Brittany Runs a Marathon Stumbles Visually But Soars Thematically

One of the most interesting parts about Brittany Runs a Marathon is how differently it approaches the topic of changing one's life and habits compared to typical American cinema. The default for depicting personal growth in mainstream filmmaking is typically to use a montage to flash through a character getting their stuff together and changing their life for the better. Now, I love a good montage, but that shouldn't be the only way we depict people tackling the daunting prospect of improving their lives. Brittany Runs a Marathon goes for a different, more realistic approach that emphasizes little steps taken each day add up to change over time, one of a number thoughtful unique traits that can be found in this comedy/drama.

Rough Night Has Major Story Problems But Don't Worry, It's Got A Good Number Of Laughs To Its Name

Someone pointed out to me the other day how the new comedy Rough Night marks Scarlett Johansson's first foray into straight-up full-on comedies and to my surprise, it kind of actually is. Granted, she's gone into romantic comedies multiple times in her career as well as a Woody Allen dramedy (I'm shocked I didn't know a Hugh Jackman/Scarlett Johansson comedy from Woody Allen movie even existed prior to a couple months ago) and providing voicework for The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie and Sing but in terms of headlining a top-to-bottom live-action comedy, this new Lucia Aniello feature does mark new terrain for the celebrated actor.

Fist Fight Is About As Painful As A Punch In The Face

Charlie Day is funny. Ice Cube is funny. Jillian Bell is funny. Tracy Morgan is funny. Kumail Najiani is funny. Dean Norris was awesome on Breaking Bad. Christina Hendricks is....I actually haven't watched Mad Men, so my only prior exposure to her has been in two Nicolas Winding Refn movies and her brief cameo in Zoolander 2, so I'm unclear on her talent levels right now but I've heard phenomenal things about her role on Mad Men. Anywho, put all these people in a movie together and you're bound to get something remotely resembling a fun comedy, right? Not quite, what we end up with instead is kind of sort of the exact opposite of that.

Office Christmas Party Is A Big Waste In Every Respect

Simply by the virtue of having so many strong comedic actors in one place at one time, you'd think Office Christmas Party would have to at least be mildly amusing right? You've got some strong Saturday Night Live cast members (Kate McKinnon and the underrated Vanessa Bayer), up-and-coming actors (Jamie Chung, Sam Richardson and Karan Soni) and some established veterans of the comedy world (Jason Bateman and T.J. Miller) all trying to pull off a raunchy Yuletide-themed party. Shouldn't that be enough to generate an at least agreeable comedy?

Goosebumps Review

Debuting in 1992, the 62 Goosebumps books written by R.L. Stine over a five year span were some of the most influential of all literature in that era, delivering thrills for younger readers to enormous sales numbers. After the original series concluded with Monster Blood IV (which seems to be a hard book to come by given the $25 price tag a used copy of the novel goes for on Amazon), the series endured into the 21st century with Goosebumps 2000 and Goosebumps HorrorLand keeping Stine and his scary creations alive and well in the pop culture consensus.