Reviews
Reviews
2025
Flight Risk
Nosferatu
A Complete Unknown
Flight Risk
January is known as a slog of a month for moviegoer types. Most of the stuff that’
actually good that’s playing during the month is often stuff that opened during Christma
season. When I first saw the trailers for Flight Risk, I was pretty sure it would be one of thos
kinds of movies, the kind you see in the middle of January because there’s not else to do
movie-wise, besides wait for Oscar season (the nominations this year are funny). I knew I had
to see it, though.
During the early afternoon I asked a few friends via text message if they were interested
in seeing it with me that evening. I hadn’t seen much this month so far, which made me feel
annoyed. I have been hitting up people less to see stuff with me in general, because it create
a whole curation thing through the rest of the day, where I have to figure out exactly how man
tickets to buy and all that—not to mention that Regal makes you choose designated seats,
which makes you have to finalize who exactly is going, otherwise you risk having to put a stra
friend in a separate row. This happened during the fall when I got 14 tickets for the Joker
musical. A friend last minute asked if it was OK if his girlfriend could come, and I had to explain
to him the pain in the ass it would cause, and it did. It was a packed theater, and they had to
consolidate into one seat just so they could stay in the same area as us. This wasn’t an issue
with Flight Risk because there were probably 15 people in the entire theater.
I got the tickets earlier that day at the box office—if you do this rather th
purchasing via the app, you can remove the $1.50 “convenience fee” entirely, making all the
tickets 8 dollars instead of closer to 10. Not that it matters that much, because all of my friends
are good about sending me money, so I don’t have to eat any kind of cost, plus my ticket is no
money. But it’s a thing anyways.
I walked to Delancey Regal with Tiff. We met Yazan, David, and David’s gf KT
They were upstairs waiting for me to gift them their paper tickets. I was excited to see them
because it’s great to be in the presence of good friends. The showtime was at 9:20, and me
and Tiff walked in the doors at 9:15. I had to spend several minutes getting one ticket refunde
due to another friend who backed out of the movie last minute. The manager gave me a free
movie ticket for the next time I attend a movie, which is cool with me.
Flight Risk is an action thriller type thing directed by the wild Mel Gibson,
taking place entirely in a private plane. Mark Wahlberg and his haircut plays a hired criminal
type who is hired to kill Topher Grace’s character, Winston, a pussy ass little dude, who is
being taken by Michelle Dockery’s character, a cop-type lady. Winston got captured by her in
Alaska for doing shady criminal type stuff, and he immediately tells on his criminal type highe
ups, so they hop on a plane to get to New York so he can tell on them in a more official kind
way. But Mark Wahlberg as I said is a criminal type, so he is there as the pilot and also as their
killer. The whole reveal happens within the first twenty minutes of the movie. The middle of th
movie is some on-flight fighting between the three (mostly Dockery and Wahlberg) with Top
Grace pretty much playing the same character as he does in That 70’s Show, cracking
ridiculously light jokes (“I’d rather fly Spirit!”). There’s such a heavy amount of comedic relie
that it makes me hesitate to call it an action thriller; much of the supposed-to-be funny stu
isn’t that funny, and a lot of the tense stuff is what made the audience laugh. So mayb
Gibson’s purpose here is for the whole thing to be funny, which I guess it is. A lot of what we
see is Dockery having to learn how to fly the plane due to incapacitating Wahlberg (his name
we never find out; we definitely find out Dockery’s character’s name but I don’t remember i
lot of that reminds me of the Top Gun episode of the Angry Video Game Nerd, which is cool.
There isn’t a lot happening for the second act, lots of scenic plane-flying-through-Alask
scenes, with small hints of tension and action, but nothing that warrants much of an R-rating,
besides Wahlberg threatening rape to poor Topher Grace, and one kinda gross and cool scene
of Wahlberg breaking out of his handcuffs. We get small hints of backstories with our tw
heroes but you really don’t find much reason to sympathize with Grace, because he spend
much of the time being intentionally so annoying. The ETA for the flight gets brought up a lot o
the movie (“We have 75 minutes left” “15 minutes until land”) and it seems like 4th wall
breaking, like they’re telling the audience how much time of the actual movie is left. There is a
really silly love/flirtation side-plot between Dockery and a pilot that is helping them navigat
their safe landing via radio signals. Their landing the plane and in general the final fift
minutes or so of the movie are just awesome. At this point in it you know that it isn’t that
serious of a movie, and you can only enjoy the craziness with your friends. The small audience
was having a great time once they realized what they had gotten into; like we all collectively
decided we are stupid as shit for wanting to see this, but we get a final act that we deserve fo
sitting through Topher’s constant mugging and Wahlberg’s rapey crap (he is awesome in this).
When the credits appeared on the screen, the crowd clapped and cheered. Everyone leaving
the movie seemed happy. I was definitely in a silly mood after watching it. I can’t in good fait
say it’s the best movie I’ve seen at Regal this year so far (although I probably would watch it
again over Nosf), but I recommend seeing it in theaters, because it’s a fun watch with people.
