April Movie Preview

Calendars are hard and the end of February is about as busy a time as I ever have, between my Oscar examinations, attempts to keep up with new TV, and preparation for all the NCAA tournament prep that I like to do. If there's ever a month when I would expect to mess up my Movie Preview, it's March. And, that has finally happened. I accidentally left off the last week in March in my Preview for the month. Since it's mostly an April weekend anyway, I'll make up for it with an early edition of the April Preview.

April looks far less summer-ish than this year's massive March. The Fast and Furious franchise owns this month now and no one seems all that motivated to challenge it. What the month lacks in size it makes up for in quantity. I haven't crunched the numbers, but this has to be among the most movies I've had for a Movie Preview. Hopefully, a lot of options means there will be some gems.

2017
 Jan | Feb | Mar 
2016
Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | June | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec  
2015

Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | June | Jul | Aug | Sept | Oct | Nov | Dec 

2014

Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec

2013

Mar |  Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec

3/31

Ghost in the Shell
Scarlett Johansson is a Robocop super soldier who comes to realize there's something nefarious going on with the people she works for.
Working For It: This looks like a lot of movies. Lucy, Robocop, The Matrix, Blade Runner. I don't care that much which it's most like. Since Black Widow is never getting her own movie, I'll take Johansson kicking ass as the lead character however I can get it. I recognize little of the cast after her (Juliette Binoche, Michael Pitt, and that's it). For such a clear star vehicle, the supporting player don't matter much.
Working Against It: I don't know much about the comic to chime in about the whitewashing of the role other than to say "not cool". It's become a "chicken and the egg" argument where everyone points to someone else to blame. I like Johansson, so I won't hold it against her unless the movie is bad. I wasn't crazy about Lucy, despite Johansson being good in it, so my expectations are about the same for this. I am not particularly inspired by the writers or director. It's hard to see how this movie is more than generic at best.
Verdict: I figure this is worth seeing because Johansson tends to not half-ass things.

The Boss Baby
A Dreamworks animated film about a baby (voiced by Alec Baldwin) who is a corporate tycoon and the parents don't realize it.
Working For It: It's pretty easy to see how someone could come up with this after watching Alec Baldwin as Jack Donaghey in an episode of 30 Rock and seeing one of the Beck Bennet sketches on SNL in which he is a grown man with the body of a baby. And yes, Alec Baldwin as the voice of a baby is Look Who's Talking-level funny. For all the griping I make about Dreamworks Animation, when I do get around to seeing the movies, they are normally fine, sometimes pretty great. I'm sure this will be fine as well.
Working Against It: I do gripe a lot about the non-Disney, non-Laika animation studios for a reason. Dreamworks in particular makes movies for kids rather than movies for everyone. I'm sure this will have a couple funny gags and an unexpected level of heart. I'm just in no mood for it.
Verdict: There are enough good options out there right now that one shouldn't have to even consider seeing this one. This just isn't my tempo.

The Zookeeper's Wife
Jessica Chastain is a woman who runs a zoo in Nazi-controlled Warsaw. She hides people in the zoo so they don't get killed or imprisoned.
Working For It: I love Chastain. Daniel Bruhl (Rush) plays a Nazi with some connection to her. I'm sure he'll add some nuance to that character. The rest of the cast is very European and I don't recognize them. That's ideal for a film set in Europe.
Working Against It: Hollywood will never tire of Nazis, will they? Short answer: No. Longer answer: Kind of. It's not like this is a choice release date. I'm pretty sure this was moved out of "award season" at some point. And, Focus Features isn't really putting the full force of their support behind this. The feels a little to much like We Bought a [Nazi] Zoo.
Verdict: If I tear through Miss Sloane, A Most Violent Year, all three The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby movies, rewatch Zero Dark Thirty, and still need a Jessica Chastain fix that can't be sated by pretending that she is Bryce Dallas Howard in 50/50 and Pete's Dragon, then I could totally see myself looking for this one.

God Knows Where I Am [Limited]
A documentary about a homeless woman found in an abandoned house in New Hampshire and how she got there.
Working For It: I love this kind of Unsolved Mysteries documentary. The more unsolved they are the better. This is giving me a lot of There's Something Wrong with Aunt Diane vibes (a good sign).
Working Against It: The story of this woman's life and death would have to be pretty damn good to justify more than an hour or so. That can be a tall order.
Verdict: This looks to be worth finding eventually.

The Prison [Limited]
A Korean movie about a cop [probably wrongly accused] who has to survive in a prison run by a crime lord.
Working For It: This will be a good movie to see if you want a big time shoot 'em up and you don't feel like watching your Shoot 'Em Up DVD for the hundredth time.
Working Against It: I'll be perfectly honest. The only reason I included this at all is because the trailer I found for it still had the the bleeps for the many times they say the Korean word for "fuck". This made me chuckle, especially because, due to Korean having different sentence structures, the bleeps kept happening in vastly different places than I expected based on the subtitles.
Verdict: I won't be looking for this one.

4/7

Going in Style
Michael Caine, Morgan Freeman, and Alan Arkin decide to rob a bank after they lose their pensions to the bank.
Working For It: This is a remake of a 1979 film that I assume is only remembered by people Caine, Freeman, and Arkin's age. This is in that "old guys" niche of movies, like Last Vegas, Grudge Match, and The Bucket List. It's nice to see them in roles where they aren't just the wise old man dispensing advice. Arkin still knows how to get a laugh out of a line reading.
Working Against It: I find it fascinating that Zach Braff directing this has been completely left out of all the ads I've seen. It makes sense. Garden State was - oh god - 13 years ago and appealed to a much younger demographic. Wish I Was Here had no traction a couple years ago. I really want to know how he ended up with the job. The film doesn't look all that funny either. I'm not the target demographic though.
Verdict: Maybe in a couple decades I'll find more to appreciate.

