Gorgon Reviews

The oil industry is a fickle little bitch. I know quite a few people who are currently jobless as a result of a price crash and international disputes. But this documentary, The Overnighters, isn’t about the oil crash despite how easily it could have been. It was about the oil boon.

The only reason people would volunteer to move to North Dakota is for work. There are thousands of thousands of oil workers doing manual labor, working 12 hour shifts, non stop, oil rigging, hard work fun. And they make money. They get OT every week and have no free time, but they get paid and if they can keep it up, they can get rich quick.

Some people go out there because no jobs at home, some because they want to get away, some to support family back home, and some because they have no other alternatives. They might have had felonies or other law trouble and getting a regular job just isn’t going to work. So they hear about all the jobs up in North Dakota and just drive up there and think they will get lucky.

But a lot of people cannot find work right away. Not only that, but in all of these small towns, there are not many places to stay. Sure there are some apartments, but thanks to the boom and supply/demand, the rent is extremely high. Places like Williston, ND aren’t going to build a lot of apartment complexes, because they know it will eventually come crashing back down, then they will have virtual ghost towns.

So we have people living in cars, living in RVs, and an increasingly annoyed small town that is afraid of them for being strangers. For being people with potentially violent pasts.

But one man, Pastor Jay Reinke, opened up his church to some of these people to sleep on their floors. And the parking lot to others. Just so they could stay overnight somewhere warm as it is the Christian thing to do.

See, now you understand the title!

Pastor Reinke seems to be a genuinely good guy. He wants to help others when everyone else turns their back. He helps them find jobs, let them know about other places that can help out, and gives them advice on whether they should even try to stay and tough it out.

During the documentary, there is also a local ordinance wanting to ban people from living in RVs. If they find someone is staying in it for more than 28 days in a year, they can be fined or arrested. This will seriously ruin a lot of lives of people who are just trying to survive and get by, not hurting anyone. So Reinke even goes door to door with flyers, inviting the towns people to meet these men and get over their fears. To see that people can be helpful and more Christ-like. Hell, Reinke even opens up his home occasionally to a few people.

But Reinke has his own demons from his past that also affect his family (wife and two daughters), more so than anyone would realize. Just typing that sentence made this sound like a thriller, so forget that.

The Overnighters is a powerful documentary. You get to hear stories of many individuals, including Reinke himself. He seems to be a guy who wants to help, but still he ends up making enemies. It is a reminder that life can fucking suck, and makes one wonder how much worse it is up there given the oil crash.

And it affected me emotionally as well. It was easy to imagine myself in the position of some of those individuals, willing to do anything just to support the family. It is a harrowing documentary that might make you feel like shit.

So why not a 4? Well, I have some issues with the way they presented some information at the end. And also the questions that they didn’t answer in the documentary by the end. They seemed to focus more on the pastor and less on the men who were homeless and potentially about to be spotless as well, when it comes to a place to sleep. But it still didn’t take away from the power that most of the documentary had on someone watching for the first time. Those stories are the real power here. Sure, the pastor has his own unique journey, but I just care less about that.

I love Ben Affleck. Wait let me rephrase that.

I love Ben Affleck. Oh, apparently that is what I meant. I am not saying Affleck is perfect. He had the bad stretch in the early 2000’s. But he is making a hell of a comeback and I have been cheering him on the whole time.

I was excited to hear he was playing Batman from the get go. Finally, a Batman from Boston. Obviously he won’t be from Boston in this film, so one dream was crushed, but I still feel he has the look and power to pull it off.

That is why I am excited to see Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. I hope that it is better than the mediocre Man of Steel. I am also glad that the slate of DC movies is now determined for the next decade or whatever. After MoS, they initially said there would be a Man of Steel 2 like, a year later, then Justice League film to bring in everyone. I guess MoS2 turned into this, a Justice League prequel. A much smarter move.

God damn, look at those dreamy blueish Batfleck eyes!

Metropolis got fucked over by Zod and Superman (Henry Cavill). You might remember it because it was a big source of frustration for many film goers at the lack of consequences. So in this film, they decided to make consequences.

