We sort of went overboard this month - 3 reviews spanning almost 2,000 words. w just have so much to say! The world needs to know know what Stoski Co. thinks of random movie titles! Stoski's Ultimate Movie Ratings Guide is always richer when we add movies to it’s database. Have a peruse if you’re after something good (or not good) to watch.

Frozen (2010)

Okay. Settle down. This isn’t a review for the Disney ice-musical. Well it does heavily feature snow and ice, and I know that Disney’s Frozen featured themes of that nature, but, like, this isn’t that. That movie came out in 2013 while this one came out in 2010. Classic case of stealing and then butchering the source material to make an inexplicably more popular knockoff, but hey, that’s Hollywood baby! C’est la vie!

If you’re just some regular dude who likes to watch movies, has a soul, and is not a masochist, this movie is painful to watch. Painful in a good way, but still. 3 young adults are on a skiing trip. It’s coming on closing time for the skii complex, which will be closed and abandoned for the next five days. They want one last run on the slopes. They end up getting stuck on that lift.

That’s the premise, and it’s all you’ll get form me, but it’s a very important thing to know, because knowing what will happen is what gives the first half of the movie it’s power. You want cinema having power over you, by the way. This movie is painful. It isn’t just the premise that makes it so, but the lead-up. Knowing what will happen. I went into this having read a short description online, and let me tell ya, watching the first 40 minutes of this movie is easily the most uncomfortable I’ve been, watching a movie, in the last 12 months. Even more so than during my watch-though of Grave Encounters (link).

Knowing what these kids would get themselves into made the first half of the movie very anxiety inducing, but not knowing anything beyond that is what made the second half so thrilling (and anxiety inducing). If you aren’t a thrill seeker or a masochist, you’ll hate yourself while you watch through this, and you’ll love it. If you’re either of those things, you’ll just love it. That’s not to say that it the movie grabs you and throws you into the dirt from beginning to end. Unlike the non-stop assault of something like Buried, starring Ryan Reynolds, from the same year, the entirety of which takes place inside of a coffin, underground, with constantly escalating urgency. Frozen gives you time to breathe. It has levity. The characters are stuck on a ski lift, but they talk about their lives. It’s night time in the freezing cold during a snowstorm, but later it’s a bright and clear sunny day. It lets up at the perfect time. It quickly throws you back down, but it knows how to offer a hand up. Then it throws you right back down again. You’ll love it.

4/5

Men in Black: International (2019)

No Will Smith, no Tommy Lee Jones, the entire ‘Men in Black’ organisation is a shadow of it’s former self, the outfits are a joke, the ‘last suit you’ll ever wear’ scene was rushed through, and the whole movie takes itself way too seriously. This is clearly a soulless ‘gritty’ market-tested cookie-cutter reboot designed to appeal to the lowest common denominator. Classic thoughtless corporate marketing strategy. It works well for toothpaste commercials, but not so much actual professional works that you might want people to actually enjoy. No-one is clamouring to see the latest Colgate ad.

The real shame about MIB: International is just how different it is to the first few movies. They were witty, lighthearted, campy, and knew how to be serious while still keeping one foot planted squarely in the realm of the absurd. The story was about aliens taking over the world, but the acting, writing, and general tone were so masterfully maintained that you forget that MIB failing their mission would likely lead to the extermination of our species. The organisation was infallible and nothing but a force for good. Agents joined up and performed their duty, not just for a paycheck, but because they believed in what they were doing. That was the Men in Black I knew.

Fast forward to 2019 and things are a little different. Maybe it’s a reflection of the times, the death of the optimistic 90s and 2000s, and the march into a new world of soul crushing existential angst. Almost everything that defined the previous movies is gone. It’s no longer a lighthearted buddy cop franchise about a perfect organisation secretly saving the world. Hell, the movie doesn’t even have time to dawdle and have fun with itself. Everything moves along at break-neck speed, for fear of losing the audience’s attention. Compare this to the first Men in Black. Remember the scene where Agent J helped in giving birth to an alien baby? Did that scene have nay story-related purpose? Not really. It was just there to bring us closer to their world. A few minutes of playful nothingness. It felt real and natural. We weren’t hurried along like we were being carted around by a lazy tour guide anxious to reach the end of her shift, which is exactly what this movie feels like. Only the things we’re being rushed along to see are as half-arsed as the tour designed to let us see them.

The real star of the previous Men in Black movies was the organisation itself. Before, it existed outside of red tape and regulation, seemingly running with an unlimited budget and no oversight, a peaceful arbiter, lauded for lightyears around by many different species throughout the galaxy. Now, it is painfully obvious that MIB is yet another government department, filled with the kind of people you’d find in any other government department; clock-watchers, rubber-stampers, office-politicians, brown-nosers, and narcissists. Hardly fitting of the people who mere decades before would foster peace treaties between otherworldly species, and harbour alien valuables due to the trust they build with other civilisations throughout the galaxy.

