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In: 2017, Hot Take

Hot Take: An old school thriller with a better than expected performance from Jackie Chan… and he still delivers on the action side at 63!

When you go into a film like The Foreigner starring Jackie Chan with Pierce Brosnan as the main supporting actor, some expectations are set. Chan, throughout his career, has delivered some impressive action thrills and occasionally added a little comedic elements to his films. In The Foreigner, surprisingly, it’s his dramatic performance that is most noticeable although there’s still some incredibly noticeable stunt work from the 63-year-old performer. For Brosnan, it’s been a mixed bag as his career has run the gamut. It includes a turn at James Bond and both Golden Globe and Golden Raspberry nominations. So, with him, you kind of have to expect his performance to match the film around him. Luckily, The Foreigner is actually better than you might expect… and darker, as Chan plays a Chinese man whose daughter is killed in a bombing in London and Brosnan plays a politically savvy former IRA member who might hold the key to the identity of the bomber.Read More →

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In: 2017, Hot Take

Hot Take: Waiting to experience the Saw phenomenon on its 8th installment was not the best idea. I could have kept waiting. 

I somehow managed to avoid seeing a Saw movie for 14 years. The first 7 installments of the franchise graced cinemas for 7 consecutive Halloweens from 2004 to 2010. As the franchise lost steam at the box office over the years, 2010’s Saw 3D wasn’t the least successful box office performer of the 7 films which must have given someone the idea that this franchise still had life. Then again, as Zoolander 2 proved, a franchise doesn’t need a pulse to get a sequel. Enter Jigsaw, the 2017 franchise entry looking to pump new blood into the franchise and give audiences schlocky, inventive mechanical traps and gory, over-the-top death scenes. If that’s what you’re into, Jigsaw might be a nice, breezy trip to the theater. However, if this isn’t your bag, Jigsaw can be torturous even at its incredibly brief 92 minutes of screen time.Read More →

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In: 2017, Hot Take

Hot Take: A dull disaster movie? What the hell? 

Geostorm isn’t very original. It appears as a knock-off of Deep Impact, Armageddon and The Day After Tomorrow. Now that 4DX technology exists, Geostorm may have been worth watching in that setting. Otherwise, this is one of the most boring disaster films ever made and that’s even with its numerous action sequences and some rather impressive visuals. Scene after scene of exposition  intertwined with overly loud action set pieces that add almost nothing to the disaster film genre while exploiting almost every cliche you’d expect to see in a disaster flick.Read More →

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In: 2017, Hot Take, Uncategorized

Hot Take: Nice biopic/courtroom drama combo with excellent performances from Chadwick Boseman, Josh Gad and a solid cast of supporting characters. If this weren’t a true story, you could see this becoming a recurring character. Heck, even though it is a true story, based on Thurgood Marshall’s life, it probably could.

In his 84 years on this Earth, Thurgood Marshall led a life that has enough milestones to fill up a catalog of films. The footnote chosen for Marshall, the biopic/courtroom drama featuring Chadwick Boseman as the titular character, is not as much of a landmark milestone as many of Marshall’s other achievements but the tale of a then NAACP lawyer (the only NAACP lawyer) traveling the country to fight injustice toward African Americans by defending them in cases where they were innocent makes for great cinematic drama. It also puts the spotlight on a great man who helped shape Civil Rights and our legal system over the last 70 years. Read More →

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In: 2017, Hot Take

Hot Take: One of the worst, poorly edited films of the year with one of the most bizarre casting decisions of all time. 

The trailer for The Snowman is intriguing enough. (I guess.) Somehow, though, whether it be the writer, director or editors (I blame all three, well, six since the film had three writers and two editors), this 1 hour and 58 minute snooze fest is more cliche than most and delivers an incoherent shell game of a plot with a rather uninteresting main character and hardly compelling litany of supporting characters. The only supporting character that even garners any interest is a vastly different looking Val Kilmer who may have been battling oral cancer which could explain why it sounds like they dubbed someone else’s voice over his but doesn’t quite explain why his face looks so oddly different.Read More →

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In: 2017, Hot Take

Hot Take: There’s something about Victoria & Abdul and I can’t quite put my finger on it. It’s just… off! This movie is off!

