June 30, 2018 “Tag” (*1/2 out of four) was a dismal comedy about a group of grown friends (Jon Hamm, Ed Helms, Jake Johnson, Hannibal Buress, and Jeremy Renner) who organize an elaborate and annual game of tag that takes them across the country on a less-than-enthralling odyssey where they focus on their friendship and growing up. Renner’s comic antics provide film’s only laughs; otherwise film is tiresome, contrived, and dumb. Based on a true story from an article written in The Wall Street Journal where it should have stayed. Continue reading →
June 30, 2018 “Sicario 2: Day Of The Soldado” (*1/2 out of four) was a ponderous sequel to the overrated 2015 original focusing on the escalating drug war on the U.S.-Mexico border and how the cartels have begun smuggling terrorists across the U.S. border. In an effort to fight this, a determined federal agent (Josh Brolin) reteams with a deadly assassin (Benicio Del Toro) but find things get really ugly on both sides of the country. Hard to imagine a duller group of characters or a more dull film about such a topical and pertinent matter in the world. Del Toro played virtually the same character in “Traffic” which was another film about the drug war with electricity and passion. Heavy-going all the way. Continue reading →
June 30, 2018 “The Catcher Was A Spy” (*** out four) was an engrossing adaptation of Nicholas Dawidoff’s biography of Moe Berg (Paul Rudd) who was a former baseball player who joined the U.S.government during World War II and began doing espionage work as a spy! Imperfect, with some plot points and factors that don’t always pay off, but well-made and well-told and Rudd is perfectly cast in the lead role. Fine supporting cast is well-used and gives good roles to Guy Pearce, Jeff Daniels, Mark Strong, and Paul Giamatti. Continue reading →
June 30, 2018June 30, 2018 “The Catcher Was A Spy” (*** out four) was an engrossing adaptation of Nicholas Dawidoff’s biography of Moe Berg (Paul Rudd) who was a former baseball player who joined the U.S. government during World War II and began doing espionage work as a spy! Imperfect, with some plot points and factors that don’t always pay off, but well-made and well-told and Rudd is perfectly cast in the lead role. Fine supporting cast is well-used and gives good roles to Guy Pearce, Jeff Daniels, Mark Strong, and Paul Giamatti. Continue reading →
June 29, 2018 “Gotti” (*1/2 out of four) was an enervated biographical crime drama of the early 1990’s NYC crime boss John Gotti (John Travolta) and film reimagines him as an underdog cult hero! Film shows his gradual early rising from low-level mafia hitman to a tough but loving family man with a wife (Kelly Preston) and son (Spencer Rocco Lofranco) who he loves but he is never able to leave the streets and organized crime behind. Film doesn’t tell you anything about Gotti you haven’t seen in at least 100 other mafia movies. Any one scene in “Good Fellas” or “The Godfather” tops this hands down. Travolta ranges from flamboyant to ridiculous as the dapper Don; strangely, him and Preston have very little chemistry even though they’re married in real life. Lofranco gives film’s best performance as Gotti’s troubled son. Continue reading →
June 27, 2018 “Paper Year” (**1/2 out of four) was an affecting but aloof melodrama about a young couple (Avan Jogia and Eve Hewson) and the various trials and tribulations they face in their first year of marriage and how sexual impulses and emotional insecurities cause their marriage to gradually tear apart. Writer-director Rebecca Addelman holds your attention and interest without ever really engaging your emotions because the two central characters are so hard to figure out and often hard to relate to. By the end, film almost seems pointless. Hewson (who is Bono’s daughter) is film’s saving grace and whose stirring performance overall makes this worthwhile. Continue reading →
June 26, 2018 “Sweet Country” (* out of four) was a boring Western set in the 1920’s in which an African-American farmhand (Hamilton Morris) shoots his owner in self-defense and then is forced to go on the run when a group of lawmen (led by Bryan Brown) attempt to track him down. Potentially affecting story of injustice and lawlessness in the old West but is worthless on almost every level. Film is so molasses-moving and inert that it itself seems to fall asleep at times and that goes double for the viewer. Sam Neill is wasted in a small role at the beginning as a property owner. Continue reading →
June 26, 2018 “The Wrong Bed: Naked Pursuit” (*1/2 out of four) was a confusing, contrived dud about an insurance saleswoman (Jewel Staite) and a firefighter (Corey Sevier) who wake up handcuffed in bed next to one another and find out their lives are in danger and they have to piece together the last 24 hours on how they met before it is too late. Neither sexy nor funny nor suspenseful, this one is simply a wrong movie. Staite and Sevier might have made an engaging team but they are handcuffed by film’s witless screenplay and execution. Continue reading →
June 23, 2018 “Distorted” (*1/2 out of four) was a distorted mess about a young woman (Christina Ricci) suffering from numerous mental health issues who moves into a luxurious new apartment building with her moron husband (Brendan Fletcher) and begins to suspect that the apartment complex is using its tenants as guinea pigs for experiments with global ramifications. She then turns to a mysterious stranger (John Cusack) for help. Absurd story goes nowhere after a promising beginning, A real waste of Ricci’s talent and Cusack is sorely miscast. It’s about time he went back to the nice-guy roles he’s best remembered for. Continue reading →
June 22, 2018 “Apocalypse Rising” (*1/2 out of four) was a cheesy, silly zombie horror thriller that seems like it was made by zombies in which a group of warriors (Johanna Rae, Justin Lebrun, Mason Parker, and others) from a doomed world come to Earth to save us from the same fate but find themselves back in combat and attempting to save the world from being overtaken by a new breed of ruthless zombies. Strictly for those who thought any of the “Resident Evil” movies were robbed at Oscar time. A few minor chuckles but otherwise this is a real timewaster. Continue reading →
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