FeastMode

My friend recommended this movie to me and I went in knowing literally nothing about it, not even the genre. As the movie started, a few of my biases kicked in.

When the Apple TV logo popped up, my negative bias kicked in since the majority of streaming movies are inferior and devoid of entertainment. I assumed it would be a boring, forgettable, minimalist movie. Fortunately that's not the case. There are several action scenes and intense moments.

The second bias comes from Anya Taylor-Joy being my current favorite actress. I truly believe she's a highly talented actress. But also, I'm a guy and... just look at her lol.

Ignoring these biases, I had a fun time with this movie. It far exceeds the usual streaming movie schlock. It satisfies my sci-fi itch along with some good horror. And the love story is STRONG.

(1 viewing, 2/15/2025)

I was so happy with the success of Dexter: New Blood. It seemed to overcome every obstacle of a sequel season after so much time. Dexter: Original Sin takes a different approach, but it results in another awesome season of one of my favorite shows.

I approve of the majority of the casting choices. The one that seems to most accurately portray the younger version of the character is Batista. Not only does he have the look eerily close, his mannerisms and speech are nearly identical.

They made the genius decision to have the original Dexter, Michael C. Hall, perform the voice over/inner monologue. Another genius decision was to bring back seemingly the entire musical score from the original show. I adore it.

I had an awesome time with season 1 and will definitely watch if they hopefully continue.

(2 viewings, 2/13/2025)

I went into the Monkey knowing absolutely nothing about it. I enjoyed the experience of discovering the premise and tone. You can tell the kind of movie it is from the opening scene: an over-the-top horror-comedy that's not meant to be taken too seriously.

The dark comedy is The Monkey's best attribute, by far. Due to inclement weather, there were only about 15 people at this early screening. Yet the entire crowd was laughing loudly at some very messed up stuff. Nearly all of the laughs come from the violence.

As for the horror, it's not as strong as I would like. It leans more on the comedy side, with the horror elements coming almost exclusively from the violence. By contrast, another recent dark comedy masterpiece called The Substance (10 stars) switches from sadistically hilarious to straight-up horrifying. Not the case with The Monkey.

Even leaning towards comedy, I should have been able to enjoy this more. But I left relatively unsatisfied, similarly to both of director Osgood Perkins' other films, Longlegs and Gretel & Hansel. I've given all of his movies 6 stars, which is a positive score for me, translating to "good movie."

I can't explain why, but something feels off. I wasn't super invested. I enjoyed it, but I doubt I watch it again.

(1 viewing, early screening UltraScreen 2/12/2025)