Smurfs: The Lost Village
The Smurfs search through the Forbidden Forest to uncover a big smurfin' secret.
Working For It: This is a fully animated Smurfs movie, departing from the two fairly successful NPH, live-action films. With Mandy Patinkin, Rainn Wilson, Jake Johnson, Demi Lovato, Danny Pudi, Jack McBrayer, Gabriel Iglesias, and Tituss Burgess, this is one hell of a TV All-Stars voice cast. And, I'll go ahead and spoil the surprise: Julia Roberts, Michelle Rodriguez, Ellie Kemper, and Ariel Winter are all female Smurfs they discover. It's weird when the bigger-name stars of the movie are completely hidden from the marketing.
Working Against It: While Sony Animation hardly stunt-casts like Illumination or Dreamworks, the level of this cast even feels below Hotel Transylvania and Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs. And, in general, I get worried about movies that hide so much of the film from the trailers (See: Passengers).
Verdict: I find it's best to avoid animated movies unless given a strong reason to see them.

The Case for Christ
A reporter investigates the verifiability of the New Testament.
Working For It: OK, before last year, I would've laughed off the attempt in the trailer to play up the tension of the story, and I'd use that as an easy way to dismiss the film. But, Denial used a similar tactic last year and that film was quite good.
Working Against It: To compare the films though, Denial is about proving events from 50 years before. The Case for Christ is about proving events from 2000 years before. Denial wasn't really about the topic as much as the process. There's a chance that The Case for Christ could be an academic examination about the unknown (which would work much better as a documentary, btw). It's trying to promise a bit more and with a blunter instrument.
Verdict: I still think it's only a matter of time before a studio (Let's be honest, probably Pure Flix) cracks the code to making a religious movie that appeals to a larger audience. This is not that film.

Gifted [Limited]
Chris Evans is raising his niece who turns out to be a prodigy. He gets in a custody battle with his mother (the niece's grandmother).
Working For It: Similar to director Marc Webb's last non-Spider-Man movie, (500) Days of Summer, this looks content with being a "prestige"-lite movie that isn't going to get a lot of critical attention. It's nice to see Chris Evans out of the Capt. America suit. Co-stars like Octavia Spencer and Lindsay Duncan give this some legitimacy. I really like Jenny Slate when she isn't playing overtly comedic parts too.
Working Against It: For these monthly previews, it's a poorly kept secret that I read a lot into trailers for my assessments. It's an imperfect art. I don't pretend otherwise. For Gifted, I get the sense that this is one of those half-researched films. By that, I mean that it's more interested in one aspect (custody battle over a prodigy) than others (what it's actually like to be a prodigy). I could be wrong and it may not matter, but the devil is in the details, which could hurt the film.
Verdict: This goes as far as your Chris Evans fandom goes. If I waited on Before We Go, I can wait on this.

Mine [Limited]
A soldier is trapped in the middle of the desert, alone for days after he steps on a land mine and can't lift his foot off it.
Working For It: It's pretty much just Armie Hammer for most of the movie. For some reason, I love this kind of movie. Phone Booth, Buried, 127 Hours, Open Water, Locke - I eat these up. There's something about the challenge of taking a very limited idea and finding ways to still make it compelling that I just love.
Working Against It: I don't know anything about the two Italian writer/directors on this, except that they are both named Fabio, which itself is pretty fun. Part of the reason I like films like this is the high degree of difficulty. That means there's a very good chance this could end up being inert or working too hard to expand the narrative.
Verdict: I doubt it'll even be an option for me, but it's better to wait for Netflix anyway.

Their Finest [Limited]
The British film division attempts to make a morale film to keep spirits up during WWII.
Working For It: I'm a little more forgiving about WWII films from the British perspective, because they tend to be less about Hitler or the Holocaust than the country's own experience. It's one of the things I liked about Allied, for example. Their Finest looks like a good example of it as well. Bill Nighy is always wonderful (Really, always). I like Gemma Arterton even though filmmakers don't always know what to do with her. Even Sam Claflin - as soon as I remember who he is - is likable enough.
Working Against It: There is a slight "TV Movie" feel to this, intentional or not.
Verdict: I'm sure this will be perfectly charming, although it doesn't demand attention.

The Ticket [Limited]
A blind man (Dan Stevens) gets his sight back and turns into an asshole.
Working For It: Dan Stevens is all over the place suddenly (Legion, Beauty and the Beast). From what I can tell, his performance is meant to carry the movie. He's supported by people like Malin Akerman, Oliver Platt, and Kerry Bishe (seriously, everyone watch her in Halt and Catch Fire). That's a good cast right there.
Working Against It: I don't really get what it's about. Stevens gets his eyesight then becomes enamoured with success (aka the superficial things). It sounds like a metaphor laid on pretty thick.
Verdict: I can see myself completely forgetting about this or getting obsessed with Dan Stevens and tracking it down.

4/14

The Fate of the Furious
Dom (Vin Diesel) teams up with a super-hacker terrorist (Charlize Theron) and turns on the rest of the group.
Working For It: No one is pretending that the Fast and Furious movies aren't silly and stupid. I have and will again write about how astounding the franchise's success is. Until is finally does fall apart, I'm going to enjoy the ride. Charlize Theron looks like a fun addition to the already deep roster of clichés characters.
Working Against It: These movies keep getting bigger and crazier. The bigger and crazier they get, the more I worry that they won't be able to get a director who can manage the chaos. James Wan transitioned from horror to action well for Furious 7. Now it's time to see if F. Gary Gray (Straight Outta Compton) can for F8. I'm hoping he can.
Verdict: I'm too fascinated by this franchise to miss it.

