Category: The Twenty-First Century
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Storks [2016] ★★★
As someone who had no idea what to expect from this animated feature, I actually left the theater with a smile on my face. This movie is a treat for kids (the screening I attended was packed with kids and they all cheered and applauded at the end) and, I daresay, for adults as well.…
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Café Society [2016] ★★½
Woody Allen’s love letter to Hollywood and New York in the 1930’s is everything you would expect from the man himself: beautiful cinematography, endless movie references and an elegant production design. And yet, “Café Society” is nowhere near his best work. It’s far from being a disaster; in fact I had a good time watching…
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Blair Witch [2016] ★½
Originally promoted as “The Woods”, the people behind this piece of shit of a movie later on revealed the “shocking” news: this was indeed a sequel to the surprise hit “The Blair Witch Project”. Clever stunt. I just wish the movie itself lived up to its hype. In trying to replicate the success of the…
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Snowden [2016] ★★
Movies derived from recent events are always intriguing to watch because they tend to reveal background stories we don’t know about real-life figures like Edward Snowden, the man who leaked classified NSA documents that show how America is monitoring us 24/7. Reading about this in the news a few years ago made me curious to know…
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The Light Between Oceans [2016] ★★★
Filmmaker Derek Cianfrance has already proven himself so many times with movies like “Blue Valentine” and “The Place Beyond The Pines”. Here’s a director who knows exactly how to tell a story, and his latest effort, “The Light Between Oceans”, is completely immersive. It charts the destiny of a couple, played by Michael Fassbender and…
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When The Bough Breaks [2016] ★½
I cringed so many times during “When the Bough Breaks”. Most times when Morris Chestnut and Jazz Sinclair had scenes together. He plays a married man who desperately wants a baby with his wife (Regina Hall). Problem is: they can’t conceive unless they hire a surrogate mother. That would be Anna (Sinclair) who turns out…
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Bridget Jones’s Baby [2016] ★★½
Not quite as good as the 2001 original (confession: I’ve seen it over a dozen times), and far from being as bad as “The Edge of Reason”, “Bridget Jones’s Baby” falls somewhere in between. By trying to replicate the success of the first film, this sequel falls a bit short, but I still had a…
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Swiss Army Man [2016] ★★½
“Swiss Army Man” is unlike any other movie you will see this year. It is, at once, grandiose and gimmicky. While I was less taken with the film at its purposeless conclusion than I was midway through, it still offered me a unique moviegoing experience. Directed by Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, who refer to themselves…
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Pete’s Dragon [2016] ★★½
A Disney movie in every aspect, “Pete’s Dragon” is bound to entertain young kids as they discover the magical world of little Pete and his only friend: a dragon named Elliot. They both live in the dense forest of the Pacific Northwest, away from human contact, until one day, a park ranger (Bryce Dallas Howard) finds…
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Kickboxer: Vengeance [2016] ★
A disaster from start to finish, this dumb “sequel” to the 1989 film starring Jean-Claude Van Damme follows Kurt Sloane (Alain Moussi) and his quest to avenge the death of his brother who was brutally killed by the fighter Tong Po (David Bautista, clueless). You know the film’s in deep trouble when even the fight…
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Ben-Hur [2016] ★½
Somebody owes me a goddamn explanation: how do you remake William Wyler’s 1959 epic “Ben-Hur” starring Charlton Heston in his Oscar winning performance without screwing it all up? The answer is: you don’t. This new version, directed by Timur Bekmanbetov and starring Jack Huston (Heston, Huston. Get it?) in the title character feels rushed, truncated…
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Sully [2016] ★★★
“Sully” marks the first time director Clint Eastwood and Tom Hanks have ever worked together on a film, so naturally, expectations were more or less high. The result is superior moviemaking, and a powerfully emotional experience from start to finish. Based on a true story that happened on January 15 2009, the movie focuses on Captain…
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Hands Of Stone [2016] ★★½
Another boxing movie is probably the last thing you needed right now, and understandably so. “Creed” and “Southpaw” last year and now “Hands of Stone”, the true story of 1970’s lightweight champ Roberto Duran (a solid Edgar Ramirez), a Panama based boxer who trained hard to get a shot at the world title. His trainer? The…
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Blood Father [2016] ★★½
Mel Gibson’s return to the big screen (feels like forever) was well worth the wait. “Blood Father”, a straightforward B-action thriller about an ex convict (Gibson) who must protect his 17 year old daughter from the drug cartel, doesn’t reinvent the wheel. But Gibson, 60, certainly looks ripped and ready to kick ass. His comeback…
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Kubo And The Two Strings [2016] ★★★★
Part lyricism, part entertainment, “Kubo and the Two Strings” is living proof that animated movies cannot only equal live-action storytelling, but they can surpass it in every way possible. Leave it to Travis Knight, who was the lead animator on the amazing “Coraline”, to make his directing debut with a ground breaker. Part of Kubo’s…
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Genius [2016] ★★★
Genius doesn’t even begin to describe Jude Law’s performance as Thomas Wolfe, the American writer whose manuscripts were rejected by many publishers in New York in the 1920’s, before his unlikely partnership with editor Maxwell Perkins (Colin Firth, in fine form) led to critically acclaimed books. Law’s performance is all the more impressive because of…
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Mechanic: Resurrection [2016] ★½
In an era of sequels and reboots, I ask Hollywood a very important question: who the hell ordered this one? If you paid to see Jason Statham kick ass in the lousy 2012 action flick “The Mechanic” and can’t wait to see “Resurrection”, then you’re craving movie punishment and I can’t help you. Statham reprises…
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The Secret Life Of Pets [2016] ★★★
Ever wondered what your pets do when you leave the house? The people behind “The Secrets Life of Pets” have got it all figured out. Some listen to loud music while others invite their friends over for a fun-filled day. For Max the dog (voiced by Louis C.K), his quiet life is disrupted when his…
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Don’t Breathe [2016] ★★★
From the trailer and the poster you would think this is (God forbid) yet another slasher film. It’s not. Instead, it’s a cross between “Wait Until Dark” starring Audrey Hepburn and David Fincher’s underrated “Panic Room”. The result? A thriller that pumps out suspense from the word go. The premise is simple: three clumsy burglars decide…
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Lights Out [2016] ★★★
There’s one simple, yet spine-tingling scene that reminded me of a 1940 detective movie called “Charlie Chan at the Wax Museum”. In that movie, Chan and a group of people find themselves trapped in a wax museum one rainy night with a killer on the loose. In “Lights Out”, Theresa Palmer and her kid brother…
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