Last Seen Contemporary Movie

[Tommy Jarvis]

Terrifier 2 2022 ★★★★★

Terrifier 2, answering the question: what would a gorefest be like with the warped creativeness of Mortal Kombat and the hilarious genius of Braindead?

Don't foster illusions about plot, this is just a two hour splatstick rollercoaster ride. And it's awesome.

My personal favorite is Art and the trick or treaters.

Why is mine so sticky? Holy shit, is that hilarious.

Jurassic Punk 2022 ★★★★

Jurassic Punk is the kind of documentary you want to root for.

Steven Williams looks authentic. He does not come across as this slick storyteller that wants to manipulate you. It's more like: Here's my story, think of it what you will. You don't like it? Alright... I don't give a fuck.

It tells the whole story. How two artists came together over their love for Alice Cooper. How they developed a collaboration that changed the history of cinema. Through movies like The Abyss and T2. My goodness, how many amazing people were involved in T2.

Also nice to see how they got Robert Patrick to discuss his time with Williams and Hape and how they shaped the liquid T2. Because for all the famous people that are namedropped through the course of the film, not many of them seemed willing to talk to them. Afraid of peer pressure? Who's to say?

But most of all, it's an ode to the unsung hero (credit where credit is due: he is mentioned in the jurassic park-episode in The movies that made us). The rebel that went against the grain to prove his point and make his name. With the moment with Spielberg's producer as a culmination. Only to be followed by a neary complete lack of recognition. Spaz does not get the spot on the Oscar stage, Spaz and Hape do not get the recognition.

Who does? Some jerk who does not understand their craft. They are/were too rough around the edges for the mainstream and the A-listers. The weirdoes who did not know how to poltic themselves into the spotlight. Instead of constantly craning their necks to see if somebody more interesting comes by, they went wandering around and ended up in the forbidden room. Oh... my... god. And surprise surprise, George Lucas is a bit of a dick.

Jurassic Punk is a two chord punk rock documentary for movie buffs. Are always complaining about Netflix documentaries being too slick? Check this one out then. Let's see if you can walk the walk.

[Tommy Jarvis]

Capsules 2023 ★★½

Capsules is a Gen Z Cronenberg about 3 students tripping on, for lack, ExTacy. ET trip home, indeed.

Luke Momo presents an overall entertaining ode to college life. All about the joys of both learning and getting laid and baked. Not necessarily in that order.

Managing to write college kids as likable is already a feat in my book. Apart from that, the autopsy scene and the break in in the old man's house show potential. Makes me want to see more of Luke Momo and Kate Pittard (Maya).

A movie that shows potential, but the underwhelming ending keeps it from getting a third star.

Also, just one thing: you worked in a “that's what she said”-joke, but no that's a paddlin'-joke? In spite of having a character named Jasper?

Oh boy. That's a paddlin'.

Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai 1999 ★★★★

I must have seen Ghost Dog at least ten times. It's one of those flicks that still keep their edge after so many rewatches.

There's always something new to find in this absurd mix of styles.

There's the crime element with the mobsters vying for power in the organisation. It also had me counting down to the first fuhget about it. Spoiler: it comes about ten minutes in. Or the comedy bits. The mob bosses all look a bit cartoonish, the scene with the names of the rappers and mobsters got a laugh out of me,... and the bit with Cliff Gorman rapping along with Flavor Flav is pretty funny too.

In the middle of all this, we find Forest Whittaker delivering one of the better performances of his career. In a way, he is one of those consumate professionals who, not unlike Harry Dean Stanton, should have got more recognition from mainstream crowds. Yes, the role was written for him, but he still manages to give Ghost Dog this misterious vibe, while at the same time being believable as the super organised and efficient professional hitman. Like the scene where he whacks Valerio. Guy never saw it coming.

At the same time, Ghost Dog's character has something warm and gentle to him. Like in his scenes with Pearline or with the ice cream salesman. A perfect example of the type of oddball characters that somehow always seem to inhabit Jarmusch's universe.

It never fails to entertain and/or intrigue. This time wondering about the cartoons Vargo's daughter watches. From Betty Boop at the start to Itchy and Scratchy at the end. Wonder if there is a metaphor in there.

