Another good film from 2016 albeit one that is getting mixed reviews is
"Passengers." I will agree that it is not a fantastic film but it is
most certainly entertaining and honestly isn't that really what a movie
is supposed to do?
Chris Pratt expands his resume with another good
role and he plays the hero very well in this film. Jennifer Lawrence -
what can I say except that I do not think she has been in a bad film
yet...well, she has not given a bad performance might be the better
thing to say. She also does a great job and the chemistry between her
and Chris Pratt is believable.
As for the story and plot of the film,
it was actually pretty good. I liked the concept and what happened from
a storyline perspective. If I had to find fault with anything it would
be that the film does start off a little slow and takes awhile to pick
up steam. But once it does, the action is good.
The other issue I have
is the small parts that some of the other actors such as Andy Garcia and
Lawrence Fishburne (an excellent actor) have but then again it is what
had to be based on the film's story. Overall a good film to watch over
the holidays.
Brad Pitt's gonna be 53 this year and he's still got it. He's 3-for-3. Allied isn't just his third war movie, it's his third damned good war movie (after Legends ofthe Fall and Fury).
What separates Allied from the pack is the fact that it's a throwback. And not just because it takes place during World War II. The movie itself is like an old Hollywood film. I'm talking black-and-white Hollywood. It's at least partly an homage to Casablanca and Alfred Hitchcock's Notorious.
Just like Notorious, Allied is about two people, one of whom is an intelligence agent, who fall for each other during an undercover mission to infiltrate Nazis. And like that movie, the mission involves the lovebirds attending a Nazi party at a mansion. Wait -- it gets deeper. Trust is the central theme of Hitchcock's film and the same applies here. By the way, Notorious hit theaters exactly 70 years ago in 1946.
Just like in Casablanca, the hero of the story pressures someone close to him to play the piano. And check this out: A lot of what happens in Allied actually takes place in Casablanca, Morocco.
Before the movie was released it was surrounded by bad press due to the fact that Angelina Jolie filed for divorce from Brad because he was rumored to have crept with his leading lady, Marion Cotillard. If he did, then history has repeated itself because that's how Angelina got him in the first place. Brad was married to Jennifer Anistonwhen Angelina snatched him up while they were making his first movie about a spy couple, Mr. & Mrs. Smith. But trust me, Allied is way better.
And by the way, like it or not, a movie star cheating on his or her spouse with their co-star is just one more piece of old-school Hollywood tradition. One more thing: Both Casablanca and Notorious are headlined by an A-list American movie star (Humphrey Bogart and Cary Grant) and an A-list European leading lady (Ingrid Bergman). Brad's as A-list as you get in the U.S. and Cotillard's one of France's biggest stars.
Ok, close your eyes. Think about one of those old-school black-and-white movies you saw on TCM. Now, pretend it's in color, is full of action and uses modern special effects. That's Allied.
Well I knew it and still went and saw it anyway! Talk about an
overrated, confusing and poor excuse of a movie, 'Fantastic Beasts and
Where to Find Them' fits this bill perfectly.
First of all, the actors.
I love Eddie Redmayne as he is a great actor but in my opinion his
talent is totally wasted in this film. He appears to just be going
through the motions and I still don't even think I completely understand
what his role was. The primary female lead was just awful. She might
be good in other roles but her performance was just bland in this movie.
The other actors were a waste as well including Colin Farrell and Jon
Voight.
In terms of the special effects, the movie does excel in this
area but that is to be expected considering this is tied or related to
Harry Potter. Outside of that, this movie is just another way or reason
for J.K. Rowling to make another billion dollars. I have heard that
there are supposed to be another 4 films in the series but count me out.
This one was enough!
Ok, I was not sure if I should include this here or under the best
sci-if category but either way I have to give a review of the new sci-if
film Arrival. This is an amazing and beautiful film. I am not
surprised though as it was directed by the same director of the
excellent film Sicario, one of my favorite films in the past couple of
years. He also directed Prisoners which is a great film as well.
