Movies I liked but likely won’t watch again. Something was off that I wish had been done differently.
In this sequel to 2003’s Finding Nemo, an infant Dory (Ellen DeGeneres) is separated from her parents (Diane Keaton and Eugene Levy) and aimlessly searches for them throughout her life until…the narrative of Finding Nemo begins.
A year after the events of that film, Continue reading Finding Dory (2016) Movie Review
In Ancient Egypt, a god is buried. But it is not a god, it is a mutant. Apocalypse (Oscar Isaac). Apocalypse can unlock the true potential in any other mutant, and then use those powers for his own design. That, and he can turn people to dust. After his resurfacing in the 1980s, mutants must band together and reform the X-Men in order to take down Apocalypse and his Four Horsemen.
The first act of the film sets up strong characters and their motivations. We get to see a young Scott Summers (Tye Sheridan) as a teen growing up with uncontrolled powers. Magneto (Michael Fassbender) gets a strong emotional arc to once again Continue reading X-Men: Apocalypse (2016) Movie Review
A film studies student such as myself often views for analysis only those documentary films that are radical, experimental, or genre defining. This neglects the more commonplace documentary of speculation, event dissection, or character study.
Holy Hell, in film studies rhetoric, could be considered a “synthetic documentary” not in that it is fabricated, but in that it, from scene one, incorporates Continue reading Holy Hell (2016) Movie Review
Sam Raimi’s Darkman is an early superhero film in which scientist Peyton Westlake (Liam Neeson) is brutally attacked and left for dead by the mob. Heavily scarred and bandaged, the faceless Westlake becomes the Darkman, and, using his scientific research on artificial skin, assumes others’ identities in order to exact revenge on his attackers.
This film, in spite of being inescapably ’90s in aesthetic, is an Continue reading Darkman (1990) Movie Review
Stock company IBIS Clear Capital loses $800 million dollars when a trading algorithm “glitches” inexplicably. Lee Gates (George Clooney) hosts a gimmicky, Mad Money-style stock show that gets hijacked by a gunman (Jack O’Connell) as a result of this stock collapse. Our hijacking criminal is trying to reveal the real criminals: the Wall Street bigwigs. How topical.
The film is littered with logical pitfalls and narrative conveniences, but we can let these slide, because Continue reading Money Monster (2016) Movie Review
In Demons (aka Demoni), the 1985 B-movie horror film from Lamberto Bava and Dario Argento, a mysterious film screening is suddenly infested with infectious demons, with the helpless audience trapped inside the theater.
The ’80s horror movie uses dated B-movie effects work. This said, a lot of the practical effects are well-staged, on top of being Continue reading Demons (1985) Movie Review
Sound is a vital part of any horror film. Perhaps the most vital. What happens, then, when you insert a protagonist into a horror-thriller narrative who is deaf. This is exactly the case with Hush, which pits novelist Maddie Young (Kate Siegal), who lives conveniently in the middle of the woods with few people within screaming distance (if she could scream, that is, as she is also mute), against a masked intruder (John Gallagher Jr.).
This premise, in its early stages of execution, makes for a very Continue reading Hush (2016) Movie Review
The opening shots of Entertainment are largely static. The Comedian (Gregg Turkington, essentially playing in this film a fictionalized version of himself and his comedic alter-ego Neil Hamburger), stands in an airplane fuselage, looking down. He watches as a clown, Eddie the Opener (Tye Sheridan), prepares for a set at a prison. He looks on dour-faced as the clown “wows” the crowd of prisoners by simply bouncing a ball and clapping his hands.
The first spoken dialogue in the film comes from a tour operator who encourages The Comedian and others to “by all means, go ahead and wander.” Yet the film does the opposite. Continue reading Entertainment (2015) Movie Review
A father (Robert Nolan) takes his son to spend a day with an old college friend (Bill Oberst Jr.), but the activities they engage in are far more insidious than simply “gone fishing.” The father, on top of the strange goings-on in his friend’s home, experiences a stigmata-like wound that oozes a sticky pus.
The short quickly deviates from reality, surreal imagery and special effects work becoming Continue reading Heir (2015) Short Film Review
After his girlfriend breaks up with him, Rell (Jordan Peele, also co-writer) comes across cute kitten Keanu, who proves to be the saving grace from his post-breakup blues.
Rell gets unnaturally attached to Keanu, to the point that when the cat is kidnapped (dare I say cat-napped?) by gangster outfit the 17th St. Blips, he and cousin Clarence (Keegan-Michael Key) must infiltrate the gang and literally save the cat.
The lion’s share of comedy in Keanu derives from Continue reading Keanu (2016) Movie Review
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