Spark: A Space Tail
A teenage monkey boy on an isolated planet finds out that he is the lost prince of an intergalactic royal family. He sets out on a mission to vanquish the evil overlord currently in control.
Working For It: I'm fascinated by all these smaller animation studios. It's not a type of filmmaking that I associate with plucky underdogs. For this one, they got Patrick Stewart, Susan Sarandon, Jessica Biel, and Hilary Swank for the voice cast, which is about the level I'd expect. Who know? It could be fun.
Working Against It: Some studios pull off the DIY aesthetic better than others. Laika feels like a small company, but they still manage to make visually distinctive movies. Like Rock Dog a month or two back, Spark looks like a poor man's Dreamworks. Nothing about the look or story of this stands out.
Verdict: It's hard enough to get me to see a Dreamworks movie.

The Lost City of Z [Limited]
Charlie Hunnam is a British military officer in the 1920s in search of a secret city he believes is in the Amazon.
Working For It: With a cast including Hunnam, Sienna Miller, Tom Holland, Robert Pattinson, and Ian McDiarmid, it has a good foundation. James Gray is a director who hasn't quite made it in America, but he's been at it for a while.
Working Against It: I say this about a lot of movies, but this looks like it's trying too hard to be a "Hollywood" movie and falling short. I like what Bleecker Street distributes in general, but this looks a hair too ambitious to pull off. Perhaps I'm wrong.
Verdict: I don't plan to see it. It doesn't even have the makeup of a sleeper hit.

Norman: The Moderate Rise and Tragic Fall of a New York Fixer [Limited]
Richard Gere is a small time fixer who pushes his way into becoming a political influencer at a high level.
Working For It: This looks like a Richard Gere tour de force. Also, another Dan Stevens alert.
Working Against It: I don't recognize any of the director's work. That doesn't mean much though. There's a lot of directors out there. I worry that this film thinks it's more clever than it really is.
Verdict: I miss a lot of Richard Gere movies. I feel like there's a reason for that even though I don't have anything against him.

4/21

Born in China
A DisneyNature documentary about the animal life of China.
Working For It: Another Earth Day, another DisneyNature documentary. I like this niche they've carved out. No one is expecting the movies to be hits. They are cute and fun. It's hard to really be against them.
Working Against It: That said, I haven't seen any of these films. They aren't my style. I say that, but I also liked The Bear way more than I expected. Perhaps I'm just blind to my own tastes...God, I hope that's not true, because it would invalidate this entire blog that I've committed [at least] hundreds of hours into.
Verdict: Let me get around to finally seeing Planet Earth first. Then I'll get to something like this.

Free Fire
Two gangs in the 1970s are trapped in a gunfight in an abandoned warehouse.
Working For It: I'm really jazzed for this. Except for Brie Larson, who I already love, it's full of guys who I like but have never given me reason to be excited about them (Cillian Murphy, Armie Hammer, Sharlto Copley, etc.). Similar to Mine, I like the idea of the limited premise - all taking place in this one warehouse. The "Martin Scorsese presents" at the beginning of the trailer is encouraging although not a guarantee of quality. It has a jokey tone that I respond well to.
Working Against It: This looks a lot like a 1970s Hateful Eight and that is a film that I liked more than a lot of people I know (and audiences in general based on the box office results). There's a good chance that even a bad version of this movie is one that I would like, so I don't know what to say.
Verdict: I don't see there being anything to convince me not to see this.

Phoenix Forgotten
Found footage film about three teenagers who go missing in 1997 while investigating some mysterious lights they see at night.
Working For It: It looks like The Blair Witch Project with aliens, set around the same time. I've said many times that I'm a sucker for found footage, so even a barely competent version of this has a leg up on the competition.
Working Against It: It's a Scott Free Production (Ridley Scott's company) being distributed by Cinelou Films, which has only distributed one other film (Cake). That's more curious than a bad sign.
Verdict: Probably worth saving until October.

The Promise
A medical student (Oscar Isaac) and an American Journalist (Christian Bale) fight over the same woman (Charlotte Le Bon) in the waning days of the Ottoman Empire.
Working For It: My god, I don't remember there being so many "off-brand" period epics in past years as there have in the last few months. This one has Oscar Isaac and Christian Bale though, which is a cut about the competitors. Charlotte Le Bon too was perfectly charming in The Walk. And, frankly, there's never been enough movies about WWI.
Working Against It: It's getting a wide release and Open Road Films is a mini-major studio worth paying attention to. Still, I don't know what to make of this. Historical epics don't have a time in the calendar that makes sense for them, not when there are no obvious award hopes.
Verdict: It worth keep an eye on.

Unforgettable
Rosario Dawson gets terrorized by her husband's ex-wife (Katherine Heigl).
Working For It: It's nice to see Rosario Dawson front and center after seeing her in the periphery of so many Nextflix Marvel series. This is a very popular story to find new variations of, from The Hand That Rocks the Cradle to Betrayed (or nearly any other ScreenGems movie).
Working Against It: The trailer tells me enough to know that there isn't anything special about this variation of the "other woman" story to keep me interested.
Verdict: Worth skipping unless you are a die-hard fan of the genre.

4/28

The Circle
Mae (Emma Watson) gets a dream job at a giant tech company (not Google) called The Circle working for Eamon Baily (Tom Hanks), it's visionary CEO (not Steve Jobs). She slowly discovers that the company may be up to something nefarious.
Working For It: Watson and Hanks is enough, if I'm being honest. Also, it has Patton Oswalt, John Boyega, Ellar Coltrane (The boy from Boyhood), Karen Gillan, Claudia O'Doherty (the hilarious Australian roommate from Love), and Bill Paxton in his final movie role. Also, I became a fan of director James Ponsoldt without even realizing it (Smashed, The Spectacular Now, The End of the Tour, and episodes of Master of None, Shameless, and Parenthood).
Working Against It: I'm getting some Money Monster vibes. There's a lot of ways that this conspiracy story could fall apart or turn into some overbearing message. I'm hoping that's not the case, but it's possible.
Verdict: The cast alone is good enough to make it required viewing.

