Reviews

THE LITTLE THINGS is about two police officers so obsessed with tracking down a serial killer it causes their lives and even their sanities to unravel. Thematically it vaguely resembles films like THE PLEDGE and THE CONVERSATION, though with quite a different execution.

Denzel Washington's character, a former city cop, is forced out to a smalltime county police job in the sticks after a bad parting from the LAPD that no one wants to talk about. Five years later, he goes to LA on some routine police business when the killer he never caught strikes again with the same M. O., and just like that he's obsessed. He takes time off and gets a cheap hotel room in order to start working the case again. Through this he meets his replacement in the LAPD Homicide unit played by Rami Malek and they pursue the killer together.

For the bulk of the film the two pursue who they think is the killer (played by Jared Leto), but neither they nor we can tell if it really is him, or if Leto is just playing an elaborate cat and mouse game for the fun of it because he's a true-crime buff. I think it was the intent of the film to keep us guessing but director John Lee Hancock doesn't do nearly enough to balance the procedural investigative footwork and whodunnit with Washington's and Malek's psychological spiraling, showing it's cards early and often.

This is a character-driven thriller with terrible, unbelievable characters. Washington at times seems too competent and other times he's falling to pieces, and these shifts and turns come and go without rhyme or reason. Malek goes through the same spin-the-wheel set of random turns. The film comes to pivot heavily around the intrigue of Leto's character, but everything about him is pieced together to be an answer for why Washington and Malek are acting so desperately obsessive. He's such a whacky, weird and silly character you can't take him seriously and wonder why anyone else is.

As a seedy criminal procedural, on a couple occasions there's promise but it's surrounded by innumerable ridiculous situations, foremost being, why is a cop who is way out of his jurisdiction and five years removed from being a homicide detective being invited to help investigate a murder scene? That's a plot shortcut for a police comedy, not a film that wants to be taken seriously.

Acting is mediocre to poor. Washington, playing a broken cop, just can't help throwing in his trademark confident swagger from time to time leaving us confused. Malek is doing his best to play a diet cola version of Benicio Del Toro, even occasionally mumbling his lines. Jared Leto is basically playing the same character he did in Bladerunner 2049 - aloof, detached and locked into some quasi-shroom daydream that isn't compelling, just annoying.

This is a film that told me how it would end at about the midway point and yet I hoped it would redeem itself with something, anything. No, it was precisely as limp as it promised, literally taking the viewer out the middle of nowhere and leaving them there.

Flame in the Streets was adapted from a stage play and often feels like it. The acting is occasionally stilted and other times too heavy-handed. Not the worst offender nor entirely out of step of other performances of its mostly pre-method era. It's just that, given it's serious subject matter, it didn't need any extra help to wind up the audience and it might have done a better overall job if it was more clever and subtle in its approach. Additionally, some of the dialog, especially from minor characters, is very on the nose and almost comically rote. In some ways this film feels more like it's from the 30s or 40s and not the early 60s.

The plot involves a union leader who, full of righteousness, defends a black man's promotion to a minor management role in a manufacturing company. His progressivism and sense of fairness is challenged and turned on its ear when he learns his daughter intends to marry a black man. All of this takes place amid the backdrop of his crumbling marriage and a neighborhood that has started to boil over with racial tensions.

While it's easy to criticize the execution, I appreciated how directly and incisively it goes after its controversial themes, particularly that of the half-way liberal who will righteously advocate for the downtrodden as long as, on some level, he can continue to see them as lower and separate from himself, and those truly close to him. That hypocrisy is still very relevant today as many talk endlessly and fiery about inclusion, but at the end of the day still seem to be surrounded by people who look the same as they do.

I worked at a movie theater when this film opened and it never drew any kind of crowd despite Griffith being a hot ticket at the time. On one particularly slow day, the theater was empty except for one couple and they were cackling with laughter every time Griffith uttered one of her "tough cop" lines or tried to "educate" the Hassidic Jews with modern sensibilities on topics like sex. At first I thought, "That's rude. Maybe I should say something to them", but eventually, I started laughing, too.

That's the first big BIG mistake of this film - Griffith could not be more ridiculously miscast, to the point it's downright comical. She's supposed to be a hardboiled NYC police detective and doesn't sell it for even a moment. The first few times she was onscreen I was simply confused at the suspension of disbelief that was being asked of me.

The second problem is that this is basically a copy of Witness, featuring Griffith as a fish out of water in a strange community who somehow manages to endear its members to her. And of course, some forbidden romance thrown in for good measure. Imitation is no crime in itself but at least make a good film or improve on the idea, and this does neither.

While Witness at least had some respect for that community and somewhat carefully establishes relationships, Griffith goes into the Hassidic Jewish community riding a proverbial bulldozer, often trying to pull her tough cop routine to bully everyone around her. The result is either cringe or comedy gold depending on your particular mood. Harrison Ford's unique, awkward and earnest approach to his role in Witness make it far more believable, but it feels like Stranger's script was written with a jackhammer by comparison.

Then there's the criminal investigation itself, which the film can't decide is more or less important than the awkward and cringe attempts at romance. Maybe "equally unimportant" is the answer, because it's not intriguing in the least.

