“I just wanted to see some free titties, that’s all, but there’s no such thing as free titties, is there Zack, is there?” -Craig Robinson, Zack and Miri Make A Porno.

Boy, if that quote pertains to anything, it is having to sit through this train wreck of a trilogy. The only reason why I saw the other two and this last in the trio, FIFTY SHADES FREED, is to see Dakota Johnson’s breasts. I’m a man, so fucking sue me. I always thought she was cute and funny before these films and when I heard she was hired for the trilogy, I knew she would have to give up the goods. But if I realized that I was going to sit through 5 to 6 hours of total absolute boredom and ridiculous campiness over the past three years in the theater with my wife, just to see some celebrity woman’s breasts…I think I would’ve waited for the online leaks and just used my fast forward, rewind, and pause button. Jesus these films are terrible.

The best I can say about this film is that it is the most tolerable of the three. The first one had the most plot, but the terrible chemistry between the two leads made everything unbelievable and unbearable to watch. The second film is absolutely fucking pointless, has the least amount of plot, if it has any plot at all, and doesn’t make one lick of sense. The only thing that has gotten better from movie to movie is Dakota Johnson and Jamie Dornan seem to not hate each other anymore, and their chemistry is a little better. In this movie, their chemistry is the best, and it has a little more plot than the last film, but everything else is stupid and pointless and boring.

And this probably has the least sex of the three films. I thought these things were going to break the barrier of how much sex you can get away with in a R rated film. These films weren’t meant to be R rated. E.L. James should’ve just sold to rights to Cinemax and let them have their way with the material with bad acting and direction, but at least the sex would’ve probably been more accurate in accordance to the source. Or they should’ve just got full NC-17 a la Blue Is The Warmest Color or Shame. To make these rated R is slapping romance fan fiction novels in the face. Every woman knows it. I have a feeling if one woman has a dilemma from now on from either re reading one of the novels and watching the movie, they will just reread the novels and never put the disc in the player again.

I mean, can I even explain the plot of the film. It’s just the Twilight series but stripped of everything vampire and added sex. In the third one, they get married, some jealous asshole is after them both for revenge (hardly, and for only like 10 mins), and of course, well, I mean come on, if it is Twilight fan fiction you know they also have to deal with an unexpected development and consequence of having so much sex.

But why am I here? You know whether you are going to see this film or not. If you are a guy, you are trying to score some brownie points to see this with your lovely lady. If you are a lady, you have either read the novels and/or a fan of the film series and already know it is schlock but really don’t care. All I know as a really big fan of cinema, these movies are some of the worst projects to every come out of Hollywood. It is a slap in the face to cinema and it is a head scratcher how films like this can be made, but Hollywood won’t take more chances on original content. It’s disgusting and disturbing all at the same time. This is another film (how is it that I have basically had three movies in a week and a half that will end up like this) that will be on my worst of 2018 list, just like the 2nd one was last year, and the first one was a year before.

Also the best thing about this film? Is that this is the end. Well, did I just jinx it though? Because couldn’t they make a fourth film that doesn’t follow the novel that has some kind of plot with them trying to have sex around the obvious plot development that I mentioned earlier in this review? If Hollywood is really running out of ideas, they just might. I really hope this is the end, or that the film doesn’t make enough money to get Hollywood greedy assholes to squeeze out a fourth film. Maybe they’ll wait 35 years and we will see Dakota and Jamie has old people having hot wrinkly old sex? I don’t know. I only know one thing, and I already posted this on Facebook but it is so relevant to how I feel: The Fifty Shades of Black trilogy is the worst thing since living in Europe between 1347 to 1351.

When the doll from American Sniper is more realistic and a better actor than anything in THE 15:17 TO PARIS, you know you have a problem. This movie is the worst film Clint Eastwood has ever made. Period. It doesn’t even feel like he was behind the director chair on this one, is it possible someone just slapped his name on it and he agreed as some part of back end money deal to help distribute the film? He wasn’t even on autopilot, he just didn’t care. You would think that after the disaster that the film Act of Valor was that they wouldn’t make another film depicting real life heroes doing something amazing with the actual same people that lived it. They aren’t actors. They are real people.

The real heroes re-filming what they had to go through has got to be awkward as fuck for them. And me watching them redoing what they went through was awkward for me. Because even though it was them saving those people on the train like they did, it didn’t feel real. Real actors recreating it would’ve felt more real. The trailer is completely misleading to, it hinted at these three guys having an extraordinary life that led them to that extraordinary fate. Bullshit. They got into very little trouble as kids, one of them had trouble finding his place in the Army so he got into a field of work that would save people’s lives. And then they get together and backpack across Europe. And that is about it. It is a great story and I am very thankful and proud for what they did to stop a potential tragedy, but that hardly qualifies it to be a whole 95 minute movie about it. It could’ve been a fantastic 15 minute short with real actors just recreating the train sequence.

