Out in Theaters: ‘THE SPACE BETWEEN US’

February 3, 2017 by Matt Oakes Posted in Out in Theaters Leave a comment

Let’s save the hemming and hawing, The Space Between Us is terrible. No need to add much else to the sentiment, it is a bad film that you will have a bad time watching. Period. Simply dreadful from start to finish, this lazy sci-fi tinged romance clunker falsely assumes charisma-vacuum Asa Butterfield can carry a film but the Hugo star is having none of it. The London-born actor appears as bored as any audience forced to endure such a burden of a wanna-be blockbuster as this action-, drama- and excitement-bereft potboiler ambles from forgettable moment to forgettable moment, nipping in little melodramatic twists that would be comfortable on any daytime soap opera. Writing more than 100 words about the turd is almost as much a waste of time as seeing the damn thing so I’ll save everyone the trouble and advise forgetting this thing exists altogether. STX certainly did. Read More

Out in Theaters: ‘WAR ON EVERYONE’

January 31, 2017 by Matt Oakes Posted in Out in Theaters Tagged Alexander Skarsgård, Caleb Landry Jones, John Michael McDonagh, Michael Pena, Out in Theaters, Theo James, War on Everyone 1 Comment

John Michael McDonagh stepped out from the shadows of filmmaker young brother Martin McDonagh, who’s crafted such cult modern classics as In Bruges and Seven Psychopaths, in 2011 when he debuted The Guard. That film went on to mild box office success (overseas) and general critical adoration, though I’ll admit the deadpan acidic humor never quite reached me the way that it had so many others. McDonagh’s latest, and his first film set on American soil, is War On Everyone and represents a clear, though offbeat, progression of the director’s interests. Within, he declares war on traditional narrative constructs of law and lawless, cops and robbers, good and evil, giving a grand total of zero fucks along the way. Read More

Out in Theaters: ‘XXX: THE RETURN OF XANDER CAGE’

January 19, 2017 by Matt Oakes Posted in Out in Theaters Tagged D.J. Caruso, Deepika Padukone, Donnie Chen, F. Scott Frazier, Kris Wu, Nina Dobrev, Out in Theaters, Reviews, Ruby Rose, Russell Carpenter, Toni Collette, Tony Jaa, Vin Diesel, xXx: The Return of Xander Cage Leave a comment

X done gave it to us. Behold, in all its knuckle-headed glory: xXx: The Return of Xander Cage, a gratuitous bukake of bullets, boobies and brain death. Frequently crass, totally illogical, unapologetically misogynistic and dumb beyond compare, xXx is breathtaking event entertainment that works for almost every single utterly retarded beat. Like a locomotive fueled purely by cocaine and the X Games, this revitalized franchise exists as if within the wet dream of a 13-year old American boy. A slick tshit-nami of dumb dumb dumb, xXx: The Return of Xander Cage is nonetheless perfectly stupid in almost every way imaginable.   Read More

Out in Theaters: ‘SPLIT’

January 18, 2017 by Matt Oakes Posted in Out in Theaters Tagged Anya Taylor-Joy, Betty Buckley, Horror, James McAvoy, M. Night Shyamalan, Out in Theaters, Reviews, Split 1 Comment

In 2015, M. Night Shyamalan executed the biggest twist of all. Following a slew of critical and commercial disasters, Shyamalan produced…a hit. The Visit, a found footage old people horror-comedy, connected with critics and audiences, turning its paltry 5 million dollar budget to a whopping near-100 million international haul. More importantly, it signaled the return of one of the most unique voices in the genre: the king of the twist. And Split, a thriller about an abductor with a fractured personality, proves that he’s here to stay. Read More

Out in Theaters: ’20TH CENTURY WOMEN’

January 18, 2017 by Matt Oakes Posted in Out in Theaters Tagged 20th Century Women, Annette Bening, Billy Crudup, Elle Fanning, Greta Gerwig, Lucas Jade Zumann, Mike Mills, Out in Theaters, Reviews Leave a comment

Mike Mills’ 3rd feature film takes him to the tail end of the groovy seventies where a pubescent boy is raised by a freewheeling mother and two other women whose help she enlists. Though nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Motion Picture – Comedy, 20th Century Women is a loose-lipped drama first and foremost; an exploration of youth and young manhood through the lens of budding feminism. That it hedges in a good lick of ha ha’s only sweetens the experience. Read More

Out in Theaters: ‘PATRIOT’S DAY’

January 11, 2017 by Matt Oakes Posted in Out in Theaters Tagged Alex Wolff, Atticus Ross, J.K. Simmon, Jimmy O. Yang, John Goodman, Kevin Bacon, Mark Wahlberg, Michelle Monaghan, Out in Theaters, Patriot’s Day, Peter Berg, Reviews, Theme Melikidze, Trent Reznor Leave a comment

