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In: 2018, Hot Take

Hot Take: YA NYT Best Seller has a novel concept and works well on screen. Or maybe I’m just a sucker for a YA romance. However, there are deeper questions explored and even if you don’t like it, you have to commend it for at least being a little different.

Maybe I’m giving Every Day, a film about a 16 year old high schooler Rhiannon (Angourie Rice) who falls in love with the spirit of “A” who inhabits a different body every day, too much credit. The film’s somewhat unique concept isn’t as unique as it seems once second level thinking is introduced and the stark realization that the film is just an amalgam of Groundhog Day, Freaky Friday and every coming of age angst filled high school romance ever. However, I’m willing to still give the film credit for its dare to be different even if the concept is a tad derivative hodge podge of other films. Read More →

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In: 2018, Hot Take

Hot Take: So, cavemen invented soccer… And that’s an interesting plot for a movie because? Aardman Animations has an impressive resume. Consider this a blemish.

The stop-motion animation experts at Aardman Animations and director Nick Park — the director behind a handful of Wallace & Gromit tales and Chicken Run — decided that a film about cavemen who must win a soccer game (and have never played soccer but realize their ancestors did according to carvings) against the Bronze Age city folk to save their homeland was a good idea. The result is a purposely crude but ineffectively simple story that feels more primitive but not because it is about cavemen. It’s more standard fare with a feel of episodic Saturday morning cartoons and lacks memorable or endearing characters. Read More →

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In: 2018, Hot Take

Hot Take: Unnecessary “inspired by true events” tale which relies solely on the jump scare for 99 minutes to try and spook the audience. Another low budget horror disaster.

It seems like we’re subjected to a low budget horror flick on a monthly basis. In January, it was the latest installment into the Insidious series which had a great run at the box office despite lackluster reviews. February’s entry into the low budget horror genre was Winchester which had a lower budget, worse reviews and didn’t find quite the same success at the box office despite Helen Mirren being attached to the project based on true events that occurred at the Winchester Mansion in San Jose, California in 1906. Also starring Jason Clarke, the film does a great job of checking the boxes — jump scares, creepy kid, Lurch looking servants, creaky hallways, dark basements, powerful poltergeists — but fails to put together anything solid with what seems to be at least a story ripe for a nice scare. Read More →

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In: 2018, Hot Take

Hot Take: While it isn’t quite true to Beatrix Potter’s source material, Peter Rabbit has plenty of laughs. It’s more like Bugs Bunny than Peter Rabbit but, for the most part, it actually works.

If you’re looking for the storybook tale of Peter Rabbit, the hybrid live action and animation film Peter Rabbit based on the same characters takes many liberties. As a matter of fact, it goes for a more crass, less gentle and overly slapstick version of the characters many have fallen in love with as a child. It’ll likely work for new audiences, especially younger audiences (under 10 years old), as there won’t be any preconceived notions about how the characters should act. This is Beatrix Potter’s Peter Rabbit if it were to get locked in a convenience store overnight, survival instinct kicked in and Peter ate all of the chocolate and downed all of the Red Bull. Read More →

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In: 2018, Hot Take

Hot Take: This future $3.96 DVD at Walmart is tacky, campy and sanitized by the studio. Sometimes they don’t make ’em like they used to because they shouldn’t. 

Pure Flix is best known for their series of God’s Not Dead movies. They’ve cashed in twice on the series with a third on the way but still find time to make other faith-based films to attempt to satisfy their Christian fan base. Samson is the latest effort from the faith-based studio as it takes on an R-rated tale from the Bible and attempts to clean it up for a more PG audience. In its cleansing efforts, Pure Flix strips away much of the story and leaves what feels like a highlight reel of the Samson tale while leaving out any of the really messy parts. It fails to work on so many levels not the least of which are two rather uncharismatic leads with Taylor James looking like rejected WWE talent as Samson and Caitlin Leahy as Delilah. At times, it even feels like something more suited for the History Channel or some other B-list cable network attempting to dabble in original content.Read More →

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In: 2018, Hot Take

Hot Take: Thank goodness this trilogy is over.

