There's Just Enough Gusto Goofiness In Mom And Dad To Make It Reasonably Diverting

Mom And Dad is kind of like an episode of The Twilight Zone. A really demented disgusting episode of The Twilight Zone, but an episode of The Twilight Zone nonetheless. One can practically hear Rod Sterling provide the introduction to said episode as he lays out how something has gone awry in the world and is leading parents to kill their own children ("They say it takes a village to raise a child, but today, these parents will learn it takes only one person to end a child."). Of course such an unhinged vision would emerge from writer/director Brian Taylor, the man who helped bring to life the two well-liked Crank movies and who also helped bring to life the widely-despised Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance.

Proud Mary Wastes Taraji P. Henson On Listless Action Fare Disturbingly Light On Action

Centering a whole movie on Taraji P. Henson as an assassin should be one of those guaranteed recipes for success like letting Taika Waititi make a wacky science-fiction comedy about the long-term effects of colonialism or letting Katherine Hepburn act in any movie ever. Tragically, Proud Mary totally squanders the idea of Taraji P. Henson as an action hero by refusing to give either Henson or the audience anything fun to do. The fact that the plot finds bizarrely little time for shoot-out's and other staples of action movie cinema is a key example of how Proud Mary fails to live up to it's potential, though it's far from the only way this motion picture manages to come up short, not by a long shot.

A Zany Premise Goes To Waste In The Aimless Feature The Polka King

The Polka King is one of many movies that comes off as being heavily confused about what it wants to be. Basing itself off a true story that sounds too ludicrous to actually be true, it never seems 110% certain how it wants to handle telling this tale. Is it a ludicrous farce with a heavy emphasis on comedy? Is it a complex examination of the man who called himself The Polka King? Is it a full-on sympathy piece of that same man? What is The Polka King trying to do? I saw the whole movie several days ago and I still don't know, the whole project just feels so confused about what it's trying to do that it ends up doing not much of anything.

A Futile And Stupid Gesture Is Tragically Messy And Middling

The prospect of David Wain, the man behind Wet Hot American Summer, doing a movie chronicling the rise of National Lampoon and how that impacted one of its creators, Doug Kenney, is one that sounds oh so promising in theory, especially since one would think Wain affinity for stylized humor would mean that it'd be impossible for such a film to feel like a typical Hollywood biopic. Unfortunately, that very same film, entitled A Futile And Stupid Gesture, does indeed end up suffering from feeling too routine, a word one usually doesn't think of when discussing David Wain's work, but here we are.

Though Plagued By The Same Problems of It's Predecessors, Maze Runner: The Death Cure Ends It's Series On A Decent Note

Divergent couldn't do it. The Mortal Instruments, The Fifth Wave and Beautiful Creatures, none of them got past one installment. But The Maze Runner did it, it managed to be one of the few movie adaptations of a young-adult book series adapted in the wake of the success of The Hunger Games to actually not just get a sequel but also adapt all the books it was supposed to adapt. Only Harry Potter, Hunger Games and Twilight have managed to do that, so take a bow Maze Runner, you earned it. Plus, unlike Hunger Games, this series ended on it's best entry yet, even if this newest adventure, The Death Cure, is still plagued by the problems that haunted its predecessors.

Den of Thieves Is The High School Musical Of Heist Movies

In the eleven years since 300 made Gerard Butler a superstar complete with an iconic catchphrase ("THIS! IS! SPARTA!"), I've never found him to be a particularly memorable actor. I don't mean this as a slight against Butler as a person (he seems friendly enough in interviews, never heard of any scandals associated with him), but as an actor, he always comes off as generic and wooden. Sans his surprisingly effective voicework in the How To Train Your Dragons movies, there's no trace of personality or energy to be found in his turns in movies like Olympus Has Fallen, Geostorm or Gods of Egypt. With all that in mind, imagine my shock upon watching Den of Thieves and thoroughly enjoying his manic turn as a bad cop who seems to have always just come back from snorting immense amounts of cocaine.

Liam Neeson's Newest Thriller Is Best When It's Restrained

Michael MacCauley (Liam Neeson), the lead character of the thriller The Commuter, is a man of routine. Each day, he gets up to the tune of his alarm clock blaring a local radio station and then he's off to get himself ready for the day ahead. Some chit-chat with his son (who's headed off to college in the Fall) and his wife, Karne (Elizabeth McGovern) before he goes off to the train ride he takes to work. He does his eight-ish hours at work then it's back on the train to take him home. Day in, day out, this is his routine and it's one that's realized in a well-edited opening montage demonstrating both how long Michael has been going through this daily regimen and that Michael has a good relationship with both his wife and son.

12 Strong Goes to The Front Lines of Forgettable Cinema

It's January, so the massive box office success of both Lone Survivor and American Sniper dictates it's time for another action war movie based on a real-life incident that occurred to U.S. armed forces (or mercenaries in the case of 13 Hours) in the Iraq War. 2018's entry in this subgenre is 12 Strong (the trailers add the sentence The Declassified True Story of the Horse Soldiers to the title), which is all about a group of U.S. soldiers called Task Force Dagger that's led by Captain Mitch Nelson (Chris Hemsworth). Nelson, whose only led the team in training situations, has recently taken a desk job that'll allow him to spend more time with his wife and young kid but those plans take a turn once the World Trade Center attacks occur.

Douglas Laman's 90th Academy Awards Nominees Predictions (PART TWO)

We did Part One back on Saturday, now it's time for the second part of my predictions for who gets nominated for what at this year's Academy Awards ceremony!

Douglas Laman's 90th Academy Awards Nominees Predictions (PART ONE)

The nominees for the 90th Academy Awards will be announced on Tuesday. Everyone from Variety to The Hollywood Reporter to award-centric websites like Gold Derby have been doing their final round of Oscar nominee predictions, so what the hey, I'll embrace conformity and also join in on predicting who gets nominated for what at this year's Oscars. Just a heads up before we go forward, these Oscar nominee predictions are not based on my own personal desires for what should be nominated, but rather based on numerous other factors like who's getting the most buzz in the industry, who has been nominated at crucial recent award shows like the Producer's Guild of America Awards and so on.

Prepare For Oodles of Laughs And Kindness, Paddington 2 Is Here!

This perception (which is, as so many pieces of entertainment from decades past can attest, is far from new) that films or tv shows aimed at children must be as loud, grating and hip as possible to attract their attention is a thoroughly insulting concept, especially in regards to children themselves. Yes, there are programs that fit such a bill that kids like but it's not the only way to create pieces of pop culture that youngsters enjoy. The first Paddington movie, about a small bear from Peru who goes to London to live with a human family, from three years ago threw off the shackles of default family entertainment and embraced with, charm and an infectious sense of sweetness instead. The result was something shockingly enjoyable that succeeded as much as a comedy as it did as a family movie.