Movie Review The Big Sick

The Big Sick (2017) 

Directed by Michael Showalter 

Written by Emily V. Gordon, Kumail Nanjiani 

Starring Kumail Nanjiani, Zoe Kazan, Ray Romano, Holly Hunter

Release Date June 23rd, 2017 

The Big Sick broke my heart into a million little pieces and slowly pieced it back together throughout its gentle, sweet and very, very funny 120 minutes. Featuring an unconventional but brilliant lead performer, a radiant love interest and two of the best possible supporting players anyone could ask for, The Big Sick is, thus far, the best movie of 2017.

Kumail Nanjiani stars in the mostly true story of his love story with real life wife Emily Gordon, who also co-wrote the screenplay for the film with Kumail. The unconventional love story finds Kumail struggling to balance the demands of his traditional Pakistani born family with his desire to live outside the strictures of religion and in a more conventional style of American, big city life.

Still discovering who he is and what he believes in, Kumail stumbles into a romance with Emily, played by Zoe Kazan, equally thoughtful and searching young person. While each playfully and sarcastically discusses their unwillingness to become attached to the other the attraction becomes something neither can deny as they discover in each other pieces of themselves that they didn’t know existed.

Click here for my review of The Big Sick at Geeks.Media 



Movie Review Blind

Blind (2017) 

Directed by Michael Mailer 

Written by John Buffalo Mailer 

Starring Demi Moore, Alec Baldwin

Release Date July 14th, 2017 

In nearly 20 years as a film critic, I have seen more than my share of terrible movies. I have seen The Room without the Rifftrax commentary track. I sat all the way through The Happening with my mind reeling at the incompetence of M. Night shyamalan’s most incomprehensible work. And I have seen all the Transformers movies which should qualify me for some sort of movie critic combat pay. But in nearly 20 years I can genuinely say I have never seen anything quite like Blind.

Blind is a film of such remarkable, incomprehensible awfulness that it can comfortably stand alongside the oeuvre of Tommy Wiseau and not feel out of place. Directed by longtime producer and first-time director Michael Mailer, Blind takes very talented, formerly big name stars, Alec Baldwin and Demi Moore, and renders them as amateurs via a script, editing, and direction that could only kindly be described as amateurish at best, and blatantly, intentionally incompetent at worst.




Movie Review The House

The House (2017) 

Directed by Andrew Jay Cohen

Written by Brendan O'Brien 

Starring Will Ferrell, Amy Poehler, Jason Mantzoukas, Jeremy Renner, Nick Kroll 

Release Date June 30th, 2017

Oh, how I hate The House! This one note joke of a comedy about morons trying to send their daughter to an upscale college is an embarrassing and sad mess. Will Ferrell and Amy Poehler star in The House as a married couple about to empty their nest when they send their daughter off to Bucknell University. However, when they lose out on their daughter’s scholarship due to a scheme by a corrupt city council member (Nick Kroll) they are forced into criminal behavior to make their daughter’s college dream come true.

Ferrell and Poehler play Scott and Kate, a married couple with the believability and romantic chemistry of a brother and sister. With no options to send their daughter to college they decide to take up their friend Frank’s advice and join him in running an illegal casino out of his mini suburban mansion. Playing off the cliché that the house always wins they set out to steal the money of their neighborhood friends who are so eager to break the monotony of suburbia that they don’t mind losing loads of money to do it.

Read my full length review at Geeks.Media 



Movie Review The Lost World Jurassic Park

The Lost World Jurassic Park (1997) 

Directed by Steven Spielberg 

Written by David Koepp 

Starring Jeff Goldblum, Julianne Moore, Vince Vaughn, Pete Postlethwaite 

Release Date May 23rd, 1997 

Published June 12th, 2023 

The Lost World Jurassic Park fails to recapture the magic and wonder of the original. Why? That kind of lightning in a bottle is simply hard to catch a second time. With no Sam Neil, no Laura Dern, and only Jeff Goldblum returning, The Lost World Jurassic Park felt mercenary and obligatory. Someone at the studio backed several brinks trucks worth of cash at Steven Spielberg's door, promised him he could make any movie he wanted, but only if he delivered another dino-blockbuster. Unlike the wide-eyed wonder of Jurassic Park, The Lost World Jurassic Park plays like a market tested blockbuster more interested in reaching four audience quadrants than satisfyingly entertaining the people who made up those quadrants. 

That said, this is Steven Spielberg so the movie isn't as bad as it could be. Spielberg is far too good of a director to make a genuinely bad film. Rather, this is the rare soulless Spielberg effort. It's a Spielberg movie where you can sense his heart isn't completely in it. There is a great visual gag in Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back where the titular heroes visit the set of a Scream sequel. There, we find director Wes Craven not paying attention to directing and instead counting his money and telling his actress, Shannen Doherty, to do whatever she wants. That's how I picture Spielberg except, instead of counting his money, he's paying for a different and far better movie to start production while he occasionally tells his actors to run. 

