More Jonathan Rhys Meyers Horror

 

More Jonathan Rhys Meyers Horror

by Kristin Battestella

Let's have a birthday supper with two more genre bending pictures featuring Jonathan Rhys Meyers! Unfortunately, the horrors here do a disservice to the stars – to say the least.

A Mixed Bag

6 Souls – This international production originally titled Shelter starring doctor Julianne Moore (The End of the Affair) and patient Jonathan Rhys Meyers (The Tudors) was originally released in 2010 before this 2013 US re-branding, which already doesn't bode well. After a tense hearing explaining multiple personality disorder as a fake fad defense, our psychologist Cara is on a new case at the behest of her colleague father. The wheelchair bound Johnny with a southern accent answers her questions before scratching, growling, color blind changes, and no wheelchair required inexplicable. Tearful recountings, creepy sores, and vomitings increase, but the x-rays look like two different people and the high school history doesn't gel. Occult symbols, ritual murder, Appalachia magic, and religious undercurrents are apparent early, yet Cara continues to pursue the psychological. Spooky flashes and dream scares break her point of view, and backstory of her husband's murder on Christmas feels forced amid the cool babysitter uncle banter. All the family elements seem unnecessary; doctor dad keeps pushing Cara to prove her motivation and it would be better if she was alone. The psychology interrogations are a tense who is who with angry alters and who's going to blink first chilling. Unfortunately, the medical treatment is fast and loose, and local superstitions, iron nails to ward off evil, and who does or doesn't wear a cross don't get enough attention. JRM's personality changes are well done amid gory discoveries and satanic possibilities, and thankfully we mostly hear rather than see the bone cracking transformations. The one on one scenes are best, yet they don't get us any closer to the root source and Doctor Cara actually doesn't seem very good at her job? Her daughter is a plot device to advance the science versus god when our supposedly religious doctor spends too much time on a medical solution when it's clear to the frustrated audience she is totally missing the demonic at work. We wonder why the authorities weren't involved sooner because she continually oversteps her medical bounds and makes the situation worse. Religious mothers and granny witches take too long to get to the backwoods backstory, with intercut rituals and over the phone info dumps making Cara look stupid alongside one step behind detectives and repeated road trips. The freaky is good when it happens, but so much time is wasted on cryptic ominous that it makes viewers question if there is another version of this left on the cutting room floor. Sepia toned back and forth faith versus faithless cures or curses are confusing with technological audio and visual ease advancing revelations when the characters should be experiencing the consequences directly. It's foolish that critical horror action happens while our doctor merely listens on the phone, muddling point of view and familial motivation and doing a disservice to the emotional, chilling leads. Hospital versus witch doctor choices wait while phone contrivances allow for more driving with in-world hop, skip, jump convenience on top of too many characters and plot detours when we should have focused on the psychosis versus religion twofer. The sacrificial action, influenza timeline, and twists upon twists unravel, descending into wooded chases instead of any scientific or spiritual resolution.

It's Bad

Operation Blood Hunt – Louis Mandylor (My Big Fat Greek Wedding) directs and stars in this 2024 action horror lark featuring Jonathan Rhys Meyers amid vampires, werewolves, and World War II South Pacific incomprehensible. The brief 1928 opening has a unique black and white scheme with stylish hints of color and yellow glows, but the subsequent modern de-saturated drone photography does not set the period mood– and it only gets worse from there. The initial werewolf shock is actually well done, however it's premature to reveal the wolf in the first five minutes. Location changes and onscreen notations telling us it's 1945 London jar with hamfisted contemporary dialogue. Fedora wearing, Bogarting it up JRM is hammy yet suave amid wooden deliveries, Kung Fu strobe, and confusing direction that make the cast seem like they are in different scenes. There are pieces of everything here from Dracula to Kong: Skull Island, and with the modern metal music and cool silver crossbows, they could have tossed in time travel and it wouldn't be out of place. Overlong, obnoxious banter introduces try hard people a half hour in with freeze frame titles while they jump out of a plane: casanova, tracker, assassin, spy, sharpshooter, veteran, supernatural specialist, gambler. None of this preposterous can be taken seriously largely thanks to the World War II trappings – visualized only by the period helmets that are too big and fall down over the actors' eyes. The perplexing Wikipedia summary reads like a novel, and JRM's vampire bar with the cool black and white flashbacks look like they're from another movie. Why is all this jammed into one ninety-four minutes when it could have been contemporary set? Werewolf slices and slashes are too few and far between, and it all should have been from the village's perspective where shaman rituals and animal curses give the asshole intruders what they deserve. The bad vampire wants to get to the North Pole, and I can't imagine how anyone in this movie kept a straight face. Attempted dramatic moments, deaths, and dire radio calls are inadvertently bemusing thanks to a contemporary edgy ballad. Ironically, a woman's arms being ripped off by the werewolf is another good effect, but we don't get to the hairy action, silver bullets, and curse mythology explanations until the final twenty minutes. Blaming the native village history feels racist, and intercutting the mercenary island action with London explanations that it's all about hidden gold and not the monsters adds more messy. But hey, maybe every film needs a naked woman who is clearly wearing a flesh tone tank top yet is still treated as if she is naked. JRM is a vampire who's been listening to everything the entire time, and a racist coda inviting them to Egypt to battle mummies leaves it open for a sequel, lololol. I can't believe I watched this whole thing!

