Thursday, September 28, 2017

The Scares Never Show Up In The Bye Bye Man And Neither Do Any Actual Positive Qualities

2017 has been "the best of times...the worst of times" for horror movies it seems. For every Get Out, It Comes At Night and It, we've also gotten utter dreck like Rings and Wish Upon. I foolishly thought those two films couldn't be beaten in terms of lowering the bar for horror cinema in 2017, but The Bye Bye Man somehow beats out a snooze-inducing Rings sequel to become the worst horror film of the year and possibly the worst 2017 movie that isn't 9/11. Not only is this a terrible motion picture but it's bad in amateurish ways that aren't particularly common among conventional theatrical releases in 2017.


Wednesday, September 27, 2017

Get Yourself A Key And Come On In To The Wonderful Billy Wilder Film The Apartment

Calvin Clifford "C.C." Baxter (Jack Lemmon) is one super dutiful worker at the insurance company he toils away at. He's very popular with his superiors, which you can chalk up to his agreeable demeanor, his work ethic and also the fact that he allows his various bosses to bring their mistresses to his apartment for sex. Baxter gets no money for this service, he just slips his superiors the key to his place of residence in the hopes that this will put him in the good graces of the higher-ups at his company and ensure his ascension at his place of employment. It's not the easiest way to get ahead, but it's the way Baxter is trying to get himself promoted.


In Laman's Turns: It's Time For Tom Cruise To Embrace Bold Roles Again

Tom Cruise's career trajectory absolutely fascinates me. Once Risky Business happened and cemented Mr. Cruise as a movie star, he had well over two decades of prosperity as a leading man, one that was marked by a notable sense of variety. Cruise had some notably popular action movies in this era (Top Gun of course as well as the Mission: Impossible features and two early 21st century Steven Spielberg blockbusters) but he predominately did dramas in the 1980's and 1990's. The likes of Born Again On The Fourth Of July, Jerry Maguire, Rain Man, The Firm, Magnolia and Eyes Wide Shut paired him with a whose-who of famous auteurs that led him to frequently high box office and similarly recurring (though not always there, of course) critical praise.


Monday, September 25, 2017

Kingsman: The Golden Circle Dethrones It From Top Of The Box Office While LEGO Ninjago Becomes Surprise Box Office Dud

September 2017 kept on rolling with great box office results as Kingsman: The Golden Circle won the frame and grossed $39 million. While that number came in a bit below expectations that had this movie coming in around $45 million for the frame, that is still an 8% improvement over its predecessor's opening weekend, which is pretty solid given how many sequels have underperformed compared to their past entries this year. This one also held well throughout the weekend (it went up about 25% from Friday, without Thursday night box office, to Saturday), so it might hold decently in the weeks to come. At the very least, I'd imagine it finishes its domestic run at about $100 million exactly, well below its predecessor but not bad overall.


Sunday, September 24, 2017

I Spy A Disappointing Sequel Called Kingsman: The Golden Circle

The newest Kingsman adventure follows the typical trajectory of many sequels in that it decides to blow up the scale of its predecessor to massive proportions. "Go Big Or Go Home" as they say and Kingsman: The Golden Circle does go big but it wasn't long into this films running time that I was wondering when I'd be able to go home. Turns out Kingsman: The Golden Circle has also followed the trajectory of many underwhelming sequels in that it's traded in fun and wit for simply a larger scale for its narrative. At least it's able to contribute to 2017's lovely trend of John Denver songs popping up across various pieces of cinema (Logan Lucky, Okja and Free Fire are among the other 2017 titles to make use of this man's music).


Friday, September 22, 2017

The Great Muppet Caper Is One Of The Wittiest Muppet Movies Which Is Really Saying Something

Despite being a major Muppet fan (one could even say I appreciate the Muppets on a much deeper level than you...), I'd somehow never seen the second ever feature-length Muppet movie, The Great Muppet Caper, until this very week. Please don't ask me, a guy who practically wore out his VHS tape of Muppets From Space and loved watching episodes of the first season of The Muppet Show while he was growing up, has somehow gone this long in his life without seeing this 1981 comedy, but that's finally been rectified and I'm pleased to say that the wait was most certainly worth it. The Great Muppet Caper is handily one of The Muppets strongest cinematic outings and a tremendous showcase for the kind of humor only these characters could do.


