Let’s get this out of the way right now, you don’t have to be gay to love LOVE, SIMON. (I don’t know why some morons on social media are saying that you have to be. They are either homophobic assholes or just don’t know shit and need to leave the human race). In my opinion, this movie could be loved by everyone, anyone. Also in my opinion, but I look at this as absolute truth, if you don’t come out of Love, Simon either loving it or getting choked up at certain moments, maybe you need to reexamine yourself as a human being. I know this is pretty early in the year but there is always one high school/school comedy/dramedy each year that comes out on top and above all the mediocre rest. 2016 was The Edge of Seventeen, 2017 was Wonder, and I have a feeling Love, Simon has already won 2018.

If your head is up your ass, or you don’t watch TV or go to the movies much, the film is about a high school guy named Simon that knows he has been gay for about 4 years, but is hiding it from everyone: family, friends, etc. He doesn’t know when or the right time to come out. On the high schools own social web page this other student named Blue writes a post about being gay and having to keep the  secret from everyone, not knowing what to do. Simon sees this post and decides to respond, using an alias himself, and after his post his life is thrust into a whirl wind of revelations, some heartfelt, some filled with heartache, and he might have to make a decision sooner rather than later to come out to everyone.

Since I am not gay, and I am not in high school at this time, I don’t know whether to tell you whether or not this is the quisisential movie of our time about knowing you’re gay when you are young,  having to deal with it with others, keeping it a secret, when to come out etc.  I do know that the movie felt real, with a little light splash of Hollywood glitz and glam here and there (especially toward the very very end). It felt real with the acting, the dialogue, and the story. If I have one complaint about the film, is that I would think that it might be a little bit darker of an experience once you come out to everyone in real life. I have a feeling that high school kids would be meaner or someone like that would have a tougher time. But then again, like I said, I didn’t go through that, so I don’t know. I’m just doing a movie review here and letting you know that I really liked it.

What did I really like about it then? I really liked that the movie kept me guessing the identity of Blue, and when revealed, was actually shocked. Its marketing has kept the identity very well hidden and I hope that it isn’t spoiled for others. I loved the acting. You think the guy that plays Simon, Nick Robinson, is a fresh face, but you are wrong. He has been in some high profile stuff, like Jurassic World, Everything Everything, and The Kings of Summer, but with his amazing performance in this, he is likely to shoot up to the big time quick. Katherine Langford is also in this, you know, the main suicide girl in 13 Reasons Why, and even though she isn’t in this too much, she actually shows she has some range, by playing someone completely different from Hannah Baker and pulling it off. Jennifer Garner is great in her role as Simon’s mom, and I only wish that TV spots weren’t giving away some of her very sentimental speech near the end of the film to her son. And if you’ve ever had a doubt about Josh Duhamel, like I have countless times, this is his best role to date, playing Simon’s dad, but having some playful edge to him and actually feeling like his first true character he has ever inhabited.

The movie is a tight hour and 50 minutes, and it didn’t even feel that long. I laughed quite a bit, and the film earned all of my emotions instead of trying to force them out of me. This was written by scribes that have written for This Is Us and directed by the main head honcho producer of the CW DC superhero Universe Greg Berlanti. Since this is mainly a point and shoot movie, with the director, you gotta make sure you capture the performances, and with this he does an extremely good job, but he is sure to throw in a musical (really funny ending) number in there to let audiences know that he could be even better at different things. And thankfully, unlike This Is Us, which seems to throw too much heartache and doesn’t balance enough happiness with its stories, doesn’t lay the sentimentality in this too thick. It felt like just the right amount, and didn’t go into too much into a sappy ass territory.

Finally, I forgot to mention movie is based on a book that I would now like to read call Simon Versus The Homo Sapiens Agenda. Yeah, I can see why they changed the title, the book title is perfect but for a movie title it would be too long. Anyway, yeah, I really really recommend this movie. And like I said, I don’t know if this is the be all end all of gay/coming out movies, you’ll have to tell me, but it was a very enjoyable and honest look about it according to my eyes. I wanted more when the end credits hit, I wanted to see more of that world and more of the characters. And if you ever feel that way when you walk out of a movie, you should know that you loved it.

STRANGERS: PREY AT NIGHT should be the poster boy of what NOT to do when you make a horror movie sequel to a beloved original film. The first Strangers film is bleak, horrifying, and pretty damn scary because it has a eerily realistic tone and feel to it. Strangers 2 throws all of that garbage out the window and, except for a really well done pool fight scene with the song “Total Eclipse of the Heart” playing in the background, is a fucking disaster. The film is completely unrealistic, it’s eerie factor from the first film is gone replaced by cheap jump scares and bizarre chase tactics, and all the characters constantly contradict their previous characterization choices. It is mind numbing, dull, and very annoying.

