Climax's Barrage of Chaos Eventually Becomes Pretty Tiresome

Gaspar Noe is a French filmmaker known for pushing the boundaries in his filmmaking and pushing the buttons of people who watch his films. It was amusing to see other people more versed in his filmography than me refer to Climax as easily his most accessible film considering just what a demented concoction Climax is. It was amusing to think of how this played at my local Cinemark for about a week, a movie theater whose crowd tends to prefer Pure Flix movies over A24 movies. I'd imagine there were walk-outs a-plenty, heck, Climax is so disturbing that employees at the theater likely had a bet to see if anyone would stick around for an entire screening!

Hotel Artemis Is An Unusual But Delightful Getaway Spot

I've stayed in a number of oddball hotels in my life, including one located somewhere in Texas that totally felt like the sort of location that characters go to get either arrested, shot or both in a Coen Brothers movie, but I've never stayed at a hotel like the Hotel Artemis, a hospital/hotel exclusively for criminals located in Los Angeles in the near future. It's a place run by The Nurse (Jodie Foster) and her dutiful assistant Everest (Dave Bautista), who take care of any criminals who need some under-the-radar fixing up so long as said criminals have an official membership. The newest people to check into this hotel are bank robbers Sherman (Sterling K. Brown) and his intensely damaged brother Honolulu (Brian Tyree Henry).

The Exciting Potential In A New Interpretation of Fahrenheit 451 Is Never Fully Realized

Ray Bradbury's 1953 novel Fahrenheit 451 has received a pop culture resurgence in recent years thanks to its relevance to modern-day political issue, making it an inevitability that someone would try and take another swing at giving the novel a feature film adaptation (Francois Truffaut was the last person to tackle this material in a 1966 motion picture). Taking on this material now is Ramin Bahrani, director of one of 2015's most underappreciated titles 99 Homes, who writes and directs the film which stars Michael B. Jordan and Michael Shannon. Now that's a dynamite assemblage of creative artists! What a shame, then, that this new take on Fahrenheit 451 is more middling than captivating.

Atomic Blonde Is Frequently Entertaining But It Gets Too Bogged Down In Its Own Plot

In order to make the new action/thriller Atomic Blonde as awesome as potentially possible, it looks like the producers of this project swung for the fences and got two of the most influential figures of the mid-2010's American cinema action scene. David Leitch, one of the two directors of John Wick and one of the fight choreographers for the Captain America sequels (Chad Stahleski joined him on both of those duties), whose helped create a fresh modern-day style of cogently filmed and intense hand-to-hand combat, is helming this motion picture while his leading actor of the piece is Charlize Theron, star of one of the most iconic films of this decade in any genre, Mad Max: Fury Road. Alas, them working together doesn't result in a movie anywhere near as good as their best movies, though that doesn't mean Atomic Blonde doesn't have its own action-packed pleasures.

Where To Even Begin With The Cinematic Cataclysm That Is The Mummy?

The Mummy is so much fun, I really was shocked by how well-made it was. Sure, it gets more than a little obsessed with generic CGI mayhem, but The Mummy is a ton of fun, with strong lead performances that make casual conversations between the characters super entertaining, I'd totally recommend giving the 1999 version of The Mummy a watch! The 2017 take on The Mummy on the other hand....there's no easy way to put it, so lemme rip this band-aid right off and just say it: The Mummy is a full on disaster, a film that can't be counted on to deliver solid scares, originality or competent action. If you told this movie to go make two pieces of toast, I'm sure it would end up burning down the entire house in the process, that's how massively incompetent it is.

Set Phasers To Awesomeness For Star Trek Beyond

Each of the Star Trek movies that have emerged since 2009 seem to have taken direct inspiration from different noteworthy motion picture. That first feature in this rebooted franchise was very much inspired by the success of then recent reboots like Batman Begins and Casino Royale while Star Trek Into Darkness was an obvious attempt to mimic how most second films in major blockbuster franchises (think The Empire Strikes Back) are the "darker" story. Now Star Trek Beyond arrives very much as a post-Guardians Of The Galaxy Star Trek adventure. Colorful looking aliens have a greater presence than they did in the last two Star Trek movies, tunes from the 80's surface at critical moments, there's a greater emphasis on the dynamic of the main group of characters and new character Jayllah (Sofia Boutella) and her trait of not quite understanding certain aspects of the English language bear a notable similarity to Drax The Destroyer.