How to Be a Latin Lover
A middle aged, gold-digging Latin man gets dumped by his wife and must move in with his estranged sister to put his life back together.
Working For It: This is Eugenio Derbez's American follow-up to his surprise 2013 hit Instructions Not Included. He's surrounded by a fun and eclectic cast, including Salma Hayek, Rob Lowe, Kristen Bell, and Michael Cera. And Ken Marino is directing this. I didn't know he directed.
Working Against It: It looks pretty broad and heavy-hearted.
Verdict: I'll need a little more convincing.

Sleight
A street magician attempts to rescue his sister by expanding his magical powers.
Working For It: The trailer implies that this movie is crossing some genres. I'm not sure what genres though. It looks like the street magician really does have magical powers, which is interesting. It's a Blumhouse production, and they like to find twists on concepts. That could mean good things.
Working Against It: When Dule Hill and Sasheer Zamata are the most recognizable names in the cast, I get suspicious.
Verdict: I'm not sure what to make of this, but I am curious.

Delayed Reaction: Force Majeure

The Pitch: A father realizes while on vacation with his family, that he isn't so great.

Hopefully, I'm never in a relationship that gets to this point. This is an uncomfortable movie to sit through, partly because the moments when I want to laugh, such as Tomas' breakdown outside the hotel room, feel very inappropriate. I wasn't familiar with the phrase "force majuere" going into the movie. I'm told it means, more or less, the same as "act of god" in legal terms. That makes me like the title more. The avalanche scene that sets the film in motion is appropriately disorienting. I had no idea that would define the movie. Everything after that is just uncomfortable to sit through. Ebba keeps bringing up the avalanche to others, highlighting how Tomas ran off, and those scenes felt interminable. When Mats and Fanni get in a similar hypothetical argument, I didn't know whether to laugh or cringe. This movie was very worth watching even though it isn't quite dialed into my frequency. I'm trying to up my foreign film count and this is a good one.

Verdict (?): Weakly Don't Recommend

Delayed Reaction: Grosse Pointe Blank

The Pitch: Even hitmen go to their High School reunions.

This is a delightfully quirky little movie. John Cusack is the right person to lead it. He can be both charming and world-weary, which is what this calls for. The chemistry between him and Minnie Driver carries the movie when other parts sag. I like how he traps his psychiatrist (Alan Arkin) into treating him (a couple years before Analyze This, mind you). I like whenever John and Joan Cusack work together. It's not that they are an exceptional comedy team or anything. It's just nice to be like "they're siblings", similar to how I feel about seeing Ben and Casey Affleck together. It's a silly movie, so it feels right that the ending is pretty anti-climactic.

This fits in that category of movies that are almost one-offs. By that, I mean movies like Boondock Saints or Galaxy Quest. The writers and directors aren't known for much if anything else at all. Troy Duffy only has Boondock credits on him IMDB. The writers of Galaxy Quest have a couple credits combined. Grosse Pointe Blank's director Geroge Armitage only has a handful of credits over a 30+ year career with The Big Bounce as the only other film I even recognize. The main credited writer, Tom Jankiewicz, is only known for Grosse Pointe Blank. I like movies like this because they are like unicorns. The people get only one shot and this is what they make.

Verdict (?): Weakly Recommend

Movie Reaction: Power Rangers

Formula: (The Breakfast Club + Chronicle) * Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie

Power Rangers was never good. Not really. I'm just the right age to have loved Power Rangers at exactly the right time. I started first grade when the series began and I kept up with it through middle school. I was the biggest fan of anyone I knew (Don't you always feel that way when you're that young?). I dragged my parents to the original movie. I had as many flip-head action figures and megazords as I could get. Except for an ill-timed grounding in the 3rd or 4th grade, I didn't to miss an episode. However, I accept now that the show was never very good. It was a Frankenstein series, meshing the Japanese fighting clips with the American stuff. The writing was pretty cheesy (especially in the 1995 film, which I found hilarious at the time).

So, when word came out that Lionsgate was making a new movie for Power Rangers, I started thinking about what was worth bringing back from that show. The actors? No. Too old. The villains? Of course. The story? To some extent. The zords and the suits? Essential. I went into the theater with a rough checklist that left plenty of room to break from the "canon".

The basic story is the same: five teenagers, through chance or fate, gain alien powers that turn them into Power Rangers, so they can stop the evil alien, Rita Repulsa (Elizabeth Banks) from destroying the Earth. The movie puts in a lot of work to get the 5 teens together and at the right time. Jason (Dacre Montgomery) is a disgraced former football star who gets roped into helping Billy (RJ Cyler), a nerd on the autism spectrum, research something at the mines outside the small town of Angel Grove. Kimberly (Naomi Scott), a former cool girl at school who is now a loner, Zach (Ludi Lin), a loner with a sick mother, and Trini (Becky G.), a loner who might be some category of LGBT, all happen to be hanging out near the mines at the same time. After an explosion, they all pick up colored rocks and stumble onto a hidden base where Zordon (Bryan Cranston), a former Ranger who is now trapped in his ship's computer and his robot aid Alpha 5 (Bill Hader) inform them that they are Power Rangers. He promises them cool armor and teases them with zords in order to get them to train so that they can morph. Oh, and when they pick up those colored rocks, they all get super strength, even without the armor on. Coincidentally, at the same time, Rita Repulsa becomes reanimated and starts collecting gold in order to create a monster to help her find the widget that is in Angel Grove that will help her destroy the Earth.

