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In: 2018, Hot Take

Hot Take: Thanks to Jon Hamm, Beirut is a just above average thriller with enough gas in the tank to keep you intrigued for the nearly 2 hour run time. 

Jon Hamm’s television career was defined by his role as Don Draper on the long-running hit Mad Men. Admittedly, I’m not familiar with Hamm’s work on that show as it never made my watch list. His film career has been less auspicious with very few starring roles and a number of solid but unspectacular supporting roles. In Beirut, Hamm is cast in a long overdue starring role as a former U.S. diplomat who is asked to go back to Beirut to help negotiate a hostage release. It’s a rather generic thriller from writer Tony Gilroy of Bourne franchise fame but Hamm’s presence along with support from Rosamund Pike and a handful of typical bit players (Dean Norris being in this type of movie is a great example of unsurprising casting) kicks the film just above mediocrity and delivers a mostly satisfying viewing experience. The ’80s Beirut setting adds to the film’s feel of a film that was sitting around in a vault somewhere… or maybe that’s the 27-year-old script which was dug out of Gilroy’s storage bin, dusted off and given the big screen treatment.Read More →

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In: 2018, Hot Take

Hot Take: As expected… Which isn’t necessarily a good thing when it comes to these Blumhouse horror flicks.

The goal of every Blumhouse horror movie seems to be to make a movie with at least one good scare and to do it as cheaply as possible. With a $3.5 million budget, half of that mission was accomplished with the latest from Blumhouse Productions and the first branded with the studio’s name: Blumhouse’s Truth Or Dare. The second half of that mission? I can’t remember one scary moment that stuck with me following the 100 minute generic teen horror flick which felt like a mash-up of familiar horror tropes layered over a deadly game of truth or dare. Lie, you die. Fail to complete the dare, you die. Refuse to play, you die. Those were the rules. Thankfully, one of those rules wasn’t lose interest in this wonky concept, you die because, well, a lot of audience members would have met their demise. Don’t worry, though. These Blumhouse films are fail proof and will likely pull in 15-20 times it’s budget at the box office even with a Rotten Tomatoes Audience Score of 20%.Read More →

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In: 2018, Hot Take

Hot Take: It’s a miracle if you make it out of this one with dry eyes, even if you don’t care for it’s saccharine-sweet dramatization of the amazing story of the West High School volleyball team in the aftermath of the death of one of their teammates.

The basis for The Miracle Season would have been more interesting as a topic for ESPN’s “30 for 30” which lives for stories such as these. Instead, director Sean McNamara wanted to bring it to the big screen and squeeze out every tear you never knew you had in re-telling the story of the West High School volleyball team after the death of teammate Caroline Found during the follow-up to their championship season in 2011. Crushed by the loss, the team no longer wants to play but Coach Bres initially forces and then pushes them back on the court and eventually, the team rebounds and begins an unexpected run toward an improbable second consecutive state championship. It’s every sports movie you’ve ever seen with the rare exception that this one is fact-based as the events depicted happened and “Live Like Line” became the team’s call as they moved from sadness to rejoicing in honoring their fallen teammate throughout the 2012 season depicted in the film. It’s an inspirational story, if you can see through the manipulative efforts taken by McNamara to insure the audience is left in a puddle of tears as they watch the season unfold on screen.Read More →

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In: 2018, Hot Take

Hot Take: I want to respect this movie for it’s refusal to sensationalize the subject matter. However, the straightforward flick felt less like a feature film and more like a history lesson.

Hollywood has devoted a lot of resources to making feature films and television shows about the Kennedys. Ted Kennedy hasn’t really been more than a side note in these films and shows until Chappaquiddick which re-lives the personally darkest point of Ted’s life. It’s re-creation of the events surrounding the car accident at Chappaquiddick Island which involved Ted and one of the women who worked on Robert Kennedy’s campaign, Mary Jo Kopechne. The accident involved Ted’s car careening off a small bridge and into a pond. Kennedy escaped but Kopechne was unable to get out of the car and drowned. Straightforward and documentary-like, Chappaquiddick follows the story from the accident to the aftermath and how Ted initially planned to not reveal he was in the car and waited nearly half a day to turn himself into the authorities. It also reveals how this scandal was handled politically by Kennedy’s team of advisors and family. Read More →

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In: 2018, Hot Take, Uncategorized

Hot Take: Some combination of Superbad, American Pie and Porky’s sprinkled with sex-positive feminism. Also, the adult trio of Cena, Mann and Barinholtz deliver laughs, too.