One should not go into the film Arrival though expecting a lot of
action or blood and guts. I have already seen it being referred to as a
'thinking man's sci-fi' film and can see why. The film is about
language, universalism, humanity and trying to understand one another.
In my opinion it is about life and death as well.
Amy Adams is
remarkable in her role as the linguist assigned to 'talk' to the aliens.
But what she goes through and how it is revealed is amazing. It is
very moving for various reasons I will not give away. I can see it
garnering many nominations come Oscar season.
In any given year there may be one decent documentary at the most. This year there were several pretty good ones -- ranging in topics from professional basketball to the Prison Industrial Complex. I guess it makes sense judging by how many lame scripted movies were released in 2016.
5. Michael Jackson's Journey from Motown to Off the Wall
Now,
this is Michael Jackson for those of us who like him brown-skinned,
makeup-free and with short hair -- or at least with hair that's too
short to put in a ponytail. This is 1970s Michael Jackson: before the
glove, before the drama -- even before Thriller. Come to think about it, this is your father's mother's Michael Jackson. Forget Chi-raq, this is Spike Lee's comeback movie.
4. This Magic Moment
"What does it say about the human condition?" "Why
is it so high on the list?" Because it's the most fun movie of the
year. Chill out. Iron Man and Captain America? Nah, gimme Shaq and
Penny. An hour and a half of broken backboards and Lil' Penny? I'll take
it. This is Shaq and Kobe before Shaq ever met Kobe.
3. Fantastic Lies
Fantastic Lies
is the first of two great documentaries to be released this year about
race, police corruption, sports and sexism. Except, this one exposes far
more misandry than misogyny. Lies takes a look at the 2006
case in which members of the Duke University lacrosse team were accused
of gang-raping a young woman at a house party. The fallout included:
calls for the dissolution of the team; the ouster of the head coach; and
the criminal indictment of three players. The problem was, the rape had
never happened in the first place.
In a sort of race and class reversal
of the Central Park Five case, in which five African-American young men
were wrongly convicted of sexually assaulting a white woman in New York
City, a district attorney seeking re-election, a corrupt police
detective, a private DNA lab, an exotic dancer and escort, the news
media, and a horde of unwitting social activists conspired to scapegoat
a group of privileged, student athletes. While the film doesn't tackle
it head-on, it does shed light on a certain pervasive and zealous
disdain for conventional masculinity in modern America that the
co-conspirators clearly counted on. In the words of one of the accused,
"If police officers and a district attorney can systematically railroad
us with absolutely no evidence whatsoever, I can't imagine what they'd
do to people who do not have the resources to defend themselves."
2. 13th
The
13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution officially abolished slavery in
this country. This abolition had to be an amendment because the
protection of slavery as an institution had been incorporated into the
Constitution at its inception.
13th, directed by Ava Duvernay (who also directed 2014's Selma),
centers on a loophole built into the amendment which has been used to
justify legal human bondage ever since its ratification in 1865. The
amendment reads: " Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for
crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall
exist
within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction."
The film illustrates how that highlighted section has allowed convicted
criminals to be effectively enslaved to this very day. One of the many
things the documentary points out is the fact that no distinction
whatsoever is made between horrendous crimes and petty misdemeanors. 13th
explores the varied interrelated institutions at play including:
racism; the relationship between the government and the private
for-profit prison industry, which depends on criminal convictions for
its survival; the "War on Drugs"; and the powerful, yet secretive
coalition between U.S. politicians and Corporate America - ALEC.