A Spy Among Friends at Geek Vibes Nation!

 

I'm so grateful to have my television review of A Spy Among Friends at Geek Vibes Nation! 

My long form written output has slowed but the Great Guy Pearce Career Re-Watch moves on nonetheless with several podcasts and television coverage including:

Hateship Loveship on the Female Gaze Podcast

Jack Irish at Keith Loves Movies

Mare of Eastown at Keith Loves Movies

My Fall calendar is almost full however my DMs are open on Blue Sky for audio/visual or writing collaborations. Positive engagement and thoughtful exchange is a wonderful thing!

2 Too Obvious Horrors

 

Two Too Obvious Horrors

by Kristin Battestella

These recent women in horror films make for an unfortunately obvious duo playing into cliches and doing much too much. Pity.

Hold Your Breath – Sarah Paulson (American Horror Story) anchors this 2024 Hulu original set in 1930s Oklahoma during the Dust Bowl. Coughing and gasping dreams, our mother's prayers to not be evil, and already deceased children giveaway everything upfront along with flashbacks of dad leaving to work on the railroad and daughters locking their door. Dust lingers in streams of light shining between wood planks; the women wipe, sweep, and beat the sheets but dust is everywhere. On edge neighbors trying to escape monstrous storm clouds lead to wagon accidents and burying dead animals. Families must cling to the safety lines or be swept away in the howling winds. Bedtime stories of the previously tall, golden wheat fields don't alleviate the rattling house, creaking wood, and dirt dunes billowing against the door. Promises to join their father when he sends money become notches on the wall counting his absence while the cows quit and a self-proclaimed healing hands minister hides in the barn. Unfortunately, ridiculously loud modern crescendos interfere with the suspense – deflating the innate breathing, nosebleeds, and dirt in their mouths. There should be no music save for the banging shutters, and although they serve the plot, one wonders if all the other townsfolk are truly necessary. Even our deaf daughter is a contrivance rather than a fully developed character serving the masks, sleeping pills, unknown man, women alone, and mailbag warnings. Entertaining angels unaware Lot scripture reiterates the feminine dangers while the superfluous town gossips whisper about what violence goes on behind closed doors. Friendly knocks on the door from those colloquial ninnies are rebuffed as mom practices putting on her smile in the mirror amid congested interior barricades, fires, and sleepwalking. Pretty white dresses are ruined with blood and no one believes there was a man terrorizing them once you say he's a speck of dust that came in under the door. Viewers understand our unfit mother's selfish descent as the family cycle perpetuates with sewing needle mishaps, shooting at voices in the dust, and children in peril. However grieving visions playing at the mental versus horror metaphors become an overlong, predictable excuse when the crazed, everything's fine pretending was enough for a straight isolation thriller. Despite a fine setting, atmosphere, and performances; this is laid on thick and obvious from the opening scene. 

