Category Archives: Long Reviews (>400 Words)

All Movie Reviews, Documentary, Like It, Long Reviews (>400 Words)

Lo and Behold, Reveries of the Connected World (2016) Movie Review

September 5, 2016 Alex Brannan

“Lo,” the first message ever sent across the internet. “Lo” as in “Log” without the g, as the computer sending the message crashed before the message could be completed. This is the beautiful irony of the internet that director Werner Herzog tries to capture in his new documentary Lo and Behold, Reveries of the Connected World. The inception of the world wide web was at one point a “revolution” that was about to irrevocably change the course of the modern world, and it is at another point an inception that is as archaic-sounding as a recovered fossil.

Video games that map molecules, cars that drive themselves, online class rosters that academically blow Stanford students out of the water. The internet is a mesmerizing world of possibilities that we all take for granted every day. The problem with this premise is that Continue reading Lo and Behold, Reveries of the Connected World (2016) Movie Review →

All Movie Reviews, Horror, Like It, Long Reviews (>400 Words)

31 (2016) Movie Review

September 2, 2016 Alex Brannan

Rob Zombie begins his sixth feature film by somewhat breaking the fourth wall with a monologue of almost poetic sadism. Hired killer “Doom-Head” (Richard Brake) spits acid words in closeup, to invigorating effect. This inaugural scene, with its tight closeups and deliberate cadence, is a truly engrossing intro to a horror film.

Zombie, who takes much of his horror stylings from the likes of Tobe Hooper, delves deeper into the raw maw of this inspiration’s brutal realism with 31. The backroads Americana. The rambling van of freewheelers. The promise of chainsaws. 31 wants to be Continue reading 31 (2016) Movie Review →

Action/Thriller, All Movie Reviews, Drama, Like It, Long Reviews (>400 Words)

Game of Aces (2016) Movie Review

August 31, 2016 Alex Brannan

Game of Aces is a period piece that doesn’t suffer from that inescapable stench of the period piece. It isn’t stuffy with the air of a different time and place. Many times, a period piece drama, especially those centered around wartime, will have the distinct feel of a re-enactment: heavy-handed, taking itself too seriously, and yet still somehow superficial. Game of Aces, in spite of its clearly tight budget, gets by on its lighter tone.

The film begins anachronistic to this idea. “There is no pain,” a downed fighter pilot (Werner Daehn) whispers to himself as he Continue reading Game of Aces (2016) Movie Review →

All Movie Reviews, Animation, Comedy, Like It, Long Reviews (>400 Words)

Sausage Party (2016) Movie Review

August 11, 2016 Alex Brannan

At Shopwell’s, food is alive. Not with teeming bacteria and molds, but with voices and personalities. Sausage Party, it’s like Foodfight! with substantially better animation, actual comedy, and adult themes. Well, actually, Foodfight! has plenty of adult themes, but I digress.

The premise of Sausage Party is certainly novel. A re-enactment of the Omaha Beach scene from Saving Private Ryan done with animated food products is nothing I thought I would see on film. It’s pretty awesome.

The film is littered with Continue reading Sausage Party (2016) Movie Review →

All Movie Reviews, Horror, Like It, Long Reviews (>400 Words), Short Films

Holidays (2016) Movie Review

August 11, 2016 Alex Brannan

Holidays is the latest in the line of horror anthology films that have been surfacing on online streaming sites in recent years. The conceit of this particular film is to take eight short films from eight different creative teams. Each film focuses on subject matter related to a different holiday of the calendar year. For this review, let’s dive into each short separately before making final judgments on the film as a whole.

Valentine’s Day

High dives are scary. It combines the fear of heights with the fear of drowning. Bullies are scary, too, I guess. As is Continue reading Holidays (2016) Movie Review →

Action/Thriller, All Movie Reviews, Like It, Long Reviews (>400 Words)

Suicide Squad (2016) Movie Review

August 4, 2016 Alex Brannan

Suicide Squad begins with a montage of exposition. More specifically, it begins with multiple montages of exposition. Deadshot (Will Smith) is exactly what he sounds like: a hitman who never misses. But he also has a chip on his shoulder because he was taken away from his daughter. Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie) is an ex-doctor turned Joker (Jared Leto) sidekick. And then there are a couple other baddies thrown in for good measure.

The United States government’s goal is to use these villains to provide some checks and balances against superheroes who could turn against mankind. For whatever reason, they feel Continue reading Suicide Squad (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, Documentary, Like It, Long Reviews (>400 Words)

The Man Who Saved Ben-Hur (2016) Movie Review

July 30, 2016 Alex Brannan

You won’t find many credits for John Alarimo Jr. on IMDb. But the man was entrenched in the Hollywood system for years. He ate lunch with Gore Vidal, sat on set with Frank Sinatra and Vincent Price, acted alongside Mae West, danced with Stella Adler. Most notably, he acted as a (uncredited) second assistant director on the iconic epic Ben-Hur.

In The Man Who Saved Ben-Hur, Alarimo’s cousin Joe Forte, now a filmmaker himself, interviews Alarimo about his time in Hollywood. Surprisingly, this interview does not begin with stories of California, but with stories of Continue reading The Man Who Saved Ben-Hur (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 →

CineFiles Movie Reviews