ALEC (American Legislative Exchange Council) is a forty-year-old organization comprised of conservative, mostly Republican, lawmakers and corporation heads that has been responsible for drafting legislation aimed at furthering right-wing, corporate agendas for decades. This is roughly the way it works: Group members (both political and private sector) propose bills, which the legislators introduce to their respective legislative bodies, without ever divulging the true origin of said bills. During
the 1980s, ALEC opposed U.S. efforts to end apartheid in
then-segregated South Africa. Past members include: former Speaker of
the House John Boehner; Ohio governor John Kasich; and North Carolina Senator Jesse Helms. While ALEC was effectively outed in 2011 by The Nation and later The New York Times,Bloomberg Businessweek and "The Daily Show", 13th points out that it continues to thrive and remains largely unknown to the American public. After it was
dragged out of the shadows, many of ALEC's corporate members cut their
ties for fear of fallout from the association, including: Wal-Mart; Google;Facebook; Coca-Cola; Blue Cross and Blue Shield; Wendy's; McDonald's; Amazon; Apple; GE; Procter & Gamble; Ebay; Yahoo!; Microsoft; BP; T-Mobile; and CCA.
CCA (Corrections Corporation of America), the largest owner and manager of private prisons in the country, profits from crime bills it promoted as a member of ALEC before rescinding its membership. The aforementioned crime bills, including the federal three-strikes Law, mandatory minimums, and stop-and-frisk policies insured a steady influx of inmates, largely African-American and Hispanic, into their institutions.
The film also points out that ALEC introduced the controversial
stand-your-ground law, which allowed the then-29-year-old George
Zimmerman to legally pursue and kill unarmed 17-year-old Trayvon Martin.
Pfizer, AT&T, ExxonMobil and State Farm Insurance are still active ALEC members.
Duvernay interviews dozens of people on all sides of the issues covered here, including: politicians, including Charles Rangel and Newt Gingrich; professors; social activists, including Angela Davis; former inmates; and social pundits, both conservative and liberal. Video footage (filmed years prior to their canditorial declarations) of the
two current presidential front-runners, Donald Trump and Hillary
Clinton, is presented in which each one gives an argument for
incarcerating African-American men. Trump is featured in a clip decrying the Central Park 5 -- a group of African-American teenagers who were coerced by NYPD detectives into confessing to raping and violently assaulting a white female jogger, Trisha Meili, in New York's Central Park. He took out full-page ads in New York'sfour major newspapers advocating capital punishment for the teens. The young men were ultimately exonerated by DNA evidence after having served between six to 13 years in prison. Clinton gives her now-infamous speech labeling African-American teens as "super-predators". It's a wonder that so much ground is covered in the doc's scant 100-minute running time.
One of the most surprising moments of the film is Republican power-broker and Trump-supporter Gingrich declaring that white Americans have no idea what it's like to be African-American.
13th was filmed in secret and on September 30, 2016, became the first documentary to open the New York Film Festival. 13th's
subject matter is not common knowledge - but it should be. See it
immediately. If you have a Netflix account you can do just that.
1. O.J.: Made in America
Made in America
isn't just about the O.J. trial, it's a comprehensive biography of
Simpson as a public figure. The 11-month trial itself is complex enough,
but this film goes even further and provides context for who he became
and why the trial became so politically-charged. It also examines the
wide philosophical and political gulf separating Simpson from many other
famous African-American sports figures of his era. There's also plenty
of attention paid to the stark contrasts between the Heisman-winner and
most other African-American Angelenos. The doc is particularly timely in
light of the current racial tensions in this country and the near-daily
revelations of police misconduct (in some cases, murder) caught on
video. There's a reason that America is in the title. It's worth noting
that Made currently holds a 100% rating on the review site Rotten Tomatoes.
Everyone
involved is represented here: the prosecution; the defense team; the
LAPD; LA civil rights activists; the Goldman and Brown families; the
jurors; and even Simpson's life-long friends. The filmmakers were wise
enough to not take a side. What they did do was to provide something
infinitely more valuable: much-needed insight.
If you're like me, you might've seen the poster or the trailer for Almost Christmas and figured it was another run-of-the-mill, cheesy, holiday movie full of sappiness and drama -- basically, a Christmas chick flick. But in this case you'd be wrong.
On the surface it seems like it fits right in with A Madea Christmas, The Best Man Holiday, The Perfect Holiday and even Soul Food.
