This review was originally posted on Sunday, June 19, 2016. It has been updated to meet new blog formats and standards.

Rating: R

Runtime: 1 hour 37 minutes

Genre(s): Scifi, Thriller, Mystery

Released: February 22, 2005

Directed by: Ernie Barbarash

Written by: Ernie Barbarash

Starring: Zachary Bennett, Stephanie Moore, Martin Roach, Michael Riley

A young man whose job is to watch over the Cube endeavors to rescue an innocent woman trapped in one of its rooms. (via IMDB) This is a prequel to the 1997 film Cube.

Still, doesn't live up to the original, but it is much better than the sequel. The acting was better (still not great though) and it still had a made for tv feel. Seeing the other side of what was happening with the Cube was a very interesting idea but I feel like it was lacking and led to more questions than it answered.

Rating: ★★★★★★☆☆☆☆ 6/10

Should you watch it?

Sure 👍

This review was originally posted on Saturday, June18th, 2016. It has been updated to meet new blog formats and standards.

Rating: R

Runtime: 1 hour 34 minutes

Genre(s): Sci-fi, Horror, Thriller, Mystery

Released: April 15, 2003

Directed by: Andrzej Sekula

Written by: Sean Hood (story), Ernie Barbarash (screenplay), Lauren McLaughlin (screenplay)

Starring: Kari Matchett, Geraint Wyn Davies, Grace Lynn Kung, Matthew Ferguson

Eight strangers awaken with no memory and find themselves in a puzzling cube-shaped room where the laws of physics do not always apply. (via IMDB) This is a sequel to 1997's Cube.

This felt like a made for tv movie. The budget and acting quality were nowhere near the original film. The characters were not interesting and some did not even seem to be necessary at all. The amount of "horror" was very minimal and I would actually classify it as more sci-fi. The most interesting part of Hypercube was the ending.

Rating: ★★★★★☆☆☆☆☆5/10

Should you watch it? 

It's okay...mainly for completionists. 😕

This review was originally posted on Saturday, June 18th, 2016. It has been updated to meet new blog formats or standards.

Rating: R

Runtime: 1 hour 30 minutes

Genre(s): Horror, Sci-fi, Mystery

Released:  September 9th, 1997

Directed by: Vincenzo Natali

Written by: André Bijelic, Vincenzo Natali, Graeme Manson

Starring: Nicole de Boer, Nicky Guadagni, David Hewlett, Andrew Miller, Julian Richings, Wayne Robson, Maurice Dean Wint

Cube is a math-heavy horror flick that was released in 1997. Six individuals find themselves locked in a massive cube maze and attempt to find the way out using the power of math and boots.

Overall this is a rather enjoyable film. It has moments where it feels like it is taking itself way too seriously though. Over the course of the movie, you see some of the characters slowly become more and more paranoid and distressed. The true natures of these individuals are exposed. I think that except for some overacting this was wonderfully done. Maurice Dean Wint did a great job with Quentin.  My main problem (as spoiler-free as I can put it) is why did they wait so long? They were just asking for trouble. I have seen too many horror films to be tricked into thinking everything was going to be okay.

Rating: ★★★★★★★☆☆☆ 7/10 

Should you watch it? Yup! 👍

There is a recurring theme on this blog of me watching or reading things with absolutely no knowledge of said thing beforehand. I always mention how I need to stop doing that...and yet here we are again. Run Hide Fight has a lot of controversy surrounding it. It is a school shooting film, so that was to be expected, but from the company that owns the distribution rights to the people who made the film, it is all just a big 'ol mess. I debated whether or not to go into all this stuff. The intention was a quick movie review, not a full-on discussion about politics or people being awful. I do think that there are people who will want that information if they don't have it before watching this film. At the same time though, I also think that some, if not all, of the information, will prevent people from giving it a chance. However, I don't think I can review this film without adding this information for some context and it is an absolute shame because I did enjoy this movie. This is gonna be a long one folks...so if you have no interest in the background information, just scroll down until you see an image that says "review starts here".