Until the next rewatch.

[Tommy Jarvis]

Watcher 2022 ★★★½

Watched Jun 11, 2023
TommyJarvis’s review published on Letterboxd:

Chloe Okuno brings us Watcher, a slow burn thriller/horror about a young lady who moves to Romania when her husband gets a job opportunity there. And, wouldn't you know it, a serial killer lurks around in Bucharest at the same time. Oh, rats.

In a way, this movie reminded me of Spencer. Not just that it is more about setting mood and building up atmosphere, but also in the amount of time that our main character spends alone. Making the movie rely heavily on Maika Monroe's performance.

And she delivers. Often just relying on facial expressions and body language to convey her dread. Over here, Netflix decided to not subtitle the Romanian spoken parts, which does enhance the sense of loneliness. And of course the growing paranoia. That feel when everyone is out to get you, making for easy parallels with Rosemary's baby or The Game. With a finale that is part predictable and partly has a good twist to it. Also, a nice little eerie shot of a plastic bag. Well done.

At this point, I can safely you can blind buy/rent any horror that Maika Monroe is in. Other than that, this is for fans of slow burns.

[Tommy Jarvis]

The Strange Thing About the Johnsons 2011 ★★

A comedy more messed up than a lot of horror movies.

For the people who think Lars Von Trier and Happiness are too cheery and sunny.

Holy shit, Ari.

The Burial 2023 ★★★

The Burial is one of those movies with some interesting ideas. The kind of good sounding stuff that has you say: with a bigger budget, this could be really great.

A young man named Brian gets a call from his estranged brother Keith who's apparently in deep trouble somehow. Along with his girlfriend Molly – I will not be ignored, Brian! – he drives up to the place where Keith – aka discount Daniel Radcliffe – spends his days. And then of course things go south.

That's where this movie's qualities kick in. How little by little, the secrets are revealed. What happened in the past between the brothers and how it's affecting them now, making this movie a good metaphor for toxic (family) relationships. What's now haunting them. A ghost? First looks more a stalker, to be honest. How they still team up in these difficult days.

The reveal and the ending is something that you can easily make to look very silly, and I totally understand how some people would think that it does. But the fact that I was still engaged in the dramatics though the actors were not always that great... to me, that does also prove my point that there's potential in there.

Maybe five or ten years, someone will do a great remake that lifts this one to its full potential. Right now, it's only for you if you are the kind of movie (who) very persistently see the glass as half full.

[Tommy Jarvis]

Hounded 2022 ★★★

Like many movies in the genre, this has a few titles flying around: Hounded, Hunted,...

The story? A few burglars/robbers get caught on the one gig after one of them explicitly states he wants to quit. Guess who dies first? Uhu.

The plot is your typical generic action horror thriller. A bit of class warfare, a bit of hinting at abuse, a bit about tradition,... The baddies are dressed like fox hunters. Which is kind of logical, but mostly makes for a cool movie poster.

No great shakes, but still entertaining and Samantha Bond makes for a good villain. The kind of stuff you would come across and afterwards go: hmm, that was better/less bad than I thought it would be.

Come to think of it: this would be great for Netflix, actually.

Sleepless in Seattle 1993 ★★

Sam Baldwin: Didn't you see "Fatal Attraction"?
Jonah Baldwin: You wouldn't let me!

Not going to lie. This movie got a few laughs out of me and Tom Hanks can be genuinely funny. Oh yeah, and Bill Pullman is totally fucking underrated.

That said, it's still a rom com, so I was closer to yawning when I should have been fawning. Also, the secondary story lines (like Victoria and her cackle) were annoying and boring.

So what did make my heart melt, were the shots of Pike. What does that say about me? #therapist #curiousquestions

[Tommy Jarvis]

The Unholy 2021 ★★

In The Unholy, Jeffrey Dean Morgan plays the type of down on his luck reporter that, up until a few years ago, would have Fox News go: When can you start?

He ends up in a small town named Banfield where a little girl named Alice (sweet Alice) is supposedly healed by the virgin Mary. He lets go of his initial scoff and starts investigating.