Michael Bay catches a lot of flack for his bombastic tendencies behind the camera. The portmanteau Bayhem refers to the distinctly American director’s excessive inclinations behind the camera; his impulsive need to aggrandize nothingness through dynamic camera movement and, of course, ‘splosions. It makes for busy filmmaking the equivalent of a massively oversized pair of fake breasts bouncing up and down in front of your face, whacking you in the nose with each rise and fall. There’s so much happening at any given moment and from one scene to the next that there is little to no contrast. Just a constant thwacking of the noggin. Everything is turned up to 11 so that even the legitimately intense moments are overshadowed by other elevated humdrum. Read More

Out in Theaters: ‘SILENCE’

January 5, 2017 by Matt Oakes Posted in Out in Theaters Tagged Adam Driver, Andrew Garfield, Issei Ogata, Jay Cocks, Martin Scorsese, Out in Theaters, Reviews, Rodrigo Prieto, Shin'ya Tsukamoto, Silence Leave a comment

I guess it follows that a movie titled Silence should lack a score. Marty’s latest meditation on faith (arguably his third after 1988’s The Last Temptation of Christ and 1997’s Dalai Lama humdrum biopic Kundun) opens instead with the sound of crickets, a telling forecast of the level of excitement soon to be unleashed. It’s not that Silence lacks artistry, there’s no shortage of stunning shots (but it’s no accident that those that standout most are the various Christians gettin’ tortured scenes), but there’s so much dead air, so much *ahem* silence, that getting from one beat to the next feels like an endless crusade towards but a mirage. Accented only by crickets and cicadas. Read More

Out in Theaters: ‘FENCES’

December 23, 2016 by Matt Oakes Posted in Out in Theaters Tagged August Wilson, Denzel Washington, Fences, Jovan Adept, Mykelti Williamson, Out in Theaters, Reviews, Russell Hornsby, Stephen McKinley Henderson, Viola Davis 3 Comments

As purely a thespian venture, the Denzel Washington starring and directed Fences is an applaudable homer. Performed with true fire in the belly, this adaptation of August Wilson’s 1983 Tony and Pulitzer Prize Award winning play of the same name unfurls a harrowing American experience of familial tension between patriarch Troy Maxson, his wife Rose, mentally impaired brother Gabriel and sons Lyons and Cory. Read More

Out in Theaters: ‘WHY HIM?’

December 21, 2016 by Matt Oakes Posted in Out in Theaters Tagged Bryan Cranston, Griffin Gluck, Ian Helfer, James Franco, John Hamburg, Jonah Hill, Kaley Cuoco, Keegan-Michael Key, Megan Mullally, Out in Theaters, Reviews, Zoey Deutch Leave a comment

Oh Bryan Cranston, how far the mighty can fall. The four-time Emmy winning actor and Academy Award nominee rose to stardom putting the meth in method acting as high school chemistry teacher turned drug kingpin Walter White. But Cranston was not always the one who knocks. Many will remember his stretch as the goofy Hal on 2000s sitcom Malcom in the Middle. Here Cranston was the antithesis of the mean-mugging Heisenberg as an indecisive and immature father figure. He was the Stevia to Mr. White’s ricin; proof in the pudding that Cranston can wear many hats (even if the wool pork pie fedora still fits best.) With his latest comedic endeavor, the mind-numbing Why Him?, some might say that Cranston has returned to his roots. Not that that’s a good thing. Read More

Out in Theaters: ‘JACKIE’

December 15, 2016 by Matt Oakes Posted in Out in Theaters Tagged Billy Crudup, Greta Gerwig, John Hurt, Natalie Portman, Noah Oppenheim, Out in Theaters, Pablo Larraín, Peter Sarsgaard, Reviews 5 Comments

Heartache and quiet dignity define Jackie Kennedy Onassis in Pablo Larraín’s thoughtful biopic Jackie. Recounting the events immediately following the assassination of the 35th US President John F. Kennedy, the film written by Noah Oppenheim (Allegiant, The Maze Runner) explores an intricate swatch of issues facing both the United States on a macro level and Mrs. Kennedy on a micro level. Oppenheim and Larraín’s ability to overturn so many stones and explore so many corners of both American life and Jackie’s personal descent into melancholia, all under the watchdog snouts of overeager politicians, public scrutiny and the constant threat of the media’s clicking cameras, is nothing shy of hugely impressive, especially operating within such a relatively constrained run time, a mere 110 minutes. But Jackie’s true staying power lies in star Natalie Portman. Read More