The Focus Features: 10-Movie Spotlight Collection is a good selection of dramas, some better than others and one that is a personal favorite of mine (Lost in Translation). That being said, this is only worth picking up if you don’t own any of the 10 films, though the cost per movie is reasonable.
The story in of itself isn’t always strong, but easily made up with some great performances from Felicity Jones and Armie Hammer, though if you want to know more about Ginsberg, the documentary RBG is the better way to go.
Cars 3 is a fine conclusion to what I have found to be a lackluster series for Disney/Pixar that really shouldn’t have been a series to begin with. But as it is, and outside of the ridiculous and contrived finale, I did find this mostly entertaining.
Free Fire on the surface should’ve been a fun movie and admittedly it was for the first 40-minutes or so, but the remaining 45-minutes seemed to meander with a plot that doesn’t go anywhere and a twist that wasn’t all that great. Still, this isn’t a “bad” movie per se and probably worthy of a rental.
Nocturnal Animals might not have engaged me on an emotional level, the writing and storytelling from Tom Ford are still fantastic and the performances from Jake Gyllenhaal, Amy Adams and Michael Shannon were amazing and, at least in Shannon’s case, award-worthy.
Far from perfect, Man from U.N.C.L.E still has some entertainment value thanks more for the cast including Henry Cavill and Armie Hammer combined with the direction by Guy Ritchie unleashing the cool factor in droves with the 1960s style, rather than with the story.
The Lone Ranger might’ve been a good movie but on a much smaller and simpler scale but instead the filmmakers attempted to recreate some of the conditions which made the Pirates of the Caribbean movies monumental successes down to Johnny Depp playing yet another make-up wearing quirky character. The action scenes aren’t that fun and get a bit tedious.
If you’re looking for a breezy family film, elements that are often missing from modern movies littered with sexual content and questionable material, you can do worse than Mirror Mirror. The movie has fine performances from Julia Roberts, Lily Collins and Armie Hammer, the visual effects are pretty good and the story itself, while obvious and predictable, is at least interesting enough to keep your attention until the end.
J. Edgar is one of those films that you can see the passion be it from the costume design, production design and the cast. It’s unfortunate that the screenplay never quite gives the viewer a reason to care either way. Worst still, the movie plods along at a slow and arduous pace and although I appreciate the non-linear storytelling (it worked for Scorsese in The Aviator after all), it doesn’t do any justice for the character in the long run.