But this is different. There are no dudes wearing dresses, no stupid hijinks and no stereotypes. There's no scheme to raise a bunch of money to save something in a handful of days (the family home, the family business, etc.) and no soap opera-style family secret. Just people interacting with each other -- but in funny ways.
Another thing -- there's also no matriarch holding all of the various cousins, uncles and aunts together. Shockingly enough, Almost Christmas' Meyers family is led and held together not by grandma, but grandpa -- a widower with brains and principles. When was the last time you saw that in a movie?
Almost is the funniest movie most of the actors onscreen have appeared in. It's one of two hilarious 2016 movies for J.B. Smoove (the other is Barbershop 3). And fellas, two of the cast-members, Gabrielle Union and Keri Hilson, have only gotten better-looking with time. Trust me. Or don't trust me -- see for yourself.
Like I said, Almost Christmas isn't a chick flick and it's not a family movie either. It's a funny movie that happens to be about a family. That's not to say that it doesn't jerk a few tears. My date cried five times (Damn, girl).
It may seem a little early to call it but I think we've got a holiday classic on our hands. Almost Christmas debuts this Friday -- almost Thanksgiving. You should see it. And if you still wanna see a dude dressed up like an old lady, there's always that Boo! b#llsh@t.
The 2018 movie schedule looks like it'll make up for 2017 ten times over. There are long-awaited sequels, remakes, high-quality (hopefully) comic book adaptations, boxing movies, gangster flicks, another Star Wars prequel and more on the way.
12 Strong (Horse Soldiers)
Release Date: January 19
Black Panther
Release Date: February 16
Black Panther is the closest an upcoming movie can get to guaranteed greatness. The king of Wakanda already proved himself in Civil War and director Ryan Coogler has a perfect, albeit short, resume -- both FruitvaleStation and Creed were Oscar nominees. This just may go down in history as the absolute best movie of 2018.
Pacific Rim: Uprising
Release Date: March 23
Pacific Rim was the biggest pleasant surprise of 2013. Who knew it would turn out to actually be good? But director Guillermo Del Toro got sidetracked by other projects, which resulted in a long 5-year wait for the follow-up. The amazing thing is that no one else (aside from Michael Bay) put gigantic robots onscreen during all that time.
The Avengers: Infinity War
Release Date: April 27
I gotta be honest. I'm very nervous about the Avengers going intergalactic. There is enormous potential for this to be goofy and ridiculous. But some pretty good stories in Marvel comics have taken place in outer space. If the movie team can manage to get that magic to translate to the screen we're in for a treat.
Solo
Release Date: May 25
Han Solo hasn't had a decent showcase in 38 years. He nearly stole the show in Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back, but his ignominious send-off in The Force Awakens ranks up there with Boba Fett's and General Grievous' as one of the lamest endings for a cool Star Wars character. Until the moment Lando announced that he was alright, it seemed like he'd died with the utmost dignity in Empire. And 35 years later, he runs around like a moron having a mid-life crisis for an hour until he's unceremoniously stabbed in the gut and falls off a catwalk. There was no Vader or Fett to compete with and he still wasn't "the cool guy". Maybe he should've ordered some Dos Equis at Mas Canada's bar. Hopefully, everybody's favorite Corellian smuggler's solo film will wipe our memories clean of his most recent movie appearance.
In other news, Donald Glover has been cast as Lando Calrissian. Glover's funny but I've never seen him exude Billy Dee Williams' smoothness -- which is what makes Lando, Lando. Hopefully he has some game we don't know about.
Soldado
Release Date: June 29
If you haven't seen Sicario yet, make sure you do. This sequel is sure to be fire.
Ant-Man and the Wasp
Release Date: July 6 Ant-Manis the funniest entry in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, to date. There's no obvious reason for the sequel not to claim that title.I just hope that the filmmakers don't kill off Dr. Pym Obi-Wan Kenobi-style just to make the movie more emotional and to motivate Scott Lang into becoming "the hero he was always meant to be". Don't do it, Marvel. There's room enough for both Ant-Men in this franchise and Michael Douglas has been great.