The one really good scare the film had going for it, the movie trailer and all the television spots out there ruin it. It takes place where a character, played by Bailee Madison, is in sort of this construction concrete/maybe plastic circle, with good lighting and camera work. Ruined… because they decided its all they really had and put it in the fucking marketing. Whatever, it isn’t the main problem with this film. The main, main, main, main problem, is that the took the realistic, scary Strangers that stalk and kill for absolutely no reason at all, and turned them into superhuman horror movie like monsters such as Michael Myers and Jason Voorhees. One of the characters takes a such gun blast point blank to the chest, and survives long enough to be able to say “why not?” when one character asks, “why are you doing this?” I understand that THOSE characters don’t know why they are doing this, but the audience already does if they’ve more than likely seen the first film, so we didn’t really need that dialogue to begin with.

Oh, and another one of the Strangers not only survives a car explosion, but after falling to the ground after taking a giant piece of glass out of his chest, is able to, two minutes, later, catch up to the running teen he was stalking and be able to hand on to a moving vehicle while still swinging his stupid ax. It is insulting not only to the vicious killers as characters, but it is insulting to the audience, hoping for a realistic follow up to a pretty damn good first film. I do understand that the filmmakers were trying to give the audience what they wanted, by making most of the Strangers finally get a comeuppance of sorts for their murderous psychopathic behavior, but I feel as if they could’ve still done it in a more down to Earth way like the first. Turning your killers into walking entities that almost can’t be killed takes away any and all tension your film had in the first place.

Oh, if you needed to know, this movie is about a family that is on their way to take their daughter to a boarding school because she is a hot mess in real life (gee, we’ve seen that one before haven’t we?), and stop by their Aunt and Uncle’s trailer park getaway place to spend the night, only to be stalked and killed by The Strangers. Stupid and un-creative set up huh? Surely everyone involved could’ve come up with something better than cliche upon cliche upon utter cliche of shit done thousands of times in the 80s and 90s right? I understand that horror films don’t care anymore and just need a basic set up to get to the killing because the film is a short 85 minutes long, but I mean, I feel that everyone coughing up their money to see your movie should maybe get little better nuggets of realism than what this film did.

Other than the pool scene mentioned above, everything about this movie is just rushed and lazy. Did I forget to mention that after his mom and dad are seemingly just killed, and he has one of The Strangers dead to right with a working loaded gun pointed right at her face, he doesn’t pull the trigger? Are you fucking kidding me? I don’t think anyone in their right mind would’ve hesitated and shot the full clip into that bitch. Especially when ten minutes later he’s stabbing one of them like his life depended on it, and because he didn’t kill the other a cop gets his throat slit. It’s stupid and insulting. All of it. Even the acting, the parents are stupid and non believable and Bailee Madison is there to just scream and run. Not too intricate.

This is a horror series that didn’t need a sequel. When saying it is “based/inspired on true events,” they are stretching those true events to dimensions wayyyy beyond fiction. Doing some research, there aren’t really Strangers out there, the filmmaker based the first film on that Manson-Tate murders and a couple of non violent break ins in his neighborhood when he was a kid. But the first film still worked due to its realism, so why couldn’t they have just stuck with that for the second film? Why up the ante in all the wrong ways? Let’s hope they make this franchise a real stranger, one that we never have to see ever again.

A WRINKLE IN TIME sucks my 31 year old wrinkly balls. Sorry to be so inhumane with my first sentence, but it is the most boring movie of 2018 so far, and I couldn’t think of anything wittier to say other than I want my time back and straightened or some Back To The Future reference I’ve already done a million times before. I saw this film yesterday, and while I haven’t been reading the reviews online of the film, I just saw that it was sitting between 30 and 45% on Rotten Tomatoes, which isn’t good, and I had read a summary from a audience who saw an advance screening that said it was a misfire. I can now confirm those reports. But I’m going to go one better and say it was a HUGE misfire. Constantly I was muttering under my breath during the movie asking myself, “what the fuck is this?” and “this is the most absurd world building I have ever seen.” Add to that I almost fell asleep a few times.