Immaculate – The similarities to The First Omen are indeed apparent, and the obvious title is obvious to everyone but novice Sydney Sweeney (Madame Web) in this 2024 seen it all before nunsploitation yarn. Although questions at customs and searching the suitcase establish the Italian dictionary, Bible, and stuffed animal nervousness about taking the forthcoming vows; the opening runaway nun caught for buried alive screams is unnecessary. I wish the lovely on location filming and scenery were bright enough to actually see and I'm not sure when this is supposed to take place? However the American accent is jarring – an out of place modernity amid the rapid intermixed Italian exposition, diegetic choir chants, and eerie courtyard processions. Suggestive bridal vows, handsome priests, kneeling before the men, and kissing the ring innuendo are laid on thick but the spooky atmosphere and rituals beneath the inner sanctum aren't scary because the audience knows more than our vomiting novitiate. Brief visual distortions and nightmares give way to a happy daylight montage with chores and kitchen quaint even as chickens are killed and old convent patients die. Giggling bathing gossip and questions about if she has been chaste lead to humorous crescendos as they whip the cover off the ultrasound machine. Apparently, she's so faithful the miraculous mom never questions why a convent for dying nuns needs an obstetrician on call. It's tough to support a protagonist that has wine, faints, and wakes up pregnant but isn't suspicious despite Madonna ceremonies, teeth falling out, and jealous drowning attempts. Askew funerary angles, hidden scripture, hair effigies, cross brandings, and a tortured nun getting her tongue cut out attempt medieval touches while mom-to-be in white roams the halls at night with a candle. Chicken ruses, bleeding emergencies, and prayers over said bloody sheets lead to chases and a rough shower scrubbing. The priest puts on black gloves and apologizes if she feels unsafe after being subjected to a rusty nail with 2,000 year old sinews yet it's all so on the nose thanks to egotistical experiments, fetus failures in jars, misused scripture, and secret lab equipment. Questions debating why God hasn't stopped them and Ave Maria choirs feel religion-lite as our woman in labor runs, fights, and climbs the cool catacombs. She damns her water for breaking after bludgeoning the mother superior with hefty a crucifix while Carol of the Bells plays. She strangles the eminence with a rosary when he's smoking and sets the genetics priest on fire, too, as you do. Despite being eighty-odd minutes with lengthy credits eating into the actual runtime, this feels both overlong yet lacking in resolution or consequences. Fortunately our wild, covered in blood mother bites off her umbilical cord and smashes her unseen demon baby with a rock – actions accented by nails on chalkboard screaming and humorous “thump” and “sloshing” closed captions. This is a comedy and I laughed out loud.

The Guy Pearce Re-Watch So Far!

 

I initially started working on the Great Guy Pearce Career Re-Watch in 2023 before real life interference pushed my reviews into 2024. However it was meant to be since Guy Pearce is having a banner year thanks to The Brutalist!  

If you've missed any of our Re-Watch countdowns, reviews, videos, or podcasts, here's an update so far (yes there's more to come!) with this handy end of the year guide!

Podcast and Video Appearances:

Women InSession: Guy Pearce Spectacular

Women InSession: The Adventures of Priscilla Queen of the Desert

Women InSession: Memento

Women InSession: Underrated Guy Pearce Picks

Women InSession: Prometheus and Alien: Covenant

Bedtime Stories Bubba Wheat Podcast

Jack Irish Jay Days Video Review

When We Rise Jay Day Video Review

The Convert Jay Days Video Review

A Christmas Carol Jay Days Video Review

Memory Therefore Review Video Review

Guy Pearce Horror Movies Therefore Review Video

Guy Pearce Villains! Therefore Review Video

Television Coverage at Keith Loves Movies:

Jack Irish – Bad Debts, Black Tide, Dead Point, Season 1, Season 2, Season 3

Mare of Easttown

Written Reviews at I Think, Therefore I Review and InSession Film:

Hunting

Heaven Tonight

Flynn

Snowy River: The McGregor Saga

Dating the Enemy

L.A. Confidential

Brand New World

Ravenous

Rules of Engagement

Memento

The Count of Monte Cristo

The Time Machine

Til Human Voices Wake Us

The Hard Word

Two Brothers

The Proposition

Factory Girl

First Snow

Traitor

Death Defying Acts

In Her Skin

Seeking Justice

Winged Creatures

Bedtime Stories

33 Postcards

The Hurt Locker

Animal Kingdom

Don't Be Afraid of the Dark

The King's Speech

Prometheus

Iron Man 3

Lockout

Lawless

Hateship Loveship

Breathe In

The Rover

Equals

Genius

Results

Lorne

Brimstone

Alien: Covenant

Spinning Man

Swinging Safari

The Catcher was a Spy

The Innocents

A Christmas Carol

Bloodshot

Disturbing the Peace

The Seventh Day

The Last Vermeer

Domino

Without Remorse

Zone 414

The Infernal Machine

Sunrise

and of course

We Been Knew Guy Pearce Should Have Won

10 Times Guy Pearce Already Deserved Acclaim

Guy Pearce Movies to Stream on Tubi

Join in The Great Guy Pearce Career Re-Watch with us on Blue Sky! 

Unpopular Opinion: The Bikeriders

 

Unpopular Opinion: The Bikeriders

by Kristin Battestella

Although nearly every other film lover I know adores The Bikeriders; it's an understatement to say this 2023 Jeff Nichols (Mud) drama starring Austin Butler (Elvis), Jodie Comer (Killing Eve), and Tom Hardy (Lawless) was a disappointment for me. Poor framework, confused narratives, weak characterizations, and muddled storytelling are but a few of the numerous problems here. Presented below are my stream of consciousness notes while critically viewing The Bikeriders for an upcoming video guest appearance with The Jay Days Reviews Channel. These notes have been edited for corrections, redundancy, and clarity.

