JoeMama's Movie Reviews

Major Film Releases October 2021 October looks to be a very exciting month for the cinema, as there's welcome returns to much-beloved franchises and enough thrills and chills for kids and adults alike during the Halloween season. Here are the major film releases coming to cinemas (and streaming) in October 2021... **THERE WILL BE NO SPOILERS** **DATES ARE SUBJECT TO CHANGE** The Addams Family 2 October 1 In Theaters & On VOD 2019's "The Addams Family" was a quirky little animated film that was a modest success, and word of a sequel was immediate. After a prolonged delay, the second film will finally hit theaters just in time for the kiddies to enjoy Halloween season. Since the first film, Morticia (Charlize Theron) and Gomez (Oscar Isaacs) are worried that their children are growing up too fast, so they decide to cram everyone into their spooky RV for a road trip across the USA together. Along the way they meet fellow spooky quirky characters and bond more as a f...

The Ice Road Starring Liam Neeson, Amber Midthunder, Marcus Thomas, Laurence Fishburne Directed by Jonathan Hensleigh There was a time in the late 2000s to the early-to-mid 2010s where reality shows centering on everyday people working strange, menial, and lower-class jobs were all the rage. Shows like "Storage Wars," "Shipping Wars," and "Ax Men" focused on normal people making money doing things that most people wouldn't even think about. The History Channel also took advantage of this fad with "Ice Road Truckers," centering on a group of people who drive big rigs through frozen lakes and rivers in Arctic lands in Canada and Alaska, and highlighted the real dangers of such a job - at any time, the ice beneath them could crack and send their trucks plummeting into the frozen water below. To me, I still don't understand the concept of this since there's airplanes that could carry such cargo much safer than driving across a frozen lake...

Vacation Friends Starring John Cena, Lil Rel Howery, Yvonne Orji, Meredith Hagner Directed by Clay Tarver It's very difficult for me to really enjoy a comedy movie, and that's because they typically follow the same generic formulaic system, especially of the R-rated raunchy variety: mismatched people who initially get on each others' nerves only continue to amp up the annoyances through episodic moments where nothing really develops until one final moment where our hapless "normies" finally have it and give their supposed counterparts the what for, and then realize that they were wrong due to seeing the crazy wrapping paper and not realizing the sentimentality inside. "Vacation Friends" is just such a film - one that is just a cookie cutter of other R-rated raunchy comedies that've come before it, and unfortunately for them, actually did it better. Marcus (Lil Rel Howery) is the owner of a construction company and has a schedule for everything, inclu...

Copshop Starring Gerard Butler, Frank Grillo, Alexis Louder, Toby Huss Directed by Joe Carnahan Being a big movie buff, there isn't many movies that've gone under the radar as far as I'm concerned. Be it seeing trailers at the theater or from online ads, I pretty much have a solid idea of every major film coming to the big screen for the foreseeable future. So when I see a film that's hit the cinema that I've never heard of, I become wary - why would such a film have little to no advertising, no trailer that I've seen, and no news about it anywhere? Typically that's because studios want to release them in silence in hopes that they'll whimper away due to their terrible nature, but "Copshop" is something else entirely - while it's nothing spectacular, it was an actually highly entertaining thriller with incredibly layered characters, a tight setting, and exciting pacing. Rookie police officer Valerie Young (Alexis Louder) is tired of being a...

Worst2First: My Top Ten Worst Novel-to-Film Adaptations There's always been a debate about whether or not novel-to-film adaptations are necessary, with the majority believing that the novel is always better than the film. While there's been some epic films based off novels (you can find my personal list here ), there's been many others who lost the translation from novel to screen, resulting in utterly terrible outings that either deviated totally away from the source material or didn't do it nowhere near justice. I'll be ranking my personal worst novel-to-film adaptations, but only from novels that are actually amazing to read, so you won't find "Fifty Shades of Grey," "After," or "Twilight" on this list because both the novels and films are ghastly. So here are my personal top ten worst novel-to-film adaptations, worst (or in this case least worst) to first (in this case, most worst)... **THERE WILL BE NO SPOILERS** #10 The Lovely...

Cry Macho Starring Clint Eastwood, Dwight Yoakam, Eduardo Minett, Natalia Travern Directed by Clint Eastwood In a world where being old is a sign of weakness and there's hardly any jobs out there for people over fifty (except, for some odd reason, in politics), there's always been a struggle between the energy of youth and the age of wisdom. In Hollywood, once you hit the big 3-0, it's almost a retirement age where hardly anyone will hire you for projects because the majority of films tend to cater to the younger audiences who'd rather see attractive younger actors than seasoned, professional older actors. So it's an amazing feat that Clint Eastwood isn't still just acting, but directing as well, as he's about to turn 92 next May - that's practically a fossil in Hollywood terms. Yet Eastwood has still been churning out films that he's both starred and directed in, moving along at a pace someone sixty years younger, and while there's some of his r...

Worst2First: My Top Ten Mobster/Gangster Films The subgenre of the crime genre, mobster and gangster films are films that center around organized crime (most notably within the world of the mafia, as well as notorious gangsters). It often is associated with the film noir style, and includes a balance of drama, action, and suspense. Here are my personal top ten mobster/gangster films... **THERE WILL BE NO SPOILERS** #10 Eastern Promises Focusing on the Russian mafia, "Eastern Promises" stars Viggo Mortensen fresh off his stint in "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy to play someone completely different from Aragon - a ruthless mafia strong-arm who tries to silence midwife Anna (played by Naomi Watts) from investigating the death of a fourteen year old girl with connections to the mafia. Mortensen earned an Academy Award nomination for his performance as the ruthless killer, and performs with a suave sophistication and charisma that's undeniable. #9 Casino Martin Scor...

Malignant Starring Annabelle Wallis, Maddie Hasson, George Young, Michole Briana White Directed by James Wan The Italian Giallo subgenre, as described by Wikipedia (which is actually accurate despite other Wikipedia articles), is a unique form of thriller that has mystery or detective elements built into it, and often contains slasher, crime fiction, psychological thriller, psychological horror, and supernatural horror elements to it. Some well-known Giallo directors include the great Dario Argento (who's "Suspiria" remains one of the best Giallo horrors ever made), Francesco Barilli, Lucio Fulci, and Ruggero Deodato, and the genre as a whole has pretty much diminished to nothing in recent times. James Wan - an incredibly versatile director who's brought such horror iconic films like "The Conjuring," "Saw," and "Insidious" but also provided great action capers like "Aquaman" and "Furious 7" - has decided to throw his h...