A Stranger Among Us is only (barely) worth a watch through a "so bad it's good" lens. In all other respects it's completely forgettable.

I study personality disorders and mental illnesses as a hobby. I've read several dozen books, biographies, movies, videos. Most of what's out there is cliche, attempts to shock and rarely treats these subjects with respect and humanity. This film is the complete opposite, and if you're looking for something along the lines of SIGNS, SHINE, A BEAUTIFUL MIND, or a story where there's a big 180 and suddenly "the crazy guy was right!", this won't be your film.

TAKE SHELTER is a character-driven procedural of schizophrenia gradually but assuredly taking hold of Michael Shannon's character. The film keeps us on the same knife-edge as Shannon himself, wondering whether we're headed into supernatural territory or if this is all in his head. Shannon's mind is like a skipping rock across the surface of a pond that could keep skipping or sink at any moment, and each time the stone touches water we don't know if it will be another close call or much worse.

But what elevates all of this is the superb character development of Shannon and Chastain's characters who are steadfastly real and relatable. There were so many opportunities to jump to cliches - such as a scene of their deaf child being bullied, a wife-beating scene, some kind of gun violence scene - but it never sells out or exploits them. They're a loving family, and as Shannon's mental decline accelerates, it's a bond they cling to and is thoroughly tested.

The film also brilliantly explores many issues with mental health, both coping and treatment, but again, never in a lazy way. Shannon is in somewhat denial of his condition, but is also limited in his resources. He's the breadwinner of the household and feels obligated to try and just cope quietly, hoping things will improve, until his condition deteriorates past the point that he can hide it. Mental health professionals do what they can for him, but are likewise limited in what they can do. The system fails him, but not for lack of caring, or a lazy, dismissive healthcare professional prescribing him some "anxiety" pills and sending him on his way. His friends, community and job patiently tolerate him as long as they can humanely be expected to. Yet that's part of the tragedy of mental illness, that it destroys both professional and personal relationships so thoroughly. That it destroys the bonds of friendship and humanity. Here we see that process of undoing play out in painful, realistic detail.

It's obvious why some don't like this film. It's a pot-boiler but in the most patient and sympathetic way. As I've said (ad nauseam), it never goes for the cheap bullet points or promises a happy ending. People with little or no background in mental illness may at times wonder where the story is going or wait for a pivotal turn that indicates "everything will be all right". TAKE SHELTER gives us only a little of it, but in the process fills our minds with questions: "What if Shannon didn't already have a strong family bond? What if he wasn't already as professionally respected as he was? What if he was alone instead of having a wife and friends who cared about him?" Things are bad, but we instantly realize how much worse they could be for others in different scenarios.

Every character in this film delivers an amazing performance, from the leads to the smaller roles, and every scene is multilayered and powerful. If I have one knock, it's that the ending feels slightly disjointed. Highly recommended for viewers who appreciate detailed human and family drama.

MASTERMINDS is a Die Hard ripoff, more or less meant for young teenagers. No one dies, and in fact, the bad guys go out of their way to ensure even their police pursuers don't come to harm. No kid ever fires a gun (except one instance of an air gun with a stun dart). Despite this, the main character (Vincent Kartheiser), who is a whiz with all kinds of computer and MacGyver-like devices, wires up dynamite that ends up destroying a huge section of a school. There's also plenty of rockets, explosions and gunfire to go around, and a few swear words. It's as if they were holding back but likewise wanted to make it edgy enough that its tween/teen audience wouldn't dismiss it as "kid's stuff". The result is a bit of an identity crisis, with some of the violence more appropriate to teens, but other elements that are more of an all-ages afterschool special.

Anyway, the basic plot is Patrick Stewart, masquerading as a security systems installer, has actually installed a new security system to serve his own devices at a wealthy prep school. His plan is to hold the students hostage so the wealthy parents are forced to pay huge ransoms. Unfortunately, Ozzie, played by Vincent Kartheiser, just happens to learn of their plan. He sets to work figuring out how to free the kids, which also includes his step-sister.

From there, this film is instantly forgettable to anyone outside its 11-14 age range, with a kitchen sink of action scenes, MacGyver-isms and computer hacking you've seen a thousand times. None particularly inventive or clever such as films like The Goonies. A few feel "slip-on-the-banana-peel" inspired by the Home Alone films.

Patrick Stewart is the only decent actor. He's a suitably evil bad guy and I was able to forget he wasn't piloting a starship every single week in syndication on my TV. Every other character is phoning it in except Kartheiser. He tries, but comes off as a very generic teen actor, with none of the charisma of young actors like Corey Haim, River Phoenix, Matthew Broderick or Michael J Fox, before him. The late 90s seemed to be a desert of young male stars, but Joseph Gordon Levitt or Jonathan Taylor Thomas would have been my picks for this role.

Given the aforementioned identity crisis of flirting with the lines of adult violence against other "kids rule, grownups drool" ingredients, the best I can say for MASTERMINDS is it might appeal to young teens or tweens but the violence might go too far.