So a girl and her adopted brother go searching for their father, who has been missing for four years but is believed to maybe have crossed time and space using frequencies of the mind. A kid friend from school also comes along and they run into three, I guess, spiritual light guides played by Oprah, Reese Witherspoon, and Mindy Kaling, and then they cross time and space to find the girl and young son’s father. They of course run into obstacles and a faceless darkness is after them as well. This sounds like it could’ve been an ultra uber cool trippy science fiction film for Disney, but it turns out it is about as bad as their recent renditions to do live action Alice In Wonderland films. I have asked several of my friends who have read the book and also have seen the movie what they thought, and they said while adaptation is pretty close, the book, with its words, descriptions and more depth to its characters, is so so so much better.

I hope so, because this movie does not make me want to read the book at all. Everything about it, including the visuals are just bland. No wonder Disney has been pushing the hell out of this for months, because they realized the end product wasn’t so good but that they have a fantastic marketing team. I really wanted to see this film, the trailers intrigued me, so did the cast, and the fact that Ava DuVernay was just coming off the really great film Selma a couple of years ago, everything pointed to success. But it sucked. All of it. The acting, the way everything was represented. I don’t know if it was everyone being lazy, trying to hard, a bit of both, or that Ava’s vision was just not in the right place of her mind, body, or heart.

It really is that boring. My wife was really wanting to see this film, and even she was almost bored to tears. The film has a great message, don’t get me wrong. But the message is muddled in really crappy visuals and really weird uneven world building. The world and mythological building is so weird in this I kind of want to read the book just to make sure that I understand it and that it actually makes sense when explained written down on paper. In the movie, since it isn’t the book, it has to visually and mentally connect with you to understand what is going on. DuVernay doesn’t do a good job of it at all. She has pieces here and there, but none of the pieces do a good job of explaining anything or adding up to anything, nothing fits. Here are these three supernatural beings of light that can transcend space and time, deal with it or go home. I wish I would’ve got up out of my seat before half way thru and done the latter.

The acting sucks too. Oprah seems bored, and the way her character is framed and is certain sizes and does certain things, she doesn’t seem to be with the rest of the cast the entire time (even though she is near), and green screened almost all of her scenes in. Is she really that busy and not have enough time to join the cast on set that it resorted to that? Reese Witherspoon plays just a variation on Elle from Legally Blonde and Mindy Kaling is well…Mindy. The child actors fare no better, as Storm Reid has one constant facial expression the entire film, Zach Gilifinakis is hardly in there but is still just playing his weird self, and Levi Miller seems to be just reading his lines because he isn’t given much to do and is just standing there (and I know Levi Miller can act, just watch Better Watch Out. That’s right, I’m plugging a great Christmas horror movie that is much better than this piece of crap Disney film).

The only three that do half way decent is Chris Pine (who is hardly in the film), Gugu Mbatha-Raw (who is hardly in the film and really only has one scene to sort of shine), and the adopted brother played by Deric McCabe. A little more of him would’ve been better. But this whole movie just, blows. I’m sorry it does. It seems as though Prequel George Lucas directed it, with some uninspired green screen visuals, lack of characterization, and utter nonsense. This is one of Disney’s biggest misfires in recent memory other than the Alice In Wonderland live action films. It is a huge disappointment, and right now stands as my most personal biggest disappointment of the year and the worst film of 2018 so far. That’s right, worse than Winchester, The 15:17 to Paris, Fifty Shades Freed, or my next review, Strangers 2.

Riddle: What do you get when you have a dark comedy, but it isn’t really that dark and you don’t laugh a lot? Stumped? Of course you are because the only answer is disappointment. GRINGO is one of those dark comedies that think its smarter than everyone else in the room, when it actually is the jealous kid in the corner at a party not talking to anybody and sipping his fucking cranberry juice. It tries so hard to be something like In Bruges or this weekend’s much much better Thoroughbreds, but instead comes off as just another Rock The Kazbah with Bill Murray. Oh, you haven’t heard of that movie? Then you win in life, don’t look it up. Gringo is even more disappointing considering everyone involved. It literally doesn’t work on any level.

How doesn’t it work? Let me count the ways. Let’s start with reason number 1. Not one character is likable, even the protagonist that is the real innocent in all this, Harold, played by the great David Oyelowo. He’s just too much of a pussy the entire movie to be likable and even his 180 turn in attitude near the end doesn’t feel deserved. The usually always great Charlize Theron plays a over the line racist bitch boss of Harold and Joel Edgerton plays a over the line sexist pig other boss of Harold. Thandie Newton and Amanda Seyfried play the two most worthless throwaway characters I haven’t seen. At least Thandie Newton plays a sort of semi part of Harold’s wife but Amanda Seyfried is completely worthless to the plot. They should’ve just hired a new up and coming actress. What was she even doing accepting this role? She’s in three scenes and literally has one small speech and does NOTHING. The only character close enough to like is Sharlto Copley, who kind of has a 2 dimensional arc, but then his character’s resolution is so anti-climatic it just made me not even care.

