JoeMama's Movie Reviews

God is a Bullet Starring Nikolai Coster-Waldau, Maika Monroe, Karl Glusman, Jamie Foxx Directed by Nick Cassaventes Back in the olden days when I saw movies for the sheer enjoyment of them, I saw one called "Alexander" starring Colin Farrell and Angelina Jolie. I ended up walking out before it ended because I couldn't stand it. That was the one and only movie I ever walked out on. "God is a Bullet" got me to my feet, a few steps down from the seat I was sitting in, and if it wasn't for the fact that I was the only one in the entire theater and I could entertain myself with TikTok videos while occasionally glancing up at the screen, this would've been the second film I walked out on. Detective Bob Hightower (Nikolai Coster-Waldau) is investigating the murder of his wife and abduction of his daughter by a gang of religious cultists led by the demented Cyrus (Karl Glusman), but he doesn't find a lot of leads - until he meets Case Hardin (Maika Monroe), ...

Bird Box Barcelona Starring Mario Casas, Alejandra Howard, Georgina Campbell, Naila Schuberth Directed by Alex Pastor & David Pastor Back in 2018, a horror film called "Bird Box" exploded on Netflix, making it one of the streaming service's most viewed original movies and served as a plethora of different memes that flooded the Internet. The film followed Sandra Bullock as she traversed the post-apocalyptic landscape searching for sanctuary from creatures that cause you to kill yourself if you see them. The film was intense and full of continual fear and dread, led by Bullock's more-than-capable performance. No one wanted, nor thought of, a sequel being made, but now there's "Bird Box Barcelona," which is more like an expansion pack of a main game that exists on its own but centers around the same issue - but without Bullock and without any sense of terror, it falls short of its parentage. Sebastian (Mario Casas) and his daughter Anna (Alejandra Howa...

Talk to Me Starring Sophie Wilde, Alexandra Jensen, Joe Bird, Otis Dhanji Directed by Danny Philippou & Michael Philippou The concept of the living's desire to speak to the dead has been a thing for as long as existence, as history has given us not just magical stories about magicians moving between the living and the dead, but the use of Ouija boards, seances, and psychic readings all try to rip that veil between the here and the afterlife. Everyone who's lost someone would give anything to get a chance to talk to their departed again, or just know what's on the other side, and there's been countless movies that touch on this subject. "Talk to Me" is one such film - a movie that obviously takes its concept from films like "Flatliners" - and gives it a modern twist by introducing the social media aspect: a film that makes communicating with the dead like a drug; something you can get addicted to, and something that could ultimately kill you. It...

Oppenheimer Starring Cillian Murphy, Emily Blunt, Matt Damon, Robert Downey Jr. Directed by Christopher Nolan There's few directors out there who've hit every film they've directed out of the park. Directors who consistently deliver top-notch films that are essentially beyond reproach, movies that people remember, and whose names will go on in cinematic history. Christopher Nolan is one such director, who's lesser works ("The Dark Knight Rises," "Tenet") are still heads and shoulders above some of the best films of other directors. Nolan's unique style of filmmaking focuses on muted colors, heavily dialogue-driven speeches, a unique film-noir style, and takes place in natural settings and real locations as opposed to CGI greenscreen. "Oppenheimer" highlights the best of Nolan's style, a three-hour epic telling of the live of the American Prometheus J. Robert Oppenheimer, who's invention not only ended World War II, but eventuall...

Barbie Starring Margot Robbie, Ryan Gosling, America Ferrera, Will Ferrell Directed by Greta Gerwig 2023 has been the year where cinema has taken big risks and received big rewards for them. It started in February when Elizabeth Banks gave us a film about a bear who's strung out on cocaine. Then "The Super Mario Bros. Movie" blew away even the loftiest of expectations, leaving the bomb that was the live-action version in the dust and making it a billion dollar hit. And now we got "Barbie,"a  film that's been in development hell since 2009, and was a film that seemingly could never had been made. How could a story work? Who would you get to play such iconic roles? It was a monumental task, and it eventually fell into the hands of Oscar-nominated director Greta Gerwig, and the result is nothing short of Barbie magic. Before 1959, girls played with dolls that taught them to be housewives and invisible, but then Barbie came along and revolutionized the toy indus...