While a visual and action spectacle, the title is absolutely correct: this film really is everywhere all at once, and not in a good way. It's all over the map and I grew weary between its rapid-fire presentation and confusing and constantly shifting themes that made a lot of noise but did very little to offer any real explanations as to why all this was happening.

Most of the film revolves around the main character, Evelyn, who is ripped out of her normal humdrum existence and tapped to be some sort of "Neo"(The Matrix) style character who must save the "alpha-verse" from certain destruction by evil forces, and so on. The film goes to considerable lengths to explain the dynamics of this metaverse, it's odd gadgets, navigation and parallels to our own universe, and we follow along as Evelyn learns how to navigate its bizarre eccentricities and survive various threats. Yet in the final act of the film, nearly all of it is made irrelevant, and messages about positivity and family bonding are substituted instead.

The journey Evelyn undertakes to reach these (in my opinion) rather pedestrian realizations is so convoluted and built up, I think the "it was all a dream" ending might have actually worked here. Alice really goes down the rabbit hole and after all she sees and experiences, she realizes she doesn't have to live up to her father's expectations, her daughter being gay is fine, and her husband isn't a fool just because he has a positive outlook. Maybe try a therapist next time?

5/10, bumped to a 6 for slick presentation, humor and some fun action.

In his dreams, Nemo is transported to the magical Slumberland where he learns the King of Slumberland has chosen him as his successor. Those are the only two plot points of the first half of the film. The rest of that time Nemo is introduced to character after character amid rote musical numbers that quickly feel exhausting. There's s almost no break from the bombastic score and visually impressive but empty-feeling set pieces. This would be okay if it was done in a charming, energetic, creative or plot-driving way, but the main purpose seems to be to show off the animation (which is quite good).

By the time the plot actually starts to unfold, I was mostly checked out. It didn't help that the characters are written rather flat and the voice actors didn't impress me either. They aren't terrible, but like the rest of the film, they don't inspire.

This was a troubled production and its lack of focus and "way too many cooks" problems are very clearly on the screen, though at the least it does manage to not fly apart completely. Still it never rises above mediocre and felt like work to get through.

Liam Neeson and Kenneth Cranham are excellent as former fellow cops and now friends, at times at odds and others cooperating to solve the murder. The dialog is really amazing in certain parts of this film, very witty but never for its own sake or to prove to you how clever the film is. It always serves the plot. It reminded me of old film noir classics where the story, character and motivations were always center focus and they couldn't paper over weaknesses with special effects or explosion-laden action scenes. Laura San Giacomo is a bit weak in parts but serviceable enough.

Unfortunately, while the film builds very well the payoff is a bit lackluster and silly. I can't say too much more to avoid spoilers but there are a few contrivances in the last quarter of the film that are laugh-out-loud ridiculous. Solid performances still make this worth a watch, though.

FURY OF THE FIST AND THE GOLDEN FLEECE feels like if you took a group of Gen-Z kids, showed them a couple '80s martial arts flicks and said, "Okay, now YOU try it!" It's so lazy and ignorant in what it's attempting to satirize that nearly every bit of humor falls completely flat and is just oddly detached. On top of this, a kitchen sink's worth of color filters, overlays, film grain, chromatic aberration and more are overused with motion-sickness results. Oddly, they also added video game (or maybe graphic novel?) effects that were never in any of those old films. The whole thing is a dull but exhausting fever dream. This very barely looks and quacks like an '80s duck, enough to maybe fool young people who have bought into the "everything '80s is cool" bandwagon, but wow is it awful. So bad it's terrible. Avoid this at all costs.

Cafe Society is a modern take on the melodramas of the 1930s and tries very hard. It's sumptuously shot and the period touches are superb but it's tanked by terrible casting choices.

Jesse Eisenberg plays, you guessed it, Jesse Eisenberg, and that's fine in films like Zombieland where he's supposed to be the awkward nerd. In this film, he's the same guy but somehow ends up with beautiful women and becomes a society heavy-hitter, and he couldn't look more out of place. I think what Woody Allen was attempting was to use Eisenberg in much the same way he used himself in many of his films - improbable and mousey but charming, observant and witty, and conveying a pathos in the overall message of the films that transcends his characters. The problem is, Eisenberg has the mousey thing down pat, he has none of the rest.

Kristen Stewart is also miscast though leagues less so than Eisenberg. Still, she sticks out like a sore thumb as a typical-feeling millennial, more suited to a coming of age college drama. Her occasional vocal fry and never seeming to even attempt to disappear into her role or reflect the mannerisms of the period feels very out of place in such a lavishly shot production.

Steve Carell is the least miscast but still never gives the presence of a Hollywood film studio head. His frequently re-used shtick of being interrupted with phone calls and demands for his time to show he's a mover and shaker looks more like an over-confident real estate agent than a Hollywood bigwig.

With the right casting this could have been an enjoyable film, but as it stands it's a very pretty film with ultimately unlikable characters caught in a love triangle I didn't care about.

White Sands is a neo noir set in the American Southwest. A small-town deputy Sherriff (Dafoe) relentlessly pursues what is ostensibly a suicide out in the desert, but next to the deceased is a briefcase filled with half a million dollars. Dafoe just can't let sleeping dogs lie and keeps digging. He stumbles on a connection, and pretty soon, decides to impersonate the deceased to keep tracking the case.

