Category: Monday Morning Movie Reviewer

Better late than never, Alabama Liberal… What Works: This is my favorite of Melissa McCarthy’s star vehicles, and is the first of her pairings with director Paul Feig that feels like more than a series of loosely improvised “scenes.” Although McCarthy has been on box-office-fire from her breakthrough forward, her genre riffs have had mixed results…

A good movie? No, but it is the perfect movie to watch at home on a Sunday when you’ve got nothing much going on. It’s cozy, unchallenging, a little boring, a missed opportunity to explore the ambitions of older people, but also effortlessly appealing, and that’s mostly thanks to Morgan Freeman and Diane Keaton as…

I feel sorry for this movie. Cameron Crowe tries to step outside his comfort zone and do something different not just for him but for studio films in general, then release it in the early summer period. And what happens? Do people hail it as the refreshing counter-programming charmer he was intending? It flops at…

This may sound tasteless but this is the rare film that finds a way to make Earthquakes boring. What Works: The Rock does what he can, and Carla Gugino isn’t half-bad as the female lead, and the few scenes with Paul Giamatti and Archie Panjabi are solid enough (even though he’s mostly reduced to the Richard…

A very small indie Western but after weeks of big budget, blockbuster bloat it may be the exact right time for a subtle but interesting period piece. What Works: Kodi Smit McPhee plays a Scottish nobleman trying to find his lost love Rose in tough, Wild West America. He receives “help” from Michael Fassbender’s ambiguous…

Terrible. It’s depressing that this is one of the worst films I’ve seen this year and it not only printed money and got great marks from audiences (you know a movie’s bad if it gets a solid “A” grade from Cinemascore) but also an 82 percent on rotten tomatoes. When even critics have given up,…

A sequel that I probably shouldn’t have liked, but did anyway. What Works: Why didn’t I hate this movie? It’s an unnecessary sequel in a summer that’s full of them, and it combines a lot of my least favorite elements like cover songs, sing-offs, and sloppy plotting, but there’s something inside this movie that’s hard not to like….

An unfairly dismissed family film that explores interesting questions about “What happened to our idealism?” and “Why have we embraced post-apocalyptic stories?” It’s not a perfect movie but any kid’s film that puts climate crisis, and why we aren’t doing more to prevent dystopia is definitely doing something right. What Works: A solid cast, some interesting…

I’m conflicted about this because on the one hand this is a quiet independent film taking place in a long ago period that has the guts to open anywhere near the summer movie season, but on the other hand this is still technically a remake of a remake of an adaptation. What’s wrong with this picture when…

A thrilling, suspenseful, but ultimately limited movie that is really an extended chase scene. Even though this is a sequel/reboot, I think it might be as close as we get to an original blockbuster this summer, and I certainly can’t knock it for at least seeming different than the competition. What Works: Charlize Theron is really the star…

I guess I’ve held out long enough from helping the Marvel machine shake ten bucks from your pocket. Welp, no surprise that this sequel is worse than the original, but the original was one of the most overrated movies of the last few years, so let’s not get too disappointed. What Works: Robert Downey Jr.’s Tony…

I know, I know, I’m seriously slacking in bringing you news of this excellent documentary that has all but left theaters by now, but—let’s be honest—this is a movie most people will watch at home anyway. And see it they should. It’s not just the most “important” film I’ve seen this year, but also a…

I’m not ashamed to admit that I’m a big fan of these Disney nature documentaries, but this might be my least favorite out of the crop that I’ve seen. It’s a definite comedown after last year’s “Bears” which was the best of the ones I’ve seen and just an all-around good documentary based around compelling “characters” you…