Like by pissing off Batman (Ben Affleck). One of his financial buildings was destroyed in the fight, with many people who used to work for him killed and one worker (Scoot McNairy) lost his legs. His legs!

So now, two years later, Superman has been around for awhile and generally doing good. Lois Lane (Amy Adams) and the rest of the newspaper seem to be on his side and write good stories. Batman has been a vigilante for a long time as well, long before Superman arrived.

But now, two years later, a large source of Krptonite has been found in the ocean, and thanks to research by LexCorp and Lex Luther (Jesse Eisenberg), they have found that it can damage Kryptonian skin. Ooooh. He wants to build a Superman deterrent, just in case. You know, that is something that Batman can get behind.

And then a whole lot of other things happen. Like Wonder Woman (Gal Gadot)! She is here too, damn it!

Also starring Jeremy Irons as Alfred, Diane Lane as Martha Kent, Tao Okamoto as Luther’s assistant, Laurence Fishburne as head of the newspaper, Holly Hunter as a senator, and Callan Mulvey as a generic bad dude.

Shit, does everyone have glowing eyes?

Batman v Superman, because the s in “vs” is one too many characters, is a bit over 2 and a half hours. And if you haven’t heard, there will be a directors cut with the Blu-Ray release that is about 3 hours and rated R. Yes, they made the bold decision of announcing a director’s cut before actual theatrical cut, something that is mostly unheard of. I think it was to mostly announce the R-ness, after the success of Deadpool.

With a long run time, there is of course a lot going in. Even though everyone in the world knows about Batman, they still have to give us a bit of an origin story for him. For the majority of the film, it is implied that Batman has been Batmanning for a long time, perhaps even 20 years at this point. He has a lot of history that they don’t get into, but it is something I will believe, because it implies past Joker interactions, everyone involved in Suicide Squad, and more. But if Superman has been here for almost two years, you’d think the two of them would have interacted at some point before now, given Gotham and Metropolis being across a bay from each other.

I am coming from a very pro-Batfleck back ground, but I think he knocked it out of the park as our caped crusader. And not just because of his chin. We have a lot less material to work with still, but I think he is definitely better than Nolan’s Batman (Batlan?) already. He is raw, he is angry, and he is calculating. Jeremy Irons does a wonderful Alfred, but I’d be honest, I think I liked every Alfred.

Wonder Woman was also very exciting. We really only get to see her for one fight scene, but when she appears, she commands the screen. She shows no fear, fights like a god, kicks ass, and even uses one of her trademark weapons. I wanted more Wonder Woman, hell, I wanted all of the Jusice League, but the other characters were only teased.

Cavill as Superman is more of the same from Man of Steel. Nothing too drastically different here, although his 6th sense of detecting if Lois is in trouble gets a bit ridiculous. He is a bit more of a tragic character in this film, with the Christ allegations no longer being subtle.

Lastly, in terms of characters, Eisenberg as Luther I am still mostly unsure about. A lot of the character seems to be similar to half of Eisenberg’s other characters. Smart aleck, talks fast, etc. By the end, it almost seemed like they wanted to turn him a bit into the Joker with a sort of madness behind him. Let’s call him passable.

No cool glowing eyes, but hey, one group shot so I don’t show favoritism.

Back to the movie as a whole. This film is all over the place. And honestly, early on the plot feels a bit convoluted. Most of the Lois Lane plot in retrospect feels a bit pointless. Everything is supposed to connect by the end, in a shower of brilliant planning, but it feels instead like it is full of holes and unnecessarily complicated. (“Hey, that’s what convoluted means! You already said that!” – Gorgon Reviews reader complaint).

The actual Batman v Superman fight scene was really cool, but in all honesty it just seemed like it was mostly to showcase how awesome Batman was. Superman never really went “full Superhero” during it, and the ending of the fight seemed sudden and a bit tacky.

As for the actual big crazy fight scene, which I won’t spoil despite the second trailer doing just that, it was occasionally nifty, while also often being messy. I really enjoyed the fight scenes between Zod and Superman in the previous film because it did a great job of showing how intense a fight between virtual gods would be, but this one takes place in the dark, with tons of explosions and flashing lights. It is harder to follow actually what is going on, which was only a problem in the Krypton pats of the first film. Basically every fight is in the dark and at night, making it annoying. We do get to see how the different characters fight and they aren’t just all bam bam pow.

