Out in Theaters: ‘ZOOLANDER 2’

February 10, 2016 by Matt Oakes Posted in Out in Theaters Tagged Ben Stiller, Billy Zane, Christine Taylor, John Hamburg, Justin Theroux, Keifer Sutherland, Nicolas Stoller, Out in Theaters, Owen Wilson, Reviews, Will Ferrell, Zoolander 2 2 Comments

Ben Stiller‘s approach to round two of the Zoo is akin to chucking a baby bird from the nest to see if it will fly or plummet, only to discover a 25-pound lead weight secured to said birdling’s ankle bits. No scene demonstrates this better than when Hansel (Owen Wilson), in an attempt to elicit Derek’s (Stiller) magical modeling stopping power, is throwing objects at the now-out-of-fashion Derek Zoolander. Failing to summon the “fire” that stopped Mutagatu’s (Will Ferrell) M-shaped throwing star and saved the Malaysian Prime Minister all those years back, each progressively larger prop strikes Zoolander’s duck-face curtly in the sucker. By object four or five, a tasty-looking bottle of Reposado that acts as an accidental stand-in for the cockeyed audience, Zoolander cries out, “This just isn’t working.” No Ben Stiller, it really, really isn’t. Read More

Out in Theaters: ‘DEADPOOL’

February 8, 2016 by Matt Oakes Posted in Out in Theaters Tagged Brianna Hildebrand, Deadpool, Ed Skrein, Morena Baccarin, Out in Theaters, Paul Wernick, Reviews, Rhett Reese, Ryan Reynolds, Stefan Kapičić, Tim Miller 5 Comments

Deadpool has been lurking around the primordial soup of supers since his debut print appearance in February of 1991. Striking a nerve with comic fans fancying some bite with their bark and some rabies to their Cujos, Deadpool arrived on the scene a supervillian before slipping into the moral grays of anti-hero-dom and donning those infamously R-rated wisecracks into his persona like a latex-tight getup. By the time he was leading his own franchise, a cultly rabid surrounded the merc with a mouth like bush flies buzzing around fresh-squeezed dookie. When transported to tinsel town in 2009’s much derided X-Men Origins: Wolverine, Deadpool found himself properly trounced; literally nutless, drained of personality and wit, with mouth rendered useless. The character was as effectively brain-dead as the project he found himself housed within. The tongue-tied, tatted-up war boy that was Deadpool circa 2009 was quickly relegated to the bin of supers who couldn’t withstand the transition to the silver screen and even the suits at Fox did all they could to forget this whole X-Men Origins thing ever happened in the first place. Read More

Out in Theaters: ‘HAIL, CAESAR!’

February 3, 2016 by Matt Oakes Posted in Out in Theaters Tagged Alden Ehrenreich, Caesar!, Channing Tatum, Coen Brothers, Frances McDormand, George Clooney, Hail, Jonah Hill, Josh Brolin, Out in Theaters, Ralph Fiennes, Reviews, Scarlett Johnasson, Tilda Swinton 4 Comments

The Coen Brothers’ Hail, Caesar! exists in some zany cinematic purgatory of indecisiveness. Their critique of 1950s Hollywood dwells in an occasionally bemusing middle ground; that is, it can’t decide whether it wants to be a skewering of or a love letter to the golden era of tinsel town. Those who’ve found solace in the bewilderingly esoteric arms of A Serious Man or the bombast of The Hudsucker Proxy will likely concede Hail, Caesar! as a new coming for the seriocomic duo but I like my Coen’s like I like my coffee and Hail, Caesar!’s semi-satirical goofball makeup couldn’t be further from the blackest of comedy that defines the brothers’ greatest ventures. Read More

Out in Theaters: ‘THE FINEST HOURS’

January 28, 2016 by Matt Oakes Posted in Out in Theaters Tagged Ben Foster, Casey Affleck, Chris Pine, Craig Gillespie, Eric Bana, Holliday Grainger, Out in Theaters, Reviews, The Finest Hours 2 Comments

Craig Gillespie experienced his breakout “hit” in 2007 at the Toronto International Film Festival with Lars and the Real Girl. You know the one. That strange indie splash that made leagues of women (and men) jealous of an inanimate sex doll, quasi-adorably (and entirely eerily) doted on by a mustached Ryan Gosling. From there, Gillespie directed an underrated and ably cast remake of Fright Night. As a suave vampire, Collin Ferrell gave his crowning scenery (and neck) chewing performance. Some would call this Gillespie’s transition to the mainstream and they wouldn’t be entirely wrong, though the Disney-produced baseball drama The Million Dollar Arm really saw the last twinkle of a celebrated indie director taken by the vast empire of film as multi-media conglomerate. Read More

Out in Theaters: ‘ANOMALISA’

