In the near future, a mysterious illness sweeps the nation, one which specifically affects children and young teenagers. Many children die, and the ones who are left alive are found to have developed strange supernatural abilities, ranging from enhanced intelligence to types of telekinesis. The living children are put into camps and sorted by abilities using colors, with the most dangerous types, Reds and Oranges, killed on sight. Ruby (Amandla Stenberg), a young girl with some of these special powers and burdened with terrible evidence of how effective they can be, manages to hide that she is a mind-manipulating Orange for several years. She is discovered, but before she can be sentenced to death, benevolent doctor Cate Begbie (Mandy Moore) rescues her. Unsure of Begbie's associates, Ruby runs away, and finds safety in the form of other escaped teenagers, including muscular Blue Liam (Harris Dickinson...Read the entire review

The original Predator is such an icon, even if it is slightly campy. It could have been worse, they definitely didn't jump the shark, and the team even supported the film with great music, cool sets, memorable weapons, and one of the best movie monsters to ever hit the screen. The acting might have been bad, it's an Arnold Schwarzenegger movie after all, but it hardly mattered, the sci-fi content being enough to bolster the story through murky waters. Sequels have been attempted, crossovers have been crossed over, but nothing has ever compared to the first, and I don't think anything ever will. But, I do think that The Predator ...Read the entire review

The Film:

Deadpool was a big deal, in that it knocked some barriers down with a few, well-placed f-bombs and opened up a genre we didn't even know we could have. Amidst the Marvel uprising (of which I'll admit I was pretty skeptical, never really being a comic book fan until these movies became better and better and eventually coerced us into fandom), Deadpool was a rogue warrior, kind of tying in with some others, pushing the comedy to a sinister place, owning its R rating, breaking the fourth wall, completely shocking the senses in very good way. Read the entire review

During our superhero fatigue years of modern blockbuster cinema, the first Deadpool was certainly a breath of fresh air with how much glee it was willing to lampoon the genre's cliches while honestly delivering a bona fide example of its strengths. It also proved that R-rated superhero films can be major hits, opening the door to miracles like Logan. The inevitable sequel strictly follows the structure and the tone of the first film so religiously, that I could have easily copy-pasted my review for that one and called it a day.

Of course it's hard to blame producer/star Ryan Reynolds and company for sticking so close to what worked before, especially when we're dealing with a franchise with such a unique and specific approach to character and narrative. The poi...Read the entire review

At the beginning of Red Sparrow, there is such a clear Black Swan atmosphere that it almost destroys the credibility of the entire film. And I'm not only saying that because the movie starts with a ballet performance (it could even be Swan Lake for all I know, I have no idea), there's much more of a resemblance than that. The leg at a wrong angle, the stand-in dancer with JLaw's face, even her eye makeup; I read that Aronofsky was the first choice to direct this feature, and it seems odd that it's the Hunger Games guy instead, because it s...Read the entire review

An imperfect but heart-melting melodrama, Goodbye Christopher Robin is a new Finding Neverland and another peek into the private world of an author's inspiration. Like its predecessor, this film follows a recipe guaranteed to play with our emotions. A playwright, his personal struggles, the magic that both allows his artistic juices to flow and also heals the wounds of a life that didn't turn out quite the way he would have written it up; we've seen but enjoyed it before. And don't forget the little boy who serves as inspiration but who ...Read the entire review

9/11:

There's some good to take from 9/11, a realization for which I was totally unprepared. In some ways, director Martin Guigui's film reads like a made-for-TV movie exploiting America's defining moment (for now) of the 21st Century; that's down to casting and arriving direct to streaming and DVD, mostly, though some aspects of the plot also inevitably contribute to the movie's lowly guise. However if you give 9/11 a chance you'll get more than you bargained for.

But to start, how can one expect anything other than a misguided schlock-fest from a 9/11 movie starring 9/11-truther Charlie Sheen, Whoopi Goldberg, and Luis Guzman? I mean, if I knew that at one point in the movie I'd be riveted by Goldberg using an intercom to describe a technical diagram to Guzman, I would have called myself crazy. But here we are.

9/11 finds Sheen playing a Wall Street executive (a st...Read the entire review

THE FILM:

Thanks to the energy of its charismatic star and wonderful supporting cast, Director Geremy Jasper's Patti Cake$ is a joyful experience. Danielle Macdonald, a star in the making, plays Patricia Dombrowski, a hardworking but consistently struggling New Jersey woman who moonlights as a rapper. Patti, aka Killa P, aka Patti Cake$, lives with her promiscuous, alcoholic mom, Barb (Bridget Everett), and smartass grandma, Nan (Cathy Moriarty), in lower-middle-class hell, and only her best friend, Jheri (Siddharth Dhananjay), believes in her musical prowess. This against-the-odds story is nothing new, but Macdonald and company embrace the material so fully that it is nearly impossible not to smile as Patti smacks down the competition with her sick rhymes.