This movie review contains spoilers. The background information contains mentions of sexual assault and harassment, animal cruelty, and violence. The film itself contains violence and is about a very sensitive topic. If these things are too upsetting for you to read about, please take care of your mental health and just skip this review.

Run Hide Fight made its premiere at the Venice Film Festival on September 10th, 2020. The Daily Wire bought the distribution rights for the film in The United States and premiered it on their streaming service on January 14th, 2021. 

For those who are unaware, The Daily Wire is a conservative news and media company based in Nashville, Tennessee. It was founded in 2015 by Ben Shapiro and Jeremy Boreing. Before premiering the film on their platform, it was announced in January 2021 that The Daily Wire would begin developing films and tv shows to provide conservatives an alternative to the "leftist" culture that is promoted elsewhere. Run Hide Fight, is their first offering, even though the film was completed before the company became involved. After The Daily Wire acquired American distribution rights, assistant director Cristen Haynes requested for her name to be removed from the film's credits.

From The Daily Beast

“Is there a way to remove your name from a crew list?” asks Cristen Leah Haynes, the film’s additional second assistant director. “If I’d known… I’ve never wanted to take my name off of a project more.”

Run Hide Fight was produced by Bonfire Legend, which was founded by Dallas Sonnier. Sonnier is most known as the guy who started Cinestate (known for low-budget horror films such as 2019's Satanic Panic) and for publishing Fangoria from 2018 to 2020. I had trouble finding information since Bonfire Legend is so new, but it seems it is just a rebranding of Cinestate. The reason for this rebranding seems to be due to one of their main film producers, Adam Donaghey, who was arrested in 2020 for suspicion of sexual assault and the fallout that came after.

From  Dmagazine.com

"Donaghey’s subsequent arrest on a charge of sexual assault of a child exposed an open secret in the Dallas film community. Sonnier and others had for years downplayed Donaghey’s behavior. There was an audio recording of Donaghey attempting to solicit sexual favors from a crew member of a film he worked on in 2014; the recording had circulated in the local film community."

"After Donaghey’s arrest, further allegations against Cinestate surfaced on social media and in the press. There were stories about sexual misconduct on multiple productions—a female star having to perform sex scenes with a friend of one of the movie’s producers who was subbed into the shoot at the last minute, a male star harassing women in the makeup trailer, an extra being groped on set. And there were allegations of dangerous conditions on Cinestate’s shoots, the most serious of which involved the production of VFW in 2019, when extras claimed they were beaten and bloodied by star actors while shooting the film’s fight scenes. "

From The Daily Beast

"Donaghey served as executive producer of Run Hide Fight, although the credit has since been removed from the film’s publicity materials and its IMDb page."

Run Hide Fight begins with a scene showing a father teaching his daughter how to hunt. 

From Dallas Observer

"The movie doesn't have the usual "No animals were harmed in the making of this film" reminder at the end of its closing credits because the movie's producers arranged for a professional hunter to kill the animal so they could film it, according to several people who worked on the film."

 "Dallas Sonnier, the founder of Bonfire Legend and Cinestate who produced Run Hide Fight, confirmed the deer was shot on camera and notes that all proper precautions were taken and hunting regulations were followed. The deer was killed in October 2019 on private property in Red Oak under the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department's Managed Lands Deer Program (MLDP), a permitted hunting program that allows landowners to shoot deer foraging on their property for harvesting or conservation purposes. "

The knowledge of this caused another crew member, Traci Murdock, to make a request not to be included in the film's credits.

From Dallas Observer

"I'm not sure I want my credit on it because I don't want any perception of that at all for, A, moral reasons and, B, it's not something you do in the industry," Murdock says. "You know the tagline, 'No animals were harmed?' Everybody goes by that even if you don't have that tagline on the movie. You can't even have animals giving birth. You can't show bulls getting their ears tagged. That kind of stuff is not done. The standard is you're not supposed to kill something, period."