Annoyingly, Batman seems to do something in the final fight that makes no real tactical sense. In fact, it seems like it is him doing something that he was angry at Superman for doing. They try to explain it off with a line, but as it was spoken, I could only shake my head wondering how something so stupid could be included in the film.

Favoritism, schmavoritism. Batfleck was clearly superior and everyone knows it.

The film doesn’t go about explaining a lot of smaller plot points. Sometimes it makes sense, as it assumes the audience is competent and knows a thing or two about these heroes. However, on Batman’s side, there are a lot of weird…dreams, moments, and references, that seem to mostly be teasing for the future and leaving me a bit perplexed at times. They tended to feel out of place and actually slow the movie down since they aren’t relevant yet.

And finally, FINALLY, the ending. Good news, it might be controversial again although not in the expected way. The whole time I was sitting there, I was confused. There were two routes it could have gone. One would have been really bold and a creative direction to take the future films, the other would be very obvious to any movie goer and thus have absolutely no impact. And yeah, it went the no impact route. The last 5-10 minutes seem to be almost cancelled out thanks to final scenes. On its own it will rustle at least dozens of jimmies.

Here is the good news. I think this film is a step in the right direction. There is a lot of good in there, just also a lot of meh to overall bring it down some. But it did still have me excited for Justice League and excited for Wonder Woman. As for Suicide Squad, the trailers still have me as mostly indifferent. This could be a fantastic film franchise and a nice foil to Marvel, it just will take a few more steps than The Avengers took to get there.

Not growing up in the 1980’s, I didn’t have a lot of exposure to the Pee-Wee Herman character.

Heck, all I knew about him was the 1985 movie Pee-wee’s Big Adventure, which I had seen once, and Pee-wee’s Playhouse, a kid show I never saw. I just now learned the character had been in a Cheech and Chong film and used to be a stage act that was very adult oriented. He was toned down a bit for the movie and especially the kids show.

So I was pretty indifferent going into Pee-wee’s Big Holiday, a made for Netflix follow up almost twenty years later. And since it was rated PG, I let the kids watch it with me. I knew there might be some crude jokes hiding in the background, but as long as Reuben didn’t bust out his Pee-wee to pleasure himself during the movie, I figured nothing would really be a big deal.

Although I like where this is going.

Pee-wee Herman (Paul Reubens) is still up to his old hijinks. He loves Fairville, but he is afraid to leave it. Everything he needs is in this small town anyways. But then he meets Joe Manganiello (Joe Manganiello). Pee-wee and Joe hit it off right away. They agree on the best candy. They like the same things. They were BFF soul mates. And plus, Pee-wee had never heard of Joe before. He never saw Magic Mike!

So Joe invites Pee-wee to his birthday party, except it is in NYC on the other side of the country. And he tells him to not fly by plane, because he cannot discover himself that way. He has to road trip it up and he has five days to get there. And if they were really friends, he would want to go to his birthday party.

Pee-wee has never taken a holiday before from work. But after receiving a sign, he takes his car and crosses the rail road tracks.

And along the way bad things happen! He runs into three lady bank robbers (Jessica Pohly, Stephanie Beatriz, Alia Shawkat), a novelty item salesman (Patrick Egan), a farmer (Hal Landon Jr.) with nine daughters, Grizzly Bear Daniels (Brad William Henke), some extreme hair stylists (Sonya Eddy, Anthony Alabi, Dionne Gipson, Darryl Stephens), and a crazy rich lady (Diane Salinger).

Also Richard Riehle and David Arquette are in this one too.

One shake can change a man forever.

I really wasn’t sure what to expect for this film, outside of zany antics and maybe some celebrity cameos. I was definitely disappointed on the cameo front, because there was…one I guess. But I was not disappointed in Joe Manganiello, the super cameo.

Generally, when actors play parodied versions of themselves, I laugh. Like most of the cameos in Entourage. Or Matt LeBlanc in Episodes. Manganiello knocked it out of the park.

