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Hot Take: The nifty trick of making Kevin Spacey disappear and replacing him with Christopher Plummer is more interesting than this facts heavy thriller from Ridley Scott. Very good but not great with more drama off-screen than on.

Sometimes the sum is greater than the parts but occasionally, the reverse is true. That’s what we get in All the Money in the World, the latest film from Ridley Scott which is based on the true events surrounding the kidnapping of the grandson of J. Paul Getty. While the movie is solid (as is almost anything helmed by Scott), the performances from Christopher Plummer and Michelle Williams stand out well above the quality of the film. Plummer’s excellent performance is especially fascinating considering he was added to the film after a sexual assault scandal rocked former co-star Kevin Spacey. The cast and crew got back together to re-shoot Spacey out of the film and replace him with Plummer in the role of J. Paul Getty. Re-shoots took 10 days at the end of November and the film premiered just 19 days later. As for Williams’ role, there’s no fascinating story behind it, just another excellent performance that could earn her another Oscar nomination. Read More →

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Hot Take: Aca-awful story with some fun but familiar a cappella singing from characters you probably love if you’re here for a 3rd installment. Not a very good movie but it has its moments if you’re a fan of the series.

When you end up with John Lithgow with a terrible Australian accent singing Chicago’s “Hard for Me to Say I’m Sorry”, you know something has gone terrible wrong with the plot. Enter Pitch Perfect 3, the 3rd installment of the Pitch Perfect series which features the Bellas now 3 years after the end of Pitch Perfect 2 (which if you told me it was about the Bellas saving the world from a natural weather phenomenon with their singing, I would probably believe you) and graduated from college. It looks like the entire cast was signed on to return but honestly, I didn’t pay enough attention to the first 2 to know the names of anyone beyond Anna Kendrick, Rebel Wilson, Hailee Steinfeld and Brittany Snow. Sorry. Thanks to a convoluted plot, the only thing going for Pitch Perfect 3 is nostalgia and some good a cappella singing that keeps the movie entertaining when not trying to tell us a story we don’t really care to follow. Just give us more singing. Seriously.Read More →

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In: 2017, Hot Take

Hot Take: Lots of great music and an occasionally fun piece of fiction that is entirely too rushed… too bad it’s supposed to be based on the true story of P.T. Barnum.

It’s tough to evaluate a film like The Greatest Showman without factoring in the true tale it is portraying. It’s expected for all films based on true events to take liberties but it’s another thing when the film adds or subtracts tales of fiction that skew the overall depiction of the subject matter. That’s very much the case for the often fictional tale featuring the real life P.T. Barnum as a character. Hugh Jackman stars as Barnum in this original musical which took over 7 years to find its way to the big screen. Jackman was attached to the project from the beginning but the risky proposition of an original musical (the original plan to release came about pre-La La Land) kept the film from seeing the light of day longer than expected. The result though leaves a little bit to be desired and while the music is fun and the cast is game, there’s a bad taste left by how often the film veers from the facts and presents an alternate reality for Barnum, his entrepreneurial endeavors and the people around him. Read More →

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In: 2017, Hot Take, Uncategorized

Hot Take: For this Star Wars fan, the GOAT of Star Wars films.

WARNING: Expect lots of spoilers here. This is likely to be the longest review I’ve ever written on this site. You’ve been warned.

“Let the past die. Kill it if you have to.” The words have Kylo Ren have stuck with me throughout my multiple viewings of Star Wars: The Last Jedi, the 8th installment of the Star Wars saga. (That’s not counting Rogue One: A Star Wars Story which dropped last year.) It was one of those “F you!” moments which are littered throughout the superbly written and directed Rian Johnson entry. I remember watching The Force Awakens for the 3rd time and thinking about how much I loved the movie but realizing how inferior it was because it was such a blatant rip-off of Star Wars: A New Hope, the introduction which launched the phenomenon in 1977. My expectations for The Last Jedi were more of the same and the trailer did nothing to squelch those expectations. If anything, it stoked those flames of nostalgia. I wouldn’t have hated it but I’m so ecstatic it played out in a completely different direction. Yes, I loved Star Wars: The Last Jedi. More than Return of the Jedi, Empire Strikes Back and A New Hope, my 1a, 1b and 1c prior to this glorious turn in a completely unexpected direction from where we thought this story was going. Plenty of people hated it. The Audience Score on Rotten Tomatoes currently sits at 51% and dropping. Let’s be fair, though. This is the same audience who had to be issued a disclaimer at AMC Theaters regarding one of the most spectacular scenes later in the movie because there was no sound… Really?Read More →

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In: 2017, Hot Take

Hot Take: I’ll be the first to admit I’m not a James Franco fan but as the eccentric mind behind possibly the worst movie in film history Tommy Wiseau, he’s bizarrely brilliant. 

Many reactions to the bizarrely awful 2003 film The Room lead people down a path of wanting to know how a film like that ever gets made. Enter The Disaster Artist. A biopic featuring the main culprit behind the film, Tommy Wiseau whose mysterious bottomless bank account was able to help him write, direct, produce and star in a $6 million production. Starring (and directed) James Franco in his best role of his career, The Disaster Artist takes the audience inside the film, provides an interesting back story that’s almost as bizarre as the film and tries to shed some light on how The Room became what it was. Read More →

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In: 2017, Hot Take

Hot Take: Why?

