{"id":2084,"date":"2023-12-18T15:00:00","date_gmt":"2023-12-18T15:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.gatecitygaming.com\/?p=2084"},"modified":"2023-12-16T22:29:42","modified_gmt":"2023-12-16T22:29:42","slug":"monthly-movies-with-the-doomsayer-november-edition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.gatecitygaming.com\/index.php\/2023\/12\/18\/monthly-movies-with-the-doomsayer-november-edition\/","title":{"rendered":"Monthly Movies with the Doomsayer – November Edition"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Five Nights at Freddy\u2019s<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

We are definitely starting November off on the right foot.\u00a0 I had completely written off Five Nights at Freddy\u2019s<\/em> as a trainwreck, yet I still felt a gamer’s duty to see it.\u00a0 I can\u2019t exactly say Five Nights at Freddy\u2019s<\/em> is my type of game though, as I don\u2019t feel like a narrative is woven into the gameplay.\u00a0 Sure there are tons of lore in the FNAF<\/em>, but the story is usually your just some guy trying to survive the night.\u00a0 Basically, it’s like working as a tester in a Jack-in-the-box factory.\u00a0 So off the bat, Five Nights at Freddy\u2019s <\/em>has the challenge of twisting the game\u2019s lore, not story, into a working script; hence my reservations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So is the film any good?\u00a0 It\u2019s surprisingly, okay.\u00a0 It’s not something I would rush to see, but it certainly could have been worse in the year of The Exorcist: Believer <\/em>and Insidious Chapter Five<\/em>.\u00a0 Don\u2019t get me wrong, the film\u2019s second act is more laughable than scary and not as creepy as the filmmakers thought.\u00a0 However, there are well-made tense scenes with the animatronics hunting their victim that had my blood pumping.\u00a0 Overall, not great but I wasn\u2019t bored.\u00a0 Put that on your poster Blumhouse.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Divinity<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Imagine a modern-day science fiction film like Interstellar<\/em> mixed with a black-and-white 1950s sci-fi film aesthetic with just a dash of lust dropped in and you will have Divinity.\u00a0 <\/em>A scientist, on the brink of perfecting his miracle drug that gives you immortality at the cost of infertility, has his home invaded by two mysterious strangers.\u00a0 The movie then begins to ask questions like what is the purpose of sex in a world full of infertility?\u00a0 When is the cost of immortality too much?\u00a0 Has science gone too far?\u00a0 As I walked out of the theater, I found myself chewing on many of these questions; some days my stream of consciousness will wander back into these lines of thoughts.\u00a0 The hour and a half I spent with the film felt well worth my time, but I see both critics and audiences alike prefer director Eddie Alcazar\u2019s previous work.\u00a0 It has piqued my interest and I wonder if my opinion of the film would change if I view his previous films.\u00a0 For now, I will say viewer discretion is advised.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Killers of the Flower Moon<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

If we are going to have more three-hour movies, we should bring back intermissions.\u00a0 Scorsese, Nolan, and the rest can\u2019t expect me to sit there the entire time and not have to use the bathroom.\u00a0 I had to download an app called Runpee that tells you the best scenes to sprint off to the bathroom.\u00a0 Some filmmakers might scoff at this, but this is the world you created.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What?\u00a0 You want to know about Killers of the Flower Moon<\/em>?\u00a0 For almost three and a half hours long, it\u2019s both well-acted and well-paced.\u00a0 It\u2019s a powerful tale about a family that systematically destroyed the Osage Nation in an attempt to inherit their oil money; we certainly need more stories like this that paint the bloody truth of America\u2019s history with Native American tribes. \u00a0 I have certainly sat through worse movies that felt longer than this one.\u00a0 It undeniably helps when DiCaprio, De Niro, and Gladstone are all equally commanding their presence on screen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Unfortunately, this film doesn\u2019t quite stick the landing for me.\u00a0 For me, a tragedy should make me want to drop to my knees and cry out in agony.\u00a0 I felt this in Oppenheimer <\/em>as the titular scientist realizes the horrors he has kicked off, but I didn\u2019t get that with Killers of the Flower Moon.\u00a0 <\/em>The film wants DiCaprio\u2019s character to be torn between his love for his wife (Gladstone) and his duty to his uncle (De Niro), but it never really felt that way.\u00a0 The movie shows you all the ways he served his uncle but never showed him sacrificing for his wife.\u00a0 So naturally when things didn\u2019t work out, it didn\u2019t feel tragic but natural.\u00a0 As always, I present this nitpick not to say the film isn\u2019t worth watching, but in the hopes, we, as screenwriters, can learn.<\/p>\n\n\n

