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In: 2017, Hot Take

Hot Take: Based on a true story, it’s like Captain Fantastic… if the father was a drunk, irresponsible and unable to provide actual parenting for his children and the mother was a whimsical artist who thought art was more important than, well, anything. So, maybe it’s not really like Captain Fantastic.

Jeannette Walls had a rough upbringing which she details in the best selling memoir The Glass Castle. While I haven’t read the memoir, from most accounts, the resulting Hollywood version has a thick coat of glossy polish over the actual story. That would explain why I’m trying to figure out what’s so damn sentimental about neglectful parents who can’t hold a job, move dozens of times, force their children to cook for themselves at a young age (to the point where Jeannette sets herself on fire making a hot dog) and barely provides anything other than hardship and examples of what not to do.Read More →

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In: 2017, Hot Take

Hot Take: You have to wonder if Steven Soderbergh came out of retirement because he knew how easy it would be to make a redneck version of Ocean’s Eleven? It’s not bad but it’s not great either.

If I were in a bad mood when I walked into Logan Lucky, I would have found plenty to hate on. I’m of the opinion that Steven Soderbergh’s return from a self-imposed hiatus is highly effected by what floor your mood elevator is on. That happens sometimes with mediocre films. The formulaic Logan Lucky has plenty of delightful and entertaining scenes to help someone justify calling it a good film but there’s a number of less than adequate moments that anyone wanting to slam it can lean on, too. Read More →

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In: 2017, Hot Take

Hot Take: The ’90s called and asked for their action comedy back. If you enjoy Samuel L. Jackson or Ryan Reynolds, it’s likely you’ll hang up on that call and enjoy the cross country ride.

Here’s the best piece of advice I can give you if you’re heading out to see The Hitman’s Bodyguard: Don’t think too hard! This is summer popcorn action comedy at its most summerish. If you’re going to dissect the ridiculous plot or the over-the-top action or count the amount of times Samuel L. Jackson says, “Mutha fucker!” then you should steer clear of this one. Heck, if you want to think, there’s a few documentaries in wide release that’ll soothe that part of your brain. However, considering we’ve just spent the last two weeks on the brink of nuclear war with North Korea (okay, that’s a bit of an exaggeration, but still!), watching the President treat his group of advisors like he did the cast of Celebrity Apprentice and, oh yeah almost forgot, had that same President equate Neo-Nazism to being just as bad as counterprotesting racism, turning off your brain might not be the worst thing to do here.Read More →

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In: 2017, Hot Take

Hot Take: Powerful, moving and poignant but also hard to digest. It’ll make ya wanna holler.

It’s been a rough week. Sitting in Las Vegas and perusing the news feed to see everything coming out of Charlottesville, it was almost as if I was a little disconnected being so far away from the East Coast and around a more celebratory melting pot of people who weren’t even mentioning the atrocities that were taking place on the opposite side of the country. By the time I got back to the East Coast, that guy less than half of us elected President had already doubled down on his brutal opening remarks and was headed for the rare triple down. (Actually, it’s so rare, I’ve never heard anyone actually accuse someone of tripling down but leave it to 45 to pull off such a rare feat of ridiculousness.) On Wednesday, going to see Detroit didn’t seem like the best idea considering how angry current events had me and how disenchanted I was with our ten steps backward we had taken this weekend as a country. However, looking forward and seeing that the film was headed for a slimming down of show times making it less likely I’d see it before it left theaters, jumping on a late Wednesday viewing made sense since the film appeared to be one worthy of going out of my way for. Now, it’s much later than I want it to be and I’m still awake thinking about how awful the events depicted in Detroit were and how frustrated it is that we still have atrocities taking place a la the events of the previous weekend.Read More →

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In: 2017, Hot Take

Hot Take: Sometimes Stephen King novels don’t translate to the big screen. It’s no surprise making something based on 8 King novels doesn’t make the transition.

