ONE MORE SHOT (2025)

 

Directed By: Nicole Clifford

Written By: Alice Fulcher and Gregory Erdstein

Based on a Story by: Heather Wilson

Cinematography: Simon Ozolins

Editor: Julie-Anne De Ruvo

Cast: Emily Browning, Aisha Dee, Sean Keenan, Ashley Zuckerman, Pallavi Sharda, Hamish Michael, Anna McGahan, Contessa Treffone

New Year’s Eve 1999. Minnie discovers a bottle of Time Traveling Tequila. Each shot takes her back to the start of the night, giving her a bottle’s worth of shots to change the course of her millennium.

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This movie takes the familiar groundhog‘s Day formula and places it on a single nurse reuniting with college friends in 1999 when it’s about to become the year 2000 and thanks to a magical tequila which when she takes a shot of brings her back to the exact moment that she arrives at the party she tries to get it right each time to have a successful romantic reunion with her ex

The film follows the formula of each time things going drastically wrong and throughout the film learning it’s less about her and more about the relationships and people surrounding her. That makes for many times when you think the main character is finally going to learn their lesson and move on, but then still keeps making the same mistakes just in different ways that by the third act and there is a little surprise as we find out, she might not be the only one who is having or has had this experience

The cast is committed to the material. It’s just one wishes the material was a little bit richer as the film should somewhat being ensemble, but it seems to only remember this when it comes to the third act before that is pretty much a one-woman show for lead. Emily Browning, who I am a fan of and finally gets a chance to shine in lighter material than she is usually in

Going for the more traditional romantic comedy and then just general comedy that does have a few Macabre moments. That is much darker than the usual GROUNDHOG DAY plot devices.

It’s just that the film is never quite funny enough nor compelling enough so that it comes across as only OK even with its familiar material. it remains entertaining enough and what help salad is that there isn’t any big comedian in the film so you don’t have to watch their so-called stick it’s more just actors which makes it a little more believable no matter how silly they might get.

Though at times it feels like it’s Stretching to fit in some more comedy at times when the Main character makes truly baffling decisions. 

The film for all its cynical beginnings develops a heart throughout which then kind of cancels the first half though it might be the film and filmmaker trying to show not only the growth of characters, but also the growth of material and the film maturing. 

It seems set in the millennium just for the soundtracks sake which it doesn’t do much with and maybe to keep cellphones out of the equation and explain certain costume choices,but other then that could have stayed modern.

Let though it’s entertaining enough and a good time waster if you do want to check it out and it’s fine for what it is. The draw here is Emily Browning

Grade: C 

MONICA (2022)

 

Directed By: Andrea Pallaoro

Written By: Andrea Pallaoro and Orlando Tirado

Cinematography: Katelin Arizmendi 

Editor: Paola Freddi

Cast: Trace Lysette, Patricia Clarkson, Joshua Close, Adriana Barraza, Emily Browning, Bobby Easley

The intimate portrait of a woman who returns home to care for her dying mother. A delicate and nuanced story of a fractured family, the story explores universal themes of abandonment, aging, acceptance, and redemption.

This is a slow, strong, subtle-moving film. 

As we watch the pain, the main character goes through taking care of a mother who doesn’t remember who she is especially after she changes her sex. 

There is a lot said in the silence of this film that we are left to read into, guess, and infer. No, they clearly speak loud and clear even when subtle.

There are a lot of close-ups that reflect a familiar distance between the characters that keeps them apart or at a certain length as we can quite see them fully and framed, in quite a few scenes.

Most of the characters are seen at odd angles and revealed slowly and only important to the character of Monica and the story

Trace Lysette as the title character is the only one always in focus and fully framed. She is beautiful and penetrating in a powerful performance, full of anger, sadness, and ultimately confidence.

I will admit, I have followed Trace Lysette career for a while, and online, and admit, I am a fan so getting to see her starring in a film and knock it out of the park. Also getting to be luminous brave strong, a little romantic at first victim, standing her ground and becoming a winner.

We see the pain of her having to watch her mother deteriorate and also lavish, loving feelings on her brother about family and how it’s important hello even though her mother gave her up to a certain extent. While she is there and not recognized and is being treated like a stranger, which seems to be a special kind of torture, especially when caring for a loved one. 

Helping support is a kind of adversary that she keeps trying to please or find a connection with or hopes to start reconnecting with. Revealing herself to a family and a new identity, but with the same old history between them.

Like the title, the film stays tightly focused on her never really allowing that much room for other characters or quite a bigger picture.

It seems that throughout this film. When it rains it pours before Monica as bad things just keep seeming to happen one after the other. 

Rejected by an ex Who constantly keeps trying to reach out to she’s desperate to find connections when her family seems not able to. She even has a one-night stand with a rather random male just to feel some pleasure and have someone care and desire her. The character is not sexless. 