It started off promising with superb performances by the cast, but as soon as it hits its one big twist it starts to unravel. Too many choices by Dafoe and Mastrantonio's characters require a lot of fill-in-the-blanks to attempt to make sense of their motivations and choices. Is he bored with his humdrum life? Is she? Why, when things are totally out of control, do they not walk away when given the chance? The film is only marginally successful supplying the 'why'. It often feels like it's based on a book you haven't read, or like key scenes were cut. It goes a bit too far in trying to keep you guessing with twist piled on twist and the last twist at the end feeling like a cheep escape hatch.

Still, if you like neo noirs, this isn't a complete waste. As stated, the performances are terrific. Especially Mickey Rourke as a mercurial and charismatic sociopath that makes the hair on the back of your neck stand up.

Reading these reviews I had that familiar "Did I see the same movie?" feeling I've occasionally had before when the overly positive reviews didn't match my experience at all. Ghostbusters: Afterlife features bland main characters, a plot I can barely remember, a lot of teasing of the original cast but very little actual delivery, and dialog that was eye-rollingly written by committee.

Unsurprisingly, Afterlife can't outright reject the ill-fated and thoroughly awful 2016 Ghostbusters, but simultaneously tries to cherry-pick acceptable ingredients from it. All while trying to walk a tightrope of inoffensiveness and very, very forced inclusion. In the process we end up with Milquetoast Busters, a movie more concerned with not offending anyone and not interested in even trying to recapture some of the magic of the original.

It's sad to say, but all Dan Aykroyd's best work ended with the 1980s. There have been only two Ghostbusters efforts since then that are worth anyone's time: The Real Ghostbusters animated cartoon (if you're a kid), and the 2009 Ghostbusters video game, which Aykroyd has stated was "basically Ghostbusters 3". It was a joy to play and was the first time in literally decades I felt some of that old Ghostbusters magic.

Let me say up front you'll have the best time playing this on Casual (easy) difficulty. The game's strengths are in its storytelling and characters. Combat is sometimes confusing with random difficulty spikes, and can really detract from the pace. Once you've got the hang of things, the higher difficulties add some replay value.

Second, if you already own this game there's zero reason to buy the Remastered version. Without going into too much detail, the Remaster is a pretty shameless cash grab that looks and plays identically without adding any new content or even fixing some of the most annoying aspects of the original. They even stripped out a bit of content due to copyrights expiring - nothing major, but fans will notice.

With that out of the way, I rate this game as the third best Ghostbusters property, behind the first film and (for kids) the excellent cartoon series. Many fans consider this game the real "Ghostbusters 3" and I can get behind that. It feels very connected to the first two films and some of the ideas, like the "evil slime" from the second film, even work better in a video game.

This "feels" like a Ghostbusters game from head to toe. This is contrast to, for example, the awful Commodore 64 game, or generic mobile puzzle games that licensed the name. The start screen greets you with Elmer Bernstein's score and it's used throughout the game. Ray Parker Jr's classic hit is there, of course. All four main characters - Murray, Aykroyd, Ramis, and Hudson - supplied voice talent, as well as some of the supporting cast like Annie Potts (Janine) and William Atherton (Walter Peck). The firehouse looks exactly how you'd expect and includes various fan nods. Sadly missing are Dana (Sigourney Weaver) and Louis (Rick Moranis).

Gameplay is a mixed bag. Wearing down and capturing ghosts with the proton gun feels vague and a bit of a guessing game. The films give the impression the crew have to somewhat wrestle with them, as if wielding fire hoses, and while that's recreated very well in the game I'm not sure if makes for the most satisfying action. For some reason when drawing a ghost into a trap, it just seems to randomly escape. The "slam" ability feels hard to control and it's not clear if it's helping. The vagueness goes from being a bit annoying to downright aggravating when there are many ghosts to contend with and you're trying to trap one while being hit by other ghosts.

On top of the basic proton stream, several additional weapons are introduced, including the slime gun. The slime gun works fine and fits in the game's cannon, but two other weapons do not. One is a shotgun-like weapon and the other is a sort of machine gun. Both feel very underdeveloped. One has an alternate firing mode which is supposed to immobilize ghosts so that your teammates can concentrate their fire, but it seems to mostly do nothing. The other has a secondary fire which is supposed to be it's heavy-damage version, but is inferior to the heavy fire from the proton gun. So what was the point of it at all? Some of these guns and firing modes probably have uses in multiplayer, but in single player the only reason to use them is to exploit the occasional enemy weakness.

Ghostbusters is very linear. It progresses in chapters and there are no branching story lines or paths through levels. There's some very minor puzzling and exploration but you can't ever really stray from the main story. There are no side quests. This might disappointment some who want a bigger and more multilayered world to explore. The tradeoff is it keeps a tight narrative focus which makes it feel more film-like. I agree with that choice, however, it would have been fun to play a side quest as Janine or even Walter Peck! I also would have liked just a bit more depth and interactivity to the levels.