When you hear names like Stephen King, Matthew McConaughey and Idris Elba attached to a project, there’s reason for excitement. However, when it comes to The Dark Tower, a Sci-Fi fantasy western based on King’s series of novels of the same name, the result falls well short of anything worth celebrating. Somehow the 8 novels produce a movie just 95 minutes long that is about as forgettable as any movie you’ll see in 2017. In about 3 years, this one will be in the “Under $5” bin at Walmart and there’s a good chance you won’t remember you saw it the first time.Read More →

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In: 2017, Ranked, Trailers

The summer season is winding down and August typically isn’t the best month for movies. That being said, there are a handful of films — led by Logan Lucky and The Hitman’s Bodyguard — we’re looking forward to with plenty of films we’ll probably see even though there isn’t much desire to actually do so. Here’s the August release calendar and their trailers, ranked in order of anticipation:Read More →

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In: 2017, Hot Take

Hot Take: Where’s that poo emoji when you need it? The worst movie of the year? Yes! The worst movie of the last 5 years? Probably! The worst movie of the 2000s? Maybe!

Imagine how bad a concept and movie about emojis that live in a smartphone would be. You’re only about a third of the way there to how bad it actually is in the form of Sony Pictures Animation’s The Emoji Movie is. It’s important to mention the studio here and every other person, place or thing — T.J. Miller, James Corden, Anna Farris, Patrick Stewart, Maya Rudolph, Sophia Vergara, Jennifer Coolidge, Ilana Glazer, Steven Wright, director (and co-writer) Tony Leondis, Dropbox, Candy Crush, Just Dance 2017 (and I’m sure I’m leaving some of the criminals who unleashed this hell on humanity) — because these are the people and advertisers who read the script and thought that somehow this was a good idea. Here’s the short response to that: It wasn’t!Read More →

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In: 2017, Hot Take

Hot Take: Girls Trip earns enough laughs that you can forgive it for a weak third act. It’s what Rough Night would have been if it were funny. The best comedy of the summer… so far.

After Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets, the weight I put on a trailer was already in question. After seeing Girls Trip which features yet an0ther trailer I was rather unimpressed with and finding the movie to be both funny and entertaining, I’m now starting to doubt trailers as a gauge all together. My guess is The Emoji Movie will fix that when it’s as awful as the trailer has led me to believe it will be.Read More →

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In: 2017, Hot Take

Hot Take: Stylish and entertaining enough to be slightly above average, if you can believe that because I surely couldn’t.

Usually, when I despise a trailer as much as I despised the trailer for Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets, at best the movie gets a mediocre review. Somehow, even with a trailer (actually, multiple trailer) that would have scared me off if I were to only see a handful of movies and a ridiculously excessive run time of 137 minutes, I walked away from Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets with two major revelations: (1) This movie is definitely worth seeing in theaters (mainly because of the stunning visuals) and (2) I’m looking forward to seeing it again down the road (just not right now).Read More →

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In: 2017, Hot Take

Hot Take: As an action flick, Atomic Blonde delivers on all levels. If you’re looking for a thriller, though, the movie has a few problems. It’s visually impressive, even when Charlize Theron’s face resembles Sylvester Stallone’s in Rocky.

At the beginning of the month, I rank the entire release schedule based on which films I’m looking forward to see the most. For July, Atomic Blonde sat at the top of the list. Charlize Theron in a Jason Bourne-like role as MI6 agent Lorraine Broughton set up as the perfect summer action thriller. Half of that ends up being true as Atomic Blonde, as an action movie, kicks tons of ass and delivers a number of beautifully crafted (and ridiculously violent) scenes in which Theron’s character finds herself boxed into a corner and must kick, punch and shoot her way out. The thriller side of the film, though, lacks a coherent story and doesn’t always make sense which keeps it from being on the level of Bond or Bourne. It might be splitting hairs to expect Atomic Blonde to work on both levels as the action is so good, it’s hard to penalize the film too much for what it lacks in story.Read More →