Val (2021)

Throughout the course of his life, Val Kilmer shot hundreds of hours of home movies and personal footage, spanning 40 years. After being diagnosed with throat cancer in 2015, these archives were uncovered and assembled into a documentary told through his own words and narrated by his son, Jack Kilmer.

A promising young man with a playful persona, Val was a misunderstood artist typecast in a number of roles who lived life to the fullest while struggling to find his voice. It's a raw and intimate and deeply reflective journey ultimately ending in tragedy, but there is great power in having a voice and being able to tell one's own story, even when ironically it has been cruelly taken away. 

3 top guns out of 5

V/H/S/Halloween (2025)

A mixed bag in the low-budget found footage horror anthology V/H/S series, this time centering around the holiday. There is one great segment among the offerings called "Fun Size" which I was delighted was made by madman Casper Kelly, which salvaged this whole tripe for me. It's another substandard entry with one or two that rise a cut above, but it feels shallow and wasn't worth it.

None of this was worth it.

2 candy enemas out of 5

Vampire's Kiss (1988)

A sex-obsessed man is convinced he's been bitten by a vampire and believes he's undergoing some sort of a transformation. This movie is pure insanity. Nicolas Cage dials it up to 11. What more is there to say? It's fucking brilliant.

4½ meme-worthy rants out of 5

UHF (1989)

AKA: The Vidiot from UHF

"Weird Al" Yankovic plays George Newman, a man with big dreams and a vivid imagination who lucks into managing a failing low-budget television station where he commissions a series of eclectic programming choices, including that of promoting the janitor (Michael Richards) to children's television host.

This movie is just plain fun and leans into the absurd and the extreme, as Al brings his parodic sensibilities to spoof everything from Gandhi to Conan the Barbarian. It's one of those films that grows with you over time, and follows in the tradition of over-the-top slapstick comedies like Airplane! and Top Secret!

3½ spatulas out of 5

Vegas Vacation (1997)

A bit of the spark is gone in the fourth Griswold family adventure, but it's still a rowdy good time if you're into Chevy Chase at his manic best. Clark decides to take the family out on a classy trip to Las Vegas to renew his vows with Ellen, while Rusty tries underage gambling and Audrey becomes an exotic dancer. The film benefits from Cousin Eddie (Randy Quaid), returning from two of the previous films. Like the city of Vegas itself, it's a bit hacky, but has its charms.

3 dam tours out of 5

National Lampoon's Vacation (1983)

"I must be crazy. I'm on a pilgrimage to see a moose. Praise Marty Moose!"

The classic road trip comedy about a well-meaning father (Chevy Chase) who tries to take his wife and kids on a good old-fashioned family vacation, while everything goes wrong at every turn. John Hughes adapts the memories of his youth while Harold Ramis directs the mayhem. It's down and dirty, but this film is pitch-perfect and I won't hear any differently. That's it. That's the review.

5 girls in a red Ferrari out of 5

The Velveteen Rabbit (2023)

A young boy is given a velveteen stuffed rabbit as a Christmas gift, who promptly becomes forgotten in lieu of other "modern" and mechanical toys. What the rabbit longs for more than anything is to be real, but it requires the selfless love of a child. I had somehow never read this story before so this was my first time encountering the material. It's a very touching tale that reminded me of a cross between Pinocchio, Winnie the Pooh and Toy Story.

(I'll be honest, I mostly reviewed this for inclusion in The Bunny Collection.)

3½ bitter Skin Horses out of 5

Violent Night (2022)

Owing equal parts to Die Hard and Home Alone, this action-comedy sounds a lot better in theory than the sum of its parts. David Harbour plays Jolly Old Saint Nick as a straight-up murderer of bad guys who threaten to ruin one family's holiday. I feel like it wanted to be much more subversive and anti-Christmas, like Bad Santa, but it kind of wimps out on itself. It certainly delivers on the violence, similar to Fatman, and I definitely wasn't expecting Santa to go all Kratos from God of War on everyone. The reason this movie works at all is because it doesn't take its ridiculous premise seriously and has fun with the depraved concept. Christmas sure looks a lot different now than it did as a kid.

