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In: 2017, Hot Take

Hot Take: More hopeless than horror with an ending that leaves you asking yourself, “Why bother?” There’s no payoff and I didn’t lose a second of sleep over the events that transpired.

One thing I expect to happen when watching a horror film is, soon after, I will lose a little bit of sleep over something I’ve seen in it. Even some of the worst horror films have moments that shake my nerves enough to cause me to lose a few minutes of sleep. (Although, to be fair, since I’ve given up caffeine, hardly anything can stop me from sleeping.) Nothing even close to that happens in It Comes At Night, a dark, hopeless, post-apocalyptic horror film that attempts to be more cerebral than visual in its attack on your nerves. Read More →

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Hot Take: Wonder Woman is a wonderful film. It even overcomes comic film fatigue… and that’s saying a lot. Best film of the year (as of June 4) but 2017 still doesn’t have a 5 star movie yet.

The best part of Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice was the first appearance of Wonder Woman. At the time, seeing Gal Gadot don the tiara and knowing there was a future solo film was exciting. Add in the fact that 2017 has been particularly bereft of great films and Wonder Woman was primed for a turn in the spotlight. By weekend’s end, it looks like the origin story of this DCEU character is likely to top $100 million at the box office which will not only be considered a pretty big success for the film, it’s also the highest grossing opening weekend for a film directed by a female. The bigger question, though, is was Wonder Woman any good?
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Hot Take: If you want to see the difference between a movie that is juvenile and a movie that celebrates juvenile, see Captain Underpants. It’s an overall harmless good time at the movies for all ages but especially kids.

Make no mistake about it, Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie is geared toward the younger set. Filled with potty humor and outlandishly imaginative vignettes, the movie, based on a best-selling children’s novel series by Dav Pilkey, is fully loaded to be an onslaught on a kid’s funny bone but also not so immature that an adult can’t find it funny, too. It also doesn’t try overly hard to put something in there for adults but rather focuses on being smarter in its juvenile humor to offer itself as an opportunity for adults to remember what it was like to be a kid and get lost in the friendship of George and Harold.
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Hot Take: It’s a less charming, PG version of Vacation… and I’m referring to the awful remake from a couple of years ago.

In 2015, Hollywood made a huge mistake by trying to remake Vacation. The Chevy Chase vehicle didn’t need an update as the classic still worked all by itself. Seeking a cash grab, that didn’t stop the filmmakers from adding a bunch of gross out humor and other unfunny material into the equation. Luckily, audiences didn’t take the bait and the film grossed only $59 million which was $2 million less than the original which released 32 years earlier. What does any of this have to do with the latest installment in the Diary of a Wimpy Kid franchise, you might ask? Well, Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Long Haul is what would happen if you toss the remake of Vacation into a blender with its own formula and took out anything that would score an R rating. If someone pours you a cup, don’t taste it!Read More →

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In: 2017, Hot Take

Hot Take: Yo, ho, ho hum. This tired franchise is now 90% fan service and delivers nothing new. It’s not the worst one in the series, though.

At 129 minutes, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales, the latest and possibly last in the franchise, is actually the shortest of the 5 installments. It might be the best since the original, too. That’s not saying much considering how brutal this franchise has been. I remember seeing the third film in the original trilogy and falling asleep multiple times during its inhumane 168 minute run time. It’s tough to choose between the third and fourth (At World’s End and On Stranger Tides) as to which one was the low tide of the Pirates of the Caribbean films. It puts Dead Men Tell No Tales in a neck and neck race with the second installment, Dead Man’s Chest, for the honor of being known as the second best film in the franchise. That’s not really a compliment as the 5 films only have 1 that could be considered better than mediocre and even in that instance, you’re really pushing it.Read More →

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Hot Take: I can smell what The Rock is cooking here. Someone should flush. Baywatch is a total waste of talent and time.

If you remember the old Baywatch television show which ran from 1991 to 2001, it’s most likely not for a memorable storyline. The show was pretty ridiculous and you were probably tuning in for the slow motion shots of captivating men and women in scantily clad lifeguard outfits but the show was entertaining enough in between those shots to be worthy of watching. The same can’t be said for the big screen abomination that has graced us with its presence in 2017. There are plenty of scantily clad men and women in lifeguard outfits including the sculpted Dwayne Johnson and chiseled Zac Efron and a bevy of hot babes to compete with the television show’s roster of stunning women. The storyline settles for a convoluted plot with a number of dick joke detours and idiotic humor that barely meets the minimum qualifications to be called humor because most of it isn’t funny even though you know that’s the intention.Read More →

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In: 2017, Hot Take

Hot Take: When you’re dealing with the 8th movie in a film franchise, any opinion has the danger of entering “Water is wet” territory. Alien: Covenant is watchable but lacks self-awareness which leads it to appearing to be so damn full of itself.

What do you want me to say about Alien: Covenant? It’s somewhere in the middle of all of the films in the Alien franchise? Okay. It would be unsurprising to learn that someone behind Life scored an early draft of the script and decided to make a similar film the same year? Watch them both and see if you don’t draw the same conclusion. The creature in the two films should have to fight to the death to decide which one is allowed to continue to exist in 2017. Michael Fassbender can even pull off dual roles? Duh. Read More →

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Hot Take: A celebration of the lowrider tradition in Los Angeles mixed with a cliché filled tale of men who can’t express their feelings unless it is through heavy machinery.

I’m waiting for Blumhouse Tilt to make a misstep this year. I guess you could call The Belko Experiment a misstep but with a $5 million budget and a $10.6 box office, it’s far from a disaster. I wasn’t expecting much from BH Tilt’s latest Lowriders and ranked it the 23rd most anticipated release of May. While there’s no reason to go overboard with praise for the latest low budget flick from Jason Blum’s cost efficient film factory, Lowriders isn’t bad.Read More →

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In: 2017, Hot Take

Hot Take: I’ve always been worried about how cynical I am. Seeing Everything, Everything and liking it proves I’m not as cynical as I thought I was.

Everything, Everything has a far-fetched premise. Main character Maddy (Amandla Stenberg) hasn’t left the house since she was a baby because she has SCID (Severe Combined Immunodeficiency). As she turns 18 and still longs to see and feel the ocean up close, she meets new neighbor Olly (Nick Robinson) who is intrigued by the girl he sees at the window every day but never outside. Eventually, the two begin to text and even talk on the phone. Maddy doesn’t dare suggest to her overprotective mother (Anika Noni Rose) that Olly visit but instead convinces her nurse and friend Carla (Ana de la Reguera) to let Olly visit. They visit a few times and even share a kiss. One day Maddy witnesses Olly get into a fight with his father and when his father punches him, Instinctually Maddy runs outside to make sure Olly is okay. Maddy’s mom witnesses the entire thing and figures out what has been going on behind her back. No matter what mom does (even firing Carla and replacing her with a woman with the nursing skills akin to One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest), it can’t stop Maddy from longing to go outside which inevitably happens… after Maddy books a flight for her and Olly to Hawaii.Read More →