By:
On:
In: 2017, Hot Take

Hot Take: Disneynature’s latest Earth Day contribution that is as adorable as you can expect any documentary about snow leopards, pandas, antelopes and monkeys to be. Warning: It goes for the feels!

Almost every year, Disneynature produces a documentary that coincides with Earth Day. This year’s offering is Born in China featuring narration by John Krasinksi and noticeably lacking any commentary about the effect of climate change on the habitat of the animals we follow. Instead, the stories are humanized and emotional. The beautifully shot and slickly edited documentary contains a number of incredible shots promoting family values and the instinctiveness of familial love.Read More →

By:
On:
In: 2017, Hot Take

Hot Take: Bad as you want it to be. Unintentionally funny at times. Katherine Heigl is a campy, convincing whack-a-doodle. This year’s When the Bough Breaks which was last year’s The Perfect Guy.

Lifetime Channel’s movies became so big, they launched a separate Lifetime Movie Network. Occasionally, though, when we’re really good, Hollywood treats us to a big screen version of the movies that are usually reserved for endless repeat on LMN. Unforgettable (an ironic title since you won’t be able to differentiate this movie from others of its ilk come next year) is one of those movies that somehow avoided landing on the Lifetime Channel and instead got the green light from a major studio (Warner Bros.) and is now unintentionally making audiences laugh as Katherine Heigl and Rosario Dawson square off in a prolonged cinematic catfight.Read More →

By:
On:
In: 2017, Hot Take

Hot Take: If you think this is a Tarantino rip off, you’re not watching close enough. It’s more of an homage to 70s and 80s action or a Guy Ritchie rip off than anything. It’s actually a good bit of fun though. How often do you get to experience a 62 minute shootout?

Sometimes film critics get obsessed with making a connection between two films and dwelling on it. That seems to be the case with Free Fire and Reservoir Dogs. It’s easy to relate the two movies since both films have a memorable warehouse showdown. Unlike Reservoir Dogs, Free Fire doesn’t give you a clear cut good guy to root for in the film and Ben Wheatley and Amy Jump’s script for Free Fire isn’t nearly as wordy or filled with pop culture references as Quentin Tarantino’s directorial début and Free Fire‘s plot unravels in about 15-20 minutes before launching into what has to be the longest shootout in movie history while Reservoir Dogs experiences a slower burn and a much different feel. Saying both of these films are comparable would be like saying LeBron James and myself are comparable since we both wear Nike and have dribbled a basketball.Read More →

By:
On:
In: 2017, Hot Take

Hot Take: Character driven Netflix Original that somehow forgets there’s a plot that needs attention until it’s too late. It’s still pretty good, though.

Most films about gambling get it wrong. Outside of Let It Ride and Rounders (I haven’t seen Mississippi Grind yet so that one is excluded from the conversation), the rest typically have some fatal flaw that causes it to lose credibility. Hell, even Rounders has a villain with the most obvious and ridiculous tell a poker player would ever have. Win It All avoids those fatal flaws by focusing on the main character, small time gambler Eddie Garrett (Jake Johnson) and his struggle with gambling addiction rather than the gambling action.Read More →

By:
On:
In: 2017, Hot Take

Hot Take: Earns a golf clap.

If there were a Mount Rushmore of golf movies, three spots would have to be reserved for Caddyshack, Tin Cup and Happy Gilmore. As for the fourth spot, a friendly 19th hole argument could be made for a handful of flicks. In a few years, once Tommy’s Honour makes the rounds, it wouldn’t be surprising for someone to tee this one up as a possible deserving candidate to complete the foursome.Read More →

By:
On:
In: 2017, Hot Take

Hot Take: This cash cow should have been called The Predictable and the Tedious.

As much as I am not a fan of this franchise, damn if it isn’t highly successful. Knowing the entire movie slate was cleared for the 8th installment of The Fast and the Furious franchise, I finally buckled in for a full fledged start to finish watching of my very first full taste of the franchise with The Fate of the Furious. Having seen bits and pieces of many of the other installments in the series, I knew there would be at least one spectacular chase or race scene I would enjoy. I was right. There was one. Unfortunately, it was the opening race sequence when Dom (Vin Diesel) races a Cuban street racer for his ride in Havana to come to the defense of his cousin. This is all while Dom is on his honeymoon with Letty (Michelle Rodríguez). After a somewhat entertaining race which (SPOILER ALERT!!!) Dom wins, it’s all downhill from there.Read More →

By:
On:
In: 2017, Hot Take

Hot Take: Adam Sandler loves to make turkeys… Loves to make tur-ur-ur-keys!

How much money does Netflix have? Three films into an eight film deal with Adam Sandler, it’s pretty obvious they had at least a little to burn. The epic-length Sandy Wexler is Sandler’s latest. It’s basically a roast disguised as a feature film of Sandler’s talent manager Sandy Wernick who signed Sandler when he was 22 and well before his breakthrough as an SNL regular. With most of Sandler’s movies, the question isn’t whether or not Sandy Wexler is bad but how bad is it? It’s pretty bad. It’s watchable though so there’s a win.Read More →

By:
On:
In: 2017, Hot Take

Hot Take: Sure looked like a lot of fun but this overly talkative mess is too tasteless. It’s a Tarantino or Shane Black knock-off with an untimely facetious approach to police brutality without a big enough entertainment yield.

 It isn’t that War on Everyone is completely void of entertainment. When a movie opens with a pair of cops running down a mime, you might set your hopes high for something truly different. Wait, people actually think mime jokes are still funny? The pair of cops — Terry (Alexander Skarsgard) and Bob (Michael Pena) — are as bad as they want to be. They’re experts when it comes to blackmail and extortion of criminals. There’s the obligatory sit down with the police chief (Paul Reiser) where they promise not to be so bad and the immediate obligatory follow up scene where they’re doing coke in a pool hall bathroom with a perp they are trying to turn informant. Read More →

By:
On:
In: 2017, Hot Take

Hot Take: Sweet film with its heart in the right place. Chris Evans shows a little range and Mckenna Grace steals the show as Mary. You’ll laugh, you might cry, you’ll smile.

2017 has been an odd year for movies. So far, there haven’t been many home runs. MHT hasn’t given any movie more than 4 stars with Logan at the top of the heap. There haven’t been many complete strike outs, either. While Rings, Sleepless, Collide and Resident Evil: The Final Chapter were all awful, they all somehow managed to squeeze out a 1/2 star rating. While 2017 hasn’t produced anything that’ll be hanging around in the top 15 movies of the year so far, there have been plenty of above average movies worth seeing that would be considered a single or double if we continue the baseball analogy. Gifted is one of those above average movies.Read More →

By:
On:
In: 2017, Hot Take

Hot Take: A silly cartoon in an age where animated films are usually far from silly. It’s dumb one joke premise wears thin but it also has the occasional moment in the sun.

We’re in a different age of cartoons. There was a time when almost every animated film felt like The Boss Baby. While it might not be as madcap as the Looney Tunes series but it definitely has a Tiny Toon Adventures feel about it.Read More →