The movie bends over backwards to pretend that the Power Rangers idea isn't loony as hell. My One Big Leap meter was going crazy with all the narrative contortions. Whether it was big things like getting the kids together in the same place and Rita coming back at the exact right time or small things like Billy being able to seemingly permanently hack Jason's ankle monitor (because, reasons), the story takes a lot of shortcuts. And, even with the shortcuts, it takes an eternity to delivery the goods.

The goods, of course, are the suits and the zords. In that respect, this movie was a massive let down. The majority of the movie was spent trying to get the rangers 'morphin'. Once they finally do morph, there's a brief fight (half of it underwater for some reason), then they move onto the zords. The zords are fine, although it was hard to not form unfavorable comparisons to Transformers*. The megazord, similar to the 1995 movie, doesn't really looks like the five zords combined to make it, which takes away some of the fun. Maybe now that all the groundwork has been laid, future installments can be more fun, because this first part was just dull. Say whatever you will about the 1995 movie, but it by no means felt this small. It's hard for me to believe that $100 million went into this movie. Or maybe $100 million just doesn't go as far as it used to.

*They do have the good sense to reference Transformers so we don't have to.

The cast is good, all things considered. They are all playing characters ripped out of after-school specials and do what they can with that. The movie pats itself on the back for having a diverse cast, but I couldn't help but notice that the white guy was still the leader by default. RJ Cyler does a decent job playing someone on the spectrum without becoming Rain Man. Hopefully Lidi Lin and Becky G. get a little more time to flesh out their characters in future movies. Banks doesn't hold back as Rita Repulsa. Most of her scenes are, appropriately enough, shot like a villain from the 90s, full of jumps cuts and off-screen violence. I liked seeing Cranston and Hader show up, even though it did feel like they were cast to prove that Lionsgate was trying to make a big studio feature (Similar to what they did with the Divergent Series).

I don't know who Power Rangers is for. The story is too silly in nature for the serious tone to work. It isn't fun enough to engage general audiences. It doesn't play much into the nostalgia to attract old fans and doesn't have enough of the colorful action to pull in new fans. I don't mean to be a grouch about this movie. I am though. It's not very good and doesn't leverage the built-in goodwill to do anything of note. If all you need is to hear someone say "Goldar" or "It's morphin time", then this movie is a resounding success. If you need anything more than that, I struggle to see how you won't be disappointed.

 Verdict (?): Weakly Don't Recommend

Delayed Reaction: Laura

The Pitch: You know, these film noirs are really catching on.

I'm not sure why I added this to my Netflix queue. I don't recognize the director or any of the stars. It wasn't an Oscar juggernaut either. It made it into the National Film Registry, but that hardly every sways me. Regardless, it's been in my queue for a long time now, and since I organize my queue by year, it's been staring me down the whole time.

I don't have much to say about it. The plot is fun and twisty, like a good noir should be. In fact, it's almost absurdly twisty. The woman playing Laura and all the men in her life play off each other well. I want to look up more of director Otto Perminger's movies. They look interesting.

Verdict (?): Weakly Recommend

Delayed Reaction: Good Kids

The Pitch: It's like American Pie, only bad (or worse, depending on your opinion of American Pie).

This is a bad movie and that's all I should say about it. However, when has that stopped me before from going on for a couple hundred words? I watched this as part of my ongoing quest to figure out if Zoey Deutch is talented or just pretty. So far, the evidence suggests that she's only being cast to be pretty so far. The jury is still out on whether she's simply not being given the opportunities.

So, this screenplay was on the Hollywood blacklist at some point. I want to know how? Did they have to change everything about it to get the movie made, because this was shit*. This wants to be a raucous comedy. American Pie really is the best example of what it aspires to be. The characters just weren't any good. I stopped caring about Deutch's character as soon as I realized they were playing the "no one realizes she's hot" card. I also had trouble sympathizing with Andy's problems, given that they amount to 1) his tennis pro/prostitute for cougars job gives him a yeast infection**, 2) his "clearly an internet scam" girlfriend turns out to be completely real and super into him, and 3) his childhood friend who he's in love with turns out to look like Zoey Deutch. And there's a certain laziness to the schools they all get into: MIT, Harvard, Stanford. C'mon. At least Superbad went a little off book and chose Dartmouth. It made me sad to see people like Ashley Judd and Demian Bichir in this.

*Ok, I did like the joke at the beginning in the flashback which I'm pretty sure was a Stand By Me reference (and if it wasn't, then that was stupid too).

**By the way, just give him an STD. Yeast infection sounds like such a compromise.

There are signs of what could've made this a good movie. With a softer touch, Mateo Arias' shenanigans could've been pretty entertaining - more or less the Fitz of this movie. Iseal Brossard could have had some moments too. I like that his character was the one in the group being left out of the craziness. Perhaps a director with a softer touch could've found a better balance.
I've devoted too many words to this. Don't watch it unless you are certain that a 30%-as-good American Pie (Think: Cougar Club) is something you'd enjoy.

Verdict (?): Strongly Don't Recommend

Delayed Reaction: 13 Assassins

The Pitch: A remake of a movie that is basically a Seven Samurai clone already.

They had to lay a lot of pipe for this one. It's slow at the beginning, which I assume is leftover from the structure of the 1963 original. Once it moved to the big battle at the end, it's hard to complain. The action is sustained for a long time. It shifts between the characters well. The stuntwork is great. I have no complaints about the second half.

And some of my issues with the first half are my own fault. I couldn't keep track of the names and some the the details about the shogun and the traditions of the time lost me. Still, 13 characters is a lot to juggle. Seven Samurai has trouble giving personality to half the number of characters in double the amount of time.

