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In: 2018, Hot Take

Hot Take: The made-for-TV version of The Revenant with enough visual bells and whistles to find its way to the cinema.

The oddity of Alpha is the central figure of the film, a wolf named Alpha, is not the main character. Yet the main character, Keda (Kodi Smit-McPhee), a boy becoming a man on his first bison hunt with his father during the final days of the Stone Age, falls third behind Alpha and the film’s IMAX-friendly visuals in what you’ll likely find interesting when you sit down and view Alpha. It’s a flawed film which fails to distance itself far enough from 2015 Best Picture nominee The Revenant which sets the bar for man vs. wilderness films even with the addition of a canine sidekick who basically steals the show from the main character. Director Albert Hughes, the more technically talented half of the Hughes Brothers who had worked as a team up until 2010, shows his technical touch in his first film on his own. There’s a stiffness to the performances outside of Alpha who is played by a Czech wolfdog named Chuck. When it comes to Alpha, it’s okay but likely to lose something as the visual spectacle is diminished by the size of the screen and the sound system in the screening.Read More →

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Hot Take: Simple and adorable, the return to The Hundred Acre Wood is as soft and fluffy as you’d imagine its source material.

Part of me wishes Christopher Robin would have come out during the colder months. The way this film, featuring a grown up Christopher Robin (Ewan McGregor) who has turned his back on Pooh and Friends in favor of adult things, eventually warms your heart and soul would be better than chicken noodle soup on a cool, fall day. Likely to be more satisfying to adult audiences but also appealing to children still growing up with the characters of Winnie the Pooh and the rest of the inhabitants of The Hundred Acre Wood, Christopher Robin would be a nominee for Movie With The Biggest Heart if Oscar decided to expand their Award subjects even further.Read More →

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Hot Take: It’s embarrassing to admit but puppet vulgarity and raunchy puns found my funny bone. It reaches its shelf life about 2/3 of the way through but it’s funny enough.

Within minutes, The Happytime Murders earns that R rating. It’s well before a scene featuring an octopus milking a cow’s 8 utters to what appears to be sexual climax in the back room of an adult video store and that scene occurs in the first 20 minutes. Hopefully, that paints a picture of how obscene and inappropriate the Brian Henson (son of Jim Henson) directed pulpy, profane, puerile puppet whodunit laced with more foul language than the standard Andrew “Dice” Clay set is. It’s easy to see why critics would receive it so poorly and audiences could be turned off. However, I’m willing to admit I laughed audibly at times. The plot wasn’t awful though derivative and done before. The puppetry is impressive, the use of Melissa McCarthy works in the lead role (did I just say that?) and the supporting cast finds a way to not be completely overshadowed by the crass, uncouth puppets that star in the film.Read More →

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Hot Take: If you’re a Mission: Impossible fan or just a Tom Cruise fan who has been under a rock during the past two decades of Mission: Impossible films, Mission: Impossible – Fallout is a must see. 

It’s been 22 years since the original Mission: Impossible film hit theaters. Since then, we’ve been treated to a new Mission: Impossible chapter every 3-6 years with Mission: Impossible – Fallout having the shortest gap between releases at almost exactly 3 years since Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation. With Fallout, it marks the first return engagement of a writer/director as Christopher McQuarrie expertly crafted Rogue Nation and was given the reigns on the follow up. McQuarrie is in great company when considering the creative talent that has powered this action franchise following in the footsteps of Brian De Palma, John Woo, J.J. Abrams and Brad Bird on the directorial side of things and David Koepp, Robert Towne, Alex Kurtzman, Roberto Orci, Abrams, Josh Appelbaum and Andre Nemec on the writing side of things. Outside of Towne, he’s the only one to make a repeat showing from film to film as Towne was co-writer on the original and received sole screenwriting credit on Mission: Impossible 2. Outside of Tom Cruise who has been the foundation of this franchise, Ving Rhames appears as the only cast member to make it through the six chapters unscathed and uncompromised with Simon Pegg also returning for his 4th engagement. Mission: Impossible – Fallout helps support the theory that Mission: Impossible is the most healthy action franchise going outside of comic books and Star Wars. The box office seems to grow with each release as does critical acclaim with Mission: Impossible – Fallout earning the franchise’s highest Rotten Tomatoes score with a 97% Tomatometer and the highest audience score from CinemaScore with the franchise’s first A after a run of A- ratings for the previous 3. Read More →

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Hot Take: If you weren’t over the Peter Berg/Mark Wahlberg machine before Mile 22, you might be now. The film’s only saving grace is Iko Uwais’s action scenes. Other than that, there’s not much to see here.

If bloodshed, bullets and Mark Wahlberg being Mark Wahlberg is your thing, you should run (not walk) to the theater to see Mile 22. Not necessarily because Mile 22 is a great movie, (It’s not!) but more importantly because it’s likely poor box office performance should see that 3,520 opening theater count drop not dwindle in the coming weeks. Directed by Peter Berg, it makes for the fourth partnership between the two and it’s easily the least entertaining flick of the quartet. Basically, Mile 22 is an awful combination of Mission: Impossible, The Accountant and the Bourne series. Wahlberg fails to even bring his best Mark Wahlberg and the supporting cast fails to add anything to the movie. Read More →

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Hot Take: For me, 8th grade wasn’t comfortable and Eighth Grade is about as realistic as fiction comes. 