A Movie Called American Assassin Really Shouldn't Be This Deathly Dull

Mitch Rapp (Dylan O'Brien) has a chip on his shoulder. That chip didn't come from any Pringles can though, no, it came from watching his girlfriend (and for a moment, fiancee) get brutally slaughtered at the beach by a bunch of gun-toting terrorists. While Mitch, who serves as the lead character of director Michael Cuesta's new movie American Assassin, survived that attack and every day since then, he's been training like a madman in order to make sure he's in peak physical condition to take down as many terrorists across the globe as possible. While trying to kill a group of terrorists, he gets his plans interrupted by a group of U.S. government agents who take him in for some questioning by Deputy Director Irene Kennedy (Sanaa Lathan).


The Saga Of Marjane Satrapi Is The Centerpiece Of The Riveting Animated Tale Persepolis

American cinema has basically resigned itself to solely dabbling in animated feature films in the case of making family-based features. There's nothing inherently wrong with that at all as the best Disney, PIXAR and LAIKA productions demonstrate but it is a pity that adult-oriented American animation at the cinematic level only crops up once in a blue moon with something like Sausage Party whose whole purpose to exist is to derive comedy from juxtaposing foul-mouthed gags with a medium of storytelling traditionally associated with children's fare. Luckily, many foreign countries have picked up the slack and delivered high-quality animated cinema that doesn't fit into the mold of traditional family movies.


Wednesday, September 20, 2017

Before I Fall Garners Some Real Substance In Its Time Loop Tale

The whole "Groundhog Dog" plot of repeating the same day over and over again didn't just float into existence with that early 1990's Bill Murray comedy but boy howdy did that movie ever popularize such a storytelling device. We've seen tons of movies or TV shows utilize this format over the past two decades and it's especially gotten a lot of mileage in recent years with projects like Edge of Tomorrow (or Live.Die.Repeat, whatever floats your boat), the upcoming horror film Happy Death Day and a Ry Russo-Young directed feature from earlier this year entitled Before I Fall, which transports this format of storytelling to a more somber atmosphere.


For The Bible Tells Me So Explores Embracing Your Identity In Oppressive Environments

A lot has changed for the LGBTQA community in the decade since the documentary For The Bible Tells Me So. For the first time in histroy, we had a sitting U.S. President (Barack Obama) openly endorse same-sex marriage and of course we had gay marriage legalized all across the United States. Of course, for every victory, there are plenty of struggles to be faced, including a ramp-up in high-profile political action against the Transgender community in the form of idiotic Bathroom Bills, Religious Freedom bills meant to discriminate against the LGBTQA community and we're still fighting to get laws passed that will ensure businesses can't discriminate against hiring or firing people based on their sexual orientation or gender.


Tuesday, September 19, 2017

The Fountain Is Amazingly Grand In Both Its Visuals And Emotional Power


There exist a recurring subgenre of more substantive and ambitious high-concept fantasy/science-fiction movies dedicated to using the stylized tendencies ingrained into their specific genres to explore larger-scale ideas about mortality, our place in the world, death, etc. Some of the best films in this subgenre include A Monster Calls, 2001: A Space Odyssey and Cloud Atlas as well as the subject of this review, Darren Aronofsky's The Fountain, an absolutely beautiful motion picture that spans centuries and dances around the cosmos all in the name of an intimate tale depicting man's inability to cope with the looming prospect of death.

Monday, September 18, 2017

This Is Gonna Sound So Weird, I Know, But I Wish Black Swan Was Much Freakier Than It Is

Remember how Black Swan was an actual box office phenomenon? This thing grossed well over $100 million domestically despite being such a crazy horror film that frequently relies on the kind of stylized atmosphere that audiences have rejected in many other motion pictures. It's odd, it's crazy, it gives ya a little hope for the world that something this strange can find such an audience. It's also a movie that obviously resonated with plenty of people too given its sheer ubiquity in pop culture since its initial release, though I must say I'm the Grumpy Gus of this scenario because I found Black Swan to be among director Darren Aronofsky's weaker movies, though it's still got plenty of virtues to extol.

