The Rhythm Section

January 31, 2020 by Rosalie Leonard in reviews, hunter bush

Directed by Reed Morano
Based on the novel by Mark Burnell; Screenplay by MarkBurnell
Starring Blake Lively, Jude Law and Sterling K. Brown
Running time: 1 hour and 49 minutes
MPAA rating: R for violence, sexual content, language throughout and drug use

by Hunter Bush

The Rhythm Section hit a lot of sour notes for me. I promise to keep the Gene Shalit-style puns to a minimum, but I had to do at least that one. Honestly though, not much about this flick kept me interested at all. It's riddled with clichés, some of the worst needle drop music choices and bafflingly anticlimactic action scenarios.

Everything Old is New Again, Vol. 13 - January & February 2020

January 02, 2020 by Rosalie Leonard in everything old is new aga, EOINA, hunter bush

by Hunter Bush

Happy (nearly) New Year, readers! As we bid a fine farewell to 2019, if you're someone who enjoys a little bit of the bubbly maybe raise your glass to EOINA. Exact date aside, I've been writing this column for Moviejawn for three years! Huzzah and cheers!

Rise of Skywalker

December 20, 2019 by Rosalie Leonard in reviews, hunter bush, allison yakulis

Directed by J.J. Abrams
Written by Chris Terrio, J.J. Abrams, Derek Connolly, Colin Trevorrow
Starring Carrie Fisher, Mark Hamill, Adam Driver, Daisy Ridley, with hundreds of other actors, extras, and CG critters
Running Time: 2 hours and 21 minutes
MPAA Rating: PG-13 for gratuitous space violence and action

by Hunter Bush and Allison Yakulis

***There may be spoilers, read at your own peril.

It’s hard to talk about Star Wars anymore; many movies actually. Franchises have become such sacred cows that people feel personally attacked by any criticisms. Please know that is not our intent. While there are a lot of things in Rise of Skywalker (2019) that are genuinely good or fun or well-handled, it suffers from an overindulgence of fanservice and a general “more is more” sensibility that weakens its impact for even casual viewers. There is just so much stuff crammed into the film that nothing - good, bad or in between - is given enough time to land.

The Last Slice: Devil Bat

November 20, 2019 by Rosalie Leonard in Pizza Film Club, hunter bush

Minutes from the Moviejawn Pizza 🍕 Film 📼 Club ♣ October 2019
recorded by Hunter Bush, PFC Co-Founder

Welcome once again pizza punks and movie goons, to another installment of MOVIEJAWN'S The Last Slice, where I will be relaying the minutes from the previous month's meeting of the Pizza Film Club which - if you're not savvy - is our monthly meeting where we watch fun flicks, eat pizza & other goodies and generally socialize together as a group! We publish this newsletter to lead by example: we hope you'll see that we watched a movie or made a snack that snags your attention and you'll want to get your own bunch of buddies together and host a Pizza 🍕 Film 📼 Club ♣ of your own!

Everything Old is New Again, Vol. 12 - November & December 2019

November 07, 2019 by Rosalie Leonard in EOINA, hunter bush

by Hunter Bush

Hello again good people and welcome to another installment of Everything Old is New Again, my bi-monthly column on Adaptations, Remakes and Legacy Sequels. If any of those terms are new to you, allow me to elucidate: an adaptation is a work based on any pre-existing work; a remake is when a film is made again as though it were the first time; a legacy sequel or long-gap sequel is the continuation of a franchise that has been lying dormant for some time; and while I'm at it, when I say bi-monthly, I mean "occurring every two months" not "occurring twice a month". So this EOINA will cover all the movies and such that fall into any of those categories coming to screens big and small in November and December.

Terminator: Dark Fate

November 01, 2019 by Rosalie Leonard in reviews, hunter bush

Directed by Tim Miller
Story by James Cameron & Charles H. Eglee & Josh Friedman and David S. Goyer & Justin Rhodes; Screenplay by Goyer & Rhodes and Billy Ray
Starring Linda Hamilton, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Mackenzie Davis
Running time: 2 hours and 08 minutes
MPAA rating: R for violence throughout, language and brief nudity

by Hunter Bush

I'm a big fan of the trope I think of as "The Titular Line", when a character in a movie says the title of the movie they are in. Sometimes it's so synonymous with what the movie is that taking note of it is pointless, like someone saying "Ghostbusters" in Ghostbusters. What I enjoy is seeing if the writers and actors can make some of the clunkier subtitles sound natural. So, around an hour twenty into Terminator: Dark Fate when characters start really throwing the word "fate" around, I perked up. But it wasn't to be. The best you get is Natalia Reyes' Dani at one point saying "Fuck fate!", which is... pretty close.

