Movies I wish I had skipped. This could be for any number of reasons: the film was made sloppily, the narrative didn’t engage me, or I simply could not connect with the film in any way for whatever reason.
I have to admit: I can’t remember a whole lot about The Gallows, the micro-budget horror film from 2015 that found a massive ROI despite strong negative reaction from audiences and critics. What I do remember is being unimpressed. But the film was financially impressive enough, shoring up almost $43 million on a reportedly $100,000 budget. Certainly enough to warrant the greenlight for a sequel.
From what I can tell, there is no plan for a national rollout of this sequel. The Gallows Act II, directed by the same duo as the first film (Travis Cluff and Chris Lofing), is playing in Continue reading The Gallows Act II (2019) Movie Review→
Todd Philips Joker is going to be controversial and divisive (in many ways, it already is). This is to say, it will be needlessly controversial and divisive. This is not to say that Philips is not aiming for provocation, or that those worried about the film’s content are in the wrong for it. But this is also to say that, in the end, Joker is nothing more than a hollow experience meant to be edgy without any true substance. Which is not to say that Philips and co-writer Scott Silver do not attempt at a statement on something beyond the film. It is just that the thin political subtext is almost laughably myopic.
Die Kinder der Toten is a zombie movie, technically. But fewer scripts with the word “zombie” in it stray this far from what we consider standard operating procedure for a “zombie film.”
If Andy Muschietti’s 2017 It was little more than a funhouse of jerky, startling set pieces loosely strung into a narrative, then his It: Chapter Two aims to up the ante in the manner only a blockbuster sequel can. And that includes inserting a literal funhouse.
In the previous installment, the Losers Club, comprised of Bev (Sophia Lillis), Ben (Jeremy Ray Taylor), Bill (Jaeden Martell), Ritchie (Finn Wolfhard), Eddie (Jack Dylan Grazer), Mike (Chosen Jacobs), and Stanley (Wyatt Oleff), were able to Continue reading It: Chapter Two (2019) Movie Review→
47 Meters Down: Uncaged shares a name and a director with 47 Meters Down. Both movies involve sharks. So I guess this is a sequel. The two films share no characters, but otherwise their plots are entirely the same. The only difference is in the title: 47 Meters Down had a cage, and 47 Meters Down: Uncaged does not.
The first hurdle that The Angry Birds Movie 2 has to overcomes is following up the far superior short film Hair Love. It is a difficult task to headline after a short that is as beautifully heartfelt, tender, funny, and imaginative as that short is. And, as expected, The Angry Birds Movie 2 does not live up in any of those categories.
The Angry Birds Movie 2 has a beating heart in its feathery breast, to an extent. There is a rudimentary theme that has legs long enough to encompass the entire runtime. The skinny of it is that Continue reading The Angry Birds Movie 2 (2019) Movie Review→
Good Boys is the film for people who think preteens swearing and misunderstanding the sexual themes around them is hilarious. If you want to see tween boys wielding sex toys as weapons or giving a sex toy as a gift or using a sex toy to practice kissing or barring doors with a sex toy then this movie is for you.
1978, Hell’s Kitchen. Three Irish gangsters (James Badge Dale, Brian d’Arcy James, and Jeremy Bobb) get arrested following a police sting and are sentenced to three years in prison. Their wives (Tiffany Haddish, Melissa McCarthy, and Elisabeth Moss) are effectively cut off from their source of income. Their mob ties start short-shrifting their cash kickback. Kathy Brennan (McCarthy) tries to get work, but she is turned away because she has young children.
The throw-out umbrella term “live action” used to describe the slough of Disney “re-imaginations” is a misnomer. It has been since The Jungle Book recreation in 2016, which is live action only in its employment of Neel Sethi as Mowgli. Everything else in that film is comprised of computer generated visual effects.
There may not be much charm in the title Stuber—if you don’t have the pieces of the clumsy portmanteau pieced together from the trailer before going to the cinema, then it is a title likely to breed more confusion than chuckles. But there is some charm to the notion of an original buddy cop comedy within a Summer drought of failing franchise/reboot IP (Disney not included, at least not financially-speaking).
On paper, a comedy starring Kumail Nanjiani as a civilian trapped in the middle of a police investigation led by a tough-nosed Dave Bautista sounds like Continue reading Stuber (2019) Movie Review→
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