Adnerb the Movie Nerd

Movie reviews from a middle school teacher's perspective

Violent Night

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Well, I am not sure I would want to put this one on my Christmas Movie rotation, but I did have a good time watching Violent Night.  David Harbour plays a Santa Clause who is a little disillusioned by the greed of modern kids and their parents.  Because of this, he drinks  too much, yells at his reindeer, and throws presents around.  He visits a house where a rich matriarch (Beverly D’Angelo) has gathered her money grubbing children and grandchildren for an overly catered Christmas event.  It turns out the house has been targeted by an evil bad guy who calls himself Scrooge (John Leguizamo).  Unfortunately for Scrooge, one of the grandkids is on Santa’s nice list and he decides to come to her rescue when the family is kidnapped by Scrooge and his evil mercenaries..  Lots of very bloody mayhem ensues.  David Harbour is great as Santa.  He has a history, he’s not always on the nice list. He is tough but takes alot of punishment.  Once he finds all of Scrooge’s minions on the naughty list….he wields everything from a hammer to ice skates to Christmas lights as he dispatches one bad guy after another.  I love the little homage to the movie ‘Home Alone,’ where we see the real consequences of booby-trapping a house.  But beneath all the horrific action, this is a true holiday movie with a happy ending.  Don’t take it too seriously as this is all tongue in cheek and definitely over the top. It’s almost camp.  My biggest criticism is that there was a little too much vomit and bodily liquids for my taste.  So I recommend this one to those of you who want a new take on the holdidays, and would like to know what to do with all those left over candy canes.

The Menu and Glass Onion

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I am a sucker for murder mysteries and both of these movies delivered everything I like in good ones!  “The Menu” isn’t a true whodunit, but more like a why’d-he-do-that and the mystery is who, if anyone, will escape unscathed.  “Glass  Onion,” (a sequel to Knives Out) on the other hand, will have you guessing the whole time.  Both movies come to a satisfying conclusion.  “The Menu” stars Ralph Fiennes as a very talented high-end chef who serves an exclusive, and very expensive, meal every year to a small group of hoity-toity rich people.  Some of the guests this time are Ana Taylor-Joy, Nicholas Hoult, John Leguizamo, Judith Light, and Janet McTeer just to name a few.    It becomes increasingly clear (not to mention horrifying)  that  the chef has conjured up more than just a meal.  The fun of this extremly dark comedy  is in figuring out who will still be around by the time the sixth course is finished.  Shout out to Hong Chau as the maitre d’  of the restaurant, who is just as subtly creepy and mysterious as the chef.

Part of the fun of “Glass Onion” rests with Daniel Craig reprising his role as Detective Benoit Blanc.  His acting and accent are spot on and the little tidbits we find out about his personality and private life are intriguing.  The set up for the story is that self-centered billionaire, Ed Norton (at his unlovable best) has sent invitations to a close knit group of his “friends” to spend a weekend playing a murder mystery game.  The guests include Kate Hudson, Janelle Monae, Dave Bautista, Kathryn Hahn, and Leslie Odom Jr.  Of course, there is a real murder and it is very convienent that Detective Blanc is there to peel away the many layers of this “onion” mystery.  Look for two cameos.  One, I will not spoil because you will recognize him right away.  The other one, well, I won’t spoil that one either.  I’ll just  say that you will see him several times.  Let me know if you recognized him before the credits rolled, or you googled who it was.  🙂

I highly recommend both of these movies. Which ever you choose, you are in for an entertaining time.

Black Adam

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For anyone out there listening, this will be my last weekly review for awhile.  I am still seeing a movie at a theatre every Saturday and have seen some really great movies.  Reviews can not exist in a vacuum though, and I am not sure my little missives are being read by anyone.  This is not to say that I will completely give up movie reviews, but they will not be coming out weekly.  That being said – here we go!!

