First Time Watches: December 2018

It has been over a year since I watched these movies, so my memory might be a little foggy. I’ve seen a lot of movies since then, so things might get jumbled. I’m still going to try and get this done. I’m going to write about the movies I watched for the first time that month and you’ll be able to get my thoughts if you didn’t already get them from any of my other outlets.

This post will be going over the movies I watched in December 2018. That’s fifteen months ago at the time of this writing. Like I said, over a year. There were fourteen films that got a first time watch, ranging through a good deal of different genres. Christmas movies were in there, but there was also a Christian film sequel, a weird Nic Cage movie, a few action movies, a Greg Sestero double feature, and a coming of age tale. It was a packed month. Let’s get into it, shall we?

The Christmas Chronicles

Netflix released this Kurt Russell vehicle about a couple kids who tried to catch Santa, only to end up helping him salvage the holiday when his sleigh malfunctioned. For people who like Kurt Russell, they’ll get what they want. He was a charismatic Santa Claus who charmed anyone who came near him. He performed an Elvis Presley Christmas tune while in jail. Aside from his performance, and a nice cameo to close the story out, the movie felt empty. That’s pretty fitting, considering the Chicago that the movie was set in was also empty. It was okay but didn’t bring as much joy as Netflix had hoped.

Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse

This was a great way to celebrate the legacy of a character while also managing to tell a captivating, new story. Miles Morales took the lead role in a movie that had many, many different Spider heroes. Each of the individual heroes were memorable and delightful on screen, while the villains were just as interesting to watch. It felt like a comic come to life in all the best ways. It might have been too soon to say at the time, but it’s been over a year now, so I’ll say it. This might be the best Spider-Man movie thus far.

The Final Sacrifice

Independent Canadian cinema came to my eyes in December 2018. Tjardus Greidanus directed a movie about a boy and a drifter fighting against a cult that wanted to find an ancient idol that would bring back a lost city. There were some fun moments and some hilariously bad moments. The best part, though, was Bruce J. Mitchell’s character. His name was Zap Rowsdower, which is just a great action hero name. That was worth the price of watching the movie alone.

Holiday Spin

The Step Up movies are probably the most famous dance movies out there. Each one, after the first one, is basically summed up as “Person stands up to bully through dancing with their friends, while falling in love.” Holiday Spin fit right into that model, though on the budget of a Hallmark movie, since it was a Hallmark movie. Ralph Macchio showed up, which was an interesting casting choice. Other than that, there really wasn’t anything of note in the movie. Oh, wait, the main character was an MMA fighter who was chilling out his anger through dance. There was that added bit. It’s nothing special, outside of an insane fight scene.

Mandy

Nicolas Cage went full Cage. The cinematography and score were both great, and it’s always entertaining to see an unhinged Nicolas Cage. When it’s a full movie of unhinged Cage, though, it can get a little tiresome. If you’re going to watch anything from Mandy, it’s worth finding the bathroom scene. That scene was as unhinged as Nicolas Cage could possibly be. He wasn’t wearing pants and spent a whole minute screaming while drinking directly from a liquor bottle. I know there are people who will love this one. I got tired of it. I wanted to like it more and might on a rewatch.

Best F(r)iends Vol. 1

There’s a little bit of a story to this one. The two parts were playing in Toronto, so me and three other friends made the trek over there to see it. In attendance was Greg Sestero. He helped put the movies together to reunite him, on screen, with Tommy Wiseau. I got to meet him and got a picture with him. He also signed my copy of The Disaster Artist, the book he wrote. Anyway, the first movie was okay. It was trying to go for a darkly comedic noir and didn’t quite get there. It was definitely worth the watch for any fan of The Room, though.

Best F(r)iends Vol. 2

Between the two volumes of Best F(r)iends, there was a Q&A. Then the second film started. It was an improvement over the first, finding the right tone. It also had a solid supporting role by Rick Edwards. That guy only has a handful of acting credits to his name, but he really deserves more. He brought his all to this role and it was a delight to watch him. There was a lot less Tommy Wiseau in the second one, which could have also helped. The tone wasn’t thrown by his odd presence. I would go back and revisit both movies just to watch this second part again.