January 15, 2016 by Matt Oakes Posted in Out in Theaters Tagged Anomalisa, Charlie Kaufman, David Thewlis, Duke Johnson, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Out in Theaters, Reviews, Tom Noonan Leave a comment

In Alex Garland’s riveting metaphysical exploration of man’s relationship to machinery Ex Machina, Oscar Isaac’s character Caleb states of his A.I. Ava, “The real test is to show you she is a robot. Then see if you still feel she has consciousness.” A similar theme blooms in Charlie Kaufman’s Anomalisa, a stop-motion animated drama that explores a day in the midst of a customer service man’s midlife crisis. Read More

Out in Theaters: ’13 HOURS: THE SECRET SOLDIERS OF BENGHAZI’

January 14, 2016 by Matt Oakes Posted in Out in Theaters Tagged 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi, David Denman, Dominic Fumusa, James Badge Dale, John Krasinski, Max Martini, Michael Bay, Pablo Scheriber Leave a comment

Michael Bay’s Benghazi movie is predictably terrible; tin-eared, hyper-masculine, loud as can be, excessively brutal, slyly jingoistic and politically tone-deaf. A protracted action film if there ever was one, 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi exploits Bay’s worst sensibilities as a director; it showcases his exploitative side, one not in control of tone or mood, blind to any sense of urgency, bombastically working the audience’s patriotic bone until it’s liable to snap. A more preening, hyper-masculine war movie, there may not have been in the 21st century. We’ve seen war as hell a million times. This is war as hoorah and pantie raids. Read More

Out in Theaters: LAMB

January 11, 2016 by Matt Oakes Posted in Out in Theaters Tagged Bonnie Nadzam, Lamb, Oona Lawrence, Out in Theaters, Reviews, Ross Partridge, SXSW Leave a comment

Director, screenwriter and star Ross Partridge unearths a ripe splintering of soul in the fragile, complex love story that is Lamb. Adapted from Bonnie Nadzam‘s sage but harrowing novel of redemption and temptation, Patridge repurposes the byzantine dynamic of Nadzam’s words to co-exist in the cinematic crossroads of nail-ruining suspense and earnest, didactic sentiments of humanity, all the while subtly wedging in thematic elements of Vladimir Nabokov’s will-they-or-won’t-they statutory misgivings. Read More

Out in Theaters: THE FOREST

January 7, 2016 by Matt Oakes Posted in Out in Theaters Tagged Ben Ketai, Jason Zada, Natalie Dormer, Nick Antosca, Out in Theaters, Sarah Cornwell, Taylor Kinney, The Forest 3 Comments

The Aokigahara forest is a place of living nightmares. The Forest is its own kind of living nightmare. Long known to be unholy grounds for those at the end of their proverbial rope come to see themselves off, the mere existence of Japan’s inland Suicide Forest, a densely populated Sea of Trees at the northwestern base of Mount Fuji, is a haunting reminder of human desperation come home to roost. For decades, Japan’s denizens have chartered a grim pilgrimage to Aokigahara to commit suicide, leaving the forest littered with human remains. The annual amount of pseudo-seppuku that occurs here is so staggering that the park rangers have taken measures to curb the corpses piling up, including affixing the park with suicide prevention information and installing security cameras to monitor for suspected attemptees. Still yet, at least a hundred people will die here every year. Read More

Out in Theaters: ‘POINT BREAK’

December 25, 2015 by Matt Oakes Posted in Out in Theaters Tagged Édgar Ramírez, Ericson Core, Kathryn Bigelow, Kurt Wimmer, Luke Bracey, Out in Theaters, Point Break, Point Break 2015, Ray Winstone, Reviews 2 Comments

It’s no wonder that Warner Brothers canned the remaining press screenings of Point Break and moved the embargo break date to Christmas Day. They want to bury the reviews for this remake-gone-amok in a festive avalanche of holiday cheer. So long as word doesn’t get out that Ericson Core‘s completely unwarranted remake of Kathryn Bigelow‘s action-packed breakout hit is indeed a completely unwarranted remake, they might still stand a chance of picking some unsuspecting pockets. Read More

Out in Theaters: ‘DADDY’S HOME’

December 24, 2015 by Matt Oakes Posted in Out in Theaters, Uncategorized Tagged Bobby Cannavale, Daddy's Home, Hannibal Buress, John Cena, Linda Cardellini, Mark Wahlberg, Out in Theaters, Owen Vaccaro, Reviews, Scarlett Estevez, Thomas Haden Church, Will Ferrell Leave a comment

There was an age of Will Ferrell where just about anything the slapstick buffoon did would conjure a hearty laugh from me. His performances in Anchorman, as the verbose, showboating newsman Ron Burgundy, and Step Brothers, as perma-man-child Brendan Huff, send me into a goofy rage of hacking cough fits to this day. But it’s been a hot minute since Ferrell has been able to lock himself and his signature non-sequitors into a winning project and Daddy’s Home continues that losing streak. Read More