Hate is a really strong word and I don’t like to use it very often. However, I hated the moviegoing experience provided by Victoria & Abdul. It could be the style which director Stephen Frears chooses. The experience left me feeling awfully similar to last year’s Florence Foster Jenkins, another Frears directorial work that I particularly loathed. He also directed The Program in 2015 which was a film I actually enjoyed but remember not being thrilled with the directorial style there, either. So, maybe it has something to do with Frears. It felt like something more than the director, though. There was a cartoonish element to the relationship between Queen Victoria (Judi Dench) and Abdul Karim (Ali Fazal) that made the film feel, at times, fluffy and, at other times, condescending to the overall message. It also feels superficial and barely dares to scratch the surface of the story and delivers a hollow story with a focus on Queen Victoria that puts the spotlight on Dench’s performance (unsurprisingly) and makes Adbul somewhat of a sideshow.Read More →

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In: 2017, Hot Take

Hot Take: One of those rare untold tales that is much more interesting than you expect. Sure, Wonder Woman is now changed forever but Professor Marston and the Wonder Women surely holds your attention.

My first thought watching Professor Marston and the Wonder Women was, “What the heck have I done with my life?” Professor William Marston invented the lie detector, explained the behavioral study known as DISC theory and was inspired by his two lovers (his wife Elizabeth and his student and love interest of both he and his wife, Olive Byrne) to create Wonder Woman. So many thoughts went through my mind watching this titillating tale of perversion, intelligence, love and discovery. As Marston’s complex and unconventional life story was told on the screen along with his wife and their lover, I settled on the fact that most lives are not this interesting or else 95% of movies would be based on a true story.Read More →

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In: 2017, Hot Take

Hot Take: When Groundhog Day Met Scream… Worked for me.

I admittedly had no desire to see Happy Death Day. I barely paid attention to the trailer and tried to nurse my popcorn to give me some sort of pleasure because I surely wasn’t expecting to get any from the viewing experience. As the film progressed, the horror/comedy won me over with it’s shameless wink to Groundhog Day and elbow nudges to Scream, Happy Death Day proved to be a fan service to those of us who love movies. While someone who refers to themselves as a film aficionado or a cinemaphile might be turned off by it, especially since we were given a teen targeted Groundhog Day clone in Before I Fall earlier this year. Happy Death Day is a fun, harmless horror flick in an age of super serious horror films and a welcome change of pace.Read More →

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In: 2017, Hot Take

Hot Take: If soap operas featured A-list actors The Mountain Between Us would have been one of those soap opera subplots that stretched out for 2-3 weeks. (Don’t worry… the dog lives!)

The Mountain Between Us, the adult fairy tale disguised as a survival thriller, has two things strongly going for it: Kate Winslet and Idris Elba. The movie wouldn’t work without them. For much of the film, it feels like an overlong Nicholas Sparks set up. The harrowing tale has some flimsy twists and turns once the plane goes down in the mountains which happens a few minutes into the film. The rest of the film features Winslet and Elba trying to survive the harsh, wintry conditions of the mountains. Both of the actors turn in a great performance despite the limitations of the film. Read More →

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In: 2017, Hot Take

Hot Take: It’s as if BET and Lifetime dropped a mix tape. Not very good but not bad enough that the message doesn’t resonate.

‘Til Death Do Us Part has only been out for 12 days yet you’re unlikely to find it in a theater near you due to a tough opening weekend and even tougher 2nd weekend. Over the past couple of years, low budget films with all black casts have struck a chord at the box office. Two years ago, The Perfect Guy scored a whopping $57 million haul on a minuscule $12 million budget. Last year, When the Bough Breaks managed $29 million on a slightly smaller $10 million budget. While expectations weren’t quite as high for ‘Til Death Do Us Part, the film did not even achieve moderate expectations, cashing in just $1.5 million on opening weekend. Maybe the topic was too serious compared to the 2 previous films mentioned which were much more campy in nature than the drama/thriller about domestic abuse.Read More →