"THANKSGIVING" BRINGS GOOD FUN BACK TO SLASHER FILMS

🎥🎞️Movie Review🎞️🎥 - THANKSGIVING [2023] - R - NetFlix - Directed by Eli Roth. Written by Jeff Rendell. Starring Patrick Dempsey, Rock Hoffman, Nell Verlaque, Addison Rae, Milo Manheim, and Gina Gershon. Budget $15 Million.

Following a disastrous "Black Friday" event on Thanksgiving night, where hundreds of people were trampled or bludgeoned to death and changing the future lives of so many families, some mysterious murders begin to befall the small town  of Plymouth, MA that shake the very foundation of the towns once tranquil nature. Each murder that follows are released via video steaming on the internet and the police, plus a local high school student [Verlaque] find themselves in a "who done it" slasher series scenario.

THE GOOD - The development to all the characters is perfect. Some of the new slasher attacks are creative and many are cringe-worthy and well performed to give the viewer the right reaction. The pacing and editing keep the movie moving along and all of the new actors [at least that I noticed] are worthy of receiving high kudos for their performances. The veteran actors were used sparingly to help the youngsters move the film along in the right direction, and misdirection, for plot delivery. But I have to admit that the Black Friday event was just SO hilariously perfect and chaotic at the same time!

THE BAD - There's not much to note about this film having bad moments. There is one death scene that is just too far fetched and the amount of blood being squirted around was just beyond hilarious and poorly designed.

POST MORTEM - I could have watched an entire two hour film on just the Black Friday melee alone. There were some really good moments in the film where I was just like, "Don't go there!" and trying to help the next victim get away. This was a fun film and even thought I figured out the killer and his motives before the halfway point in the film - not bragging - I continued to watch the film and enjoy the directors vision of the story line he helped produce.

⭐️⭐️⭐️💫[3.5 of 5 Stars]

M.I. - DEAD RECKONING PT 1 PROVES THAT TOO MUCH ACTION JUST MAY BE TOO MUCH...

🎥🎞️Movie Review🎞️🎥 - MISSION IMPOSSIBLE - DEAD RECKONING PT 1 [2023] - [PG13] - Paramount+ - Directed by Christopher McQuarrie. Written by Christopher McQuarrie and Erik Jendresen. Starring Tom Cruise, Hayley Atwell, Esai Morales, Ving Rhames, Simon Peg, and Rebecca Ferguson. Budget $291 Million.

The film tells the story/plot of an AI program that is able to make decisions, create phantoms through computers, and also seems to be sentient in a strange way when activated; in the first sequences of the feature, a Russian sub has the AI program and falls prey to it's evil nature. The program was developed by an organization in Russia and there's a special two part key that is required to initiate the program. A female spy named Grace [Atwell] has one part of the key, while Llsa Faust [Ferguson] somehow has the other. Ethan Hunt [Cruise] is offered a mission to acquire both keys and take control of the Russian AI program, and if possible, dismantle it. Hunt puts his team together again and with little hope to succeed in their mission, head out to find the two parts of the key and find out what this AI program is all about.

THE GOOD - This is a star studded action film. This is a stunning addition to the Mission Impossible series and there's a perfect reason why the film was cut into two parts. There are some pretty impressive action sequences, choreographed fight scenes, and spectacular digital effects in this film. Cruise continues to perform all of his own stunts and he truly does some crazy stuff that is just too hard to believe. Location spotting for this film must have been a tremendous effort as the production covered over four countries.

THE BAD - Some of the action sequences are way too long and could have been cut short. The director [and the script writers] just love to see Cruise run and run and run; every other scene in this film has Hunt running this way and that, and I understand that Cruise is in great shape for his age. One part I can't shake off is the directors choice to over-present the addition of Atwell as the mysterious Grace character-spy in the film; the director trying to show the viewer that she IS beautiful, sexy and a tremendous actor…when she's NOT!

POST MORTEM - There were several times that I got bored watching the long, extended action sequences that seemed too far fetched and just took the fun out of watching an action film. Many of the performances between actors were over extended and too dramatic at every turn. There sure is a lot of compassion between the team members and I am sure we all know what is at risk if Hunt can't perform above and beyond to complete the mission. I just think that more writing should have been considered to better develop the good guys and the bad ones as well. This is a good movie, just don't stop too long to check your text messages when some useless dialog is mentioned during the middle of an action chase scene and you loose track to where you were on your phone.

⭐️⭐️⭐️💫 [3.5 of 5 Stars]

SOUL SEARCHING MOVIE HISTORY BY WATCHING "SEVEN SAMURAI"

FILM CRITICS PERSONAL REVIEW  -

Released in 1954, the SEVEN SAMURAI feature film wasn't only a big hit in Japan, but the production methods of directing the film revolutionized the entire film industry in the U.S. Akira Kurosawa directed the film, which was at the time, the most expensive film to produce in Japan. Not only did his work of laying out a format of using triangular screenplay methods to formatting scenes with multiple running cameras change the way of capturing action scenes, but the story writing introduced American screenwriting to script movies using the same plot and team formation used in this epic film.

A major American Western film, THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN [1960], used a direct copy of the plot formula used to script Seven Samurai. The writing formula worked so well, that many future films began to follow the same formula, building teams of characters to help accomplish the same goal, to save a certain faction of innocent by-standers, preserving the love between two romantic characters, all to accomplish the impossible, while possibly losing members along the way. Kurosawa's formula has been successfully used for many years, following the release of Seven Samurai, a major feat that I am sure he would be proud of today.

This Japanese feature helped launch the career of Toshiro Mifune, who went on to star in a myriad of Japanese Samurai and Ronin films that made him a huge name in the mid-1950's and late 1960's. Mifune had a memorable talent to play a serious character role while establishing the skill of using swords and close hand-to-hand combat. He would eventually break the barrier between the filming landscapes and land roles in America, always playing roles that kept him true to his Japanese heritage.

I recently watched Seven Samurai for the first time and even though the feature was filmed in black and white, there was something edgy and gritty about the film. It got me to re-think the final essay I wrote in college concerning filming formats and the use of film etiquette on set. Where in my youth I was inspired by the film techniques of Richard Franklin which helped him produce ROAD GAMES [1981], but now in my long life of critiquing films, I would have easily chosen Seven Samurai as my final essay to showcase my desire to produce films and influence other indie filmmakers in their immediate dream of becoming successful indie film directors, using filming techniques never seen before in the ever changing genre of indie film productions.

If you're just stepping into making indie films, you should know that all future Indie film directors and cinematographers should watch Seven Samurai, take notes for its reference potential in film pre-production planning and one must also admire the lighting difficulties that obviously occurred during many of the indoor and night scenes within the film. In the past few years I realigned my filming methods and embarked on a new quest to re-evaluate the type of film formats I plan to used in future productions.

Ride Easy, My Friends...and good luck on your future indie filmmaking!

THE QUANTUM STORM .357 E-MAGAZINE, ISSUE 29 FOR FEBRUARY 2024 IS RELEASED!

 QSE.357 ISSUE 29 dtd 2/1/2024

38 Pages

ON THE COVER - Lissa Moore, Actress.
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