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Hot Take: A mirror image of Electronic Dance Music, if you can’t tolerate EDM, you probably won’t tolerate #WAYF. If you can, We Are Your Friends might win you over.

Give We Are Your Friends credit for its’ ability to mimic the style of EDM with its pace, timing and sampling. Or maybe not. Because sometimes it feels as if this was as accidental as DJ Cole Carter’s epiphanies on his way to finding his “voice” (does one have a voice in EDM?) in the world of EDM.Read More →

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Anticipation (Before Trailer): 25 out of 100

Anticipation (After Trailer): 30 out of 100

Why do trailers sell movies by mentioning movies you might not possibly like? The trailer for Love the Coopers seems fairly generic. Then it happens:

“From the producers of The Family Stone” flashes on the screen. Really? You’re telling me I want to see this holiday movie by mentioning another crappy holiday movie. I’ll pass. Probably. (OK, I saw Fantastic Four so you know I’ll watch almost anything.)

Side note: Ed Helms doesn’t help either.

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Anticipation (Before Trailer): 50 out of 100

Anticipation (After Trailer): 50 out of 100

Michael Caine, Harvey Keitel and Rachel Weisz are enough to get me somewhat interested. Overall, Youth looks like your standard film festival buzzworthy movie that’s probably halfway decent.

The December release hints at Oscar-worthy buzz (at the very least, someone in the cast might land themselves a nomination) but time will tell. The trailer doesn’t bowl you over.

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Anticipation (Before Trailer): 0 out of 100

 

Anticipation (After Trailer): 55 out of 100

Admittedly, Kill Your Friends was not on the radar prior to seeing this trailer. Now, Patrick Bateman vs. the Record Industry looks somewhat intriguing.

The preview threw in a subtle Spice Girls reference so now all I can imagine is Nicholas Hoult’s psychotic main character wiping out the mock up of the Britpop sensations. Hoult was on point in Mad Max: Fury Road so maybe 55/100 is a little low for this British cousin of American Psycho.

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Hot Take: Sure, alone we can’t stop Hollywood from turning out Fantastic Four films but together, if we all stop going, maybe we can make it go away forever.

The most stunning thing about Fantastic Four is it’s 21% “Liked It” score on Rotten Tomatoes. We rarely see TV movies anymore and has there ever been a superhero TV movie? Well, this could have been a TV movie. A very bad, boring, dull, brooding, lifeless, soulless TV movie. Read More →

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Brian Joseph Brian Joseph
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22 items   4 followers   13 votes   390 views

The September Movie Preview

Listly by Brian Joseph

The summer leftovers can finally be thrown out. Fall is here. Which movies will you say, "I'll see you in September" to?

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The Visit (September 11th)

Aug 24, 2015
The Visit (September 11th)

It's been 7 years since M. Night Shyamalan's The Happening. Since then, Shyamalan strayed from the eerie with a couple of forgettable disasters (The Last Airbender and After Earth) so, at the very least, it's good to see him back to his roots. Since The Sixth Sense, Shyamalan's films have been polarizing. The reception has been lukewarm. But, based on the trailer, this looks intriguing.

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Black Mass (September 18)

Aug 24, 2015
Black Mass (September 18)

The true story of one of the most powerful gangsters in Boston history, James "Whitey" Bulger. It's early but it might be safe to pencil in Johnny Depp for a Best Actor nomination for his take on Bulger. While it doesn't mean movies released from January-August won't get Oscar consideration but let's declare September 18th as the start of Oscar season.

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Pawn Sacrifice (September 18)

Aug 24, 2015
Pawn Sacrifice (September 18)

Tobey Maguire brings the genius and paranoia of Bobby Fischer to life. The true story of Fischer vs. Boris Spassky during the rise of the Cold War. Add to it, Edward Zwick (Glory, Legends of the Fall, The Last Samurai, Blood Diamond) as director and you have a must-see biopic.

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Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials (September 18)

Aug 24, 2015
Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials (September 18)

Based on The Scorch Trials, the second book in the Maze Runner trilogy, Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials is the sequel to, you guessed it, 2014's The Maze Runner. Basically, The Maze Runner was The Lord of the Flies on steroids. Look for more of the same from the dystopian sequel.

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The Intern (September 25)

Aug 24, 2015
The Intern (September 25)

Writer/director Nancy Meyers has been somewhat hit or miss. Her last film, It's Complicated, was well received. The Holiday? Not so much. Anne Hathaway as CEO of an internet start-up, Robert DeNiro as the world's oldest intern? Here's the fear: The majority of intrigue is given away in the trailer.

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Anticipation (Before Trailer): 20 out of 100

Anticipation (After Trailer): 65 out of 100

This wasn’t on the radar at all before seeing this trailer yesterday. The only reason it registered a blip was Nina Dobrev now that she’s no longer part of “The Vampire Diaries”.

This looks like a lot of fun. If Scary Movie had a brain. It’s disappointing to see the film will only enjoy a limited release on October 9th (at the moment) as these types of movies play better to large audiences. It’s not surprising it was a fan favorite at a few film festivals.

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Hot Take: If you set the bar low enough (a little lower!), Hitman: Agent 47 might make the cut. It’s August after all.

Two years ago, another video game turned movie flick, Getaway, hit theaters. It was the typical end of summer filler one ends up at and, at the time, I found it to be horrible but, also, a guilty pleasure. The combination of wondering if the Ford Shelby Mustang GT500 would make it in the credits as “The Car” much like Selena Gomez as “The Kid” and Jon Voight as “The Voice” (It didn’t.) and how fantastic it would be for this film to fall in the lap of the MST3K crew kept me entertained throughout. It wasn’t until last year when I tried to recapture the magic of the first viewing on the small screen did it hit me how truly dismal this movie was.Read More →

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Hot Take: Is it OK if I say you might want to skip it? (Especially if you have high expectations… Sorry, couldn’t help myself!)

American Ultra might be dubbed a stoner, action comedy but it’s more a violent, end of summer leftover with an occasional laugh and some drugs.

If anything, the stoner portrayal is a lazy driver of the narrative that both Jesse Eisenberg’s Mike Howell and Kristen Stewart’s Phoebe Larson are unmotivated and unaccomplished. It might be the first movie featuring weed without using it as a comedic device.Read More →

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Anticipation (Before Preview): 60 out of 100

Anticipation (After Preview): 72 out of 100

If Superbad, From Dusk Till Dawn and Welcome to Zombieland had a three way, I envision this.

I’m a sucker for zombie movies so I’m probably downplaying my anticipation a little bit to appear sophisticated.