Graphically it holds up well for a 2009 game, occasionally looking terrific. There's no in-game option for anti-aliasing but you can enable AA via your GPU control panel and you'll definitely want to do that.

My one complaint is the design of your character, who has no name and is just referred to as "Rookie". The character model is jarringly bland in the company of such iconic characters as the Ghostbusters. As if they just stuck a random Ghostbusters fan's likeness in there (which is sort of the case - the character was modeled after one of the game designers). They would have done better to just never show his face and only show him from behind, in a similar "everyman" way the Half Life games do. Fortunately this is the case most of the time, but every time I saw my character in cut-scenes I couldn't help thinking "Why that guy?" every time. And just as confusing, if they were going with the nameless rookie, why not let us pick male or female?

I would have appreciated a bit more depth and some more interactive fan service, but this is a fun, quick (6 - 8 hours) game that feels nostalgic and doesn't overstay its welcome. Fans will absolutely love it.

Mel Gibson and Danny Glover are far funnier in the actual Lethal Weapon films, which is a big problem in a movie meant to spoof them.

Most of this film is a misfire. Emilio Estevez and Samuel L Jackson don't have any chemistry, comedic or otherwise. Neither one is particularly funny on their own nor do they play off each other well. Jackson seems particularly lazy in his role and doesn't seem like he wanted to be there. Even the lines between the two characters seem sparse, and they mostly seem to interact with anyone but each other for a lot of the film. As if the actors weren't getting along or had very different shooting schedules.

Cameos - such as by Erik Estrada and Larry Wilcox (Ponch and John from CHiPs) aren't used for anything but nostalgia, in an "Oh, I remember them" way. I guess they thought that was enough but it's curious why they couldn't be bothered to write some jokes.

The bad casting is paired with poor direction and editing. Some of the weaker jokes could have worked in better hands but the comedic timing is nearly always off. Small laughs that work for a chuckle get whittled down to nubs by leaving them to linger way too long on screen. When jokes fall flat (which is pretty often) the silences feels deafening and overlong. The handful of jokes which earn a big laugh are weighed down by all the misfires that surround them. A re-edit that cleans up all the bad timing could make it a significantly funnier film.

William Shatner goes full Shatner mode in his evil villain role and is one of the only lively and invigorating performances to be found. Tim Curry should have been another standout but the script leaves him high and dry. Kathy Ireland is very pretty in a 1990s supermodel way but has the comedic chops of a basket of laundry.

It's too bad, too, because there are some genuinely good jokes if you've got the patience to wait for them. With a better team this could have become a spoof franchise.

Gambit is a light, breezy, humorous take on the heist genre that's uneven and a bit half-baked, but overall satisfying. Shirley MacLaine and Michael Caine lend enough star-power and terrific acting to make this worthwhile, but I'm not sure it would have stood on its own otherwise.

The story is Caine is a thief and a conman and he recruits MacLaine in a night club to help him on a heist because she resembles the deceased wife of his current target. Neither MacLaine nor Caine are what they seem at first and this leads to plot twists and surprises aplenty. It's fun seeing their characters reveal themselves through the film.

Unfortunately, when all is revealed it's only somewhat satisfying. The inevitable romance aspect is very under-cooked and feels a bit thrown together in service of the plot when it happens. Also, MacLaine's character turns aren't explained through the film and, I think, were leaning on her Hollywood stardom to explain. She suddenly transforms from a flighty airhead to being knowledgeable about art, for example. This initially made me wonder if she was pulling a fast one on Caine, but no, the sudden appearance of her poised, sophisticated and crafty side is never explained. It just happens.

Despite these flaws, I was still very entertained.

The production of The Cotton Club was reportedly a mess of over 5 years, with producer Robert Evans hitting up arms dealers for funding and getting busted for cocaine, and Coppola threatening to walk from the film, among many other twists and turns. It seems safe to say a lot of the behind-the-scenes drama is certainly reflected in this clunky, lumbering mess of a film.

There's barely a script, just enough cheap wire hangers to hold up the film's many musical numbers. None of the characters feel authentic, just loose caricatures. The dialog is so disjointed and wooden it's like they took the actual script and cut it into little pieces, then tasked an intern to try and piece it back together. Each scene feels like an island, with only a fleeting connection to the ones around it. Everything has a detached aloofness that soon makes you stop caring or taking any of it seriously.

You're never not aware you're watching 1980s actors pretend-playing 1930s gangsters and entertainers. The film thinks you'll forgive all this as it launches into yet another boisterous musical number, and it might be right. The many singing and dance numbers are the only times when Coppola seems like he's putting in real work.

Whether or not you'll enjoy this film really comes down to whether its atmosphere and musical numbers are enough to sway you. As regards its atmosphere, I wasn't sold at all. When you think of great period films like The Sting, you feel transported and the period is infused throughout the dialog, the characters and the plot. The Cotton Club gives us lots of pretty pictures and a vintage look, but it feels like a Hollywood set in every frame of film. Again, we're never unaware we're watching the 1980s playing the 1930s.