Now we can begin the review...

Run Hide Fight is a strange one, especially when you know all the stuff mentioned above. We follow the main character, seventeen-year-old Zoe Hull, played by Isabel May, as she goes to school on student prank day. These pranks fall heavily into the stereotypical and not at all realistic cliche that 40+-year-olds keep writing for some reason. During lunch, Zoe has an argument with her friend Lewis, played by Olly Sholotan, that results in a drink accidentally spilling on her jacket. She leaves to the bathroom to clean it off, and while doing so has an interaction with someone we later find out is one of the shooters. Before she is able to return to the cafeteria, three other shooters use a van to storm in through the windows. Instead of going on a shooting spree, like you would expect of this type of movie, they take everyone that didn't get run over or shot in the initial chaos as hostages. First Zoe runs, then she hides, then she escapes (yup)....and then she goes back into the school to fight (...yup). OH, and the only people that know anything is wrong are the people in the cafeteria. Throughout the rest of the school, classes are going along normally. No one heard the crash of the van driving in, no one heard the screams, and no one heard the gunshots. One could possibly argue that although they heard everything, they just assumed it was a prank....but...in this day and age? Really? 

Anyway, we have four attackers in this film. The leader of the group is Tristan Voy, played by Eli Brown. His motivations for this attack on his school are never really explained. At one point he mentions the fame (or infamy) and another that he just likes to be the absolute best at everything. The way he walks and explains things basically makes him a cheap Joker character. There is also Chris and Anna Jelick, played by Britton Sear and Catherine Davis. Both are apparently in a romantic relationship with Tristan. Chris was given the mental health cliche and is seen talking to "something" several times. As for Anna, you obviously can't have Joker without Harley Quinn right? Dressed in the typical goth/emo style and with a major chip on her shoulder, she does most of the recon for the group. Then there's Kip Quade, played by Cyrus Arnold. He's the stereotypical quiet nerd who has been bullied most of his life. His reason for helping Tristan, Chris, and Anna is because, in elementary school, someone pulled down his pants in front of everyone. He's been paranoid about people laughing around him ever since.

It's the vents for both of you!

Now, I don't want to spoil the entire film just in case someone reading this does decide to watch it. The most common way people have described Run Hide Fight is this: Die Hard in high school. If you ignore all the politics and the fact that school shootings happen regularly here in the United States, and instead just think of it as an action thriller, it's a decent and entertaining film. The acting is great. The cinematography...great. The writing is awful...but the cast makes it work (mostly). People are dying and being traumatized, but no one curses in the entire film. They do have a moment of pointless female nudity though, so the conservative stance has become even more confusing for me. F-bombs? absolutely not...that's dirty. Forcing a woman to take off her shirt so you can see her boobs? Totally okay. The story itself is completely unrealistic. The amount of planning involved, the number of shooters involved, the lack of competence by all the adults.... it's all nonsense. Coming from a pro-gun point of view (based on the people and companies involved) you would assume it to be some sort of propaganda...and I think it tries...but just falls flat.

From iilluminaughtii's review

"It's like the shooter's entire motivation is to prove that the school can't help you, not without a good guy with a gun, like Zoe."

Examples of this come mostly from our main villain, Tristan. Upon exiting the van after ramming it into the cafeteria, he proceeds to say "trigger warning". He also later mentions something about "the wall"  (yeah...Trump's) among other things that instead of making him seem like an edgy, woke leftist....just make him sound like a conservative. I'm sure this definitely wasn't the intention though. The only obviously LGBTQ+ characters...are villains (trademark conservatism there my friends). The goth/emo girl...villain. The nerd Kip is given a chance to redeem himself so that just makes me think that maybe that's the character the writer identified with the most. There is no empathy in this movie and it is hard to ignore how insensitive it is to actual survivors of these tragedies (no surprise there though). I do, however, think that the way they called out the media and the way we publicize how police and schools are meant to react in an active shooter situation was done pretty well. The more details a potential shooter has about what doors are locked, who is where, the chain of command...etc...the easier it makes things for them. The instantaneous live feeds that the media manages to get showing live in these events are just as disrespectful as the people saying the events are false flags. You can tell the news and keep people updated without showing and taking advantage of the trauma unfolding.