Patricia Clarkson plays the slowly dying mother, and she is good here as she’s always been a good actress but never gets enough credit or work.

The second half is more like all the characters getting to know each other and the family more.

For some reason, the film reminds me of a Bon Iver album, peaceful with some sharp notes with a certain calm that occasionally gets disrupted by reality and time. Though for the most part stays in Its own place.  Does the film never feel like it’s a conventional movie or like anyone is truly acting.

The film dives into the depths of the agony of losing a parent, especially the second time as the first time you were banished and abandoned.

The film ends up being a character about facing the past and informing the present. As you fall in love with the family as well as her the character who is quite the bombshell, but whose emotions or emotional landscape might seem closed at first, but is always open. I can’t say this is enough Ms. Lysette is definitely a star.

 this film is quite personal in its material and effective 

Grade: B

GOLDEN EXITS (2018)

Written & Directed By: Alex Ross Perry 
Cinematography: Sean Price Williams 
Editor: Robert Greene 


Cast: Jason Schwartzman, Adam Horowitz, Analeigh Tipton, Chloe Sevingy, Mary Louise Parker, Lily Rabe, Kate Lyn Sheil 


An intersectional narrative of two families in Brooklyn and the unraveling of unspoken unhappiness that occurs when a young foreign girl spending time abroad upsets the balance on both sides.

LEMONY SNICKET'S: A SERIES OF UNFORTUNATE EVENTS (2004)

Directed By: Brad Silberling 
Written By: Robert Gordon 
Based On The Books written By: Lemony Snicket aka Daniel Handler 
Cinematography: Emmanuel Lubezski 
Editor: Michael Kahn 

Cast: Jim Carrey, Liam Aiken, Emily Browning, Meryl Streep, Timothy Spall, Billy Connelly, Catherine O’Hara, Cedric The Entertainer, Jennifer Coolidge, Luis Guzman, Jane Adams, Craig Ferguson, Lenny Clarke 


Three children - Violet , Klaus and Sunny Baudelaire - are left orphaned when their house burns down, with their parents in it, in mysterious circumstances. They are left in the custody of a distant relative, Count Olaf. It is soon apparent that Count Olaf only cares about the children for their large inheritance.

LEGEND (2015)

Written & Directed By: Brian Helgeland 
Based On The Book By: John Pearson 
Cinematography By: Dick Pope 
Editor: Peter McNulty 


Cast: Tom Hardy, Emily Browning, Christopher Eccleston, Chazz Palminteri, Tara Fitzgerald, Taron Egerton, David Thewlis, Duffy

PLUSH (2013)

Directed By: Catherine Hardwicke 
Written By: Catherine Hardwicke & Arty Nelson 
Cinematography By: Daniel Moder 
Editor: Julia Wong 


Cast: Emily Browning, Xavier Daniel, Cam Giganet, Thomas Dekker, Frances Fisher, Dawn Olivieri, Brandon Jay McLaren, Elizabeth Pena

GOD HELP THE GIRL (2014)

Written & Directed By: Stuart Murdoch 
Cinematography By: Giles Nuttgens 
Editor: David Arthur 

Cast: Emily Browning, Hannah Murray, Olly Alexander, Pierre Boulanger, Cora Bisset

SUCKER PUNCH (2011)

Story & Directed By: Zach Snyder 
Written By: Zach Snyder & Steve Shibuya 
Cinematography By: Larry Fong 
Editor: William Hoy 

 Cast: Emily Browning, Vanessa Hudgens, Jamie Chung, Jena Malone, Abbie Cornish, Carla Gugino, Oscar Issac, Scott Glenn, Jon Hamm

THE UNINVITED (2009)

Directed By: Charles & Thomas Guard 
Written By: Craig Rosenberg, Douglas Miro & Carlo Bernard 
Based On The Original Screenplay A TALE OF TWO SISTERS By: Kim Jee-Woon Cinematography By: Daniel Landin 
Editor: Jim Page &Christian Wagner 

 Cast: Emily Browning, Arielle Kebbel, David Straitharn, Elizabeth Banks,

SLEEPING BEAUTY (2011)

Written & Directed By: Julia Leigh
Cinematography By: Geoffrey Simpson
Editor: Nick Meyers

Cast: Emily Browning, Racheal Blake

SUCKER PUNCH: Anyone Who Thinks This Was Good Is An Idiot

Dir. Zack Snyder. Written by Zack Snyder and Steve Shibuya. Staring Emily Browning, Carla Gugino, Abbie Cornish, Jenna Malone, Oscar Isaac, etcetera.

Yes, I admit my headline is an opportunistic attempt to get your attention. You might also think it’s an overly simplistic, below-the-belt, immature pot shot at whomever may have actually liked Zack Snyder’s SUCKER PUNCH and therefore, I’m being completely disrespectful. And this is the thing: you would be right about that.