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.

Nope

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“Nope” is the latest movie written and directed by Jordan Peele and I feel it is his best so far.  He has put together a top-notch horror movie, that is about more than you expect, and will leave you thinking.  The movie’s first shocking scene will make you wonder what it has to do with the rest of the movie, but by the end, all will be clear.  The basic premise is that brother and sister horse wranglers run a stable in an isolated, high desert-like area of California. Odd things have happened.  There are strange power drains, horses are running away and they soon find something very mysterious is happening up in the clouds, which may or may not be an alien presence.  Emerald Haywood (Keke Palmer), the extroverted sister, is sure it’s UFO’s, and wants to get pictures in order to become famous and make money.  Her introverted brother (Daniel Kaluuya) is more interested in the well-being of the horses than the  notoriety, but reluctantly agrees to help.  Other people who are interested in this possible UFO are Steven Yeun as a former child actor who is living on the past notoriety of a family tv show gone horribly wrong; Brandon Perea, an unhappy electronics and tech expert who becomes a key member of the little team they establish, and Michael Wincott as an older and supposedly wiser photographer they need to capture the phenomena on film, whatever it might be.  I have tried to tiptoe around the plot, because I don’t want to give too much away, and it is so much fun to speculate about what is happening.  This movie will keep you wondering for the entire 2 hours and 10 minutes.  It is well-written, superbly acted, and highly suspenseful.  The lonely, solitary stable evokes an atmosphere of impending danger and helps build the fear. If you see it, I would love to hear what you thought in the comments.

A Quiet Place Part II

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Wow! What a deifference a week makes. Last week, our theatre was nearly empty. Today, the theatre was quite full; it seemed almost like pre COVID times! It looked like every group of viewers had only one “socially distanced” space between them. Many people were excited to see John Krasinski’s follow-up to his successful “A Quiet Place,” and so were Bill and I. This was a very worthy sequel! Emily Blunt, playing Evelyn Abbott once again, gives an amazing performance as a mother trying to keep her three children (including a baby) alive in a world overrun with aliens whose goal seems to be to utterly destroy the human race. The catch is that these aliens are basically blind but have super=sensitive hearing. Any small sound is enough to alert them-even from a good distance away! In order to survive, people must stay quiet. Abbott has even found a way to keep her baby quiet with a pretty ingenious “pacifer.” If you didn’t see the first movie, no worries. John Krasinski gives you a little recap of how this whole thing started. He creates a dystopian sort of post-alien massacre world where isolated humans can only eke out a meagre, desparate existence. In this movie, Blunt meets up with Cillian Murphy, a family friend, who reluctantly agrees to help them. The two kids, played by Millicent Simmonds and Noah Jupe, give gut-wrentching performaces as the two older kids. A favorite of mine, Djimon Hounsu makes an unfortunately short appearance. I found this movie highly suspenseful, keeping me on the edge of my seat for the entire time. If you enjoyed the first movie, you will love this one too. If you didn’t see the first one, you won’t be disappointed with this sequel!

Fear of Clowns

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We all have them. That one movie that is so terrible, we have no idea why we watched it. Not only that, but we have seen it more than once! I am going to talk about one of mine, a movie that is so bad, I think you should see it! “Fear of Clowns” was made in 2004 right here in Maryland, in the middle of Hurricane Isabel. The auditions were held in a hotel in Glen Burnie, and many scenes were shot there, in Baltimore or in the surrounding areas. Kevin Kangas is the prime mover in the making of this movie, a guy who definitely was channeling Ed Wood. Kangas wrote, directed and has a cameo in this extravanganza. The back story is more interesting than the film itself. Kangas had such a small budget that he often didn’t have permits or permissions to film in his chosen locales. In one case, he had permission to film in a yard, but liked the house better a few doors down. So while the inhabitants were at work, Kangas set up the whole scene and got it filmed before they ever knew what happened. In another case, while filming at a mall (possibly the Columbia Mall) Kangas and his crew had to dodge the police. If you look carefully, you might recognize some of the local settings. Because of the low budget, the special effects are crude, obvious and laughable; but that is what makes this movie so much fun. It’s amazing what creative short cuts and trade-offs you have to make to come up with any effects when your budget is practicaly nil, and computer graphics are not even in the realm of possiblities (even ones as poor in the equally awful “Birdemic”). The plot doesn’t really matter, something to do with an artist who has coulrophobia (fear of you-know-what) who is stalked by a murderous funny man. If you decide to watch, good luck finding it showing anywhere, even though for some reason, the equally awful “Fear of Clowns II” is offered on Prime. While you are at it though, Prime also offers “Making of The Fear of Clowns” though I hear Pennywise walked out half way through. There you go, my take on a terrible movie that I can’t resist watching. What’s yours?

The Invisible Man

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Reading about this movie, I was sure it would be a so-so “B” movie, just entertaining enough to pass a sleepy February Leap Day.  I was kind of pleasantly surprised, I must admit.  The movie opens with Cecilia’s (Elisabeth Moss) elaborate escape from her abusive, brillant and and very wealthy husband – a genius with optics. She hides out with a friend and his daughter, afraid to even leave the house.  A few months later he commits suicide and leaves his millions to Cecilia.  There is a condition though; she must not commit a crime or be found mentally incompetent.  The movie becomes down right creepy from there.  I am not spoiling anything, I think, that can’t be seen in the trailers.  It seems that Cecilia is being haunted by something, or someone, who has been getting into her mind and apparently into her house.  What makes this movie stand out from this usual genre is the performance of Elizabeth Moss.  She is riveting as the abused woman whom no one believes, even her own sister.  The woman who has an inner strength she discovers as she faces the mysterious events going on around her. If you like suspense that verges on horror, I think you will enjoy “The Invisible Man.”