It’s absolutely not Gibson’s best work, either, and I have no idea why he made this (the one-
location type of thing and sparse cast just feels like something that would have been filmed i
2020 or something) but I guess I’m grateful that he did.
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Nosferatu
The cold grip of January can make a fellow quite mad... I feel that’s how they would say
that in this movie. But it remains true! I have been suffering as a byproduct of the cold. I get
bored of the winter naysayers, people who you feel like are always saying “I get so depressed
in January” I get it. Get the hell over it! I was feeling that though on this particular Saturday. I’ve
learned that a good fix for it is to walk my ass to the Regal on Delancey and catch a movie.
There’s actually quite a bit out at the moment that I want to see—Tiff didn’t seem all that
interested in Nosferatu so I figured, OK, I can see that one myself.
I booked a 2:20 showtime. I stopped in the Essex market, which at one point I was
accidentally calling it the “Regal market” which became the “Regal Mall” which I still think it
should be renamed to. I got a Celsius from a store inside as my movie snack, for some reason.
I had a Monster on my mind but I didn’t see one immediately, so I got some kind of apple-
flavored Celsius.
I sat in the theater at 2:21–I got to sit in my favorite seat, the very top-left corner—either
that or the top-right but only the top-left was available for this showtime—actually quite a
packed theater for a 2:20 show—and the trailers started at 2:25. There was a couple that were
sitting directly next to me, although there were five or so seats to the left of them that were
vacant. Around fifteen minutes into the movie, they shifted to the further-down ones, and I was
happy for that. Those kinds of gestures of privacy are so meaningful to me. Not that the movies
are private, per se, but... I’ve been in a theater before that’s probably at 20 percent occupancy
and for some reason a guy or some guys decide to sit directly next to me, even though there’s
rows of seats open. Like, why? Maybe this is a “me” thing.
The trailers rolled from 2:25 to 2:40, which is really not so bad for a Regal. Although—
and I’m a huge fan of Pepsi products BTW—the pre-trailer commercials are always in this
order: A Pepsi ad, a Mountain Dew ad, and then a Starry (!?!?!) ad. Can’t Pepsi just hire their in-
house people to consolidate it all into one commercial? I do need to try a Starry though.
Another thing about modern-day trailers I want to speak on: There is always a constant
editing trend throughout any string of trailers. I started noticing this during the Obama era. In
2012, every trailer would have a medley of what we called back then “Transformers sounds”-
machine-like, dubstep-y buzzing. In the first Trump era and some of Biden’s, we got the
tinnitus craze, which, halfway through every trailer, a high-pitched tinnitus-style would ring,
muting any sounds or other dialogue happening. In the last few years, every trailer seems to
feature a female-fronted cover of a classic song... Kind of like how Donnie Darko had that
famous cover of that Depeche Mode song. That’s for your more A24-style movies. For action
movies, they’re edited like a skate video or something. Every gun shot and kick to the face is
edited perfectly to the song. It’s not bad, it even makes sense, but when you see it for every
Den of Thieves style film, it gets tiring. One trend in trailers that absolutely is not around
anymore is the 3rd-person voiceover. Very 80’s/90’s style... “In a world...” Wonder when this
will come back in style.
About Nosferatu—I liked. I don’t know much about the original property. I’m a
millennial, so I know who Nosferatu is because of the Hash-Slinging Slasher episode of
SpongeBob. I liked Nic Hoult, again. I’ve seen him starring in three different major motion
pictures over the last few months, and I’ve liked him in all of them. I like Depp, who I only know
from Yoga Hosiers, which is one of the worst movies I’ve ever partially seen. Her role in this
reminded me of 1999’s Sleepy Hollow, starring her dad, Johnny. I found myself thinking about
Sleepy Hollow several times during this movie—and not just because there are children killed in
both (just kidding, that’s pretty much only why). There are cool scenes that stand out to me,
most of them with Hoult, honestly. The violence is good enough for an R, and the last thirty
minutes are good. There’s some slow moments and the tension is all over the place—I think a
huge reason for this is how much we see Nosferatu himself. And Bill Skarzg. plays Nosf
awesomely in it (how accurate to the old one, I have no idea) but we see so much of him that I
feel like it loses a lot of the dread that you’re supposed to feel when you have a horror villain.
There’s a shadow play scene that is from the 1920’s film (again I haven’t seen it but I know
enough about it’s iconography to know—even if you didn’t know that I you can tell director
Eggers is basically telling you, look, dickheads, it’s like the old movie). There’s a lot of funny old
speak in here which mostly feels unintentionally funny but I do think that they have Dafoe
saying some things that are supposed to be funny (he is good in it too—I feel like he’s in so
much stuff lately and I could see myself growing annoyed by this in a matter of months but for
now I’ve enjoyed his presence). The audience laughed at stuff that I don’t think was supposed
to be funny—there is a scene when we first meet Nosf and there is a moment of silence and he
says what sounds like just the word “Yeet...” Someone laughed at this which caused a larger
laughter throughout the crowd. Also the fact that they’re German but all have British-style
accents... Anyhow. There is a certain dread just in the tone of the film that I like, and it did
remind of me of how I felt about Sleepy Hollow in a way. Living in that time probably was as
depressing as depicted, I’m sure. There’s nary a happy moment in the whole thing, is one way
to put it. The consensus on it seems to be... Well there doesn’t seem to be one. You either like
it, or hate it, or neither of those. I say- it’s good, but I don’t care if you see it or not. I left the
movie kind of in bad spirits; not because the movie was bad, but rather, it just has that kind of
tone to it. It isn’t fun, but it’s chilling (and this will be the first and only time I ever call something
that).