Sunday, September 17, 2017

It Once Again Tops The Box Office With Historic Numbers While American Assassin Hits So-So Numbers And Mother! Bombs

Well, It is no one-weekend wonder folks, this thing's become even more of a box-office juggernaut now that it had a way smaller than usual second-weekend drop for a horror film. Grossing another $60 million this weekend, It went down only 51% to gross $218.7 million in its first ten days of release. This second weekend is bigger than any other weekend cume from any other movie that's ever played in September, is only the 21st time in history a movie grossed over $60 million in its second weekend and has made it the second biggest R-rated horror movie in history, only behind The Exorcist and its $232.9 million cume. How high will It go in its domestic run? Right now, I'd say it's gonna get to at least $330 million in its domestic run but I wouldn't put it past this thing to go even higher than that.


Mother! Is Mighty Interesting But Also Mightily Plagued By Pacing Problems (MASSIVE SPOILERS WITHIN)

THE FOLLOWING REVIEW OF MOTHER! IS SOAKED IN SPOILERS BECAUSE I'VE FOUND IT IS DIFFICULT TO TALK ABOUT MOTHER! WITHOUT DELVING INTO PLOT DETAILS THAT CONSTITUTE ACTUAL SPOILERS DUE TO THE SECRETIVE MARKETING. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED, SPOILERS FROM HERE ON OUT


Saturday, September 16, 2017

Lipstick Under My Burkha Brings Loads Of Thoughtful Empathy To Its Comedic Storytelling

Comedies can engage with themes or characters as weighty or thoughtful as any drama, so it's always a pity to see crummy comedies, either from decades past or in modern times, that refuse to combine some depth into their yuks. The likes of The Great Dictator, Superbad and The Purple Rose of Cairo are able to skillfully weave in more thoughtful ideas with a healthy supply of yuks. Now, there's nothing wrong at all with being a comedy solely interested in generating laughs (just look at the likes of gut-bustingly funny films like Hot Rod or Wet Hot American Summer), but when you're a subpar comedy that fails to even pull off the most basic joke properly, one can't help but be reminded of how thematically ambitious the best comedies can be. The likes of dismal 2017 comedies such as Fist Fight, The House and Baywatch remind one just how thoroughly lacking in either substance or jokes supposed comedies can be while Alankrita Shrivastava's new comedy Lipstick Under My Burkha, conversely, is a wonderful reminder of just how well laughs and thoughtfulness go together.

Friday, September 15, 2017

Requiem For A Dream Is An Uncompromising Slow-Burn Look At Addiction

Director Darren Aronofsky loves to put the characters in his movies through pain. Not just through conflict, he loves to toss the assorted individuals in his stories through a meat grinder of agony and then proceeds to hold the audience's eyes wide open as they witness these characters being incinerated. Keeping that in your mind, it should be no shocker that that Aronofsy's 2000 effort Requiem For A Dream (his first film to garner any sort of Oscar recognition) is entirely oriented around the process of destruction that, for varying reasons, consumes the lives of four different people in drastic ways.


Director Darren Aronofksy Offers Up A Slice Of The Unconventional With This Pi

The 1990's saw a large number of great directors make their feature film debuts, particularly in the first half of the decade that saw the likes of Richard Linklater & Quentin Tarantino make their marks on the world of cinema. But that doesn't mean all the notable directorial debuts could be found in the first half of the 1990's since Wes Anderson leaped into the realm of feature films with 1996's Bottle Rocket while Darren Aronofsky entered feature-length filmmaking with his 1997 motion picture Pi, a film that certainly establishes a large number of the specific filmmaking traits many associate explicitly with Aronofsky to this very day.

