“ROAD HOUSE” NOT WHAT WAS EXPECTED, BUT WORTH THE WATCH…

 

🎥🎞️Movie Review🎞️🎥- ROAD HOUSE [2024] - [R] - Amazon Prime - Directed by Doug Liman. Screenplay by Anthony Bagarozzi and Chuck Mondry. Story by Baragozzi, Mondry, and David Lee Henry. Starring Jake Gyllenhaal, Daniela Melchior, Conor McGregor, J. D. Pardo, Arturo Castro, and Billy Magnussen. Budget $60 Million.

Fans of the 1989 release can calm down a little. This new reboot of Road House introduces a man named Elwood Dalton [Gyllenhaal], an ex-professional UFC fighter who crosses the line during his last match and winds up pulling scams in bars to make money. He is approached by a "desperate" female bar owner in Key West to help "clean up" a bar she recently acquired, even though it's against his better judgement and time, he takes the job and helps clean up a bar called "The Road house" from a bunch of thug bikers who do nothing but start havoc in the establishment. Word quickly spreads that Dalton - a now Ex-UFC fighter, is working as a bouncer and suddenly his new job takes him into the confines of a world filled with dirty dealings, a crime syndicate, and a mysterious mob boss who is imprisoned but able to send a heartless killer [McGregor] to take out the bouncer.

THE GOOD - There are very - and I mean very few - elements from the 1989 version of the film that still landed into this film. Some of the fight choreography was excellently captured and there is some well placed humor in the film. I was totally impressed how Gyllenhaal bulked up for the role, sometimes looking a little unreal. The sound was good, the lighting excellent, but the locations for this one-time epic was anything but impressive.

THE BAD - Some of the fight scenes went too long. Every bar fight is a little far fetched and not realistic. There are some plot points that don't make sense and the write up for the  "romance angle" just never caught fire. There are absolutely NO hot babes in this film - at least compared to the original film - but if you're into seeing the naked booty of McGregor, then this movie is for you.

POST MORTEM -  The ham for this film was overcooked. For a reboot, the writers did their best to sneak in a few lines and scene setups from the original film for nostalgia, but other than that the film was completely original and could have been titled something else. There was a lot of star potential in the film, but no one stood out as much as Gyllenhaal. One thing is for sure, unlike the original film, I'll probably never see this movie again. There's nothing in this film that makes me want to watch it again...oh, and SPOILER ALERT, looks like there's going to be a sequel...puh!

⭐️⭐️⭐️ [3 of 5 Stars]

"OPPENHEIMER" DELIVERS A MIND ALTERING PLETHORA OF DRAMA

🎥🎞️Movie Review🎞️🎥 - OPPENHEIMER [2023] - [R] - Directed by Christopher Nolan. Based on the biography "American Prometheus" by Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin. The films screenplay is also by Nolan. Produced by Emma Thomas, Charles Roven, and Nolan. Starring Cillian Murphy, Emily Blunt, Matt Damon, Robert Downey Jr., and Florence Pugh. Budget $100 Million.

A dramatic mystery filled story about the life of J. Robert Oppenheimer [Cillian] who helped develop the first nuclear weapons that ended World War II. From his mysterious childhood through maturity, Oppenheimer was considerably enthralled with the mechanics of Quantum physics and understood the impractical factors and problem solving steps to deliver the stages just required to understand the small details to produce such a weapon. He puts together a world-wide team of scientists and builds a small town in Los Alamos, New Mexico to help develop each stage of the first U.S. Atomic weapon. After the weapons development and successful delivery at two targets in Japan, Oppenheimer was scrutinized by the U.S. Government as being a communist and it as alleged that he was sharing information with communist spies who were known to exist in America.

THE GOOD - Director Nolan spared no expense to encircle this film with so much detail, that the great detail in presenting a 1940's feel to the film demanding him to switch filming formats from color to black and white at times. The large part of this feature film was delivered with practical special effects, which in my opinion truly brought the actors to actually "feel" their characters plight during the testing and eventual development of the atomic weapon. Nolan's masterful eye with the epic scene capturing through cinematography was pristine and totally epic at all levels of cinematic presentation.