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It\u2019s a Wonderful Knife<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I left the theater with a frustrated sigh coming out of my nose like an irritated bull.\u00a0 The red cape I bullishly charged through was a horror movie called It\u2019s a Wonderful Knife<\/em>; a movie that promised to be It\u2019s a Wonderful Life mixed with a slasher movie.\u00a0 Early on our protagonist is able to kill the potential slasher, but at the cost of her best friend and brother.\u00a0 One year later, still angry with her inability to save her loved ones, she wishes that she was never born.\u00a0 She immediately finds herself in a world where the killer lives and has continued his mad spree.\u00a0 I was hoping this would initiate some Christmas cat-and-mouse as our heroine knows the identity of the killer.\u00a0 Sadly, this movie is too interested in copying It\u2019s a Wonderful Life<\/em> beat for beat with uninteresting horror characters.\u00a0 Unsurprisingly, our heroine learns the same lesson George Bailey learned seventy-seven years ago: she had friends and family all along who loved her as I painfully screamed for some semblance of a horror movie.\u00a0 There are one or two interesting kills, but you\u2019re better off looking them up on YouTube.\u00a0 Skip.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Priscilla<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I can\u2019t escape the feeling this movie was born when Priscilla Presley exited the theater after just watching the Elvis biopic.\u00a0 With so much to cover in Elvis, <\/em>it was only natural the 2022 biopic was going to merely scratch the surface of Priscilla\u2019s life.\u00a0 Thankfully, A24 and director Sofia Spaney are here to fill in the cracks.\u00a0 Despite experiencing only a fraction of the fame and fortune that was inevitably Elvis\u2019s downfall, Priscilla was not immune to the tragedy.\u00a0 The constant fame and attention Elvis had took its toll on their relationship.\u00a0 Priscilla was forced to remain hidden so women would continue buying anything Elvis touched.\u00a0 The two of them would argue over paparazzi articles saying Elvis was hooking up with his movie co-stars; you certainly think of Suspicious Minds <\/em>with a new context.\u00a0 Overall, the film reminds me of the drama that would occur when streamers or internet celebrities get exposed for having secret significant others.\u00a0 Priscilla<\/em> shows us that Elvis and Priscilla were tragic guinea pigs in the great experiment of whether fame and relationships mix.\u00a0 I will admit, much like Killers of the Flower Moon<\/em>, I didn’t have a need to drop to my knees and cry out in vain.\u00a0 However, I do hope, somewhere out there, there\u2019s a world where Elvis didn\u2019t get famous and got to spend his days loving Priscilla Presley.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n

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American Fiction<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I see what you did, Cord Jefferson.\u00a0 A little frustrated that people only want a certain type of story from you?\u00a0 Possibly a story of a downtrodden young black man on the cold windy streets of Chicago?\u00a0 Maybe you wrote something recently that was metaphorical trash only to have people fall head over heels for it.\u00a0 Honestly, as someone who would like to be in the same line of work, I get it.\u00a0 I often lay in my bed, staring at the ceiling, worrying that I might have to write a hypothetical story for a mobile game looking to farm microtransactions.\u00a0 So I get the struggles of Thelonious \u201cMonk\u201d Ellison as his publisher pressures him to write something more \u201cblack\u201d.\u00a0 With bills piling up, Monk writes a book about his fictional life in the ghetto under a pen name.\u00a0 The meta-narrative had my curiosity, but it was Monk\u2019s family drama that had my attention.\u00a0 Wrestling with his family getting older and the struggles that come with it, the characters within Monk\u2019s family are the unsung heroes of the film.\u00a0 Proving once again, that characters are king.\u00a0 American Fiction<\/em> is an easy recommendation for me.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Thanksgiving<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a world where online shopping is not a thing, a masked killer going by John Craver is rounding up people associated with a Black Friday massacre and using them as guinea pigs in his Jigsaw audition tapes.\u00a0 Much like It\u2019s a Wonderful Knife, Thanksgiving<\/em> is fully committed to its holiday theme with its brutal kills including cooking someone alive and bashing someone\u2019s skull with a meat tenderizer.\u00a0 However, unlike It\u2019s a Wonderful Knife <\/em>it never dwells on <\/em>its stock slasher characters.\u00a0 The movie does enough to give you a handful of likable characters and plenty that you wouldn\u2019t mind seeing get the axe.\u00a0 A very succulent slasher for your post-Thanksgiving movie binge.\u00a0 One thing I want to call out is the opening Black Friday massacre.\u00a0 As someone who saw footage of the madness of Black Friday sales, witnessing that same insanity unfold into so much death and destruction made my blood run cold.\u00a0 John Craver was simply a symptom of the true disease: capitalistic greed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

More movies, more thoughts<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":2085,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2084","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-opinion","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gatecitygaming.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2084","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gatecitygaming.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gatecitygaming.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gatecitygaming.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gatecitygaming.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2084"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.gatecitygaming.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2084\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2094,"href":"https:\/\/www.gatecitygaming.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2084\/revisions\/2094"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gatecitygaming.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2085"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gatecitygaming.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2084"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gatecitygaming.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2084"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gatecitygaming.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2084"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}