47 Meters Down (2017) Movie Review

February 5, 2018 Steve Baqqi

I'd Rather Be Trapped 47 Meters Below The Surface Of The Ocean Than Watch This Dreck Again.

47 Meters Down follows two sisters who, while vacationing in Mexico, decide to embark on an ill-advised and dangerous shark dive that predictably ends in disaster. The sisters are stranded 47 meters below the ocean surface, running out of air, and surrounded by sharks. Reading that description, you may find yourself thinking, “that sounds interesting and exciting,” and you’d be right. That idea is interesting but its the movie’s execution of this idea that is just horrible. 47 Meters Down fails in just about every way a killer shark horror/thriller can fail.
Image Via: Sobrosnetwork

Suburbicon (2017) Movie Review

November 13, 2017 Steve Baqqi

What comes to mind when you think of the 1950s? The Cold War, Sputnik, McCarthyism, post-war prosperity? Cheerful suburban home life following white flight from America’s cities, white picket fences, housewives with towering hairdos, and friendly neighbors? Or maybe we have come to see through the facade of an all-inclusive, welcoming community; a fragile edifice pitched during a time when racism, segregation, and housing district redlining were still running rampant. Suburbicon attempts to tackle these romantic anachronisms of the mid-20th century to reveal the violent torrent of racism and paranoia that lurked underneath, threatening to explode into chaos and social upheaval. Unfortunately, the movie is a god-awful mess that fails to provide any of these topics proper examination.

Image Via: Freakingeek.

Happy Death Day (2017) Movie Review

November 10, 2017 Steve Baqqi

Trailer is below. Don't Be fooled by the image.

After the success of Die Hard, many film studios wanted to recreate the movie’s formula but in a different setting. Thus, we had Die Hard on a bus (Speed), or on a plane (Air Force One). Happy Death Day, much like the fantastic Edge of Tomorrow, similarly opts to mimic the formula of Groundhog Day explicitly and with great relish. Happy Death Day is a slasher flick reminiscent of Scream, with the iconography of Sorority Row or Mean Girls. Jessica Rothe stars as Theresa “Tree” Gelbman, a young woman trapped in a time loop, cursed to repeat her birthday over and over again, having been murdered at the end of that day. Happy Death Day is a fun romp that balances its comedic tone and thriller elements.

Image Via: FlickReel

Wind River (2017) Movie Review

November 6, 2017 Steve Baqqi

Screen-Shot-2017-08-01-at-10.05.10-PM.png

Taylor Sheridan is on a roll. Fresh from writing back-to-back stellar films, Sicario and Hell or High Water, Sheridan gives us another gem with Wind River. Jeremy Renner and Elizabeth Olsen respectively star in Wind River as a U.S. Fish and Wildlife tracker and an FBI agent. They are tasked with tracking a murderer in this meditative thriller set on the frozen landscape of Wyoming.

Image Via: Youtube.

The Snowman (2017) Movie Review

November 4, 2017 Steve Baqqi

The Snowman is a thriller with a stellar cast and proudly boasts production by film great Martin Scorsese. Michael Fassbender leads an ensemble cast as detective Harry Hole. Harry grapples with alcoholism and struggles to catch a serial killer across frozen Norway. If you read that and thought, “Hey that sounds like it might be good!” You’re wrong, dead wrong. It's terrible.

Image Via: Cinema Scandinavia

The Girl on the Train (2016) Movie Review

October 19, 2016 Steve Baqqi

The Girl on the Train (2016) is a simple mystery movie based on a book by the same name, both centering on the lives and extramarital affairs of three women and two men in Westchester County, New York. Rachael, (one of the aforementioned women) a divorced and lonely alcoholic, fantasizes about a gorgeous couple she sees while riding the train every day. The woman of that fantasy couple, Megan Hipwell, ends up missing. Amid her drunken blackouts and emotional frailties, Rachael ends up caught in a web of lies and illicit affairs as she struggles to find out the truth of Megan's disappearance.

Image via: Youtube.com

Don't Breathe (2016) Movie Review

September 19, 2016 Steve Baqqi

Boy, I bet the creators of Don’t Breathe are kicking themselves that they didn’t get the rights to the name Lights Out, the summer’s other surprisingly good horror/thriller. Still, Don’t Breathe is a simple and evocative title that matches the excellent trailer for the film. Don’t Breathe has a fairly original premise for the home invasion sub-genre: three idiots decide to rob a blind guy, thinking he’ll be easy prey. They quickly realize they messed with the wrong damn blind guy. The tables quickly turn on the idiot thieves and they become trapped The Blind Man’s home while he stalks them. Desperate to survive and escape the prison of their own making, the thieves uncover even more horrifying and disturbing details, while their psychotic blind captor hunts them down.

Image Via: screenbuff.com

10 Cloverfield Lane (2016) Movie Review

April 4, 2016 Steve Baqqi

10 Cloverfield Lane has been on my list of films to see for some time now, but I had not gotten the chance due to something else always getting in the way. I was also concerned about whether I would be ill informed, not having seen the original. I can confidently say that viewership of the original Cloverfield is not necessary. I was expecting another found footage type spectacle (akin to the original film), but instead I got a tense, atmospheric, and deeply engaging thriller that’s as disturbing as it is entertaining.

Image Via: 10cloverfieldlane.com