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Anticipation (Before Trailer): 50/100

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KjEusWO6VPg

Anticipation (After Trailer): 100/100

If you put a gun to my head and said I could only see one movie into 2016, it would be Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. But if you said I could see two movies, the second movie would be Keanu!

I’m not a huge Key and Peele fan but I’ve watched some of the better bits from their show on YouTube and found them extremely funny in small doses. Seriously, though, look at the cat! He’s a star in the making and will be all over your movie screen April 29, 2016.

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In: 2016, Hot Take

Hot Take: Yosemite struggles to fill 82 minutes. Despite heaping helpings of dramatic build-up, nothing ever really happens. When it does, it’s not very interesting.

Yosemite is one of the darkest films I’ve seen in some time. However, part of me wonders if it’s me that is dark and the movie is really about something else. Because of the deliberate, patient pace combined with the just below the surface darkness, the viewing is unnerving and allows for a lot of thought. That’s not to say the film is thought provoking. There’s too much left open to interpretation to credit it with being thought provoking. You have no choice but to think. Yosemite leaves you no other option.Read More →

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Anticipation (Before Trailer): 70/100

Anticipation (After Trailer): 85/100

It’s hard to admit how much I secretly enjoyed the first Neighbors. It’s even harder to admit that I laughed out loud at the Neighbors 2 trailer at least 3 times. I frequently watch bad movies and wonder who is the freak who loves this movie… well, when it comes to Neighbors, the freak is me. Coming May 20, 2016.

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Anticipation (Before Trailer): 90/100

Anticipation (After Trailer): 99/100

Suicide Squad looks crazy. It should be interesting to see how it comes together. What’s with the August 5th release date though? Maybe it’s all sizzle and no steak.

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In: 2016, Hot Take

Hot Take: Right now, the careers of Kevin Hart and Ice Cube are hot… but so is hell and I don’t know too many people lining up to visit for 2 hours. It should have to pay royalties to every buddy cop movie it borrowed from and apologize for how poorly it was done. If you loved Ride Along, go watch Ride Along again! Skip Ride Along 2. (You’ll thank me!)

What suffers from an overly revealing trailer, sequel fatigue and unoriginality? Ride Along 2! Sorry Kevin Hart and Ice Cube but this is not the movie your pairing was looking for. After the huge success of Ride Along in a month where even moderate success is celebrated, the studio had no choice. So it ran every buddy cop comedy through the copier and out came Ride Along 2. To ensure stale freshness, it added a mixture of Ken Jeong’s roles and Benjamin Bratt’s bad guy character. Read More →

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In: 2016, Hot Take

Hot Take: It’s as if someone took all of the unfunny parts of Happy Feet, Ice Age, The Penguins of Madagascar and Minions and tossed them in a film blender. Norm of the North is the horrific concoction that would ooze out. (We could call it an Arctic Shake… if you see the movie, you’ll get it.)

I’m not really sure what to say about Norm of the North. It could have easily been made a decade ago and been sitting in a studio’s film vault collecting dust. Look at the voice cast — Rob Schneider, Heather Graham, Colm Meany, Ken Jeong, Gabriel Iglesias — and most of them are no more relevant now than they were in 2006. At least if it came out in 2006, maybe some of it would have been new.Read More →

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In: 2016, Hot Take

Hot Take: For what it is, it’s a good (not great) movie. It’s easily identifiable as a Michael Bay film (the slow motion, the cheesy dialogue, the blowin’ stuff up real good, the complete and utter lack of an editor — even the title this time!) which is some good and some bad. Overall, it’s a good movie that suffers from a bloated first half and a second half that some will chalk up as combat porn.

My expectation meter typically sits in the middle to low range on movies released in January and even lower when the movie has a Michael Bay attachment. Enter 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers Of Benghazi. The movie is so desperate to present itself as historically accurate, it wears a name more fitting for a documentary. Based on a book — “13 Hours: The Inside Account of What Really Happened In Benghazi” — which is the retelling of the Benghazi ordeal as told by the five surviving CIA security contractors who are the central characters in the movie, it is fairly accurate. It also makes every effort to not be political. It makes no bones about pointing out governmental ineptitude but it doesn’t point fingers or name names. So, it’s sort of not political (like an unlit M-80 isn’t an explosive).Read More →

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Anticipation (Before Trailer): 60/100

Anticipation (After Trailer): 60/100

The cast — George Clooney, Julia Roberts, Dominic West, Giancarlo Esposito — has me more intrigued than anything. Thanks to Money Monster, we’ll get to see Clooney do his best Jim Cramer impression. The trailer feels a little bit too revealing as I feel as if I’ve seen most of the movie now but maybe there are a few twists and turns not revealed. Coming in May 2016.

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In: 2016, Hot Take, Trailers

Anticipation (Before Trailer): 50/100

Anticipation (After Trailer): 65/100

A coming of age film featuring lame 80s music and bad hair set in Ireland? I’m in for the sick burn on Phil Collins alone. It looks like Sing Street will début at Sundance in January but no idea when it casts a wider net.

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Anticipation (Before Trailer): 0/100

Anticipation (After Trailer): 80/100

In this day and age, to drop a trailer without even a hint of it coming is an impressive feat. Hat tip to J.J. Abrams for pulling it off. Cloverfield is one of those films I inexplicably missed when it came to theaters and then inexplicably missed on it’s run on cable so I have even less knowledge to go on than usual here which means I have zero inkling what this is about but damn if I don’t want to know what’s coming and what is outside that bunker.

On March 11, 2016, I can find out! I’m very much looking forward to 10 Cloverfield Lane.