Sound of Freedom Starring Jim Caviezel, Mira Sorvino, Bill Camp, Eduardo Verastegui Directed by Alejandro Monteverde Faith based films often cater to those who are, well, faith based. These underutilized people rally around the worst possible movies (i.e. anything with Kirk Cameron in it) and flood social media calling such-and-such a film "the best film they've ever seen" and "one that can't be missed." They zealously purchase tickets en-masse and distribute them like updated religious tracks, claiming the film will change lives and bring people closer to God. I can appreciate their zeal - and as a former Christian I used to be like that - but nothing really compares to actually showing the love of God in our words and actions. Anyway, "Sound of Freedom" is one such film, but not really. While Christians claim it's as good as the Second Coming of Jesus, it's actually not a faith-based film, just distributed by a faith-based company after i...

Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One Starring Tom Cruise, Hayley Atwell, Ving Rhames, Simon Pegg Directed by Christopher McQuarrie Your mission,  if you choose to accept it, is to re-invigorate a popular spy television series from 1966 (and rebooted in 1988) that will reach a younger audience and will retain the heart, mind, and soul of the original with intense action sequences, top-notch storytelling, and a dedicated cast and crew. Back in 1996 Tom Cruise accepted this mission with gusto, and for twenty-seven years he's become Ethan Hunt for a new generation, churning out seven "Mission: Impossible" films for the big screen and earning a whopping $1 billion dollars worldwide and counting. None of the films in the series have been duds, and that in and of itself is a cinematic miracle - with his final outing, "Dead Reckoning," split into two films, his final mission was to overcome the curse of a final film in a franchise being split up and somehow bei...

Joy Ride Starring Ashley Park, Sherry Cola, Stephanie Hsu, Sabrina Wu Directed by Adele Lim 2023 seems to be the year that raunchy comedies made a comeback. It started in June with the Jennifer Lawrence-led "No Hard Feelings" which became the highest grossing raunchy comedy in the last decade, and now there's "Joy Ride," which is slaying the big screen with its blend of Asian heritage and dirty humor in equal balance. While other raunchy comedies (such as the upcoming "Strays") focus just on how many curse word jokes they can tell in thirty seconds, movies like "Joy Ride" and "No Hard Feelings" actually have stories to them that give you a connection to the characters in a deeper way that leaves you feeling invested in their lives. While they still give off crude humor, there's heart to it as well, which helps balance the scales and provides a near-perfect blend of comedy and drama. Living in the Pacific Northwest, Audrey (Ashle...

Theater Camp Starring Molly Gordon, Ben Platt, Noah Galvin, Jimmy Tatro Directed by Molly Gordon & Nick Lieberman All throughout high school I was a part of the drama club, participating in plays and forming a deep friendship with everyone else, because we were the outcasts - not the most attractive, not the most athletic, and not the most popular, but the most dramatic. We had our own language, our own method of dealing with one another, and even though we were separate, we were united. So a film like "Theater Camp" should be right up my alley - a story about a struggling summer acting camp for children filled with eccentric teachers should bring back those old nostalgic feelings while delivering the laughs in spades. Yet, as it is sometimes with theatrical productions, the ingredients don't mix and you're left with an auditorium of dead silent audience members and a tumbleweed drifting across the stage. Joan Rubinsky (Amy Sedaris) owns a summer theater camp in t...