2½ deadly Home Alone booby traps out of 5

Venom: The Last Dance (2024)

The third and final film in the Venom trilogy (The Nutshell is a bit behind) continues the saga of Eddie Brock and the alien symbiote which has attached itself to him. The latest threat is a Xenophage who hunts Venom and attempts to separate him from his host forever. As always with these films, the charm lies in the complex relationship and back and forth arguments that arise between Eddie and his apparent split personality (also voiced by Tom Hardy). However, all the CGI extravaganza stuff just bores me at this point. I enjoy these movies so much more as buddy comedies than superhero action flicks.

2½ Venom horses out of 5

V/H/S/Beyond (2024)

The 7th installment in the found footage franchise is actually an improvement on what's come before. While anthology films can often be hit or miss, this one manages to remain somewhat consistent. The highlights here are "Live or Let Dive" (Justin Martinez) and "Fur Babies" (written and directed by Justin Long). The only segment where I started losing interest was the last one ("Stowaway), which I was disappointed to learn was scripted by Mike Flanagan. Overall, it's well made and above average for this type of content, despite the fact that some segments go on a bit too long. However, it's good for a momentary diversion if you're a fan of this series, even if it can't quite reach the heights of the first two entries.

Although I'm not sure why they call these V/H/S anymore. They skipped right past DVD and went straight to streaming.

3 taxidermied dogs out of 5

V/H/S/99 (2022)

I actually thought this was pretty good, even though I wasn't the biggest fan of the previous two installments. I like that they kept the premise simple this time, without shoehorning in some kind of wraparound segment. In some ways, it feels closer to the spirit of the first two movies. "Suicide Bid" probably had the best horror element, while "The Gawkers" felt the most 1999 out of all of them. (Can't help but relate to that age and how hard it is to get a glimpse at a naked woman.) The crème de la crème was "To Hell and Back," which I had been looking forward to ever since watching Deadstream (dir. Joseph Winter). I love how they managed to transform their limited budget into an effective looking version of hell. Lots of subtle little humor in it, too.

I honestly wonder how long they plan to keep this series going. I'm fearful the next entry will be called D/V/D.

3 Y2K party hats out of 5

V/H/S/94 (2021)

This series has always been largely hit or miss, but this was mostly miss for me. The wraparound segments were easily the weakest. I thought "Storm Drain" was decent, but "The Empty Wake" was probably the most well-made (I only found out during the credits that it was Barrett's entry, which tracks). "The Subject" went on for way too long and leaned too hard into FPS territory, while the last one about the white supremacists ("Terror") felt boring and overdrawn. And that "final girls" epilogue was such a letdown. I don't know, maybe I was expecting too much.

2 Rat Men out of 5

V/H/S/85 (2023)

I never end up liking these as much as other people. As always, the segments vary in quality, though this was probably the most consistently entertaining entry thus far. I really liked how they integrated the wraparound story within an actual VHS tape which has clearly been recorded over many times. That part at least feels very authentic to the time period. However, it suffers from the same issue of every found footage film, which is that nagging question of "Why would they keep filming this?" Especially considering how unwieldly camcorders were back in the '80s. I also thought this installment was way too bloated and some of the pacing dragged on far too long. 

My favorite segments were "No Wake"/"Ambrosia" (I was hoping for a third part to conclude that story) and "Dreamkill," even though that was probably the worst acted. I'm not really sure why they changed the aspect ratio for that one, since it very much looked like it was shot on digital video. 

Aesthetically, this entry was also kind of painful to watch. I know it's supposed to look like crappy videocassette quality, but they may have succeeded a bit too well.

2½ VR headsets out of 5

VFW (2019)

It stands for Veterans of Foreign Wars, and it wears its influences large and proud on its sleeve, the most prominent being early John Carpenter films. In short, it's like a cross between Assault on Precinct 13 (1976) and Escape from New York (1981), with some of Capcom's Dead Rising video game thrown in.
The basic plot has the residents of a veterans bar under siege from an army of angry druggies. For a while it's bloody great. I wanted to like it all, but the exaggerated colours of 80s nostalgia made me long for it to be over (or for the sun to come up). The music, however, I loved wholesale; it's as Carpenter-esque as the scenario and camerawork and remains captivating throughout.

