TV Show Review - The White Lotus (Season 1)

Season: 1
Genre: Comedy/ Drama
Number of episodes: 6
Year: 2021
Starring: Murray Bartlett, Jennifer Coolidge, Connie Britton, Steve Zahn, Alexandra Daddario, Sydney Sweeney, Fred Hechinger, Jake Lacy, Brittany O’Grady, Natasha Rothwell, Molly Shannon

Description: Set in a tropical resort, it follows the exploits of various guests and employees over the span of a week.
 
Review: Vacationing is something people like to do. To let go of everything, and in the case of many vacationers, get yourself well pampered at an all-inclusive resort. A single women, a family plus the daughter’s friend and a newly wed couple all arrive at the same time, at the Hawaiian resort The White Lotus. The staff of the hotel is awaiting their guests and everything looks promising. But it’s going to be one hell of a week.

What an entertaining series. In a satirical and humorous way, they basically take everything and everyone to task. No one is perfect and everyone has their secrets and struggles. And since all of the characters we follow are either quirky, peculiar, irritating or highly unlikeable, the perfect vacation they all wished for, doesn’t go as planned. And this creates some fantastic, uncomfortable, silly, hilarious and embarrassing moments.

Each character has a role in the story. Ten of them to be exact. First there is the Mosbacher family. At the head, mother Nicole, a successful business woman who calls the shots. Her husband Mark has a health scare, son Quinn is simply bored and daughter Olivia brought her best friend Paula, who just want to relax and read complex literature. Then there is the newlywed couple, Rachel and Shane. They married quick after meeting and are now on their honeymoon. Where Rachel is a freelance journalist who wants to make it in the world, her rich new husband believes she doesn’t need to work anymore and just be his beautiful wife. Tanya came to Hawaii to spread her mother’s ashes, she is a lonely woman who befriends the owner of the resort’s spa, Belinda. And finally we have Armond, the resort manager, trying to make sure every guest is happy and taken care of. Which is a big challenge with the new arrivals.

Talking about Armond. He’s portrayed by Murray Bartlett and he is the absolute highlight of this series. I love everything he does in this series, he is so funny. And as a former customer service employee, I know exactly how it feels like to always try to please everyone, even the ones that you actually want to strangle. Always with a smile on your face, but mentally slapping the person opposite you complaining once again. Bartlett got a well-deserved Emmy Award for his role and he lifted “The White Lotus” to a higher level.
 
The ending of the show wasn’t all I hoped for. At least not for all characters. I especially didn’t like what they did with Rachel and Shane. I did like Quinn’s ending though. But overall, “The White Lotus” was a very enjoyable series, easy to watch. And there is a second season coming, which will be starring a bunch of new characters and is set at a different location.

10s Movie Review - Texas Chainsaw

Director: John Luessenhop
Genre: Horror/ Thriller
Runtime: 90 minutes
Year: 2013
Starring: Alexandra Daddario, Dan Yeager, Trey Songz, Scott Eastwood, Tania Raymonde, Shaun Sipos, Keram Maliki-Sánchez, James MacDonald, Thom Barry, Paul Rae, Richard Riehle, Bill Moseley, Gunnar Hansen

Description: A young woman (Alexandra Daddario) travels to Texas to collect her inheritance; little does she know that an encounter with a chainsaw-wielding killer is part of the reward.

Review: “Texas Chainsaw” is a horror slasher about the murderous Sawyer family. Years ago, after a gruesome massacre, their house was burned to the ground by angry neighbors. Including all the members of the family, if was thought. Decades later and many miles away Heather finds out tha her parents are not her biological parents, but her adoptive parents. She inherited a piece of Texas land from her grandmother whom she never knew. With her boyfriend and some other friends, she takes the car for a long drive, with the final destination: the gigantic house of Heather’s grandmother. Heather’s grandmother and her biological parents seem t have had a strange connection with the infamous Leatherface in the past and let him hide in the this house.

Carl Mazzocone, president of the Twisted Pictures, has always been a big fan of “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre” and Leatherface is one of his favorite horror villains. He believes that the perfect boogie man should be authentic and realistic. When the original was released, the film was told to be based on a true story. Many people still thought ans still think that the story really happened. Serial killer Ed Gein was taken as a cource of inspiration for Leatherface, so somewhere it’s true. Mazzocone felt that more could be done with the story and asked writer/ director John Luessenhop to join his project.