Verdict (?): Weakly Recommend

Delayed Reaction: In the Land of Women

The Pitch: Tell me if you've heard this one before. A man moves from the big city, back to his home town in the Midwest to find himself after relationship/career problems.

I think there needs to be a term for this kind of movie since it's so prevalent. Can we call it "Hometown drama" or "Midwest Suburb Porn"?  Whatever it is, there needs to be less of it. In the Land of Women came out in 2007, before the more recent explosion of this type of movie (it's hardly a new idea though), so I'll forgive it a little for being the dozenth type of this story I've come across lately. The movie has nearly every suburban trope imaginable. (Of course Meg Ryan has cancer and her spouse is cheating on her. Might as well have both). I was really bothered by the fact that the movie teased Meg Ryan shaving her head. One of the unwritten rules of movies is that you are only allowed to have a scene with a character, in a moment of reclaiming control of her life, shaving her head in the bathroom, if the actress actually shaves her head. You can't shave a strand then wrap the head in a shawl for the rest of the movie. That's cheating. I did appreciate that Kristen Stewart is in the cool clique. I would've bet money going into this that they would treat her as a loner, reject. She certainly thinks she's that in the movie, but she's also dating the QB of the football team.

I normally find the phrase lazy, but this really is a "white people problems" movie. The thing is, I like Adam Brody enough that I found it pretty watchable. Little bits like when he was giving notes on his soft-core porn script tickled me just enough to keep going.

Verdict (?): Weakly Don't Recommend

Delayed Reaction: Following

The Pitch: How to make a thriller with no money.

It was only a matter of time before I got to this. It is the only Christopher Nolan movie I hadn't seen. It's really hard to see everything an actor has done, even if you exclude TV work, because most actors build up a body of work with bad parts or fill in gaps in their schedule with small parts in tiny movies. So, even if I go out of my way to see Anna Kendrick in Camp and Elsewhere, there's still The Company You Keep and The Marc Pease Experience to find. With directors, it's pretty easy. It's hard to churn one out in less than a year or two. Without trying I can accidentally almost all of an Edward Zwick's work, for example*. Since I already took care of Insomnia a while ago, that just left Nolan's debut feature - the super-independent Following - to complete the list.

*Seriously, I saw 2/3s of his movies before ever learning his name. Now, I'm tempted to see About Last Night..., Leaving Normal, Blood Diamond, and Pawn Sacrifice for the hell of it.

It's a fine movie. The lo-fi aesthetic naturally reminded me of Primer and Clerks. The story gives a clear creative through line to Memento. The actors are limited, which is probably why none of them have become the Bruce Campbell to Nolan's Sam Rami, showing up in all his movies. The structure is interesting and the twists are pretty fun. Nolan's direction is really the star, which makes sense. It's short too. I like that.

Verdict (?): Weakly Recommend

Movie Reaction: Beauty and the Beast

Formula: Beauty and the Beast * Into the Woods

Disney, more than any other movie studio relies on its legacy for its success. It's as image-conscious a company as you will find. There's this catalog of films [mostly animated] that will keep the studio afloat no matter what. This was literally the case for years. Theatrical re-issues of classic films were about the only thing Disney had going for it from the mid 1970s to mid 1980s. It's really not a surprise that they are now using the same animated movies for a new revenue stream in the form of live-action remakes. It began with Alice in Wonderland in 2010: basically a sequel to the animated movie. Since then, there's been remakes of Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella, The Jungle Book, and now, the first remake from the Disney Renaissance: Beauty and the Beast.

It's very easy to be cynical about Disney and this strategy in particular of repackaging the same stories. I'm a fan of it though because they keep looking for new ways to tell the stories. Alice in Wonderland, for all its faults, paired well with Tim Burton's sensibility to make something distinctive. Maleficent told the Sleeping Beauty story from the villain's perspective. Cinderella grounded the story in an intriguing way. The Jungle Book was a visual effects feast. The Beauty and the Beast remake doesn't have anything like that. It's as slavish a retelling of the story as Disney has done so far. It's hard to blame them. The 1991 film can rightly be called one of their masterpieces*. Director Bill Condon has no incentive to start tampering.

*Btw, I won't be going into a plot summary in this Reaction, because the story is the same and if you haven't seen the animated movie before, shame on you.

Before I get into picking at a pretty good movie, I'd like to focus on everything it does right. First and foremost is the casting. Emma Watson is the best choice for Belle that I can think of. It sounded right as soon as I heard about it over a year ago and that hasn't changed. Hearing her sing throughout this film has increased my "what if" curiosity about if she had actually been cast in La La Land instead of Emma Stone*. Dan Stevens is a good Beast. I only know him from Legion currently, but I'm sure he'd feel like an even more natural fit had I seen him in Downton Abbey as well. Luke Evans eases into the Gaston role without missing a beat. Josh Gad is an obvious [in a good way] pick for LeFou. Kevin Kline is an almost counter-intuitive choice for Belle's father Maurice. Either that, or I just haven't accepted that Kevin Kline has aged into "old man" roles. I love the voice cast of the furniture in the castle. Emma Thompson (Mrs. Potts) is wonderful always in everything she does, and if you disagree with me you are wrong. She's one of the few actresses who I could accept taking over for Angela Lansbury. Ewan McGreggor (Lumiere) and Ian McKellen (Cogsworth) bicker with each other well. Even Audra McDonald (Madame Garderobe) and Stanley Tucci (Maestro Cadenza) get to play big in entertaining ways. And Gugu Mbatha-Raw (Plumette). I love Gugu Mbatha-Raw. I have nothing but good things to say about the casting.

