Posted in: No Huddle Reviews by J C on July 18th, 2018
“Don't be jealous of a ghost.”
In Ismael's Ghosts, a French filmmaker's wife strolls back into his life 21 years after her sudden disappearance...much to the chagrin of the director and his current girlfriend. The tension created by the long-lost wife's return — combined with the question of where she's been and why she returned — is intriguing enough to carry this film. Unfortunately, Ismael's Ghosts is filled with way too many silly, half-baked tangents and ends up being as messy and frustrating as its main character.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by J C on July 13th, 2018
“This may very well be our last mission, Ethan…make it count.”
You wouldn’t know it from looking at him, but Tom Cruise was 53 years old when he did this film. So it’s only natural to wonder how many more Missions the indomitable superstar has left in him. Well, if Rogue Nation is any indication, the above quote is meant to be more winking than prophetic. Just like its tireless star, the fifth installment of the 19-year-old Mission: Impossible film franchise is spryer, tighter, and more energetic than its age might suggest with the sixth just about to drop at the box office
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on July 12th, 2018
You might call me jaded, but I am pretty disappointed by the state of horror movies. It's not just the last few years. The truth is I haven't seen 10 really good horror movies in over a decade. Now that I've had a chance to see A Quiet Place, that number isn't going up. A Quiet Place is not a really good horror movie. It ends up making a lot of the same mistakes that filmmakers think define a horror film in the modern age. It relies too heavily on jump scares and characters who do some of the most idiotic things, thus placing them in a somewhat self-created dangerous situation. But I will make the argument that A Quiet Place is still a pretty good horror film because
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on July 9th, 2018
"The Secretary is dead. The President has invoked Ghost Protocol. We're shut down. No satellite, safe house, support, or extraction. The four of us and the contents of this car are all that remains of the IMF."
The fourth Mission: Impossible entry exchanges digits for a subtitle, and brings in Brad Bird to direct his first live-action feature. So the man whose The Incredibles made fun of the sort of thing that is the bread-and-butter of the M:I franchise is brought in to revitalize said franchise. Result? Job done. Gotcha. You thought I was going to say, “Mission accomplished,” didn’t you?
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on July 8th, 2018
"You can tell a lot about a person's character by how they treat people they don't have to treat well."
It had been a decade since Brian De Palma’s Mission: Impossible hit theatres to box office success, established a new blockbuster franchise, and added ‘action hero’ to Tom Cruise’s resume, and six years since John Woo’s highly stylized follow-up raised the franchise to new box office heights. In 2006 the long-awaited third installment arrived amidst controversy about Tom Cruise’s crazy off-screen antics. It was feared that the happenings of Cruise’s personal life would somehow bring down this movie
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on July 5th, 2018
"This is not Mission: Difficult, Mr. Hunt. It's Mission: Impossible. Difficult should be a walk in the park for you."
After four years and nearly $200 million at the box office, it was only a matter of time before Paramount and Tom Cruise would partner again for a new Mission Impossible film. This time the move would be completely toward the action and stunts and farther away from the television series. The hiring of John Woo to direct the second film put quite a punctuation mark on that move.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by J C on July 5th, 2018
“Every time a black woman gets mad, she's a stereotype.”
Taraji P. Henson has been a very good and versatile actress for a long time, but she didn’t become a star until she started getting very angry on screen. Her breakout role came in 2015 courtesy of Fox’s Empire, in which Henson’s Cookie Lyon has been known to get into some scraps. So it made sense for Henson to bring her talent for tantrums to the big screen with the help of a filmmaker who once directed a movie called Diary of a Mad Black Woman. Writer/director/producer Tyler Perry seems to be going for “trashy fun”…unfortunately, he only gets halfway there.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on July 3rd, 2018
"Well, you think about it, Ethan, it was inevitable. No more cold war. No more secrets you keep from yourself. Answer to no one but yourself. Then, you wake up one morning and find out the President is running the country without your permission. The son of a bitch, how dare he. Then you realize, it's over. You are an obsolete piece of hardware, not worth upgrading, you got a lousy marriage, and 62 grand a year."
The more things change, the more they tend to remain the same. In 1996 Paramount was nearing the end of a run of feature films that started with a 1960's Desilu Studios television series called Star Trek. That same year the studio was beginning a run of feature films based on a 1960's Desilu Studios television series that at one time shared an actor with Star Trek, Leonard Nimoy.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Brent Lorentson on July 3rd, 2018
Sometimes a movie comes along that has everything going for it: a great cast, a great cinematographer, and a decent plot, but when you watch it, you just scratch your head wondering why it ended up so bad. That in a nutshell is Terminal. It stars Margot Robbie, Simon Pegg, and Mike Myers, and for each of them I believe this is a film they quickly want to move past. The tagline for the film is Revenge Never Looked So Good, which is a big part of the problem with the film. I absolutely love the look of the film. It’s beautiful and to a point creates its own style I’d call neon-noir, but unfortunately no matter how good something may look, it doesn’t always mean it will be good.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by J C on June 29th, 2018
“Please don't do the whole absent-minded professor thing.”
Even though he’s not anywhere close to the biggest name in Hollywood, Guy Pearce is low-key my favorite actor. The Aussie is probably best known for his starring role in Christopher Nolan’s Memento, the memory loss masterpiece in which Pearce played a man who tattooed helpful(?) clues and reminders all over his body. So when I realized he’d be playing another forgetful lead character in Spinning Man, I was hopeful. But despite some solid performances and interesting philosophical ideas, the film is too downbeat and dull to be an effective thriller.