The Equalizer 2
Release Date: July 20
The Equalizer 2 will be the first sequel of Denzel Washington's career. It's release will officially make Robert McCall a franchise movie spy. If the filmmakers can manage to sustain the dopeness achieved in the original film, then Ethan Hunt and James Bond will be facing some quite daunting competition in the years to come (judging by this year's Jason Bourne and the difficulty in getting Matt Damon and director Paul Greengrass to commit to the franchise, it seems as though the titular assassin's movie theater run may have come to an end).
The Predator
Release Date: September 14
Venom
Release Date:October 5
Venom's only other appearance on the big screen was in Spider-Man 3 -- which was too terrible for words. But Tom Hardy made for one hell of a Bane in The Dark Knight Rises and now he's gonna be Eddie Brock. Plus, Sony's decided to go the Logan route and give Venom the freedom for an R-rating -- so it has potential. Since Venom's primarily a homicidal nut-job it'll be interesting to see how he's presented. Will it be an action version of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde? An updated version of A Nightmare on Elm Street 2? How big will Spidey's cameo be? We'll see.
Creed 2
Release Date: November 21
Good news, Rocky fans. Creed, which is probably the best of the series and unquestionably brought the franchise back from the dead, is getting a sequel. The Creed follow-up, Rocky 8 if you're counting, is scheduled to hit theaters November 2018 -- just in time for Thanksgiving.
In case you still haven't seen the first Creed, it features the son (Adonis Creed) of Rocky Balboa's rival-turned-friend, Apollo, and his struggle to come to terms with living in his legendary father's shadow while pursuing a professional boxing career. Adonis' pops died in the ring in Rocky IV -- the one in which the "Italian Stallion" fought the roided-up Russian. And guess what? That very same Russian, who delivered the fatal punches to Apollo, will appear in Creed 2. Yep, Dolph Lundgren is making a return to the Rocky series.
The down-side is that Creed director Ryan Coogler won't be returning to write the script (or direct). Instead, Sylvester Stallone will write the story. He wrote Rocky and Rocky Balboa (the second-best movie in the series). That's not a bad resume but the problem is that he's apparently never had any familiarity with genuine Black culture. For instance, two of the African-American antagonists were named Clubber Lang and Mason Dixon. Get the fuck outta here.
Mel Gibson -- this year's "Comeback Kid"? Last night I had the opportunity to see Mel Gibson's latest directorial effort, Hacksaw Ridge, and needless to say I'm glad I did.
When I initially saw the trailer for this film, I honestly was not excited about it because the lead role is played by Andrew Garfield, aka Spider-Man, and I have not been impressed by his acting skills. That opinion of him has now definitely changed based on his performance in this intense, graphic war film. To say that Mel Gibson has done a great job with this film is an understatement. I agree with another reviewer that this film is almost like two-in-one.
The first part slowly develops Andrew Garfield's character Desmond Doss and his religious beliefs and opinions about killing or hurting others. The second part is the war part -- and boy what a shocker it is! The war scenes are some of the most graphic I have ever seen, comparable to Saving Private Ryan, and made several people in the theater, including myself, jump on several occasions.
While some might criticize the brutality as being unnecessary, it really emphasizes the viciousness and horror of war that the main character was fighting to avoid to begin with. Not that Desmond did not want to serve, but he was one who did not want to have to kill, but instead heal others. Andrew Garfield really shows his acting abilities in this role and I feel sure he will be recognized for it.
Like Mel Gibson or not (I still don't) for his unfortunate and despicable actions -- toward his then-pregnant girlfriend years ago -- Hollywood cannot deny the fact that he is an excellent director and has done a great job with this one. I have read many reviews on this film, and yes, I would say that Mel has definitely made his way back as a critical part of the Hollywood industry. Do not miss this film as it speaks volumes on heroism, courage and staying true to what you believe in.