But the movie is mainly them just shooting the shit, unrealistically, and backpacking across Europe. It is extremely boring and the acting is atrocious. In fact, my screening was mostly full, and about 6 people walked out halfway through the film and never came back. I was this close to walking out too, but I always finish a film and was kind of interested in how they stopped a tragedy on the train. The acting is so atrocious that even the real actors in the film, such as Jenna Fischer from The Office and Judy Greer are terrible in this as well, especially Jenna Fisher, who is usually at least half way decent. Everything feels like it was shot in one take and Clint Eastwood just thought he felt lucky and didn’t have to shoot anymore. The only scene in the entire film that feels like it was handled with care was the train saving climax. That was the only interesting part of the film.

Spencer Stone, who the film really focuses on, seemed uncomfortable playing himself, which is actually funny. He either constantly forgot his lines and tried to remember them right before Eastwood yelled, “Action!” Or Clint Eastwood told him to just improve everything. BOTH VERY AWFUL IDEAS. I knew the movie would be a problem with the awkward as fuck opening with a weird narration that they never ever come back to. This all in all is not only unnecessary filmmaking, but lazy and boring filmmaking. Clint Eastwood is so much better than this. Just watch Unforgiven. Or Million Dollar Baby. Those films prove he is one of the best directors out there. But this. I don’t know how this came together, but I can tell you a movie about this disaster of a film would be more enjoyable and entertaining than this plain disaster.

This beats Winchester as worst film of the year so far. In fact, I’ll go ahead and say at least I was somewhat entertained by Dakota Johnson’s boobs in Fifty Shades Freed to even say that that was a little better of a movie than this. I don’t think I have ever been as bored in a film. Maybe Australia. Or that Beyond Borders film with Angelina Jolie and Clive Owen. I’d have to watch all of them to declare one of them my most boring film of all time, but then I’d have to go through pure hell again, so I think not.

So yeah. This is Clint Eastwood’s worst film. No question. Name a film he directed, and I bet you $100 I can find more redeeming qualities in it than I can with this film. Even Space Cowboys. Even Blood Work. I can’t believe he was dragged into this. This is a Lifetime movie all away and should’ve been directed by a kid just out of film school trying to get some kind of recognition. Even bad recognition. Eastwood is an established a filmmaker. But maybe he is starting to really show his age. In any case, “a man has got to know his limitations.”

WHEN WE FIRST MET is available on Netflix as of this morning at 2 AM, and if you are wondering how the hell I already watched it while still being at work at 8 AM, let say it involves my newborn son having a diaper blowout and then spitting up right after I cleaned that all up. Needless to say, to put him back to sleep and then get me tired again, it was 2:15 AM and I saw that this was just loaded onto the platform service. I decided to put it on, watch enough to get sleepy and then watch this rest this evening with a review tomorrow. Nope, the film kept my interesting and was kind of delightful where I watched the whole thing, went back to sleep at 4:20 and then woke up again at 6:20 to get my son ready for daycare and my ass ready for work. I enjoyed this movie quite a bit, which managed to mix a Time Travel formula with the Groundhog Day formula and bring us something a little unique. I wholly recommend this Netflix watch.

And let’s not get into the, is Netflix a new movie dump kind of platform, where the studio executives don’t have much faith in the film so they sell it to Netflix to drop at anytime that they want. It’s not that they don’t think the film is good or even marketable, they just know that Netflix is the cheaper route, where a movie might make some actual profit instead of spending millions to give it theatrical distribution. That’s why I love Netflix, because instead of going Direct to Video and I only hear about the movie through word of mouth, I don’t even have to get up from my couch to discover it. This was a nice, funny, and light little discovery that is the perfect date night for anyone just wanting to spend it at home or in their apartment.

Anyway, a quick plot review without getting into two many spoilers, on Halloween in 2014, Noah (the hilarious Adavm Devine)  met Avery (Alexandra Daddario, True Detective Season 1 Episode 2) at a costume party, and they had a fun filled night just chatting up different things, playing fooseball, decorating pumpkins with a magic marker. When he goes in for the kiss though, he instead gets a hug, and she comments how great it is to have a really good guy friend. Flash forward to 2017, and he is at her engagement party to Ethan (Robbie Amell) wishing that he was the one about to get married to her. He gets drunk and goes into an old photo booth that he and Avery took pictures at on the night they met, puts in a quarter, and travels thru time back to that day. He now realizes he has another chance to win her, not just as a friend, but as a boyfriend. But he better be careful because soon after his actions he travels back to the day of the engagement party, and his actions might have some serious repreocussions.

Needless to say the first redo doesn’t go so well and so the movie takes the time travel formula and mixes it with Groundhog Day, to have us see more attempts by Noah to win over Avery. Thankfully, it doesn’t completely stick to the Groundhog Day formula and even offers up some excellent surprises along the way. For instance, I was surprised to see the number of days that Noah actually goes through to get smart and finally see what he was meant to see all along. It isn’t like Bill Murray where he relives it thousands and thousands of days. I also appreciate the movies’ sensibility and smartness. Needless to say he does get her in a scenario or two and if they somehow have sex the time travel Gods take him out of the past right before they do, and when he wakes up back to the present day, he doesn’t remember having sex or really any of the stuff that happens in between. This movie was clearly written with the #metoo movement in mind.

