Baltimore Screening Pass-palooza: “Jackass Forever”!

Posted on January 27, 2022 by Denise
Before hitting the multiplex, please consider the health risks involved with participating in group gatherings at this time. Take very good care of yourselves – I wanna see you on the other side!

Ready to say hello (and goodbye?) to that crazy bunch of crazies? Synopsis!

Celebrating the joy of being back together with your best friends and a perfectly executed shot to the dingdong, the original jackass crew return for another round of hilarious, wildly absurd, and often dangerous displays of comedy with a little help from some exciting new cast.  Johnny and the team push the envelope even further in jackass forever.

Ready? Let’s go!

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Baltimore Screening Pass-palooza – “Moonfall”!

Posted on January 25, 2022 by Denise
Before hitting the multiplex, please consider the health risks involved with participating in group gatherings at this time. Take very good care of yourselves – I wanna see you on the other side!

Ready to get your IMAX on? Synopsis!

In Moonfall, a mysterious force knocks the Moon from its orbit around Earth and sends it hurtling on a collision course with life as we know it. With mere weeks before impact and the world on the brink of annihilation, NASA executive and former astronaut Jo Fowler (Academy Award® winner Halle Berry) is convinced she has the key to saving us all – but only one astronaut from her past, Brian Harper (Patrick Wilson, “Midway”) and a conspiracy theorist K.C. Houseman (John Bradley, “Game of Thrones”) believes her. These unlikely heroes will mount an impossible last-ditch mission into space, leaving behind everyone they love, only to find out that our Moon is not what we think it is.

Ready? Let’s go!

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“Jockey” – a heartfelt look at a little known way of life

Posted on January 20, 2022 by Denise
Before hitting the multiplex, please consider the health risks involved with participating in group gatherings at this time. Take very good care of yourselves – I wanna see you on the other side.

“Another day in paradise, ain’t that right? Yes sir.”

Story: Jackson has spent most of his life as a jockey. But when a triple crown of health issues, a promising horse, and a young man who says Jackson is his dad shakes his world, he has to figure out what his life – and legacy – will be.

Genre I’d put it in: Dramas So Realistic They Feel Like Documentaries
Release Date: Sundance 2021, theaters 2022
Remake, Sequel, Based-On, or Original: Based on the lives of actual jockeys.

Gotta say: Here in Baltimore, Pimlico is just a stone’s throw away. But how many of us in this city actually know the world of horses and professional horseracing, let alone the folks that ride those thoroughbreds, beyond the Preakness race during Triple Crown season? Definitely not me, at least ’til now. Jockey is a Slice-of-Life film looks at a way of life most of us know nothing about; the life of a professional jockey. And I’m amazed.

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In Queue Review – “Hotel Transylvania 4: Transformania”

Posted on January 14, 2022 by Denise

“It’s like Freaky Friday, but on a Tuesday though.”

Genre: Kid Friendly Sequels That Could Have Been Better
Release Date: 2022
Where I Watched: Amazon

Gist: Drac is looking to retire, and is planning to leave the hotel to Mavis and Johnny. But Johnny is having a big FONBAM (Fear Of Not Being A Monster) moment. So Johnny and Van Helsing come up with a plan; turn Johnny into a monster, with the help of a handy dandy human-to-monster ray! It’s got a reverse setting too, and thanks to a blunder from Drac, most of the Drac Pack are human-ified. But when the ray breaks, they have to come up with a way to get everyone back to normal, before things get permanent. Or worse…

Talky talk: Nobody wanted to completely and totally love this movie more than I did. I’ve been a fan of the series from Day One. Heck, I even have Bat Mavis as my personal avatar. But much like 3, 4 didn’t vibe with me. Don’t get me wrong, I love the characters, and the voice actors are fantastic (special shout out to Brian Hull for doing excellent voice work taking over the role of Drac. Damn he’s good at mimicking Sandler’s version.) However, this entry into the series feels frenetic with no purpose for being so.

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In Queue Review – Woodland Dark and Days Bewitched: A History of Folk Horror

Posted on January 13, 2022 by Denise

“Folk horror ultimately asks, what if the old ways were right?

Genre: Horror Documentaries
Release Date: 2022
Where I Watched: Shudder

Gist: A very deep (3+ hours) dive into the subgenre of Folk Horror, in all its permutations. From silent films to modern-day foreign films, if you’re interested in this genre? It’s in here.

Talky talk: At almost three hours and 15 minutes, I figured Bewitched would be a great documentary to just put on and listen to while I was crocheting, cleaning up or doing something else with my time. But I was completely sucked in, thanks to the myriad of clips from various folk horror films, the beautiful folk music score, and interesting chats from folks the creators had interviewed. So yeah, definitely carve out a space where you can completely sink into this doc. You’re gonna want to.

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#GoldenGlobes 2022 – a few knee jerk first reactions to the winners

Posted on January 10, 2022 by Denise
Image Group LA

And say “a few”, because I haven’t watched everything. The stuff I haven’t seen and don’t comment on below? I’ll get to you, my pretties.

