I’ve always felt that the black metal scene of the early 1990’s is hard to explain. The music that emerged from it is pretty much timeless, but in order to enjoy it, you need to either embrace or get past a lot of things. And by things, that word seems pretty light. Those things are murder and arson just for a start.

Based on the book Lords of Chaos: The Bloody Rise of the Satanic Metal Underground by Michael Moynihan and Didrik Søderlind, this Jonas Akerlund directed film falls prey to some of the issues that book has. Namely, who can know exactly what was going on in the scene unless they were there? Varg Vikernes — who recorded as Burzum and appears as one of the main characters in both the book and movie — has been a major critic. Vikernes states that the authors of the book had no insight or knowledge of what Black Metal was and they still filled the heads of a generation of metal fans with lies.

He hasn’t gone light on this film either. In a series of YouTube videos, he’s denied the filmmakers the rights to his music. He wasn’t pleased at being presented as being power mad. He’s also claimed that the movie is made up and plain wrong. Then again, this is the guy who murdered the other main character in this movie. So, like I said, black metal has a lot to get past if you’re going to go any deeper.

The film begins when Euronymous (Rory Culkin, Signs) forms Mayhem with Necrobutcher, Manheim and Maniac, but soon the last two members leave and are replaced by drummer Hellhammer (Anthony De La Torre, who played young Jack Sparrow in Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales) and Dead, a singer who was once killed for several seconds by bullies in grade school. As a result, he has become defined by death, sending his vocal audition to the band along with a crucified mouse.

Mayhem soon becomes big within the metal scene, playing shows where Dead cuts himself and throws pig heads at audience members. As Metalion — a journalist who created the Slayer Mag that would document the scene (you can grab the collected issues from Bazillion Points) — films a show, the band meets a fan named Varg Vikernes, who is initially made fun of by the band.

Meanwhile, Dead decides to slice up his body and use Euronymous’ shotgun to commit suicide. Instead of calling the police right away, he takes photos of the body and takes pieces of Dead’s skull fragments to make necklaces. This causes Hellhammer to leave the band.

Euronymous then opens a record shop called Helvete that becomes the social center of the scene, drawing people like Varg, Darkthrone’s Fenriz and Emperor’s Faust (Valter Skarsgard) into becoming the Black Circle. Euronymous’ ego is threatened by Varg’s growing popularity — particularly amongst women — and willingness to live up to the anti-Christian rants and do things for real.

It becomes a battle of who is in control of the Black Circle. While Euronymous can lay claim to creating true Norweigan black metal, Varg has been the one willing to actually burn down churches and incite others like Faust to commit murder. While all this is going on, a new version of Mayhem that features Euronymous, Varg, Blackthorn and Attila record “De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas.”

Helvete is soon shut down by the police and Varg is arrested as the prime suspect of the church burnings after he does an interview with a newspaper claiming he committed every crime. That said, Euronymous does the same in a Kerrang! article. Varg is arrested but soon released for lack of evidence. And after an argument over who was in charge of the scene and what true black metal means, the two men reach the point of no return. To Euronymous, everything he said was just promotion. To Varg, selling records is meaningless next to his cause and his former mentor is now seen as fake.

That’s when Euronymous starts telling stories about how he’s going to kill Varg and make a snuff movie out of it. To him, this was all probably just talk. To Varg, these threats are real. So on the morning of August 10, he goes to Euronymous’ apartment and kills him. The knife stabbing extends on and on, probably like it did in real life. Varg would go on to serve the maximum sentence of 21 years in jail, which he served, despite escaping once.

So what did other people from the scene think? Mayhem’s Attila spoke for the current band members, saying that their position regarding the film and its creators is a “big fuck you.” He also pointed out that the movie only focused on Mayhem during the 1990s, not the whole black metal scene. That said, he did allow some of Tormentor’s songs to be used in the film and his role is played by his son, Arion Csihar. He was also on set for the church burning scenes.

Mayhem’s founding bassist Necrobutcher said, “I will do everything I can to stop this film. Tell the Swedes and the Hollywood people to go fuck themselves.” That said, the director claims that he got the band’s support. Their actual music doesn’t appear in the film. Instead, the songs were re-recorded by Malparidos re-recorded their songs for the picture.