The Bikeriders takes place in the late 60s/early 70s yet the lighting is far too contemporary with the dark gradient. The classic needle drops don't work because it is so damn darkly light and edited with today's look instead of a vintage feeling. Butler's Benny looks too young for the time. Kathy's accent is juvenile. Is Benny's voice fake, too? He sounds dubbed and humorous. How old are they supposed to be? Everyone's playing at being tough. The entire framework hinging on Kathy's point of view is silly. Why don't we start with her walking into the club and meeting everyone for the first time? This is very slow to get going, the narration says they get married but then it's another music cue and motorcycle montage. Benny's a bad boy howling on his bike but no one thinks he's bad ass except him and her.

Twenty minutes in and I want to skip ahead. The smirking, duck face, modern squinting is not James Dean. All the important things – marriage, arrests – are happening off camera. Kathy hear tells us what others are thinking and feeling of how the club was founded and recounting events before she was even there. It makes no frigging sense! Instead of introducing everybody and the club forming in order, everything is intercut and confusing with flashbacks. Why isn't this from Mike Faist (Challengers) as the reporter Lyon's point of view? We're meeting everyone through a third party asking questions of another person who doesn't know? Is this about the forming of the gang and the problems that ensue, Lyon covering the bad boys, or just deluded Kathy? This needed less – the bikers, the interviewing, or the woman ruffling feathers – yet all of them keep restarting with empty montages and voiceovers. Very few scenes have dialogue and they only last a few minutes. Everything Kathy is telling could have been spoken.

Who's perspective is this in scenes with Kathy's narration when she is not present? For all the motorcycles, this is very slow with one biker spouting wisdom, another contesting one, and one asking the reporter why he's doing it. The subject is surprisingly light yet it's better when the movie plays out without the disjointed narration and montages. Every dramatic scene ends with a brawl, music cue, or montage with no thematic payoff to whatever gang struggles are supposed to be happening. Is the reporter Lyon even introduced as to why he is there? Like they would let a kid with a camera hang around while they are breaking people's legs? There is no emotion, touching, or loving to our couple. Why are we supposed to be wowed by her theorizing with the cigarette and the accent like she is so wise? Kathy's an idiot in a shit relationship with shit people burning down bars and wrestling in the mud. Why is she telling us what Johnny is thinking rather than him speaking for himself?

Benny hides out for weeks in a hotel but wannabe queen bee Kathy tells us about it rather than the audience seeing any on the run tension. Is Hardy's Johnny voice meant to be funny? He's closer to her husband than she is, and without the narration or the interviewer maybe this love triangle would have been better. Otherwise, everything is too tame with no clear character motivations. Kathy wants him to quit riding while she also smokes and brags about the gang life? She's the drunken unnecessary entity in Benny's life. The reporter inexplicably leaves, Johnny is not Brando, and Cry Baby had more action. Benny and Johnny have so few scenes together, and one shadowed homoerotic scene is too contemporary. A movie of the era would be brightly lit with subtext in plain sight rather than using visuals to hide something. It's all so playing dress up performative. Is this a comedy? There's a funeral? Who died?

Our tough guys give such sensitive speeches, but Johnny has so few scenes. Conversations cut back to the reporter so Kathy can tell us a year later the club changed. I don't think I've ever been so confused by a film. Why don't we get to see anything in real time? Kathy isn't with the gang for most of the time but she's telling us of bikers coming back from Vietnam smoking pot, and the only way we're supposed to know time has passed is because of the music cues? The characters all look and act the same through any supposed changes. Everything is strangely non-sexual and chaste yet it's Johnny who saves Kathy from the gang violence, not her husband Benny. He's too busy blowing smoke, literally, in another music montage. Who's story is this? When does this movie end?

Kathy says she can't live like this, but they never seemed married in the first place. They are only in a handful of scenes together. It's comical how she says an attempted rape would make her want to kill herself and then goes on a tangent about people who kill themselves being too stupid. She shouts at him to leave the club but Benny is so soft spoken and unmoved it's as if they are in different scenes. The intercutting between them makes it look like they didn't even film the scene together. Nothing happens and this movie is a plain, nonsensical mess. The viewer been knew Kathy is a non factor to Benny and the gang but what little story there is is so damn routine, missing the mark in depicting any motorcycle gang edgy. Everyone's talking for Benny or about Benny but we hardly ever see him. Was the framework created in the editing room to work around Butler?