Sure, there a few flashy effects, and the plot did manage to cock half of my brow for a moment, but the little it had fell apart in the third act to a hurried and forgettable conclusion. Chris Hemsworth and Liam Neeson feature in starring roles, but at no point in history has a movie been good simply because of who is on the cover art. Maybe the studio ordered the hiring of big names like these after someone read the script and realised that the Men in Black name wouldn’t be enough to bring people into see this big of a stinker.

Maybe this is a sign of the times, that we don’t know what to do with optimistic and jovial source material. That a movie about a organisation of benevolent people hunting aliens and keeping the peace simply because it’s the right thing to do would be too unrealistic to release today. Instead we made it about a down to Earth joke of an organisation filled with terrible people and self-interested moles and spies… who hunt aliens. At least they had some big name actors shooting the guns.

2/5

Fear (1996)

You’re Mark Wahlberg, and you’re about to star in a movie about an 18 year old guy who gets discovered and recruited by a porn director for his extraordinarily large penis, his superhuman staying power, and his unbelievably fast second wind - but what to do first? Well, star in a movie about a 23 year old guy who preys on a 16 year old highschool girl, had sex with her, before she leaves him when she discovers how much of a creepy fuck he is, at which point he and his even creepier friends go ape shit and lay siege to her family’s fortified home, where he almost kills her dad in a twisted effort to be with her. It’s standard teenage love story angst. Don’t pretend you’ve never been there.

Fear manages to do with a 6 million dollar budget what a lot of movies fail to do with a 20 or even 50 million dollar budget; convince the audience to give a shit. When’s the last time you saw a high-budget Hollywood blockbuster and thought “Wow, I sure hope [the protagonist] can [solve overarching problem]! If they do not, then they will surely experience [bad outcome], which will not be good for them at all!”? That’s right; rarely. What? Yes people think like that during films! Get outta my review!

So what does Fear do so well? The answer to that question is right in the genre; psychological thriller. The movie is intense from the moment Nicole meets David. You don’t even need to know how seedy he is before hand; they meet in the worst place to spend time without being actually assaulted or otherwise killed. Just awful. Should have seen it coming. David plays the perfect boyfriend at first. Meeting her family, helping around the house, hiding his psychological disorders in order to form an acceptable approximation of normal aquaintal relationships with people around him that others will give the benefit of the doubt. You know, normal things you do to make nice with your new girlfriend’s family. Remember; this guy is a total nutcase, but no-one can see it. Except for the dad. A father figure protective of his teenage daughter. Didn’t see that one coming did ya? Pow!

It doesn’t stay that way for long, of course. David’s behaviour becomes increasingly problematic leading to the climax of the movie, which involves a full-on siege against the hardened family home. When all is said and done, no fewer than 5 people would have died during this movie, not all of which are within those walls. Given that this isn’t an action movie, you know those deaths are honorific and confronting. Just the way we like it.

It’s not all David being a creepy fuck for the camera, though. We get some idea of David’s history and his home life, organically, throughout the movie. A lot of movies handle exposition badly. It’s clunky and unnatural, like two people talking about something that they’ve clearly discussed in the past, where they both feel compelled to spell out every detail of that topic, for the benefit of whomever might be listening. No-one does that in real life, and it thankfully doesn’t happen in this movie. Phone calls, conversations, visual cues, and even an entire scene (or more depending on what you count) point to what David was like before we met him, what he’s like now, and even why he might be that way. It’s rich in detail but doesn’t throw it at you.

Now, we can’t end this review without talking about Larry, the family’s personal security guard. Throughout the whole movie, we see him as little more than a useless piece of furniture, who’s job consists of little more than watching people drive past his little security guard hut. Later though, we get to see how much of a badass Larry really is. While apprehending a troubemaker, another done comes at him from behind. This badass mf ducks out of the way, last minute, and pulls a second gun, putting lock on both of them, western style. What a hero. Watch this movie.

4/5

Quick Bits - Free Guy (2021)

Ryan Reynolds is a video game character who becomes sentient and learns that he is. Joe Keery (The Hair from Stranger Things) is an elite programmer who created him and the entire world he lives in. Two cool dudes on two sides of a screen. This movie has so much going on that it felt like the movie was about to end when my friend paused to take a bathroom break, and I realised that I had only seen up to about half way! Damn! Never pauses for breath and always fun.

The soundtrack is great while you’re watching but you’ll be disappointed if you look it up in real life. I know, I tried. Multiple times, like when you check the fridge every half hour hoping something new has shown up since you last checked.

3.5/5

Quick Bits - Deep Blue Sea (1999)

Personally, I found catalyst scene in this movie - where we see an armless scientist airlifted out of the research facility - to be incredibly confronting. A poor, pathetic, disabled man is whisked to apparent safety, during an intense and earth-shattering oceanic storm, when mechanical failure sends him plummeting into the depths below. All the while, he literally reaches out for to his saviours, who ultimately cannot even help themselves against the call of anarchy and chaos. In the end, they are the ones whom mercy smiles upon, with quick and painless deaths, while he must endure the thought of his own demise, while waiting for the literal jaws of death to snatch him, being powerless to stop it.