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Hot Take: The best movie of 2017 so far! For the second straight year, writer/director Taylor Sheridan has delivered a hidden gem.

As we head into Labor Day weekend, all reports are expecting this weekend’s box office to be the slowest in over 2 decades. It’s easy to figure out why since the two new wide releases are the 40th anniversary re-release of Close Encounters of the Third Kind and Tulip Fever which is finally making it to theaters on its 4th announced release date after over 2 years in limbo. Just because the releases are soft and we’re far away from the release of a $100 million box office film (Girls Trip and Dunkirk on July 21) doesn’t mean there’s nothing worth seeing. That brings us to Wind River, a film from writer/director Taylor Sheridan who was also the the writer behind last year’s Hell or High Water. The two films share some similarities as they both came to theaters with little fanfare in August and were both small budget films (Hell or High Water had an announced $12 million budget while Wind River had an $11 million budget). After seeing Wind River, I recommend it make your “Must See” list of films of 2017 which, at this point, isn’t longer than a few films.Read More →

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Hot Take: I’m conflicted. Most of me thinks Birth of the Dragon wasn’t very good but damn if part of me didn’t thoroughly enjoy it and would probably watch it again.

I’m not sure what to make of Birth of the Dragon. First of all, I’m not entirely sure it was a Bruce Lee biopic since it is not entirely accurate. It’s more an “inspired by true events” re-imagining of Lee’s life which, I guess, can technically still be a biopic. Second, while I saw many flaws in the storyline, plot and performances, I couldn’t help but find myself thoroughly sucked into the tale and chomping at the bit during not one but two very entertaining martial arts sequences. Again, this isn’t an endorsement of quality but definitely one of entertainment, especially if you happen to enjoy older ’70s martial arts films starring the movie’s subject.Read More →

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Hot Take: An original and artistic endeavor that requires some patience from you as the viewer. You may love it, you may hate it but it will definitely solicit a strong reaction.

Want to know whether or not your up for even the possibility of enjoying the experience of watching A Ghost Story? Early on in the film, after Casey Affleck’s character has died and becomes a voiceless shape under a sheet, we watch Rooney Mara’s character eat a pie… for 8 minutes. In context, it’s grueling and gutwrenching and relatable for anyone who has struggled with coping with grief. Out of context, it sounds silly. As A Ghost Story stretches out over 87 minutes, you must invest in observing much like the ghost does as the rest of the world moves on and continues on without him. It’s an exercise in patient observation which is odd to say since all watching a movie normally requires is observing but, in most cases, it is the movie’s ability to immerse you in the action, drama or comedy and perceive you are doing more than just observe that makes it a worthwhile experience. However, here, in A Ghost Story, the film just asks you to watch and feel.Read More →

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Hot Take: A casualty of Relativity Media’s financial crisis, Kidnap was supposed to be released in 2015 but delayed until 2017. If only the master copy could have been lost between then and now, maybe no one would have been subjected to this terrible garbage.

The expectations for Kidnap were about as low as they could get. When considering all of the challenges this film faced to just get released and previous disappointing films tied to Relativity Media (The Disappointments Room and Masterminds) that were delayed due to their financial situation and finally released and factoring in that Kidnap was delayed even longer, what Kidnap had to accomplish to meet expectations would have been the equivalent of a basketball star jumping over a phone book. After seeing Kidnap, it’s safe to say that if it were a basketball star trying to jump over a phone book, it would have tripped and fallen flat on its face. Read More →

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Hot Take: It seems like Aubrey Plaza has a way of committing herself to every role she has no matter how stupid or ridiculous and she finally gets a role that’s really worth sinking her teeth into as Ingrid.

Each week I get an e-mail that tells me how many Twitter followers I’ve gained and lost. This week I netted a double digit gain. I remember getting a little excited to read that. That’s about as far as my obsession with social media goes. Ingrid Thorburn, the main character played by Aubrey Plaza in Ingrid Goes West, takes that social media obsession to another level. The unstable Ingrid and the satirical and insightful look at the current state of social interaction via social media makes Ingrid Goes West a home run of a flick and gives summer a quirky boost before it ends.Read More →

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Hot Take: An educational, timely and a little bit ominous (Thank you, Mr. Trump) journey back to climate change with Al Gore and graphs. Lots and lots of graphs!

I feel your reaction to An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power will be impacted by how much you care about climate change or if you believe in it at all. I’m not sure how you could sit in a theater for 2 hours (4 if you saw the first movie) and see all of the evidence presented and dismiss what you can see right in front of you. Then again, you might think Al Gore isn’t being honest, the graphs are manipulated or made up and the whole thing is propaganda. It was really cold last winter so how could there be global warming, right?Read More →

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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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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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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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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 →