Adam Devine makes the movie. He is that one guy that was on Workoholics and Pitch Perfect 1 & 2 that actually hit it big, and he was great in Mike & Dave Need Wedding Dates as well. According to reports, he was handed the script after being cast and they asked him to rewrite some of it based on his comedy style. When I heard that I thought it would be kind of like slacker Workoholics type humor, but no, Devine develops a kinder, gentler, yet still with that genuine goofiness that makes him him, and turns in a extremely likable character. The other stand out in this film is Shelley Hennig (who you know from Teen Wolf and Unfriended) as she plays Avery’s good girl friend Carrie that has some very interesting and enjoyable conversations both with Daddario’s Avery and Devin’s Noah. If I had one complaint about the film is that the rest of the people are shortchanged, including the main girl, Alexandra Daddario. I’ve seen almost everything she has been in, and unfortunately I am not convinced that she can actually act other than memorizing lines and repeating them when the film is rolling. Look, it might be the roles that she is cast in and the fact that none of these give her a true chance to shine and the fact that she is playing the same character in every film. She needs to get something juicier or I’m going to start thinking she is a permanent mediocre actress. Robbie Amell is just there to look pretty (he is much, much better in The Duff, be sure to check that movie out if you haven’t) and Noah’s friend Max, played by Andrew Bachelor, gets short changed as the friend that is a high ranking executive at a firm and is just a smooth talker to the ladies. The movie could’ve added maybe 15 minutes to give all the characters a more rounded fare share, but I enjoyed the movie so much I am willing to overlook that injustice.

Speaking of conversations, this movie has some very realistic and believable dialogue and genuine interactions between the characters, something which I also thought made the film. When Noah is talking with Avery or if Noah is talking to Max or if Noah is talking to Carrie, I don’t know whether some of it was ad-libbed, but it felt like real people having real conversations. I wonder if it was some of the script re writing to fit Devine’s comedy style, but it was simply, pun intended, devine. Anyway, so I don’t spoil anything else, please check this film out on Netflix, it’s funny and gets the job done romantic comedy wise without trying to copy cat the time travel or Groundhog Day formula too much. It is worth the watch for Adam Devine alone.

 

Wow, that was pretty exciting and cool wasn’t it? To think we weren’t expecting THE CLOVERFIELD PARADOX aka Cloverfield 3 to hit theatres till late April, then there is a rumor Paramount wants to sell it to Netflix, and a rumor turns into a reality with a Superbowl commercial advertising the film…and they release the film that very night on Netflix. Incredible. Great move and great advertising. But is the third Cloverfield a great movie? I’d say it is a very, very good movie, especially for Netflix, as this is their best original movie to come out (yes, better than Bright), but the one thing that keeps it from being great is that a lot of the Cloverfield stuff to link it to the other two movies feels a little tacked on, and the movie doesn’t feel theatrical, but those are minor quibbles.

I really like that this Cloverfield franchise is basically becoming a sci-fi/horror anthology that links to each other in the most subtle of ways. Even though those subtle ways could be argued as after thoughts or forceful connectivity. Let me back track a little. After the success of the original 2008 Cloverfield, which made a shit ton of profit, audiences were wanting more and was wondering where it would go. 8 years and nothing, just little blue balls teases from J.J. Abrams and company with really no official word as to any type of a sequel. Fast forward to 2016 and we get a random trailer for a film called 12 Cloverfield Lane. Producer J.J. Abrams comes out and says that while it is not a direct sequel to Cloverfield, it has “the DNA” of it, set in the same film universe, kind of like a “blood relative” to the previous film. And 12 Cloverfield Lane is a very, very good movie, except for that final act, which while necessary to keep it within this new universe, felt tacked on and anti-climatic. And we learned even more. 12 Cloverfield Lane was originally not even supposed to be part of this universe, it was a film originally titled, “The Cellar,” and then known as “Valencia” and J.J. Abrams production company acquired it, filmed it, added only a few nods to Cloverfield, with J.J. Abrams promising that a future film in the anthology series would tie the two films together.

And thankfully, with The Cloverfield Paradox, this anthology series gives us this connection sooner rather than later. Especially the final shot, which will have many a fans like me slack jawed and screaming with sci-fi joy and glee. But other than that fantastic final shot, and a couple of nods to the other two films (like Slusho and the name Cloverfield) this film could’ve been its own thing not linking at all to the universe. Doing some digging, Abrams and company almost did the exact same thing to this film as they did with 12 Cloverfield Lane, but with a little more planning, and a little more plot connecting (with Roger Davies character Michael, all those scenes were added after movie was already finished to have it in the Cloverfield universe). This movie was originally supposed to be called “God Particle.” And while the tacked on scenes to connect everything don’t feel as tacked on as they did with 12 Cloverfield Lane, you can still feel it and hope they do even more planning with this 4th film that is apparently already in the can.

But now let’s get to the movie and what works. The plot of The Cloverfield Paradox has these astronauts in space on this space station that has this large device on board that is supposed to solve the energy crisis, as it is revealed several countries are about to go to war because they are running out of options. I won’t say much so I don’t ruin the surprises, but lets just say the device works and doesn’t work, and they end up trying to solve a personal dark “reality” crisis of their own. That’s all I will say. The movie mostly really works other than a few bits of groan worthy dialogue. It works really way as a cool little sci-fi try to save a sort of apocalypse on Earth from happening tale while also adding in a couple of dashes of pure space horror.

