Author: tiki god

Songbird: Directed by Adam Mason. With K.J. Apa, Sofia Carson, Craig Robinson, Bradley Whitford. In 2024 a pandemic ravages the world and its cities. Centering on a handful of people as they navigate the obstacles currently hindering society: disease, martial law, quarantine, and vigilantes. Per wikipedia, the film was conceived of, written, produced, filmed, and released all within a few months of the global covid-19 pandemic breaking national borders and infecting hundreds of millions and killing millions of those that were unable to fight off the infection. The movie feels as crass as you would expect, with a barebones story...

White Hot: The Rise & Fall of Abercrombie & Fitch: Directed by Alison Klayman. With Benjamin O’Keefe, Bobby Blanski, Ryan Daharsh, Sapna Maheshwari. Abercrombie and Fitch conquered malls in the late ’90s and early ’00s with gorgeous models, pulsing dance beats and a fierce scent. But their “all-American” image shattered as exclusionary marketing and hiring practices came to light. A&F was at best on the very edge of my awareness when it was at it’s height of popularity and I never heard about any of the issues they ended up being accused of. I’m honestly not sure why I clicked...

The Lost City: Directed by Aaron Nee, Adam Nee. With Sandra Bullock, Channing Tatum, Daniel Radcliffe, Da’Vine Joy Randolph. A reclusive romance novelist on a book tour with her cover model gets swept up in a kidnapping attempt that lands them both in a cutthroat jungle adventure. This definitely feels like it was made for direct to streaming audiences, so I was definitely surprised when it was only in theaters for a (short?) time period. It finally came to Paramount Plus, so I got to watch it on my free month’s worth of the service. This isn’t the first time...

Last Woman on Earth: Directed by Roger Corman. With Betsy Jones-Moreland, Antony Carbone, Robert Towne. Ev, her husband Harold, and their friend Martin go scuba diving while on vacation in Puerto Rico. When they surface, they find that everyone on the island has died. No clue how I missed this in my period where I was watching every post-apocalyptic film I could get my hands on, but here it is, one of the first versions of the story that I’ve run into. Released in 1960, it’s a full 25 years before “The Quiet Earth” which has the same conceit of...

Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness: Directed by Sam Raimi. With Benedict Cumberbatch, Elizabeth Olsen, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Benedict Wong. Dr. Stephen Strange casts a forbidden spell that opens the doorway to the multiverse, including alternate versions of himself, whose threat to humanity is too great for the combined forces of Strange, Wong, and Wanda Maximoff. Sam Raimi is gonna do what Sam Raimi is gonna do, and while this is decidedly a Marvel movie with all the Marvel baggage that good Marvel movies come with, this is still a delightfully Sam Raimi movie, with everything you’d expect from him....

Perfect Sense: Directed by David Mackenzie. With Eva Green, Lauren Tempany, Ewan McGregor, Connie Nielsen. A chef and a scientist fall in love as an epidemic begins to rob people of their sensory perceptions. Not a movie I want to see while the world is winding down from a global pandemic that removed many victim’s sense of smell, but the film has s a artistic poetry to the extinction of humanity that’s beautiful in it’s own way. Buy On Amazon!