I found out there was a 2015 movie called DANCIN’ – IT’S ON!, so obviously I had to see it. Primarily for the title, secondarily due to my affection for modern dance-off movies, thirdarily because it co-stars Gary Daniels (FIST OF THE NORTH STAR) and is co-written by David A. Prior (KILLER WORKOUT). I’m happy to say that it lives up to the goofiness you’d hope for from that combination of factors and is also more interesting than expected.
My favorites of the genre are STEP UP 2 THE STREETS and STEP UP 3, both directed by Jon M. Chu. Those have just the right mix of ludicrousness and actual style, cleverness and dancing. At times there could be debate about how much you’re laughing with it and how much you’re laughing at it, but it doesn’t really matter because you get caught up in the whole joyous spirit of the thing. DANCIN’ – IT’S ON! is definitely a cheaper, less cool and less competent version of that type of experience, with a cast made up of So You Think You Can Dance contestants, most of whom have not acted before or since, and give some very stiff line readings. But all of those things, combined with an element of sincerity I’ll get into later, make it a really fun time.
(read the rest of this shit…)
If DRACULA UNTOLD isn’t forgotten, then it’s kind of notorious. From what I remembered it was the start of the Dark Universe, the planned shared universe of action-oriented Universal Monster reboots. The public scoffed at that whole idea, then everybody (besides me) hated 
I watched EMILIA PÉREZ before the Golden Globes, because it was the movie with the most nominations. I figured that was a Globes-specific Netflix-is-good-at-marketing situation, because I’d only ever seen it trashed online, and not a single non-critic I talked to had even heard of it, even though it had been available on Netflix for months. But this morning the Oscar nominations were announced and it’s in the lead with 13 nominations, tying 
WOLF MAN is an event not just because it’s a new wolf man but because it’s the fourth movie directed by Leigh Whannell, the last two being 
I watched the 2023 Canadian film RED ROOMS (Les chambres rouges) on Shudder, but come to think of it it’s not exactly a horror movie. It’s kind of more harsh than that. It’ an extremely unsettling character drama, maybe a thriller, about the trial of a man accused of horrific child murders live on webcam. We thankfully don’t have to see any of the violence, but the images created in our mind are worse, described with a true crime bluntness rather than genre flair. I would not say this is a fun movie.
FLOW (Straume) is another one of those animated features I ask for sometimes, the type that respects the medium enough to do something one-of-a-kind instead of just making up some cartoon guys and grafting them onto one of the handful of available formulas. This one is from Latvia but there’s no dubbed vs. subtitled issue because (hey, kinda like 
I checked around, and unless somebody’s lying to me it seems nobody asked for there to be a straight-to-Paramount+ prequel to 
BETTER MAN is a musical biopic of Robbie Williams that came out last week, but 
The original 2022 Danish film 
