Now Presenting: Moviejawn's Summer 2020 Issue

August 11, 2020 by Rosalie Leonard in zine, rosalie kicks, fiona underhill, liz locke, ryan silberstein, benjamin leonard, zoe crombie, nikkolas nelson, judson cade pedigo, stacey osbeck, suze l. cima, hunter bush, anthony glassman, Matthew Crump, ashley jane davis

by Benjamin Leonard, Best Boy

Greetings movie friends! As I’m sure most of you know, in addition to our website which mostly covers new movie reviews, we also make a quarterly print zine. I thought it’d be fun to give everyone a quick glance at all the films that are covered in our most recent issue (which focuses on circuses, carnivals and fairs) and where you can find them. Step right up! to follow the links for the titles and it’ll take you to a listing of where it can be found (mostly powered by JustWatch.com).

Everything Old is New Again, Vol. 18 - August 2020

August 03, 2020 by Rosalie Leonard in EOINA, hunter bush, allison yakulis

by Hunter Bush

Howdy, howdy one and all. How's everybody doing? Dark lord but it is hot out! I dunno how things'll be where you are, or when this drops but as I'm writing it we are heading into the dog days of summer in Philly. Nevertheless I'm back hunched over my laptop, the click clack of my fingers on the keys battling the susurration of a fan and clink of ice cubes in my glass, all to bring YOU, dear reader, the latest installment of Everything Old is New Again!

Elvis From Outer Space

July 07, 2020 by Rosalie Leonard in reviews, hunter bush

Written and directed by Marv Z. Silverman and Tracy Wuischpard
Starring Martin Kove, Alexander Butterfield and Frank Cavestani
Running time: 1 hour and 31 minutes
Unrated but contains: some salty language, one very tame sex scene, mild violence, pornography playing on a TV monitor and aliens that wouldn't stop looking at me!

"No Thank You. No Thank You, Very Much"
by Hunter Bush

How? How did I draw two films to review, back to back, that are so similar? In my most recent previous Moviejawn piece I wrote about Vampire Burt's Serenade, a film made from the bones of an earlier film, re-edited and re-released under a new name; an obvious passion project (what other explanation could there be?) made by someone with seemingly no understanding of the Hows and Whys of filmmaking. The same could be, must be and is right at this moment being said, by me, about Elvis From Outer Space.

Everything Old is New Again, Vol. 17 - July 2020

July 06, 2020 by Rosalie Leonard in EOINA, hunter bush, allison yakulis

by Hunter Bush

How's everybody doing out there? States are reopening, businesses resuming in some feeble attempt at "normalcy" but I keep getting this sinking feeling... and maybe this is just me but, does anybody else keep feeling like we're in the middle of Jaws when the mayor (Murray Hamilton) refuses to close the beach in the middle of prime tourism season despite the warnings of experts? Ugh. Well, I hope wherever you are you're doing well and staying safe.

Vampire Burt's Serenade (2020)

June 10, 2020 by Rosalie Leonard in reviews, hunter bush

Written and directed by Ken Roht
Starring Kevin Scott Richardson, Sharon Ferguson, Brandon Heitkamp and Diva Zappa
Running time: 1 hour and 16 minutes
Unrated, but contains graphic language, toothless sexual content, obnoxious drug use, cartoonish violence and instances of mild monsterism.

by Hunter Bush

“A Vampire Movie with No Stakes”

When a vampire kills the emcee of a popular strip club, the strippers set out to get revenge by surprising the vampire where he'd least expect it, picking up drugs from his dealer. That pretty-well sums up Vampire Burt's Serenade in a nutshell, though there is more than that going on. Much more. Some would say too much more. I am one of them.

Everything Old is New Again, Vol. 16 - June 2020

June 03, 2020 by Rosalie Leonard in EOINA, hunter bush, allison yakulis

By Hunter Bush

Welcome welcome, one and all. The quarantine persists and I would hope that if you're reading this, you are still socially distancing and taking care of yourself. But - to paraphrase my jr. high sex ed teacher - just because you're playing it safe doesn't mean you can't have fun. And around here, fun means Movies! In EVERYTHING OLD IS NEW AGAIN it specifically means the movies that are Remakes of older flicks, or Adaptations of some other work or even Long-Gap Sequels to some long ago film that someone was just dying to add to the legacy of.

Dreamland

June 01, 2020 by Rosalie Leonard in reviews, hunter bush

Dreamland
Written by Tony Burgess and Patrick Whistler
Directed by Bruce McDonald
Starring Juliette Lewis, Stephen McHattie and Henry Rollins
Running time: 1 hour 32 minutes

by Hunter Bush

Dreamland takes place in a world that's like ours, and yet not. Characters drift through it at a lackadaisical pace that heightens the film's tension by seeming to ignore that there is tension at all, or they get carried along almost nonchalantly by events, like a particularly "chill af" leaf on a river of gangland violence. Choices are made that would make no sense in a world where logic mattered, while here in Dreamland they seem like the only option worth choosing. With a title like Dreamland is it any surprise that this film is, well... dreamlike?

DANZIG Sings ELVIS

May 12, 2020 by Rosalie Leonard in reviews, hunter bush

Released on Cleopatra Records

by Hunter Bush

In a well-known deleted scene from the 1994 film Pulp Fiction, Mia Wallace (Uma Thurman) and Vincent Vega (John Travolta) have a discussion about Elvis and The Beatles. "Beatles people can like Elvis" Mia explains "and Elvis people can like The Beatles, but nobody likes them both equally." Surprising no one, Vincent is an Elvis man. Glenn Danzig, co-founder of seminal East Coast horror punk band The Misfits - and recently director of his first feature film Verotika, based on his line of adult oriented comics of the same name - is also unsurprisingly an Elvis man, having long been known by the potentially self-assigned nickname "the evil Elvis". Now, as the title of his latest record promises: DANZIG Sings ELVIS.