It’s been about 30 years since my time in 8th grade. Granted, many of the ways in which Kayla spends her time didn’t exist during my middle school years, the theme of Bo Burnham’s opus to the early teen years is frighteningly real. Elsie Fisher’s depiction of Kayla might be filled with modern day interactions with things like Facebook, Snapchat, YouTube and cell phones but the terror of being an awkward 13 year old and the move from middle school to high school is one of the more accurate coming-of-age films to hit theaters in some time. The only audience members who might think this is a more contemporary depiction and not a timeless tale are those select few of us who somehow skated through their grade school years with ease. The rest of us get it. Eighth Grade is as real of a tale of fiction that we’re likely to get in 2018.Read More →

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Hot Take: I’ve never hated a shark movie so why start now? The Meg is more like The Meh though as it drags often and fails to be wacky or dumb enough to draw massive audiences. It lacks the bite it needs is another way to say it. See what I did there?

To be fair, we didn’t need another shark movie. There’s Jaws. It’s basically perfect. There’s not much else we need beyond that. We didn’t need it’s numerous sequels, the shot stealing Deep Blue Sea or any of the latest run of shark flicks that we’ve been getting what seems like yearly lately. Oh and Sharknado 1 through whatever number they’re on now (132?). Those, we definitely didn’t need. All that being said, we want the shark movies. Give us all the shark movies!!! Amazingly, it took The Meg over 2 decades to get to the big screen. Optioned to Disney’s now discontinued Hollywood Pictures in 1996, one year before it’s release, the novel Meg: A Novel of Deep Terror has spawned numerous sequels despite The Meg‘s inability to swim its way into theaters. Eventually, that deal fell apart and the next studio in line to nab the rights was New Line Cinema who grabbed the rights in 2005 with a plan to get it in theaters in 2006. The budget became a concern and New Line killed their plans and the rights reverted back to writer Steve Alten. Finally, the film landed in the hands of Warner Bros. in 2015, landed Jason Statham for the lead role in 2016 and was shot in four months at the end of 2016 in New Zealand and China. Even then, the film still met hiccups as it was originally slated for a March 2018 release but ended up releasing in August. But then again, why wouldn’t you expect such a long, arduous journey for a film about a prehistoric shark thought long to be extinct?Read More →

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Hot Take: Crazy Rich Asians isn’t good just because of its woke casting. It’s good, period. A very good romantic comedy that’s a pure escape from the heavier flicks we’ve been inundated with.

Every time I have to do something where my handwriting is in the spotlight, the same comment comes out. “That’s impressive handwriting… for a guy!” No, sir or ma’am, that’s impressive handwriting for anyone! While that’s a very petty example of our insensitive stereotyping and generalizing of the gender and racial issues we face, the reviews for Crazy Rich Asians have been very positive but also ridiculous condescending and oversimplified. Many can’t just call Crazy Rich Asians a good movie which it is. There’s an obsession with patting the romantic comedy based on the novel of the SAME NAME (Let that sink in a bit) for having an all-Asian cast. Ken Jeong was born in Detroit, by the way… not that that’s important. It’s ok to only look the part as long as you are of Asian descent, I guess? It’s too confusing to me, honestly. Crazy Rich Asians shouldn’t be boosted or lambasted for its casting of people of Asian descent. Honestly, that’s a no brainer. Instead, where Crazy Rich Asians should be getting accolades is for its excellent script, great performances, funny, escapist plot and filling a void in Hollywood that was left when the cinema seemingly abandoned the romantic comedy a few years ago to the point where now it feels refreshing when a good one comes along. And Crazy Rich Asians is a very good one.Read More →

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In: 2018, Hot Take

Hot Take: WORST. MOVIE. THIS. YEAR.

Here’s the easiest way to describe Slender Man: Take the worst parts of The Ring franchise, add the very worst elements of The Craft, glaze it with the most horrible moments from The Forest and sprinkle in the most dismal memories you have of Candyman and you have Slender Man. Considering 2018 has already delivered such dreck as Show Dogs and Gotti amongst a few others, calling Slender Man the worst of 2018 is a big statement. Admittedly, I’m not a fan of horror flicks but at one point, my top two films were A Quiet Place and Hereditary and I actually enjoyed Unfriended: Dark Web so it’s not like I’m not willing to enjoy a good scare from time to time. The problem with Slender Man, though, is there’s not much to be afraid of. First, we’ve seen it all before. Second, outside of some loud sounds and spastic editing forcing the jump cut down our throat, Slender Man is a bore. From the four teens completely void of personality to the derivative script that preys on an Internet legend in a much poorer way than The Blair Witch Project already did decades ago, Slender Man is an unsatisfying mess of a horror flick that at least proves sometimes you can judge a book by its cover. Read More →

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In: 2018, Hot Take

Hot Take: Is it meta or just meh? I’m leaning toward meh but it could be me. It didn’t feel like much more than a few episodes of Teen Titans strung together with an added scoop of potty humor. Seriously, there are numerous jokes about using the potty, it’s a thing.

Didn’t we get enough superhero satire with The LEGO Batman Movie? If you were one of the ones who felt like we needed more, Teen Titans Go! To the Movies will attempt to fill the void for you. Based on the popular animated series from The Cartoon Network which has 5 seasons and 213 episodes under its utility belt, Teen Titans Go! To the Movies looks to capitalize on its own popularity and our own obsession with cinematic superhero serials with a ho hum plot that doesn’t feel grand enough for the big screen and could have been crammed into a two part episode on The Cartoon Network. If the film version of the episodic show was able to beat The LEGO Batman Movie to the punch, maybe it wouldn’t have felt so stale. It should appeal to the show’s fans and have just enough to satiate the more rabid superhero fans who seem to be unable to get enough cinematic superhero stories.Read More →