Tag Archives: Crime

Spotlight (2015)

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One of the most important cinematic accounts of journalism changing corruption since “All the President’s Men,” director Thomas McCarthy’s “Spotlight” garners an understated brilliance in where it explores a long legacy of corruption that’s not only been widely under reported but somewhat accepted. McCarthy manages to draw immense thrills and paranoia from a film that’s very much the antithesis of sensationalism. “Spotlight” is a gut wrenching and mind blowing account of a group of reporters tasked with uncovering one of the largest scandals in world history, a scandal that’s left thousands of victims in its wake.

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We Are Your Friends (2015) (DVD)

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I really like Zac Efron. I have nothing particularly against him. He’s a nice looking guy with some chops to him when pushed hard enough by a competent director. When he’s really just asked to flash his looks around and literally do nothing, we get “We Are Your Friends,” one of the stupidest, most forgettable movies of 2015. I’m glad I’m not the only person who felt this way about the film, as it was one of the bigger flops of the year. “We Are Your Friends” has no substance to it, and pretends to be about something, when it really isn’t. Deep down it’s a remake of “Saturday Night Fever” and fails to capture any of the substance and complexity that John Badham’s masterpiece obtained.

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Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation (2015)

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Ethan Hunt is no mere agent. He’s a force of nature that keeps pushing himself to the brink of imminent death every single time we meet him. Last time he hung on the side of a high rise, and this time he hangs along the side of a flying aircraft. Not to mention he merely drowns in one of the many close call operations he and the disbanded IMF commit towards. Tom Cruise lends the character an intensity and bug eyed gutsiness that make him a hero you want to root for, and someone you most definitely want on your side at all times. Hunt has met his match this time with the evil Lane (Sam Harris), a leader of a rising organization called the Syndicate, who is always one step ahead of Hunt, while sidekick Ilsa (Rebecca Ferguson) displays an enigmatic aura that makes Hunt uncertain if she’s friend or foe.

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Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol (2011)

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It’s nice to see director Brad Bird inject a new sense of excitement and novelty in to the “Mission Impossible” movie series, as it now embraces its episodic origins to completely reboot the epic story of Ethan Hunt. After the pretty good third outing, “Ghost Protocol” sports an entirely different atmosphere, where the team from the IMF are still out and lurking about, while Ethan Hunt has become a pariah, now jailed in a Russian prison. After Simon Pegg’s character Benji stages a caper to free Ethan from prison, Ethan discovers that the world must be in dire trouble if he’s being turned to for help.

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Ant-Man (2015)

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“Ant Man” seems like a stand alone superhero effort at first, but it fits comfortably in the pegs of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It also introduces us to a wonderful superhero who, by all logic, should not have translated in to such a great film. Surely enough, with a script by Edgar Wright (and various others) and an excellent cast (including a welcome Hispanic presence), “Ant Man” is one of the best adaptations of Marvel’s Phase Two in their Cinematic Universe. Like every hero in the Marvel Universe, “Ant-Man” is just an average man thrust in to great circumstances, and he has to earn his stripes as a crime fighter while overcoming his own flaws and insecurities.

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Knock Knock (2015)

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I’m stunned it took two screenwriters and Eli Roth to write what is a remake that steals bits from “Funny Games.” This time rather than the nemeses being petulant snot nosed young guys, the villains in this instance are two gorgeous young girls. “Knock Knock” is the least incompetently made film from Roth’s ever growing film library, and that’s due to the fact that it borrows a lot from “Funny Games,” despite being an admitted remake of 1977’s “Death Game.” There isn’t the sly self awareness, but Roth and co. do eventually realize how stupid their story is and then completely ride off the rails by the second half.

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Easy Money (1983)/Men At Work (1990): Double Feature [Blu-Ray]

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81fGGLszKAL._SL1500_While “Easy Money” and “Men at Work” are imperfect films, they’re also raucously entertaining and centered on the quick wits of their stars. They’re also original movies about the working class thrust in to funny and unusual situations, from earning a fortune to trying to fight political corruption and a crime ring. “Easy Money” from 1983 is an entertaining and hilarious comedy starring Rodney Dangerfield as Monty, a professional photographer and family man. He’s a man prone to something of a hedonistic lifestyle. He loves his family, and his daughters, but he also loves smoking, drinking, indulging in fatty foods, and gambling almost non-stop.

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