Riches to the Conjuror

October 25, 2019 by Rosalie Leonard in mini-dissertations, issue news, hunter bush

How a Viewpoint Sleight-of-Hand Yields a Wealth of New Perspective on the Destruction of a Model Family

by Hunter Bush

Ari Aster's recent sophomore feature Midsommar has been a big deal in film talk circles recently, but his previous film, last year's Hereditary, is what put him on most people's radar. A film dealing with family and grief (Aster's topics of choice) through the supernatural chicanery of a witchy cult, Hereditary is most definitely when all's said and done, a Bad Moms movie. What I posit today is that there is a way to view the events depicted in the film that makes it, somehow, an Even Worse Moms movie.

The Invisible Mother

October 17, 2019 by Rosalie Leonard in reviews, film fest, PUFF, hunter bush

Written and directed by Matthew Diebler and Jacob Gillman
Starring Debra Wilson, Kiersten Warren and Richard Riehle
Running time: 1 hour and 46 minutes

by Hunter Bush

If you read the Philadelphia Unnamed Film Festival wrap-up I co-wrote with Allison, you may recall me saying that The Invisible Mother is my favorite film of the year. If not, there you go. I also explained that the “Unnamed” part of their moniker is a signifier of their preference for showcasing films that are difficult to pin down under one neat little label.

Puff 2019: Part Two - Postscript

October 08, 2019 by Rosalie Leonard in film fest, PUFF, allison yakulis, hunter bush

by Allison Yakulis and Hunter Bush

The films that screen at the Philadelphia Unnamed Film Festival, by and large, are difficult to pin down. Organizers prefer to think of it as an "Alternative" film festival, though a lot of the movies do tend to fall under the umbrella of "horror". But you may as well just classify them all as "movies" and call it a day for how unspecific that is. Hence the "Unnamed" part of the PUFF moniker; it's not just that they were too lazy to come up with a name.

Philadelphia Unnamed Film Festival: 2019 Preview

September 24, 2019 by Rosalie Leonard in film fest, PUFF, allison yakulis, hunter bush

by Allison Yakulis and Hunter Bush

PUFF Part 1 - Prologue

For this, the fourth annual Philadelphia Unnamed Film Festival (or PUFF), Moviejawn contributors Allison Yakulis and Hunter Bush are going to check out all the delicious independent genre films and shorts that are being screened in our own backyard. PUFF will be rocking and rolling from September 26th to September 29th at the 2223 Theater in Fishtown. There’s also a pre-PUFF event on September 25th that will include a screening of The Blair Witch Project with director Eduardo Sánchez in attendance (it’s the 20th anniversary of the film!) and a screening of Legacy Award to Exhumed Films winner Lemora: A Child’s Tale of the Supernatural with its director Richard Blackburn there to introduce the film. Lemora is also going to be screened in 16mm, which is rad for all you format freaks out there.

The Last Slice: The Court Jester

September 21, 2019 by Rosalie Leonard in Pizza Film Club, hunter bush

Minutes from the Moviejawn Pizza 🍕 Film 📼 Club ♣ August 2019

recorded by Hunter Bush, PFC Co-Founder

Welcome cinemaniacs and pizzatarians to the 2nd installment of The Last Slice, the newsletter devoted to unpacking our Pizza Film Club meetings every month in an effort to - A) encourage you to host Pizza Film Club meetings of your own and - B) expose you to some things - films, foods, drinks - that may be new to you but could end up becoming a favorite in no time!

Running With The Devil

September 17, 2019 by Rosalie Leonard in reviews, hunter bush

“It’s Cocaine’s World, We’re All Just Living in It”

Written and directed by Jason Cabell
Starring Laurence Fishburne, Nicolas Cage Natalia Reyes
MPAA rating: R for violence and disturbing images, drug use, strong sexual content, and language
Running time: 1 hour and 40 minutes

by Hunter Bush

Near the end of Jason Cabell's solo directorial debut Running with the Devil, a backpack full of drugs falls in a mountain stream and is swept away by the current, which is actually a pretty apt visual metaphor for the film as a whole. This movie is about drugs - cocaine specifically - and the ways in which it is a part of the lives of everyone it encounters, but the whole thing is fairly dispassionate. We meet all these players up and down the totem pole - distinguished by titles like The Cook or The Executioner or The Boss or whatever - but they're hard to care about because this is not really their story, it's cocaine's story. Everyone in this is a supporting player to Cocaine.

Everything Old is New Again, Vol. 11 - September and October 2019

August 30, 2019 by Rosalie Leonard in EOINA, hunter bush

by Hunter Bush

You know gang, I just cannot wait for August to end, which it will right around the time y'all are reading this very installment of Everything Old is New Again! My reasons why are personal, and of the type of personal that isn't even interesting, incendiary or uncommon, really. Regardless, I can't wait.

