Clean Slate is a nice comedic vehicle for Dana Carvey playing to his strengths and although the plot doesn’t exactly stretch well for the duration of the running time, and not all of the jokes quite work, it’s still well worth checking out.
The Manchurian Candidate is a movie for its time, fear of communism and an idea that I’m sure some find merit today, a politician being controlled by a foreign government or, as is the case with the 2004 remake, corporation. The film also excels in the acting department with top notch performances by Sinatra, Harvey and Lansbury.
Bandits probably could’ve been better with a tighter script but the performances from the core cast, Bruce Willis, Billy Bob Thornton and Cate Blanchett, are all fantastic that it makes the film as a whole fairly entertaining.
Exodus is a lengthy (3.5 hours) and although it’s hard to watch in one sitting, it does feature some strong performances by Paul Newman and Eva Marie Saint to go along with an interesting story in conjunction with the adaptation by Dalton Trumbo and Otto Preminger’s masterful direction.
Rage of Honor is a blissfully cheesy 1980s action/martial arts flick that might not feature great performances but the fight scenes aren’t terribly choreographed and it has enough of the fun factor to make it so entertaining.
I will give Mill Creek some credit for churning out these catalogue titles, especially ones, such as Double Team, Sony wouldn’t even think of releasing on Blu-ray, and with a bargain basement price of $15, and cheaper buying on Amazon, it’s not a bad deal at $2-3/movie.
LEGO DC Comics Super Heroes: Justice League: Cosmic Clash isn’t as good as its predecessors, and obviously a far cry from the LEGO feature films, but it’s a fun movie especially for younger viewers and at only 78-minutes (w/ credits), it at least flies by.
Species was a fun guilty pleasure. No, it wasn’t great but at least it gave us a quasi-star in Natasha Henstridge and some quality effects work. The sequel was dumb but had some minor entertainment value but as Hollywood tends to do, they milk a franchise for its worth. The third and fourth movies were, frankly, crap.
The first movie was a fun guilty pleasure. Species II is just plain guilty of being a bad film all around. The writing is poor and the acting was at best phoned-in, though Natasha Henstridge at least seemed to give it her all and she might be the only reason it’s even watchable.
The Peanuts Movie isn’t great but more than satisfactory and will certainly please its core fans as it shows some of the classic scenes from the strip and various TV specials. All around it’s just a smile-enducing flick that kids will love and parents and passively enjoy, even those (like myself) who aren’t fans of the comic.
Sisters had plenty of potential given the cast, writer and director all with impressive resumes. Tina Fey and Amy Poehler, who don’t have a whole lot to work with and seemed to rely on improvising than anything from the script, do at least share nice comedic chemistry; outside of those two, though, there weren’t a whole lot of genuinely funny scenes.
My Science Project is somewhat of a gem, forgotten one at that, of the 1980s overshadowed by Back to the Future, Real Genius and Weird Science, the last two interestingly coming out the same year as MSP… Although it’s not as tightly written both in terms of plot and characters, it’s still a fun little flick.
The Big Short was easily my favorite movie of 2015. The strong cast helped but the writing by Adam McKay and Charles Randolph was sharp and in conjunction with Christian Bale and Ryan Gosling’s performances made for one fun yet thoughtful flick that worked so well from beginning to its bitter end.
La bambola di satana might be a guilty pleasure of mine. The film isn’t very well made with one-dimensional characters, so-so performances (at best) and the plot is a bit silly culminating with a Scooby-Doo like ending; and this is not forgetting some piss-poor editing. That said, it did keep me entertained and under better talent, might’ve made for good mystery-thriller.
Weaponized is the latest gem from filmmaker Timothy Woodward Jr. who seems to churn out 2-3 movies a year with the usual suspects, with return appearances of Tom Sizemore, Johnny Messner, Danny Trejo and Michael Paré. I guess technically it’s “better” than his previous movies but that really isn’t saying a whole lot.