Train to Busan Is A Poignant Ride You Won't Want To End

Our current golden age of horror movies doesn't just apply to American horror features like Get Out, A Quiet Place or Hereditary, plenty of recent pieces of foreign horror cinema have also contributed to the onslaught of modern-day high-quality horror fare. Among the very best of those horror films, foreign or otherwise, is Yeon Sang-ho's Train to Busan, a 2016 zombie tale that I finally got around to watching for the first time last week. I'll be forever kicking myself for not discovering this title far sooner. It's been so long since a movie left me so constantly holding my breath in sheer dread and terror. Why did I waste time watching CHiPS when I could have been experiencing Train to Busan??

Indignation Has Some Great Acting But Feels Slight

While his Percy Jackson movie series sputtered out at just two movies, Logan Lerman has still emerged as quite the talented fellow in my eyes. He was phenomenal in The Perks Of Being A Wallflower, held his own amidst an all-star cast in Noah and now he further proves his dramatic chops in Indignation, a summer 2016 film that served as one of two 2016 film adaptations of the works of Phillip Roth, the other being the dreadful American Pastoral. Logan Lerman is indeed mighty fine in the lead role of Indignation, even if the rest of the movie around him feels a bit more slight in comparison.

A Great Cast And Thoughtful Story Make Don't Think Twice A Riot

"Dying is easy, comedy is hard". Everyone's heard that phrase before and boy howdy is it ever the truth. Comedic acting skills tend to get undervalued compared to their dramatic counterpart, perhaps a bit of give-and-take in the fact that escapism comedies tend to make a whole lot more money than the darker dramas where dramatic acting excels. Still, one can't help but feel that those who immerse themselves in the world comedy acting don't quite get the sort of respect they deserve due to the kind of work they put into their craft. Thankfully, we've got a movie like Don't Think Twice that helps put the spotlight on those comedians struggling to get their time in the limelight and some respect.

Art And Humanity Collide In Life, Animated

Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs turns 80 years old. Think about that for a second. This movie is only 20 years away from having existed for an entire century. While Snow White and her diminutive pals may be the oldest film in the Walt Disney Animation Studios library, it's far from the only movie the studio has created that's endured throughout the decades. Thes likes of Jiminy Cricket, Dumbo and Mickey Mouse have been entertaining kids and adults alike for so long now, it's impossible to imagine the current pop culture landscape would even exist without them. But how do films like these manage to keep going on from generation to generation? Maybe it's because for many, these Disney animated films aren't just movies but a way to understand the world around them.

Captain Fantastic Tires To Be An Inspirational Tale About A Neglectful Selfish Father. It Doesn't Work.

Last year's Sundance Film Festival delivered some unique motion pictures that have stuck around in my mind a year after that festival concluded. There was the comedic classic Hunt For The Wilderpeople, the zany yet thoughtful Swiss Army Man, and of course, Kenneth Lonergan's beautiful meditation on grief Manchester By The Sea. But every film festival has its duds, it's just the law of averages when you're screening a large number of movies. The Hollars was one big star-studded misfire and Captain Fantastic serves as another example of indie feature that debuted at last year's Sundance Film Festival that just doesn't work.

Dear God, What Hath The Ice Age Series Become With Its Newest Movie, Collision Course?

We've all changed since 2002 in profound ways. For instance, back in 2002, I was a kindergartner obsessed with superheroes and animated Disney movies....and now I'm a 20 year old obsessed with superheroes and animated Disney movies. And back in 2002, Ice Age was actually a really movie, one that I revisited earlier this year and was surprised to find held up exceedingly well. It's got a darker edge and a more emotional center to it that the numerous sequels seriously lack in. It's a pity that, over a period of 14 years, we've gone from that strong 2002 animated feature to....whatever the hell you wanna call its newest sequel, Ice Age: Collision Course.

Cafe Society Review

Woody Allen really stretches his boundaries as an artist with Cafe Society. Topics he's never touched in his forty-plus years as a filmmaker like the appeal of New York City and the romance between a pretty girl and a neurotic young man all show up here. Bold new storytelling terrain for the master filmmaker, wouldn't you say? All snarking aside, it's no problem for directors to have recurring traits or story elements in their work, but it does become a bit of an issue when said reoccurring aspects are executed in a paint-by-numbers fashion like they are in Cafe Society.

A Great Cast And A Promising Premise Are Wasted In The Wretched Bad Moms

Summer 2016 has been filled with many cinematic misfires but Bad Moms may be the most tragic of the bad movies to emerge from this torturous season of moviegoing. I mean, this film has a superb cast and a premise that's practically oozing with opportunities for big laughs, but instead Bad Moms has a pretty dismal script that offers no chance for its myriad of talented performers to thrive nor the opportunity for the plot to fulfill its true comedic potential. Perhaps most damning of all, it's about as funny as the worst Adam Sandler movies.

Lights Out Has Some Bright Ideas When It Comes To Its Scares And Themes

I've been afraid of the dark my whole life and I doubt I'm alone in that feeling. A darkened room is full of uncertainty, an element human beings in general don't handle very well. What could be lurking around in the dark void? Imagining what kind of horrifying creations could be existing out there in the murky abyss that we can't see has consumed the imaginations of people for generations. And, Lights Out proposes that a monster may be out there in the darkness, one that will destroy any given person provided that the lights off.

Jason Bourne Lacks Thrills Or A Purpose

I am more than aware that Matt Damon has made more money in his career than I could ever dream of. The guy's rich and even a hefty multi-million dollar paycheck likely would only be a drop in the bucket for him. That having been said, his participation in Jason Bourne feels like the ultimate "paycheck" role, since there's really nothing in the script that I could imagine garnering his interest. But tt least Mr. Damon got a hefty check out of this project that he could put to use buying up another zoo. All I got out of watching Jason Bourne was intense boredom.

