The buzzing North Carolina public within the film Logan Lucky dub the central robbery a “hillbilly heist” and an “Ocean’s 7-11” perpetrated by “redneck robbers” and “Hee Haw heroes.” With diegetic puns like those being thrown around, how could you not be entertained by Steven Soderbergh’s first feature film in four years? It’s almost an invitation to pile on. How does “clodhopper caper” sound? What about “Podunk pilfering” or “backwoods buffoonery?” I’ll settle for “hayseed hijinks.”
Read MoreFor this writer and website, the films of Joel and Ethan Coen are pegged as acquired tastes. Slot the brothers and their work right next to Quentin Tarantino in that regard. Their creative brilliance and their reverent place in the upper echelon of superb storytellers are indisputable, proven by their six Oscar wins. Sometimes, in the measure of taste, their choices and results are a maddening or confounding mess. When the Coen brothers are on their game, they are white hot. "Hail, Caesar!" won't go down as one of their best, but there is no denying its draw as a thoroughly entertaining hoot.
Read MoreIt is time to go on record and add another label to the colorful list to describe filmmaker Quentin Tarantino: "acquired taste." Even with his recent success, the auteur's excessive and aestheticized indulgences are catching up to him. Each subsequent film of his may be getting more popular, but they are not getting better and "The Hateful Eight" hammers that point home. Swelled to either a 167-minute straight cut or a 187-minute opus complete with overture and intermission, Tarantino's newest film doesn't know when to quit. It just goes and dies, literally and figuratively.
Read More"Jupiter Ascending" is an utter mess of missed opportunity and misguided world-building. Just as with a majority of science fiction movies, the visual panache is present in astounding detail. That, once again, is the easy part. Unfortunately, none of it (and I mean none of it), is created with purpose or direction that becomes compelling and stirring to you as the audience. None of its creative ingredients work to earn your investment, acceptance, attention, or even your basic comprehension.
Read MoreWith the 87th Academy Award nominations being announced tomorrow morning, I'm cutting it close with my predictions of who and what names will hear their named called. I've been following the full awards season over on my Awards Tracker page, where I've been following the trends and reading the tea leaves. Using that data and a batch of hunches, here are my savvy predictions for tomorrow's nominations in the eleven major categories.
Read More"Foxcatcher" was a passion project for Bennett Miller that he immersed himself into for over two years since 2012. He spent the better part of 2013 and 2014 solely editing this very meticulous film. What results, in my opinion, is a flawed sculpture where the artist spent so much time whittling over the immensity of the project and its details that he lost sight what the piece represented. Without a doubt, the effort and the talent is there in front of and behind the camera, but, somewhere, this film drowned itself out and lost the core of what really mattered.
Read MoreDisclaimer: I pulled this trick out a few years ago in comparing “The Expendables” with “The Expendables 2” where, because of the incredibly repetitive scenarios between the original and the sequel, I literally wrote on top of the first review for the review of the second movie. After seeing “22 Jump Street,” a movie that intentionally aims to copy its first effort, I knew this was a good chance to have a little editor’s fun again. Follow the strike-throughs below for edits and the bold writing for new language inserts. Other than that, the review for the first film might as well be the review for the second film. It’s that similar.
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