So how did I feel? I hated this movie from three minutes in. Its tone feels like it wants to be a comedic tour through the formation of Mayhem and the fun — such as it is — of the scene. Let’s keep in mind how strange it is to portray many of these events — like church burnings — as buddy buddy moments.  I didn’t believe in anyone in the film, didn’t see them as these near-mythic people they are portraying. Maybe that was the intention, to show us that the true Black Circle was just a bunch of silly kids acting up. But it just feels false. And false is at the very heart of everything that black metal stood against, demanding truth and devotion to a cause, no matter how patently insane it could be. I’d compare it to gangster rap, another genre that demanded that artists live up to the lyrics they recorded.

There’s nothing here that answers why one of the most gorgeous places in existence could give root to one of the darkest sub-genres in music. I guess I shouldn’t expect that much from a movie. But with Akerlund having some knowledge of this scene — he was in Bathory, which predates this era — but this all rang as false as the black metal band in Rob Zombie’s Lords of Salem.

If this is your first exposure to this music, there’s no way you’re going to want to listen to it or enjoy it. Even the end, where Euronymous tells the audience to fuck off and proclaims that he invented true Norweigan black metal, feels fake. It sounds like words on a page, not something proudly proclaimed. For all the faults of this film, that’s the worst. And when its followed up by cartoony fun images of church burnings and devils, it’s just upsetting.

This could have been so much more. Instead, it’s worse than nothing.

For another POV, check out my friend Brian Krasman’s review of this movie. If you love metal, his site totally has you covered.

Otavio and Gilda are two members of the enormously wealthy Brazilian elite who have an interesting kink: they like to eat their employees. Luckily, Otavio owns a private security company that’s always on high alert. He’s also a notable member of The Cannibal Club, but when Gilda catches Borges — a powerful congressman and the Club’s leader — having sex with a man, both of their lives are in extreme danger.

The Cannibal Club is an all-male group of the elite who meet to give speeches about faith, family and hard work while watching sex shows and people being violently killed.

Director Guto Parente makes all of the proceedings look lush and opulent, no matter how depraved they get. A warning — this movie is packed with sex and gore. There’s no skimping on either, so if you’re going in expecting a sanitized Hollywood style movie, be prepared for a shock.

The Cannibal Club has a limited U.S. theater run starting March 1 but will be available on Demand March 5.

NOTE: This movie was sent to us by its PR team, but that has no impact on our review.

My wife wants to make a supercut of me crying at movies. This would be incredibly bad for my pro wrestling tough guy image, seeing me sobbing like a baby at the absolute dumbest things in movies while she asks me why and I reply, “Because it’s nice.” I also cry at things like coffin scene in City of the Living Dead, when Suzy leaves the crumbling dance school in Suspiria, when the Mighty Ducks or any sports team rises against the odds in a movie and whenever an older man starts crying and tells his son that he loves him. I’m a weepy, blubbery mess of a man.

Christopher Robin set out to make me cry. But worse — it tipped the scales and went from inducing tears and then relieving them with happiness to outright depressing me to a level where I was sure that everyone in my life was sick of me. Such is its horrifying Lovecraftian power.

Director Marc Foster was behind films like Stranger than Fiction, a movie that may make you reexamine everything in your life. I wasn’t expecting that same kind of emotional punch to the testicles in a movie about Winnie the Pooh.

Christopher Robin leaves for boarding school, leaving his friends from the Hundred Acre Wood behind. The movie fast forwards through his life, taking him from school to his marriage to Evelyn, the birth of his daughter Madeline and his harrowing adventures in World War II. It was at this point that I wondered, “This is still Winnie the Pooh, right?”

After the war, he works as an efficiency expert at Winslow Luggage, where he works all night and neglects his family, something that didn’t hit close to home at all with my sixty to eighty hour work weeks. His entire team is about to be fired unless he pulls off a miracle. That’s when his wife basically leaves him.

Surely, Pooh is gonna make this all better, right? Well, Hundred Acre Wood has been reduced to a near post-apocalyptic landscape and all of his friends are gone. If I was a child, this is when I would have either turned off the movie or gotten sad. As it was, every time Pooh appeared my eyes welled up because I really didn’t like to see him looking and acting so pathetic. Him coming to grips with his childhood friend leaving him behind tore me up.

