Fences Sets The Stage For Strong Small-Scale Drama

Translating any storytelling medium to the confines of feature-length motion picture storytelling is going to come with its own set of challenges. Bringing books to the silver screen means you have to decide what material from the novel gets cut for the sake of brevity and what stays in while film adaptations of TV shows have to bring characters who typically work in only 22-44 storytelling environments and try and make them sustain as much as two whole hours of storytelling. Each of these forms of translation comes with its own set of challenges and the hurdles involved with bringing a stage play to the big screen as a movie are the ones Denzel Washington's newest directorial effort, Fences, faces.

The Endearing If Overly Familiar Dangal Lacks Depth But Carries Its Fair Share Of Cheer-Worthy Moments

I'm personally woefully ignorant when it comes to Indian-originated cinema, so the chance to see Dangal (which looks to be well on its way to becoming the biggest Indian-based film ever at the U.S. box office) was a great chance to step out of my comfort zone and become more acquainted with one of the largest film industries on the planet. Doing some brief research before seeing Dangal, I was curious to discover the existence of Aamir Khan, an actor whose one of the most prolific actors in his home country and sets box office records left and right with each new movie he headlines. Discovering him and his career even just by way of looking at his IMDB filmography was fun and I'm curious to delve into his earlier work as well as plenty of other noteworthy slices of Indian cinema in the near future.

Passengers Is A Bumpy Ride

WARNING: Like Collateral Beauty from a few weeks ago, Passengers is a movie whose marketing has outright lied to audiences by concealing the actual plot of the movie its advertising. To talk about the movie in any way shape or form, I'll have to talk about very basic plot elements introduced from the get-go in the movie that are only spoilers because the ads for Passengers have concealed them from viewers. OK? Okee-dokee, onto the review!

It's nice that Passengers has a polished look to it in terms of production design. The spaceship the two lead characters inhabit is nicely brought to life by way of some solid looking sets and I enjoy that the various technological marvels to be found on the ship are treated in the same way Futurama and Star Wars treated their own futuristic gizmo's; as everyday nuisances, in the same way we might gripe about an iPad mildly malfunctioning despite such a device being unthinkable to exist even as late as a decade ago. That's a unique enough approach that also leads to some brief diversions into dark humor that I wish Passengers had utilized more instead of just dipping its toes into the waters of mildly dark humor two or three times.

A More Polished Look Can't Compensate For The Forest's Massive Lack Of Scares

While The Devil Inside was far from the first horror movie to debut in January or even on the first weekend of that month, its massive $33.7 million opening meant the first weekend of January was now a hot spot for subsequent horror movies like Texas Chainsaw 3D, Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones and The Woman In Black 2: Angel Of Death to make their debuts in this specific timeframe in hopes of replicating that 2012 horror films box office success.  Debuting on January 8th this year (technically the second weekend of January but still very much an early January release), The Forest was 2016's entry in this new phenomenon as well as the very first wide release of the entire year.

I Cannot Stress Enough Just How Exceptionally Dumb The 5th Wave Is

So much idiocy is crammed into the running time of The 5th Wave that I wondered at the end what screenwriter could possibly be responsible for this disaster. Then I saw in the credits that none other than Akiva Goldsman was one of the three credited screenwriters. Now it all made sense. Of course the man responsible for Batman Forever and Insurgent would be in charge of this project. Clarity washed over my body and suddenly the reason for why this project had gone so horribly off the rails was clear as day, though the script is far from the only thing that simply doesn't work in any way shape or form in The 5th Wave, believe you me.

The Finest Hours Review

Chris Pine has struggled to really take off as an A-list leading man now that Star Trek has made him at least a well-known, though admittedly not quite a household name, kinda guy. I've always liked the dude, and even in otherwise crappy movies (like Horrible Bosses 2) he usually still gives it 100% percent. But there's no denying that some of his post-Star Trek efforts haven't quite taken off, with the likes of This Means Wars, Rise Of The Guardians and Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit being non-starters at the box office. On the positive side of things though, he had the best moment, far and away, of Into The Woods and his 2010 effort  Unstoppable with Denzel Washington was a rip-roaring fun thriller.

Norm Of The North Review

Once or twice a year, we are blessed with movies from small-scale animation companies who seem convinced that it's easy as pie to replicate the artistic success experienced by the likes of PIXAR. All ya need is computer graphics, lots of shouting and talking animals to churn out the next Inside Out, right? Right? Of course not, but it never seems to cross these producers minds that such an equation would be faulty. Then again, maybe there's a far darker explanation going on for why Norm Of The North exists because I honestly cannot see how any human being with a functioning brain would think this final product was fit to be released.

Kung Fu Panda 3 Review

Perhaps few franchises have managed to be as surprising in their overall quality as the Kung Fu Panda saga, with the first film being a tonal departure for DreamWorks Animation, going for a more restrained tone (no pop culture references to be found here) and carrying a screenplay far more reliant on characterization than past features from the studio like Bee Movie and Shark Tale. Thanks to its massive box office, a sequel, Kung Fu Panda 2, occurred, and it too bucked convention by being far more than cashgrab sequel. Going darker in its story (the entire premise of this follow-up hinges on panda genocide) allowed for the character of Po (Jack Black) to not just retread his arc from the first film but rather grow in new areas (namely, in overcoming his traumatic past).

Fifty Shades Of Black Review

Hey, you know what I got obsessed with this past week? Hamilton! Yeah, thanks to this handy-dandy YouTube playlist, I was able to listen to this Broadway shows soundtrack over the past few days and it is some incredible stuff. There's nary a dud tune in the bunch! What a great idea for a show, taking these well-known real life figures from history and reminding us all they were more than just aspects of our history textbooks, they were human beings. Oh, and those last two songs, The World Was Wide Enough and Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Tells Your Story? Absolutely incredible way to end the whole affair, on an emotional note that really put the events of the show into a larger perspective.

Leonardo DiCaprio Seizes The Box Office Again Amidst Snowy Weather And Raunchy Robert DeNiro Antics

A big o'l snowstorm left much of the country in a winter wonderland (meanwhile, down here in Texas, we're getting a high of sixty degrees today), closing many businesses, including movie theaters. It's hard to say how much this impacted the box office, though many holdovers like Ride Along 2 and The Revenant had sharper than expected declines that could be attributed to the inclement weather.

Ride Along 2 Review

When the first Ride Along came out, Kevin Hart had spent numerous years on the stand-up circuit, becoming a major enough presence there to warrant a leading role in a major American motion picture (he had previously had supporting roles in films like Think Like A Man, Death At A Funeral and a tiny cameo in This Is The End). The enormous box office of Ride Along ensured that this wouldn't be the last time he was the cinematic leading man, and numerous other projects like The Wedding Ringer and (ugh) Get Hard followed.

New Movie Trailers Have Arrived Featuring Zootopia, Michael Shannon As Elvis And Neil Breen

Hey.

There are six new movie trailers floating around on the interwebs.

Wanna watch em and then read my thoughts/rambling anecdotes about them?

Well! You're in luck! I'm about to do just that!