Movie Reviews

The scariest movie of the 2016 Sundance Film Festival is not part of the midnight category.  Goat is a chilling and horrifying look at fraternity initiation at American colleges.  It is a shocking look  at the mindset of fraternities and what the lengths they go through for “brotherhood”. After a horrifying assault, 19 year old Brad (Ben Schetzer) enrolls in the same college as his brother Brett (Nick Jonas) and pledges the same fraternity. What…

I went into Morris from America completely blind. I had a quick synopsis and a cast of relative no names, save for Craig Robinson. This was probably the best thing I could have done for this film. Morris from America is a fresh and fun coming of age film with a new twist on old tropes and a great soundtrack. Morris (Markees Christmas) is a hip-hop loving thirteen year old living in Germany with his…

If you ever wanted to see Paul Dano ride Daniel Radcliffe like a dolphin through a large body of water as Radcliffe uses his rocket-like farts to power them forward, this is the movie for you! The craziest thing about Swiss Army Man is that that part happens within the first two minutes of the film and is far from the craziest thing that happens in this movie.  This is as weird as it is original,…

Under the Shadow is the definition of a slow burn. This Persian horror flick is one of the creepier and tense horror movies I’ve seen in a long time and a perfect addition to the Sundance Midnight section. Set in war torn Tehran in the 80’s, a mother (Narges Rashidi) and her daughter must survive a mysterious evil that haunts there home. This movie is like the Persian version of The Babadook (2014).  Though it…

My first film of the 2016 Sundance Film Festival was as good of a start to the festival that I could ask for. Life, Animated is a movie that brings out every emotion a human being has, which leads to one of the most rewarding experiences I’ve had at the festival. Life, Animated is a documentary about Owen Suskind, an autistic boy who overcame his challenges by learning how to read, talk, and understand human…

I wasn’t a big fan of the first Ride Along (2014).  I thought it had a couple funny moments, but the plot was pointless and the movie was saved by the team of Ice Cube and Kevin Hart.  Did we need a sequel?  Of course not.  But the first one made a ton of money, so of course we got one.  And like most sequels, in “Ride Along 2” we get bigger locations, nicer cars,…

It is really hard to get excited for a Michael Bay movie.  For the last few years, Bay has badgered our senses and lowered our IQs with his Transformers sequels and the horrendous Pain & Gain (2013).  So when it came to 13 Hours: The Secret Solders of Benghazi, I can’t say I was too excited, as it had the potential to have the typical Bayhem of his usual films, while also being offensive, since…

Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu follows up his 2014 Oscar winning masterpiece Birdman with one of the most brutal and chilling movie going experiences of 2015, The Revenant.  This is a no holds barred, white-knuckle, brilliant movie that plays out like action-horror movie set in the forest. The film is set in the 1820’s, where frontiersman Hugh Glass (Leonardo DiCaprio) goes on an epic journey to seek revenge on the group of men who left him for dead…

Whenever Quentin Tarantino makes a movie, it is an event.  He is one of the best, wildest, most unique directors working in cinema today.  Audiences can’t wait to see his movies, expecting something they’ve never seen before, and most of the time, they are not disappointed. With his eighth feature film, The Hateful Eight, Quentin Tarantino brings everything that he usually does in his films;  expertly written dialog, ridiculous violence, classic cinema homages, great technical…

In 2010, director Tom Hooper undeservedly won an Oscar for Best Director for The King’s Speech over  David Fincher for The Social Network.  Last year, Eddie Redmayne undeservedly won an Oscar for Best Actor for is impersonation of Stephen Hawking in The Theory of Everything over Michael Keaton in Birdman.  Now, both undeserved winners team up in an attempt to both add another Oscar to their mantle in a movie that is tailor-made for the…