And then we get the same old unimaginative tripe we've seen before. Demons, a change of heart, false hope, a dramatic finish, every so often we get a reminder that a demon is involved... There is nothing wrong with religious horror as such, but when you're doing a religious horror... Wether you want to or not, you're competing with classics like The Omen and The Exorcist. So by default, you've set the bar pretty fucking high for yourself. Then you have to do better than a cookie cutter story or a cast that does not grab you. Not saying that the girl playing Alice did a terrible job, but it does not help that seeing makes you think of other horror movies or wonder what Imogen Poots or Maika Monroe could have done with this character.

It's not all bad. We sometimes get some nice imagery, Jeffrey Dean Morgan does what he can with the material he's given and I can see how the character arc he goes through attracted him.

It's just that the whole thing did not do much for me.

Carnosaur 2 1995 ★★★★

If anything, this came right on time. Just the type of stupid I needed to unwind after a stressful day.

Seeing Miguel Nunez made me smile. I used to love Tour of duty, so I was already familiar with him (kinda, sorta) but seeing him in this type of cheesy bullshit just warms the cockles of my heart. Especially with how he hams it up in this one. Pity he did not get more screentime in this one.

The story is tremendous B-movie schlock with a rag tag group of mercenaries, a last minute escape and, of course, nuclear weapons popping up somewhere.

And this gang? They are something. Cliff Deyoung plays a major with as much authority as Frank Burns in a Schwarzenegger-movie.

Burns: I'm giving you an order.
Hawkeye: Please do, Frank. We've never ignored one of those.

The rest of the group? There's Miguel Nunez, a bearded dude that looks like an attitude era-wrestler, a woman who seems to be channeling a different personality in pretty much every scene she is in, a macho who looks like he should be in a hair metal band. And the kid they find reminded me of Randy Quaid's son in Independence Day.

Roger Corman is going tease on us here, keeping the gore until the very end. The result of that is that the opening carnage looks like a fight scene from either the A-Team or a Bud Spencer movie. And it was glorious.

Have you sat through all of this and not seen this gem yet? Then haul ass over to the joetoebs and do so. You know you want to.

[Tommy Jarvis]

BRUSH 2020 ★★

A horror short about a woman who gets a brush that she most assuredly did not order.

Too many flaws to really be entertaining. After all, there's only so much you can do with a brush.

Also, was that supposed to be ghost? Or maybe a clone of this Lauren character? Is she supposed to kill her? Take over her body?

I don't need everything explained to me in tons of exposition, but this story raises more questions than it answers.

Tunnel 2021 ★★★★

Good stuff, this.

I really liked the way they worked out the hallucinations and the score showing the mounting sense of dread and despair on the part of the main character.

Props to the actor here. I can imagine that there must at least be a teensy bit of temptation there to either overact or ham it up. This actor does neither, but uses his body language and movements very well. Making sure that, together with the score, instills a mounting sense of dread in you.

So go on over to Youtube and check it out.

[Tommy Jarvis]

Blaze 2022 ★★★½

One of the downsides to not always knowing the plot going in: you get blindsided by something you did not expect.

Based on the cover, I expected a main character creating a dragon as a venging angel, wiping out those who wronged her. And in a way, it still was. I just expected something more in the line of Teeth.

Now we get a fantasy fairy tale about a girl dealing with the aftermath of witnessing a murder and rape. Hiding from the trauma, gathering the courage to speak, lashing out at her father in the process.

This movie is full of metaphors. The dragon as a protector, just not in the way I expected. Her room as a place for her to hide. The judo as the motor for her growing courage. Not to mention the fact that, at the end, this whole story is a metaphor for coming of age and sexual awakening. With a touching, cathartic moment near the end.

Not for everyone. 30 seconds in, you will get an idea of wether this is for you. But those who enjoy it, will do so thoroughly.

Taylor Tomlinson: Quarter-Life Crisis 2020 ★★★½

Taylor Tomlinson delivers a more than solid performance on her first Netflix special.

The stories meander a bit all over the place, but the laughs come at a solid pace and in the end, that's all that matters. The lego joke is the one that comes to mind first, but there are plenty of others.