Insidious: The Red Door Starring Ty Simpkins, Patrick Wilson, Sinclair Daniel, Rose Byrne Directed by Patrick Wilson The "Insidious" franchise is an odd one to me, because even though I've seen (now) all five of them, only the first one sticks out in my memory. I somehow created a mental block when it comes to the second through fourth films, remembering very little as to what happened in them. Going back into my reviews I was surprised I gave them such high marks (with the exception of "The Last Key"), and reading through my reviews it was like someone else entirely wrote them. After talking with some friends, they too told me that they don't remember them either. Maybe it's a spell crafted by the Further to misdirect us, or maybe it's because they weren't that great of films (the original is still heralded as one of modern horror's most well-done films, with a jump scare that is practically unrivaled), but nothing of that caliber happened i...

Extraction 2 Starring Chris Hemsworth, Golshifteh Farahani, Adam Bessa, Tornike Gogrichiani Directed by Sam Hargrave There's a trope when it comes to action heroes and their franchises. Rambo struggles with PTSD. Jason Bourne is dealing with amnesia. John Wick is going through intense grief. If a character in an action movie gets their own franchise, you can be assured that they'll be going through some internal trauma that expresses itself outwardly in action-packed set pieces. The newest member of this dysfunctional franchise family is Tyler Rake, a man who's haunted by his past mistakes that draws him to a certain mercenary calling as he tries to rectify his past errors - by leaving a trail of bodies in his Rake...I mean wake. Nine months after successfully extracting the kidnapped son of an Indian drug lord, Tyler Rake (Chris Hemsworth) is living in an isolated cabin alone to heal from his many wounds, while he secretly struggles with abandoning his terminally ill son t...

The Blackening Starring Grace Byers, Jermaine Fowler, Melvin Gregg, X Mayo Directed by Tim Story By now even non-horror people know the trope about the Black person in a horror movie: they almost always die first. It's a tired trope that, thankfully, has been almost completely done away with as more horror movies try something different to throw audiences off the track. So what happens when the cast in a horror movie consists of entirely Black actors? As the tagline on "The Blackening" says: "we can't all die first." By injecting topical humor, a likeable strong cast, and wisely both adhering and changing the rules of the horror game, "The Blackening" is one of the funniest horror comedies in recent memory, one that you won't mind watching over and over to catch the jokes you missed because you were laughing too much. Reuniting after being apart for ten years after college, a group of friends decide to party and celebrate Juneteenth at a remote...

No Hard Feelings Starring Jennifer Lawrence, Andrew Barth Feldman, Matthew Broderick, Laura Benanti Directed by Gene Stupnisky The R-rated raunchy comedy subgenre seemed to be on its way out of the cinemas after streaming made it easier for audiences to watch them at home. Those that did find their way to the big screen ended up as big disappointments, from "Good Boys" to "House Party" and "Bros," and it seemed that their days were numbered. Then along came "No Hard Feelings," a throwback to the R-rated comedies of the 80s that mix raunchy humor with heart, and with a hilarious lead performance by Jennifer Lawrence to boot, and you got a film that breathed a bit of new life into the dying subgenre. Maddie Barker (Jennifer Lawrence) has lived in Montauk her entire life, and after the death of her mother she acquired her family home. Yet she's not doing well with her finances, and after losing her car she needed to find a way to get money to sa...

Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny Starring Harrison Ford, Phoebe Waller-Bridge, Mads Mikkelsen, Ethann Isidore Directed by James Mangold During the 1980s Harrison Ford dominated the cinematic scene with not one but two iconic characters in equally iconic franchises. He played Han Solo in the "Star Wars" series, as well as the swashbuckling, whip-cracking, wise-cracking globe-trotting archaeologist Indiana Jones in the "Indiana Jones" franchise. His three outings ("Raiders of the Lost Ark", "Temple of Doom", and "Last Crusade") made his character a household name and one revered even to the next generation. Then in 2008 came "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull," and that once-beloved icon was tarnished. The film was laughably bad, and fortunately memes weren't invented yet to further add to his humiliation. The film even earned numerous jabs given by the "South Park" creators, and it looked lik...