For A Movie Centered On Dares, Nerve Is Shockingly By-The-Numbers

Directors Ariel Schulman and Henry Joost sure do love to contemplate the way technology informs the identity of modern day teenagers. Just as Akira Kurosawa frequently utilizes samurai in his tales or how Kathryn Bigelow examines the complex nature of modern-day warfare, Schulman and Joost seem to have a fixation on the way teens love their iPhone and internet judging by their past work like the 2010 documentary Catfish (which I haven't seen as of this writing) or the teaser trailer for their feature film Paranormal Activity 4, which centered on creepy things happening during a teenage girl's Skype call.

The Very Fabric Of One's Identity Is Pondered Within The Truman Show

Like fellow late 20th century movie star Mel Gibson, Jim Carrey is basically a no-show in the modern day world of pop culture. For a while there, Carrey was unstoppable at the box office and even at the dawn of a new millennium, he managed to crank out hits like How The Grinch Stole Christmas and Bruce Almighty that dwarfed the work of any other comedic actor on the scene financially. And then...it just stopped. I'd personally chalk that up to his public support of the anti-vaxxer movement, which made headlines in 2008 and cast a dark shadow over any future attempts (like his 2008 movie Yes Man) to mine that everyman personality that was at the center of many of his biggest 1990's hits. There was an element naivete to those characters that could be cute and charming at times, whereas his real life naivete was dangerous and ignorant.

The Purge: Election Year Is A Majorly Forgettable Piece Of Action/Horror Satire

The first Purge movie back in 2013 was a blah movie that was heavy on trite storytelling and low on genuine scares while 2014's The Purge: Anarchy, was a so-so voyage into a Purge night that expanded the narrative scope from its predecessor with some lackluster characters and one or two truly inventive sequences. I wish The Purge: Election Year managed to even hit the moderate hits of that previous entry in this series, when it is instead a major step down in form that's surprisingly low on memorable action or scares.

Everybody Wants Some!! Is A Joyride Through The 80's Steered By Richard Linklater

Richard Linklater is absolutely in the zone with Everybody Wants Some!!, his newest directorial effort that has him setting his sights on the culture of the 1980's in the same way he thoroughly examined the 1970's in his landmark motion picture Dazed & Confused. And just like that 1993 film, human beings bouncing off each other in an academic environment is the name of the game, though in Everybody Wants Some!! the environment has shifted from the high school domicile of Dazed & Confused to college, specifically the weekend before one freshman's first college classes (and by default, a new chapter of his life) begins.

Ghostbusters Review

After a summer full of so many big budget clunkers, the incredibly entertaining Ghostbusters arrives like a bucket of cool water to a man stranded in the Sahara for months on end. Seriously, where was this level of fun, sincerity and care been in the likes of Independence Day: Resurgence and X-Men: Apocalypse? Leave it to Paul Feig and co. to follow up the directors exceptional Spy from last summer with a remake that's not relentlessly beholden to what's come before. There's a vibrant sensation of the new pulsating through Ghostbusters and it's a vibe that's impossible to resist.

The Infiltrator Review

Is Bryan Cranston just choosing his roles now depending on how much deceit his characters must exude? After playing Walter White for five excellent seasons on Breaking Bad, he's played Dalton Trumbo, a man who wrote screenplays in secret, and now, in his newest motion picture The Infiltrator, Cranston plays Robert Mazur, a man who regularly does undercover work (see where the deceit comes into play in this past?) for the U.S. Government. After a mission leaves him with a particularly nasty injury, he has the chance to retire...but he can't give up the chance to partake in a new mission that could take down tons of high-profile figures in the world of drug trafficking.

The BFG Review

At this point, Steven Spielberg knows the name of the blockbuster game. Hell, he pioneered it with Jaws, which was far from the first movie to bring spectacle to the big screen, but it was the first movie to utilize release patterns and box office grosses that are all too familiar today. And while his newest The BFG isn't technically a "summer blockbuster", instead being a family movie, it's still got oodles of visual effects and a prime 4th of July summer release date, both elements that are familiar terrain for one of cinema's rightfully most celebrated auteurs. Returning to the realm of family fare for the first time since Hook (not counting his 2011 effort The Adventures Of Tintin), one might understandably query if the man's absence from this avenue of storytelling might leave him rusty, perhaps out of touch with the times.

The Legend Of Tarzan Review

At this point, I'm as tired as big-budget blockbusters this summer sucking as much as anything else in my life. Sizzling hot Texas weather always make this time of the year one that I wish could just speed right along, but with dismal movies like Warcraft, Alice Through The Looking Glass and Independence Day: Resurgence roaming around theaters, well, it's making my yearly endurance of summer all the more difficult to manage. The Legend Of Tarzan, despite the notable pedigrees of the cast (seriously, Samuel L. Jackson, Djimon Hounsou and Christoph Waltz are incredibly talented individuals) and crew it's working with, is yet another dismal motion picture that has me begging for Labor Day to get here sooner rather than later.

Lin-Manuel Miranda And Phillipa Soo To Exit Hamilton On July 9th

All good things must come to an end. The sun must set, the show must end and cast members of the Broadway sensation Hamilton must leave the program after nearly a year of constant performances. Lin-Manuel Miranda, the actor who plays the titular role of Hamilton and also created the book, music and lyrics for the show, was confirmed to be vacating the show a few days ago on July 9th, a not shocking development given his incredibly jam-packed schedule.