Patti's mom does not work, and Nan suffers from health problems. Patti tries to supplement the family's dis...Read the entire review

Five years before he would redefine the character on one of geek culture's most beloved television shows, writer Joss Whedon was disappointed by the treatment of his screenplay for Buffy the Vampire Slayer, made into a movie in 1992 starring Kristy Swanson as the title character. Whedon later complained that the script was rewritten to be more of a comedy, and that Donald Sutherland improvised most of his performance. Awkwardly, 2017 marks both the year in which Whedon's oftentimes questionable brand of feminism was thoroughly dragged following a bombshell open letter by his ex-wife about years of infidelity, and the 25th anniversary of the misguided first draft of his most famous character.

As someone who generally dislikes Whedon's work and has never seen the hugely popular TV version of the character, it's not obvious which specific aspects of 1992's Buffy didn't work for Whedon....Read the entire review

Talk about a power couple. Winslet and Elba are two of Hollywood's brightest stars, with the filmographies to back them up. Winslet is a veteran, a professional, a pillar; call her whatever compliment you will and I'll second the motion. Elba is currently a hot commodity, a name on everyone's lips, a new wave leading man; I'm glad we've seen him as often as we have lately, because he deserves the screen time. This pairing was set up for success, was the driving force behind the film, and was the main reason anything positive came out of this movie. But the problems lie in the details apart from the casting of the leads, which was quite smart, while the rest...Read the entire review

I was shocked that I liked the first Kingsman so much, and I still have trouble recommending this movie to friends. They don't believe that it's good, despite its success and its high ratings; they just can't get past the fact that it shouldn't have worked, they can't allow that it did. I understand, I was surprised myself by how much fun I had simply sitting in the audience, how well the ridiculous story worked when it shouldn't have been able to be so silly and yet so cool. Taron Egerton was the secret ingredient we didn't know movies needed, and the kid ha...Read the entire review

I remember discussing the reasons behind my thorough enjoyment of the first Kingsman with a couple of critic friends who hated its unfocused and uncontrolled crassness, ultraviolence, and goofy ugliness. While I agreed with most of their points, I proposed that if one was to approach it as a demented hard-R Saturday morning cartoon, and not take any of its multitudes of offenses to decency seriously, then it's a rocking good time. Tone and narrative approach is everything when it comes to such "tasteless" material. I deemed 2008's Wanted, another Mark Millar graphic novel adaptation, to be the worst and most tasteless film of the last decade.

Yet here I was, on the other side of similar arguments I had about Wanted's many fans, trying to explain why Kingsman deserved praise while Wanted should have been s...Read the entire review

The Film:

Arriving on American DVD almost two years after an underwhelming box office performance in the UK, Absolutely Anything is a laundry list of disappointments. Not only is it a startlingly unfunny movie given the talent appearing in it (Simon Pegg, Eddie Izzard, and the entire surviving cast of Monty Python), but it also marks the final efforts of at least two prominent participants: director/co-writer/actor Terry Jones, who was diagnosed with dementia about a year later, and actor Robin Williams, who has a key supporting role as the voice of a dog.

Neil Clarke (Pegg) is a prototypical movie schlub, a sensitive but perpetually lazy man who claims to be toiling away at a novel but spends most of his time scraping by in his day job as a schoolteacher and pining for his gorgeous neighbor, Catherine West (Kate Beckinsale). Unbeknownst to Neil, a Galactic Council of alien creatures (voiced by John ...Read the entire review

People are freaking out about War for the Planet of the Apes and its trilogy, calling it the best end to the best trio of movies in film history. Now, that's just silly, there are a handful of iconic threesomes I can think of off the top of my head that are better (the original Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Back to the Future, Lord of the Rings), and I don't think this trilogy will be loved 50 years from now the same way those classics I just mentioned are/will be. BUT, the mere fact that those heavy-hitters are brought into the conversation tells you just how good Rise, Dawn, and War absolutely are. I would have called th...Read the entire review

Ridley Scott returns to the Alien Universe with Covenant, the second prequel to the previous line of franchise films. Alien, Aliens, Alien 3, Prometheus: this is the must-watch canon for fans of the series, with this fifth piece of the puzzle coming as a delight to all those who have followed the story over all these years. Alien is a horror film, Aliens is an act...Read the entire review

The Movie:

Heat is one of those modern classics that should either be reviewed quickly and without much info to let the viewer experience Michael Mann's LA crime masterpiece with a clean slate, or be dissected in great detail, with all of its separate elements pulled apart to study how they eventually came together to complete such an intricately constructed work of artful storytelling. Anything in between would seldom do this sprawling yet tight and taut epic justice. And since I realize that I'm here to basically tell you if you should double dip into this new release (Spoiler: You certainly should), I won't waste too much of your time with my (certainly to be overlong) personal take on Heat.

