Sean Patrick

I must admit, I went into the Sonic the Hedgehog movie with a chip on my shoulder. As someone who cheered when Parasite was named Best Picture at the Academy Awards, you can imagine that Sonic the Hedgehog was not exactly up my alley. You could also, perhaps, get that impression from the simple fact that I am a film critic and we are talking about a movie based on a very silly, almost incomprehensible, video-game.

This might just be me being a little… hyperbolic, but, the 1990 musical comedy Rockula starring Dean Cameron is disease somehow rendered as a movie. Watching Rockula, which was released 30 years ago as of this writing, in February of 2020, was what I imagine contracting the plague must have been like. It begins as discomfort that grows into genuine aches and pains before developing into an all consuming feeling of slow, painful, agonizing death.

The Lodge gets off to a stunning start and rarely lets up on the oppressive atmosphere and that’s what makes it so brilliant. The Lodge stars Riley Keough as Grace. As a child, Grace was the lone survivor of a doomsday cult, run by her eccentric, Preacher, Father, which committed mass suicide. It appears, though Grace dressed up for the ritual, including Duct Tape across her mouth with the word ‘Sin’ written on it, that Grace was the designated survivor.

Hugh Grant is back in theaters with The Gentlemen and in it he has delivered one of the best performances of his career. Grant is electric in the role of a private investigator hired by a newspaper magnate to dig the dirt of a big time drug dealer played by Matthew McConaughey. Grant’s PI is flipping the script on the newspaperman and his deception is insanely good fun in a movie with a wonderfully unique sense of humor.

Vin Diesel long felt that Hollywood had pigeonholed him as an action star. With his muscular build and growling speech it's not surprising and his roles in The Fast & The Furious and XXX showed how well suited he was for the genre. Nevertheless, Vin Diesel always hoped to find roles that show he has as much range as brawn. The movie A Man Apart provided him the unique opportunity to combine acting and action. Unfortunately, a script about as deep as a puddle makes acting a challenge no matter how much range you have.

Underwater stars Kristen Stewart as Norah Price, an engineer on an underwater oil rig. Norah is having a rather mundane night off when she exits a locker room to find a leaking roof. A leaking roof on a rig on the bottom of the ocean is a very bad thing and Norah recognizes trouble right away. She begins banging on doors trying to raise the rest of the crew, but she’s too late, explosions are happening and Norah and only one other employee are able to make it to safety.