Of course, everything works out fine. People learn lessons. But it takes forever and a day. Pooh has always had such a warm, gentle touch and this movie just seems too dark, too cynical and too rough for what I want it to be. You surely may feel differently. I mean, you may also think that this is the exact same story as Hook, but what do I know?

I don’t mind gothic horror. I do mind when a movie meanders all about the place with no idea what kind of film it wants to be and limps along the way to a conclusion that offers no resolution. I really liked Lenny Abrahamson’s Room and was excited what the follow up would be. If you can’t already guess, I was pretty disappointed.

Based on the novel by Sarah Waters, The Little Stranger concerns Dr. Faraday (Domhnall Gleeson, who was Bill in the Harry Potter films and has also appeared in Peter Rabbit and as General Hux in the new Star Wars movies). As a child, would visit Hundreds Hall, but now the house has fallen into ruin under the care of Roderick Ayres (Will Poulter, We’re the Millers), a scarred Royal Air Force vet, and his sister Caroline (Ruth Wilson, who was in another slow-moving supernatural film in 2016,  I Am the Pretty Thing That Lives in the House). 

Faraday’s mother had once been a maid to the Ayres and his memories of the house have been with him ever since. But now, beyond the house going to pieces, strange noises can be heard in every room. And the 19th-century tube communication device and bell system that connects the house have both been wreaking havoc with everyone’s nerves.

Once the elderly Mrs. Ayers (Charlotte Rampling!) has an encounter with something in the house — leading to her slashing her wrists — and Roderick attempts to set it all on fire, only the maid and Caroline are left in the house. Is there supernatural afoot? Or is the real danger Faraday’s drive to escape his caste and join the upper crust (nevermind that post World War 2, the Labor Party changed their position in the food chain)?

I knew from the beginning of this film that it would be a long and slow meandering story. I just didn’t know how slow and meandering it would get. It’s yet another non-ending ending having film, one where people will say things to me like, “It just makes more sense if you read the book and know the class struggle and the way England was changing.” Of course, it does. But that doesn’t mean I have to enjoy it.

“Just because someone is famous doesn’t mean they’re a good person.” This statement, from Tanja Walker in her interview, sums up so much of the issues that Hollywood has dealt with in the #MeToo era. This movie goes into depth explaining the casting couch, how it got started and why it has existed for decades.

Writer/director Minh Collins has put together interviews with Lauren Anastasi-Peter, Ikon Barenbolm, Alana Crow, Jennifer Durst, Andrea Evans, Tiffani Fest, Sadie Katz and more, all to tell the story of what women in the entertainment industry have been silently enduring for decades.

A large part of the film revolves around the case against talent agent Wallace Kaye, who was brought to court by twelve actresses who stepped forward, despite the advice of their union, and brought the case to the police. They won and still no one listened. There’s an incredibly shocking section here where the film goes into the female police officer who was involved in a sting operation against Kaye and the emotions she had to deal with.

The only drawback of this film is that it doesn’t have faith in its interviews to tell the whole story. The reenactments and b-roll stock footage used to add color distracted me from the very powerful interviews that were captured by the filmmakers. The graphics used look like something straight out of iMovie, taking me away from the words I was hearing and making me wonder why more care wasn’t given to the presentation.

That said, there’s a story worth hearing here. Rocking the Couch is available On Demand this February from Avail Films. You can watch it on Amazon Prime.

NOTE: We were sent this movie by its PR team and that has no impact on our review.

Directed by John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein and written by Mark Perez, Game Night is pretty much The Game, but instead of Michael Douglas and Sean Penn, we have a group of friends whose murder mystery night turns real when one of them is kidnapped. Hijinks, as they say, ensue.

Max and Annie (Jason Bateman and Rachel McAdams) met at trivia and have stayed competitive ever since. They’re trying to have a kid and Max’s inadequacies may all come from his brother Brooks constantly showing him up. Now, his brother has come back to ruin his weekly game night.

I have to say, I loved the look of this film. The tilt-shift lens in the shots above the suburbs makes real life look like a board game. And I really loved how the car racing scenes kept the car locked up in center frame like a video game.

My favorite character in the film? Gary, the awkward cop. Jesse Plemons is so great in this role and I absolutely fell in love with his dog Bastian, who is played by a dog named Olivia. This is one busy dog — she’s also appeared in Widows and the Netflix series Insatiable.

This comedy moves fast, has fun even with a bullet removal scene and doesn’t overstay its welcome. That’s all you can really ask for these days with movies.