The
13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution officially abolished slavery in
this country. This abolition had to be an amendment because the
protection of slavery as an institution had been incorporated into the
Constitution at its inception.
13th, directed by Ava Duvernay (who also directed 2014's Selma),
centers on a loophole built into the amendment which has been used to
justify legal human bondage ever since its ratification in 1865. The
amendment reads: " Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for
crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall
exist
within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction."
The film illustrates how that highlighted section has allowed convicted
criminals to be effectively enslaved to this very day. One of the many
things the documentary points out is the fact that no distinction
whatsoever is made between horrendous crimes and petty misdemeanors. 13th
explores the varied interrelated institutions at play including:
racism; the relationship between the government and the private
for-profit prison industry, which depends on criminal convictions for
its survival; the "War on Drugs"; and the powerful, yet secretive
coalition between U.S. politicians and Corporate America - ALEC.
ALEC (American Legislative Exchange Council) is a forty-year-old organization comprised of conservative, mostly Republican, lawmakers and corporation heads that has been responsible for drafting legislation aimed at furthering right-wing, corporate agendas for decades. This is roughly the way it works: Group members (both political and private sector) propose bills, which the legislators introduce to their respective legislative bodies, without ever divulging the true origin of said bills. During
the 1980s, ALEC opposed U.S. efforts to end apartheid in
then-segregated South Africa. Past members include: former Speaker of
the House John Boehner; Ohio governor John Kasich; and North Carolina Senator Jesse Helms. While ALEC was effectively outed in 2011 by The Nation and later The New York Times,Bloomberg Businessweek and "The Daily Show", 13th points out that it continues to thrive and remains largely unknown to the American public. After it was
dragged out of the shadows, many of ALEC's corporate members cut their
ties for fear of fallout from the association, including: Wal-Mart; Google;Facebook; Coca-Cola; Blue Cross and Blue Shield; Wendy's; McDonald's; Amazon; Apple; GE; Procter & Gamble; Ebay; Yahoo!; Microsoft; BP; T-Mobile; and CCA.
CCA (Corrections Corporation of America), the largest owner and manager of private prisons in the country, profits from crime bills it promoted as a member of ALEC before rescinding its membership. The aforementioned crime bills, including the federal three-strikes Law, mandatory minimums, and stop-and-frisk policies insured a steady influx of inmates, largely African-American and Hispanic, into their institutions. The
film also points out that ALEC introduced the controversial
stand-your-ground law, which allowed the then-29-year-old George
Zimmerman to legally pursue and kill unarmed 17-year-old Trayvon Martin.
Pfizer, AT&T, ExxonMobil and State Farm Insurance are still active ALEC members.
Duvernay interviews dozens of people on all sides of the issues covered here, including: politicians, including Charles Rangel and Newt Gingrich; professors; social activists, including Angela Davis; former inmates; and social pundits, both conservative and liberal. Video footage (filmed years prior to their canditorial declarations) of the
two current presidential front-runners, Donald Trump and Hillary
Clinton, is presented in which each one gives an argument for
incarcerating African-American men. Trump is featured in a clip decrying the Central Park 5 -- a group of African-American teenagers who were coerced by NYPD detectives into confessing to raping and violently assaulting a white female jogger, Trisha Meili, in New York's Central Park. He took out full-page ads in New York'sfour major newspapers advocating capital punishment for the teens. The young men were ultimately exonerated by DNA evidence after having served between six to 13 years in prison. Clinton gives her now-infamous speech labeling African-American teens as "super-predators". It's a wonder that so much ground is covered in the doc's scant 100-minute running time.
One of the most surprising moments of the film is Republican power-broker and Trump-supporter Gingrich declaring that white Americans have no idea what it's like to be African-American.
13th was filmed in secret and on September 30, 2016, became the first documentary to open the New York Film Festival. 13th's subject matter is not common knowledge - but it should be. See it immediately. If you have a Netflix account you can do just that.