Black Adam is a DC movie that I found rather meh.  I am a fan of The Rock, especially when he is in comedies like “The Jungle Cruise” or “Jumanji”.  I thought it might be fun to see him as a superhero, but this movie really wasn’t much fun at all.  It all starts out in ancient Kahndaq where Teth Adam is given superpowers by a council of gods.  He uses these powers to get revenge on the people who killed his father, so he is imprisoned for 5,000 years, thus turning into Black Adam.  Through some very muddled story telling, Adam is released and reluctantly helps to save his hometown from various evil doers.  Viola Davis is completely wasted as a feeble sort of Nick Fury, but the storyline doesn’t give her much to do, or even explain what she is up to.

Tasked with bringing in Black Adam are the Justice Council, who  seem to be copying (and not in a good way) some of their more superior Marvel counterparts.   The Justice Council consists of Hawkman, Dr. Fate, Atom Smasher, and Cyclone.  Except for Dr. Fate (Pierce Brosnan) none of these heroes are  interesting or even very powerful. It’s over complicated and jumps all over the place.

I guess Black Adam wasn’t a bad film, it does have its moments, and the CGI is impressive.  But if this is the best that DC has to offer, I think I will stick with Marvel.

See How They Run

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What a gem.  If you liked Knives Out, Clue, and Murder By Death, this is the movie for you!  The story takes place in 1950’s London.  In the story, some producers have decided to make a movie version of Agatha Christie’s play ‘The Mouse Trap’ (which is still running in London after more than 50 years, by the way).  The cast of characters include a despised director ( Adrian Brody), a rookie constable (Saoirse Ronan, as an innocent appearing but smarter-than-you-thought PC Stalker, the rookie detective who  steals the show!) and an alcoholic world weary detective (Sam Rockwell).  The movie has to be delayed when a member of the cast is murdered!  Some of my favorite suspects included Shirley Henderson (remember her as Moaning Myrtle in the Harry Potter series?), David Oyelowo and Ruth Wilson.  This is all very tongue-in-cheek and includes puns, play on words, literary allusions and the breaking of the fourth wall.  I also enjoyed the references to 50’s movies.  One highlight is an appearance by Agatha Christie herself and a trippy take on the old mystery trope “The butler did it.”  This is another movie that won’t be around in theatres long , so if you want to see it in a theatre, stop reading this review and get going!  You will be glad you did!

Vengeance and Medieval

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There  is more to going to the movies than seeing big blockbusters like Top Gun or Jurassic Park:  Dominion.  I would like to talk about two lesser-known movies that have not gotten a lot of attention, but may be of interest to you.  They may  no longer be in the theatres, so you might have to watch on a streaming service.

Vengeance is a black comedy written and directed by B.J. Novak (Ryan on The Office) and he also stars.  The movie tells the story of a self-absorbed and commitment phobic urban blogger named Ben Manalowitz .  Ben is asked to attend the funeral of a girl he hooked up with a few times, and barely remembers.  Her Texas family is under the impression that they were seriously involved and he plays along with them thinking he will get some interesting ideas for his blog.  He finds out her brother believes she was murdered, and wants Ben to help find the culprit.  As the story goes on, Ben finds the truth not only of what happened to the victim; but a few truths about family and trust, and himself as well. The script is very witty and warm, and full of interesting and thought provoking conversations.

Medieval is an entirely different story than Vengeance.  Medieval is a Czech drama that is one of those ‘based in actual events’ tales ( ones that are always stretched and/or changed around) based on the life of Jan Zizka, a Bohemian military commander who never lost a battle.  In this movie, he is fighting the efforts of  feuding brothers’ armies (from the Holy Roman Empire and the Teutonic Order no less) to ascend to the Emperor’s throne (the last Holy Roman Emperor having just died). He is a national hero in The Czech Republic. There is a fine cast, Ben Foster plays Jan, Matthew Goode is King Sigismund and Michael Cain plays the political Lord Bores.  Medieval is extremely violent, although the violence is realistic to the time period (1300’s).  What I liked about this movie is that I learned about a very interesting historical person that I had never heard of.  I went online and read everything I could about this fascinating guy.