The music and dancing are a potential redeemer. It's only in these scenes you feel a small glimmer of what this film aspired to. But boy are those moments few and far between. Even as a former musician and fan of jazz from the era, I'd had more than enough and was ready for it to end three musical numbers ago. If The Cotton Club's musical numbers were simply presented as a series of unconnected, short musical films it would have been a better experience, but they're dragged down to a slog by just about everything else.

If the same treatment of Neil Armstrong and NASA's quest for the moon depicted in this film was applied to Formula 1 racing, every race would consist of depressed drivers stoically skulking to their cars while their long-suffering wives looked on through the sheeting rain and holding their children close. This film captures some of the struggle of the moon landing, but almost zero of the triumph. It makes one of the turning points in human history occasionally feel like laundry.

Technically the film is impressive and the majesty of some of the shots is superb. When it sticks to the procedural elements of space flight, it does a satisfactory job. In just about every other way it's poor. The astronauts might as well be cut out of construction pape. Even Gosling as Armstrong is as lifeless as a moon rock. It's purposely wooden and over-stoic in an attempt to show the singlemindedness of the mission for those involved in Apollo. All passion, camaraderie, levity, and discovery seem filtered out. These are solemn space priests visiting their holy land. Bow your heads and pray.

Then there's his family life played to the melodramatic hilt. His constantly worry-faced, put-upon wife is forever weighing, "Well, he might go to the moon and change the whole course of human history but... these kids really need an emotionally available dad!" There's a fictional scene on the moon where Armstrong casts his deceased daughter's bracelet into a crater to honor her. Once back on Earth, that's followed by a melancholy reunion with his wife that says, "The moon is neat, I guess, but all I really want is right here on earth." The very forced family story comes off as cloying and heartstring-pulling. Occasionally groan-inducing.

Overall, this film cynically whittles down an incredible achievement until it feels like office work born out of dutiful obligation. It's a very pale, depressed pretender to much better films like The Right Stuff, that sucks all of the wonder and beauty out of space travel and human innovation in general. It's technical scenes and the magnitude of the topic itself are the only ways it manages to hold any interest.

Spacek and Simmons are essential for the slow-burn storytelling of NIGHT SKY. This is a series that's one part science-fiction and two parts characters, and these vets really bring the main characters to life. It's a nice break from the generic beautiful people and cookie cutter character development so common in TV and especially movies of today. Spacek, especially, disappears into her character almost instantly.

Playing Irene and Franklin York, the couple are in their sunset years and much of their lives have been hiding a fantastical, yet, at least on the surface, benign secret: a gateway to another world. Of course, then things start to happen. Meanwhile, in entirely different parts of the world, others are harboring similar secret gateways. Ultimately their fates will begin to overlap.

The plot is similar in certain ways to CLOSE ENCOUNTERS, in that we experience the alien phenomenon unfold through the eyes of the various characters. I love slow burns that build to exciting possibilities, particularly when we think we can see it all coming and yet it's still not quite what we thought it would be. I also love deep, layered characters. Unfortunately, that's where the cracks start to form. Spacek and Simmons' characters are solid but the same can't be said for the rest of the show.

In episode 2, the next group keeping watch over a gateway of their own are introduced: a single mother and teenage daughter operating a Llama ranch in rural Argentina. The writing jarringly drops in quality, full of tick-box cliches and utterly predictable teen rebellion that is regionally and culturally oblivious. Not to mention, very American-sounding. You can't just take stock mother/daughter drama, translate it into Spanish and graft it on characters in a 3rd world country 6000 miles away. Even their home looks plucked from an issue of Martha Stewart magazine and furnished by Pottery Barn. Who knew Llama ranching afforded such rural-chic living? Oh, but don't worry, she does drive an old beat up pickup truck.

Between poor dialog and settings that don't even try, it's like they wanted to rush past their introductions and get to the sci-fi part. This is completely at odds with it's slow-burn blueprint where we should be investing in the characters foremost. One gets the strong sense different writing and production teams were involved here and Spacek and Simmons got the wheat while the rest got the chaff. There's probably also not a small amount of the usual cultural-washing to avoid offending anybody.

The elephant in the room is what will happen to this series without Spacek and Simmons. Streaming series just love to stuff the first season with real star-power only to hand it over to a bunch of competent but forgettable novices in subsequent seasons. Without those two or suitable replacements, I'm not sure this will hold audience's interest.

In The Best of Times, Robin Williams plays a timid loser who thinks if he'd just won the game-winning touchdown against the town's rival back in '72, his life would be totally different. The remedy, he reasons, is to replay the game. He enlists the help of Kurt Russell as the former star quarterback to help him put the '72 team back together. Simultaneously, he convinces his father-in-law to help reassemble the rival Bakersfield team.

Meanwhile, both William's and Russell's marriages are in shambles due to their single-minded obsessions - Williams with the game and Russell with his custom van painting business. So in addition to winning the big game they've also got to somehow fix their personal lives.

The problem with The Best of Times starts with the two main characters. Both Williams and Russell just aren't particularly likable or even relatable. Williams frequently digs into his bag of standup comedy tricks and bits to spice up the humor of the film but it's awkward, jarring, and keeps his character at arm's length from us ever getting to sympathize with him. Kurt Russell is basically playing a similar character to his Jack Burton from Big Trouble in Little China (released the same year) but lacking all of the charisma or a script he can turn to for help.