THE BAD - With a large talented group of veteran actors, I'm surprised that no one performance stood out amongst the cast. Cillian lost a lot of weight to portray the part of Oppenheimer, but his performance throughout the film wasn't his personal best. The editing to the film is all over the place, there are flashbacks and flash forwards that tend to feel a little confusing, but it was a little niche that Nolan is not truly known for in his directing methods. There may have been too much work in the production to keep in line with the era presented, like the diligence of the governmental oversite committee who questioned every step of Oppenheimer's "compartments of security" measures that were ill developed, and seemed to slow down the progress of the film. There were too many dramatic pauses and audio effects that were meant to deliver a deafening tone that in my opinion was just over used. And once again, the mumbling and low voices during dramatic dialog killed the intended intensity of each critical moment in the film.

POST MORTEM -  This is a good film. Maybe the film is too good for it's own good, but I don't feel that this is Christopher Nolan's best work. I understand that this film won a slew of awards at the Oscars, but I'm sure there were better films released in 2023.

⭐️⭐️⭐️💫 [3.5 of 5 Stars]

"MASTERS OF THE AIR" DELIVERS A LOAD OF HYPE...

🎥🎞️Series Review🎞️🎥 - MASTERS OF THE AIR [2024] - PG13 - AppleTV - Produced by Steven Spielberg, Tom Hanks, Gary Goetzman. Created by John Shiban, John Orloff. Based on Masters of the Air by Donald L. Miller. Starring Austin Butler, Callum Turner, Barry Keoghan, Nate Mann, Anthony Boyle, Bel Powley, Francis Lovehall, and Ncuti Gatwa. 9 episodes. Budget $250 Million.

Based on the historical legacy of the 100th Bomb Group during WWII, just a few months prior to D-Day, this series follows several air crews who partook in some dangerous, and many times deadly, missions to bomb sites against the Germans. At the beginning of the heavy bombing campaigns, thousands of young pilots and their crews were given missions that offered very little safety, air cover, and a plethora of personnel who were ill trained to prepare themselves for capture and eventual imprisonment by hostile forces that didn't have any honor in treating prisoners. By the end of the war, many pilots who were considered killed are found to be alive and instant heroes of the war.

THE GOOD - Incredible details in production bringing back the 1940's with stunning wardrobe, air planes, and locations. The air battle sequences were intense, again showing just how bad some of those brave young men had to deal with being attacked by enemy forces. The CGI was pristine and the movie production did an outstanding job in presenting flight operations that looked very real, capturing the essence of being in tight spaces, and the aftermath of returning home in a damaged plane, only to seeing the plane and the crews, patch up the aluminum aircraft and head out again on another dangerous bombing run. There were some epic bomber fly-by scenes that screamed for attention by the viewer of the magnificence of those huge military planes.

THE BAD - There is a LOT of bad acting and mumbling by the actors in this film. Butler does an okay job in his role of Major Gale "Buck" Cleven, but his overall delivery in the series is anything but that of a glorified extra. Most of the film is narrated by Boyle's character Major Crosby, but it isn't made quite clear until the latter episodes. The air battles were short and could have been extended. There's bad character development and the names of all of the other characters, and believe me there were many, aren't even memorable. The series seems to just touch the surface of a good story arc and then toss you in another direction without any explanation. With the exception of the narrator some events, there is no continuity of time and some of the main characters in the beginning of the series just disappear until mid way through the series; there's no flashback story, which would have been a big part of explaining what happened in the series.

POST MORTEM - Masters of the Air is an okay series, but honestly there's nothing to brag about and I feel that more effort was put into the production of "Band of Brothers." I understand that this series was based on a book, but the underlying truth is that a lot happened in-between episodes that surely should have been presented, at least in flash backs, to give a better understanding of what happened to many of the air crews after they were shot down. I think that more time could have been expended on clearing up all of the mumbling dialog and clearing up the sound from other scenes. I wouldn't spend too much time trying to watch all of the episodes in just one day, you might be disappointed in what you experience.

⭐️⭐️⭐️💫[3.5 of 5 Stars]

IS “MONEYBALL” THE PERFECT FILM?…

MONEYBALL [2003] starring Brad Pitt and Jonah Hill could in fact be the best film ever made. Of course, that is my opinion, but the facts that lay in the film are a tremendous effort of delivering a solid film from an idea that sparked a new generation of sports films. A slew of sports films began to follow shortly after Moneyball proved that a new format that depicted the "behind the scenes" world in producing a professional team from the managements point of view could work on the big screen, and boy, what a mark the efforts of the films production team made on future Hollywood films.

