it for nostalgia sake. I’m not one of those people. It’s also not as funny as I was hoping it would be, but in the end it pulls it all together, and teaches us to love one another no matter how different we are. I give it a 5.5/10

Vampires vs the Bronx

I love October, the fall weather, the changing of the leaves, the whole spookiness of the season. One of the best parts of the season is all the horror movies that come out during this time of the year. Unfortunately, Regal announced they’re closing down theaters across the board for the rest of the year, so not a lot of horror/thriller’s dropping this year. So we have to take what we can get.

There’s not a lot of great vampire movies out there, so I was pretty excited when Netflix announced this one. ‘Vampires vs the Bronx’ is about a local kid trying to save his neighborhood from going under as rent is being steadily raised. A real state company moves in offering to buy people’s businesses and homes, only problem is, they’re vampires.

‘Vampires vs the Bronx’ stars Sarah Gadon (True Detective), The Kid Mero (Desus & Mero), Jaden Michael (The Get Down), Gerald Jones III (Blue Bloods), Gregory Diaz IV (Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt), and Method Man (How High).

As I said earlier there isn’t a lot of great vampire movies out there, and unfortunately this movie falls into this category. They just didn’t seem to know what direction they wanted to go with it. At times it was a horror film, then a comedy, then a cheesy mixture of both. The vampires also looked like they were borrowed from ‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer’, just a cheesy look. It just didn’t work, and in the end it’s a forgettable film. I give it a 5/10.

Welcome to Sudden Death

‘Welcome to Sudden Death’ is a 2020 action film starring Michael Jai White (SPAWN), Michael Eklund (The Call), and Gary Owen (Daddy Day Care). ‘Welcome to Sudden Death’ was released today 9/29/2020 and is a sequel to 1995 film ‘Sudden Death’ staring Jean-Claude Van Damme. I haven’t watched ‘Sudden Death’, so I can’t compare the two, I can only talk about this one.

Jesse (White) is a security guard who works at a professional basketball arena. He has taken his two kids to a game when a group of terrorist’s disguised as tech workers take over the arena. Unknown to them though, Jesse has an extensive background in special ops.

From what I’ve read about ‘Sudden Death’, ‘Welcome to Sudden Death’ doesn’t seem like a sequel but more of a remake. The main difference seems to be instead of a hockey arena, it takes place at a basketball arena. The acting is terrible, but no one watches a Michael Jai White film, or a Jean-Claude Van Damme for that matter, for quality acting. We know it’s going to be cheesy, we know the acting is going to suck, we watch it to see Michael Jai White kick ass. I love Michael Jai White, he’s one of the baddest dudes on the face of the planet. So a recap, this movie is cheesy, the acting is bad, and Michael Jai White kicks ass. Is it worth watching? Yes. Is it a quality movie? No. But it will kill an afternoon. You can catch this one on Netflix, I give it a 6.5/10.

The Last Shift

‘The Last Shift’ is a 2020 independent comedy/drama starring Richard Jenkins (Burn After Reading), Ed O’Neil (Modern Family), and Shane Paul McGhie (What Men Want). ‘The Last Shift’ is about an older white guy named Stanley (Jenkins), who has worked in the same fast food restaurant for the past 38 years. He’s finally going to leave his job, but first he must train his replacement, a young black guy named Jevon (McGhie).

‘The Last Shift’ looks pretty good from trailers, but that’s about it. There isn’t much comedy, just mostly drama, and unfortunately it’s a let down. The acting from O’Neil and McGhie is good, and they play their roles well, but the story just doesn’t go anywhere. They slide racial tension in the movie as well, but that doesn’t even really go anywhere. O’Neil and Mcghie butt heads throughout the movie, and how they both have it rough. In the end you see that Stanley has it worse than Jevon, then it just ends. ‘The Last Shift’ has a few flashes here and there but mostly there is no direction. In the end it’s a forgettable movie, I give it a 5.5/10.

Z

‘Z’ is a 2019 horror, exclusive through Shudder. ‘Z’ is a story about a kids imaginary friend named Z that begins to torment his family, his mother comes to realize Z is all to familiar. ‘Z’ stars Keegan Connor Tracy (Bates Motel), Sean Rogerson (Grave Encounters), Jett Klyne (Skyscraper), and Stephen McHattie (Come to Daddy).

‘Z’ has ‘The Babadook’ feel all over it, if you watch both, you could come up with comparisons all day. The mental illness, the suspense build up, the weird kid. Unlike ‘The Babadook’ though, ‘Z’ isn’t boring. I couldn’t even make it through ‘The Babadook’ it was so slow. ‘Z’ nails down the creepiness aspect and doesn’t let up. There aren’t many good creepy horror movies that come out, so ‘Z’ is definitely worth watching. I give it a 7.5/10.