Ben Affleck’s directorial follow-up to 2012’s Best Picture, “Argo”, is a 1920s gangster action crime romance thriller drama, and while obviously ambitious, “Live By Night” plays-out in straightforward, uninspired fashion. The biggest mistake Affleck made was casting himself in the lead role. Affleck was perfectly acceptable as the lead in both “Argo” and “The Accountant” because […]
Four-time Academy Award nominee Annette Bening stars in this dysfunctional family indie. “20th Century Women” is writer/director Mike Mills’ follow-up to 2010’s “Beginners”, the film that earned Christopher Plummer a (honorary) Best Supporting Actor award from nearly every association on the planet. From the little bit I’d seen and read about “20th Century Women”, I […]
Last December, Disney and LucasFilm revived the “Star Wars” saga with the solid, but highly overrated “The Force Awakens”. More installments and spinoffs were greenly during Episode VII’s production, kicking off with “Rogue One” – an original story set in the middle of the timeline. The concept is, no surprise, very basic: Oscar nominee Felicity […]
The story of Richard and Mildred Loving is an incredibly important one. The Lovings were an interracial couple, living in Virginia in 1958, who were arrested following their marriage, which was illegal in that part of the South at the time. They were then forced to leave Virginia (or stay and go to prison), and for the next […]
On Sunday night, August 30, 2015, Kevin Hart performed in front of 53,000 people at Philadelphia’s Lincoln Financial Field, becoming the first comedian to ever play and sell out an NFL stadium. And that night, Universal Pictures filmed the show for Hart’s third big screen concert movie. I was there, on the field, in about […]
When done right, modern attempts at the Western can rise above ordinary standards. A couple recent examples: 2010’s “True Grit” and last year’s “The Revenant”. Director Antoine Fuqua’s remake / re-imagining / re-do / re-shoot-em-up of 1960’s “The Magnificent Seven” has the feel and flavor of a “classic” Western, maybe more so than any other […]
I could thoroughly describe how the low-budget drama, “Mr. Church”, is basically a Hallmark Hall of Fame movie that sugar-coats numerous serious issues and situations, including terminal cancer, divorce, single parenthood, both alcohol and child abuse, drunk driving and neglect. It’s also an extremely simple Circle of Life story that packs-in way too many coincidences […]
“Suicide Squad” was supposed to be DC’s big-budget superhero ensemble action dramedy extravaganza answer to Marvel’s high-energy, highly entertaining “Guardians of the Galaxy”. And while it tries really, really hard – it fails to live-up to expectations. The biggest buzz surrounding the production and anticipation of “Suicide Squad” was Jared Leto’s portrayal of The Joker, […]
“Nerve” is based on a 2012 novel by Jeanne Ryan. And that makes perfect sense. There’s a heroine at the center of a Hunger Games-esque, high-tech reality game called Nerve, which is, essentially, an extreme version of Truth or Dare, with teen and 20-year-old contestants tackling various challenges in hopes of winning cash, gaining followers […]
In 1975, a young director named Steven Spielberg created a phenomenon – and the idea of the “Summer Blockbuster”, with a film about a Great White with an appetite for swimmers. Now, 41 years later, Director Jaume Collet-Serra (who’s done three Liam Neeson action/thrillers in a row – with another on the way) has made […]