Some films die after all of the post promotional work and release have passed, but Moneyball has proven to have a long life of exceptional praise in the streaming world. The film has bounced effortlessly from Amazon Prime, to NetFlix, to HBO MAX, and back again. Pitt was supported by a tremendous cast who brought some interesting characters to life and the chemistry was natural and presented well on screen. Only one other film, FOREST GUMP [1994] with Tom Hanks, ranks high on my list of films that I can see again and again, and not get tired or bored with the films direction and message. I feel like I've seen the film for the first time each time I watch it. Do you want to know why?...because the film is flawless in the directing and editing. And even though I know that the writers and directors took some liberties to separate fact from fiction, the film still delivers it's message with impunity.

Like Forest Gump, I just don't think that no other actor could have masterfully played the role of Billy Beane, like Pitt. For some strange reason, there's a feel in the film that Pitt was on his game as an actor or the character was just perfect for him. In most part, Pitt pushed every minute of this film so far that he chose to step in as a producer and keep this film alive. Every sequence of this film was captured brilliantly with the best lighting, sound, and cinematography. Every part in this film brought out the best in each new actor signed on board, including Kerris Dorsey who played Beane's daughter "Casey."

The big message in this film is that Beane learned a valuable lesson, even though he was a wise manager to his assistant and had all of the answers, he earned the right to understand that, "One can win big even through losing." If you haven't seen Moneyball, or you aren't a big fan of sports, you should see it. You'll be entertained and you'll also wish that things would have worked out for the Oakland A's!

"PEICES OF 8" ENTERS HIGH IMPACT ZONE OF SUCCESS!

Montgomery, TX. - Recently in the ill darken indie film society of Austin, Texas has there been so much talk about a mini-series that has taken the Goth community by storm. Filled with a new line of young actors who stuck to the commitment of filming for over two years and devoting to working within a small team ethic, the fruits of their labor have captivated the film scene in two of the largest cities in Texas, making the return of mini-series web productions a tremendous broad step in the right direction.

PIECES OF 8 [PO8] had very little to offer in it's initial inception, but a script re-write and several intimidating scene locations took the new venture into dark territory, drowning the visual aids with a dark, murky abyssal tone that would bring a spine tingling chill to anyone who watches the mini-series gasping for air at times. Is this article just just another attempt at boosting interest or embellishing the studios attempt at releasing a new indie film?...well, of course it is. But even more spellbinding to present in this write up is that Meta Data has proved that PO8 has already crossed over the 100K threshhold in streaming, making this film more profitable than what the entire budget took to get the whole project into production.

Producers Patti Weisler Hall and Barbara Johnston are truly awestruck as the series not only covered the expenses of production, but that a strong fandom has begun to follow the series at such a high expectancy, that there's already talks about putting forth a second series and starting that production sooner than expected. A strong case of the prime success of this feature project is largely due to the new format in production, which was once considered a "No-No" within the indie filming community but was used extensively throughout the series production. So much so, that the studio will be starting production on a SciFi series in May entitled, OPERATION ISCANDAR, after that series also fell under an extensive rewrite that forced the studio to cast another new line of actors to get the production lined up for pre-production.

Series developer, D. R. Quintana, has had very little to say about what has caused the studio to rewrite scripts and change the direction of his studio teams production efforts on at least four different planned studio releases that have now been indefinitely shut down until further notice. In every new direction change, it seems that the planned projects have either been completely dismantled or one project was transferred into another project, further bolstering storylines and plots to each new project, even further challenging the character development towards a higher plane of existence than previously planned. PO8 not only pushed the studio to "aim high" with the actors performances, but it also used set locations that challenged the crews lighting throughout the entire presentation. 

The producers claim that a lot of PO8's new strength came from Quintana being recently influenced by the production efforts seen in Season 4 of TRUE DETECTIVE, shown on HBO MAX, starring Oscar Winner Jodie Foster. That series was glamorously filmed and all of the outside scenes were filmed entirely in the natural dark. Some might say that PO8's director had the same experience while filming the studios vaunted feature, ZERO-ZERO-ONE, that is still under a myriad of re-shoots and re-casting over 40% of scenes and changing the dynamics of the plot and story by adding a new ending to the film. None of ZERO-ZERO-ONE's cast believe that the mass changes in the film were intended as overkill, but all desire to see what the changes will do to the original script that was chopped away, and for good reason.

