Although March had the best movie of the year so far, April had my two favorite movies of the year so far, Civil War and Monkey Man. Alex Garland and Dev Patel both made movies this month. Garland is one of my favorite directors, and Dev Patel is one of my favorite actors, and this month his directorial debut came out, which he also starred in. Supposedly, Patel wants to completely flip his next movie, and instead of making an action film, he wants to make a rom-com. It does not matter what it is, I am all in. This month we also got an incredible new Zendaya movie in IMAX, a movie with no dialogue about sasquatches in a Californian forest, Henry Cavill killing nazis, and the Anti-Christ, so it is safe to say that there were some good releases this month!
1. Civil War x 2! I wrote a whole paper about this already, but after that I went and saw it again. I enjoyed it that much. Even before the actual movie starts, they do something cool with the sound, and the sound does not let you down after that either. The sound creates multiple jump scares and can only be described as violent. Also Jesses Plemons is only in the movie for five minutes, but he should earn the best supporting actor award this year at the Oscars for his unhinged performance. This movie is beautifully shot despite its gruesome subject matter, and when it finishes, it made me want to just sit there and take it all in. Plus the photography element is still such a cool addition to the story. I did find out that the pictures used in the film were actually taken by Dunst and Spaeny I cannot recommend this enough.
2. Monkey Man: Dev Patel’s directorial debut. I could have written a whole paper about this because I loved it so much. This takes place in India, as Dev Patel’s character works his way into a crime industry, so that he can get revenge on the people that hurt his family. The action scenes are amazing. It also has a great soundtrack to go with it. Dev Patel bites multiple people, and there is even a dog that plays a key role. It is so great to have an excellent action movie so steeped in Indian culture. Also the lighting in this is great. It has received many John Wick comparisons, but John Wick is more based on gun fighting, but this movie is mainly hand to hand combat.
3. Challengers: Zendaya is in another top five movie of the year, and it is worthy of IMAX, which is even better. It is a tennis love triangle that has a little bit of a convoluted timeline that hops around. It starts in the present day, where Donaldson and Zweig are playing each other in a championship match, and the movie keeps taking the audience back through these scenes where the two tennis players and Zendaya first met, and their subsequent relationships, which are incredibly intertwined. This movie is so fast paced, that the little over two hour run time flies by. For almost the whole thing, I thought this was going to be ahead of Monkey Man, but it fumbled the bag in the last twenty minutes. Zendaya’s character makes a choice that just blew up the ending, and it no longer mattered who won in the match, and that was frustrating, but the rest was so good, that I cannot completely hold that against it, also it has an incredible soundtrack that adds to the pace.
4. Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare: A group of guys with a ton of charism go around killing nazis. Their ultimate goal is to blow up a massive cargo ship ported at a small island off the coast of Africa, but when they get there, they find out they cannot blow it up, instead they have to try and steal it. This is a wild and fun ride, and this is how Henry Cavill should have been in Argylle. He steals the show every time he is on the screen, and I just wanted him to be in the movie even more.
5. Infested: A young man buys a spider from the backroom of a general store, and he brings it home. He lives in an apartment in this massive building, and the spider gets loose, and the one spider turns into what feels like an infinite amount after giving birth, and the government locks them in to help to contain the problem. So ultimately it is an allegory for how the lower class gets screwed in a variety of ways, but if you do not care about allegories, then it is basically a movie that will make your skin crawl. I had to wipe my arms and head off so many times, because it constantly felt like there was a spider somewhere. I hate spiders, but even if you do not, this horror will still be effective.
6. Musica: A rom-com from Amazon that was also a musical. It was not your typical musical, though. Rudy can hear music in ordinary life, so the audience would get an insight into what this guy was hearing, so we could understand why he was constantly spacing out. The music could come from anything from the newspaper flipping, to a person bouncing a basketball, the music was all around him, but his constant spacing out led to his girlfriend breaking up with him. So Rudy found himself back on the market, where his mother really tried to sell him like a product to other Brazilian women, but that was not what he wanted. In the end, he had to choose between the girl he had been dating for years that had just broken his heart but wanted to get back with him, or a new girl, who seems to understand him so much more. It was beautiful movie due to the uniqueness of the music, and the cast was fun, plus they had good chemistry, which is important in a rom-com.
7. Stolen: A Netflix movie about a group of people called the Sami, who live in Northern Sweeden. It reminded me of a lesser Wind River. The Sami are reindeer herders, and their way of life has been encroached upon by the outside world. It is reminiscent of the Natives in the U.S. They were forced into boarding schools to get them to convert to “normal” ways of life. Now people are coming after their reindeer, and Elsa is one of the only Sami willing to stick up for their way of life, but this puts her in danger. The name of the movie refers to the reindeer being “stolen” or killed, but it also refers to their culture. This was a very pretty movie, that was filmed in Northern Sweeden, and it was also informational on a subject I knew nothing about. Watching reindeer make a massive circle and running around is pretty magical!
