by Kevin Muller
As the time passes in Hollywood, women are gaining more and more power within the industry. This year, an all female “Ghostbusters” hit the cinemas with a mixed word of mouth and an underwhelming box office draw. Next year, we are getting an all female reboot of “Ocean’s 11.” Thankfully, “Bad Moms” is an original idea that is both insightful, well acted, and, at parts, hilarious.
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Shark movies have a difficult time getting noticed because they’re all inevitable going to be compared to Jaws, and rightfully so, in this niche genre Jaws isn’t just top of the pile, it’s wearing a crown made of shark teeth and sitting on a throne of bones. There have been a few that have made their mark, Deep Blue Sea for embracing the silliness of its own concept and the Sharknado franchise for just being plain silly. The Shallows might not be the next great shark movie, but for what it is, it’s one of the better low-key thrillers we’ve had for a while and a reminder of why people have been scared to go in the water for over 40 years.
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By now you’ve read many reviews on Suicide Squad. I’m sure they’ve ranged anywhere from, “THIS WAS A TOTAL SHITSHOW DEATH TO EVERYONE INVOLVED” to “OMG THIS WAS AMAZING DEATH TO ALL WHO OPPOSE THIS VIEWPOINT”. And honestly, these passionate opinions are based in some truth; there were really good parts and very, very bad parts. But after seeing the movie I’m not sure how anyone can feel that strongly about anything as mediocre as it was. Let me explain.
Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates is one of those movies I would’ve loved when I was younger and it was playing on Comedy Central on a rainy Sunday afternoon. It knows what it is and sometimes that’s good enough. It even has a really dependable cast for the most part and they were a big reason that I was curious about this. That and I couldn’t see Ghostbusters as it was packed at the time but it’s still a good substitute if you want to have some laughs. Some of the people providing those laughs are Adam DeVine and Zac Efron as Mike and Dave Stangle, two brothers who have a reputation for getting too out of control at their family get togethers.
Hearing that a film is based on an existential novel that’s over 100 years old, you should expect some level of confusion and indeed controversy. That’s what The Man Who Was Thursday delivers: it’s a film that examines themes of religion, anarchy, faith, dictatorships and metaphysical consequence and never allows its audience to get too comfortable with what is really going on. It’s a challenging piece and no doubt some of the elements will be controversial, but there’s still something interesting here that’s worth trying to crack open.
New Zealand director Taika Waititi has been around for a few years, but it wasn’t until his breakout What We Do In The Shadows that his name become recognizable. While I’m not a huge fan of Shadows, Waititi did do good work with the material. Recently Waititi was named as the director for the upcoming Thor: Ragnarok; an odd choice, perhaps, but there was word that it was Waititi’s work on his upcoming Hunt for The Wilderpeople that put Marvel’s faith in him. And having now seen it, there’s no doubt why. Not only is Wilderpeople a great double-act comedy, it’s also perhaps the best family film of the year.
One of the most difficult things about festival viewings is that in today’s society of social media and the ease of throwing out an opinion on everything, you’re sometimes among the first people to actually see a film. With little to no prior thoughts on the film out there you have to choose your interest carefully. I bring this up because it was the central cast that brought A Patch Of Fog, the feature debut of Michael Lennox, to my attention. With Conleth Hill (Varys on Game Of Thrones) and Stephen Graham (Capone on Boardwalk Empire and more importantly, Combo from This Is England), the film plays into this modern day obsessive thriller. The result is a very successful piece, but one that falters a bit when trying to decide how far into the fog it wants to go.
Cinephellas 