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In: 2018, Hot Take

Hot Take: Shockingly, it works. Fun, funny comedy that made me laugh out loud more than a few times.

I think my first thought when seeing the trailer for Game Night was something along the lines of “Wow, this is going to be dumb.” And while it might not be the most intelligent comedy in the world, it did something really smart that you almost never see from a comedy. Rather than reveal the funniest scenes of the film in the trailer and then make the audience slowly realize they could have stayed home and gotten just as many laughs from the YouTube trailer as they did in the theater, Game Night teased its best comedy bits in the trailer and then expanded on them in the movie. In addition to the funny scenes from the trailer, Game Night had a number of laughs beyond its trailer and might be funnier than anything that was released in the last 12 months… although Ingrid Goes West might have been funnier.Read More →

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In: 2018, Hot Take

Hot Take: Alex Garland continues to deliver. While not as good as Ex Machina, Annihilation does enough to impress and unnerve at times. 

Visually, Annihilation is something special. From writer/director Alex Garland (writer/director of Ex Machina and writer of 28 Days Later), based on the first of a series of novels called the Southern Reach Trilogy from Jeff VanderMeer, Annihilation is a creepy science fiction tale with enough elements of horror sprinkled through it to give you at least a nightmare or two and tension thicker than a brick. Garland has already proven to have a knack for these types of films — ones with a slant on the human condition and humanity in general — on the big screen and while Annihilation doesn’t achieve the level of excellence that Ex Machina did (nor 28 Days Later for that matter), the end result is a solid entry into the science fiction genre and one that has to make you a little curious about what might follow if the rest of this trilogy were to come to fruition.Read More →

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In: 2018, Hot Take

Hot Take: YA NYT Best Seller has a novel concept and works well on screen. Or maybe I’m just a sucker for a YA romance. However, there are deeper questions explored and even if you don’t like it, you have to commend it for at least being a little different.

Maybe I’m giving Every Day, a film about a 16 year old high schooler Rhiannon (Angourie Rice) who falls in love with the spirit of “A” who inhabits a different body every day, too much credit. The film’s somewhat unique concept isn’t as unique as it seems once second level thinking is introduced and the stark realization that the film is just an amalgam of Groundhog Day, Freaky Friday and every coming of age angst filled high school romance ever. However, I’m willing to still give the film credit for its dare to be different even if the concept is a tad derivative hodge podge of other films. Read More →

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In: 2018, Hot Take

Hot Take: So, cavemen invented soccer… And that’s an interesting plot for a movie because? Aardman Animations has an impressive resume. Consider this a blemish.

The stop-motion animation experts at Aardman Animations and director Nick Park — the director behind a handful of Wallace & Gromit tales and Chicken Run — decided that a film about cavemen who must win a soccer game (and have never played soccer but realize their ancestors did according to carvings) against the Bronze Age city folk to save their homeland was a good idea. The result is a purposely crude but ineffectively simple story that feels more primitive but not because it is about cavemen. It’s more standard fare with a feel of episodic Saturday morning cartoons and lacks memorable or endearing characters. Read More →

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In: 2018, Hot Take

Hot Take: Unnecessary “inspired by true events” tale which relies solely on the jump scare for 99 minutes to try and spook the audience. Another low budget horror disaster.

It seems like we’re subjected to a low budget horror flick on a monthly basis. In January, it was the latest installment into the Insidious series which had a great run at the box office despite lackluster reviews. February’s entry into the low budget horror genre was Winchester which had a lower budget, worse reviews and didn’t find quite the same success at the box office despite Helen Mirren being attached to the project based on true events that occurred at the Winchester Mansion in San Jose, California in 1906. Also starring Jason Clarke, the film does a great job of checking the boxes — jump scares, creepy kid, Lurch looking servants, creaky hallways, dark basements, powerful poltergeists — but fails to put together anything solid with what seems to be at least a story ripe for a nice scare. Read More →

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In: 2018, Hot Take

Hot Take: While it isn’t quite true to Beatrix Potter’s source material, Peter Rabbit has plenty of laughs. It’s more like Bugs Bunny than Peter Rabbit but, for the most part, it actually works.

If you’re looking for the storybook tale of Peter Rabbit, the hybrid live action and animation film Peter Rabbit based on the same characters takes many liberties. As a matter of fact, it goes for a more crass, less gentle and overly slapstick version of the characters many have fallen in love with as a child. It’ll likely work for new audiences, especially younger audiences (under 10 years old), as there won’t be any preconceived notions about how the characters should act. This is Beatrix Potter’s Peter Rabbit if it were to get locked in a convenience store overnight, survival instinct kicked in and Peter ate all of the chocolate and downed all of the Red Bull. Read More →

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In: 2018, Hot Take

Hot Take: This future $3.96 DVD at Walmart is tacky, campy and sanitized by the studio. Sometimes they don’t make ’em like they used to because they shouldn’t. 

Pure Flix is best known for their series of God’s Not Dead movies. They’ve cashed in twice on the series with a third on the way but still find time to make other faith-based films to attempt to satisfy their Christian fan base. Samson is the latest effort from the faith-based studio as it takes on an R-rated tale from the Bible and attempts to clean it up for a more PG audience. In its cleansing efforts, Pure Flix strips away much of the story and leaves what feels like a highlight reel of the Samson tale while leaving out any of the really messy parts. It fails to work on so many levels not the least of which are two rather uncharismatic leads with Taylor James looking like rejected WWE talent as Samson and Caitlin Leahy as Delilah. At times, it even feels like something more suited for the History Channel or some other B-list cable network attempting to dabble in original content.Read More →

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In: 2018, Hot Take

Hot Take: Thank goodness this trilogy is over.