I should probably explain what the movie is about really quickly before I keep going on with what is wrong with it. It’s about a business man named Harold who because of his two sleazy awful bosses finds himself in trouble in Mexico with the authorities and drug lords because all of them think he holds the key to a new marijuana pill that is going to kill it in the medical marijuana market. That’s all I’ll say to avoid spoilers. The movie goes exactly where you think it will and the ending is too easy and lame. If you are going to do the dark comedy genre, you have to do the unexpected. Not once was I shocked to where this movie went, which is problem number 2, it is 150% predictable on ever level. And even with the predictability the movie isn’t fun.

Problem #3? The humor is way too mean. There is mean spirited humor in movies that work a lot, but that’s because we usually like the characters that are saying or doing those jokes, and we know they don’t really mean harm to anyone. In this, the jokes are just too real, too mean, and not funny. Charlize Theron spits out really just off the wall racial stuff and even makes fun of a deaf person at one point. It’s cringe walk-out-of-the-theater worthy. Not one joke is smart. It isn’t necessarily potty humor, it’s just mean spirited, cruel, or too easy. They were all written in haste and didn’t take too long to think of.

The final problem is that every character resolution is anti climatic. You think all these characters are going to get huge momentous moments, with some getting pure triumph or some getting pure demise…but no. Maybe one character gets that, and its predictable and boring. Everybody else’s resolution just comes really quickly after they’ve been off screen for 25 minutes. They pop back up just to go, oh, here I am and here is the really easy and stupid thing that ended up happening to me, and my story is over! Character’s resolutions are supposed to have rhyme and reason and poetic justice. The writers literally wrote all the characters into corners where each of their endings are the most boring outcomes that could’ve ever been written.

Gringo is just not good. All the funny parts, or really the “chuckle” (at least for me) parts are all in the trailer and the actual film doesn’t offer anything better. The story is stupid and has been done before, the movie thinks it is dark when it really isn’t, and there isn’t one likable character. This movie could’ve had 25 minutes shaved from it, completely cut out Thandie Newton and Amanda Seyfried, and you could’ve had maybe something a little tighter and a little bit more watchable, but not by much. The director, Nash Edgerton, who is Joel’s brother, wasn’t the problem here. The actors are all good in this and everything is shot very well. The problem was completely the script. It should’ve been thrown out, and rewritten from the top. This will be in the Walmart $5 dollar bin in four months, and no one will remember this movie even exists in five.

What Anton Yelchin does in THOROUGHBREDS is amazing. In what is probably going to be his last theatrical release (he died in Summer 2016), he managed to take a very cookie cutter one dimensional character that was written a little half hazard on the script, and turn him into a full fledged supporting 3rd co-lead with multiple layers on the screen in the handful of scenes that he’s in. RIP Anton, your acting in this just proves that we truly lost a great talent not even in your prime. Anyway, for the rest of you reading this, there are 5 new movies coming out this weekend, including the high profile A Wrinkle In Time, which I’ll review Sunday, and this film is the ONLY film out of those getting good reviews, and it’s probably the film you are least likely to see because it is in limited theaters. That’s a shame. Because along with Date Night, Black Panther, and Annihilation, it’s one of the best of the year so far and is probably going to become a cult classic. Try as you might, unless you see this in theaters, you can’t say you were with it from the beginning if you don’t see it.

I loved this movie. It is basically, “what if Wes Anderson went really really fucking dark in one of his comedies, like darker than he’s ever been…although obviously not really directed by Wes Anderson.” It’s weird, it has those symmetrical shots (but not annoying so as Anderson always does it), it has witty dialogue, quirky characters, and insanely good acting. I can’t believe this was shot in 2016 right before Anton Yelchin died. Why did they hold it back so long? I understand maybe holding it because of Yelchin’s real life death however holding it for almost two years seems a bit overkill. It is really good and the studio should have more faith in it. If you have no idea what it is about, without spoiling anything, it involves two teen girls, one who doesn’t feel much of anything and has to fake her ways with emotions, played by Olivia Cooke, and one who feels everything and is trying to be friends with the other one, played by Ana Taylor Joy, plotting to kill Ana Taylor Joy’s stepdad. Anton Yelchin plays an older drug dealer that may or may not be part of the girls plans.