CONGRATULATIONS to all the winners!!!

Best Motion Picture, Drama – The Power of the Dog: Blew. Me. Away. Stiff competition in this category, and I’d have been happy to have seen any of the nominated films take the bag. But last year, Dog detonated my brain cells like no other.

Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture, Drama – Will Smith (“King Richard”) : I’d said this was an Oscar bait performance, and I did not lie. Though Washington and Cumberbatch were big front runners as well, Smith’s performance is the kind of stellar, everyman type that the Globes was bound to recognize.

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Freaky Fridays – “Fatal Exam”

Posted on January 7, 2022 by Denise
Horror, Cult Movies, Exploitation Cinema, 70s Schlock, and more! Let’s look at something cool!

“This is bo-ring.” (true fact, my dude.)

Genre: Low Budget Horror Too Boring To Enjoy
Year Released: 1990
Pedigree: For most of the people involved, this was their only movie. And boy howdy, it shows.
Where I Watched: Shudder

Synopsis: A group of college students are supposed to stay in a “haunted house” over the weekend for their final exam in their parapsychology class. But nobody has to go, so only a few students go. And then…nothing happens for a while. Then more nothing happens. Will something happen before the film ends? Yawn.

Fabulous or Frustrating?: I knew this was gonna be a slog right from the jump. Exam started so abruptly that I thought I’d watched the beginning of the film before, and when I hit play it resumed from where I’d left off. But nope, the way this film starts was definitely A Choice. This 1990 film is pure 80s low budget schlock. Not even fun schlock. Exam is sad, boring schlock that’s an hour and forty five minutes I’ll never get back. This isn’t a review, it’s a warning.

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VIRTUAL Screening Pass-palooza – “Hotel Transylvania: Transformania!

Posted on January 4, 2022 by Denise

Oh my God, I unironically love this series. Who doesn’t love a good monster mash? And Winnie the werewolf is #LifeGoals. So how about a fourth serving? Synopsis!

Drac and the Pack are back, like you’ve never seen them before in Hotel Transylvania: Transformania. Reunite with your favorite monsters for an all-new adventure that presents Drac (Brian Hull) with his most terrifying task yet. When Van Helsing’s (Jim Gaffigan) mysterious invention, the ‘Monsterification Ray,’ goes haywire, Drac and his monster pals are all transformed into humans, and Johnny (Andy Samberg) becomes a monster! In their new mismatched bodies, Drac, stripped of his powers, and an exuberant Johnny, loving life as a monster, must team up and race across the globe to find a cure before it’s too late, and before they drive each other crazy. With help from Mavis (Selena Gomez) and the hilariously human Drac Pack, the heat is on to find a way to switch themselves back before their transformations become permanent.

Ready? Let’s go!

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Fandango Pass Giveaway – “The 355”!

Posted on January 4, 2022 by Denise
Before hitting the multiplex, please consider the health risks involved with participating in group gatherings at this time. Take very good care of yourselves – I wanna see you on the other side.

Ready to catch your first film of 2022? Because I’ve got vouchers for The 355! Synopsis!

When a top-secret weapon falls into mercenary hands, wild card CIA agent Mason “Mace” Brown (Oscar®-nominated actress Jessica Chastain) will need to join forces with rival badass German agent Marie (Diane Kruger, In the Fade), former MI6 ally and cutting-edge computer specialist Khadijah (Oscar® winner Lupita Nyong’o), and skilled Colombian psychologist Graciela (Oscar® winner Penélope Cruz) on a lethal, breakneck mission to retrieve it, while also staying one-step ahead of a mysterious woman, Lin Mi Sheng (Bingbing Fan, X-Men: Days of Future Past), who is tracking their every move. As the action rockets around the globe from the cafes of Paris to the markets of Morocco to the opulent auction houses of Shanghai, the quartet of women will forge a tenuous loyalty that could protect the world—or get them killed. 

Ready? Let’s go!

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In Queue Review – “In the Same Breath”

Posted on December 29, 2021 by Denise

“I realized I had fully bought into the idea that America was too advanced to suffer an outbreak like China’s. But every time I turned on the news, I heard echoes of China’s outbreak all across America.”

Genre: Must-watch Current Events Documentaries
Release Date: 2021
Where I Watched: HBO

Gist: A Chinese-born American filmmaker with family in Wuhan looks at the pandemic, and the similar reactions from the Chinese and American governments.

Talky talk: There are so many documentaries that have come out this year. But this one should be at the top of your holiday break binge list. Why? Because even though it’s extremely depressing, heartbreaking, and will remind you that we are indeed living in an out-of-control dumpster fire, Breath is a time capsule of the COVID-19 pandemic from start to…well, now. (Anyone else feeling like this will go on forever?) It’s the kind of film all anti-vaxxers, conspiracy theorists, and anti-masker “people” should watch, to get a good hard look at exactly what’s been going on while they’ve been popping off.

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