Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil, and Vile (2019) Review

by Alex Goode

Remember 2017's My Neighbor Dahmer, starring Ross Lynch as famous serial cannibal Jeffrey Dahmer? Well, it appears as if we're in another cinematic universe, because Netflix has presented us with yet another serial killer biopic. The subject this time around is Ted Bundy, and the movie is called Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil, and Vile. Whether or not there's a second comma is apparently up for debate, but I put it in there because it's more grammatically accurate. Anyway, Extremely Wicked was written by Michael Werwie and directed by Joe Berlinger. It was was based on the book "The Phantom Prince: My Life with Ted Bundy", by Elizabeth Kendall (one of the people in this movie). This isn't Berlinger's first bout with Bundy, he also gave us Conversations with a Killer: The Ted Bundy Tapes earlier this year (which is also on Netflix). Joe was the right man for the job when it came to the biopic. This movie stars Zac Efron as Bundy, Lily Collins as Liz, Kaya Scodelario as Carole Anne Boone, among others. It premiered at the Sundance Film Festival on January 26th of 2019, but the rights were acquired by Netflix. They then released the film for viewing on May 3rd of 2019. How is it, you might ask. Well, that's a rather difficult question to answer. Spoiler alert, I guess.

Velvet Buzzsaw (2019) Review

by Alex Goode

A movie was released to Netflix recently titled Velvet Buzzsaw. Maybe you've heard of it, maybe you haven't. I didn't know what the film was until I started seeing reviews of it on Facebook. I saw it was on Netflix and I saw that Jake Gyllenhaal was in the cast, so I decided to watch it. I didn't know anything about it, I hadn't even seen a trailer, so I went into Velvet Buzzsaw not knowing what to expect. What I was met with was an overall pretty decent movie. It was written and directed by Dan Gilroy, and the cast consists of Jake Gyllenhall, Rene Russo, Zawe Ashton, Tom Sturridge, Toni Collette, and John Malkovich, among others. It was released on February 1st of 2019 to some relatively mixed reception. As of the day this review was published, it currently has a 5.9 on IMDb, a 61 on Metacritic, and a 66 on RottenTomatoes. I think I have similar thoughts, as well. Let me explain. Spoiler warning.

Bird Box (2018) Review

by Alex Goode

I took a break from blogging to recover from the daily series I ended last year with that I probably should've planned out more. I've also been sick for the past few days, but I decided to bite my tongue and do a new blog regardless. I decided on a 2018 Netflix movie called Bird Box. It was directed by Susanne Bier, written by Eric Heisserer, and based on the novel by Josh Malerman. It stars Sandra Bullock, John Malkovich, BD Wong, Lil Rel Howery (the TSA guy from Get Out) and Machine Gun Kelly of all people. I guess he needed to find work after he lost his M&M sponsorship. Bird Box quickly became popular (most likely due to the memes), so I decided it was fitting to have my first review of 2019 be of this movie. Does it live up to the hype? Well, yes and no. Let me explain.

Mowgli: Legend of the Jungle (2018) Review

by Alex Goode

Mowgli: Legend of the Jungle is a 2018 Netflix Original Film that was released on December 7th of 2018. It's based on Rudyard Kipling's All the Mowgli Stories collection. It was also given a limited theatrical release, but was heavily marketed as a Netflix movie. The movie was directed by Andy Serkis and written by Callie Kloves. The cast includes Christian Bale as the voice of Bagheera, Cate Blanchett as the voice of Kaa, Benedict Cumberbatch as the voice of Shere Khan, Andy Serkis as the voice of Baloo, Rohnan Chand as Mowgli, among others. I had heard that this movie was being made a few years ago, but I didn't know how far along it was until Netflix sent me a notification a few minutes ago telling me, "Hey, the movie is done! Come watch it!". Serkis promised that his version of the Jungle Book story would be, quote, "darker" than what Disney did with their 2016 Jungle Book movie. In my opinion, if he was going for that, he probably should've got this movie released first. But, whatever. It's here now, free to watch if you have a Netflix account. So, how was it? Let's find out.

Death Note (2017) Review

by Alex Goode

Death Note was a Shonen Jump manga that was first serialized in December of 2003. It tells the story of a man named Light who discovers a book that allows him to kill people, usually via heart attacks, just by writing down someone's name onto its pages. It became so popular that an anime based on the manga was created, with the first episode being released in October of 2006. The anime, from what I've seen of it, is awesome! It had excellent animation, very well-developed and iconic characters, great dialogue and voice-acting. But that isn't the version of Death Note that we're going to be discussing today. Nope, I'm talking about the 2017 Netflix-exclusive Death Note movie. I just got finished watching it, so now I will give my thoughts on it and determine whether or not I have to Throw The Harpoon at it!