There’s a good chance we’ll see Kathryn Newton, Geraldine Viswanathan and Gideon Adlon again. The trio of actresses who portray high school seniors who join in a sex pact as they head to prom night in Blockers will likely be sought after much like their counterparts have in past high school comedies. Although the trio aren’t necessarily the stars of the film — John Cena, Leslie Mann and Ian Barinholtz take up the majority of the screen time — these three are the heart and soul of the raunchy, sex-positive teen comedy that takes the rare path of featuring females instead of males in the main teenage roles. Maybe the fact that the teens are female is why this studio comedy spent so much time focusing on the adult characters who are bound and determined to stop their daughters from losing their virginity on prom night but, heck, it’s a start, right?Read More →

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In: 2018, Hot Take

Hot Take: One of the most tension-filled films in recent memory. By far, the best movie of 2018 to date. It’s also one of the best “Go to the Movies” movies in quite some time.

While Titanic isn’t my favorite film (although it’s in my Top 5), it is easily the movie I enjoy seeing the most in theaters. Every time it is re-released, I go as far as I need to go to see it. I’ve seen it 8 times in theaters. It’s one of those theatrical experiences that you don’t get from most movies. A Quiet Place, a suspense/thriller/horror where making a sound can get you killed from John Krasinski (Jim from The Office), is the latest film to qualify as one of the top “Go to the Movies” movies of the 2000s. That doesn’t necessarily make it one of the best movies, though it’s an excellent movie, also, but if it’s on your list to see and you’re thinking about waiting to see it at home (or you’re one of those people with the ability to illegally download movies currently in theaters… Shame on you, by the way!), you should clear your schedule and make time to see it where it was meant to be seen. A Quiet Place is one of those films that I can guarantee loses something outside of the cinema. Read More →

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In: 2018, Hot Take

Hot Take: It’s almost worth it for Taraji P. Henson’s rage-filled performance. ALMOST! But not quite.

Tyler Perry’s latest is like lather, rinse, repeat. Critics hate. Audiences ignore. Money stacks. Hate, ignore, stack. That’s what Tyler Perry movies do. But is Tyler Perry’s Acrimony any good and would it be successful without the name on the marquee? The quality question is pretty easy to answer: Not really. While Tyler Perry’s Acrimony starts out with a lot of promise and features the talents of Taraji P. Henson in a relatively juicy role for her, the film unravels in the middle of the second act and never pieces it’s way back together. As for the other question, it’s likely Acrimony sans Tyler Perry would have had similar success at the box office since these relationship revenge flicks, especially featuring African American stars, have a way of banking at the box office.Read More →

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In: 2018, Hot Take

Hot Take: Every faith-based Biblical tale must have bright, slow motion scenes draped in classical-stylized instrumental music and Paul, Apostle of Christ is no different. Plus, it’s confusing as hell that Jesus is now Luke. 

I have to admit that I might not have paid attention to most of the first act of Paul, Apostle of Christ. My brain was struggling to process Jim Caviezel in the role of Luke in a movie where Jesus is talked about so prominently. Caviezel, you should know, was Jesus in Mel Gibson’s faith-based success The Passion of the Christ. For some reason, this casting decision didn’t sit well with me if only for the reason that it was so distracting to the actual film. It also could have been the laborious pace of the film which takes a while to get going as it covers the last days of Paul (James Faulkner) as he sits in jail falsely accused by Nero of burning down Rome. Writer/director Andrew Hyatt’s faith-based take follows similar patterns to other faith-based filmmakers and delivers a safe, surprisingly undramatic and somber telling of Paul’s final moments before his beheading at the hands of the Romans.Read More →

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In: 2018, Hot Take

Hot Take: Your typical bigger, louder and not necessarily better action sequel. However, Pacific Rim Uprising seemed to know what it was which was somehow very comforting.

At some point, someone will get the idea to adapt Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em Robots into a feature-length motion picture. (If you’re doubting that as a possibility, see the abomination that is 2012’s Battleship.) Basically, though, it already happened with Pacific Rim Uprising, the unnecessary sequel to Guillermo del Toro’s Pacific Rim which released to mixed reviews and mixed box office results in 2013. Poor attendance in the U.S. did not stop Pacific Rim from cashing in overseas leading to a $400+ million worldwide box office. Okay, maybe the sequel does make sense when you think of it in those terms. Guillermo del Toro was originally slated to write and direct the sequel but eventually, his script was scrapped and a new director, Steven S. DeKnight (for his feature film debut), was brought in. The result is a somewhat campy adrenaline rush of an action flick that knows it’s a somewhat campy adrenaline rush on an action flick. And that’s okay.Read More →

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In: 2018, Ranked, Weigh In

Thanks to a soft January, a cruise to the Caribbean and some other uncontrollable circumstances, it took a little longer than last year to get to 25 movies. There’s a good chance the 2018 pace will catch up to 2017 by June and typically, the best movies don’t come until the second half of the year anyway. (At this point last year, Logan, John Wick: Chapter 2 and Kedi were the top 3 movies of 2017.) While the box office doesn’t reflect it, ignoring Black Panther, of course, 2018 is shaping up to be slightly better than 2017 although the bottom of 2018 is shaping up to be a cesspool. Here’s the first batch of films from 2018, graded:Read More →