Give The Orville And Its Tedious & Confused Take On The Final Frontier Some Space

Even hearing for months on end that The Orville as a TV show had a more serious tone than its heavily comedic ads would suggest didn't prepare me for what a tonally odd creation it is. It's trying to actually be a new straight-up science-fiction program that heavily homages Star Trek to a fault but it's also one with recurring comedic elements that just don't work at all. If the attempt here was to make something either as comedically strong as Ted or as thoughtful & exciting as the best elements of Star Trek, then the folks behind The Orville have miscalculated greatly and wound up with a science-fiction equivalent to Seth MacFarlane's major movie misfire A Million Ways To Die In The West.


Thursday, September 14, 2017

Spirited Endurance Makes Up The Backbone Of The Enjoyable Their Finest

I'm sure you, whilst walking out of Dunkirk two months back,  thought to yourself "Wow, a whole movie about the Dunkirk evacuation! I wonder, are there any other recent movies covering that subject matter?" Turns out, there was another motion picture this year all about the Dunkirk evacuations, albeit Their Finest covers what happened after that massive evacuation effort. Specifically, it's about some British film executives wanting to create a film based on events from the Dunkirk evacuation that can help inspire the war-weary masses both in England and in countries abroad, specifically America.

Wednesday, September 13, 2017

The Fourth Season of Bojack Horseman Aims High And Hits An Emotionally Devastating Bullseye

MASSIVE SPOILERS FOR BOJACK HORSEMAN SEASON 4 AHEAD 
"Time's arrow marches ever forward"


This axiom gets repeated quite frequently throughout the fourth season of Bojack Horseman, a season of television that may just be the best season yet in an absolutely phenomenal program. It's obvious what it means (the future is unavoidable) but its recurring usage throughout the 12 episodes of Bojack Horseman's fourth season demonstrate how much the concept of time plays in the overall season. The past, the present and the future all collide frequently through Bojack Horseman's fourth season, resulting in storytelling that, even considering this shows meditative qualities, totally took me by surprise in the absolute best way possible.

The Best Parts Of The Promise Frustratingly Tussle With Its Lack Of Substance

In 1914, young Armenian man Mikael (Oscar Isaac) has traveled to Constantinople, a city located in the Ottoman Empire, in order to further his education that he can pursue his career as a doctor. Being a medical student in this prestigious city is not cheap and his family can afford to send him here by way of a donation from a man in Mikael's village who wishes for Mikael to be arranged to marry his daughter. With both an arranged marriage and prospective years of education lying in front of him, the future seems rife with potential for Mikael, though a wrench is thrown into his marriage-related plans when he begins to fall for the already married Ana (Charlotte Le Bon).


Tuesday, September 12, 2017

An Anemic Ending Sours The Otherwise Enjoyable Taxi!

It's difficult to make a living in any occupation but it's particularly hard for cab drivers working the streets of New York City in the early years of the 1930's as they attempt to go about earning an honest living as larger corporations trying wiggle on the routes these everyday taxi drivers have always worked. This phenomenon soon impacts Pop Riley (Guy Kibbee), whose refusal to give in to the threats of a more powerful taxi driving company result in his taxi being destroyed in an "accidental" crash. Pop is so infuriated by this action that he shoots and kills the man responsible for destroying his taxi which results in Pop being thrown into the slammer.

Oh Hey, J.J Abrams Is Now The Director Of Star Wars: Episode IX

Hey, remember when I used to do news pieces on a regular basis on this website? Ah, 2014 memories....

So, real quickly, it appears J.J. Abrams is in the bag to direct Star Wars: Episode IX, stepping in for Collin Trevorrow who departed the project last week over "Creative differences". The predominant rumor had been that Rian Johnson may stick around after The Last Jedi to help wrap up this trilogy, but nope, looks like J.J. Abrams is coming back to the fold. As a major fan of J.J. Abrams as a director (Super 8 is one of my favorite movies of 2011), I'm OK with this news but also kinda wishing we could have gotten someone a bit more bold and unexpected to help this forthcoming Star Wars movie.


