Spenser Confidential (2020) - Movie Review

Marking the fifth collab between director Peter Berg and actor Mark Wahlberg, there’s something… different about their chemistry this time around. It’s yet another bit of Boston brawn, once again giving Wahlberg the kind of bedrock he needs to give a decent performance, but it’s also a lot looser than their previous work. I’ve seen this billed as an action-comedy, but I personally wouldn’t go that far. Apparently, Berg encouraged more improvisation on-set and playing around with the tone, which admittedly helps separate this from his more recent work, but as I’ll get into, that’s not always for the best reasons.

Going In Style (2017) - Movie Review

When actors get older, they usually end up as either characters related to the lead or mentor figures that are meant to guide the lead; senior lead actors aren’t exactly the most popular thing in the mainstream. Well, to a point, at least. I say that because, more recently, we’ve been seeing older respected actors getting lead parts in recent films… except it’s usually done to appeal to younger audiences. This means that we end up with these established names basically sacrificing their dignity at the altar of ‘It’s funny because it’s old people doing it”.

 

Ignoring how I just don’t get the automatic comedy that’s supposed to arise from such an idea, I can’t be the only one who thinks that it’d be a nice idea if this wasn’t the go-to characterisation that filmmakers go to for older actors. Like, at least some stable sense of variety in-between the hard-drinking and weed-smoking seniors would be appreciated. With these preconceptions in mind, is this film going to stick to the status quo or are we going to get something at least a little bit different? This is Going In Style.

Love The Coopers (2015) - Movie Review

Even with how Christmas is extolled as the season of cheer and goodwill, it’s also a notorious time of year for families to just explode at each other. To be fair, it does make sense for this to happen: Gather a bunch of people you only see once a year in a single house, and all those grievances they haven’t had a chance to air out before in person suddenly bubble up to the surface. Considering this, it is understandable for there to be a sizeable market for Christmas films involving dysfunctional family shenanigans. Probably the best example of this would be National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, a film that showed our capacity for both love and hate while still keeping that Yuletide charm. The closest I’ve gotten to reviewing this brand of film before would be with last year’s This Is Where I Leave You, which followed the family dynamics of the sub-genre only set them during a different religious event. Given how grouchy everyone can get when that time of year gets closer, this is just the kind of film to help bring families together… usually.