Category: Monday Morning Movie Reviewer

What better low-key indie to review today (the night of the final presidential debate, which I will be writing about during and after it) than Butter, a movie that technically is about the obscure-passion of Iowa butter carving, but is really an allegory about Sarah Palin vs. Obama, and the clash of values between religious…

Okay, so this movie is a microscopic indie that pretty much bombed out in theaters a couple weeks back. [It opened very limited and still had a lousy per-theater average which is all that matters for indies.] And yet…I saw it when it opened and feel compelled to at least throw out a review. What…

I want to start by saying that this film is very good. I want to start by saying that because the majority of the review will consist of how it isn’t great and may be a slight disappointment if (like me) you loved Ben Affleck’s last two movies: Gone Baby Gone and The Town. What Works: The…

This is the best film about high school I’ve seen in years. I have to admit, it’s not my absolute favorite genre (I feel like it’s just not that interesting, and has been fully explored), but this film works not by finding an entirely revolutionary angle—–it explores some of the same tropes as other high…

This latest bomb from Tim Burton is an original movie that I wish I had liked more than I did. I was rooting for it, I really was, but it never quite grabbed me the way I had hoped. I think the film’s young target audience (it is made for children) will probably hate it….

A very strong, wholly original film with a terrific first third and a pretty good final act. What Works: From start to finish, this movie is showing you inventive, wildly original things you haven’t quite seen before. I particularly loved the first third of it, which keeps constantly inventing and playing with the rules in its highly…

Of all the types of movies that are out there that I don’t particularly like (horror movies revolving around torture more than suspense, romantic comedies where only genetically engineered mannequins are allowed love, Bollywood) I think the most depressing may be the Cash Grab Sequel. This is a type of movie that can be in…

This movie is about two antagonistic roommates (Lauren Miller and Ari Graynor) who gradually start a phone sex hotline (Graynor’s character already works for one, but gets cut out of the majority of the profits) and become friends. If that sounds pretty straightforward, it is, but the movie keeps finding ways to surprise you. What…

Another movie that was dumped into theaters and either quickly forgotten or ignored. In fact, I doubt many readers have even heard of this film (the release never went wide). It’s about a, you guessed it, ten year high school reunion and a whole slew of under appreciated young actors star as people who haven’t…

All right, so this opened a hell of a lot longer than this weekend, but sometimes the timing just doesn’t work out (there’s been a big review every week for the last few) and it’s best to hold a lesser-seen (i.e. forgotten) movie back a while. Anyway, The Words is about a struggling writer (Bradley…

Before I went in, I was really looking forward to this cops-in-LA movie. I was curious to see how David Ayers (who seemingly makes nothing but this kind of movie, writing the screenplays for Training Day and Dark Blue, and directing Street Kings/Harsh Times) would handle his former turf but with a found-footage twist. Well…sad…

I know people will say that I went in with a bias to not like this movie since Clint Eastwood is now a notorious and bull-headed Republican. Well, I’m sorry but those people are just plain wrong. I love most Clint Eastwood movies, and went into this hoping it would be just as good as…

Is there a good movie in here somewhere? Absolutely. But is this a good movie? Absolutely not. What Works: This movie is based off the same graphic series that “inspired” the Sylvester Stallone Judge Dredd movie, and all the fans of the source material (you know, all twelve of them) say this is much closer…