Aneesh Chaganty created a movie called Seeds with Google Glass that hit a million views in under one day. Following its success, he was part of the Google Creative Lab, where he spent two years developing, writing and directing Google commercials. This film was originally intended as a short, but got the funding to be a full movie. That meany that Aneesh had to make the leap from a dream job to another dream job, but one that had no guarantees. Luckily, Searching is a great first effort. And it doesn’t hurt that it grossed $75 million dollars on a $1 million dollar budget.

The entire film is viewed via different screens, starting with David Kim (John Cho) looking back on the last two years. The pre-movie sequence effortlessly uses the tools we experience every day to tell the story of how his wife died and he became distant from his daughter, Margot.

Over the next few days, he’ll learn just how little he knows about her as she goes missing. He’ll have plenty of help from the public and Detective Rosemary Vick (Debra Messing). But even time he thinks he’s close to finding her, she slips further and further away. In fact, she may be gone for good.

Unlike traditional narratives that only show one side of the story, the film uses YouTube comments, hashtags and social posts to show every facet of its characters, even the tiniest of background roles. I loved how much information got packed into every frame.

As someone who works in marketing, I also adored how stock photography ended up playing such a major role in the mystery. I really don’t want to say any more than that — this is a ride that you should take without knowing all that much.

The crazy thing is that Aneesh filmed the entire movie playing every single role, with the real actors being fit in after the film had a rough edit. I’d love to see more of this, which is only hinted on the disk’s extras. In fact, if you’re someone that bemoans the loss of extras on recent films, this movie is packed with features that explain how the film was created and its many easter eggs.

Speaking of that, this movie is bursting at the seams with hidden messages. In a shout out to the first movie made in this style, Unfriended, one of that film’s characters named Laura Barns appears as a trending topic throughout the movie. There are multiple news articles about one of M. Night Shyamalan’s biggest fans getting to meet the director (this would be Aneesh, angling to meet his real-life hero). And throughout the film, there are multiple stories about an alien invasion, whether they run as trending topics or on crawls during news shows. I love the idea that life keeps going despite this world-changing event.

Perhaps most amazingly, when this movie was edited for foreign countries, every screen was recreated in its respective language, as well as every typing sequence, keystroke by keystroke.

I know that this movie is based on a gimmick, but I was shocked how much I ended up enjoying it. Check it out — perhaps you’ll feel the same way.

Malcolm D. Lee has directed some pretty decent films — Undercover Brother, The Best Man, Roll Bounce, Welcome Home Roscoe Jenkins, Soul Men and Girls Trip. Now, he’s sending Kevin Hart and Tiffany Haddish — and some pretty great supporting actors — to Night School.

Also — don’t get this one confused with 1981 Americanized giallo Night School, which has a woman’s head cut off and put in a pot of stew that people eat out of.

Teddy Walker (Hart) dropped out of school when he couldn’t concentrate on his college prep tests. But it all seemed to work out — he’s going to inherit the grill store he’s worked at since his teens, a fancy lifestyle (that he can’t afford) and a wealthy girlfriend named Lisa.

Things blow up — literally — when he accidentally blows up the shop while proposing. That leads to a financial and personal tailspin that finds him going back to get his GED so that he can work with his friend Marvin (Ben Schwartz from Parks and Recreation).

He goes back to his old high school for classes, only to learn that the person he bullied the most, Stewart (Taran Killam), is now the principal. Luckily, he’s able to get into Carrie’s (Haddish) night school class. And when he’s not studying, he’s working in a religious fried chicken restaurant (to deflect potential piracy, this movie was shipped to theaters as “Christian Chickens”).

The rest is pretty much comedy by the numbers, but it is livened up by the cast. Rob Riggle is always great in everything that he does. Many only know Mary Lynn Rajskub from 24, but I remember her from Mr. Show and she’s always hilarious when given a chance to shine. I saw Al Madrigal do standup a few years back and am always excited to see him get the chance to be a success. Fat Joe is, well, Fat Joe, but still pretty fun. And any movie that has Keith David in the cast is going to make me happy.

This is pretty much as mainstream as the movies I watch can get, but there were still some fun moments. It’s not the greatest back to school movie (I mean, when a movie is called Back to School it should own that title), but it’ll cause a few laughs.

