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In: 2017, Hot Take

Hot Take: How can a film with such talent attached be this awful?

At first, I wanted to compare Suburbicon to Pleasantville. There’s something about the way the town of Suburbicon is presented that reminds me of Pleasantville. However, the two films are nothing alike. Actually, the most relevant aspect of the film is the way a bunch of white males (characters and creatives behind the film) minimize both the female and black characters of the film to the point where a second storyline completely marginalizes a black family in the ’50s white suburb being tormented by the citizens of Suburbicon while the other storyline — a man (Matt Damon) uses a break-in to stage the murder of his handicapped wife (Julianne Moore) for the insurance money — takes center stage. From the Coen Brothers and George Clooney, we’ve come to expect more… and better. Suburbicon accomplishes neither and devolves into a brutal watch that you seems to never want to reach its conclusion. While the film is only 105 minutes, it feels much longer and if you find a way to care about any of these characters, please let me know how you did it because damn if I could.Read More →

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Hot Take: A rare faith-based film that doesn’t beat you over the head with its faith but rather lets the story do the talking.

Maybe it’s just a level of expectation when it comes to faith-based films that when a film like Same Kind of Different As Me comes along, it’s refreshing to have a story of faith told without it going out of its way to smother you in its Christian roots. Instead, Same Kind of Different As Me relies on solid performances from Greg Kinnear, Renee Zellweger and Djimon Hounsou in this based on a true story tale of Ron and Debbie who are in a struggling marriage and befriend a homeless man while helping out at a local mission in Fort Worth, Texas.Read More →

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In: 2017, Hot Take

Hot Take: I know I’m in the minority here but I didn’t connect with these characters. It’s a slow paced, workmanlike effort that never feels overly inspired and as an audience member, I never felt invested.

The fact-based Only the Brave tells the story of the Granite Mountain Hotshots and their efforts to become an elite firefighting team. It features an impressive cast which includes Josh Brolin, Jennifer Connelly, Jeff Bridges and Miles Teller. Despite the worthy subject matter and capable cast, Only the Brave is challenged with adding in melodramatic elements that weren’t really there to give the film a Hollywood flair. Unfortunately, many of the real elements turn TV movie of the week and while the film tells a worthy story, there’s something missing to keep the film from achieving better than mediocrity.Read More →

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In: 2017, Hot Take

Hot Take: Formulaic, disappointing follow up to one of the best comedies of 2016. The main characters are great, though, which makes it kind of fun at times. 

The first holiday film of 2017 is a rushed, predictable sequel to last year’s surprise comedy hit Bad Moms. A Bad Moms Christmas not only gives us the return of Mila Kunis, Kristen Bell and Kathryn Hahn in the titular roles but we get a new trio of “Bad Moms” when we get to meet the mothers of all 3 women. Joining Kunis, Bell and Hahn are Christine Baranski, Cheryl Hines and Susan Sarandon in the mother’s mother roles who all conveniently visit their daughters for Christmas at exactly the same time. The Christmas themed film has 3 new characters to play off of but it really is the only new wrinkle as A Bad Moms Christmas infuses the best bits of the original with Christmas spirit. For the hardcore Bad Moms fan, this will likely be satisfying enough but those who only liked the original or were on the fence won’t be blown away by this mediocre second installment.Read More →

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In: 2017, Hot Take

Hot Take: An old school thriller with a better than expected performance from Jackie Chan… and he still delivers on the action side at 63!

When you go into a film like The Foreigner starring Jackie Chan with Pierce Brosnan as the main supporting actor, some expectations are set. Chan, throughout his career, has delivered some impressive action thrills and occasionally added a little comedic elements to his films. In The Foreigner, surprisingly, it’s his dramatic performance that is most noticeable although there’s still some incredibly noticeable stunt work from the 63-year-old performer. For Brosnan, it’s been a mixed bag as his career has run the gamut. It includes a turn at James Bond and both Golden Globe and Golden Raspberry nominations. So, with him, you kind of have to expect his performance to match the film around him. Luckily, The Foreigner is actually better than you might expect… and darker, as Chan plays a Chinese man whose daughter is killed in a bombing in London and Brosnan plays a politically savvy former IRA member who might hold the key to the identity of the bomber.Read More →

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In: 2017, Hot Take

Hot Take: Waiting to experience the Saw phenomenon on its 8th installment was not the best idea. I could have kept waiting. 

