The actual Brawl in Cell Block 99 may only take up a few minutes of the two-hour film, yet I found it engrossing with a compelling plot and a main character played by Vince Vaughn you actually care about.
The Apartment is a great drama-romance-comedy classic excelling with the performances by Jack Lemmon (at his absolute best IMO) and Shirley MacClaine, set against the sharp script and direction from Billy Wilder.
Pulp is a fun 1970s mystery-comedy that works mainly for Michael Caine and Mickey Rooney, with help by the beautiful Nadia Cassini. Don’t know how high this ranks on Caine’s resume but I did chuckle at some of the dry humor.
The Adventurers isn’t great but still a fun enough crime-heist movie mainly working thanks to its stars, Andy Lau and Jean Reno, playing a great foil for Lau and his crew. The action is decent but nothing you really haven’t already seen before.
American Made is not a top shelf Tom Cruise drama-comedy and I don’t think he does the real Barry Seal injustice enough but despite that, it is entertaining and engaging despite its flaws and worth a rental.
Hell Night is a fun little 1980s flick that felt more like a throwback to 1930s/1940s Universal monster movies and it always helps having Linda Blair in the lead.
Blood Money might not be a terrible movie… on paper, but when you have characters you actively despised, and one you hoped the villain would actually kill, you have a problem. But if you take it as a good bad flick, then it might be worth a rental.
Manhunt: Unabomber is the latest real-life dramatization that has taken the country by storm and it’s a well cast and finely acted one at that with both Sam Worthington and Paul Bettany, along with veteran Chris Noth, turning in good performances.
Kingsman: The Golden Circle is a bit of a step down from the first film but thanks to the cast – primarily Colin Firth, Mark Strong and Julianne Moore – it does make for an entertaining enough sequel.
There must be something about Kathy Bates starring in a Stephen King film adaptation and in Dolores Claiborne, she deserved the Oscar with a wonderfully subdued performance alongside a respectable cast.
Dunkirk might not be Christopher Nolan’s strongest film, and given the subject it really should have been, and although it didn’t connect to me on an emotional level, both in terms of characters or suspense-thriller aspects, it is still a technically well made film worth watching.
Auntie Mame is a fun enough comedy-drama excelling thanks to the eccentric performance from Rosalind Russell and while I didn’t fully fall in love with the film, and it is a tad lengthy, I did find it mostly entertaining.
Leatherface is yet another, at best, disappointing entry into the vaunted Texas Chain Saw franchise, one where probably for the first two and, for me, the remake, were any good, the others not so much and I’d include this one but more for how forgettable it was than outright bad.
mother! might’ve had some things going for it and there’s no doubt Aronofsky doesn’t fit into a box like other directors, but this allegorical movie was a complete misfire, particularly in the second half.
Although Game of Thrones: The Complete Seventh Season isn’t the strongest of this series, it’s still another solid year with great performances and some well written storylines with more maneuvers by our characters as each position themselves for power.