What Hath Artemis Fowl Wrought?

Why is Artemis Fowl getting released in 2020? At least there'd be some logic to its existence if it had debuted in the years between 2006 and 2010. That's when Harry Potter knock-off's like Eragon, The Seeker: The Dark is Rising and The Spiderwick Chronicles ran rampant. Artemis Fowl would have fit right in. But in 2020, even knock-off's of The Hunger Games have leveled off, Harry Potter knock-off's are practically extinct. Artemis Fowl now emerges in 2020 as a visitor from the distant past, from an era when The Black Eyed Peas topped the Billboard charts, and the Tiger Woods scandal was still fresh news. Whatever year it premiered in, though, Artemis Fowl, which is now streaming on Disney+, would still register as a totally bad movie.

Little Monsters Is Plagued By Big Storytelling Issues

For the first ten minutes or so, Little Monsters proves to be outright excruciating, the cinematic equivalent of nails on a chalkboard. This is the part of the story introducing the viewer to the protagonist of Little Monsters, an aspiring musician named Dave (Alexander England). Dave is a man-child protagonist whose foul-mouthed and selfish ways make the average Adam Sandler comedy protagonist look like a model citizen. Obviously designed to be intentionally unlikable, writer/director Abe Forsythe does too good of a job here, Dave is downright repellent. Even in the context of a dark comedy, why should I want to spend time with this guy? Who cares? One couldn't blame you for turning off the TV just a few minutes into his ribald man-child antics.

Good Actors Try To Work With An Uneven Script In The Biopic Drama Marshall

Thurgood Marshall, the first African-American Supreme Court Justice, finally got a biopic movie to headline. Instead of chronicling him being chosen for the Supreme Court, the movie Marshall concentrates on a 1940 court case that Thurgood Marshall (played by Chadwick Boseman here) served as a lawyer in. This court case involved Joseph Spell (Sterling K. Brown) being accused of raping a wealthy socialite, Elanor Strubing (Kate Hudson), a court case that seems to have the odds stacked against it, especially when Marshall, being an out of state lawyer dispatched by the NAACP, is forbidden from speaking during the trial, leaving all the in-court defense to Sam Friedman (Josh Gad).

Consider Giving Olaf's Frozen Adventure The Cold Shoulder

The reaction my audience at my screening of Coco had to the pre-movie holiday special Olaf's Frozen Adventure, a 21-ish minute long short originally intended for release solely on ABC, was intriguing to me, as quiet confusion slowly morphed into people, who were realizing this thing was going on much longer than the typical five-minute PIXAR or Disney Animation short, leaving in hordes to go to the concession stand. Those who left the auditorium didn't miss much as Olaf's Frozen Adventure is a middling creation and I say that as someone who actually enjoyed both the original Frozen and the character of Olaf The Snowman.

There's Some Fun And Clunky Storytelling To Be Found In Murder On The Orient Express

Hercule Poirot (Kenneth Branagh) just wanted a little rest and relaxation. The guy spends so much of his time using those deductive skills that have made him the world's greatest detective to solve all sorts of crimes that he's understandably just wanting some time to read his Charles Dickens books and get away from the world. But when he hops aboard his friend's classy train The Orient Express, well, it isn't long before some foul crime rears its head, those kinds of events tend to follow Poirot like a hungry dog. There's been a murder aboard this train and after some convincing, Poirot puts his vacation on hold in order to solve this crime.

Extraneous Raunch And Viagra Weakens The Charming Romance In Love & Other Drugs

Back in the late 2000's, specifically around 2009 through 2011, the American romantic comedy took a detour into the raunchy and R-rated. It's not like no film in the subgenre had gone to such terrain before, but the likes of The Ugly Truth, Friends With Benefits and No Strings Attached decided to unleash more nudity and F-bombs in the world of romantic comedies in order to entice moviegoers and keep things fresh (a friend of mine smartly pointed out how this trend was also likely a response to Judd Apatow's mid-2000's R-rated comedies like The 40-Year-Old Virgin and Knocked Up which had major romantic components to them). Ironically, the most financially lucrative romantic-comedy from this epoch was the PG-13 feature The Proposal!

The Angry Birds Movie Is A Dream Come True For Marketers And Tedious For Everyone Else

One day, we'll get a good video game movie. Hell, we've gotten multiple high-quality movies using video game iconography like Scott Pilgrim vs. The World and Wreck-It Ralph. But as for direct film adaptations of video games? We're still not there yet. The Angry Birds Movie does nothing to reverse this trend, though its flaws aren't so much related to the failings of other video game movies as they are about this movie clearly trying to imitate conventional tropes of major American computer-animated family movies without understanding how to make these storytelling staples work in a remotely successful manner.

YAHOOO! The First Trailer For The Angry Birds Movie Has Flung Onto The Web!

As weird as this may sound, I kind of get why an Angry Birds movie exists. I'm not saying it's guaranteed to be a masterpiece destined to be hailed as a cinematic masterpiece on par with the works of Jean-Luc Godard, but the franchise has already invaded the realm of animated shorts, so is a feature length film really all that implausible on a conceptual level? Plus, at least this one is aiming to be a family comedy, and not trying to be a dark gritty take on the mobile game fowl. If you're curious how an Angry Birds movie would look, well, the first trailer for it has dropped, and you can watch it below.

Adam Sandler Fights Pac-Man In Trailer For Pixels

In 2016, a number of video game movies (such as Assassin's Creed and Uncharted) will attempt to reverse the poor track record such films have had both critically and financially. Until then, this summer's Pixels will similarly try to bring some success to video game cinema, as well as Adam Sandler's troubled film career (which has seen some low points in recent years, to say the least). Catch the trailer for Pixels below.

Frozen 2 Confirms That Disney Won't Let It Go

You know what? Frozen's awesome. I know the backlash on the film (which gets really vicious, sexist and nonsensical) has overtaken it's reputation and reduced the feature to be known as "the flick with that one song" in it, but a revisit of the film last fall confirmed to me that the 2013 feature is actually extremely well made and engaging. The songs are well-written, Olaf is excellent comic relief (it's smart how his gags never derive from being loud or obnoxious, but rather from his sincere optimism) and the emotional moments of the film are excellently executed.

Wish I Was Here Review

Film is an incredible tool to convey any kind of story you can imagine. Perhaps you want to create an exhilarating story about six superheroes defending New York? Or how about a beautiful yarn about Joaquin Phoenix falling in love with a piece of artificial intelligence? Zach Braff, in his second directorial effort, acts like he's saying something truly masterful and thoughtful in every single second of Wish I Was Here. But instead of making the production feel insightful, it just makes sure every moment is laced with arrogance.