Triple Frontier (2019) | J.C. Chandor

March 17, 2019April 19, 2019 ~ Vince Leo

After a nearly five-year hiatus from writing and directing films, J.C. Chandor re-emerges with Triple Frontier (for Netflix), in which five ex-military special ops soldiers reunite in order to stage a heist of a murderous major South American drug lord. Oscar Isaac is the de facto leader of the quintet, playing Santiago, who decides to “get the band back together” for one last mission for reconnaissance for the government to take down the elusive drug lord he’s spent years trying to take down, Lorea, but changes the mission once he discovers that they could do the bust themselves, take out the human vermin the world is better off without, and score the millions of dollars in cash within his jungle-hidden, well-guarded mansion. Each of the men find that their service for the country hasn’t exactly resulted in the country taking care of them financially, so they figure they should get what’s fair for their years of sacrifice, making it worth their salt to commit to. Ben Affleck, Charlie Hunnam, Garrett Hedlund and Pedro Pascal co-star in this action/adventure/thriller.

Greta (2018) | Neil Jordan

March 12, 2019April 19, 2019 ~ Vince Leo

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Although the film is called Greta, Chloe Grace Moretz’s character, a young waitress named Frances McCullen, is the one we follow most, newly relocated to New York City from Boston after losing her beloved mother. Frances is perhaps a little too nice and accommodating for her roommate Erica’s (Maika Monroe) tastes to not get taken advantage of by the worst the Big Apple has to offer. That niceness comes into play when Frances finds a lost purse sitting on a seat in her subway car, prompting her to return it its rightful owner, a mature Parisian widow living in Brooklyn named Greta Hideg (Isabelle Huppert). The two become friends, filling a niche in each other’s lives, with Frances finding a surrogate for her mother in her time of grief, and Greta a surrogate daughter for the one that is no longer in her vicinity. Frances says she’s like chewing gum – she tends to stick around – which is music to Greta’s ears. However, something feels amiss in the relationship that causes Frances to try to end it, and the less-than-stable Greta doesn’t seem to be taking the separation well. Neil Jordan directs this off-kilter thriller.

Glass (2019) | M. Night Shyamalan

January 21, 2019April 19, 2019 ~ Vince Leo

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Glass serves as a sequel to two films from M. Night Shyamalan, 2000’s Unbreakable and 2018’s Split, the latter of which tied itself to the former with the post-end title stinger. Bruce Willis makes his return as the ‘unbreakable’ security company owner David Dunn, who, along with his adult son (and sole employee) Joseph, is trying to track down a crazy roaming the streets of Philadelphia who is abducting teenage girls. James McAvoy continues his portrayal of Kevin Wendell Crumb, aka The Horde, a conglomerations of split personalities that take over Kevin’s body at various points, including the homicidal brute known as The Beast, who is the one feeding on those girls David is looking for . Samuel L. Jackson also returns from Unbreakable as the titular character, the brittle mastermind self-named Mr. Glass, aka Elijah Price, who has apparently been laying low for some time under heavy sedation. The three end up rounded up and subsequently kept separate chambers within a high-security psychiatric facility led by Sarah Paulson’s Dr. Ellie Staple, whose specialty is in rehabilitating persons who believe they are superheroes. From Split, Anya Taylor-Joy returns as Casey Cooke, who survived her terror-filled first meeting with The Horde while in its persona as The Beast, but who finds herself drawn to help him escape his inner demons.

BlacKkKlansman (2018) | Spike Lee

December 31, 2018April 19, 2019 ~ Vince Leo

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In this Spike Lee joint, we go back to the 1970s, where we find Ron Stallworth, the first black police detective working for the Colorado Springs Police Department. In one of his first assignments after laboring behind the scenes to test the waters as a file clerk, Ron is hired to go undercover to record a speech being given locally by black activist Kwame Ture (Corey Hawkins), formerly known as Stokely Carmichael, at a nearby college, in which the subject is black empowerment, racist law enforcement, and preparation for the race war they feel will be inevitable. The police thought the speech would incite violence, but Ron saw the speech as just talk in that regard, and inspiring otherwise.

Bullitt County (2018)

October 27, 2018 ~ Vince Leo

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BULLITT COUNTY is a small-scale dramatic thriller set in the late 1970s, where a bachelor party trip to Kentucky Bourbon country could prove lucrative when the quatrtet of friends decide to head off the beaten path to search for a cache of buried treasure on Bullitt family private property. Written, directed and co-starring David McCracken, the film echoes bits and pieces of ’70s character-driven thrillers mixed with more modern film-making takes from the likes of Tarantino and the Coen Brothers.

Halloween (2018)

October 22, 2018 ~ Vince Leo

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Jamie Lee Curtis returns as Laurie Strode in this sequel that ignores all others in the franchise after John Carpenter’s 1978 original HALLOWEEN. Michael Myers breaks from his prison existence to return to where it all started, in Haddonfield, IL, during Halloween. Esteemed filmmaker David Gordon Green directs and co-scripts this intriguing return to look at trauma-survivor Strode and the inevitability that predator and prey will once again battle it out for survival, even forty years later.

The Happytime Murders (2018) – A Podcast Film Review

September 3, 2018 ~ Vince Leo

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In this puppet/human effort directed by Brian Henson, son of Muppets creator Jim Henson, Bill Barretta voices the top puppet character known as disgraced burnout Los Angeles-based private investigator Phil Phillips, who has to get to the bottom of a series of murders among the stars of a decades-old television show with a puppet cast of actors called, “The Happytime Gang”. Melissa McCarthy gets the top human role, playing police detective Connie Edwards, Phil’s former, now estranged, partner in crime-fighting from his days on the force, who joins in to reluctantly assist. Even if the characters look like Muppets, it’s a very raunchy, ultra-violent effort not meant for children.

Summer of 84 (2018) – A Podcast Film Review

August 26, 2018 ~ Vince Leo

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RKSS return after their Turbo Kid to deliver yet another throwback to the 1980s in the mystery-suspense-horror flick, SUMMER OF 84. A quartet of boys go out in search of a serial killer of teenage boys (just like them) that they feel could be the cop that lives in their very own neighborhood, and seek to find the evidence needed to bring him to justice. The further they go out, however, the more exposed they are to becoming the next victim in their manhunt.

The Spy Who Dumped Me (2018) – A Podcast Film Review

August 15, 2018 ~ Vince Leo

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Mila Kunis and Kate McKinnon star in this buddy comedy about two best friends who end up embroiled in a spy assassin plot when some terrorists come looking for them for information that Kunis’ most recent boyfriend, who she didn’t know was a secret agent, may have in his possessions. Laughs, thrills, and action are promised, but does it deliver?