Author: tiki god

Night Train: Directed by Shane Stanley. With Danielle C. Ryan, Reggie Austin, Brent Bailey, Diora Baird. A single mom struggling to make ends meet as a Hollywood teamster evades capture by a ruthless FBI Agent while running black market medical supplies in her legendary souped-up pickup truck. You’d think this was a pure action film from the poster alone, but it’s actually about a mother’s struggle to find enough money and medicines to help her sick kid not die. Sure there’s action here with some decently framed racing, but there’s an emotional core to the film that you don’t see...

Trees Lounge: Directed by Steve Buscemi. With Carol Kane, Mark Boone Junior, Steve Buscemi, Bronson Dudley. Tommy is an unemployed mechanic who spends most of his time in a bar (Trees Lounge) in a small blue collar town. He seems to always be thinking, “If only X then I could stop drinking”. Written and directed by Buscemi, this movie has no plot or moral at the end of the story, but it does join other films that let the lens linger slightly longer than usual after the final scene, ala ‘The Graduate’. There’s a ton of big names in this...

John Wick: Chapter 4: Directed by Chad Stahelski. With Keanu Reeves, Laurence Fishburne, George Georgiou, Lance Reddick. John Wick uncovers a path to defeating The High Table. But before he can earn his freedom, Wick must face off against a new enemy with powerful alliances across the globe and forces that turn old friends into foes. The fourth film in a series about a hit-man returned from the dead to seek his vengenance against all that wronged him (and his puppy). It’s a great movie, it’s too long, all the stunts are fantastic, it’s about 4 hours long, they left...

What?: Directed by Roman Polanski. With Marcello Mastroianni, Sydne Rome, Hugh Griffith, Romolo Valli. During her Italian vacation, a young and beautiful American tourist finds herself as a guest in a coastal villa inhabited by a bunch of odd people. I got suckered into watching this because the poster that Kino shows on their app is of a naked lady, and boy do I like ladies that are naked. There are two naked ladies in this film, but neither are naked in a sexual sense and the story is an absurdist surreal comedy that I just couldn’t find any connection...

Knock at the Cabin: Directed by M. Night Shyamalan. With Dave Bautista, Jonathan Groff, Ben Aldridge, Nikki Amuka-Bird. While vacationing, a girl and her parents are taken hostage by armed strangers who demand that the family make a choice to avert the apocalypse. M. Night Shyamalan has rightfully gotten a reputation for doing movies with twists, but sometimes the twist is that there’s no twist, just a super weird premise that turns out to be true in an alarming way. In “Knock at the Cabin” the premise is that a sacrifice needs to be made to save the planet from...

Shotgun Wedding: Directed by Jason Moore. With Jennifer Lopez, Josh Duhamel, Lenny Kravitz, Jennifer Coolidge. Darcy and Tom gather their families for the ultimate destination wedding but when the entire wedding party is taken hostage the bride and groom must save their loved ones–if they don’t kill each other first. It’s everything you thought it would be, with nearly no surprise moments or shocking plot points. In it’s defense, I’m happy with a nice safe film like this and it was exactly what I was looking for after a long day. Buy On Amazon!

The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent: Directed by Tom Gormican. With Nicolas Cage, Pedro Pascal, Tiffany Haddish, Sharon Horgan. In this action-packed comedy, Nicolas Cage plays Nick Cage, channeling his iconic characters as he’s caught between a superfan (Pedro Pascal) and a CIA agent (Tiffany Haddish). Watched again with the wife and this time I was sober enough to remember how lame the ending was. There had to be a better way to end this, but I guess what they did worked well enough. That make out scene still blows my mind. Buy On Amazon!