The plot attempts to turn the classic sports underdog film on its ear with at times quirks, other times farcical comedy, other times non-sequitor moments. It sprinkles in some of the zaniness of films like Slap Shot. Yet each scene feels like it's grasping to find something that actually works, as if it's painfully aware whatever other things it's doing absolutely do not work. It feels like they were rewriting the script heavily during filming throwing everything at the wall.

Despite that it's a send-up it never truly commits so there are no surprises and we get a very formulaic final act with the football game finale that goes exactly the way we know it will.

The Best of Times good qualities are in its slightly offbeat weirdness that films in the second half of the '80s embraced. At the far end of the spectrum were films like Beetlejuice. In the middle, films like Trouble in Mind and Earth Girls are Easy. Best of Times is the mildest form of this off-center approach and while it added a little '80s kitsch, it failed to add enough charm to make this worthwhile.

As not only a Filipino but a bay area native where Easter Sunday is set, this should have been right up my alley but ended up being a cringe-fest from start to finish. What's astonishing is Jo Koy had so much to work with because we Filipinos are definitely a quirky bunch, yet at nearly every turn he goes for the very cheapest of laughs and one-dimensional caricatures. Whether it's fighting sisters, the black sheep brother, everybody riding Koy's fame or the unofficial competition to cook the best dish at the family reunion - all of these setups are carried out in the cheapest, laziest, and above all else - cynical - ways possible.

I'm not saying this with an agenda, either. I'm not knocking the film because it isn't a Filipino love-fest. It's fine to show Filipinos as they are, warts and all (in fact, that's what I wanted to see). A few people have claimed the movie is offensive toward Filipinos but I completely disagree. It's offensive to viewers in general with its inept laziness and its assuming that by taking the most worn out pile of gags and simply inserting Filipinos, it deserves laughs. Easter Sunday could (and should) have torn Filipinos to shreds to earn its laughs but it's far too dumb to even attempt scathing or honest self-deprecating humor. Despite this, it aims low and still misses by a mile.

Astoundingly, the funniest moments are when anyone but Filipinos are on the screen. Jay Chandrasekarh plays Jo's agent, and his running gag of having to end his cell phone calls because he's "driving into a tunnel" is unoriginal but he executes it hilariously. Tiffany Hadish has a small part as a police officer who is an old flame of Jo's. The script gives her very little to work with but she makes the best of it and earns some laughs.

Easter Sunday's biggest sin is its utter lack of humor and likable characters but the problems don't stop there. The pace is an exhausting mess. The plot has Jo up for a role that could be his next big break but demands he be at his agent's and producers' beck and call. But he has to balance career with family and then he runs afoul of some local gangsters. The hurriedness feels utterly manufactured and inauthentic, and the resulting caffeinated running around just wore me out.

Then there's the ending. Nearly all the film is spent making most of Jo's family as unlikable as possible but of course, they can't leave it like that so we get an awkward scene where the family reconciles and the bad guys are thwarted. You can see it coming a mile away and in your mind you're wishing it would arrive sooner because it means the movie will finally end. I emphasize, Jo's family's unlikability has nothing to do with them being Filipino. They're awful characters born of awful writing who just so happen to be Filipino.

Wow, what a bumbling, stumbling film this is. You won't get any insight into Filipino culture and nearly zero laughs along the way. It's a tired old plot, gags that don't work and a script that did a find/replace to insert Filipinos. Not recommended.

The Automat is a halcyon, loving remembrance of not just the rise and fall of a defunct restaurant chain, but a reflection and meditation on the shiny chrome, turny knobs, coin-operated simplicity and small miracles of youth that filled us with magic and unlimited possibility.

This is not a transformative documentary. You won't leave it feeling uplifted or with profound new insights. It's a look back and an honoring. Underpinning the interviews and personal stories, there's a melancholy awareness these palaces, still dear in our memories, are not only gone or unrecognizable, but with them, the zenith of a sacred soul of an age it's hard to imagine could exist today. And yet, the Automat was such an institution in its day, such an indelible fixture of city life, it must have seemed as permanent and inevitable as the subway and taxi cabs. Who could even imagine a New York City without it?

A documentary such as this, with its narrow subject matter, is in danger of running out of things to say. While it's occasionally thin-feeling, the photos and film snippets inside the restaurants and through various eras of city life are voluminous and always provide something of interest. The interviews with Mel Brooks, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Colin Powell and many of the former employees of Horn and Hardart never let it drift into tedium or repetition, but occasionally feel rushed or "on the spot" as opposed to planned. Media is never cheaply reused and, just as importantly, it all feels authentic and heartfelt, never going for cheap nostalgia, lazy sound bytes or contrived emotional tugs. Never cloying at us with an over-sentimentalized score. The song sung by Mel Brooks during the credits is syrupy, but the film mostly earns that right by the end. And yet, because it mostly eschews such gimmicks, it affects all the more.

