JoeMama's Movie Reviews

  Holiday Touchdown: A Chiefs Love Story Starring Hunter King, Tyler Hynes, Ed Begley Jr., Diedrich Bader Directed by John Putch Every Christmas my friend shows me Hallmark Christmas movies for me to review, and in doing so I form my own score based on Hallmark levels as well as regular cinematic ones, so there'll be two different scores at the end of the review. Fortunately, my friend has decent taste and shows me some of the better Hallmark films out there - at least that's what she says - and I really don't want to do any more research into that topic. "Holiday Touchdown" is this year's selection, a film that adheres to the Hallmark traditions but also joins with the NFL to showcase its Taylor Swift-favorite team, the Kansas City Chiefs. Alana Higman (Hunter King) and her family are diehard Kansas City Chiefs fans, as according to her she wouldn't be there without them - her grandparents met at a Chiefs game, as did her parents, and the family runs a Ch...

Sonic the Hedgehog 3 Starring Ben Schwartz, Keanu Reeves, Jim Carrey, Idris Elba Directed by Jeff Fowler Bullying is never the answer. Unless it's with regards to "Sonic the Hedgehog." When the first trailer for the first movie was released back in 2019, the Internet went crazy. Sonic was pure nightmare fuel, and if Paramount kept that design it would've ended in disaster. People flooded the comments with negative responses, and Paramount actually listened to their bullying and changed Sonic's design, spending over $200,000 to do so - but the result is nothing short of cinematic gold. The new and improved Sonic was much closer to its video game counterpart, and has now spawned two successful films and a spinoff franchise, and now with "Sonic the Hedgehog 3" it's cemented its place and proves that production companies should really listen to the moviegoing public more often. Sonic (Ben Schwartz), Tails (Colleen O'Shaughnessey), and Knuckles (Idris...

V/H/S/Beyond Starring Brian Baker, Thom Hallum, Namrata Sheth, Alanah Pierce Directed by Jay Cheel, Jordan Downey, Virat Pal, Justin Martinez, Christian & Justin Long, Kate Siegel When I was young, I was worried about being abducted by aliens, so much so I wouldn't sleep in my upstairs bedroom - not that aliens that've traveled millions of light years would stop with one floor of a house, but I had a young mind at the time. When it comes to alien movies, however, the majority of them aren't scary in the least, and are relegated more toward action spectacles like "Independence Day" and "Battle: Los Angeles." There's been some great alien horror films however like "The Fourth Kind" and "No One Will Save You," but those are the exception - and now the anthology series "V/H/S/" tackles the alien subgenre with their latest Shudder outing, "V/H/S/Beyond." While not all the segments are alien related, this is one ...

Bonhoeffer: Pastor. Spy. Assassin. Starring Jonas Dassler, August Diehl, David Jonsson, Flula Borg Directed by Todd Komarnicki As a fan of history, I really enjoy historical films not for their accuracy (because, let's face it, hardly any historical film is 100% historically accurate) but for the real-life people they bring to the big screen - sometimes people who would've been lost to history forever. While I've heard of Dietrich Bonhoeffer before, this movie made me look into his real-life story more closely and while this movie does a terrible job at depicting him realistically (so much so in fact that his descendants have come out to denounce the movie and his portrayal in it). Still, while the movie itself is an overly-long tiresome trope-filled movie, it did give audiences a chance to find out a little something about a man who went against the Nazi regime and helped change history. Dietrich Bonhoeffer (Jonas Dassler) was a pacifistic preacher and theologian in German...

A Real Pain Starring Jesse Eisenberg, Kieran Culkin, Will Sharpe, Jennifer Grey Directed by Jesse Eisenberg I enjoy play on words, and "A Real Pain" is one of those: a movie who's title refers to different aspects of the film, and not just one solitary thought. The movie itself centers around two cousins dealing with the death of their grandmother who was a Holocaust survivor, and they head to her native homeland to visit her childhood home. It's also a tale about the cousins themselves, one of whom is a stiff, by-the-books guy with a wife and kid and the other is a free spirit who speaks what he thinks and oftentimes is a real pain for his cousin. So on a literal and mental level the film's title works to its advantage, providing one of those rare gems that often go unnoticed and unappreciated in the wilder cinematic world, but not one that should be overlooked. Upon the death of their beloved grandmother, David Kaplan (Jesse Eisenberg) and his cousin Benji (Kier...

Dear Santa Starring Robert Timothy Smith, Jack Black, Jaden Carson Baker, Kai Cech Directed by Bobby Farrelly Dear Satan, I know I've been a good boy this year and I know it really ticks you off, but could you please make it so this movie never existed? I promise I'll try to be evil next year if you wipe this piece of crap from existence, I promise! No? Dang. Well I tried. It's almost Christmas, and young dyslexic loner kid Liam Turner (Robert Timothy Smith) still believes in Santa, and writes him his yearly letter, but addresses it to "Satan" instead of "Santa," so Satan (Jack Black) pays him a visit, telling the kid he never gets letters from children. He offers Liam three wishes, and after the third wish is granted he'll take Liam's soul to hell forever. Liam knows Satan's tricks and refuses to make his third wish, but soon realizes the tricks Satan pulls are dubious, and Liam has a heart as pure as gold who wants to see others do better, ...