Doctor Sleep Manages To Be More Than Just 2 The 2 Shining

Every brand with even a modicum of fame is getting exploited for sequels, reboots, TV shows and everything in between in the modern era of pop culture, so it was inevitable that somebody would eventually come along with a sequel to The Shining, especially since Stephen King already penned a sequel to his original Shining book in the form of Doctor Sleep. The feature film sequel to The Shining decides to adapt that Doctor Sleep text while also trying to wed that story to Kubrick's original film. Considering how wildly detached King's books were from Kubrick's movies, the notion of trying to fuse the two together sounds like a massive task for writer/director Mike Flanagan at best and a potential recipe for disaster at worst.

Christopher Robin Is Effectively Morose And Heartfelt

Between my life-long love for Winnie The Pooh, my adoration for Ewan McGregor as an actor and me constantly being drawn to melancholy pieces of art, on paper it appears Christopher Robin was made exactly for my sensibilities. There's a world of difference between what's on paper and how those concepts are handled in an actual film, Lord knows there's loads of pop culture that, conceptually, should have been right up my alley that ended up just falling flat due to lackluster execution. Thankfully, Christopher Robin, directed by Machine Gun Preacher helmer Marc Forster and based on a story by Alex Ross Perry, has been executed in a thoughtful manner with a deftly wistful touch that serves the story it wishes to tell quite well.

The Third Season Of Fargo Offers Dark Themes, Bold Storytelling And Loads Of Memorable Performances

MASSIVE SPOILERS FOR FARGO SEASON THREE AHEAD

Noah Hawley is an ambitious man, ain't he? Three years ago, he voyaged into the creatively perilous world of TV show adaptations of movies by making a TV show out of the 1996 movie Fargo and created something utterly fantastic in the process. For the second season of that program, he brought the proceedings to the 1970's, widened the scope and managed to deliver something even better than that first season. Just earlier this year, Hawley was the creative head on another FX drama called Legion that managed to fully embrace trippy storytelling and created maybe the best superhero TV show of all-time in the process.

Prepared To Be Floored By The Mesmerizing Romance And Unique Spirit Of Moulin Rouge!

I wonder what it must have been like to be on the set of Moulin Rouge!, being directed by Baz Luhrmann and trying to make sense of what he was crafting here. The dude had made two films prior to Moulin Rouge!, and while I haven't seen those two initial features from Luhrmann, it's pretty clear they aren't exact copies of the incredibly one-of-a-kind aesthetic that Moulin Rouge! is reliant on, one that is very much informed by elements that get added into a movie during its post-production like editing. One can't help but ponder what was going on in the actor's minds as they acted out scenes that were going to have their own unique rhythm and pacing that could only be fully appreciated once the movie was fully completed.

I Swear To Cod, Salmon Fishing In The Yemen Is An Incredibly Tedious Movie

Like Cameron Crowe's 2011 movie We Bought A Zoo, Salmon Fishing In The Yemen received a lot of online-based rib-poking based on its unorthodox animal-based title. It's a mouthful for sure and I'd imagine they'd have likely just called it Gone Fishin' if that wasn't already the title of a 1997 Joe Pesci/Danny Glover comedy everybody has long forgotten about. But, this is the title it was dealt with and at least it didn't prevent it from getting a Golden Globe Best Picture nod, though unfortunately for this movie in regards to my review, it's lengthy title is at the very bottom of the complaints I have with this overly tedious feature.

"Take Me Home...T2: Trainspotting....To The Place...I Beloooooong...."

The track record of long-delayed follow-ups to highly beloved pop culture properties isn't exactly littered with tons of success stories. Two notable examples of this trend came in 2013, when Arrested Development came back with a narratively ambitious new season that was OK but not quite as successful as its initial seasons while Anchorman 2 reunited Ron Burgundy with his news team for occasionally humorous but mostly just scattered antics. I'd imagine director Danny Boyle knew about this trend going into the making of T2: Trainspotting, a follow-up to the 1996 film Trainspotting, and if he did, he'd likely be happy to know that T2: Trainspotting is a massive departure from that trend in that it's a worthy follow-up to the original movie.

Before He Had The High Ground, Ewan McGregor Was Doing Tremendous Acting In The Bleak Classic Trainspotting

Little did avid moviegoers in the 1990's realize how many of the movies they were watching from then unknown filmmakers would turn out to be the start of careers that would forever change the face of cinema. The early part of this decade had the likes of Richard Linklater, Kevin Smith and Quentin Tarantino all leap onto the silver screen and immediately leave their mark on the artform they loved in a way that is still being felt and influencing new filmmakers today. Lest you think all the early films from soon-to-be prolific filmmakers were limited to the early days of this decade, one of the middle years of this decade (1996) delivered the first movie from Wes Anderson and the second feature film from one Danny Boyle.

Disney's Live-Action Beauty And The Beast Is Overly Derivative Of The Original Animated Classic But Is Still An Entertaining Musical Romp

This new live-action take on Beauty And The Beast is an oddball little movie. It wants to be so much like the original 1991 animated classic its remaking, yet it also wants to be a more quasi-realistic take on the source material. That sense of realism also rubs up against its desire to be a big splashy over-the-top musical in some spots. When it just goes for being a straightforward fairy tale (not unlike the tone set forth in Jean Cocteau's 1946 take on this tale as old as time), it actually works fine. When it's trying to figure out how to ground things in realism while also being overly slavishly faithful to the original movie, well, that's when problems emerge.

What The Actual Hell Is Going On With American Pastoral?

Now that we're 50 years removed from America in the 1960's, any given storytelling has enough distance from that 10 year period in this countries history to cultivate a story that can really lend a sharp eye to this decade with a sense of perspective. For his directorial debut, Ewan McGregor adapts the Philip Roth novel American Pastoral, which primarily takes place in the 1960's and revolves around various events that shaped this era, namely the Vietnam War and radical protestors of this war. And it ends up saying nothing at all and doing nothing despite attempting to give off the impression that lots of something are occurring on-screen. It's like that one passage from an Alice In Wonderland book where Alice has to keep running just to stay in one place.

I Love You, Phillip Morris Review (Classic Write-Up)

At the tail end of the first decade of the 21st century, Jim Carrey found himself in a state of cinematic experimentation. The 2005 feature Fun With Dick And Jane would turn out to be one of only three PG-13 comedies the actor would star in in the next decade, a shocking development considering how that exact type of movie had been his bread and butter in box office juggernauts like The Mask, Dumb And Dumber and Bruce Almighty. In the years since that Dean Parisot vehicle, he's participated in familiar territory like family movies, but has mainly stayed on the sidelines to participate in supporting roles in box office non-starters like Kick-Ass 2 and The Incredible Burt Wonderstone.

Mortdecai Review

The Art Of War...On Quality Comedy

Watching the trajectory of Johnny Depp's career has, at this point, become far more entertaining than many of the features he chooses to star in. Aside from Into The Woods, he hasn't appeared in a feature that's grossed $100 million in four years (when the last Pirates of The Caribbean film was released), and while the forthcoming Whitey Bulger biopic Black Mass holds potential to restore some luster to his body of work, Mortdecai isn't just another Johnny Depp misfire, it's an aimless clunker of a film in it's own right.