There can only be one Best Cat in Canada. It’s either going to be Oh La La the Red Persian or Bobby the Turkish Angora. As Kim, Bobby’s owner says, “If you’re not number one, you’re the first loser.” Get ready for the battle of the century, which will be fought in curling facilities and high school gyms. Other cats will get close, but at the end of the day, the real fur is about to fly between these two.

Kim Langille’s cats have won nearly everything there is to win. He’s in first place right now, but then Bob and Elaine Gleason’s cat Mr. Oh La La comes out of retirement to re-enter the world of the Canadian Cat Association.

Soon, the greatest cat judge in the history of cat judges will decide who will reign supreme. Along the way, we meet the owners, their many cats and learn what it takes to get someone to spend the money to fly all over Canada to do something like this.

I loved this movie. It’s 75 minutes of pure fun. It could totally make fun of its subjects and while it makes light, it is never mean. Seriously, the scene where the judge almost loses his mind judging Mr. Oh La La might be one of the best moments I’ll see in any movie this year.

This is streaming on Netflix right now. Watch it with a cat you love.

Jon Chu has really turned his fortunes around with this movie. Originally the director of musical theme films like Step Up 2: The Streets, Step Up 3D and Justin Bieber: Never Say Never, he moved on to two Hasbro properties, G.I. Joe: Retaliation and Jem and the Holograms, which was out of theaters in about a week. Lucky for him, this film has been a success, with a sequel being announced a week into its run. Strangely enough, Chu is mentioned in the book as a distant cousin of main character Rachel Chu!

Based on the book by Kevin Kwan, the movie faced early controversy. Despite being the first major American release with Asian stars since 1993’s The Joy Luck Club, it received criticisms for casting biracial actors over fully ethnically Chinese ones in certain roles, as well as failing to include non-Chinese Singaporean ethnic groups, such as Malay or Indian actors.

This played out in its international release, as Singaporeans didn’t really enjoy it, criticizing it for its lack of diversity and authenticity. But domestically, its success — it’s the highest grossing romantic comedy in a decade — should hopefully lead to plenty of work for Asian actors from every country.

Nick Young (Henry Golding, A Simple Favor) and his girlfriend, Rachel Chu (Constance Wu, TV’s Fresh Off the Boat) are going to Singapore for the wedding of his best friend Colin to Araminta (Sonoya Mizuno, Annihilation), a fashion icon. Rachel hasn’t learned much about Nick’s family, but once she sees their flight accommodations, she’s shocked to learn just how rich they are. Meanwhile, thanks to someone named Radio One Asia, everyone in Singapore knows all about her.

Just how rich Nick’s family is gets cemented by a visit to her old college roommate, Goh Peik Lin (Awkwafina) and her family, which includes Ken Jeong. Despite a giant bachelor and bachelorette party, Nick feels out of place and Rachel gets a dead fish — and lots of blood — all over her bed.

If that reception seems bad, it gets worse when she meets Nick’s mother Eleanor (Michelle Yeoh, whose stunts in movies like Police Story 3: Supercop put her on the same level as Jackie Chan even before more dramatic films like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and Memoirs of a Geisha), who wants nothing to do with a foreign girl coming into her family. And that’s before she even gets to know his grandmother Su Yi (Lisa Lu, who was in The Joy Luck Club and Demon Seed).

I loved both Jimmy O. Yang (who is also in HBO’s Silicon Valley) and Nico Santos (from Superstore) as Oliver T’sien, who gets the Young family anything they need.

If you love fashion, you’ll really love this, as clothes from Ralph Lauren, Elie Saab, Dolce & Gabbana, Valentino and Dior all appear. Yet for all these designers, Michelle Yeoh was dissatisfied with the ring that she was to wear. The emerald and diamond ring that she does wear is her personal ring, as are many pieces of jewelry in the movie.

Interestingly enough, Netflix wanted to produce the film and offered a much bigger budget, but Kevin Kwan turned down the offer in favor of a smaller $30-million budget from Warner Brothers. Why? Simple. He wanted to prove to studios that Adian-Americans would come to see this film and others like it.

There’s all manner of family drama, revelations, lavish parties, insanely expensive weddings, fireworks both personal and in the sky, love lost and love found. And the film looks gorgeous, with so many lavish sets. I may be Italian/Polish/American, but there’s still plenty of truth that I found even in my family.