That’s all I’ll tell you. The genius of the film and of the script is how little it tell you till almost the very end of the film. Instead, it gives you context clues about the girls’ past to make you piece together what had happened before the events in the film take place. It was quite brilliant. My only complaint is that they shouldn’t have gave it to the audience near the end who couldn’t piece it together themselves, it really isn’t that difficult. The film is very witty, in that you have no idea and cannot predict how everything is going to turn out. You think it is going to go one way, it goes another, and then it does even another detour. I love the climax in this. LOVE it, I love the shots of it, the brilliance of the timing, the acting, the shock value, etc. I won’t obviously reveal what ultimately takes place, but everything about it is beautiful and perfect.

What more can I say about the dialogue in that although it feels true and sophisticated, it’s still witty and fun and it doesn’t try and play Juno on you. The acting in this already bumps it up a notch. Anton Yelchin isn’t in this as much as the two girls are, but whenever he is on screen, he is electrifying. He completely turns his drug dealer into a 3 dimensional character with his dialogue delivery and his facial ticks and body expressions. It was amazing. While I was listening to him give his dialogue, I was thinking, “damn, anyone else playing the role probably would’ve played it too straight for us to even get into the character.” He’s just that brilliant. But Olivia Cooke and Anya Taylor-Joy are fantastic in this as well, especially Cooke. I always liked Cooke from Me, Earl, and The Dying Girl and can’t wait to see what she does as Parcival’s love interest in Ready Player One. The first time I aw Anya Taylor-Joy in anything was The Witch, which I didn’t particularly like. But after Split and this, she is really, really growing on me as an actress to look out for come awards time one day. Both of them.

You need to find the closest theater to you and see Thoroughbreds if you can. It’s a quirky cult classic in the making, reminding you of excellent ones such as Ghost World or Heathers while having a mind of its own and not being a copy cat. I really enjoyed my time with this one and I think with a little patience you will too. At least see it for Anton.

As most of us can probably agree, any movie that Jennifer Lawrence makes has got to be better than mother!, it just has to. mother! is the end all, be all of bad films directed by a cry baby who gets mad every time someone doesn’t like his student film. Wait, wasn’t I reviewing RED SPARROW? Oh yes, well of course Red Sparrow is better than mother! In fact, Red Sparrow is actually pretty decent and yet again showcases how amazing it is that Jennifer Lawrence is this great at acting, dropped out of middle school, and didn’t even take acting lessons. Is it the end all be all of Russian/American tension spy flicks? No. Could you consider this just a Black Widow movie with a title. NO. I’m tired of people saying that too. Red Sparrow is its own thing, and it does it pretty well.

I’m disagreeing mostly with the critics on this one. I admit it is a little too long, as probably 30 minutes could’ve been cut from its 2 hr and 20 minute run time, but it has a solid story and will keep most of you guessing till the very end. I guessed how everything was going to play out 40 minutes in, but still had fun with the journey to get there. Some critics are claiming that the movie is really hard to follow. Yeah, only if you are not paying attention at all. For a quick synopsis for you, it is about a ballerina (Lawrence), after getting into a career ending leg injury, is recruited by her uncle into the Sparrow program, spies and agents that use their sexuality to get what they want. There is a mole in the Russian syndicate, and only an American CIA operative (Joel Egerton) knows who it is as he does a shit ton of drops with him. The American is the ex-ballerina’s target, but when the game of cat and mouse gets complicated, who is playing who, and what is the ultimate goal?

The movie is more sophisticated than that, but saying anything else would ruin anything. The great Jeremy Irons, and the always reliable Mary Louise Parker are involved and in this as well, and they are good with the very small and limited roles that they have. This is completely the Jennifer Lawrence show. She is almost in every scene, with yes, a heavy Russian accent that I didn’t mind and got quite used to fast, and she puts her acting chops to great use. I don’t think Jennifer Lawrence has ever really phoned in a performance, even with the terrible horror movie House At The End of The Street, and she was really the only good thing in mother!. There is never once where I’ve looked at one of her performance and have thought, “Yeah, that is just her playing herself.” She really is my favorite actress.

Also, Joel Egerton is always good and underrated in everything that I see him in. If you don’t really know who that is, he’s been in several things like Uncle Owen in the prequel Star Wars Trilogy, The Gift, and he played the cop orc in Bright.  Don’t be fooled by the marketing on this one either. This is not an action film. In fact it is closer to torture porn than it is an action film with some very cringe worthy scenes of knife stabbings and skin peelings. If those don’t float your boat then this movie might not be fore you. Director Francis Lawrence, who directed Jennifer in the last three Hunger Games films, has made a pretty film here too. The shots and cinematography are dark and somber and I liked watching how everything came together. It is definitely his best film since Catching Fire.