Ron Shelton had not worked on a feature film since 2003. He was the writer/director of Hollywood Homicide which failed with critics and failed at the box office. Shelton, the man behind such hits as Bull Durham, White Men Can’t Jump and Tin Cup, took a break. Unfortunately, for anyone who has been subjected to his latest “effort”, Just Getting Started, this wasn’t a retirement. It took 14 years for Shelton to get back in the saddle and what he was able to produce was a highly unwatchable, embarrassingly bad waste of everyone’s time, especially the audience. If you think that’s harsh, it’s the rare film that both critics and audiences universally detest. At the time of this writing, Just Getting Started is carrying an abysmal 8% Tomatometer from critics and a 20% Audience Score. Typically, audiences are much more forgiving than critics and a bad Audience Score is usually anything below 50%. Up until the release of Just Getting Started, the worst film of 2017 was The Emoji Movie. This isn’t really something we’re going to debate. It’s just a fact. Even The Emoji Movie, as bad as it was, received a 40% Audience Score. Let that sink in. A movie featuring Patrick Stewart as the voice of Poop pleased 40% of the Audience which saw it… that’s how bad Just Getting Started has been received.Read More →

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In: 2017, Hot Take

Hot Take: As well done as this film is, Ebbing, Missouri isn’t a town I would want to happen to pass through. It’s a broken town full of broken characters who are angry and flawed and the film is as thought provoking as any I’ve seen this year. It’s both dramatically gripping and comedically dark.

Perfect timing, excellent casting and a director with clout whose resume hasn’t been recognized the way some think it should might be the perfect storm for Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri to make a huge splash at this year’s Academy Awards. From a nomination perspective, Frances McDormand is a shoo-in for a Best Actress nomination and the film will easily scoop a Best Picture nomination. Martin McDonagh’s third film could score him two nominations (Best Screenplay and Best Director) and Sam Rockwell and Woody Harrelson could both find themselves in the Best Supporting Actor category. That’s potentially six nominations for a film that is likely going to benefit as much from timing as it does from quality. Why do I say that? Feel free to read on and find out.Read More →

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Hot Take: A cross between a Lifetime Movie and an After School Special, Daisy Winters makes for a mediocre cinematic experience. 

The back story for Daisy Winters is probably more interesting than the movie itself. Listed as early as 2003, Daisy Winters was supposed to be the first film directed by Beth LaMure. With Emma Roberts (12 years old at the time) and Rachel Weisz attached, LaMure’s second screenplay was set for production. It still ended up being LaMure’s directorial debut but it took over a decade for the film to make it to the big screen and by the time it made it there, the cast looked much different. Things took a dark turn before the film could even be released when LaMure took her own life soon after the film completed shooting. LaMure, 51, suffered with bipolar disorder and hanged herself in her bathroom. As Daisy Winters deals with a number of dark issues, suicide is a prevalent theme and with the back story, makes for a macabre viewing once you’re aware of the mitigating factors. Read More →

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Hot Take: Best movie of the year so far. Maybe the best “coming-of-age” film of all-time?

The biggest shame of Lady Bird is that you’re probably not going to see it. In its 5th weekend in theaters, the film expanded to 1,194 theaters and has earned a modest $17.1 million during its run at the box office. That’s not bad for an art house flick with a $10 million budget written and directed by first time solo writer/director (she’s co-directed and co-written previously) and art house darling Greta Gerwig. Featuring marvelous performances by Saoirse Ronan (in the titular role), Laurie Metcalf, Tracy Letts, Lucas Hedges and Beanie Feldstein. I’m leaving out a few names and it feels wrong because of how brilliantly performed from top to bottom this film is. Lady Bird will surely be an Oscar contender and should garner more than just a Best Picture nod as anything less than 4 nominations (Best Picture, Gerwig for Best Screenplay, Ronan for Best Actress and Metcalf for Best Supporting Actress) would be criminal. It’s deeply funny but paints a stroke with every color on the emotional spectrum with fully developed characters and an unexpected depth few films possess. It’s rare to walk out of a film and face the temptation to walk over to the ticket booth and buy another ticket to see it again but Lady Bird did exactly that. It’s a brilliant piece of work and (so far) my choice for best film of 2017.Read More →

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In: 2017, Hot Take

Hot Take: A near perfect mix of humor, heart, compassion and sophisticated subject matter that makes this the best family film in quite some time. 

Family-friendly films are tough to find. Good family-friendly films are even more rare. Wonder is indeed that rare film that is both family-friendly and (very) good. Based on a New York Times bestseller, Wonder is a fictional tale about a boy with facial deformities who leaves home schooling behind and enters the fifth grade of a private school. The film tackles kindness, acceptance and friendship and if you didn’t know it was fiction walking in, you’ll be surprised to learn that it wasn’t a true story walking out. It feels as genuine as any “based on a true story” film and contains believable characters enhanced by great performances from Jacob Tremblay, Julia Roberts, Owen Wilson and a solid supporting cast. It’s an unabashed tearjerker and will likely turn a small minority of people off with its sappiness but the message of Wonder is clear and poignant and refreshing at a time when this type of movie isn’t nearly as prevalent as it may have been at one time.Read More →