I left the theater around 4:50, feeling somewhat better than I had when I first decided to see a
movie. Hopefully next time I will have enough redeemable Regal redeemable Regal points to purchase a Starry on tap.
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A Complete Unknown
Biographical thing about the rise of Bobby D. Thought it would be written over a larger timeline but it stays within the frame of folk music up until 1965; I don't know much about his story so I thought it was a nice lil' biopic about not entirely just Dylan himself but moreso about his relationship and succession (and success) from the folk music scene, specifically from his move to NYC up until the release of Highway 61 Revisited. For the last decade I haven't had much of an opinion about T. Chalamet but lately I've been getting a lot of videos on Tiktok about how he likes college sports and shit so I've been growing to like him, which is pretty much what sparked my interest in the movie. That, and that there is one brief scene that is filmed at White Manna Hamburgers in NJ; Tiff and I went here a month or two ago and there were posters on the wall about filming taking place there, so I thought, Hell, now I gotta see this movie. It's good, btw (the movie, I mean, but the hamburger place is recommended also). It doesn't step out of the boundaries of these kinds of musician memoir things, but it does it's job. T. is good as Bob Dylan, I think. Maybe a bigger Dylan fan than me would disagree, but I thought he was great. A quarter of his dialogue is mumbl-y crap that probably wouldn't be transcribed properly via closed captioning, which is unintentially-intentionally funny, probably some of the funnier stuff in the movie, and close to accurate to the stuff I've heard of Bob's at whatever ceremony he's attended that I happened to watch on Youtube. Norm Macdonald has some funny bits about him (he was a huge fan) so I had to look them up - Bob's a funny MF and I don't know if he knows it or not.
Supporting cast is great too, Edward Norton as Pete Seeger, whoever plays Joan Baez is good at playing Joan Baez - there's some will-they-won't they stuff that's fun to watch unfold if you don't know the story - I don't by the way - I can't be judge on whether a lot of the stuff that unfolds is accurate or not; like, I really doubt his manager actually punched Alan Lomax at a folk festival (upon a quick search, turns out he actually did. so yes, I cannot be a judge on this stuff). One thing I liked is the way they did up NYC in early-60's fashion - a better job with 20th-century NYC than Joker 2. There's little scenes to showcase how the times were('a) changing; JFK coverage on the TV, Bob playing a show at DC, stuff like that. It doesn't get too into this stuff, only using it to further the timeline (which only seems to happen in 1961 and 1965). It's mostly about the music stuff and it's cool to get a glimpse into the struggling folk scene, and Dylan's resistance to it; he has a few lines that are either verbatim or paraphrasing something like "200 people in there want me to be somebody I'm not." It could come off as corny but I kind of liked that stuff. He seems cool to me.
It doesn't stray from portraying him as an asshole, though, either. It shows that pretty clearly in the trailer too ("You're kind of an asshole, Bob" - Baez) but that was part of the draw for me as well. He's an original dickhead with a lot of imitators, both musically and attitude-ly. But, at least in reference to the movie, he seemed to be only about the music... Kind of like how Tom Cruise only cares about the Law in the movie The Firm.
I also like the stuff with Johnny Cash, played by Boyd Holbrook. I didn't really know they were friends like that but they are played as two stupid yet funny guys when they're together or as pen pals. Going into the movie I thought there would be some kind of corruption-of-Bob-Dylan kind of plot, but there isn't anything of the sort, really. Mostly everyone Bob kicks it with seem like they just annoy him, minus I guess Woody Guthrie, who is in a mental hospital in New Jersey, and Bob pays him visits throughout the film to play him music, which is nice. But again, everyone else just pisses him off mostly, and it's funny to see him walk off stage in a scene because he doesn't want to play a song he was playing like three years prior. Pure asshole behavior, but also... I think it's cool.
There's a scene towards the beginning where it is revealed to the audience that Bob has been lying about having been in a traveling circus (instead it turns out that he is actually Jewish); it never gets brought up again and I suppose the only thing we are supposed to take from it is the classic coming-to-NYC story for any rich kid pretending to be poor.
I recommend it, it's a cute little movie about a pretty cool asshole. It was a Regal Tuesday, so I was able to take the lady there for cheap. We met there a little before 7 (showtime @ 7:10). She brought a cheeseburger from 7th St and I brought some peanut butter cups and licorice from Trader Joe's down the street. I also got us a small popcorn (had enough points with my Regal acct that I was able to get it for free). We had a good time at what was probably a half-filled theater. We will definitely be attending the sequel. I want to know just exactly how the Traveling Wilburys started.
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