The War With Grandpa (2020) - Movie Review

This is the perfect storm of bad movie. Family film starring late-period Robert De Niro? Check. Uma Thurman overacting to the point you forget she’s actually talented? Check. Made by a filmmaker who proved this same year to be above this shit? Check. Written by the duo who gave us one of the worst scripts of all time? Check. Filmed years ago but only got pulled off the shelf during a dead cinematic season? Check. Reason for said shelving involving Weinstein? Check, check, and check. This film’s mere existence is baffling enough, but the actual content is on a whole other level.

The Goldfinch (2019) - Movie Review

Films like this made me wish I read more books in my off-time. Not that I’m ashamed of my literary diet mainly consisting of comic books and articles written by my contemporaries, but in terms of literary adaptations, part of me thinks that I should incorporate reading the source material into my pre-viewing background routine. Admittedly, the reason why I don’t as a general rule is so I can more easily let a given film stand on its own merits, since the source material tends to be far superior than any adaptation of the work anyway. And yes, I’ve done the exact opposite for remakes and the like, but different medium, different rules, far as I’m concerned.

At any rate, in the case of this film, I started wondering about this because I genuinely don’t know how much of this film’s faults are to do with the adaptation or to do with the original book.