Lady In The Water Is Listless Fairy Tale Storytelling

Lady In The Water was a game-changer for M. Night Shyamalan but not in the ways he intended, good Lord no. His previous movie, The Village, may have generated a divisive response that resulted in strong but frontloaded box office but at least that one has its ardent fanbase. Lady In The Water, on the other hand, has spent its eleven years of existence under intense derision and has been widely seen as a turning point for Shyamalan from titan filmmaker to the nearly decade long stretch he'd spend in the land of awful cinema before The Visit revived him. I wish I could say I was going against the tide and found Lady In The Water enjoyable, but alas, I found it be a kind of interesting but mostly boring misfire.


Monday, September 11, 2017

9/11 Is Staggeringly Bad, It's...Good Lord, It's Sickening

Director Martin Guigui is the one responsible for helming 9/11, a new motion picture based upon a play penned by Patrick Carson. Both the play and the movie concern five human beings all trapped in an elevator in the Southern Tower of the World Trade Center on the morning of 9/11. These five people consist of a bike messenger, Michael (Wood Harris), pug-owner Tina (Olga Fonda), World Trade Center engineer Eddie (Luis Guzman) and formerly married couple Jeffrey (Charlie Sheen) and Eve (Gina Gershon). They've all got their own individual baggage to deal with, particularly Jeffrey and Eve who are in the middle of a messy divorce that is bringing out the worst in each other.


Smurfs: The Lost Village Gets, Well, Lost Trying To Tackle An Interesting Idea

The old axiom "third time's the charm" has been run into the ground as an axiom used in movie reviews to signify that the third entry in a certain movie franchise is the best movie in said movie franchise, but for Smurfs: The Lost Village it's kind of true, though it's more like "Fourth time's the charm" since the Smurfs did have that one animated movie back in the 80's, The Smurfs and The Magic Flute (which I have not seen). Having seen the 2011 Smurfs movie but not its 2013 sequel, I can say that Smurfs: The Lost Village is an improvement over that Raja Gosnell directed motion picture, though it's still got some seriously Smurfed up qualities to it as well.


Sunday, September 10, 2017

Mama Just Killed A Man....Put A Gun Against His Head...Pulled My Trigger Now He's Dead....

Now that It looks to be well on its way to becoming a box office phenomenon like we've never seen for the horror genre before (it already made $51 million yesterday and will probably make as much as $105 million by the time the weekend is done), it looks like director Andy Muschietti is well on his way to becoming a big modern day horror movie filmmaker with only his second feature film. What was his first movie prior to It? Why it was none other than the 2013 feature Mama, a horror movie executive produced by Guillermo Del Toro (who is additionally credited as "presenting" the movie) that debuted back in January 2013.


After Weeks Of Stagnant Box Office, It Shatters Expectations And Scares Up Record Breaking Numbers

If anyone was thinking the box office had gotten super listless over the past month, well, your prayers for more lively box office has been answered by way of a creepy clown. It just shattered not just box office records but all preconceived notions of what horror movies and September movies can do at the box office. Grossing $117 million over its first three days alone, It garnered the best ever opening weekend for an R-rated horror movie (beating out Paranormal Activity 3, the previous record holder, by $66 million), the best opening weekend for a horror movie, the highest-grossing September opening weekend in history (beating out previous record-holder Hotel Transylvania 2's $48 million bow by $69 million) and becoming the fourth biggest opening weekend of 2017, only behind Beauty And The Beast, Guardians of The Galaxy Vol. 2 and narrowly Spider-Man: Homecoming. Oh, and it beat out the $20.6 million bow of 1408 to have the best opening weekend ever for a Stephen King adaptation.


Friday, September 8, 2017

The Great Dictator's Comedy And Message Of Unity Are As Timeless As Ever

As the 1940's began, the world as people had known it was changing rapidly. In the world of entertainment, the advent of color and sound in cinema was altering everything people knew was possible in this medium of storytelling. Films like The Jazz Singer, Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs and The Wizard of Oz would ensure that the future of cinema would look radically different from what had come before it, and what had come prior to this age of colorized cinema was a world of movies dominated by Charlie Chaplin, a guy known for making a silent movies even into an age where sound had become the default standard for movies.