It also works because it interweaves a personal tale with Gugu Mbatha-Raw‘s character and her family back on Earth (can’t give away too much of that either). In fact there are a lot of famous faces in this film, even though the other characters only get a few moments to shine and kind of lack in character development: Daniel Bruhl, David Oyelowo, Ziyi Zang, John Ortiz, Donal Logue, Elizabeth Debicki and Chris O’Dowd. But giving them all complete character development would’ve made this movie two and a half hours, which would’ve been too long as this hour and 43 minutes is nice, tight, and solidly good entertainment. The scenes that were filmed after wards with Roger Davies playing Mbatha-Raw’s character’s husband are interspersed with the astronauts tale, and into actually flows into the narrative pretty well, giving us a breather between a lot of shit that goes wrong on the ship. Even though yes, it kind of feels like those scenes were tacked on. But the acting is all fantastic even with some of the crummy dialogue. The visuals are really impressive as well considering this is a Netflix film, but then again it was supposed to be in theaters in a couple of months.

Which comes to the only other problem this movie has other than the dialogue: it doesn’t feel very theatrical. I don’t know how to explain it. Maybe it is the direction, or the cinematography, or the close quarters of everything, but the movie didn’t feel like it warranted a theatrical presentation. And maybe Paramount realized this too which is why they sold it to Netflix, as it is a perfect Netflix film. I just wish it felt more cinematic. It’s hard to explain how it doesn’t, especially when the visuals are actually pretty impressive, but trust me, you will probably feel it too.

But this film does connect the other two films in a couple of interesting ways, and it feels like it belongs as a part of the Cloverfield universe, and isn’t that all we really are asking for? This is a really good anthology series, even though if I were to rank them as my favorite to least favorite it would probably be in the order they were released. However, they are all about the same in terms of pulpy, entertainment, sci-fi quality. And that is hard for movies to do nowadays, so all props go to J.J. Abrams and his production team. And that final shot gave me a cinematic boner. It did, I’m sorry to say that and ruin what was a perfectly tame and concise review, but it did. That final shot was just icing on the cake that was the very good movie that came before it, and since I am a huge fan of the first film, and now this anthology, it gave me an unapologetic cinematic boner. You’re welcome for the image.

If you have Netflix, you can catch this movie that premiered just a couple of days ago , A FUTILE AND STUPID GESTURE, which tells the rise and fall of Doug Kenney, one of the co-founders for the National Lampoon magazine and also had a hand in writing two very famous films, Animal House and Caddyshack. He also jump started the careers of many famous comedians including Bill Murray, Chevy Chase, John Belushi, etc. However, I would suggest maybe instead to watch the 2015 documentary Drunk Stoned Brilliant Dead: The Story of the National Lampoon, wherever you can find to watch it. That does its story’s justice. This does not. This unfortunately has a television feel to it that contains a bunch of famous actors, but not having enough material to warrant a half way decent film. It is very disappointing because all my life I have been interested in the National Lampoon, seen all the movies, and wondering how it all came together. The documentary left me, in a good way, wanting more, this movie made me go back to wishing they wouldn’t do anything else other than the doc.

Will Forte stars as Doug Kenney, and for some reason, Martin Mull plays a older modern day Doug constantly breaking the fourth wall and talking to the audience and the fact that it is just a movie. Which if you know anything about the history of Doug Kenney, Martin Mull being there doesn’t make any sense. Was that the whole joke, or was it a misdirection for the audience in case some people didn’t really know about the famous man? Anyway, minor quibble aside, this movie could’ve been so much more. You have the great Will Forte as Doug Kenney and you have the fantastic Domnahall Gleeson as his friend and partner Henry Beard, who both co-created that National Lampoon magazine and other platforms as it eventually spread to radio and film. Unfortunately, Will Forte just seems to be playing himself, or a minor, smarter variation on his character in The Last Man On Earth. Domnahall Gleeson seems to be taking the role seriously, even though both of those wigs that they wear for their characters really can’t be.

You have famous actors portraying famous actors in here too, like Joel Mchale playing Chevy Chase, Seth Green playing Christopher Guest, and Jon Daly playing Bill Murray, nobody really looking like any of the others, only Jon Daly getting Murray’s voice down pat. And the whole film is just choppy. And at one hour and 41 minutes, you don’t get a whole lot inside the mind of Doug Kenney, you know that he was a funny man that didn’t exactly know how to harness his talent and his jealousy got in the way of most things. The film basically shows all their high time highlights, with Kenney being weird, drugged out, and delusional most of the time, but it fails to show the impact all of it had on America except for one television interview where they could sneak in a quick cameo of Ed Helms as Tom Snyder.

Not even a brilliant Emmy Rossum as Kenney’s girlfriend can save the third act, which *spoiler alert* doesn’t really go all that much into Kenney’s death and why it happened. It just happens, all of his friends show up at a bar, and they remember the good times. *end spoiler*. It just shows us everything, with little invisible astericks making the audience want to go to the computer and look up more in depth things on certain events. The main problem is that the whole production feels really cheap and shoddy. It looks and feels like a movie made for television and nothing seems authentic, and I guess that is why it is premiere on Netflix and not a theatrical distribution.