If you're new to EOINA, this is my bi-monthly column (every other month) that covers the Remakes, Adaptations and Long-Gap Sequels (also called Legacy Sequels) arriving for public consumption. I try to give a little history about where these new installments are coming from and speculate, based almost entirely on the trailers (when there ARE any) on what I think of the finished product. Yes, it's largely conjectural and yes it's heavily influenced by my personal biases, but it is also a jumping-off point for you. I hope you find something that interests you and I hope you enjoy it!

A Score to Settle

August 01, 2019 by Guest User in hunter bush, reviews

Written by John Stuart Newman
Directed by Shawn Ku
Starring Nicolas Cage, Benjamin Bratt and Noah Le Gos
Running time: 1 hour and 43 minutes

by Hunter Bush

I've loved movies for what feels like my whole life but I've only been writing about them (for anyone other than myself) for a short time. In that time, I've had a few "high points": mother! - my first pre-release review; Boom For Real - my first screener link; being able to see things like the last two Avengers flicks or even Solo, that nerds like me were salivating for, a week in advance; and now A Score to Settle - my first time screening a Nicolas Cage film!

Everything Old is New Again, Vol. 10 - July and August 2019

July 10, 2019 by Guest User in EOINA, hunter bush

by Hunter Bush

Hello again and welcome back to Everything Old is New Again, the column where I write about the movies & series coming to screens of all sizes in the next two months, but specifically the ones based on some previously-existing work, intellectual property or franchise. I also included two movies coming to limited release based on true stories because, cynic that I am, I question the ethics of releasing these stories Right Now. But we'll get there.

Aniara

May 16, 2019 by Guest User in hunter bush, reviews

Written and directed by Pella Kågerman and Hugo Lilja
Starring Emelie Jonsson, Anneli Martini, Arvin Kananian, Jennie Silfverhjelm and Bianca Cruzeiro
MPAA rating: R for strong sexual content, graphic nudity, disturbing images, and drug use
Running time: 1 hour and 46 minutes

by Hunter Bush

The old axiom "There's just no winning the human race" reoccurred to me frequently throughout my viewing of Aniara, the pessimistically meditative new Swedish sci-fi feature from writer / directors Pella Kågerman & Hugo Lilja, based on the epic poem by Harry Martinson. Combining modest means with a truly grand scope, the filmmakers have managed to come away with a surprisingly multi-faceted work.

Everything Old is New Again, Vol. 9 - May and June 2019

May 08, 2019 by Guest User in EOINA, hunter bush

by Hunter Bush

Welcome, welcome, to another installment of Everything Old is New Again, the column where I write, sometimes at length, about the Remakes, Adaptations and Legacy Sequels coming to screens great and small in the months ahead. I also occasionally throw in stuff that only tangentially fits just because I kinda wanna talk about it for whatever reason? I dunno, I just follow my gut.

The Intruder

May 03, 2019 by Guest User in hunter bush, reviews

Written by Deon Taylor
Directed by David Loughery
Starring Meagan Good, Michael Ealy and Dennis Quaid
MPAA rating: PG-13 for violence, terror, some sexuality, language and thematic elements
Running time: 1 hour and 42 minutes

by Hunter Bush

Deon Taylor's The Intruder is uneven, riddled with clichés, largely poorly directed, seems edited with a hacksaw and stuffed at the margins with useless ADR dialogue. In short, it's trash. But then, why did I absolutely love it?

Avengers: Endgame

April 26, 2019 by Guest User in hunter bush, reviews

Written by Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely
Directed by The Russos
Starring erry-damn-body
MPAA Rating: PG-13 for sequences of sci-fi violence and action, and some language
Running time: 3 hours and 1 minute (Jay-zus!)

by Hunter Bush

It's fair to say I was suffering from a spell of Franchise Fatigue leading up to my viewing of Avengers: Endgame but...that may be the perfect headspace to go into it with?

Fast Color

April 18, 2019 by Guest User in hunter bush, reviews

Written by Julia Hart and Jordan Horowitz
Directed by Julia Hart
Starring Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Lorraine Toussaint and Saniyya Sidney
MPAA rating: PG-13 for a scene of violence and brief strong language
Running time: 1 hour and 40 minutes

by Hunter Bush

Fast Color is the kind of movie I've been waiting to see made for a while, and one we're likely to see more of in coming years. It uses the big money buzz of superhero movies, but bucks all the spandex and villain clichés to instead make a smaller, more intimate feeling movie in a genre generally unrepresented when superhuman abilities are in play. One about family and one focused specifically on the relationships between mothers and daughters, but yes, also there are superpowers.