Unfortunately they did not succeed in reaching their goals. This sequel doesn’t feel authentic or realistic at all. The film starts right away with a big mistake. Heather is a girl in her early 20s, but she should be in her late 30s. after all, she was found as a baby after the murder in 1974. It also seems as if the makers couldn’t make a choice as to what kind of film it should be. The first part of the film is set in 1974m and starts just before the original ends. The atmosphere feels good for a horror mvie, nothing wrong with that. If an original story had been made it would have been fine. But no, it was decided to go to the present with a goup of teenagers entering an abandoned house. I think we’ve all seen this before. Then it becomes a complete mess and instead of a fun popcorn horror slasher, the film becomes laughable. There is one scene, where Heather is trying to get away from Leatherface and ends up at a carnival. In her eyes, the best option to get away from him, is to grab onto one of the gondolas on a Ferris wheel. Only for it to go around, with Leatherface just waiting for her at the end. There are always dumb people in these movies, but this is next level.

There are small references to the original, but that’s for pure nostalgia reasons. But overall, “Texas Chainsaw” is a sequel nobody really needed.

Rating: 1,5 / 5 

Movie Review - We Summon the Darkness

Director: Marc Meyers
Genre: Horror/ Thriller
Runtime: 91 minutes
Year: 2019
Starring: Alexandra Daddario, Keean Johnson, Maddie Hasson, Amy Forsyth, Logan Miller, Austin Swift, Johnny Knoxville

Description: Three best friends embars on a road trip to a heavy-metal show, where they bond with three aspiring musicians and head off to one of the girls’ country home for an after-party.

Review: The eighties were a bizarre time. Fear of satanism in the heavy metal music scene was rampant. “We Summon the Darkness” is a lightweight horror movie set in 1988, and makes eager use of this time spirit.
When three young women are on their way to a heavy metal concert, they are overtaken by a van. Suddenly a chocolate milkshake ends up on their front window. The throwers turn out to be three male metalheads who are going to the same concert. However, the beers makeup for it all. The state they are in, Indiana, is plagued by a murderous gang of Satanist, but they completely ignore it. The girls decided to invite the three guys to a remote house that belongs to one of the girl’s dads.
For the first half hour of the film, Alexandra Daddario feels like she’s ready for a leading role. After that, things derail at such a fast pace that her powers of persuasion also take a nose dive. And with her everyone does.
The film is marketed as horror, but is also meant to be funny. But it never really is. And it also never really feels serious enough to actually care about any of the characters.
“We Summon the Darkness” can best be described as a black comedy with no real jokes, or a horror thriller with only little excitement. By the time Johnny Knoxville appears on stage (after only seeing him on television screens) the movie is beyond saving. The idea of it is better then the actual film.

Rating: 2 / 5

100 Movie Challenge 2017 - # 81: Baywatch

Director: Seth Gordon
Genre: Comedy/ Action
Runtime: 115 minutes
Year: 2017
Starring: Dwayne Johnson, Zac Efron, Alexandra Daddario, Kelly Rohrbach, Jon Bass, Priyanka Chopra, Ilfenesh Hadera

Description: Devoted lifeguard Mitch Buchannon (Dwayne Johnson) butts heads with a brash new recruit (Zac Efron), as they uncover a criminal plot that threatens the future of the bay.

Review: The 80s television was dominated by “Miami Vice” and the next decade it was “Baywatch”, with a billion viewers. It wasn’t only iconic because of Pamela Anderson running in slow-motion in her red bathing suit, but also the restart of David Hasselhoff’s career. And since translation televisions shows into movies is a trend, “Baywatch” couldn’t be left behind.
Mitch isn’t played by The Hoff this time, but Dwayne Johnson. Zac Efron plays Matt Brody and Kelly Rorhbach is CJ Parker. It’s fun to see the same characters, but weird to see them being portrayed by different actors. Hasselhoff and Anderson both have a cameo, off course.
This film is nothing like the show. First, the comedy is pretty juvenile. A lot of ball/ boob/ sex related jokes. Second, there isn’t a lot of beach recuing going on. The characters are after a drug dealer that’s working their beach.
Off course, this is a film that doesn’t completely take itself seriously. And that’s exactly what you should do: don’t take it too seriously. It’s a joy to watch if you like beach bods and it is entertaining. But the film is way too cheesy and it doesn’t do the TV show justice (not that this was of such a high level, but it was my favorite show in the 90s).

Rating: 2/ 5