Batsh*t Bride

May 04, 2020 by Rosalie Leonard in reviews, hunter bush

Written & directed by Jonathan Smith
Starring Meghan Falcone, Josh Covitt and Jonny Svarzbein
Running time: 1 hour, 21 minutes

by Hunter Bush

Heather (Meghan Falcone) is an event planner going full "Bridezilla". In the days leading up to her own wedding, she's cracking the whip on her family, her fiance and the group of friends she's enlisted to help her pull the big day off. What's worse, she's outbidding another young woman for elements from her wedding like the dress and the flowers! Truly cutthroat. Heather is a character you don't like, right from the jump but that's about all that sets Batsh*t Bride apart from any number of bland comedies released in a given year.

Everything Old is New Again, Vol. 15 - May 2020

April 30, 2020 by Rosalie Leonard in EOINA, everything old is new aga, hunter bush, allison yakulis

By Hunter Bush

Holy hell. How are you all doing out there? I know that the world is a very different place right now and that can be scary and frustrating. And boring. To help combat that boredom, this EOINA is going to be a little different. I'll still be covering Remakes, Adaptations and Legacy Sequels as per usual, just in a slightly different format. Welcome to Quarant-EOINA.

Butt Boy

April 16, 2020 by Rosalie Leonard in reviews, hunter bush

Directed by Tyler Cornack
Written by Tyler Cornack & Ryan Koch
Starring Tyler Cornack, Tyler Rice and Shelby Dash
Running time: 1 hour and 40 minutes

by Hunter Bush

Classic joke structure is as follows: the Set-Up does exactly what the name implies, giving you all the information you should need to understand the joke and the Punchline provokes a laugh, usually through wordplay or by subverting expectations in some other way.

The Foreigner

April 13, 2020 by Rosalie Leonard in streaming picks, hunter bush

Directed by Martin Campbell
Written by David Marconi, based on a novel by Stephen Leather
Starring Jackie Chan, Pierce Brosnan, Charlie Murphy
Running time: 1 hour and 53 minutes
MPAA rating: R for violence, language and some sexual material

by Hunter Bush

The Foreigner is a solid espionage/revenge thriller which suffers from some odd choices, the most noticeable being some of the dialogue, and a few instances of really sloppy editing. Jackie Chan plays a London man with a shadowy past whose daughter dies in an IRA bombing. When a government official (Pierce Brosnan) neglects to help him get revenge, Chan sets out on a quest for vengeance. You know, the usual. But with the pandemic induced release of No Time To Die delayed until the end of the year, I thought maybe some of you needed a James Bond-esque fix.

Close Encounters of The Fifth Kind

April 06, 2020 by Rosalie Leonard in reviews, hunter bush

Written and directed by Michael Mazzola
Starring: Dr. Steven M. Greer, Jeremy Piven, Jeremy Sheehan, Adam Michael Curry, Joe Martino, Jan Harzan and Dr. Russell Targ
Running time: 2 hours

by Hunter Bush

Where do I even start, y'all? In Close Encounters of the Fifth Kind, Dr. Steven M. Greer asks viewers to accept strange truths: that intelligent life exists beyond our planet, that world governments have chosen to cover up most of what they know about the ETs and that contact between them and us is not only possible but is actively happening, though perhaps not in the way you think. The movies would have us believe that to communicate with other intelligences, we'll have to use some "universal language" like music (Close Encounters of the Third Kind) or mathematics (Contact), but the real mode of communication is both simpler and much more complex. Dr. Greer's hypothesis is that the true universal language is the primary thing binding us to any intelligent life that may be out there: consciousness itself.

The Hunt

March 13, 2020 by Rosalie Leonard in reviews, hunter bush

Written by Nick Cuse and Damon Lindeloff
Directed by Craig Zobel
Starring Betty Gilpin, Hilary Swank and Ike Barinholtz
Running time: 1 hour and 29 minutes
MPAA Rated: R for strong bloody violence and language throughout

by Hunter Bush

A bit of a disclaimer: Famously, the band on the Titanic continued playing even as the ship was going down, and there are moments where writing about movies at this point in time has that feeling. The world is a mess, people are anxious and things seem uncertain, but people need something to take their minds off of it all. Be prepared, stock up on canned goods and for Satan’s sake *wash your damned hands* but beyond that, worrying about COVID-19 isn’t going to help any. So that, to me, is why movies and all we who love talking about them, should keep on keeping on. Like any bad times, we’ll get through it together; us and you and the movies. So, now, on to my actual review of The Hunt.

Everything Old is New Again, Vol. 14 - March & April 2020

March 04, 2020 by Rosalie Leonard in EOINA, everything old is new aga, hunter bush

by Hunter Bush

Welcome, welcome, one and all to another installment of Everything Old Is New Again, the column where I talk about upcoming movies that are one of the following: Remakes - movies based on a previous movie; Adaptations - based on some other pre-existing work; or Long-Gap Sequels - a direct continuation from an earlier film, but after an unusual length of time (these are also called Legacy Sequels or sometimes Requels since they're usually intended to gently reboot a franchise without erasing the previous entries).

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.