Lion is one of the most emotional movies of 2016.  It is a movie that continuously hits you in the feels, yet not overdoing it to make it melodramatic. Lion is the incredible true story of Saroo (Sunny Pawar), a five year old boy who gets lost on the streets of Calcutta, thousands of kilometers from home.  He survives the tough streets and ends up being adopted by an Australian family (Nicole Kidman, David Wenham) and…

Office Christmas Party is one of those comedies where it is all about the cast.  The plot and story are all irrelevant, the love stories are useless and lame, and the movie runs too long.  But God damn, if this isn’t a cast of comedic all-stars that make this movie a blast. When an uptight CEO (Jennifer Aniston) threatens to shut down his branch, a branch manager (T.J. Miller) throws an epic Christmas party to…

I first saw Kenneth Lonergan’s Manchester by the Sea at this year’s Sundance Film Festival.  It was towards the end of the festival and the hype around the film was through the roof.  The film ended up being one of my favorites of the festival and was one I was constantly thinking about for months after. I decided check the movie out again when it finally got a wide release, a rarity for me, as I would…

The Eyes of My Mother is a truly disturbing and horrifying film, yet one of the most beautifully shot and made films of the year. The film looks at the life of Francisca, a lonely girl who witnesses a horrible tragedy the skewers her way of life.  We see as young Francisca (Olivia Bond) learns how to do facial surgery using dead animals, and we watch the questionable parenting techniques of her parents, until tragedy…

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…

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…