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In: 2016, Hot Take

Hot Take: Michael Keaton keeps turns out one great performance after another. How’d the Academy miss this one?

The only conclusion I can draw from Michael Keaton not being nominated for Best Actor this year is that between Birdman, Spotlight and The Founder, The Founder is probably his weakest performance. Since it came third, the Academy might have suffered fatigue and ignored his excellent performance as Ray Kroc in the story of how McDonald’s became McDonald’s.Read More →

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In: 2016, 2017, Hot Take, Lists, Weigh In

We’re a few hours away from the announcement of this year’s Oscar nominees. Like last year, now would be as good of a time as any to weigh in on who I think will be nominated for this year’s awards. And, for fun, who I’d nominate if my vote was the only one that counted:

Best Picture

My Nominations

  • Jackie
  • Sing Street
  • Hell or High Water
  • Moonlight
  • Fences
  • Arrival
  • La La Land
  • Everybody Wants Some!!
  • The Witch
  • Lion

Who Will Earn the Nominations (From most to least likely):Read More →

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In: 2017, Hot Take

Hot Take: Part of me liked Split. Part of me didn’t. You leave wanting to talk about it though and M. Night is gifted when it comes to getting people to talk about his movies.

M. Night Shyamalan has a knack for creating things people want to talk about, whether they want to see it or not. Split is a perfect example (and a perfectly placed film on the release schedule) of his ability to get people talking even without the usual overhype his previous films have had. In this case, Shyamalan’s secret weapon was James McAvoy who at even a glimpse in the trailer as he embodies multiple personalities (23 to be exact) had people very curious about Split.Read More →

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In: 2017, Hot Take

Hot Take: A complete waste of time. Welcome to January!

Sometimes you see an actor and you wonder what were they thinking? Immediately after seeing Sleepless, a lazy remake of 2011 French thriller Sleepless Night, I Googled, “How much did Jamie Foxx get paid to make Sleepless?” I didn’t find an answer but I have to imagine it was a decent payday considering how bad the movie was. We’re talking about the guy who played Ray Charles and Django in one of the most cliché action movies in recent memory. Read More →

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In: 2016, Hot Take

Hot Take: Scorsese’s passion project took 20+ years to make it to the cinema. It’s hard to believe a film of its caliber with a director of Scorsese’s pedigree was this difficult to get financial support. Then again, it won’t make any money at the box office so you’d be hard pressed to fault the studios.

Silence is one of those films that you watch and realize why someone would become so obsessed with getting it made. You also realize, as the film spans 161 minutes and deals with very deep philosophical issues, why many studios wouldn’t give the film the time of day even with an auteur such as Martin Scorsese as the obsessed artist looking to bring the film to life. Silence is beautifully shot and well thought out. It’s a real think piece. It’ll also be lucky to break even despite its somewhat modest (in modern terms) $40 million budget.Read More →

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In: 2016, Hot Take

Hot Take: Rogue One falls short of greatness thanks to a lack of story development. It is reliably good though and has the right mix of new (even though it’s really old) Star Wars bits and pieces to edify the audience.

How much you like Rogue One: A Star Wars Story is going to come down to what kind of Star Wars fan you are. This is already assuming very few non-Star Wars fans will give the prequel to the original Star Wars (which is actually the fourth chapter of the story) a shot. If you’re more of a fan of the action of the end of A New Hope or the opening scenes of Empire Strikes Back on Hoth and don’t need lightsaber battles to carry you through and couldn’t care less about the origin of most of the new characters introduced, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (Star Wars 3.9?) should be very pleasing.Read More →

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In: 2016, Hot Take

Hot Take: Believe all of the great things you’ve read or heard about Natalie Portman’s portrayal of Jacqueline Kennedy. The best movie of 2016.

Just two days ago, I wrote how Viola Davis was a shoo-in for a nomination for an Academy Award and should probably win. Since Davis is likely to be nominated for Supporting Actress, I don’t have to eat crow. Natalie Portman’s portrayal of Jacqueline Kennedy in Jackie is the performance of the year. Not just among women, either. Portman breathes life into an iconic character in a way seldom seen on screen. It’s the performance of her career which includes her role in Black Swan where she took home practically every award you could for that performance.Read More →

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In: 2016, Hot Take

Hot Take: Proof positive looks can be deceiving. So bad I had to double check the initial release date to see if this wasn’t a January release.

I am not a Ben Affleck hater. However, for those that are, Live By Night will offer enough fuel to burn down Gotham before he dodges one more question about his stand-alone Batman movie coming in a couple of years. The only two things Live By Night has going for it is that it is so entertainingly bad at times it becomes entertaining and the film is visually engaging which is a hat tip to Affleck, the director.Read More →

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In: 2016, Hot Take

Hot Take: This Berg/Wahlberg combo is consistent, at least. Like Deepwater Horizon in the way it tells the story, Patriots Day is a well done recount of the 2013 bombing of the Boston Marathon and subsequent manhunt.

For the third consecutive time, director Peter Berg has taken a compelling true story, partnered with Mark Wahlberg and turned it into a very watchable movie. Patriots Day joins 2013’s Lone Survivor and 2016’s Deepwater Horizon on Berg’s resume as the third consecutive “based on a true story” film directed by him. In his career, it’s the fifth time Berg brought a true story to the big screen with the first two happening in 2004 (Friday Night Lights) and 2007 (The Kingdom) and without the talent of Wahlberg at his disposal.Read More →

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In: 2016, Hot Take

Hot Take: The 2000s gets its version of The NeverEnding Story only slightly more mature and with a stronger, more coherent message about dealing with loss at a young age.

For a while, I wasn’t sure I was going to enjoy A Monster Calls. Knowing it was based on a children’s book, my expectations were for something less adult than what unfolded on the screen. We follow 12-year-old Conor (Lewis McDougall) as he struggles to cope with his mother’s (Felicity Jones) illness. Conor has a passion for drawing and an active imagination. His imagination conjures up The Monster (voiced by Liam Neeson) which comes to life from a giant tree in the middle of the cemetery at the top of the hill near his house. The Monster tells Conor stories which come to life from animated segments narrated by The Monster with commentary from young Conor who fails to find the wisdom in The Monster’s tales.Read More →