*For the record, I'd've loved either choice.

There are certain moments in the movie that are spot on. If you don't get anything out of the ballroom scene, you might be dead inside. The same goes for when everyone in the castle gets transformed back. The music that you know and love is still there. I was most impressed with "Something There". I believe there's only one new song and it's fine. The production design does a good job bringing the animated structures to life. Both the village and castle look familiar in the right ways.

There's a reason why all the previous live-action remakes have tried to do something different than the animated originals: a reason other than avoiding self-plagiarizing. What works in an animated movie doesn't always work in live-action. In this film, "Be Our Guest" was nice, but it doesn't match the spectacle of its animated counterpart. The ballroom scene doesn't feel quite as grand nor "The Mob Song" as menacing. There's a scale that this could never match. Too often, it felt like Emma Watson was responding to a more impressive scene than she was in. Almost like she was green-screened in like Mowgli in The Jungle Book last year. Many scenes or bits of dialogue felt required rather than natural.

While the production design was a good interpretation of the animated film, it revealed how impractical it all was. The castle doesn't make much sense. The village set seemed small. Impressively built, but small. The same angles kept being used which gave me the impression that it was a limited set. For a $2 million indie, I'd forgive that a lot more readily than a $160 million blockbuster with major studio backing.

The few attempts to expand the story fell flat. In all honesty, Beauty and the Beast works better the less you have to think about it. The curse itself is confusing. How Belle ends up in the castle is forced. The movie basically glorifies Stockholm Syndrome. The attempts to explain things further or try to place this story in the real world (so much talk of Paris and the plague) highlight how silly it all is.

Beauty and the Beast isn't as good as the original film. That's unquestionable. How good does it need to be to be a success though? Would you enjoy a version that is 50% as good? Does it need to be at least 80% as good for it to still have an effect? Whatever that bar is for me, the Beauty and the Beast clears it just barely. It's a good film, more comparable with Into the Woods than the 1991 original. Bill Condon, for better or worse, has made the best replication possible, with a cast good enough to make me want to revisit it despite the flaws. It's not brilliant. It's good. Mileage may vary.

Verdict (?): Weakly Recommend

Delayed Reaction: Superman: The Movie

The Pitch: Superman is pretty popular. I think he might appeal to a wide audience.

Occasionally, I come by a movie that even I'm shocked that I haven't seen yet. By now, you can tell by my Reaction selection that I don't see a lot of World cinema. I kind of check out the art house cinema. I'm getting better about seeing the true classics. But, a major super hero movie that blew up in the box office, collected Oscar nominations, and was the most expensive film ever made at the time? I'm not sure how I haven't seen Superman until now. In fact, of the Christopher Reeves movies, I've only seen the Richard Pryor one, randomly (Superman III, right? It was a while ago).

I get why this is so highly regarded. Christopher Reeve is a great Superman and Clark Kent. I'm not sure if he was right for any other role in other movies (a theory confirmed by a look at his other credits on IMDB), but he was for this one. The rest of the cast is fun too. Margot Kidder and Gene Hackman do well by Lois Lane and Lex Luthor. There's a sincerity to the film that I appreciate. It's not quite pulp, but it's not naturalistic either. It's sort of the world needed for this to work.

This is one of those movies that has a great Wikipedia read. The number of writers and directors this project went through is crazy. Marlon Brando's excessive conditions to accept his small role. Filming having to relocate from Italy to England because of an outstanding warrant for Brando in Italy. I assume that the production process is just as wacky these days, just better concealed (or not). You can see the seeds of the modern Hollywood business model in this. Things like planning to film the first two movies back to back and the interference by the studio/producers. This is a big budget fantasy done right. Sure, some effects look dated, but charmingly so.

Verdict (?): Strongly Recommend

Delayed Reaction: Smashed

The Pitch: A woman breaks herself from her alcoholic ways.

Damn, Mary Elizabeth Winstead! I've had this in my queue for a while simply because of how often I heard in 2012 that she was robbed of [at least] an Oscar nomination. And, yeah, that is very true. I've liked Winstead for a while. She was very good in 10 Cloverfield Lane last year.  She almost made the The Thing remake work. Scott Pilgrim vs. the World. Sky High. She has a history of showing up a lot. Even with the warning though, I was very impressed by her performance in Smashed. If nothing else, it's hard to play drunk convincingly. Beyond that, she adds so much nuance to the role. I just can't say enough good things about her. Fantastic work.

The rest of the movie - meh. It's a vehicle for Winstead and designed as such. It's not even 90 minutes long and it still has some unneeded detours like Nick Offerman making an ass of himself. The pregnancy mix-up is one of those cases of farce for the sake of farce. I don't believe she would've let it go on for so long, even if she was more concerned at the time with being sober. Aaron Paul gets to be rather heartbreaking, but it was just a little too similar to Jesse Pinkman to be impressed by it. I also appreciated that the movie didn't have anything too horrible happen to Winstead's character. I was ready for a rape or the Requiem for a Dream treatment. Instead, it was just a build-up of warning signs leading her to sobriety.

Verdict (?): Weakly Recommend

Delayed Reaction: Satanic

The Pitch: Some 20-somethings on their way to Coachella get killed when they dabble in satanic rituals.

It worries me whenever the movie I watch doesn't even have a Wikipedia page. Here's what I knew about this movie going in:
-It stars Sarah Hyland.
-It's a scary movie.
-It's about young people going to Coachella but making a pit stop to visit famous death locations in Los Angeles first.