It is funny...I keep mentioning how I enjoyed this film but the majority of what I have to say is ripping it apart. Is this something that would make it in the mainstream? Absolutely not. Hollywood doesn't like tackling the subject of school shootings unless it is showing the aftermath (ex. We Need To Talk About Kevin). As I mentioned in my book review for If I Don't Make It, I Love You by Amye Archer and Loren Kleinman, I have had a morbid interest in these tragedies since I was a kid. That's what drew my interest to Run Hide Fight. It is not the first movie or documentary on this topic that I have watched and it won't be the last.  Have I ever seen a film take on the subject the way this one does? No. So in that sense, you could think of it as being somewhat refreshing...but again, you have to be completely closed off to real-world events to be comfortable saying that. This movie has inspired me to consider dusting off my collection (yes...I know it's weird) of movies like this so that I can compare them with refreshed memories. If I post a list featuring school shooting films (and which ones are worth watching) sometime soon....this is the cause. 

Rob @Stoned Gremlin Productions

"There's a decent movie trying to claw its way out of this mess."

Rating: ★★★★★★☆☆☆☆ 6/10

Film Information: IMDB, Rotten Tomatoes, Meta Critic

The style of this review ended up being a little different than what I normally do. I have used many more quotes and sources and did a ton more research compared to most of my other reviews. I really thought before watching Run Hide Fight that I would be able to just watch, write a quick review and then move on to the ARC I need to read. However, the reality is that I ended up with pages of notes, way too many tabs open in my browser, and several bookmarks that I'm going to have to clear out, now that this is done.  I would also like to quickly note that based on the reviews given by members of the conservative demographic this film was targeted at, it has been received very well, at one point having an 8+ star rating on IMDB. 

While doing the research to find out about the mess behind this movie, I came across a few other reviews on youtube that I found to be very well thought out and I would like to share those now, even though 2/3 are negative reviews.

Ben Shapiro's School Shooter Movie That No One Wanted by iilluminaughtii

Run Hide Fight, Looking at The Daily Wire's First Movie by Jose

Run Hide Fight - Midnight Screenings Review by Stoned Gremlins Productions

I would also recommend that anyone wanting to know more about all of the scandals and controversies surrounding this film check out the following:

From The Daily Beast:

The Ugly Backstory of Ben Shapiro’s First Movie ‘Run Hide Fight’

How a Right-Wing Movie Studio Enabled the ‘Harvey Weinstein’ of Indie Film

From Dallas Observer:

Did Bonfire Legend Go Too Far by Shooting a Live Deer for Run Hide Fight?

From DMagazine.com:

Cinestate’s #MeToo Scandal and the Upheaval of the Dallas Film Scene

If you made it all the way down here...you are a champ. Thank you for taking the time to read this review. 🥰

I originally read Axiom's End shortly after it was released when I noticed it in my local library's "new" section. I follow Lindsay on Youtube, so I was looking forward to reading her debut novel even though I had no idea what it was going to be about. I love science fiction, so I got even more excited when I started reading it and realized it was a first contact novel. I usually read about people in space, and have little experience reading first contact sci-fi. This is definitely a really good intro to the sub-genre since it is very light and easily digestible. Although it is an adult novel, I could easily see it mistaken as a young adult book.

Axiom's End takes place on Earth back in 2007. It is an alternative timeline novel, so the world-building is basically already there if you were alive back then. I remember being in my final year of high school in 2007, so it was very easy for me to picture the world as it was back then. Throughout the book, we get little excerpts from the news and Nils Ortega, the whistleblower father of the main character, Cora Sabino. I can't decide if I liked this addition or not. It adds additional information to the story, but it also feels irrelevant at times. If they had not been included, it would not have harmed the story (with one or two exceptions). I do wonder if this will become more important in the rest of the Noumena series.