Which is a shame, because if you are a National Lampoon fan like I am, this is a serious disappointment. It would be even worse if this was the first telling of the story, thankfully, we have the above mentioned documentary for that to cool our jets from this epic fail. They could’ve made the movie longer and go more in depth with Kenney’s psyche, maybe spend a little more time on the making of Animal House and Caddyshack. The film is okay until Henry Beard eventually leaves the company and then shows up once or twice more. That shows you Domnhall Gleeson’s star power.

Anyway, this movie is a literal joke and not worth your time. Seriously, if you love the Vacation movies, or Animal House, or Caddyshack, or even remember the great magazine, I encourage you to watch the 2015 documentary because it is in depth and very interesting, this is background noise never to be played again.

There are rules one must abide by in order to successfully know if you are watching a shitty horror movie:

(My Rules)

1. I am about to fall asleep at least three times and I’m “ass out to pass out” (this means you are side ways in your chair)
2. My horror film buddy Kim can actually manage to predict what is going to happen before it happens.
3. 1 or less jump scares
4. You start comparing characters in the film to people you know in real life out of boredom.
5. You laugh almost throughout the entire thing.

All of those happened with WINCHESTER, one of the worst horror films ever made and my first contender for worst film of 2018 (will probably be beat by Fifty Shades Freed) and will definitely be on my worst ten by the end of the year. Throughout the film I kept asking myself, why is Helen Mirren in this? I quickly asked that about Jason Clarke, but quickly answered that question by saying he is an actually underrated actor just trying to get known, and he is the only one actually doing any acting in this film.

Helen Mirren is terrible in this. It screams paycheck, paycheck, paycheck throughout all the “haunted” walls within this haunted house. She isn’t in it much at the beginning, and is in only two rooms for most of the middle with a tiny bit of venturing out near the end. But yeah, her shooting schedule was probably short and tight. Jason Clarke and Sarah Snook seem to be the only ones trying to do a decent job with the crap screenplay they were dealt. Snook probably because she did a great job with The Spierig Brothers other pretty decent film Predestination. I am willing to forgive The Spierig Brothers because this is their first true misfire. I really like their film Daybreakers, Predestination was solid, and Jigsaw…well, you know my love for the Saw series if you read my review in October.

This movie felt…rushed. Everything about it, the script, the story, the plot, the camera work, the fake CGI outside shots of the house, all felt rushed to a studio schedule that no one wanted. I feel that if the Spierig brothers were given their true due, more time with everything, especially the script, and a bigger budget, they could’ve had something. Something tells me that they got Helen Mirren before a script was even completely and they had a certain amount of time with her and the studio said, “this movie revolves around her.” Which you can’t do that. Your product gets muddled and no one will appreciate it.

I mean, come on, this is a true story about a true haunted house (depending on what your beliefs are). We were given films based on true haunting stores (like The Conjuring series) and those turned out fantastic. What went wrong here? Was it the fact that instead of doing multiple stories about the room and the spirits that are trapped inside and then rebuild the house when it becomes damaged, they instead just focused on one story, trying to tie it all in a bow with our main protagonist (Clarke)? That one story wasn’t even all that damn interesting. The movie starts very cliched with the board of the Winchester rifle company sending a doctor to evaluate Sarah Winchester to deem her insane so they can take control (A Cure For Wellness anyone?) and instead of having the audacity to bring anything cool and interesting to the mix we are dealt one ghost story about a demon that has a hatred for Winchester rifles and what they did to his brothers and brothers in arms? I could’ve slept soundly inside this house in the middle of all the chaos because it was a complete snooze fest of a scenario.

It was just bad. I said in a Facebook post that my fat face is scarier than this film and I stand right by that comment. This film isn’t scary at all. Oh, you didn’t think IT was all that scary? Try putting in this film, you’ll be screaming for the new Pennywise in about 10 minutes into this. Why oh why do we get all these cool story concepts but the execution is just fucking pitiful? I’d rather watch a documentary on this house, anybody have any suggestions?

I am actually really glad that MAZE RUNNER – THE DEATH CURE ended the trilogy on a pretty WCKD action packed high note. Well, at least to me. Not to the critics it seems. Maybe I was just ultimately disappointed with The Scorch Trials after the memorable first film that anything better would lift my spirits. Maybe I appreciate how this movie wasn’t split into two parts like all the rest of the YA novels turned into movies have been. Maybe my expectations were low. A bunch of different reasons. I just know that this last film in the trilogy really entertained me, was visually stunning to look at, and the action was more than decent. The film is not without its flaws of course (mainly dialogue) but we’ll get to those in a minute.

To just forewarn most of you. I haven’t read the novels and I don’t plan to. I also heard that the movies deviate a crap ton from the novels, so if you are a fan, I don’t know how you are going to take it, it’s just a warning. But if you’ve been following the movies at all, the whole thing is that the world doesn’t have many survivors left due to this disease that basically turns people into these fast zombies (I am intentionally staying away from calling all these nouns proper names because I want to tell it like it is). The government had been setting up these experiments with people they thought were immune to the virus, trying to find a way to extract a cure from them (it’s complicated how they explain this without just trying to turn their blood into a serum, just watch the movie, I’m not going to explain here). Thomas, played by Dylan O’Brien, is our main protagonist, who we see in the first movie sent up to the maze, where we learned his memory was partially wiped and he had worked for the government he is now fighting against (Bourne anyone?). He gets out of the maze with a handful of survivors in the first movie, and in the second movie they lightning dodge and also dodge the creatures…you know what? I don’t remember if there was even a plot in the second movie other than going from point a to point b. I know that they girl he likes, played by Kara Scoledario betrayed them, and took one of the main survivors, Minho, played by Ki Hong Lee, back to base to re experiment on him to get serum.