I don't try to hide the fact that I'll watch a movie if someone I think is attractive is in it (Please see my Delayed Reaction of Geek Charming). What helps is if the movie is under 90 minutes, I'm already drunk, and it's going to include the line "We should've gone to Coachella". So, the movie wasn't great. It featured a recurring joke about seeing a Two & a Half Men taping, which wasn't even on the air by then*. I'm fairly certain they filmed this on the set of American Horror Story: Hotel while the crew was on their union lunch break. There's a line in the movie when Sarah Hyland comments that a girl looks like she's barely 18, which reminded me of the pot calling the kettle black. Finding out that this group of 20-somethings was from Boulder was the least surprising thing in the movie. I'm not sure what the point of the girl in the window at the beginning turning out to be Sarah Hyland was other than a chance for the screenwriters to have someone call them clever. If you can't tell by now, I am just typing up the notes I jotted down while watching this. I won't pretend the movie needs any great analysis. It's a capable scary movie. Sarah Hyland gets to do something different than playing Haley Dunphy. Clara Mamet gets to remind me that Zosia Mamet has a sister and David Mamet has more than one daughter. I'm super excited that Justin Chon is also the kid who goes missing in 21 & Over, because it means that I'm not being casually racist for thinking that was him.

*To their credit, they do have someone point out that the show isn't on anymore, but that doesn't slow down the references to it.

Verdict (?): Weakly Don't Recommend

Movie Reaction: Kong: Skull Island

Formula: (King Kong + King Kong + Jurassic World + Godzilla) / (Apocalypse Now + Platoon + Full Metal Jacket)

You can't kill King Kong. He always comes back. That's become one of the great truths of cinema. It is hard to find a movie/character that has been remade or revisited as much as Kong that owes its creation to cinema. Characters that have gone through many iterations like Robin Hood and Dracula have literary inspirations. Not King Kong. He was made for movies and keeps coming back. Only a dozen years since Peter Jackson spent his Lord of the Rings clout on his King Kong, the giant ape is back in Kong: Skull Island as part of Warner Brother's and Legendary's monster movie universe, and it's exactly what I expected.

Skull Island has a lot of setup work to do early on. In 1973, during the waning days of the Vietnam War, Bill Randa (John Goodman), using a paper published by a geologist (Corey Hawkins), convinces the U.S. government to go on a research mission to an uncharted island in the Pacific: Skull Island. They have another scientist (Tian Jing) with them. To escort them on this mission, Colonel Preston Packard (Samuel L. Jackson) and his special ops team - including Jason Mitchell, Thomas Mann, Shea Whigham, Eugene Cordero, and others - take on this last mission instead of returning home from Vietnam. James Conrad (Tom Hiddleston) is a famous tracker that Packard hires for assistance. Mason Weaver (Brie Larson) is a famous photographer who joins for the thrill of going somewhere new. John Ortiz and Marc Evan Jackson are additional researchers. Once they all get to Skull Island and run into Kong, they learn about Kong and the island from Hank Marlow (John C. Reilly), a WWII pilot who has been stuck on the island for 28 years. This group has three days to get to a rendezvous point on the island in order to get rescued. But, Packard becomes obsessed with killing Kong despite there being much more dangerous creatures on the island.

Ok, I wrote that last paragraph to make a point. Did you notice how hard it was to keep track of all those name? There are too many damn characters in this movie. There's a reason for this. A lot of people die. The problem is that with so many characters, there's not a chance to connect with any of them. The many credited screenwriters would've been smart to take a page of out the horror handbook. In a slasher movie, there's only about a half dozen people in the core group. That's a manageable number that still leaves room for people to get picked off. Or maybe Cloverfield is a better example of this. With so many cast members to juggle, Skull Island ends up being filled with caricatures not characters. I left the movie with only a surface-level understanding of any character, and when you assemble a cast this good, that's a shame.

However, Kong himself doesn't disappoint. Toby Kebbell has just about usurped Andy Serkis as the preeminent motion-capture performer in Hollywood. He kicks ass as Kong. The animation of Kong looks great. The film never goes too long without a big fight scene. Three years ago, Godzilla patiently waited to reveal the beast until as late as it possibly could. Skull Island is very much the opposite. Kong is front and center as early and often as possible. And let's be honest, that's what I bought my ticket for.

It's funny how similar director Jordan Vogt-Roberts' work in this is to Colin Trevorrow's in Jurassic World. Both directors went from making small indie films (The Kings of Summer for Vogt-Roberts and Safety Not Guaranteed for Trevorrow) to these massive blockbusters with no films in between and, both share the same reckless abandon. Skull Island looks like it was directed by an immensely talented 10 year old. There is no restraint in the direction. Nearly every shot looks like it was approached with the thought "What would be the coolest way to do this?". Slow motion, sunsets, and close-ups of Kong's or others' eyes are in healthy supply. It's distracting more than it is bad. When everything is shot so big, it dilutes the effect for the actual big moments.

I don't like to play soundtrack police. I'm not very good at it. Song selection is not something I notice all that often. When I do, that's normally a problem. The songs that Skull Island uses aren't bad. They just aren't very interesting. It's basically "Vietnam: The Soundtrack". There's plenty of CCR and Black Sabbath. The Chambers Brother, the Stooges, Jefferson Airplane. It's like every needle drop - and they love showing a needle drop in this movie - is there to remind you that it's 1973. No one tried very hard to choose a non-obvious song from the era. Not every song needs to be from an artist's Greatest Hits collection.

I'm going after Skull Island harder than I meant to. It's a fine movie. It's just a busy one. Too busy. All I really need is Kong fighting monsters and a couple human characters for a POV. Skull Island has that and much more. Kong's fights are fun to watch. Tom Hiddleston gets some good "movie star" moments. A lot of things explode. The direction is never dull. If you are hoping to appreciate the movie as anything more than a monster/disaster movie, you'll be disappointed. The movie is as good as it needs to be and nothing more.

Verdict (?): Weakly Recommend