Repeated biker challenges don't mean anything, so let's wrap this up already. We're told how it all ends after the fact in the last fifteen minutes? Are we supposed to take the entire thing as just Kathy's shitty unreliable point of view? How does she know anything? Why does her opinion of the gang turning to real criminals and drugs after she is away from it matter? It's ridiculous that the reporter shows up again to ask what went down rather than audience seeing what actually happened. How did they afford to move to Florida? It just ends with foolish Kathy smiling like she got her way by doing absolutely nothing other than being a pathetic sap. There's no twist that she hired the guy to take care of Johnny? Bummer.

Guy Pearce Villains Video Review by Request!

 

As requested by subscriber @gageman136, Kristin Battestella aka Kbatz chats about the good and bad of Guy Pearce's villainous performances! 

Thank you so much for the viewer feedback and comments. Let me know what else you would like to see as well as your thoughts on Guy Pearce as the bad guy. Thank you for Watching!

Remember we are now on Blue Sky as well as Instagram but have reduced our @ThereforeReview Twitter to DMs for audio/visual collabs. Also read our Film articles at InSession Film and TV coverage at Keith Loves Movies or join along in our Great Guy Pearce Career Re-Watch! 

See, Hear, Read More:

Guy Pearce Horror Movies Video Review 

Underrated Guy Pearce Movies Women InSession Podcast

Bedtime Stories Guest Podcast 

Guy Pearce Horror Movies Video Review

 

Those who follow my Twitter account @ThereforeReview know that I am neck deep in perusing through a Guy Pearce Career Re-Watch! In the spirit of the Halloween Season, here's a video review of Guy Pearce's Horror Films.

Thank you for watching! See, Hear, and Read More:

Guy Pearce Career Re-Watch 

Underrated Guy Pearce Movies Women InSession Podcast 

Sunrise

Ravenous

The Convert Video Review

Recent Religious Horrors

 

Recent Religious Horror

by Kristin Battestella

This trio of 2020s frights takes on evil in several forms. However, some results are better than others are – ranging from decent to frustrating and downright bad viewing experiences.

Pretty Good

The First Omen – Sonia Braga (Kiss of the Spiderwoman), Bill Nighy (Underworld), and Charles Dance (Game of Thrones) provide supporting gravitas in this 2024 prequel to The Omen co-written by debut director Arkasha Stevenson (Vessels). Tolling bells, scaffolding perils, and shattered glass begat shadowed confessions and whispers of unnatural conceptions. Black hoods, bound rituals, pregnancy, blood, and pleas to not be touched again make for a chilling start before the sunny arrival of our friendly American nun at the 1971 Roman orphanage. The old corridors look shabby with an amber, aged patina, and we wonder what goes on in this villa filled with women. These nuns smoke and giggle about the milkman, however union protests and youth counterculture that distrust church authority worry the Cardinal. Our novice recounts being a problem child herself, punished and subdued as a ward of the church for what was said to be an overactive imagination. She's reluctant to sneak out and hit the neon disco but soon gets into the dancing and sweaty kisses before regrets, kneeling, and prayers. Lookalike women, sisterhood suggestions, lesbian taboos, and repeated creepy hair fanning out upon the pillows foreshadow more while an excommunicated priest warns of evil things happening. Immolation, delirious weirdness, and monstrous nasty provide what we think we see in the dark fears amid eerie frescoes, hidden rooms, and disturbing offspring. Pregnancy is not a beautiful experience but gory with medical tools and horrible visions of demon hands and orifices. Backward chants and altars treat the Cesarean as ceremony – escalating to claws, growls, retching, convulsions, and baby cries. The elders claim this abomination is a miracle to save the church, however viewers will know what's what re mother and jackal before the ninety minute mark, and this didn't need to be two hours. Pointless arty shots and short cryptic scenes are disjointed while silly jump scares negate the more natural simmering horror mood. Swelling music calls attention to itself, heralding the spooky when the chorales should only be heard as diegetic and innate to the ritual vows. The revelations are overdone with repeated mark of the beast questions and Antichrist goals that don't make much sense when the sixth month, sixth hour, sixth day approaching should have driven the plot. Though very atmospheric and overall entertaining thanks to sudden, disturbing horrors; the last half hour drags on with fiery slow motion and but wait there's more too many endings. Instead of leading up to the picture of Gregory Peck and fin, this overstays its welcome by eking out room for The First Exorcism 2: Boogaloo.

