RRR - Randall's Review Room

"Marcel The Shell With Shoes On" Where I watched it: Amazon Prime In this adorable mockumentary we follow a young shell named Marcel who wears shoes, has a face and can talk.   Marcel lives in an airbnb with his grandmother Connie (voiced by Isabella Rosellini). Staying at the airbnb is the actual writer/director of the film, Dean Fleischer Camp. In the film he plays an amateur documentarian and upon finding Marcel, decides to make a movie about him and his search for the rest of his family who were displaced after the previous residents of the house moved out. Marcel is a pure, kind hearted shell, full of innocence and child-like wonder. Marcel ends up gaining a following after his videos go viral on the internet, putting him in both an advantageous position of locating his family as well as having to deal with nerve-racking fame and attention. The film is full of emotion as we observe Marcel living his life while dealing with the challenges of being a shell and caring for h...

"Return to Oz" Where I watched it: Disney+ Bonkers. Absolutely bonkers. And ballsy.   Imagine the person that approached the Disney execs and was like, "Hey I got an idea for a Wizard of Oz sequel... it starts with Dorothy getting electroshock therapy!" Then the execs are like, "Ok... hardcore... but... let's go with it... tell us, at what point do we meet the Lion, Tin Man and Scarecrow?" To which the lunatic that conceived this movie says, "Well, they've all been turned to stone and won't be in the movie until the last 2 minutes... instead we will have a post-apocalyptic Emerald City where its only inhabitants are a gang of creepy punks with wheels for hands and feet... oh and they take orders from a woman who has beheaded the local women and keeps their severed heads in glass cabinets which she takes out and wears on her own headless body from time to time." The Disney execs proceed to wipe the sweat from their brows with hundred d...

The Nine Kittens of Christmas" and H2 Craft Spirits Fire & Spice Cinnamon Whisky. I wasn't sure what to expect going in as generally these kind of things tend to leave a bad taste in my mouth... But this was truly an excellent twist on something we're all familiar with. It's perfect for the holidays but also really any time of the year. I can honestly say that it was sweet and warmed not just my heart but my whole body. If you are looking for the "spirit" of Christmas, look no further. Mighty fine whisky. Now for the movie. Absolute garbage salvaged only by the fact that there are 9 super cute kittens. Brandon Routh has fallen so far down the ladder... I mean this guy was Superman at one point (they actually make a reference to that in the movie).   Having now seen 3 Hallmark movies, I would say this was the most professional looking of the bunch but it still had all the fixtures of the Hallmark template: Baking, animals and rekindled romance. It actually...

"Hocus Pocus 2" We live in a world where nothing is new, nothing is sacred and nothing ever ends. "Hocus Pocus 2" is about a giant space leech that feeds on a resource in the human brain known as "nostalgia." The leech latches on to its victims' skulls and with a sharp straw-like appendage it bores a hole directly into its host's brain. Much like the baleen of a whale, the leech is able to select what information it requires for its own nourishment while retaining select brain matter within the host. At the same time, the leech injects its host with a heavy dose of dopamine and serotonin giving its victim a false sense of joy and happiness while it eventually removes all critical thought and individuality from the host leaving behind a hollow husk which is then used to house and gestate approximately 10 thousand new baby Disney mice... I mean space leeches. 4/10

"Jurassic World: Dominion" Where I watched it: On the plane (Westjet In-Flight entertainment app) In this latest entry into a franchise that should have died out like the dinosaurs years ago, we have what might be the most incomprehensible film ever made. That being said... it wasn't as bad as everyone's making it out to be. At least not to me, gosh darn it. This movie franchise clearly went off the rails some time ago so I don't know why people expect it to not be sucky. "The Lost World" was a huge departure from what the first Jurassic Park movie accomplished and looking back I think I can say without a doubt that it's the best sequel in the series. In the 3rd Jurassic Park it was far fetched to see Alan Grant communicating with the Raptors by blowing into a replicated voice box... but Owen Grady took this ridiculousness to a whole new level in the Jurassic World series. Not only do Raptors not attack this man but he can control them with a simple ...

"Metal Lords" Where I streamed it: Netflix From the producers of Game of Thrones and Harold and Kumar. Let's just get right to it. This movie sucks. It's a kids movie that's made for adults and it feels like it was written by a bot that did a quick internet search for "metal music." Less than 10 minutes in I was like "this definitely was written by someone that doesn't know anything about metal." Then I find out it's co-produced by Tom Morello of Rage Against The Machine. Baffling. I feel like the name and the poster are trying to leech off of Lords of Chaos with the corpse paint and whatnot but it doesn't really touch on black metal, just the big well known classics like Judas Priest, Maiden and Metallica (ugh puke). There's actually a bit in the movie where the one kid shows the other kid a snippet of black metal and he's like "ughh why would I want to make music that sounds like people being tortured?" Life is t...

"The River Wild" Where I streamed it: "The Hollywood Suite" via Prime. "The River Wild" is about a family that gets stuck on a raft with a couple of bank robbers. Not only is this movie made by the director of 8 Mile but it also has an all-star cast of 90s Meryl Streep, 90s Kevin Bacon, 90s John C. Reilly, the kid from Jurassic Park and the most forgettable face in cinema, David Starthairn. The film takes a while to get going but once it does... IT'S PURE TENSION AND EXHILARATING WHITE WATER RAFTING UNDER EXTREME DURESS. However, it is not without flaws. There's some pretty stupid stuff going on here. For example (mild spoilers... doesn't really matter): David Strathairn's character is able to sprint non-stop over 2 mountains, then make his way down the river to get ahead of the boat that initially left him behind in the river and still have time to set up the most elaborately underwhelming booby trap ever. Not only is this unhumanly possib...