Believe it or not, I still had time to cram in a few movies this weekend! Let’s review!
Everything Everywhere All at Once – I had been growing quite antsy to see this film by “the Daniel.” These are the same creatives that brought me one of my favorite films ever, Swiss Army Man, so I was ready to see what they had in store next. Let’s just say, it’s a multiverse featuring a Chinese-American family, and more specifically a Chinese-American middle-aged woman named Evelyn, who’s on a quest to save the universes and her daughter. That sounds like a lot, and it was a lot, but in the best way possible. I was bursting with joy watching this film all the way through, and so much happens that you’ll constantly be on your toes either laughing hysterically (there were several scenes involving hot dog fingers) or crying (family, man). I urge everyone to check out this indie gem that hopefully lands them in some serious awards talk next year.
Metal Lords – I feel like this film sort of flew under the Netflix algorithm radar, but I love metal, so that fact that this came into my sights was not all that surprising. Set in high school, Kevin vows to help his best friend Hunter achieve his heavy metal dreams. First, they need to win their school’s battle of the bands competition. Easier said than done. Kevin tries to convince Hunter to let Emily join the band as their bass player, but she plays the cello…so it’s a no. Kevin grows closer to Emily and is finally tired of being shit on by his best friend all the time, so he starts exploring life outside of Hunter’s orbit. Lots of growing up in this film, lots of awesome music, and a killer final performance. Heavy metal fan or not, this film was delightful!
All the Old Knives – Chris Pine is about to take all my money, but first, I caught this Amazon Prime entry. In it, he plays a CIA agent, Henry, who is tasked with discovering the mole in their Vienna outpost, which led to a horrific tragedy involving a plane full of innocent people some eight years prior. This means he gets to interview his former co-worker turned lover, Celia. She, along with all the other team members we meet in her retelling of that fateful day all seem pretty guilty in their own ways, but the twist that came at the end was a nice surprise. This movie had a very cool supporting cast, but I suppose I found this a bit boring. I was expecting an all out action-thriller, but it was more taut and dramatic. Still pretty good despite not being what I thought it was going to be.