This book has several characters, both human and alien. The humans are not very interesting. The main human in Axiom's End is Cora Sabino. She is the daughter of Nils Ortega and Demi Sabino. She has two siblings, Felix and Olive, and two dogs, Thor and Monster Truck. Her paternal aunt is Luciana Ortega, a former employee of ROSA (Refugee Organizational and Settlement Agency). Demi is your typical frustrated single mother and Felix and Olive don't get much attention in the book. Nils comes off as a narcissistic asshole. Luciana is somewhat interesting, given her background and nerdy personality, but we don't spend much time with her, and when we do... it's very meh. Cora is whiny, annoying, impulsive, immature, and somehow painfully realistic. She low-key kinda reminds me of Bella Swan, and while reading I felt like I was crazy. I am glad to find out after reading several reviews I wasn't the only one who felt that way. 

I really enjoyed the aliens in this book and would love to have a book just with them and their interactions with each other. I found their story and backgrounds to be super interesting. I want more! The interactions between humans and aliens were also written very well. Lindsay did a great job with how she described the appearance of the Pequads which made it very easy for me to picture them in my head. Then, she managed to make these monstrous-sounding creatures....well...feel human. 

My biggest issue with Axiom's End was the pacing. It starts off solid and then wanes somewhere in the middle before taking off at a rapid pace. I've not seen anyone else complain about pacing, so this may just be a me thing. I read this book twice and the sessions of reading went exactly the same. Overall, it honestly feels a little bland if you are not new to sci-fi. I am hoping this is just a first novel in a series problem that many series tend to struggle with. Ultimately though, I think Axiom's End is a solid debut novel and I will be reading and reviewing book two soon.

Rating:  ★★★☆☆ 3/5

Book Information: Goodreads, Amazon, Barnes&Noble, Abebooks, Findbookprices

Lindsay Ellis: Goodreads, Youtube, Instagram, Official Site

This post was originally posted on Saturday, February 16th, 2016. It has been updated to meet new blog formats or standards.

The year is 2575, and two rival megacorporations are at war over a planet that’s little more than an ice-covered speck at the edge of the universe. Too bad nobody thought to warn the people living on it. With enemy fire raining down on them, Kady and Ezra—who are barely even talking to each other—are forced to fight their way onto an evacuating fleet, with an enemy warship in hot pursuit.

But their problems are just getting started. A deadly plague has broken out and is mutating, with terrifying results; the fleet's AI, which should be protecting them, may actually be their enemy; and nobody in charge will say what’s really going on. As Kady hacks into a tangled web of data to find the truth, it's clear only one person can help her bring it all to light: the ex-boyfriend she swore she'd never speak to again. (Goodreads)

After surviving an attack by a harpy and making a new best friend, life seems to be going well for Evie. However, when Veronica, her nemesis from her old school, joins Wyndemere Elementary, things suddenly change. Faced with a competition that will affect all witches, will Evie be able to keep her cool and win or will she let the green monster of jealousy get the best of her?

Secret Magic: Evie Everyday Witch #1 is a super cute book about being careful what you wish for. All Evie wants is to be "normal". After she and her parents move to a new "normal" town, she finally gets the opportunity. However, this wish will come at a price. Will Evie discover the truth behind what is happening in Wyndemere or will she be too blinded by the need to fit in?

It has become an annual tradition for me to list off my favorites in various categories at the beginning of each new year. 2020 was a weird year for everyone. For me, it changed and delayed many of my normal media consumption habits. Depression settled in and kept me company for the majority of the year. I got behind (or just plain missed) so many things that I normally love. This year there will be no overview of the films I watched. I only watched 65 movies...only one or two new to me. I normally struggle to reduce my list of favorite songs...not for 2020. My main method of escapism was through books...so if anything, that list has been made more difficult. This is where we will start.