The Lost World Jurassic Park begins by telling us that billionaire John Hammond (Richard Attenborough) has learned nothing from his Jurassic Park experience. He has another island full of dinosaurs and sees them as his ticket to get his dream of Jurassic Park back on track. Hammond calls upon Dr. Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum) to help him by going to this island and certifying that the dinosaurs are safe and accounted for on this new island. Dr. Malcolm refuses the lucrative offer until Hammond tells him that Malcolm's girlfriend, Dr. Sarah Harding (Julianne Moore), is already on the island. 

Malcolm takes the offer from Hammond but not to co-sign a new park. Malcolm is going to this new island on a rescue mission. Along for the ride are a guide, Eddie Carr (Richard Schiff) and a hotshot photographer, and greenpeace activist, Nick Van Owen (Vince Vaughn). Once on the island, they must try to find Sarah while also trying not to become dinner for the burgeoning new wildlife. Soon after this however, they will find themselves having to compete to save the dinosaurs from Hammond's idiot nephew, Peter Ludlow (Arliss Howard), and a big game hunter played by Pete Postelthwaite. 

The trailer back in 1997 carried a very big spoiler: The dinosaurs, at least one of them, the fearsome T-Rex, is coming to America. Commercials and trailers touted a dinosaur raging through city streets. This revealed further just how mercenary the whole effort was. The T-Rex doesn't arrive in America until the 3rd act and revealing that this dangerous dinosaur was going to rage through the streets of San Diego rather harms any chance of building tension and suspense as to where the movie was going to go. It's a great visual but spoiling it in the trailer made it very clear that The Lost World Jurassic Park was more of a marketing campaign than a movie. 

Read my full length review at Geeks.Media 



Classic Movie Review Adventures in Babysitting

Adventures in Babysitting (1987) 

Directed by Chris Columbus 

Written by David Simkins

Starring Elisabeth Shue, Keith Coogan, Anthony Rapp, Maia Brewton 

Release Date July 3rd 1987

This weekend a minor 80’s gem turns 30 years old with little fanfare but plenty of positive memories, especially for young girls. Adventures in Babysitting is a lovely little 80’s nostalgia piece that, though some of its unintended politics haven’t aged well, the film’s silly little heart was always in the right place and that’s more than can be said about most 80’s teen comedies.

Adventures in Babysitting casts the winning and refreshing young Elizabeth Shue who gets roped into babysitting for The Anderson family after her no-goodnik boyfriend (Bradley Whitford) breaks off their date to a fancy restaurant. Having nothing better to do, Chris accepts the babysitting money to sit with Sara (Maia Brewton) and Brad (Keith Coogan), a boy two years younger than Chris and nursing a years long infatuation with her.

Read my full length review at Geeks.Media 



Movie Review Despicable Me 3

Despicable Me 3 (2017)

Directed by Pierre Coffin, Kyle Balda

Written by Cinco Paul, Ken Daurio 

Starring Steve Carell, Kristen Wiig, Trey Parker, Miranda Cosgrove, Jenny Slate, Julie Andrews 

Release Date June 30th, 2017 

Despicable Me 3 is so wildly mediocre, so achingly adequate, and so puzzlingly prosaic, I can barely bring myself to write about it. In all honesty, I have spent more research time for this review googling synonyms for mediocre than I have considering anything related to the production of Despicable Me 3. The latest bit of barely above average animation from the company Illumination is so very much just OK that just trying to find the energy to type words about it is taxing.

Despicable Me 3 picks up the story of former super-villain Gru (Steve Carell) as he continues his career as a newly formed hero. Alongside his now wife Lucy (Kristen Wiig), Gru is hot on the trail of the newest super-villain, a stuck in the 80’s former child star named Balthazar Bratt (Trey Parker), who uses gum and rubix cubes as super-weapons. It’s a clever idea for about 5 or 6 minutes and then it becomes tiresome and then forgettable.

Ah but don’t worry, Despicable Me 3 has a second uninspired plot. In this one we find that Gru has a twin brother named Dru. The joke of Dru is that he’s in good shape, has hair, and is bad at crime. That’s it, that’s the joke. On top of that, we’re supposed to find it hilarious when Gru’s mother cruelly hides his brother from him before telling him that he was her second pick. Hilarious familial cruelty you guys! Oh, and Gru’s mom is an old perv with two male swim coaches she leers at creepily, you know, to entertain the kids. (Yes, I remember that joke has been in the other films; it was creepy and unfunny then as well.

Read my full length review at Geeks.Media 



Movie Review Okja

Okja (2017) 

Directed by Bong Joon Ho

Written by Bong Joon Ho 

Starring Tilda Swinton, Jake Gyllenhaal, Ahn Seo Hun, Paul Dano 

Release Date June 28th, 2017

Okja is a movie that defies simple description. On the surface, the film resembles a kiddie flick with a friendly monster and a little girl on an adventure to overcome a group of simple-minded adults trying to split them apart or exploit them. The surface of Okja does not do the film justice. Okja is truly one of the most daring and original films of 2017 from one of the master directors of our time, the brilliant Bong Joon-ho.

Find my full length review at Geeks.Media 



Movie Review Megalopolis

 Megalopolis  Directed by Francis Ford Coppola  Written by Francis Ford Coppola  Starring Adam Driver, Nathalie Emmanuel, Giancarlo Esposito...