It Delivers The Scariest Clown Horror Since The Brave Little Toaster

There's something freaky going around the town of Derry. People keep disappearing, far more than the average American town and nobody seems to really care about it. They just keep going on about their business as if nothing's really happening. One person that's not standing by while these disappearances just keep on happening is Bill Denbrough (Jaeden Lieberher), a kid suffering from a stutter whose younger brother Georgie went missing a few months prior and now Bill is determined to find out what exactly happened to his younger sibling and try his hardest during his 1989 summer vacation to make sure no one else has to go missing under such mysterious and nefarious circumstances.

Wednesday, September 6, 2017

Rings Is the Most Disposable Kind Of Low-Quality Horror Fare


I feel like if we took a public poll on whether or not there was a new Ring movie released earlier in 2017, not a single soul would be able to say "yes". 2017 has certainly felt like a year that's just stretched onward into forever with its nonstop torrential downpouring of misery, but I doubt people even remember this thing came out, let alone that Rings came out not as long ago as they might think. For this newest entry of the Ring saga, the attention turns to Julia (Matilda Lutz), whose boyfriend, Holt Anthony (Alex Roe), has gone off to college and left her. They keep their relationship going via Skype chats, but it ain't easy doing the whole long distance song-and-dance.


In Laman's Terms: A Look Back At The Ten Biggest Movies At The Summer 2017 Box Office

In Laman's Terms is a weekly editorial column where Douglas Laman rambles on about certain topics or ideas that have been on his mind lately. Sometimes he's got serious subjects to discuss, other times he's just got some silly stuff to shoot the breeze about. Either way, you know he's gonna talk about something In Laman's Terms!

Back at the end of April, for the third year in a row, I typed up my predictions for what exactly would become the ten biggest movies of summer 2017 at the domestic box office. Here we are just after Labor Day and it's time to look at how my predictions fared against reality. Just one point to make before we go ahead; all but one of these movies listed below (Transformers: The Last Knight is the sole exception) are still in the middle of their box office runs, so the total domestic grosses listed below are projections based on their current box office standings.

Okee-dokee folks, let's get going at looking at the ten biggest movies of summer 2017 at the domestic box office!


Tuesday, September 5, 2017

Table 19 Wastes A Talented Cast On An Underwhelming Script

Eloise (Anna Kendrick) didn't want to be here. Not only is this the wedding that she helped put together before being abruptly dismissed from such duties, but this wedding she's attending also puts her into direct contact with her ex-boyfriend, Teddy (Wyatt Russell), who just so happens to be the Best Man of this wedding (that's why she got let go from helping to plan the wedding). It's an experience she's not exactly elatedly anticipating but she's here and she's gonna make the best of it. At least she has plenty of people to talk to at the table, table 19 (hey, that's the title!) she's been situated at, with her table-mates being an assorted group of quirky individuals played by Lisa Kudrow, June Squibb, Craig Robinson, Stephen Merchant and Tony Revelori.

Monday, September 4, 2017

Ingrid Goes West Has Refreshing And Entertaining Things To Say About Technology

We all use social media these days, but if you think you're hooked on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and all those sorts of apps, just wait until you meet Ingrid (Aubrey Plaza). This is one person whose fixation on social media goes well into the unhealthy territory and her aggravation over seeing Instagram pictures of her "best friends" wedding that she wasn't invited leads her to attack said "best friend" at that wedding. After that, she's been spending some extended time at a mental institution, hoping to get her life in order...until she finds the next target of her obsession, a Los Angeles social media icon by the name of Taylor Sloane (Elizabeth Olsen).


Sunday, September 3, 2017

Weak Labor Day Weekend Has Hitman's Bodyguard Ruling Box Office Yet Again And Inhumans & Tulip Fever Underwhelming

NOTE;: ALL OF THESE FIGURES ARE FOR THE 3-DAY WEEKEND!!!