This movie’s plot is basically two fold: a. Rescue Minho and b. finally take down WCKD. Of course it being the final film in the trilogy there are reveals (like how a character that supposedly died in the first film isn’t dead, I did like how they kept the well known actor out of the marketing campaign for the surprise reveal but if you read his name on the poster it wouldn’t surprise you), more reveals, showdowns, and other predictable things to wrap things up. Needless to say, it wraps everything up the way it should. Yes, it is predictable, and a lot of the dialogue is cliched, “You aren’t going to do this without us,””You can save everyone,””I can save her,””You can’t save her,””This is where it ends,” so on and so forth. The journey is actually very entertaining and the action, spectacle and visuals made it actually a treat to sit and watch in the theater.

Director Wes Ball has a flair for action, he proved it in the last two films but he really proves it with this one. Give him a meaty script and something different and this guy could direct wonders. No joke. The opening train sequence is expertly shot and then when shit goes down in the WCKD city, the action is better than Michael Bay’s incoherent shit. And while the dialogue is bad the acting is at least on par. Dylan O’Brien just needs better movies to display his talent, actually, you know what, every one involved in this need better films to fully show their talent. Walton Goggins has a cool almost unrecognizable minor role as a WCKD city outsider who has plans to get into the city himself and take the government down. And Aiden Gillan, always fantastic in Game of Thrones as Littlefinger, plays a half-way decent villain here, if only he were given more to do and say.

At least this movie went somewhere, unlike The Scorch Trials.The movie drags just a tiny bit in the middle, but the beginning and last hour were spectacularly done. I was fully expecting this to be a Mockingjay ho hum affair, but I actually enjoyed myself, and although I didn’t explain the plot really well above, the movie does a fine job re explaining everything to you. My problems were with the dialogue and I don’t care so much for that this disease basically turns people into zombies, even though they don’t use that word. So here is my final stance on the trilogy. If the first movie hooked you, but you didn’t like the second one, the third one should redeem everything for you. If you aren’t a fan of the series  at all, this film probably won’t change your mind. And if you haven’t seen the other two, don’t see this one as you’ll really have no basis for a lot of what goes on other than a minor rehash in some of the characters dialogue. But yeah, I enjoyed this final part of the maze, and while I enjoyed the first part, but was a little lost in the middle, I would say it is a half way decent trilogy, maybe to be remembered as one of the better YA adaptations that ultimately made the Divergent series look like absolute shit.

Nicholas Cage has his moments. His moments are mainly the ones where he just doesn’t give a fuck about his performance and goes off the wall crazy ass bonkers. Those are his most entertaining roles. Add MOM AND DAD to the list of them. Mom and Dad is playing in few select theaters but you can rent or buy it on VOD right now. I am not a huge fan of direct to VOD, but this movie is an exception. It’s crazy premise, short tight run time, and Nic Cage make this one of the rare good ones. It’s from Brian Taylor, one of the duo of Neveldine/Taylor, who brought you such weird projects as Gamer, Crank, and Crank High Voltage. This is his solo outing, and if you’ve seen any of those fast paced, hyper edited, high premise films, you know what to expect. And you get exactly that.

There is only one thing you need to know about Mom and Dad. It is about some kind of signal that is making Mom and Dads everywhere have the uncontrollable urge to kill their kids, and just their kids, no one else’s. Which actually brought an interesting dynamic to the film. There are some scenes where parents are stopping other parents from killing their kids, but when they get home or see their kids, they go after them anyway with that blood thirsty rage. What I kind of like about the film is that even with that high premise, it is light on plot other than two kids, a brother and sister, trying to escape the clutches of their mom and dad, played by Nicholas Cage and Selma Blair. I’ve already sung the praises of Nicholas Cage here, but Selma Blair is also very exceptional, probably bringing what is her best performance ever, and definitely her best since Cruel Intentions.

If you are one of those ‘Losties” and are looking for answers to the who, what, where, when, and why of this signal and why it is happening, I’m just going to tell you right now to not expect many answers. There are context clues to make you figure everything out and the ending is sort of ambigouis, and not everything is tied up in a nice little bow. This is a movie to just sit back and enjoy the insanity of it. To see Nicholas Cage screaming and singing the Hokey Pokey while he is destroying a pool table with a sledgehammer or his crazy eyes and mannerisms as he runs after his kids. My favorite scene is when he and Selma Blair try to get their kids out of the locked basements by rigging their gas system and jerry-rigging it through a window in the basement.

There is a late and short appearance by Lance Hendrickson that I quite enjoyed as well, but saying anything about that would ruin a pretty good surprise the film has to offer. The movie mixtures horror, comedy, and disturbing very well, and while at some points it gets pretty close to crossing that ‘too far’ line, it doesn’t quite get there. The violence and gore isn’t too bad, as even though parents are killing their kids, we don’t get up close to any of the bloody murders, just shots of bloody knives, keys, and other objects, without actually seeing any of them hit and cut the human body.