Frustrating

The Harbinger – Native American seer Irene Bedard (Smoke Signals) educates writer/director/producer/star Will Klipstine (The Evolution of Andrew Andrews) on saving his damned daughter in this devilish 2022 tale. Hangings, mysterious death relics, and burning in hell declarations lead to our on the go family refusing the psychologist's concerns. Sunny flashbacks of happier times are oddly intercut with a cliché driving montage and an ominous gas station stop before an annoying neighbor gives the newcomers the bigoted scoop on the nearby cursed reservation. Our daughter kills a frog and pushes children out of the tree house, but the something evil afoot parental arguments are too on the nose – forcing the sinister amid disjointed scenes that don't happen organically. Viewers wonder what's on purpose, deflection, or padding as more caricature neighbors come and go. Little miss creepy is unwelcome at the reservation, but our seer both says there is no hope for such evil yet there is something they can do. Although not stereotypically portrayed, there also simply aren't enough Native American motifs. Mystical explanations devolve into magical gobbledygook about quests, blessed daggers, and sacred stones. Repetitive scenes with redundant exposition get preposterous as everyone tells but no one actually does anything. Our father finally admits the devil has his daughter's soul, and his having been a single parent would have been much more interesting. The best moments here are between dad and daughter with her asking if he remembers what she was really like and his carrying her to bed as always. One scene with our wife going to confession and the priest kicking her out goes nowhere thanks to demonic reflections, spooky whispers, dreams, and sepia speakeasy specters negating the too few and far between emotional family moments. Continued happy flashbacks don't create emotion, just delay the current inaction as our passive family makes no progress. The Mrs. hardly interacts with her daughter unless it's to be whooshed around the kitchen, complaining her husband needs to do more rather than being proactive herself. Likewise, our seer tells of colonial curses and sacrifices in the town crypt but she's not actively involved in any ritual to prevent the collecting of souls. Dead animals accumulate and demons attack the bed as more deaths and comeuppance are given after the fact. Police investigations again fall back on flashbacks – repeating the deals with the devil and harbinger exposition twice more with who's actually in on appeasing the devil. Their faith in God and any Catholicism are a non-factor but convenient cemetery maps and prohibition tunnels provide action contrivances, convenient angels, and gangster ghosts. The horn and hoof red devil begats back and forth flying daggers stabbing people like it's “Who's on First” – the effects aren't terrible but the finale descends into unnecessary twists and obvious self-sacrifice. Diablo ex machina reincarnation and more historical exposition thrown at the screen become terribly frustrating, silly, and overlong. Though watchable if you accept this is a flawed production that had potential, this should have been a taut, streamlined ninety minutes.

Skip It

The Exorcism of God – I want to appreciate the Mexican setting, Spanish flavor, and Catholic mood of this 2021 parable, but my gosh if this isn't pieces of every other exorcism movie put together. I laughed in the first five minutes over the Exorcist knockoffs and ridiculously sexual opening exorcism – predicting it was a prologue that would to jump to a new many years later focus. Even priests named Michael and Peter are derivative of the maligned The Seventh Day, and it was very easy to zone out and half pay attention when not chuckling at the demon special effects. The earnest performances are so earnest they don't know they are in a horror movie. Sometimes that is good, most of the time it isn't. Every set piece scare is also for the audience – negating any of the priestly conflicts with repeated, increasingly hammy sexual possession shocks. This setting deserved a much better script, and Saban should really stick to Power Rangers instead of trying to make horror movies. How could a studio/distributor release forty-five films in 2022? Even if that was somehow pandemic backlog, terrible movies like this result in such littered streaming. More important than the assembly line industry, however, is the downright offensive, trying to be shocking, scandalous possession and sex ploys toward church abuse victims. A priest claiming a demon made him molest young women in his care is your plot? Who thought rape jokes were a good idea?

More Jack Irish at Keith Loves Movies!

 

Our television moonlighting at Keith Loves Movies continues with more Jack Irish! 

After the original Television Film Trilogy, Jack Irish continued with three episodic seasons. Read our reviews of each series: 

Blind Faith

Last Rite

Hell Bent

Huge thanks to Keith Loves Movies for having our television retrospectives - also including Mare of Easttown! You can also see us talking about Jack Irish on The Jay Days Youtube Channel, and stay tuned for more in the Great Guy Pearce Career Re-Watch! 

Guy Pearce Re-Watch: Supporting Grace

 

Supporting Grace in the Guy Pearce Career Re-Watch!

Those who follow my Twitter account @ThereforeReview know that I have spent these pandemic years perusing through a Guy Pearce Career Re-Watch. I retreated to this happy place because Pearce can always be depended upon to turn in a great performance in often exceptional films. 

After his self-imposed sabbatical from Hollywood in the early aughts, Guy Pearce re-emerged in a little bit of everything, adding gravitas to award winning films and independent surprises alike. Be it ten minutes or unforgettable villains, Pearce knows how to gracefully lend his cinematic support in all genres.

Please click through to previously written reviews and videos at I Think, Therefore I Review, InSession Film or with the Women InSession Podcast and Keith Loves Movies for more in depth analysis along with these quick commentaries and countdowns.