Well, nothing much left to say other than if you enjoy a decent spy flick that is light on the action but focuses more on the realism, you’ll like this one to. Is it one of the years best films at the end of 2018? Hardly. But there are much worse films to watch, and ones that will completely waste your time. This doesn’t waste your time, in my opinion.

You know what? I enjoyed the new remake of DEATH WISH. I also think it is Eli Roth’s best film. So sue me. And yes, I’ve seen all of Eli Roth’s films, and I’ve seen the original Death Wish and I’ve also seen The Brave One, which was a halfassed attempt at trying to say a movie was not a remake of Death Wish by giving it a different title and casting Jodie Foster in the vigilante role. And if you’ve read the original novel, you know that the original Death Wish isn’t even a faithful adaptation. I’m going to throw an even more controversial ember into this fire I’m creating. I don’t even think the original is that much of a classic outside of Charles Bronson’s performance. There I said it. In the original, *spoiler warning*, he doesn’t even go after or find the original killers that killed his wife and hurt his daughter. So needless to say, this Death Wish is completely different from both the novel, the original film, and the hidden remake of The Brave One. And this is the one I enjoyed the most.

And I know, most critics that have seen it haven’t enjoyed it, but I think that is mostly due to the fact that they think the film is ill timed, which it sort of is but that didn’t get in the way of my movie watching experience. The movie has a lot to say actually on how stupidly easy it is to buy a gun in America. One whole scene is a joke about it. And there is a shit load of gun violence, commentary on the police and their lack of response, commentary on being a vigilante, etc. And I know what happened three weeks ago and thinking about it saddens me but this movie was originally was supposed to be released in late November near Thanksgiving, but they moved it because that weekend was already overcrowded with 6 other films. This weekend its only competition is another R rated movie Red Sparrow (review on Sunday). So I pushed all that to the side, and let’s push that out of the way and get to my real review.

I thought the movie was a lot of fun, well directed by Roth, and Bruce Willis gives his best performance since Looper, basically because it looks like he actually wanted to film this. Bruce Willis breaks down in tears two to three times in this movie, with one emotional scene with Vincent O’Donofrio, who plays his brother, and I was mouthing, “Oh My God, is this what is feels like to watch Bruce Willis actually try giving a damn and acting?” He was quite good. At the beginning of the film, I was nervous because he seemed to be bringing with him his phoned in VOD performances of the last couple of years, but then once his family is gunned down his performance goes completely 180, and he actually plays a grieving widowed doctor with vengeance in his heart. I think that might have been director Eli Roth’s intention. Let’s make them think Bruce Willis will phone it in, and then about 20 minutes into the film punch them in the nuts. If that’s the case, it worked.

Seeing Bruce Willis be the good guy and take the law into his own hands and shoot and kill and cut open and torture really bad people was just fun to watch. Eli Roth knows his audience and who comes to see his films, so there is a little horror blood and gore here and there just to wink and satisfy his fans. A scene where Willis is cutting open a major nerve to torture a bad guy is very cringe worthy and hard to watch but the payoff visuals are beautiful. Eli Roth also directs a club shoot out really really well. It seems like he wanted to make this film and took his time actually planning what he was going to shoot and how to shoot it. Good for him. Because like I said earlier, it is easily his best film.

The acting is good all around. I already talked about Willis giving a wanting to be there and trying performance. Vincent O’Donofrio playing his brother was actually quite good here too and the best thing I’ve seen him in since Netflix’s The Punisher. Elizabeth Shue plays the scared and tortured and eventually killed (not a spoiler, it’s in the trailers) wife really well and the girl that plays the daughter is good in the scenes she is in. Dean Norris and Kimberly Elise play two detectives trying to help solve everything, and even though Norris gave off his Breaking Bad character vibe, he was still good to watch as well.

To me, even though I thought it was better, for those that hold the original near to their hearts, it is a harmless remake. It is completely different, and the only thing that stands the same between the two is Brosnan and Willis doing that finger pistol thing they do at the end of the films. This is a more personal movie as Willis is actually trying to find the people that did this to his family while also being a vigilante. It was different enough to be enjoyable. It isn’t one of the years best films, and won’t be by a long shot. Just a guilty pleasure, with much much worse films and much much worse remakes and reboots out there.

