A Simple Favor Is A Delightfully Unhinged Comedic Thriller

A Simple Favor is the latest in a long line of movies to be woefully mismarketed. Conventional trailers and commercials for the latest Paul Feig directorial effort try to portray the feature as being in the vein of recent financially lucrative Fall thrillers like The Girl On The Train and Gone Girl, but A Simple Favor is far different than those two movies. Instead of being a straightforward dramatic thriller, A Simple Favor is instead a movie that is to loopy thrillers what Rampage was to big monster movies, a big-budget star-studded homage to that just revels in all kinds of trashy twists and "Gotcha!" shock moments. Also like Rampage, A Simple Favor is super fun to watch.

Cafe Society Review

Woody Allen really stretches his boundaries as an artist with Cafe Society. Topics he's never touched in his forty-plus years as a filmmaker like the appeal of New York City and the romance between a pretty girl and a neurotic young man all show up here. Bold new storytelling terrain for the master filmmaker, wouldn't you say? All snarking aside, it's no problem for directors to have recurring traits or story elements in their work, but it does become a bit of an issue when said reoccurring aspects are executed in a paint-by-numbers fashion like they are in Cafe Society.

The Shallows Review

Ever since Steven Spielberg ushered in the age of the summer blockbuster with Jaws, sharks have been synonymous with big dollars in the world of pop culture. Sharknados are the rare piece of bad weather that people love and Shark Tale was one of last decade's most thought-provoking examinations of overtly sexualized aquatic wildlife and what happens when animation studios try to cash in on the success of Finding Nemo. The Shallows is the newest attempt to turn sharks into a license to print money and the strong box office returns for this Blake Lively feature suggest such a goal has been achieved.

Woody Allen's Next Movie, Cafe Society, To Open The Cannes Film Festival!

The Cannes Film Festival is a little over a month away and while which films are specifically during the high-profile event is still a hotly debated topic, we do now know which motion picture will be opening the prestigious occasion, and it's a director whose works have been a frequent participant at Cannes. The one and only Woody Allen will debut his next film, Cafe Society, at the festival as the opening film of the 2015 Cannes Film Festival on May 11th.

Classic Write-Up: The Town Review

Don't Rob Yourself Of This Fantastic Film

Ben Afflecks recent resurgence in popularity can be attributed more to directorial projects like Argo (one of my favorite movies from recent years) and his 2010 feature The Town. If Argo is undeniably his quintessential movie, filled with top-notch filmmaking in every regard, then The Town at times feels like a warm-up session for that 2012 Best Picture winner. Affleck is dipping his toes into staging larger sequences of action, and while it's not quite perfect, I can honestly say I was amazed at how fantastic The Town was on its own merits.