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In: 2017, Hot Take

Hot Take: It’s great to see a live action version of one of Disney’s greatest films. Emma Watson is wonderful. Did it need to be more cartoonish than the cartoon though?

After the financial success of The Jungle Book, bringing any animated tale to life makes fiscal sense for Disney. The choice of Beauty and the Beast, though, is a no brainer as it is one of Disney’s best and must human cartoons of all-time. There’s so much humanity and emotion in the original animated version, it was nominated for Best Picture in 1991 eventually losing to The Silence of the Lambs. That does pose a challenge for the live action update as it has rather large shoes to fill unlike The Jungle Book which was never really one of Disney’s best films.
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In: 2017, Hot Take

Hot Take: Doesn’t really make you think. Not a lot of fun. If it’s aim were social commentary, it’s the sophomore college essay equivalent of such an exercise.

James Gunn gets a lot of credit for Guardians of the Galaxy and the work done there. Somehow people have completely forgotten he’s responsible for Movie 43, the 2013 Golden Raspberry Award winner for Worst Picture, Worst Screenplay and Worst Director. Gunn is also responsible for 2006’s Slither which is one of the goriest horror comedy films of the last 15 years. It feels like Gunn — the film’s screenwriter — is going for the same vibe in The Belko Experiment but with some layer of social consciousness that gets completely lost in the gory sauce.Read More →

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In: 2017, Hot Take

Hot Take: Dark comic vibes pulse through a dramatic thriller with quirky, eccentric characters that jabs at you until the third act then BLAM!

Ever feel like you’ve had enough? Ruth (Melanie Lynskey) hits her breaking point after her house is broken into, her laptop is stolen, her depression medication is lifted and, worst of all, her grandmother’s silverware was taken. After getting nowhere with the cops, she’s set off by one more act of violation when she finally catches which neighbor (Elijah Wood) keeps allowing their dog to poop in her yard. After confronting him, she takes to the neighborhood to ask if anyone has seen anything unusual. Eventually, she comes back to the same neighbor — Tony — who seems to be the only one interested in her case.Read More →

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In: 2017, Hot Take

Hot Take: Okay, campers, rise and shine, and don’t forget your booties ’cause it’s cold out there today. IT’S GROUNDHOG DAY!!!… meets MEAN GIRLS!!! (And it’s actually not terrible.)

There are a lot of similarities between the way Before I Fall tells its story and two classic films with ardent fans who will likely not be too pleased with Before I Fall. It’s the nature of moviegoers to not particularly care for something that seemingly rips off something you find to be both high quality and original. The two movies — Groundhog Day and Mean Girls — along with the Lauren Oliver novel the movie is based on, shape Before I Fall into what ends up being an adequate film that can never escape the shadow cast by the two other films.Read More →

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In: 2017, Hot Take

Hot Take: It won’t be the best of 2017 but it’s the best of 2017 so far. A fitting tribute to the end of Hugh Jackman’s run as Wolverine… if it’s the end, of course.

While the X-Men tales aren’t necessarily part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the films featuring the mutants of X-Men have been mostly good. Surprisingly, the weakest offerings have been the standalone Wolverine movies despite Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine being one of the most interesting characters of the ensemble features. X-Men Origins: Wolverine is practically unwatchable and 2013’s The Wolverine was an improvement but overstayed its welcome on screen and, by the end, became just another superhero flick.Read More →

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In: 2017, Hot Take

Hot Take: Warm and soft as its subject matter and slight at 80 minutes. The documentary does enough to create a narrative around the excellent cinematography.

Although Kedi centers around cats and kittens to drive its visuals and attempts to create characters out of some of its featured felines, human kindness is actually at the film’s heart. The street cats of Istanbul are highlighted in this 80-minute documentary from Turkish-born filmmaker Ceyda Torun and focuses on 7 cats, in particular — Sari, Duman, Bengu, Asian Parcasi, Gamsiz, Psikopat and Deniz. While the focus is on the cats, we learn about the kindness of the people of Istanbul in their love and affection for these stray cats who take residence pretty much wherever they feel they’d like to take residence amongst the citizens of Istanbul.Read More →

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In: 2017, Hot Take

Hot Take: Bitter Harvest? More like Bitter Borefest. It would be what happened if Lifetime started making movies for The History Channel.

Buried beneath the love story of Yuri and Natalka is a tale of the atrocities of 1930s Ukraine and the effects of Joseph Stalin’s genocidal policies on the region. There’s enough detail to realize Bitter Harvest recounts one of the darkest periods of history for the Ukrainian people, the Holodomor. The Holodomor was a man-made famine by the then Soviet Union that killed millions of Ukrainians. It was ordered by Stalin to pressure the Ukrainians to drop their independence movement. The film’s focus — the relationship of Yuri and Natalka — is rather uninteresting compared to the story of the famine and the subhuman treatment of the Ukrainians at the hands of the Soviets.Read More →

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In: 2017, Ranked, Trailers

The month of March might be the best month for movies in 2017. There are 15 movies — led by Beauty and the Beast, Logan and Kong: Skull Island — that are on the definitely want to see list and another 4 that are on the maybe list. The bottom of the list includes some duds that for some reason — Power Rangers (Nostalgia), The Shack (Octavia Spencer), The Baby Boss (Alec Baldwin) — still feel novel enough to be seen. So, here’s the list of movies headed to theaters in March, ranked by anticipation:Read More →

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In: 2017, BuRStS

With 10 movies to be released on February 28th including this year’s Best Picture nominee winner, Moonlight, it’s a big week in terms of quantity. However, there’s plenty to wait to stream or just plain skip this week with less than half of the releases making the rent or buy list. Here’s what you should buy, rent, stream and skip for the week of February 28th:Read More →

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In: 2017, Hot Take

Hot Take: Actually works better as satire and comedy which is no surprise with Jordan Peele directing. And how often is a horror thriller a crowd pleaser?

Get Out is a well structured, satirical horror flick from half of the dynamic duo that brought us Key & Peele for so many years. It’s great to see both Keegan-Michael Key (who has nothing to do with this project unless you count an uncredited appearance in a photo you’re probably not going to catch) and Jordan Peele (Get Out’s writer and director) flourishing in their post-Key & Peele life. By the time I saw Get Out, it was already a box office phenomenon with an estimated opening weekend of $30+ million. That’s more than 6 times its $4.5 million budget and easily the box office winner for the week.Read More →