El Camino Christmas

A bunch of people were barricaded in a liquor store as one man tried to meet the father he never knew. The cast was interesting. The story unfolded like a bunch of people getting into a bad situation, trying to figure out how to get out, and only getting in deeper. There were some funny moments, but overall, it didn’t leave too much of an impression. I’ll probably never go back to it. However, if you’re looking for something you haven’t seen to watch during the Christmas season, you could do much worse than this.

Eighth Grade

Bo Burnham knocked it out of the park with his directorial debut. He gave audiences a coming-of-age story about an eighth grade girl and it was as heartwarming as it was awkward. He was able to build a special connection between the audience and the main character that isn’t normally there for characters who haven’t yet reached high school. You could feel for everything she was going through. It felt true to childhood. There’s something special about this movie.

New Year’s Evil

In the wake of Black Christmas and Halloween, there were a bunch of slasher movies that tried to capitalize on the holiday killing craze. There were a bunch of Christmas ones, some April Fool’s Day ones, and even a Valentine’s Day slasher. New Year’s Evil was set on New Year’s Eve, obviously, as a killer murdered people when the clock struck midnight in each American time zone. Some of the kills were entertaining, and there was some raucous punk music driving the pace up. It was a fun one, though not the most well put together.

Rampage

Dwayne Johnson reunited with Brad Peyton, who had directed Journey 2: The Mysterious Island and San Andreas, for this movie based on the video game of the same name. It was alright. The characters and the performances were good. The horrible CGI action was not. It was the good and the bad fighting against each other, leading to one of the most middle-of-the-road action movies to come from the Dwayne Johnson assembly line. It’s not one that I’m hoping to revisit anytime soon.

Road to Revenge

When you think of the best bad, low-budget action movies out there, a few names come to mind. Samurai Cop. Miami Connection. most of Chuck Norris’s career. Road to Revenge should be tossed into that bunch as well. Also known as GetEven, the movie starred John De Hart, who was also the writer, director, composer, and producer. It’s about a former cop turned vigilante taking down a satanic cult. There are random sex scenes and terrible performances. It’s everything you could want from a movie of this caliber. Check out the Shimmy Shake sometime.

God’s Not Dead: A Light in Darkness

Surprise, surprise. I enjoyed this one. The third installment in the God’s Not Dead franchise did something that the previous two outings didn’t. It made every belief system equal. God’s Not Dead was about the unfair persecution of Christians and how they should be able to believe and push their beliefs on others. The second one was simply about how Christians weren’t allowed to talk about Christianity and they should be able to. Both of those made the Christians the victims. The third movie had a message about Christians being victims, as well, but that got flipped on its head by the end. The pastor who was fighting realized that he needed to compromise with people who didn’t believe in Christianity. There needed to be space for everyone to believe what they wanted. I enjoyed that a Christian film decided to not be all about how people should be Christian. I also enjoy David A.R. White, regardless of the overall quality of most movies he makes.

12 Strong

Horse soldiers! Good cast but easily forgettable. There was some solid action through the movie as it showed the early days of the war in Afghanistan. There’s not too much more to say about it. I’m more than a year out from watching it, so when I say it’s forgettable, I mean to say I’ve forgotten most of it.

And that brought a close to December 2018 and 2018 as a whole. It wasn’t a bad month. There were a variety of genres. There were a variety of release years. Fourteen movies and I got to check out a lot of different things. I thought it was a good month. I hope you did too.

The month after that was even better. I kicked it off with a Jon Favreau classic and wrapped it up with a foreign kids movie. We’ll get to that in the next post, which shouldn’t come out too long after this. With the pandemic and the isolation and all, I’ll probably end up writing more than I usually do. I might finally get caught up with some of the stuff I’ve been putting aside. We’ll see.

Before I go, I just want to put a few plugs at the end here. Check out the Sunday “Bad” Movies blog, as well as the Twitter and the Instagram. Take a look at my writing on Mighty Morphin Power Rangers. You can check out my normal Twitter too. While you’re at it, check out Jaime Burchardt. He’s a good guy. And check out Talk Film Society. They had a recent post about Ben Solo. Give that a look see then come back here for whatever post I put up next. Thanks. Have a good one.