Tag: Michelle Monaghan

Film Review: “MaXXXine”

Ti West completes his horror trilogy in devilishly fun ’80s fashion

First came X. Shortly after came the prequel, Pearl. And now, MaXXXine, writer/director Ti West’s end cap on a remarkably gory, provocative, homage-filled horror trilogy. Mia Goth is at the center of all three films, an actor who has transcended “scream queen” status to become a bona fide megastar of the genre. She deserved an Oscar nomination for her performance in Pearl, and arguably an earlier nomination for her dual roles in X. In MaXXXine, the creative pairing of West and Goth complete their trilogy in entertaining, if not spectacular, fashion. MaXXXine is an overt homage to the wide-ranging horror genre birthed from Hollywood between the ’60s, ’70s, and ’80s, from the prestigious to the grimy. Continue reading “Film Review: “MaXXXine””

Film Review: Mission: Impossible—Fallout

Impossibly, the missions continue

Left to right: Henry Cavill as August Walker, Tom Cruise as Ethan Hunt and Rebecca Ferguson as Ilsa Faust in MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE – FALLOUT, from Paramount Pictures and Skydance.

The sixth installment of the Mission: Impossible franchise finds Ethan Hunt and team missioning for our greater good all over the world. After six films, the franchise has worn some pretty deep grooves on the floor of the house of action adventure. To offer some new perspective, this reviewer decided to bring in a fresh voice, that of his wife. 

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Film Review: Patriots Day

Flawed but well executed, third Berg/Wahlberg collaboration is worth seeing

Boston police officer Tommy Saunders (Mark Wahlberg, center) assists FBI Special Agent Rick DesLauriers (Kevin Bacon, l.) and Police Commissioner Ed Davis (John Goodman, r.) with their investigation.

The third time may be the charm for director Peter Berg and actor Mark Wahlberg, who collaborated on two previous films (Deepwater Horizon and Lone Survivor) with middling results. Patriots Day, their new film, is definitely the best of the trio, although it’s not without its problems. Another film based on a true story, Patriots Day recounts the Boston Marathon bombing of 2013 and the investigation and manhunt that immediately followed. Working from a script based on the 2015 book Boston Strong: A City’s Triumph Over Tragedy, Berg and a quartet of screenwriters manage to bring the recent and familiar story alive without glorifying or exploiting the tragedy or the bombers, who are secondary characters here, serving only the plot.
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Film Review: The Best of Me

The Best of Me offers the near-worst in its genre.

Eye candy, yes. Chemistry, no. James Marsden look-alike, absolutely not.
Eye candy, yes. Chemistry, no. James Marsden look-alike, absolutely not.

Take a close look at the picture above.  Does Mr. Shirtless look anything like a high school version of James Marsden?  If you answered ‘yes’, then this movie is absolutely the movie for you.  If you answered ‘no’, then you’re completely normal and will understand what I say when I say that the part of young Dawson was completely miscast.  This was the biggest failure of The Best of Me, but there were other failures as well, including a overly complicated third act.  Based on the book by Nicholas Sparks (The Notebook, A Walk to Remember), The Best of Me is obviously catering to the same audiences that have contributed a whopping ton of money to previous Sparks adaptations.  But this movie fails as an inspiring story and fails to provide compelling characters.  I haven’t read the book so I can’t say for sure whether or not it was the source material’s fault.  But either way, its unpredictability and distractions ruin the chance for emotional connectivity.

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