Doctor Sleep (2019)

Decades after escaping the Overlook Hotel, Danny Torrence is still haunted by the memories, and spirits, of that evil place. To suppress them, and his psychic abilities, Danny has followed in his father’s footsteps by becoming an alcoholic. When he hits rock bottom, however, and is given the chance to redeem himself by working at a hospice, Danny takes it, using his “shine” to comfort dying patients in their last moments, earning the nickname, “Doctor Sleep.” He also begins communicating with Abra Stone, a young girl with abilities even stronger than his. Their joy won’t last long, however, since the True Knot, a group of people who eat those with the shining, have become aware of their presence, and are hunting them down. So now, to save Abra, Danny will have to lure the True Knot to the Overlook Hotel, and awaken it, and his own, suppressed demons. Will this desperate plan work? Watch the movie and find out.

Raving For Rian: Looper (2012)

 

In the future, Time Travel has been outlawed. The only people who use it are crime syndicates, as a means of getting rid of bodies. If the mob wants someone gone, they send them back to the present, and then a special assassin called a “Looper” kills them, and disposes of their corpse. The only rule of looping is that you never let your target escape, even if that target is yourself. So what will Joe, a selfish, drug-addicted Looper, do when his future self appears, and manages to escape hiss grasp? Hunt him down, and pray that he can kill the latter before he changes anything.

Raving For Rian: The Brothers Bloom (2009)

The Brothers Bloom are con men. They have been since they were children. Stephen, the elder, devises elaborate schemes to steal people’s money, while Bloom, the younger, earns the trust of their marks. At this point, they’re so successful that they’re world famous, and have a frequent accomplice, the stoic explosives expert Bang Bang. Despite all this, Bloom is tired of the con life, and wants to retire, but Stephen convinces him to stay on for one last job; the seduction and robbery of sheltered heiress Penelope Stamp. Bloom will befriend her, invite her on a cruise with him, and then trick her into giving away her fortune. But what will happen when Bloom actually winds up developing feelings for the highly quirky Penelope? Watch the movie and find out.

Raving For Rian: Brick (2005)

Welcome to Raving For Rian: a brief series of reviews I decided to write in preparation for the release of Rian Johnson’s new movie, Knives Out. Every day this week, leading up to the Thanksgiving premiere, I’ll be reviewing one of his movies. I covered his fourth flick, Star Wars: The Last Jedi, when it came out, and now I’m going all the way back to the beginning, to his directorial debut, Brick.

Parasite (2019)

The Kims are a family at the bottom rungs of society. Literally, since their shitty, one bedroom apartment is in a basement. They’re so poor that they have to use a neighbors fumigation to kill the cockroaches crawling over their belongings. They’re willing to do just about anything to get ahead, even if that means lying, and getting other people fired. Which is precisely what they wind up doing when the son gets an opportunity to act as a rich girl’s English tutor. He forges a university degree, and when the parents of  this girl like him, he’s able to find the rest of his relatives employment as the rich people’s art teacher, driver and maid, respectively. All is well, until they realize that the maid they got fired has been hiding something in the rich people’s basement, and that they just might have walked into something far more dangerous than they could have imagined.

First Love (2019)

When he’s diagnosed with a terminal brain tumor, orphaned boxer Leo finds himself without purpose. After visiting a fortune teller, who urges him to “fight for someone other than yourself,” Leo saves a young woman, Monica, from a man chasing her. What he doesn’t realize is that Monica, real name Yuri, is a prostitute, the man he punched, Otomo, is a corrupt cop, and that by saving the former, he’s unintentionally caught himself up in a large, extremely dangerous scheme involving stolen drugs, the yakuza, and a crazed female assassin. Now he and Monica must survive the night by avoiding the many parties coming after them. Will they? Watch the movie and find out.

A Cure For Wellness (2017)

When his superiors catch him stealing, ambitious banker William Lockhart is blackmailed into retrieving a colleague from a wellness center in Switzerland. The big shots explain that if the colleague in question, Mr. Pembroek, fails to take responsibility for the irregularities in their books, then not only will they be unable to perform a major merger, but they’ll all be up for criminal charges. So with no other options, Lockhart sets off for the Alps, eager to get back as soon as possible. But when he arrives at the wellness center, and begins interacting with the patients, he realizes that there’s something sinister going on, and that he might not be able to leave.

The Host (2006)

When a huge amount of formaldehyde is dumped down the drain, strange things start happening in Seoul’s Han River. First, all the fish in the area mysteriously die off. Next, pedestrians start noticing something big, and creepy, skulking below the surface. Then, after four years of waiting, a giant monster bursts from the water, eager to eat, and kidnap, humans. One of those taken is Park Hyun-Seo, the daughter of a neglectful Snack Shop Owner, who, with the help of his aging father, alcoholic brother, and athlete sister, sets out to bring her home. But things get complicated when the American military, the group responsible for creating the monster, block off the river, and release a poison, Agent Yellow, into the air. Will the Parks save their daughter in time? Well, you’ll just have to watch the movie to find out.

Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015)

Thirty years after the Empire’s defeat, Luke Skywalker has disappeared, and the galaxy faces a new threat; the First Order. (Well, okay, they’re not really a new threat, since they’re basically just the Empire’s leftovers, but whatever). The First Order wants to know where Luke is, and so they send goons after Resistance pilot Poe Dameron, who possesses a map to the legendary Jedi. Unbeknownst to Poe, however, one of the First ORder’s stormtroopers, Finn, has been having doubts, and so springs him out of captivity, and tries to get him and BB8, the droid in which the map is stored, away. Unfortunately, they crash on the desert planet Jaku, where they meet orphan scavenger Ray, who wants to help, and who may have powers she never knew were there.