New Video Bonus: The Convert

10. Two Brothers – This 2004 French film provides adorable cubs, intense tiger action, beautiful Cambodia locales, and picturesque ruins with the help of real wildlife, clever special effects, and up close animatronics. DVD Behind the scenes features and conservation documentaries compliment the period picture, and billed below the titular tigers Pearce is a rugged trophy hunter learning the error of his ways thanks to nibbling kittens, innocent children, and colonial corruption robbing the country of its history. Though labeled as a family film, the story here is very upsetting for audiences of any age with tiger mating, animal shootings, circus abuse, violence, and cub anguish as our brothers are repeatedly separated from those they love. The lessons win out for a happy ending, but viewers must know this is a tough watch despite the cuddly big cats.

9. Genius – This 2016 slice of life about Colin Firth's (Kingsman: The Secret Service) editor Max Perkins to Jude Law's (The Talented Mr. Ripley) writer Thomas Wolfe adapted by John Logan (Penny Dreadful) should be fascinating literary discourse. Instead the tormented artistry is a slow, dry yarn under-utilizing Nicole Kidman (Dead Calm) and Laura Linney (The Truman Show). I'm not a fan of either author but Dominic West (The Affair) has one scene as Ernest Hemingway – as does Vanessa Kirby (The Frankenstein Chronicles) as Zelda Fitzgerald – with precious few minutes more for Pearce as the bitter late stage F. Scott Fitzgerald. That's the biopic I needed.

8. The Hurt Locker – When naysayers on Twitter say Guy Pearce hasn't done anything since Memento, sometimes I like to be a little mean and recommend this 2009 Katherine Bigelow (Near Dark) Best Picture winner just to mess with them. Pearce's opening gravitas immediately establishes the devastating shock, action awe, and Iraq War pain to come for Jeremy Renner (Hawkeye) and Anthony Mackie (The Falcon and the Winter Soldier). 

7. Lawless – I should like this 2012 prohibition epic from director John Hillcoat and screenwriter Nick Cave more than I do thanks to their previous glory that is The Proposition. This has period style, sweet cars, and suave gangster Gary Oldman (Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy) to match real life bootlegging brothers Tom Hardy (Venom) and Shia LaBeouf (Nymphomaniac). However, the moonshiners, crooks, and corrupt officials are all just shit men going on and on in believing their own self-perceived invincible hype. Why did Jessica Chastain (Crimson Peak) and Mia Wasikowska (Jane Eyre) sign on to play such used, abused, and objectified women? Of course, Pearce hams it up as the no-eyebrowed and over perfumed villainous Chicago dandy out to get our brothers in the film's best, most brutal moments.

6. Swinging Safari – Director Stephan Elliott (The Adventures of Priscilla Queen of the Desert) provides a zany look at growing up in seventies Australia in this nostalgic 2018 ode with everything from a beached whale stinking up the summer to kids with cameras setting each other on fire for their Death Eaters Super 8 magnum opus. Great retro colors, bell bottom styles, and period gadgets accent the perilous pets, pool mishaps, and mangled fruit substituting for Evil Knievel gore amid vignette freeze frames, slow motion, and distorted in-camera narrations. Our youths are left to such danger at play thanks to bored parents Guy Pearce, Kylie Minogue (Bio-Dome), Radha Mitchell (Olympus Has Fallen), and Julian McMahon (Nip/Tuck) – who decide to get down with a key party gone awry and therein is the problem. This is two films in one mashing a serious Wonder Years coming of age with an adult comedy that doesn't have enough of the titular scandal. Too much is happening and the charm becomes disjointed despite numerous entertaining moments worthy of a more complete picture. 

5. The King's Speech – This 2010 Best Picture winner about George VI's overcoming his stuttering problems is a charming period piece thanks to the lauded cast including Best Actor Colin Firth, Helena Bonham Carter (A Room with a View), Geoffrey Rush (Elizabeth), and Guy Pearce “kinging” with aplomb as Edward VIII. Of course, the vocal exercises come across so feel good because the story excises any probable Nazi implications to the abdication. Here tuxedo wearing, champagne popping, piloting his own plane Pearce abandons the throne solely for love. Certainly I'd love to see a more accurate portrayal of the dirty dynamics between the subsequent Duke and Duchess of Windsor warts and all, but the endearing focus here builds to a superb radio speech accented by divine Beethoven crescendos.