Well that’s all I am going to say about this film because it is a short 85 minutes and if I say anything else it might ruin some of the fun. It’s a helluva ride and a return to form for Taylor, who I am still wanting to see a Crank 3 in theaters somewhere down the line. I would even like to see a sequel to this, not necessarily to get the origins of the signal explained, but maybe to expand the universe more and see another side to the mayhem. Hopefully it does well enough to do that. You could start by taking my recommendation and renting it to whatever VOD service you have on a compatible device. Oh, and don’t watch this with your kids. Just sayin’.

If you glance at Gerard Butler’s filmography, you’ll tend to notice a pattern that emerges. To sum it off, the actor is THE definition of hit and miss. It seems like one movie is makes is meh or terrible, and then the next one is quite serviceable or solid while not quite being fantastic or a masterpiece (one could argue the closest he’s ever gotten to that would be 300). For example, in 2009 he had three movies, The Ugly Truth, Law Abiding Citizen, and Gamer. Shitty film, pretty decent, shitty film. Or how about lets go to 2006 to 2008 with 300, P.S. I love You, and RocknRolla. Very good film, shitty film, decently solid. You can do that all over with his career. Now let’s get to present from 2016 to now. You have London Has Fallen, Geostorm, and now DEN OF THIEVES. Not too bad if enjoyable sequel, shitty film, a very, very solid yet not grand heist/crime film. In other words, yes, I am recommending Den of Thieves even though at times it tries to hard to be Michael Mann’s Heat and in some parts, completely rips it off.

What the marketing does very well is not even remotely hint at the huge twist the film has at the end of it. I knew something fishy was going on, but the end result kind of had me stunned. That is all I’m going to say on that matter. The movie stars Gerard Butler as a leader of a Major Crimes Unit Task Force assigned to bring down L.A.’s most successful bank robbery crew. The crew contains a lot of unknowns like Pablo Schreiber, but you might recognize Curtis ’50’ Cent Jackson, who doesn’t really do all that much in the film, and Ice Cube’s clone…errr I mean son, O’shea Jackson Jr., who is becoming quite the figure in films just like his father did. But the movie mainly works because of Gerard Butler, who is so fucking good in this, I have rarely seen him better. This is probably his best performance and one alongside Leonidas and Mike Banning that I’ll probably remember forever. He sold me with his first scene, and just kept selling me and selling me each and every scene after that.

The film is actually pretty enjoyable, and at 2 hours and 20 minutes, I didn’t feel it at all. Sure, there were some unnecessary scenes that could’ve been trimmed. I really didn’t need Gerard Butler’s characters’ family life brought into this, all it did was kind of assure the audience that while he is good at his job and not dirty as a cop, he makes his life dirty by cheating on his wife, but then is really nice to his kids. Instead of unnecessary scenes that sort of dragged down the movie a bit, it could’ve been explained in one line of dialogue. Yeah, that’s 20 minutes right there that could’ve been cut. Although I did like the scene where he signs his wife’s divorce papers. I understand what they were trying to do, bring some humanity and flaws to his character, but they were too cliched and just really didn’t work.

Come to think of it, there really isn’t that much characterization in the film. There is one scene with the criminals family life that feels like a rip off of a better scene in Bad Boys II (you’ll know it when you see it). You see them with their family and that is it, that one little scene, and then you really don’t see them again, and why bring them into it if you aren’t going to show their reactions to the fates of some of the characters at the end of the film? What was the point of their scenes? The acting is good, just the writing in of some scenes to bring some background to the characters seemed really last minute, although O’Shea Jackson Jr.’s character gets a little bit interesting in the 2nd half of the film. Also, a lot of the scenes and interactions of the characters feel too much like Michael Mann’s film Heat and even comes close to completely ripping some of those scenes off.

Ok, this doesn’t seem like a recommendation review does it? Let’s get to the good stuff. The film is very entertaining. The last 40-45 minutes along where a heist takes place is so solid that I could just watch those 45 minutes as an amazing little action-y mini film. The tension is brought to a high level and I didn’t have a clue to what was going to happen next. The film made me think, “wait, weren’t they going to try and rob the federal reserve? what are they doing here?” Everything in those last 45 minutes comes together so beautifully, I was wondering why this film was dumped in January. Seems more like a decent late March or April film to me. Definitely not in the same league as 12 Strong or Insidious 4. After seeing the crap action in 12 Strong, it was refreshing to see a first time director, Christian Gudegast, take his experience from writing films and takes his vision and actually control the camera correctly and film some very strong action scenes.

That along with Gerard Butler, I am recommending this crazy little heist flick even though Rotten Tomatoes and a lot of critics really, really disagree with me. My friend Kim, who sees a lot of films with me, her “ass out to pass out” rule always in effect, she was on the edge of her seat the entire time, didn’t even nudge her ass out a little to the left or right once. Oh, and the twist, loved the twist. It’s definitely a film I plan on watching again, it is really that enjoyable and fun. And sometimes, fun is all I ask for.

