Movies I liked but likely won’t watch again. Something was off that I wish had been done differently.
Michael Bryce (Ryan Reynolds) is a bodyguard. Darius Kincaid (Samuel L. Jackson) is a hitman. The bodyguard must bodyguard the hitman. Hilarity ensues.
Except, not too much hilarity. Some hilarity. Well, maybe hilarity isn’t the word. There are some chuckles.
But mostly the film is heavy on the Continue reading The Hitman’s Bodyguard (2017) Movie Review
Steven Soderbergh marks his return to feature filmmaking after his reported retirement with Logan Lucky, a heist film in the same stylistic vein as his Oceans films. Instead of the lavish cityscape and bright lights of Las Vegas, however, in Logan Lucky we are treated with rural North Carolina. The high security casino: replaced by a low security NASCAR race track.
The lead figure in this heist is Jimmy Logan (Channing Tatum), who sees a crack in the system of pressure tubes that carry money from the race track to a nearby bank vault and decides to Continue reading Logan Lucky (2017) Movie Review
Four college friends reunite to party for a weekend, and there are unexpected consequences. It is a premise not unlike another Summer 2017 film: Rough Night. Only, in Girls Trip there is no dead body, and there is a much more conventional narrative.
Ryan Pierce (Regina Hall) and her husband (Mike Colter) have made a brand name out of their marriage. They are traveling to the Essence Festival in New Orleans in order to Continue reading Girls Trip (2017) Movie Review
Kathryn Bigelow, known most recently as the director of war films The Hurt Locker and Zero Dark Thirty, depicts a different sort of war in Detroit.
Told in three acts, Detroit covers the 1967 rebellion of Detroit citizens against a racist police force. Following the raid of an illegal club, riots against the Detroit police begin, escalating to the point where Continue reading Detroit (2017) Movie Review
Armed with a constant blue-gray aesthetic, Atomic Blonde lacks the adrenaline energy of a John Wick despite sharing a director, so much so that the intricately staged hand-to-hand combat sequences can sometimes come off as dreary and mechanical.
This said, select sequences from this batch are the Continue reading Atomic Blonde (2017) Movie Review
“No one will ever save you,” begins the man (Regan Farquhar aka Busdriver) who hijacks a newscast at the beginning of Steve Ellison’s (aka Flying Lotus) cinematic debut Kuso. “Once you’re dead / you’re dead / There’s no coming back.”
Thus is a fitting prologue into the world of Kuso, the warped, hallucinogenic vision of its musical creator. No one can save you from Continue reading Kuso (2017) Movie Review
2002. B-Movie horror crowd-pleaser Sam Raimi brings the iconic friendly neighborhood Spider-Man to the big screen.
2012. Following two Raimi Spider-Man sequels—one to great acclaim and one ill-fated—Sony revamps their comic book property with Marc Webb’s The Amazing Spider-Man.
2015. It becomes public knowledge that Sony and Marvel Studios reached an agreement to bring the red spandex, arachnid-based superhero into the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
Now, 15 years after his first big screen appearance, Spider-Man (Tom Holland, in this instance) makes Continue reading Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017) Movie Review
The setup to Win it All, the new film from director Joe Swanberg who co-wrote the film with its star Jake Johnson, is an anticipatory slippery slope. Compulsive gambler Eddie (Johnson) is left with a shady bag of cash. We know what is about to happen. He knows it too, repeating “Oh, no” with a nervous dread.
Eddie starts on an uptick. An on-screen counter shows us as he Continue reading Win it All (2017) Movie Review
In a wooded hideaway in Virginia is a school for girls led by Miss Martha (Nicole Kidman). Three years deep into the Civil War, Confederate patrols make their way through the area frequently, but Martha and the girls also lie in fear of potential Yankee parties. They whisper stories of Union soldiers raping Southern women, painting uncivilized pictures of the unseen army.
It is understandable, then, that the inhabitants of the plantation take to wounded soldier Cpl. John McBurney (Colin Farrell) with Continue reading The Beguiled (2017) Movie Review
Scott (Will Ferrell) and Kate (Amy Poehler) Johansen need money for their daughter’s (Ryan Simpkins) college tuition. The city council-sponsored scholarship she was supposed to earn was pulled due to budget cuts. Scott and Kate fail to get raises at their respective workplaces.
Then there’s Frank (Jason Mantzoukas), the gambling and internet porn addict best friend of Scott whose wife has left him. In shambles, all Frank wants is to Continue reading The House (2017) Movie Review
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