Movie Reviews

By Tom Pacak “The Guilty” (Danish: Den skyldige) opened up at the Sundance Film Festival last year. It was a film that gained critical acclaim but kind of fell under the radar. The film was selected as the Danish entry for Best Foreign Film at the Oscars. Now after 10 months, “The Guilty” is finally released. “The Guilty” is a taut thriller that leaves you at the edge of your seat waiting to see what happens next. “The Guilty” opens up with Asger Holm (Jakob Cedergren) an alarm dispatcher and former police officer answering emergency phone calls. He’s divorced and continually speaks to his partner about an upcoming trial happening tomorrow. The film’s use of the police station as the only setting is an advantage, as the audience has to rely on sound design to hear the intensity of the 911 calls Asger receives. He gets one from a drug addict and someone who was mugged. Asger is obliviously used to taking these calls. He’s calm and collected while answering and tries to ge...

                                                                                           By Tom Pacak  The number one rule I have for reviewing movies is this: don’t review the movie until you’ve seen it. Your opinions about the film are irrelevant until you’ve actually watched it. This rule applies heavily to anyone who hasn’t seen Damien Chazelle’s “First Man,” the true story about Neil Armstrong. Before the movie was released, a bunch of right-wing trolls got in a hissy fit over how the film doesn’t include the famous flag planting. They called for boycotts and decided the movie was garbage before even seeing it.   Look, I’ve seen “First Man” and it’s a pretty good movie, not a great one. I’m a huge Damien Chazelle fan; I stand by my bel...

By Tom Pacak Michael Myers has gone through a lot. In fact, I didn’t know how much he’s gone through because I simply haven’t seen all of the Halloween sequels and I bet most of my readers haven’t either. So I decided to goggle exactly how much crap this sociopath has gone through. He’s been thrown off a house (Halloween), burned (Halloween II), shot (Halloween 4), head chopped off but not really (Halloween: H20), and electrocuted (Halloween: Resurrection). Since he’s killed countless people, I guess his injuries are karma.    Guess what? All of that stuff that happened is erased in the new and second first sequel titled “Halloween.” It was a smart move for screenwriter Danny McBride and director David Gordon Green to do this, due to the sequels not being much better. “Halloween” is probably the best sequel in the franchise (which isn’t saying much) and the only one to give audience the campy vibe we’ve wanted in a “Halloween” sequel. It’s got scares, laughs, ...

By Tom Pacak The best advice I can give you before watching “Bad Times At The El Royale” is to avoid the trailers. I usually tell people to not watch the trailers because in my generation the trailers give away too much. They’re basically a montage of all the great parts in a movie. After seeing “Bad Times At The El Royale,” I decided to give the previews a look. Almost all of the film’s clever twists with the exception of one are given away in the trailers. SO PLEASE AVOID TRAILERS!    Set in 1970, six strangers Catholic priest Daniel Flynn (Jeff Bridges), soul singer Darlene Sweet (Cynthia Erivo), salesman Laramie Seymour Sullivan (Jon Hamm), young woman Emily Summersping (Dakota Johnson), sole manager of the hotel Miles Miller (Lewis Pullman), and a mysterious hippie Billy Lee (Chris Hemsworth) are stranded at the El Royale. El Royale is a motel that borders Nevada and California. The interior of the hotel has a red line going down the middle that specifies t...

By Tom Pacak To be honest, I had no idea what the 2011 Norway Attacks were before watching “22 July.” On July 22 nd , a far-right sociopath (Anders Danielsen Lie) decided to do two lone-wolf terror attacks in Norway. In my review, I decided not to name the shooter because his name should be forgotten, not remembered. I get very angry after one of these tragedies occurs when I see the name of the shooter and facts about them on news networks. I refuse to give them that platform.  The first terror attack was a car bomb in Oslo outside of the Norway government headquarters, which killed eight and injured 209. The second was a shooting that occurred two hours after the bombing on the island of Utoya where AUF summer camp students were shot. Over 69 people were killed and 100 were critically injured. Before seeing it, I felt pessimistic about watching a movie where a lone wolf goes on a shooting rampage. It seems a little too soon due to the fact that one of these tragedi...