If you’ve submitted to the urge to watch the Fifty Shades trilogy and you found enjoyment in the first two chapters of this trilogy based on the wildly successful book series of the same name, Fifty Shades Freed is here to give you more. If you’re like the rest of us, why are you even in the theater? Fifty Shades Freed follows Christian and Ana into married life where they argue more, have sex less and fail to communicate with greater frequency. Obviously, the target audience are the women who made this wildly successful book series a phenomenon and this incredibly successful box office a behemoth yet it’s tone deaf enough to focus its energy on showing Dakota Johnson topless and never quite getting Jamie Dornan completely naked for the third consecutive film. I guess Fifty Shades Freed is into torture, too.Read More →

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In: 2018, Lists, Ranked, Top Movies

Updated January 14th, 2019

  1. Sorry To Bother You
  2. A Quiet Place
  3. Hereditary
  4. Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse
  5. Juliet, Naked
  6. Avengers: Infinity War
  7. Isle of Dogs
  8. Love, Simon
  9. BlacKkKlansman
  10. The Favorite
  11. Blindspotting
  12. Mary Queen of Scots
  13. Bohemian Rhapsody
  14. Black Panther
  15. Aquaman
  16. Thoroughbreds
  17. Eighth Grade
  18. Creed II
  19. Ralph Breaks the Internet
  20. Crazy Rich Asians
  21. Pick of the Litter
  22. Vice
  23. Green Book
  24. Mid90s
  25. Three Identical Strangers
  26. The Endless
  27. Won’t You Be My Neighbor?
  28. Searching
  29. Mission: Impossible – Fallout
  30. First Reformed
  31. A Star Is Born
  32. What They Had
  33. The Hate U Give
  34. The Mule
  35. Beautiful Boy
  36. A Simple Favor
  37. The House With A Clock In Its Walls
  38. Christopher Robin
  39. Tully
  40. First Man
  41. Colette
  42. Monsters and Men
  43. Destination Wedding
  44. Don’t Worry, He Won’t Get Far on Foot
  45. Game Night
  46. Ocean’s 8
  47. Uncle Drew
  48. Blockers
  49. Annihilation
  50. Whitney
  51. Incredibles 2
  52. A Wrinkle In Time
  53. Deadpool 2
  54. American Animals
  55. Papillon
  56. Unfriended: Dark Web
  57. Solo: A Star Wars Story
  58. Ready Player One
  59. Adrift
  60. Pope Francis – A Man of His Word
  61. Widows
  62. Sicario: Day of the Soldado
  63. Upgrade
  64. Second Act
  65. Overboard
  66. Tag
  67. Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom
  68. Rampage
  69. Midnight Sun
  70. The Death of Stalin
  71. Every Day
  72. Beirut
  73. Ant-Man and the Wasp
  74. I Feel Pretty
  75. The Happytime Murders
  76. Venom
  77. Bad Times at the El Royale
  78. Fahrenheit 11/9
  79. Alpha
  80. Halloween
  81. The Meg
  82. Tomb Raider
  83. Peter Rabbit
  84. Pacific Rim Uprising
  85. Chappaquiddick
  86. Red Sparrow
  87. The Miracle Season
  88. Assassination Nation
  89. Paul, Apostle of Christ
  90. The Commuter
  91. Gringo
  92. Skyscraper
  93. Teen Titans Go! To the Movies
  94. Hotel Artemis
  95. White Boy Rick
  96. Life of the Party
  97. Bad Samaritan
  98. Traffik
  99. Blumhouse’s Truth Or Dare
  100. Death Wish
  101. Kin
  102. The 15:17 to Paris
  103. The First Purge
  104. Mile 22
  105. Superfly
  106. Tyler Perry’s Acrimony
  107. Peppermint
  108. Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation
  109. Book Club
  110. Early Man
  111. The Predator
  112. Breaking In
  113. The Strangers: Prey At Night
  114. Fifty Shades Freed
  115. Den of Thieves
  116. Super Troopers 2
  117. Proud Mary
  118. Holmes & Watson
  119. The Nun
  120. Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again
  121. How It Ends
  122. Action Point
  123. Winchester
  124. Samson
  125. Gotti
  126. Unsane
  127. Sherlock Gnomes
  128. Show Dogs
  129. Slender Man

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In: 2018, Hot Take

Hot Take: While it’s perfectly understandable director Clint Eastwood’s desire to honor the heroes of the story, making them act out their tale of heroism isn’t the way to go. The three heroes might be able to stop a terrorist but they surely can’t act. 

Usually a filmmaker has two choices — make a “Based on a True Story” recreation or record a documentary. Director Clint Eastwood has blazed a new path and instead used the actual heroes of the story to act out their tale. I guess the thought is to add realism to the re-telling but instead it shifts most of the focus to the horrific acting from these three amateurs and an anecdotal backstory that fails to deliver what seems to be an effort to convince the audience that it was the trios destiny to be on that train at that particular moment and instead makes it all seem like a fortunate coincidence that landed Spencer Stone, Anthony Sadler and Alek Skarlatos on the train to Paris and put them in a position to be the heroes who took down a terrorist before he could carry out his plan.Read More →