If I had to distill my admiration f...Read the entire review

The newest addition to the X-Men galaxy of the Marvel universe is Logan, a darker take on the comic book genre and the latest of these films to seek out an R-rating. Deadpool went the same route, aiming at an adult audience who could appreciate a violent, vulgar action film, instead of the younger crowd who might enjoy things a bit on the lighter side. But while Deadpool went comedic, Logan goes completely black, leaving behind any vestige of the silly antics we've seen before from this style. We knew exactly what this film would be, based on the trailers ...Read the entire review

For a film from the director who brought us The Weather Man and Rango, his newest feature, A Cure for Wellness, is both satisfyingly sinister and comfortably classic. To be fair, Verbinski also directed The Ring, one of the scariest films I have ever seen, and The Curse of the Black Pearl, an absolute and near-perfect gem, so perhaps he is simply the most versatile filmmaker in the industry and we ought to stop imagining that we can predict what he might do next or how well it might turn out. This film is a pleasant (or unpleasant) surprise, depending on how you look at it, delivering an old-school feel while prese...Read the entire review

Oscar prediction, or lack thereof; Rules Don't Apply will become the poor man's La La Land, paling in comparison to what might be the Best Picture of 2016 and failing to capture that old Hollywood feeling we as audiences so desperately love. This film is an attempt to transport us in time to a very magical era, to give us a glimpse into the life of one of the most famous men in American history, but also to share with us a classic love story that has been repeated across the ages to varying disastrous or wonderful results. What Warren Beatty had in his head while directing, writing, producing, and starring in this movie may ha...Read the entire review

In 10 Words or Less
A madcap chase with an abrupt end

Reviewer's Bias*
Loves: Goofy, not dumb comedies
Likes: David Paymer Kim Coates
Dislikes: Trying-too-hard Tom Arnold
Hates: Over-the-top mugging

The Movie
"Let's go! It's a school day, not a carnival day!"

And with that nonsensical statement that no one has ever heard anyone without a major head injury say, Carpool is off and running. Dan (David Paymer) has a busy day at work ahead of him, including a major presentation, but it's off to a bad start when he wakes up late and finds he has to take his sick wife's spot driving the carpool for his kids. So with his honey dope...Read the entire review

Sosometimes all you need to see is a cast list for a film to catch your fancy; such was the case with 2015's "Unnatural" part of the "8 Films to Die For" series of smaller budget horror film offerings. In this case, it was the names James Remar, Sherilyn Fenn, and Ray Wise that raised an eyebrow from this reviewer; the simple thought of two of "Twin Peaks"' greatest characters along with the always interesting, grizzly Remar, made the thought of watching a previously unheard of horror film all the more palatable. Add to that mix an Alaskan setting, talks of genetic experiments gone awry and a small supporting role by Graham Greene, and on paper, "Unnatural" sets itself up for at least an average B-movie offering.

Written by co-star Ron Carlson, "Unnatural" is a cracking little horror offerings for its first 30-40 minutes as it largely focuses on Carlson's role as a fashion photographer out i...Read the entire review

THE FILM:

This godawful, piece of s**t stars Sarah Wayne Callies from AMC's "The Walking Dead." It's only 96 minutes long and rated R, but that's about all the nice things I have to say about this middling horror film. The loss of a child devastates protagonist Maria (Callies), who was forced to choose between saving her young daughter, Lucy (Sofia Rosinsky), and young son, Oliver (Logan Creran), from drowning after a car wreck. She picks Lucy, believing the older Oliver might have a better chance of surviving on his own. He does not, and his death weighs heavy on Maria's conscience. Maria and husband Michael (Jeremy Sisto) carry on, but when the pair's housekeeper (Suchitra Pillai-Malik) offers Maria a way to say goodbye to Oliver, she jumps at the chance. The woman tells Maria to travel to a temple where the living and the dead co-exist, but warns she must not allow the d...Read the entire review