8. Greatest Hits: A Hulu rom-com about a girl who travels back in time when she hears certain songs that remind her of her dead boyfriend. It is an interesting concept, and the new love interest is a cool guy with good awkward chemistry. Also, the eye makeup in this movie is crazy. I know many scenes take place at music festivals, but still, they always had something creative going on. The concept of having music take you back to a moment is great in execution, because it is something that almost everyone can relate to, but the ending did throw me off. I felt like it sent the wrong message.
9. The First Omen: Some people really loved this, but after coming off Immaculate a week before, I could not get into it. It does look great, and the more I hear other people talking about it, the more I want to give it another try. I mean it is a movie about the Anti-Christ being born in Italy, it cannot be that bad! It does have some disturbing images, but it also takes place in a beautiful city in Italy. The biggest problem is that it felt over long for the story that it was presenting, but the image of a creepy hand being birthed out a vagina is seared into my head.
10. Boy Kills World: A revenge action movie with a twist, that is kind of predictable. The action in the movie looks good, and it is a fun time, when the action is happening, especially in the winter wonder land scene, but the story was terrible. Also the whole voice over idea was weird. Bill Skarsgard proved in the newest John Wick, that he is capable of giving an incredible performance, so to take the ball out of his hand seems odd.
11. Sasquatch Sunset: This movie looks beautiful. The setting of the California forest is so picturesque, and it lacks any signs of human life. There is way too much sexual content in this and the release of gross bodily fluids. It has some laughs, but it drags for being a short movie. When the baby sasquatch gets introduced, the story heats up, but at that point it is too late. This movie is not for everyone. In my theater of seven people two absolutely loved it, but one guy literally ran out of the theater and never came back. It was mainly him being polite to the person sitting behind him, but I like to imagine that he thought it was so bad, that he had to flee as soon as possible.
12. Rebel Moon Part II: Zach Snyder is trying way too hard. I enjoyed the first one more, but this was not terrible. The first third of the movie was a slog though. It was a large amount of useless background information, that did not even raise the emotional stakes for me. Once it got to the action though, it was solid. There is a ton of sci-fi going on here, but I think it looked good. Zach Snyder films do look like Zach Snyder films. They are very recognizable.
13. Abigail: Abigail is the daughter of a very rich man, and she gets kidnapped for ransom, but the trick is on the kidnappers, because they find out that Abagail is a vampire, and they are now her prey. The led up to finding out that Abagail is a vampire, is when the movie is at its best, but that is only the first half of the movie, but even then it is just serviceable and not great. It does have some fun points, but by the end I was just ready for it to be over and for people to stop exploding.
14. Arcadian: After a massive destructive war, creatures emerge to take down the reminder of humanity, but Nick Cage and his family continue to thrive despite the adversity, but both of his sons seem set on ruining their ability to survive. So in the end, Cage must sacrifice himself so his family can live on as monsters infest his house. At times this movie is so dark visually that it is hard to tell what is going on, and the plot is pretty slow and boring, but when the monsters can be seen, it is a fun time, and any time Nick Cage is in a movie, you have to go and see it.
15. Cinderella’s Revenge: Another slightly darker take on a childhood story. The original story of Cinderella does involve some bloodshed and much meaner step siblings, than Disney depicted in their animated classic, but this took it up a notch. This turned Cinderella into a blood thirsty revenge queen, which I guess given the circumstances of her stepmother having Cinderella’s father killed and treating her so poorly is not that wild, but the movie did not go about this in the normal way. When Cinderella’s fairy godmother came, she also brought people from the future with her to help grant Cinderella’s wish, like Tom Ford to make her dress, and instead of a carriage, she got an orange Tesla with Elon Musk driving it, that had a license plate that said Pumpkin on it. It was so weird, and even the clothes in this did not seem to match. Some characters seemed like they had clothes from the wrong time period. Weird enough to watch and have fun, but it also feels long for ninety minutes.
16. How to Date Billy Walsh: The worst rom com that Amazon has put out this year. It is a high school story about a nerdy boy, who has been in love with his nerdy girl best friend that he has known his whole life, but he can never tell her. Then she falls in love with a new guy, so instead of confessing his feelings for her, he tries to ruin her chances with the new guy. Despite being a total jerk, they still end up together in the end. It does not make sense. Bad job Amazon.
17. Baghead: You would think a movie about a haunted pub would be more fun, but it is not. This was bad, and it was another failed Shudder original that went straight to streaming, but I will continue to watch these no matter how bad they are.
18. Woody Woodpecker Goes to Camp: Woody Woodpecker ends up at a camp, that has a rival camp next door that is trying to shut them down. Woody tries to save the camp, but he always ends up making things worse until the end. This was released straight to Netflix and was garbage. Do not watch it even if you have kids, and they want to watch it.
So in April we had three new movies join the top five, which I guess makes sense early in the year, but it is also great! They all came out on different weeks, which means that there were three different weeks this month with really good movies, which is super exciting, but what is even more exciting is that the top five could get mixed up even more, because May has some amazing releases on deck: a new Mad Max, Fall Guy, Tarot, a new The Strangers, I Saw the TV Glow, and a new Planet of the Apes. It is going to be a great month!
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