It was a meek Labor Day weekend as Summer 2017 came to an underwhelming close, though at least the holiday weekend meant the holdovers held better than expected. We got a lot of ground to cover, so let's do this. The Hitman's Bodyguard topped the box office for the third weekend in a row, making it only the second movie of 2017 (following The Fate Of The Furious) to do that. It only eased a tiny 0.2% to gross another $10.2 million, a phenomenal hold that is exceedingly better than what either of the two Expendables movies dipped over this same holiday weekend. With $54.9 million over 17 days, it appears Hitman's Bodyguard will likely end its domestic total between $70 and $75 million, a great sum for this $30 million budgeted feature.


Taxi To The Dark Side Is Incredibly Haunting And Informative Documentary Fare

At the dawn of the 21st century, America was forever altered by the September 11th attacks that took countless lives and is still reverberating through our society today. Specifically, 9/11 was the impetus behind our Middle East military conflict that has been ongoing for over a decade, making it one of the longest wars fought by American forces. In the first few years of said conflict, controversy emerged over how our military forces were treating detained individuals from whom we were hoping to extract information about the whereabouts Al-Queda Intel and weaponry. How were they getting this information? Through gruesome torture techniques that violated international law.


Saturday, September 2, 2017

Douglas Laman Gets A Tune-Up (Entry #7): Fresh Fruit For Rotting Vegetables by Dead Kennedys

DOUGLAS LAMAN GETS A TUNE-UP
ENTRY #7:  Fresh Fruit For Rotting Vegetables by Dead Kennedys

Douglas Laman Gets A Tune-Up is a series of essays wherein Douglas Laman listens to an album of music he's never fully listened to before (though he may have heard one or two songs from it) and writes up his brief thoughts on it.

Like any human being whose lived on planet of Earth in the past few decades, I've been aware of the punk music scene for most of my life but I had minimal exposure to actual pieces of music belonging to that genre until this was decided as the next entry in this column. Considering how much acclaim the Dead Kennedys have received over the years, they seemed like as good of an entry point to the punk music scene as any potential band. Plus, the album's title, Fresh Fruit For Rotting Vegetables, certainly caught my eye, and luckily,  it isn't just the title of this album that is likely to call your attention as the tracks contained within have plenty that'll capture your eye and mind.


Tulip Fever Never Blooms Into Something Really Interesting

And now to try to jot down the convoluted premise of Tulip Fever, a Herculean task if there was ever one. So, this lady by the name of Sophia (Alicia Vikander), living in the 17th century in Denmark, has been sold as a wife to Cornelis Sandvoort (Christoph Waltz). Cornelis is obsessed with bearing a son after he lost his wife and two children to differing tragic circumstances. One day, Cornelis calls upon the services of a painter to paint a portrait of himself and his wife. The artist is a young man named Jan Van Loos (Dane DeHaan) and after a few painting sessions, he and Sophia, unbeknownst to Cornelis, quickly fall in love.

Friday, September 1, 2017

There's Too Much Ho-Hum In A Movie Like xXx: Return of Xander Cage That Should Be All Vroom Vroom

He's back. You all thought he was dead but nope, Xander Cage (Vin Diesel) has just been using his extreme sports skills to help poor people in foreign countries get the ability to watch Soccer matches on TV. But it looks like his time off the grid is coming to a close when his former boss, Augustus Eugene Gibbons (Samuel L .Jackson), is killed by a falling a satellite. Jane Marke (Toni Collette) doesn't believe this was an accident, in fact, she knows this was the work of someone tampering with a government device called Pandora's Box, that allows a single person to control any satellite in existence. Obviously, the only way to stop this threat is by making heavy use of Xander Cage's extreme sports skills.


4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days Is A Magnificent Tale Of Maintaining Individualism In The Face Of Oppression

For a good chunk of 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days, there is no indication where exactly lead character Otilla (Anamaria Marinca) is going or what she's trying to do. She and her roommate Gabriela Dragut (Laura Vasillu) reside in a Romanian town in the year 1987, meaning they live under a heavily-controlling government, which explains why Otilla is acting so sneaky in her day-to-day actions as she attempts to purchase cigarettes from her neighbor as well as try and meet up with a mysterious man by the name of Viarel Bebe (Vlad Ivanov). She and Dragut are supposed to meet this individual at a hotel later for important reasons that their inherently more secretive nature prevents them from talking about openly.