By: Jeff Ching Walking into Cocaine Bear, I was expecting the movie to be the latest inductee to the “so bad, it’s good” list. Something along the lines of Snakes on a Plane or the Sharknado franchise: movies that are not good, but fun to laugh at. Cocaine Bear, however, is not “so bad, it’s good” – it’s “so good, it’s umm….…the best movie of 2023 so far”. Look, it’s only late February, and I don’t expect…
By: Jeff Ching Clean Slate is a documentary that can be described as The Fabelmans meets Dopesick. Instead of trying to cover the opioid crisis and the countless lives that have been ruined because of it, Clean Slate takes a more grounded approach; simply focusing on two best friends (Cassidy and Joshua) in rehab, whose lives have been ruined by their addiction to painkillers. However, Cassidy and Joshua share one passion – their love of…
By: Jeff Ching Knives Out was a surprise hit. But while it was a fun murder mystery, it wasn’t particularly memorable for me, nor was I clamouring for a sequel. When I read that Netflix had spent $450 million on two sequels, I could not justify why they would spend that much…though I also asked why they would spend $200 million on The Gray Man. After watching Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery, I believe the…
By: Jeff Ching When I first saw the trailer for Ticket to Paradise, opening with that scene of George Clooney and Julia Roberts as two divorcees who don’t want to sit beside each other on the plane, I wondered whether this was some kind of spin-off of Oceans 11. How interesting of an idea for these characters to get their own movie; an aftermath of what happened to their relationship after that big heist…or multiple heists….
By: Jeff Ching While watching This Land, I was reminded of 2011’s experimental documentary Life in a Day. For that movie (produced by Ridley Scott, directed by Kevin Macdonald), participants all over the world were asked to shoot a day in their lives (July 24, 2010) and the finished film would serve as a time capsule to capture a collective human experience, with the main theme of interconnectedness. This Land (executive produced by Jim Cummings of Thunder Road…
By: Jeff Ching Despite the title, Vengeance is really not a revenge movie (though revenge is part of the plot), and it’s especially not an action movie. Actually, it’s much better and smarter than what you’d expect. It’s a very ambitious film that attempts many things: it’s a fish-out-of-water comedy with a dark sense of humour, a murder mystery, it’s satirical, it’s philosophical. The movie has a lot to say about the current state of America…
By: Jeff Ching The movie title Infrared is pronounced (infa-red), to which I bet that most people not familiar with the camera setting would pronounce it (in-fraird); or maybe it was just me? Just getting that out of the way now, as this is a title that deserves respect and to be pronounced properly.
By: Jeff Ching I was excited when I found out that Stanleyville was the feature directorial debut of Maxwell McCabe-Lokos, who wrote 2013’s The Father – one of the most criminally underrated dark comedies of all time. The Father was a Canadian film about a husband and father trying to move on with his life after dealing with the shocking news of his wife getting arrested for cheating on him…with a minor. What a concept, and a hilariously…
We’re halfway through the year, which means it’s time for Wylie Writes’ mid-year recap. Don’t forget to click the coloured titles to read a more detailed write-up about the film!
By: Jeffrey Ching Jurassic World Dominion really had the potential to be something special. As some people have pointed out, Jurassic World actually is a fitting title, since the series builds up to the eventual plot of humans being unable to contain dinosaurs and, therefore, humanity is forced to co-exist with dinosaurs. Jurassic World then becomes a literal title as opposed to just the name of the theme park.