Actor Jesse Plemmons is worth the price of admission alone for this, and he isn’t even a main character. Ah yes, now I finally get to review my favorite film of this past weekend, and favorite film so far this year (yes, that’s right, I liked this more than both Black Panther and Annihilation), GAME NIGHT. Game Night is hilariously wonderful and a completely entertaining comedy that is a laugh a riot from minute one all the way to its end credits. For any kind of comedy, that is a rare and major feat. Usually comedies will be hilarious for the first 30 minutes, get muddled in the middle, but have a hilarious conclusion. No, not this film. I laughed throughout the entire hour and 40 minutes and didn’t find any lag periods. This is a film I could watch over and over and over and over and over again and enjoy it each time.

From the writers of Horrible Bosses and the revamped Vacation movie, this is easily their best comedy effort so far (they sort of co wrote Spider-Man Homecoming but that is a different animal altogether). For this film, you have probably already seen the trailer to it, but if not, DO NOT WATCH IT. Just go see this film. The trailer doesn’t give most of the film away, as there are several really cool 3rd act surprises I wasn’t expecting, but not seeing the trailer may enhance your enjoyment. But for a quick little synopsis, it is about this couple, played by Jason Bateman and Rachel McAdams, that have a weekly game night that they host for friends. Jason Bateman’s brother, played by the great Kyle Chandler, comes into down and want’s to beef up Game Night. No boards, no dice, no pieces, someone from their group is going to be taken, and they have the night to solve it, and the winner gets his awesome new sporty classy vehicle that he drove to the get together.

Well, it turns out, everything is not what it seems, because right when the ‘someone’ is taken begins, something is off and weird, and the brother is trying to scream that “this isn’t part of the game.” And I am going to leave it there. All six of the players go on wacky side quests and adventures to find out what is really going on but trying to win the game at the same time. I would consider it a dark comedy, seeing that it goes in some violence and zany places at times, but not too dark, just that right amount to keep it from completely losing its audience. There are twists and turns and revelations, and all of it comes together in a nice and tight film that didn’t need any trimming or anything added onto it.

As for the acting, I know that Jason Bateman plays basically the same character in every film. He does have range, and if you watch projects such as Ozark, The Change Up, and The Gift, you’ll see that he is capable of playing somebody other than the dead pan normal everyday schemo. But I think he loves playing that guy and he does it so fucking well. As for Rachel McAdams, this is the best she has been since Spotlight and Mean Girls. She is fantastic in this and that is because it looks as if she is having so much fun making the film. Another great thing about this movie is that even though they are the two leads, the other four players in this movie get their moments and time to shine, giving them some pretty hilarious character arcs. New Girls’ Lamorne Morris and Kylie Bunbury’s marriage is put to the test when she reveals during a drinking game that she may have slept with a celebrity when they were on a break before they got married. Billy Magnussen plays a tolken jock good looking blonde dummy that finally brings an older not dumb blonde not supermodel date, Sharon Horgan, that maybe give him a run for his own intelligence.

Everything in this comedy comes together so well. The zany, wacky adventures are just that, zany and wacky and fun. Like they are supposed to be in comedies. It didn’t feel that the filmmakers were trying too hard for genuine laughs, as about 95% of the jokes stick the landing, and even the 5% that aren’t are still chuckle worthy. The greatest thing in this film though is Jesse Plemmons (who you may know from Breaking Bad, Fargo Season 2, The Post, etc.), who plays a police officer neighbor to Jason Bateman and Rachel McAdams’ married couple. He is so God damn creepy and awkward in this movie it is so pitch perfect, I will not tell you anything more about him so I don’t spoil any surprises, but needless to say, he is envious of Game Night ever since his wife left him and they don’t really invite him over anymore.

I loved this film. Love, love, love it, and can’t wait until it hits blu ray so I can watch it several more times. I really liked it that much and I may be over hyping it for you. But I don’t really give a shit. I really enjoyed myself and the sold out audience at my showing seemed to love it as well. Even the end credits are pretty enjoyable. The films has some pretty cool insane cameos as well. What’s really funny is that I know some people that actually have game night’s themselves. This movie seems to be better and funnier than the real thing. See this with anyone, it is a crowd pleasure to be sure.

