Hotel Transylvania: Transformania (2022) - Movie Review

After the third film managed to bring everything full circle, I was quite certain that that would be the end of the Hotel Transylvania movies. And I don’t say that out of some sense of relief or anything like that; I’ve been a fan of this series since the first film, and beyond their fantastic and consistent animation style, I think they do well with their re-examination of the old-school Universal monsters and what it means to be Othered. As such, when this for-realsies finale snuck its way onto Amazon Prime all the way back in January of this year, I was a bit taken aback but willing to give it an honest shot. And what I got was… well, it’s still fun, but for the supposed finale, it’s also unequivocally the most lightweight of all these films.

Hubie Halloween (2020) - Movie Review

After Adam Sandler failed to get a nomination for his work on Uncut Gems (and it really speaks to the quality of that performance that it even qualified as a ‘snub’), he went viral with threats that he would go on to make, intentionally, the worst movie ever out of spite. With how much of a critical punching bag he remains to be, it’s quite easy to make jokes about how this is likely the first time he’s given warning for his latest film being terrible… but no. No, I’m not going that route. Instead, I’m going to point out how that kind of self-aware, not-really-taking-itself-seriously humour is actually a pretty good lead-up to yet another solid starring role.

The Week Of (2018) - Movie Review

 

Say what you will about Adam Sandler (and I have, at great length in past reviews), but his collaborative deal with Netflix might be one of the smartest decisions he’s ever made. After all, his films have become so egregiously not-worth-paying-cinema-ticket-prices-for that pairing them up with thousands of other, better films as part of a monthly subscription is the closest he’s gonna get to having an audience again. Okay, over 2017, he showed some definite signs of improvement, so maybe this film will benefit from that. Well, it kinda does and it kinda doesn’t.

The Death Of Stalin (2018) - Movie Review

The plot: In 1953, Joseph Stalin (Adrian McLoughlin), the leader of the Soviet union, has died. As his inner circle tries to deal with the power vacuum, Deputy General Secretary Georgy Malenkov (Jeffrey Tambor), Moscow Party Head Nikita Khrushchev (Steve Buscemi) and head of the interior ministry Lavrentiy Beria (Simon Russell Beale) begin their plans to become the new leader. However, between those who wish to live up to Stalin's legacy and those who want to replace it with their own, things are about to get chaotic in Russia.

The Boss Baby (2017) - Movie Review

Well, today’s feature marks another genuine first for this blog. Of all the weird and disheartening pre-ambles I’ve seen leading up to a film, I’ve never really come across a film that actively had to convince that it even existed. Seriously, this film comes across like a one-off joke that Baldwin would make in-between Trump caricaturing, or worse yet an Asylum rip-off of last year’s The Boss. It probably doesn’t help that, in the lead-up to its release, I have only ever seen the teaser trailer for this film which barely showed anything.

 

Between the dubious concept and the minimal sketch-length trailer, I can’t be the only one who thought that this thing was a bit suspect. (And yes, I know, Beauty And The Beast trailer thing; I saw this a few days before that hit the news so, over here, it still feels off) Then again, I had similarly negative thoughts with Dreamworks’ last film Trolls’ pre-amble and I ended up really liking that film. Maybe the same could happen here?

Hotel Transylvania 2 (2015) - Movie Review

If you spent any amount of time watching Cartoon Network during its heyday, or even grew up on it like I did, then you owe a lot to one Genndy Tartakovsky. The man’s work on shows like Dexter’s Laboratory, The Powerpuff Girls, Samurai Jack and the Star Wars: Clone Wars animated mini-series has gone on to make him one of the most vibrant creative minds that Hanna-Barbera has ever been associated with… yes, seriously. As such, the next big step in terms of flexing animated muscle is going on to do feature films, and so he was brought on to direct 2012’s Hotel Transylvania. That is, he was brought on as the sixth reported director of the film. Usually a pretty bad sign, especially for a first-time film director, but he nevertheless gave it his all and made the film his own. The result was a surprisingly fun and not-surprisingly well animated family film; sure, it had its annoying/stupid moments but the good points far outweighed the bad. Since it made over four times its budget at the box office, it of course got a sequel. Let’s hope that this isn’t another sequel made for its own sake, because I want to maintain my respect for Genndy as best I can.

The Cobbler (2015) - Movie Review

Yep, we’re looking at another Adam Sandler film. For as much as I’ve brought up how some of his films are just grade-F wastelands, I seem to have developed a pattern where I have been defending the man’s work a lot more than I ever thought I would. Hell, my better-than-the-norm reception for Blended is the entire reason that I now have a yearly tradition of listing films that I disagree with the consensus on. Well, with any luck, things will be a little easier to deal with this time around as I’m looking at a Sandler film not produced by Happy Madison Productions. Who knows, maybe we could get another Funny People or Punch Drunk Love here. Or maybe we’ll get a film that has a lower approval rating than Pixels… seriously.