Well, here we are, the final month of 2016. It is amazing how fast the year has gone. But, we’re here, and we are ending the year with a bang. There are so many great movies coming out in December, narrowing it down to five was nearly impossible. This month is so loaded, I had to leave off anticipated titles like Sing, Assassins Creed, Passengers, A Monster Calls, and Why Him?. But, of all the movies coming out this month,…
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Loving tells one of the most important moments in the history of the United State. It is the true story of Richard and Mildred Loving (Joel Edgerton and Ruth Negga), an interracial couple in the 1950’s who fight for their right be married in Virginia after being banned from the state for getting married in Washington D.C. The film looks at their lives as they struggle to get the banned lifted while attempting to keep…
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In 1946, Hollywood mogul and aviation tycoon Howard Hughes got into a horrific plane crash in Beverly Hills, California. The crash demolished three houses, blew up the plane Hughes was in, and nearly killed Hughes, causing him a number of injuries, including a crushed collar bone, multiple cracked ribs, crushed chest with collapsed left lung, shifting his heart to the right side of the chest cavity, and numerous third-degree burns. This crash pales in comparison to the…
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The Chicago International Film Festival is officially over. Over the past two weeks, I saw 22 movies (17 festival and five wide releases). It was an exhausting two weeks, but an awesome two weeks. I saw so many movies from all different countries and all different genres and I wouldn’t have changed it for the world. Here is a look at the best movies and performances I saw while attending the festival. I’m including all…
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Bad Santa 2 continues Hollywood’s idiotic trend of making sequels to great 2000’s comedies. They got lucky with Anchorman 2 (2013), but have since missed at every single attempt after than, most notably with this year’s horrendous Zoolander 2. Now, Bad Santa 2 isn’t the debacle that Zoolander 2 is. It is just an unnecessary sequel with sporadic laughs and a predictable plot. Bad Santa 2 brings back to the boozing, cursing, sex-crazed Willie (Billy Bob Thornton). When Willie is at…
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Disney has done it again. Moana is simply dazzling. A sweet, funny, heartfelt film with beautiful animation and spectacular voice work. Moana is about a young girl named Moana (voiced by Auli’i Cravalho), the destined princess of her tribe, though she feels there is more to her life than following in her father’s footsteps. When her tribe and island are in danger, Moana adventures out to save them, by sailing the high seas in search of…
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Brad Pitt has had a fascinating movie star career. A heartthrob of the 90s, Pitt’s career started off with films that mostly highlighted his good looks and ridiculously sculpted body, like Ridley Scott’s Thelma & Louise. But as Pitt matured as an actor, so did his performances. With performances in 12 Monkeys, Fight Club, and Snatch, Pitt proved that he was more than a pretty face and in the years following, has become one of…
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The opening shot of Tom Ford’s second feature film, Nocturnal Animals, is a shot of an older, 300-plus pound nude woman dancing in slow-motion as gold confetti falls from the sky against a bright red backdrop. It is a beautifully shot image, yet an unsettling one to a degree, especially as it is the first thing we see in the movie. This shot is what for Nocturnal Animals is as a movie. Beautiful, yet unsettling. Nocturnal Animals follows Susan Morrow…
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Here’s the deal with boxing movies; you know exactly how it is going to end. Regardless of the story, the film will always end with a climactic fight where the main fighter will give it his all and either win or lose. There are a couple exceptions to this, mainly Raging Bull (1980) and Million Dollar Baby (2004), but almost every other boxing film, from Rocky (1976), to Cinderella Man (2005), to The Fighter (2010), falls into this category. However, that…
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Shut In is everything that is wrong with modern horror movies. It is a scareless, dumb, predictable, laughable movie that made me immediately regret ever entering the theater. Shut In is about Mary (Naomi Watts), a widowed child psychologist who takes care of her crippled son (Charlie Heaton) in an isolated house in rural New England. When one of Mary’s patients (Jacob Tremblay) goes missing near her house, she tries to find a way to…
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