I somehow managed to avoid seeing a Saw movie for 14 years. The first 7 installments of the franchise graced cinemas for 7 consecutive Halloweens from 2004 to 2010. As the franchise lost steam at the box office over the years, 2010’s Saw 3D wasn’t the least successful box office performer of the 7 films which must have given someone the idea that this franchise still had life. Then again, as Zoolander 2 proved, a franchise doesn’t need a pulse to get a sequel. Enter Jigsaw, the 2017 franchise entry looking to pump new blood into the franchise and give audiences schlocky, inventive mechanical traps and gory, over-the-top death scenes. If that’s what you’re into, Jigsaw might be a nice, breezy trip to the theater. However, if this isn’t your bag, Jigsaw can be torturous even at its incredibly brief 92 minutes of screen time.Read More →

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In: 2017, Hot Take

Hot Take: A dull disaster movie? What the hell? 

Geostorm isn’t very original. It appears as a knock-off of Deep Impact, Armageddon and The Day After Tomorrow. Now that 4DX technology exists, Geostorm may have been worth watching in that setting. Otherwise, this is one of the most boring disaster films ever made and that’s even with its numerous action sequences and some rather impressive visuals. Scene after scene of exposition  intertwined with overly loud action set pieces that add almost nothing to the disaster film genre while exploiting almost every cliche you’d expect to see in a disaster flick.Read More →

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In: 2017, Hot Take, Uncategorized

Hot Take: Nice biopic/courtroom drama combo with excellent performances from Chadwick Boseman, Josh Gad and a solid cast of supporting characters. If this weren’t a true story, you could see this becoming a recurring character. Heck, even though it is a true story, based on Thurgood Marshall’s life, it probably could.

In his 84 years on this Earth, Thurgood Marshall led a life that has enough milestones to fill up a catalog of films. The footnote chosen for Marshall, the biopic/courtroom drama featuring Chadwick Boseman as the titular character, is not as much of a landmark milestone as many of Marshall’s other achievements but the tale of a then NAACP lawyer (the only NAACP lawyer) traveling the country to fight injustice toward African Americans by defending them in cases where they were innocent makes for great cinematic drama. It also puts the spotlight on a great man who helped shape Civil Rights and our legal system over the last 70 years. Read More →

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In: 2017, Hot Take

Hot Take: One of the worst, poorly edited films of the year with one of the most bizarre casting decisions of all time. 

The trailer for The Snowman is intriguing enough. (I guess.) Somehow, though, whether it be the writer, director or editors (I blame all three, well, six since the film had three writers and two editors), this 1 hour and 58 minute snooze fest is more cliche than most and delivers an incoherent shell game of a plot with a rather uninteresting main character and hardly compelling litany of supporting characters. The only supporting character that even garners any interest is a vastly different looking Val Kilmer who may have been battling oral cancer which could explain why it sounds like they dubbed someone else’s voice over his but doesn’t quite explain why his face looks so oddly different.Read More →

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In: 2017, Hot Take

Hot Take: There’s something about Victoria & Abdul and I can’t quite put my finger on it. It’s just… off! This movie is off!

Hate is a really strong word and I don’t like to use it very often. However, I hated the moviegoing experience provided by Victoria & Abdul. It could be the style which director Stephen Frears chooses. The experience left me feeling awfully similar to last year’s Florence Foster Jenkins, another Frears directorial work that I particularly loathed. He also directed The Program in 2015 which was a film I actually enjoyed but remember not being thrilled with the directorial style there, either. So, maybe it has something to do with Frears. It felt like something more than the director, though. There was a cartoonish element to the relationship between Queen Victoria (Judi Dench) and Abdul Karim (Ali Fazal) that made the film feel, at times, fluffy and, at other times, condescending to the overall message. It also feels superficial and barely dares to scratch the surface of the story and delivers a hollow story with a focus on Queen Victoria that puts the spotlight on Dench’s performance (unsurprisingly) and makes Adbul somewhat of a sideshow.Read More →