Category Archives: Long Reviews (>400 Words)

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

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.

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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

Bad Moms (2016) Movie Review

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.

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

Nerve (2016) Movie Review

“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.

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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

Captain Fantastic (2016) Movie Review

Ben (Viggo Mortensen) raises his children under a strict survivalist patriarchy in the woods. They wear caked mud as camouflage to stalk and hunt game. They train in knife combat. At night they read books on quantum mechanics and high literature. It is an extreme form of home schooling, in a way, if home was a forest and school taught you how to skin a deer.

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Ben is trying, but he is a loving father. The family’s life appears serene in its isolation and in spite of nature’s harshness, but, like the ever-pressing power of globalization, the outside world Continue reading Captain Fantastic (2016) Movie Review

Jason Bourne (2016) Movie Review

Jason Bourne (Matt Damon) remembers. He remembers everything. He is also doing one of the things that he does most often: hiding. We see him as an underground fighter, ripped and captured in a lot of shots with lens flares.

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Meanwhile, Nicky Parsons (Julia Stiles) is hacking into the CIA to get documents on their covert operations; documents that include information on Bourne and his late father. When Parsons contacts Bourne, he has to Continue reading Jason Bourne (2016) Movie Review

Foodfight! (2012): The Most Terrifying, Inappropriate Children’s Movie

The premise of the ill-fated, surprisingly high budgeted (estimated at $65 million, a $65 million that cannot be found on screen) Foodfight! is enough to make most people cringe at the exploitation of audiences. During the after hours at a grocery store dubbed “Marketroplis,” the food products come to life (and the store itself morphs into a weird alternate food universe for some reason). Some of these food products are familiar to us: Mr. Clean, Mrs. Butterworth, Charlie Tuna. The concept of pushing product placement on such an overt level to children is discomforting enough. Then, of course, there is the plot of the film.

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Foodfight! follows an ex-detective dog (Charlie Sheen) who quits the biz after his bride-to-be mysteriously vanishes from the store. He is pulled out of retirement when a Continue reading Foodfight! (2012): The Most Terrifying, Inappropriate Children’s Movie

Deathgasm (2015) Movie Review

Brodie (Milo Cawthorne) moves in with his extended family after his mother is arrested. He is a metal-head burnout in the eyes of those around him, and his devil may care attitude lands him in with another local anarchistic youth Zakk (James Blake). They form a literal blood-pact, make some napalm, and start a band. Oh, and they also summon a demon. Because, you know, movies.

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Deathgasm strives to have the same devil may care tone as Brodie and company. It’s quick to Continue reading Deathgasm (2015) Movie Review

Ghostbusters (2016) Movie Review

In the Aldrich Mansion, the daughter of the family was locked in confinement after stabbing all of the house servants to death. Now, she has returned to wreak supernatural havoc on a lowly tour guide (Zach Woods).

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Meanwhile, Erin Gilbert (Kristen Wiig) is trying to rectify her reputation and achieve tenure after an early book of hers about the existence of ghosts has resurfaced online. The co-writer of the book, Abby Yates (Melissa McCarthy), on the other hand, is still Continue reading Ghostbusters (2016) Movie Review

The BFG (2016) Movie Review

In The BFG, a young girl named Sophie (Ruby Barnhill) is whisked away from her prison-like orphanage in the middle of the night by a giant (Mark Rylance). A Big Friendly Giant (an admittedly redundant name). The BFG takes Sophie to Giant Country, where he must hide her away from the other giants who aim to eat her.

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The production design is the first noticeable facet of the film. The juxtaposition of set design between the luminous city streets and the wooded jungle abode of the BFG is clear, but one is not favored stylistically over the other. Both contain distinct Continue reading The BFG (2016) Movie Review

The Purge: Election Year (2016) Movie Review

In the United States, a bitter political battleground is underway over the continuation of the Purge, an annual event in which all crime, including murder, is legal for a 12 hour period.

One former Purge survivor, Senator Charlie Roan (Elizabeth Mitchell), has dedicated her life and career to ending the Purge and is at the precipice of taking the presidency. Certain government officials who benefit financially from the Purge, however, are making it a priority to shut the senator up. Permanently.

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To be fair, this is the most Continue reading The Purge: Election Year (2016) Movie Review