4. The Last Vermeer – Scene stealing Guy Pearce's artist Han van Meegeren is second to Claes Bang (Dracula) in this 2019 historical drama struggling with a framework that doesn't completely tell its most interesting tale. Brief flashbacks of nude portraits, juicy parties getting in bed with the regime, and photos hidden in the floorboards suggest we've come in too late here in the post-war aftermath. Questions on Dutch versus Jewish identity and what double agent wives had to do to survive while upset about it husbands were in the Dutch resistance are uneven and heavy handed amid public firing squads and Allied Command versus reinstated Dutch Ministry intrigue. Vicky Krieps (Old) is underutilized as the female assistant who solves the case but get no credit, and the pace lags when Pearce is off-screen. Accused as a third rate artist but first rate opportunist, Han is small, impish, and ornery – humorous with his drunken house arrest witticisms, sexy assistant, and sassy wife innuendo. However, van Meegeren is also angry and duplicitous with careful smoking mannerisms and expertly crafted double talk. The chastising art community underestimated him, and he is at once for the people in besting the Nazis yet smug in this delicately orchestrated scheme peppered with priceless artwork, laundering implications, and whispers of espionage. The finale rushes over montaged chemical tests and loose legalese, and whether the charismatic Han was a hero or a collaborator is left unclear despite Pearce's compelling performance.

3. Animal Kingdom – Mustachioed good cop Pearce tries to protect Oscar nominated Jackie Weaver's grandson from their family's ruthless den of crime in this 2010 drama written and directed by David Michôd (The Rover). Ben Mendelsohn (Bloodline) and Joel Edgerton (Loving) punctuate their “grubby business” with drugs, murders, police corruption, and creepy family favoritism. Our sweet talking, manipulative matriarch thinks it's all a boys will be boys happy family while the innocent are caught in the crossfire. Rather than a cool crime heist or slick, polished thriller; the realistic filming is bitter with shabby styles, claustrophobic interiors, and mournful scoring to match the bleak consequences and brutal existence. Dramatic builds and abusive, incestuous implications lay the queen bee, bullying pecking order before shock shootings, car accidents, raids, arrests, witness intimidation, and bodies in the backyard. Edgy egos and power trips provide no recourse from this inescapable web as groomed youth must decide to pay the price or lay down a new law thanks to the raw, hard hitting performances here.

2. Rules of Engagement – The sensitive subject matter of this 2000 William Friedkin (The Exorcist) military courtroom drama starring Tommy Lee Jones (Stormy Monday) and Samuel L. Jackson (Kong: Skull Island) would be handled differently today. The well done opening siege action and latter legalese divide the picture in two halves. I'd also rather we had not seen the mission in question once the gunfire occurs nor known the fate of the videotape evidence – thus putting an intriguing uncertainty on what actually happened. However, viewers are never meant to doubt that Jackson was in the right doing what he had to do and that Jones will defend him with every crusty underdog gotcha. Time is taken for their banter and backstory alongside the fine supporting ensemble. Rather than being the purely villainous, nondescript prosecutor; Pearce holds his own as our opposing major, saying he will try the case on good evidence only and respecting the defending colonels. His Biggs also seems slightly fey, overcompensating with the macho talk and courtroom showmanship. Friedkin's winking zooms and stylish lighting accentuate Pearce's eyes when he realizes what's what. Five o'clock hour shadows add to the tension on the witness stand, and we must pay attention as jurors take note when testimonies conflict. Despite knowing the outcome, this is easy to re-watch for the action, intrigue, and characterizations. “Sixteen fucking minutes.”

1. The Count of Monte Cristo – Although this 2002 swashbuckling Dumas adaptation differs from the novel; the cinematic relationships and fine ensemble layer the tall ships, Napoleon intrigue, chess pieces, and betrayals. Burned letters and treasonous kickbacks mean the idealistic, niave Dantes is wrongfully imprisoned – counting the stones in his dungeon walls, vowing revenge, and secretly digging three inches a week. Courtly, austere mansions versus charming prison montages echo the classim and poverty as cave-ins and daring escapes lead to treasure maps, pirates, allies, and murder. Carefully orchestrated vengeance escalates to feigned kidnappings, ingratiating rescues, and duels while brief flashbacks punctuate the well paced adventure amid just turnabouts, pistols, arrests, and ruin. Balconies allow for dominate downward angles while windows and swaths of light invoke hope. Candlelit patinas, period costumes, lovely set design, and dirty attention to detail match the Malta locales, scenic waters, horses, and hot air balloons. The epic score accentuates spectaclular parties, revealed secrets, lost love recognized, and a dashing sword fight that surpasses the written finale. Despite the story's underlying goodness, we root for Mondego to get his due at times more than we cheer for our hero. Instead of the offered Dantes, Guy Pearce chose to play the childhood friend turned villainous love to hate Mondego – creating memorable deceit, rotten teeth sleazy, and despicable envy. I suspect this delicious performance is why there is a certain audience that will always hate Guy Pearce, and understandably so.