If you’ve submitted to the urge to watch the Fifty Shades trilogy and you found enjoyment in the first two chapters of this trilogy based on the wildly successful book series of the same name, Fifty Shades Freed is here to give you more. If you’re like the rest of us, why are you even in the theater? Fifty Shades Freed follows Christian and Ana into married life where they argue more, have sex less and fail to communicate with greater frequency. Obviously, the target audience are the women who made this wildly successful book series a phenomenon and this incredibly successful box office a behemoth yet it’s tone deaf enough to focus its energy on showing Dakota Johnson topless and never quite getting Jamie Dornan completely naked for the third consecutive film. I guess Fifty Shades Freed is into torture, too.Read More →

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In: 2018, Hot Take

Hot Take: While it’s perfectly understandable director Clint Eastwood’s desire to honor the heroes of the story, making them act out their tale of heroism isn’t the way to go. The three heroes might be able to stop a terrorist but they surely can’t act. 

Usually a filmmaker has two choices — make a “Based on a True Story” recreation or record a documentary. Director Clint Eastwood has blazed a new path and instead used the actual heroes of the story to act out their tale. I guess the thought is to add realism to the re-telling but instead it shifts most of the focus to the horrific acting from these three amateurs and an anecdotal backstory that fails to deliver what seems to be an effort to convince the audience that it was the trios destiny to be on that train at that particular moment and instead makes it all seem like a fortunate coincidence that landed Spencer Stone, Anthony Sadler and Alek Skarlatos on the train to Paris and put them in a position to be the heroes who took down a terrorist before he could carry out his plan.Read More →

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In: 2017, Hot Take

Hot Take: It would be an insult to chalk this film up as an 8 Mile clone. Sure, Patti Cake$ is similar to 8 Mile but not the same. It’s better and one of the best of 2017.

Patti Cake$ is many things. It’s a coming-of-age tale, an underdog story and also fits in the nook that’s occupied by many a struggling musician trying to make it narrative that has come before it. Patti Cake$ also shares a lot of similarities to the semi-autobiographical 8 Mile featuring Eminem from 2002 which ripped up the box office at the time. Dubbed the female version of 8 Mile, Patti Cake$ didn’t have the same box office impact. While 8 Mile broke the $100 million mark domestically, Patti Cake$ didn’t even break $1 million during its brief summer run. It’s a shame, too. For me, it ranks 11th of all the films viewed in 2017.Read More →

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In: 2017, Hot Take

Hot Take: Under-the-radar December release should have been talked about more thanks to a harrowing tale and an amazing performance by Christian Bale. However, somehow Hostiles got lost in the Oscar shuffle but that doesn’t make it less of a perfect homage to classic Westerns and one of the saddest films you’ll see in 2018.

Release in 3 theaters in December, Hostiles didn’t find a wide release until near the end of January. Having heard nothing about the film before seeing it, I assumed it was another “Dump Month” release despite the cache of Christian Bale in the lead role. Quickly, I realized it wasn’t a January release at all and then began to wonder why this film, especially Bale’s performance and the stunning visuals, were never mentioned during Oscar talks. Hostiles turned out to be a hidden gem of a film featuring a number of strong performances in addition to Bale including Rosamund Pike, Ben Foster, Timothee Chalamet, Wes Studi, Jesse Plemons, Rory Cochrane, Jonathan Majors and Stephen Lang. Read More →

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In: 2018, Hot Take

Hot Take: One of those heist flicks where the bad guys are bad and the good guys are worse made by someone who watched Heat one too many times. Plus, 140 minutes? Really? You could nap through the second act and not miss a thing.

Does Gerard Butler have a following? That’s about the only reason I can come up with as to why Den of Thieves found its way into cineplexes across the country. The 140 minute heist thriller features Pablo Schreiber, 50 Cent, Evan Jones and O’Shea Jackson Jr. as the main members of a group of bank robbers and Butler as Big Nick, a corrupt LA sheriff hellbent on bringing the crew down. Within the bloated 140 minute tale, there’s enough material to make a halfway decent pilot for an episodic drama but that leaves over 90 minutes of filler that adds little to no value to the overall viewing experience.Read More →