Ok, so when I watched Duncan Jones’s new movie MUTE on Netflix Saturday, I had heard a little bit of the bad buzz behind it, but I didn’t dare go on Rotten Tomatoes or read any full length reviews to make sure I went into it a little fresh. I pretty much watched the movie straight through with my son sleeping on my chest, and after it was over, I really felt like I hadn’t really watched anything at all but a beautiful moving screensaver that happened to have fantastic visuals but really didn’t have any substance. When I was done, I went to Rotten Tomatoes and read other legitimate critics reviews, and they all thought exactly the same thing. Mute has wonderful, wonderful visuals and it seems to have an expansive world, and the acting is fantastic, but the story isn’t there, and what is there is muddled, has cliched story beats, and doesn’t really pick up until the final 30 minutes.

Also, the movie needed to be trimmed about about 20 to 25 minutes as well. The entire film is one big red herring, and I knew that from the very beginning when certain characters were introduced and started talking. I was thinking, “ok, this is what happened, so and so is going to think this, but is going to get some last minute evidence where it is really this, showdown, the end.” And believe me, I was hoping and praying that I was wrong. I was really really wanting for the story to take me in a different direction where I thought it might not go. I had the same feeling in Blade Runner 2049, but Blade Runner managed to surprise me and actually trick me into thinking one thing but the reality is that it is something completely different. Mute tries it and fails…hard. The film keeps screaming at you, “LOOK AT ME DAMMIT, I’M A BAD GUY AND I WORK FOR A GANG AND PROBABLY HAD SOMETHING TO DO WITH YOUR GIRLFRIEND’S DISAPPEARANCE! HERE, HERE IS A USELESS 45 MINUTES WHERE YOU GO DOWN MY PATH ONLY TO REALIZE…BAZINGA MOTHERFUCKER!”

The entire film is one big red herring, and I knew that it was, and the film just ended up not being for me. If you need to know what it is about, the film stars Alexander Sarsgaard, Paul Rudd, and Justin Theoroux. Sarsgaard stars as a man in his 30s, who is Amish, who happens to be a mute because of a boating accident that happened when he was a kid. He has this girlfriend that he loves where they both work at a bar and she seems to be hiding something from him while trying to make a lot of money to do something with it, maybe run away perhaps? Anyway, she goes missing, and even though he is mute, he goes out and does detective work to try and find her. Paul Rudd, and Justin Theoroux also star in subplot B as two Army/Navy surgeons who went AWOL and are working as surgeons for the mob so that if anyone in the mob gets shot or injured, they don’t have to go to the hospital where they will report it. They are also kind of lovers even though they are bi sexual as well. Paul Rudd also has a little girl that he seems to drag everything, even though he seems to be a loving father.

I think in the paragraph above I have given you all the context clues to figure out what is really going on. And if you can’t, good for you, you don’t have an obsessive movie acute brain like I do. It is a blessing but in this case it was a curse. Maybe it was also the fact that even though it bills Paul Rudd and Justin Theoreux behind Sarsgaard, they are more co-leads than anything else, and the movie spends a little too much time with them, leaving the audience to likely guess what is going on in their story too. Time is taken away from Sarsgaard, who when the climax does hit, I still didn’t feel so much for, and not because he is mute the entire movie, its just I don’t think we got to spend enough time with him to feel his rage and determination. His detective work is shoddy and boring at best. Don’t get me wrong, they are incredible actors and all three of them, especially Rudd and Theroux, Theroux being almost unrecognizable, show range they haven’t shown before.

And while I thought the movie was ‘really really meh’ at first, the more I’ve thought about it, it isn’t THAT bad, but it could’ve used a lot of trimming and tightening. I think I was more upset that Duncan Jones decided to try and pull an M. Night Shyamalan and Split, putting in a character’s sort of epilogue to one of his previous film as an easter egg throughout the entire 2 hr 10 minute run time. It makes the far superior film subjected to a universe of a ‘ehhhh’ sort of side-quel. I am not listing the film on here but if you look at writer/director Duncan Jones’ filmography, it isn’t hard to figure out what movie it is and what actor makes a cameo in this.

Oh, the visuals are amazing in this btw. The visuals and the acting are maybe really the only two things that make this film even half way decently watchable. It is definitely a universe I would like to dive back into, but with a much much better non-cliched, non muddled story. And I think it can be done, especially if maybe done by another filmmaker or if Duncan Jones can fix some of his own film making techniques. He has two great films under his belt, Moon and Source Code (haven’t seen Warcraft), so I know the man is capable of making another fantastic film, and this is a bold try, but it ends up falling just short of the finish line. Netflix needs to step of its game in its original film content, and not just be a dumping ground for films that would fail spectacularly if released in theaters. Why can’t we get more stuff like Mudbound?