October 17, 2017 “Lost In Paris” (** out of four) was a tiresome foreign comedy about a clumsy, accident-prone young woman (Fiona Gordon) who visits Paris for the first time to help her dying aunt but ends up involved in zany escapades with a wacky homeless man (Dominique Abel). French scenery is beautiful as always but a little of this slight comedy goes a long way. Abel does have a very funny scene in which he drunkenly gives a eulogy about a person he knows nothing about. Still, Paris fans who want a travelogue should watch “Forget Paris” or “Moulin Rouge” (or even “An American Werewolf In Paris”) instead. Continue reading →
October 14, 2017 “Blood Money” (* out of four) was a lackluster thriller in which everyone must have been in this for money and no other discernible reason about three friends (Ellar Coltrane, Willa Fitzgerald, Jacob Artist) off on a wilderness trip who are hunted and stalked by a redneck psycho (John Cusack) who is out to retrieve his bag of stolen cash. Once they find out about this, it gradually turns all the friends against one another. Modern-day retelling of “The Treasure Of The Sierra Madre” and “Deliverance” is ugly-looking and drab. Cusack, for some reason, attempts to be trying to change his image in playing creeps at this stage of his career but he really should go back to playing the nice guy next door. Continue reading →
October 14, 2017 “The Babysitter” (** out of four) was a nasty, empty thriller about a young kid (Judah Lewis) who spies on his babysitter (Bella Thorne) and soon comes to find out she is a seductress and a murderer and the rest of the night involves his attempts to escape and to stay alive. Director McG (“Charlie’s Angels”) directs with his usual flair and style and tries to infuse this with as much bounce as possible but it’s a lot of energy expended over nothing. Thorne is good in the lead role though. Incidentally, this is not a remake of the 1995 thriller of the same name starring Alicia Silverstone Continue reading →
October 13, 2017 “Happy Death Day” (** out of four) was a not-bad horror thriller about a bitchy college student (Jessica Rothe who looks like a young Britney Spears) who finds herself reliving the day of her murder over and over again a la “Groundhog Day” until she discovers her killer’s identity and also learns how her past behavior affected others. Undeniably repetitive and silly after a while, as all these time-repeat movies are, but has enough scares and laughs to make it watchable for horror fans. Rothe’s first-rate performance helps a lot. Funny enough, one of the characters actually asks her at the end “have you ever seen ‘Groundhog Day?” in order to compensate for ripping that movie off. Continue reading →
October 13, 2017 “Branded” (*1/2 out of four) was a lame story set in yet another post-apocalyptic future in which a soldier (Jeremy London) receives a letter from the brother (Jason London) he thought he accidentally killed years earlier and they try to reunite and make sense of the years in between. The gimmick of casting the London brothers as actual brothers hardly matters since they’re both still very bland actors. Neither are helped by this weak script and cheapjack production. Watch “Brothers” instead. Continue reading →
October 13, 2017 “The Mountain Between Us” (** out of four) was a lumbering adaptation of Charles Martin’s best-selling novel about a journalist (Kate Winslet) and a surgeon (Idris Elba) whose plane crashlands in the High Uintas wilderness as they struggle to stay alive with no food and freezing weather conditions. As they grow to depend on one another, they gradually fall in love. Despite two great actors and beautiful scenery, story is never very compelling and remains earthbound and dull. Elba and Winslet work well together but film lacks sparks. For the same story with more grit and fire, watch 1992’s “Alive” instead. Continue reading →
October 13, 2017 “The Foreigner” (** out of four) was a murky conspiracy thriller about a former military official (Jackie Chan) whose daughter is murdered in a terrorist explosion and he subsequently goes to Ireland to uncover the truth and solve her murder and enters into a deadly game of cat-and-mouse with a corrupt government official (Pierce Brosnan). Tired story of revenge and political intrigue from director Martin Campbell who has covered this ground before; features surprisingly little of Chan’s action acrobatics and Brosnan’s Irish accent is a tad overbaked. Strong electronic score by Cliff Martinez. Continue reading →
October 13, 2017 “The Lego Ninjago Movie” (**1/2 out of four) was a lively animated action children’s story about the alienated son (voice of Dave Franco) of an evil warlord who seeks refuge from a kindly master (voiced by- who else?- Jackie Chan) and his fellow ninjas to destroy his father and seek his own identity in life. Lots of action keeps this moving along and should entertain young kids and families but it never fully detonates until the end. There are some surprising laughs and some striking and colorful animation as well but it overall rings hollow. About on par with the previous “Lego” movies. Continue reading →
October 13, 2017 “Freehold” (* out of four) was a disjointed mess about a homeless weirdo (Javier Botet) who unbeknowingly moves into the home of a successful bickering yuppie couple (Kola Bikkini and Mandeep Dhillon) and proceeds to explore his new surroundings while turning their lives into reckless havoc. Inept story could have been a satire about the rich and the unfortunate but only proceeds in being disgusting and often incoherent. Since we don’t care about any of the characters, it’s hard to care about the film itself. Paul Mazursky got far more juice (and laughs) out of virtually the same story in 1986′ “Down And Out In Beverly Hills.” Continue reading →
October 12, 2017 “The Night Before” (*1/2 out of four) was a trashy and stupid exploitation horror movie about a young mother (Rachel Whittle) and her daughter who are taken captive in a bizarre home on the night before Halloween. No scares or thrills but just an excess of unpleasantness and gore. Horror fans are virtually guaranteed to forget this the day after. Continue reading →
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