[Tommy Jarvis]

Creep 2004 ★★★

I recently came across this one on one of those hidden gem lists that you can find on the Yoewtjoewbz. In this case, hidden gems of the twothousands. Or noughts or noughties, if you will.

Franka Potente plays Kate, a German woman living in London. She is on her way from a party to a club where she is hoping to meet George Clooney (who is supposedly in town). Come to think of it, it would have been funny of they could hire a lookalike for the final scene, with the joke being that she does not recognise him.

Anyway, while waiting for the last train, she falls asleep and... whoopsie Daisy. Now she is stuck in the London tube. Rats.

Does this movie have it's flaws? Yeah. You need a good bit of suspension of disbelief to get by some stuff. Like the drug dealer/rapist somehow getting on the one train passing by after the last one left. Or the whole mad scientist gone awry idea behind the killer. How he set up shop in the tube network and got his lab and his gynaecologist chair down there? Never explained. Not that a possible explanation would be closer to plausible than to silly, but still.

That said, Creep does have its qualities. It has some solid kills (Guy the coke dealer and Jimmy the homeless guy) and a few eerie moments like the rape attempt and the subsequent moment when the killer grabs Guy. Or the death of Jimmy or, earlier on, the bit when Mandy disappears. Also, what is the deal with Jimmy and Mandy having (exadurated) Scottish accents? Is that supposed to be some hamfisted nod to Trainspotting or just taking the piss out of Scots in general?

It is entertaining enough to keep you invested and I can see why people would want to consider it a hidden gem. Four star masterpiece? Nah.

Asteroid City 2023 ★★★★

I just love getting lost in Wes Anderson's universe, filled to the rim with kooks and quirks. And, of course, the typical Wes Anderson mannerisms like the symmetrical shots. First example that comes to mind is when Schwartzman and Hanks are on the phone.

I also love how he always manages to bring together this wonderful ensemble cast with too many people to name here. Suffice it to say that some of them are simply amazing in this: Tom Hanks as the loving grandfather and the (somewhat) hostile father in law. Or Edward Norton as the playwrite.

Maya Hawke is adorable as the school marm trying desperately to maintain some level of authority. The Blum as the alien (because of course he is) in in only one shot and he immediately makes an impression. Scarlett Johansson is excellent as always and is anyone more in his place than Bryan Cranston's narrator?

In short: beautiful scenery, great actors and enough oddities and chuckle moments to keep me going. That's more than good enough for me.

[FryeDwight]

Originally Posted by Tommy Jarvis

Tucker and Dale vs. Evil 2010 ★★★

A solid comedy of errors, somewhere between traditional comedies and self aware meta horror stuff like Scream, You might be the killer and so on. Not that surprising since both leads have a background in comedy.

Two lovable hillbillies run into some snooty college kids and hilarity ensues when the latter mistake for psychotic killers. Leading into very funny slapstick-like situations and kills.

But the sweet moments come from the heart to hearts between Tucker and Dale. When Tucker tries to crank up Dale's self confidence. And lord love him, it all works out in the end.

For people looking for something sweet and innocent and with no pretensions about what it wants to be.

Tucker and Dale vs. Evil 2010 ★★★

A solid comedy of errors, somewhere between traditional comedies and self aware meta horror stuff like Scream, You might be the killer and so on. Not that surprising since both leads have a background in comedy.

Two lovable hillbillies run into some snooty college kids and hilarity ensues when the latter mistake for psychotic killers. Leading into very funny slapstick-like situations and kills.

But the sweet moments come from the heart to hearts between Tucker and Dale. When Tucker tries to crank up Dale's self confidence. And lord love him, it all works out in the end.

For people looking for something sweet and innocent and with no pretensions about what it wants to be.

Kickstart My Heart 2022 ★★½

Kickstart my heart aka Final Destination: Interlude. What with a car running down our heroine not unlike the bus crash in FD1 and with special effects similar to the ending of FD4.

So then Jeanne-Caudia Van Damme ends up in limbo between life and death with a dead brother/son and a whole lot of ass to kick in order to survive cpr. And she does. Hurray!

Enjoyable in you don't ask (too many) questions.

TUCKER AND DALE VS EVIL was fabulous. good and gory, very funny, especially the bit with the chainsaw and Yes, even touching