Category Archives: Leave it

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.

All Movie Reviews, Drama, Leave it

The Light Between Oceans (2016) Movie Review

September 22, 2016 Alex Brannan

Derek Cianfrance, the director of The Place Beyond the Pines and Blue Valentine, returns with a story that is similarly bleak and heart-wrenching, despite what the title might have you believe. The Light Between Oceans tells the story of a married couple (Alicia Vikander and Michael Fassbender) who, after multiple attempts, fail to carry a child to term.

Cianfrance brings style to the film, but it does not make up for the pitfalls of narrative and thematic substance. Lighting and framing capture picaresque cinematic moments from the 1920s Australian landscape. The sound design, in certain pivotal scenes, is fantastic. The film appears very much, and very adeptly, like a film.

Fassbender and Vikander come together to make up the tragic couple. They are the film’s driving force, and they are both wonderful. Rachel Weiss, in addition, is absolutely riveting in a criminally small supporting role.

The issue with The Light Between Oceans is Continue reading The Light Between Oceans (2016) Movie Review →

All Movie Reviews, Horror, Leave it, Long Reviews (>400 Words)

Blair Witch (2016) Movie Review

September 15, 2016 Alex Brannan

Blair Witch chronicles the “documentary footage” of a college student and his friends as they search through the mythic Black Hills Forest for his sister Heather Donahue, who disappeared in the woods years earlier.

From the onset, Blair Witch follows the beats of its predecessor, the surprise 1999 hit The Blair Witch Project, as if the studio and creative team believed that the audience this film is marketed toward has never seen the original film. This, or they Continue reading Blair Witch (2016) Movie Review →

All Movie Reviews, Drama, Leave it, Long Reviews (>400 Words)

Snowden (2016) Movie Review

September 14, 2016 Alex Brannan

A movie by a veteran (yet perhaps out of touch) director starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt depicting a true story that was previously depicted in an acclaimed documentary. Is this The Walk. No, this is Snowden.

Snowden follows the CIA career and subsequent “whistleblowing” of Edward Snowden (Gordon-Levitt), as well as his relationship with Lindsay Mills (Shailene Woodley).

Snowden’s script at times reads more like a civics lesson than a drama. Feeling the need to Continue reading Snowden (2016) Movie Review →

Action/Thriller, All Movie Reviews, Drama, Leave it

When the Bough Breaks (2016) Movie Review

September 9, 2016 Alex Brannan

A happily married couple (Regina Hall and Morris Chestnut) are looking for a surrogate to carry their child. The young woman they choose (Jaz Sinclair) is sweet, kind-eyed, and 100% on-board. However, she is looking for more than a simple payment.

As simple as the tactics used are, the film takes its time to establish sympathy for the relationship of our protagonists, and it does this well. You’d be surprised how Continue reading When the Bough Breaks (2016) Movie Review →

All Movie Reviews, Horror, Leave it, Long Reviews (>400 Words)

The Disappointments Room (2016) Movie Review

September 9, 2016 Alex Brannan

The title of The Disappointments Room begs the question: Is The Disappointments Room a disappointment? The short answer: Yes.

The film begins similarly to Haneke’s Funny Games, only without the amazing sound cues. A couple (Kate Beckinsale and Mel Raido) and their young son (Duncan Joiner) move out to the country for a new beginning after a terrible accident. The house, which from certain angles looks more like a castle, is a mess: broken light fixtures, leaking ceilings, junk everywhere. We follow this nuclear family, unassuming and entirely banal, as they fall victim to a strange presence in their home (maybe; it becomes impossible to tell).

The Disappointments Room is a film that is utterly basic. It checks all the boxes of a basic horror movie and then Continue reading The Disappointments Room (2016) Movie Review →

All Movie Reviews, Comedy, Drama, Leave it

Wiener-Dog (2016) Movie Review

August 25, 2016 Alex Brannan

Todd Solondz has made a career out of putting on display the awkwardness of normal existence and the oddities that threaten to make it less normal (or overbearingly so). But the real question is: Can he do the same thing with a dog as a protagonist? One sad, slow tracking shot over a trail of dog diarrhea later, and we have our answer.

Wiener-Dog is told in an episodic fashion as the eponymous animal travels from Continue reading Wiener-Dog (2016) Movie Review →

All Movie Reviews, Comedy, Leave it

Nine Lives (2016) Movie Review

August 5, 2016 Alex Brannan

Tom Brand (Kevin Spacey) is a thrill-seeking corporate man; a no-nonsense upper crust suit whose company is warring against a competitor to build the tallest building in the Northern hemisphere. However, another exec at Brand’s company is aiming to usurp his power. This is exactly what children want in a movie: building contractors and heated discussions about public offerings. With this narrative intrigue, it is almost a shame when Spacey turns into a cat!

In all seriousness, Nine Lives holds a premise that has Continue reading Nine Lives (2016) Movie Review →

All Movie Reviews, Comedy, Horror, Leave it, Long Reviews (>400 Words)

Sharknado 4: The 4th Awakens (2016) Movie Review

July 31, 2016 Alex Brannan

Oh Sharknado, what are we to do with you? Being the main vein of Syfy’s annual income, a trilogy just wasn’t enough. Sharknado needs to be a saga!

For the uninitiated, Sharknado is exactly the Frankenstein’s monster it sounds like: sharks + tornadoes = sharks inside tornadoes aiming to kill everybody. It’s Jaws meets Twister, etc. etc. etc. What began as an innocent, Tara Reid-starring B-movie on basic cable has blown up to the appointment viewing, C-list celebrity cameo filled annual event that we now know. We’ve survived four years of Sharknado, and we didn’t even get a stupid T-shirt.

To understand the tone of the Sharknado-verse, just look at the climactic end of Sharknado 3: Oh Hell No!. Our heroes fight sharks in space, stars Ian Ziering and Tara Reid are both eaten by sharks which fall back to Earth, they both escape from said shark bellies, Tara Reid pushing out first a newborn baby. Depending on who you ask, the films are Continue reading Sharknado 4: The 4th Awakens (2016) Movie Review →

All Movie Reviews, Comedy, Leave it, Long Reviews (>400 Words)

Bad Moms (2016) Movie Review

July 29, 2016 Alex Brannan

Amy Mitchell (Mila Kunis) is always running late. She works at a hipster coffee company. A hipster coffee company with employees that don’t respect her and don’t work as hard as her. She has two children and a child husband. A child husband who cheats on her online with another woman. When Amy gets fed up with the infuriating mundaity of suburban motherhood, she…does things. Most of them involve parental irresponsibility and middle-fingering the dictatorial PTA president (Christina Applegate). Oh, and plenty of slow motion montages.

Given the premise of this film, I have no real reason to Continue reading Bad Moms (2016) Movie Review →

Action/Thriller, All Movie Reviews, Leave it, Long Reviews (>400 Words)

Nerve (2016) Movie Review

July 28, 2016 Alex Brannan

“Nerve” is a game of extreme sports and social media. The “players” film themselves doing a series of dares for money, and the more people watching them, the closer they are to being number one, a position that ironically guarantees nothing other than the empty stardom of fleeting viral attention.

Venus (Emma Roberts), a born watcher, throws caution to the wind for once in her life by becoming a player in the game. Nerve ropes her into Continue reading Nerve (2016) Movie Review →

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