PO8 has not only opened new doors for the director to enhance his filming technique, but it has also proven to be the foundation for reinforcing the studios desire to punch out more projects in the near future, will limited production time and budgetary costs. In a project filled with so many well planned practical effects, PO8 is not only mostly free of green/blue screen effects, it has proven that the all actors were given free realm to perform in a theater type environment, that proves that these actors can act, and not pretend to act, hoping that split scene can bring magic to a performance that might lack substance. The studios new filming format reinforces that the theater-style approach has cut production time and costs in every take of the series.

But "why time traveling vampires?" one might ask. According to the director, the idea has never been attempted before. It is suffice to say that any idea of seeing a vampire film or series always has a presentation of immortality, seeing one character live through a millennia of time progressing forward, but never backwards and u sing the past as a reason for justifying the taking of ones life force who was to die in a horrendous historical event, say a fire, a plane crash, or other catastrophe. PO8's success also lands on the wardrobe choices of John and Jennifer Lindsey, who provided and altered many of the costumes in this futuristic vampire opus, directed and written by Quintana.

The studio continues to efficiently advertise it's projects, producing cutting edge ads and also design a platform for viewing new releases on  a new indie film streaming service that is independent from high cost hosts that usually bog down indie films upon their release; making it hard for fans to see the film. In retrospect, the studio has surely distanced itself from the badly arranged glut of indie film teams that continue to release low budget B-films that absolutely have no chance in the marketing or gaining the thresh hold Meta Data required to comfortably succeed in gaining the needed respect of consistently high viewing numbers within the streaming monetary world of professionally successful indie films.

Maria Pesito
Contributing Writer, Studio Advertiser Mgr

"A WEREWOLF IN ENGLAND" FAILS AT ALL LEVELS

🎥🎞️Movie Review🎞️🎥 - A WEREWOLF IN ENGLAND [2020] - PG13 - Directed & written by Charlie Steeds. Cinematography and editing also by Charlie Steeds. Produced by May Monteiro, Jeremy Rothwell, and Charlie Steeds. Starring Reece Connolly, Tim Cartwright, Natalie Martins, and Jessica Alonso.

A dark comedy/horror British indie feature film about an 1800's demon slayer [Connolly] that is arrested and being transferred to a larger city to defend his life is exposed [by chance] to a countryside Inn that collects fresh warm bodies for a group of werewolves that devour newly acquired tenants with fierce and ultra-bloody attacks leaving very few people alive over one night of mayhem.

**This film has a low Audience Score and Viewer Rating. Aspect Ratio was captured at 2.39:1 which is WAY OUT of any allowed format in the U.S. No official budget information was released or found concerning this indie film.

THE GOOD - This movie has a beginning and an ending. The productions wardrobe was impressive presenting a somewhat believable Victorian-era England.

THE BAD - Bad acting, terrible monster effects, lots and lots of badly planned practical effects filled with blood and shitty gore.

POST MORTEM - Indie filmmakers have given this feature high reviews, so much so, that it persuaded me to watch this pile of shit and try to seek something good to say about it. Outside of two indie films produced in San Antonio, Texas between 2021 and 2023, this shit fest has the top spot for the crappiest and dumbest film that I have ever reviewed.

SUPER DOGSHIT 💩💩💩💩💩[5 Poops]

THE QUANTUM STORM .357 E-MAGAZINE, ISSUE 30 FOR MARCH 2024 IS RELEASED!

 QSE.357 ISSUE 30 dtd 3/1/2024

42 Pages

ON THE COVER - Dale Fusco, Producer.
Photo by D. R. Quintana.

MAIN ARTICLES

Retired Military Vets in Texas Indie Films - From Producers to directors to actors, some retired military veterans are stepping into the indie film society, bringing more realism into war torn indie films. A few badass veterans share their story's about making their mark in Texas.

DVD/BlueRay Discs are no longer relevant - Read about what indie film studios have done to stream their films. Earn more by following a few rules prior to streaming your film.

Where are the plot makers? - Five indie films were reviewed and most missed their mark because of lackluster plot lines. Does your film need a better story and plot?

Protecting your copyright - Another Texas indie film was preyed upon by some shady people who thought they knew what copyrights were all about. Get some legal advice from the professionals on handling copyright complaints!

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