Dr. Goldfoot is part beach party, part James Bond spoof and part gothic horror spoof (think The Addams Family or The Munsters). It really is a product of its era and a vehicle for Frankie Avalon, back when he was rapid-firing bubblegum films in the mid-60s. If you didn't grow up with shows like I Dream of Genie, Gilligan's Island or Petticoat Junction, the style of humor of a film like this might be completely lost.

Additionally, Dr. Goldfoot is from a generation of lighthearted comedy that had to step carefully to mildly titillate it's audience. Of course, these aren't actual women but robots and that enabled a bit more line-crossing. But just a little. The contrivances that film and TV had to create to put sex on screen will probably confuse and maybe frustrate many audiences. Particularly how sex is wrapped in lighthearted milquetoast packages such as this for the ever available suggestion, "Relax! It's all in good fun."

Historical context aside, this is no standout but not a complete failure either. Vincent Price is in top form as Dr. Goldfoot, hamming it up at every opportunity, playing a half Bond villain and half Dr Frankenstein. His sidekick Igor (Jack Mullaney) is refreshingly bumbling but not drooling, allowing for some effective comic interplay with Price. Susan Hart, as Goldfoot's top robot, is stunning to look at and solidly performs.

Where the film stumbles is in going for cheap laughs. Cheap even for the time. Cheap even for this kind of film. Frankie Avalon is paired with Dwayne Hickman playing Todd Armstrong, the world's wealthiest man, in an attempt at a comic duo, but Avalon is no Jerry Lewis and neither he, Hickman, nor the rest of the cast have the physicality to pull off the unending series of pratfalls to fulfill the "joke a minute" format. The Todd Armstrong character is also hopelessly inept and a sucker, and we don't for a minute believe he's the world's wealthiest man, thus, Dr. Goldfoot's plan to seduce the wealthiest people on earth with his army of robots earns no plausibility, even on a comic level. The chase scene at the end is just silly and feels like it was made up on the spot.

You'll have to overlook quite a lot to find the small amounts of charm, mostly from Vincent Price's performance. Only recommended for people who remember and have some nostalgia for this era's style of comedy.

Simon Pegg plays the role of Gary King, a mostly-unlikable and irritating lowlife addict whose best days were back in high school in the early '90s. His epiphany in group therapy isn't that he's made a mess of his life, but that he didn't finish out the very best day of his life - a night of pub-hopping 12 bars with his friends after graduation. That night, which should have finished at a bar aptly named The World's End, was cut short (everybody got drunk and quit), and yet he sees it as his best night in life ever.

He sets out to re-assemble his original cast of friends, now in middle age, now well into careers and families, and who want absolutely nothing to do with him, to complete this one hallowed night. Very reluctantly, his friends humor him and they set out for their hometown of Newton Haven for a night of youthful hellraising. Yet only Simon is having fun. Neither his friends nor we the viewers are having fun with him. Just when the crew start to get enough bars and drinks into their pub crawl that they start to re-bond and become slightly interesting, they're thrown into an episode of the twilight zone with their hometown's inhabitants not being what they seem.

I came away with mixed feelings about this film. Simon Pegg as King plays a darker and more unlikable character than his usual plucky earnestness, and I still didn't quite like him by the end of the film. Neither did I like his friends who rarely felt like friends with either Pegg or each other, but for reasons unknown continue to tolerate Pegg's antics out of loyalty and guilt.

The sci-fi, supernatural element is introduced but handled very unevenly. Bad guys are thrown at the group who are at sometimes lethal and other times cream puffs who seem to pop like water balloons at the slightest physical contact. Magically, Pegg and his friends become martial arts masters dispatching them in various acrobatic ways, none of which look impressive or impactful after the first few encounters, even through the lens of drunk courage. The film can't decide whether it wants to go full horror-comedy or stay anchored to the more serious topic of Pegg's degeneracy.

Complicating matters, there's too many times when the film presents the opportunity for the group to escape danger, but they don't, because for some reason getting to the next bar is all that seems to matter. I suppose this is a form of alcoholic logic - taking ridiculous risks to get to that next drink - but only Pegg's character is an alcoholic and one of them doesn't drink at all. I suppose to accept these plot advances, you should probably be a little intoxicated yourself before watching this film.

Ultimately the film wraps up in a series of flimsy reveals and a weak statement on how social media and improved communication technology in general have ruined the world, creating blandly obeying and following citizens, and denying the world of today the option of cutting loose and acting like school boys in bars. And yet, if it was going to make such a statement - which I think has some merit - it didn't lay the groundwork earlier in the film to do so. It doesn't really show why all of that debauchery and their mistakes and consequences has a certain value in the process of shaping young people into wiser ones.

This is the third in a loose trilogy including Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz, and both of those films are superior in every way.

Without a doubt, this is a film to watch with friends over drinks to embrace and celebrate its too-few lighter moments, such as of the girl who got away, or getting revenge on the high school bully, so the weak action, weak overall message and despicableness and only minor redemption of Pegg's character can be overlooked.

We all knew a person like Pegg's character (Gary King) in our young hellraiser days. This film gives us no good reasons why we should want to meet him again.