Buddy Games (2021) - Movie Review

Time to do a bit of recalibrating for this one because, if I judged this film solely on the basis of good taste and common sense, we’re not going to get anywhere with this thing. This kind of uber-macho, “let’s do dumb shit to prove our MAYUN-liness” reeks of critic-trapping, like it actively wants to be judged by politically-correct standards just so the chuckleheads who made it can point and laugh at people taking this ‘too seriously’. And in all honesty… yeah, there’s a place for this kind of meathead comedy in the world: The Jackass films more than proved that point long before this, and for as much love as it didn’t get, I still think the movie Tag is a fun and inventive take on the action-thriller formula. So, rather than act all shocked at how tasteless this all is, let’s instead judge it by its own standards as a bro comedy… and how it still fails from that perspective.

El Camino Christmas (2017) - Movie Review

The plot: Eric (Luke Grimes) has arrived to El Camino, Arizona, in search of his lost father. However, he soon finds himself in a bizarre hostage situation when he, local policeman Carl Hooker (Vincent D’Onofrio), mother Kate (Michelle Mylett) and her son, and town drunk Larry (Tim Allen) are stuck inside of a liquor store. The officers outside, particularly Sheriff Fuller (Kurtwood Smith) and Deputy Calhoun (Dax Shepard) have no idea what’s going on, and the situation inside is far from cut-and-dry. It’s going to be a long Christmas.

CHiPs (2017) - Movie Review

Many times over the last few months, I have found myself defending what most call separating the art from the artist; basically, the idea of ignoring an artist’s real-world transgressions when it comes to discussing their art. Most of the time, I bring this up as a result of people (particularly when it comes to YouTube, I’ve noticed) performing mass subscription exoduses in response to something or other to do with racist comments. The reasons why, I think, are fairly obvious: Their work has nothing to do with politics or race, so why should it be judged on those terms? Of course, this mindset gets a little trickier when a person’s real-life mentality spills into their art, meaning that separation between the two is pretty much impossible.

 

Why do I bring this up? Well, for the first time in quite a while, I find myself compelled to look into just what exactly this film says about the guy who made it. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

This Is Where I Leave You (2014) - Movie Review

Given my habitual watching of everything that comes my way, expectations on how a movie looks and sounds before seeing it means something different than what it used to. Before, as it probably does for a lot of you reading this, I would look at a film’s cast, premise and trailer and judge whether or not I would go and see it based on that. Now, since I watch most if not all of the movies I get trailers for, it feels more like opening a birthday present from somebody I don’t know; it could be good, bad, bizarre or any mixture of the three, but I won’t know till I open it. I’ve had movies that were good that I thought would be bad (The Fault In Our Stars), vice versa (22 Jump Street) or had my assumptions proven right (Divergent sucked). What am I getting at with all this? Well, tl;dr I thought This Is Where I Leave You would be hilarious just because Tina Fey is in it.

The Judge (2014) - Movie Review

Whenever people bring up how great actors like Jack Nicholson or Liam Neeson are, it always kind of confuses me since they play every role they get exactly the same. Really, the only difference between the roles they, and a few other actors, get is that they may swear more in some of them. Ultimately, another actor who is making a fortune with this practice is one Robert Downey Jr.: An intelligent, cunning, anti-social prick that really has a heart of gold and wants to do good; the Sherlock Holmes movies, his cameo in Jon Favreau’s Chef, Tony Stark in the Marvel Cinematic Universe… actually, pretty much anything he’s been in since Iron Man in 2008 has had him in this role.