2½ waltzes out of 5

Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea (1961)

Scientific genius Admiral Harriman Nelson's Seaview super-sub is conducting trials in the frozen Arctic when an Irwin Allen disaster situation rears its movie-plot head, forcing the admiral to change his plans. In a reversal of expectations the sub becomes one of the few places that isn't under great threat. Furthermore, it may be the one thing that's capable of saving the day!
At its best it has a jolly Saturday morning TV adventure feeling about it, but it's one that's stretched a little thin, and besides Walter Pidgeon and Peter Lorre the movie doesn't have the same calibre of actors to keep things interesting that some of Irwin's other disaster flicks have. There's a clever lure that may keep a viewer seated until the story's end, but don't get your hopes up for anything tremendously memorable, because it really isn't there.

2½ temperature readings out of 5

Vantage Point (2008)

A twisty thriller set in Spain during a political summit concerned with creating an international alliance to tackle America's war on terrorism. It's of such importance that the US president (William Hurt) is making an appearance, making himself a visible target for the people he's there to protest against.
The singular event is replayed many times from the perspective of various attendees, the 'vantage' points of the title. Initially it's exciting and adds a level of intrigue but the overuse and highlighting of too many damn coincidences turns it around until it becomes an exercise in endurance. Likewise, the editing, effectively adding tension at the start, starts to annoy over time. The ridiculous car chase is where I gave up caring about any of it.

2½ phone calls out of 5

The Valley of Gwangi (1969)

A fantasy western that plays out like a cross between The Lost World (1912) novel and the King Kong (1933) film. Set in Mexico at the turn of the 20th Century it has a travelling Rodeo Show with a unique attraction, a semi-reprehensible leading man (James Franciscus) with an agenda, and a palaeontologist who's hungry for prestige. But best of all it has a 'forbidden valley' that has creatures not seen anywhere else for 50 million years.
I'm not automatically attracted to all things dinosaur, except when they're animated by Ray Harryhausen, like they are in Gwangi. He even succeeds in having us sympathise with the great beasts more than once.
It has some dodgy ADR in places, and characters in need of more depth, but visually it's a fun, fantastical adventure that speaks to the inner-child.

3 horse toes out of 5

The Viking Queen (1967)

Taking much of its inspiration from the folk hero Boudicca, Hammer Studio's story is set in Britain during the Roman occupation. The political sea change that's forced upon the country's native tribes results in an armed uprising led by Queen Salina, played by Finnish fashion model Carita Järvinen.
Amid the calls to war a romance blossoms, failing to add as much emotional conflict as it ought to have done. The blend of politics, religion, state, and family concerns is equally as underwhelming at times. I'm guessing the makers were aware of the failings, so added some side-boob to spice it up.
The exterior scenes feel authentic, whereas many of the interior scenes have the usual stage-like Hammer theatrics, the kind that I adore.

2½ blue bandits out of 5

Django, Prepare a Coffin (1968)

aka Viva Django

Dir. Ferdinando Baldi's film was set to have original Django Franco Nero return to the role, but then Nero went to Hollywood and the job went instead to Italian-born Terence Hill, who did a mighty fine job at filling in.
It's a story of multiple betrayals and, not surprisingly, some stolen gold. Ambushed and left for dead, Django bides his time until a deserved payback can be extracted. When it arrives it's not as bloody nor as good as the original, but it at least respects it and the music (by Gianfranco + Giampiero Reverberi) is top class. If the ADR had been up to the same standard, the unfortunate tension-killing lack of atmosphere elsewhere might've been avoided.

2½ walking dead men out of 5

Voices of a Distant Star (2003)

What VoaDS lacks in length it more than makes up for in content, specifically emotional content. It squeezes more lyrical beauty into its 25 minute running time than many full-length features can manage.
It's the story of Japanese high-school students Mikako and Noboru, distanced from each other but never far from one another's thoughts. Unfortunately, the gulf between them isn't just geographical, it's also temporal.
The character designs aren't as good as Dir. Makoto Shinkai's subsequent works, but the achingly beautiful backgrounds that he's known for are firmly in place, and the heartfelt simplicity that underpins everything else is as strong in its infancy as it ever became in later years. It's exquisite.

5 long-distance texts out of 5