Let’s cut to the chase: 12 STRONG isn’t very good. In fact, it is the definition of a “January War Film.” What is that you might ask? It’s where everyone involved opens the 101 playbook entitled “How To Make A Barely Passable War Film That Will Please Studio Executives Enough For A Theatrical Release That Will Also Please Modern Audiences.” They take what is a great heroic story and completely Hollywood Bastardize it to the point of ‘meh.’ This is one of only a handful of war films where I’ve yawn several times throughout. The entire production is just plain lazy. Characterization, dialogue, even the action sequences are shot poorly. What is so damn frustrating is that there is a Academy Award nominated film somewhere in this true story. This film takes that away like Sophie’s choice.

In fact, this film could be lazy enough in my opinion as to be disrespectful to the soldiers that actually went through the mission. And I know when it says ‘Based On A True Story’ it means that a lot of what happened is going to be taken for granted, a lot of filler put in, and some false stuff that didn’t happen. This is more of ‘Hardly Based On A True Story If Told By A Lazy Michael Bay.’ By the way, yes Jerry Bruckheimer produced this but Michael Bay didn’t direct it. What is sad to say is that if he had, it might’ve been a better film. The action is just piss poor. How do I explain the action? You know that gag in The Naked Gun series, where Leslie Nielsen and a henchmen are both hiding behind a box shooting at each other, and then the camera pulls back to show the depth of field was that great and they are really right next to each other? That’s how the movie felt. Cut to American soldier shooting, cut to Taliban soldier shooting, show them kind of shooting up close, rinse, repeat. You can’t tell who is where and who is doing or shooting what, it is just kind of a hugely shot and edited mess. There are only two decent shots in the film, the Taliban firing off rockets, and Chris Hemworth shooting and his fallen horse getting up in a cool little sped up take. That’s it.

If you have no clue what the story is about the film tries to tell the tale about 12 American soldiers that group up with General Dotsum and his men, who is the leader of the alliance in Afganistan and is actually now the Vice President (so guess what? he doesn’t die!), and try to cut off the Taliban’s supply line. Like the trailers tell you, it’s the first great victory in the Afghan war right after 9/11, so the trailers kind of spoil you in how it is going to turn out, then again you could just go on Wikipedia and read about it. Which is the alternative I recommend than going to see this movie. Even though we have 12 American Soldiers and General Dotsum, there  isn’t that much characterization in the film. In fact, it is hard to distinguish who is who trait wise other than seeing a bunch of pretty actors who’s faces we recognize. The only personality that sort of shines is General Dotsum, but then he is bogged down in cliched dialogue saying, “this is much country, this is my army, this is my land, this is my honor, these are my morals” type speeches. He tell Chris Hemworth at the end, “I will always think of you as my brother,” however the movie didn’t fucking earn that emotional sentence for the audience at the end. The sentence was a plot convenience.

Other terrible dialogue too, with the soldiers trying to be funny, everything we’ve heard of before such as: “What are you trying to do so-and-so, get a tan?””The war has just started boys.””I promised my wife I would make it home.” So on and so forth, just plain lazy writing because the writers either don’t have the skill to write good dialogue or they were trying to meet a fast deadline. I’m guessing a little bit of both. While they’re dialogue is supposed to be funny the only humorous part of the movie is that Chris Hemworth’s real wife in real life plays his wife in this. That’s the only chuckle the movie got out of me.

The plot structure is an entire mess. For example, there is this whole five minute scene of Chris Hemsworth telling that a few of his men need to make this long and perilous journey through this valley with harsh conditions (no water, food etc.) so they can get to the other side of the Taliban undetected and cut off that part of the supply line while Chris Hemsworth and his men destroy the other side to box him in. 5 minutes of saying, “I can’t order you guys to do this so I need volunteers.” Michael Pena steps up and says, “yes you can sir, you can order us to do it.” So dramatic, he orders Michael Pena to go, he picks two guys, they say their cliched goodbyes. So you think we are going to see these three soldiers and some of the harshness right? Nope. One scene of them finding a guy and his goats and them trying to buy one of the goats for food. And that’s it, and they are where they need to be with only chapped lips. I mean come on? You set up a 5 minute dramatic scene, not wanting to order your soldiers to trek with these harsh conditions and you end up showing only one scene of them buying a goat? LAZY AS FUCK.

And don’t get me started how you have a great actor like Michael Shannon in this and relegate him to little more than a cameo. He is barely fucking in this picture, and he’s out of it due to his location or that he fucked up his back somehow. He is brought back near the very end and gets pretty injured but the movie doesn’t focus on him enough and give him some character for me to really care about him. When I read their journey in news stories or wikipedia, I care about the real soldiers. The movie should emulate that. It doesn’t. And if  you notice I haven’t played up the whole horse soldier angle. Because other than them riding the horses and shooting their guns while riding them, there are no scenes of them bonding with the horses and only one scene of them learning to kind of ride them real quick plays off as humorous. So yeah the whole marketing of horse soldiers doesn’t pay off either. So instead of making a joke that 12 Strong really should be called 12 Weak, or 12 Yawns, or 12 Naps or whatever, I’m just going to tell you to skip this movie and wait for the retelling that is one day going to happen because Hollywood doesn’t know how to tell a fresh narrative about 9/11 anymore.