MOVIE REVIEW: Anomalisa

Remember that scene in 1988's "Big" where Tom Hanks doesn't "get" the product pitch the so-called expert is feeding to him? That might be you after (or while) watching the animated feature "Anomalisa" from the fertile imagination of Charlie Kaufman. You may feel like Josh Baskin where you have a child's mind trying to wrap your head around an adult idea. You might come out of the film and know a better idea on how to convey human love. Mark this writer down in the Josh Baskin column with a interrupting raised hand.

MOVIE REVIEW: The Hateful Eight

It 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.

MOVIE REVIEW: The Assassin

"The Assassin," directed by Taiwan New Wave director Hou Hsiao-Hsien, is the latest and brightest wuxia film looking to make an international splash. The film was an official Main Competition selection of the 2015 Cannes Film Festival, where it won the awards for Best Director and the Soundtrack Award. It is making the rounds of the international film festival circuit, including a recent Highlight selection bow at the 51st Chicago International Film Festival, and will represent Taiwan's entry for Best Foreign Language Film at the 88th Academy Awards this coming February.

MOVIE REVIEW: The New Girlfriend

According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, the most basic two-part definition of the word "identity" is "who someone is" and "the qualities, beliefs, etc. that make a particular person or group different from others." That notion of identity speaks to both our distinguishing physical appearance and persona on the outside as well as our internal soul, thoughts, preferences, and desires. In 2015, a captivating year where our own country has legalized same sex marriage and the introduction of Caitlyn Jenner set off shockwaves, our society is coming around to learning and understanding that not all identities fit into the usual two check-boxes of "male" and "female." We are witnessing the emerging battle for LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender) equality right before our eyes.

MOVIE REVIEW: Digging for Fire

Joe Swanberg is a leader of the "mumblecore" movement, which primarily employs naturalistic everyday settings with improvisational dialogue and a loose story structure. Such an approach has been found to be a double-edged sword of open-endedness. Either it's fresh and interesting enough to keep you guessing or it's maddeningly lost and too unstructured for not really coming to a conclusion or making a point. This film adds another miss to the list for Swanberg. This writer loves what he stands for, but hates the underwhelming results.

MOVIE REVIEW: Z for Zachariah

Playing concurrently in limited theatrical release and on Video On Demand outlets after debuting at January's Sundance Film Festival, "Z for Zachariah" is based on Robert C. O'Brien's 1974 novel of the same name. Written in the form of a diary during the paranoid peak of the 1970's, the post-apocalyptic novel reverberated with tension and clashes of survival. Even with a trio of talented actors that turn heads, you would never know such crackle existed from the resulting film that falls flat at every turn.

MOVIE REVIEW: Before We Go

"Before We Go" premiered in the special presentation undercard section of the 2014 Toronto International Film Festival and got a second public look at the 2015 Seattle International Film Festival. It landed on Video on Demand in July and finally gets a chance to shine in a limited theatrical release starting on September 4. Borrowing way too much from the "Before..." series works of Richard Linklater to be a flattering mild homage or influence, "Before We Go" is a cute, approachable, yet flawed romantic comedy. The weak chemistry can't match an innate charm to honor its simple premise.

MOVIE REVIEW: Southpaw

If you've seen one boxing movie, you've seen them all. They are their own formula, cliche, and sub-genre of sports movies. If you've seen one rags-to-riches triumph or riches-to-rags-back-to-riches redemption, you've seen them all. If you've heard one trash talking villain or one sage mentor/trainer/coach jaw on their own, you've heard them all. If you've seen one smoothly-edited training montage that leads to the big, loud and predictable ending fight, you've seen the all. "Southpaw" sadly brings nothing new to the table.

MOVIE REVIEW: Terminator Genisys

As flashy as it is with tremendous and eye-popping special effects, "Terminator: Genisys" has created an extremely convoluted mess of merged timelines and revisionist storytelling that treads all over what made the 1984 original and superior 1991 sequel so great. This is more of an attempt of retcon than of homage. Even if you find yourself entertained by the return of Arnold Schwarzenegger to his signature franchise, you may be asking, maybe even screaming in outrage, why this revision exercise was even necessary.

MOVIE REVIEW: I'll See You In My Dreams

Not too many films come along tailor-made for the senior demographic, and even fewer romances. It's a shame too because none of that talent over the age of 40 has gotten worse. If anything, they've honed their craft and waited for the right time to blossom once again. For the lost-lost, 72-year-old Blythe Danner, the new film "I'll See You in My Dreams," an audience favorite from the 2015 Sundance Film Festival, is a chance for her to emerge behind the "mom" roles from films like the "Meet the Parents" series of TV's "Will and Grace."

OVERDUE REVIEW: Woman in Gold

In a new subset of movie reviews on my main website, I am circling back to see and review reasonably recent films that I either missed during their main theatrical runs or saw later then their window of mainstream prominence. As a guy with a traveling day job and a new father of "two-under-two," I can't see everything every week and I have to choose my spots to head out to the theater. These are my educational-themed "OVERDUE REVIEWS" and the life lessons are still in full effect.

MOVIE REVIEW: While We're Young

Folks, I have to come right out and warn you that this going to more of a blog post than a movie review, but it will count for both. I just watched Noah Baumbach's new film "While We're Young" and I learned a lot about myself, but not all in a good way. Through the title of this website, I say that "every movie has a lesson." That's my hook and that's the lens I see movies with and I stand by it. Seeing this film tonight was the kind of challenging and humbling experience I need as an amateur movie critic from time to time.

EVERY MOVIE HAS A LESSON

by Don Shanahan

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