The bromance between him and Reubens, sure it is artificial, but it was a joy to see. Every time Pee-wee went to sleep he had visions of the party, but in slow motion and (spoilers) and they were hilarious. This film made me like Manganiello more than it made me care about Pee-wee.

As for the rest of the film, it had its moments. Most of the people are just extreme charicatures, like Pee-wee himself, so it is generally always moving. I enjoyed the Amish scene and the bank robbers added an element I didn’t expect in a PG movie (male strippers)!

A fine enough movie to distract you while you play on your phones, but not something you’d every really want to just sit down and watch again and again.

Hello, My Name Is Doris first premiered at the Austin, TX SXSW festival in 2015. And it took a whole damn year to come out. Literally, the 2016 SXSW is closing as this film is starting to get its nationwide release.

Some film companies really like to take their time I guess.

I didn’t know a whole lot about the movie going into it. I just knew it had Sally Field, who has barely been in anything lately. Outside of a TV show, she had three recent movies, a couple Spider-Man films and Lincoln. Her last movie before that was all the way in 2006. I have to assume she is getting close to retirement, or she doesn’t need the money and only wants to work on things that look interesting to her. Not Spider-Man though, because she apparently only did it for a friend and didn’t for the films that much.

But hey, at least she isn’t going the Robert De Niro route and starring in every shit film known to man.

Love can do strange things to a little girl.

Doris Miller (Sally Field) is in her mid-60’s and she has just lost her mom. She has lived with her mom her whole life in the same house on Staten Island. It is a bit inconvenient, as she has to take a ferry to work because of it. According to her brother (Stephen Root) and his wife (Wendi McLendon-Covey), their mom was a hoarder and it makes Doris a hoarder too. They also want her to move out of the house, the one she has lived at for over 60 years taking care of their sick mother on her own, so that the junk and house can be sold. She can get a cheaper smaller place in the city and not have a huge commute to work! Well fuck that.

Speaking of work, she is an accountant/data processor type person, in a fresh hip magazine company thanks to some mergers and acquisitions. On the stuffed elevator, she meets John (Max Greenfield), a friendly person who happens to be squished up against her, and sure enough he is a new art director in their company! And he is so dreamy. She starts to day dream about him, despite the serious age difference. She wants him.

And after meeting a self help guru (Peter Gallagher), with her best friends Roz (Tyne Daly) and Val (Caroline Aaron), she decides that anything is possible and she should work for it. She deserves love after all this time, and she deserves John.

Smaller roles are played by Natasha Lyonne, Beth Behrs, Isabella Acres, Kumail Nanjiani, Rebecca Wisocky, Don Stark, Rich Sommer, and Elizabeth Reaser.

He is so god damn charming in this movie. The opposite of his New Girl character.

Squeee, what a cute and cringey movie. Doris is the best character Sally Field has played in YEARS, and no just because she has barely had any roles over the last decade. It has been so long that I have forgotten that Field has won Best Actress twice in her life (in the 70’s and 80’s) and just now associate her as a once great actress who shows up every now and again. But she wasn’t just a great actress in the past, she is still a great actress now. Doris is an amazing character and she is brought to life by Field in an almost magical way. Her performance was funny and sad at the same time. Not super realistic for the most part, but the situations she was in and how they were handled were realistic. It would be impossible for a viewer to not join her on the roller coaster of emotions and feel the way she feels.

Hell, the film even did a good job at subtly letting the viewer really see how hoarding takes place. She says at one point that every item has emotional value and a story, but we are allowed to see that play out naturally with just a single broken pencil. One woman’s junk is another woman’s purpose.

The supporting cast was also noteworthy. Greenfield showed that he can play non-douchey roles and can be a multi dimensional character. But even more of a stand out was Daly as Doris’ best friend. She was about as unique as Doris with her own weird quirks, but together they made an incredibly believable performance of two women who have been best friends for over half a century. You could tell they both cared about each other and it was an exciting side arc to see along side the main story.

Field was great in this film. She deserves an acting nomination most definitely, despite coming out so far away from the awards ceremonies. You will laugh, you will almost cry, and you will cringe from all of her mistakes.

The official name for this film is not Allegiant, but The Divergent Series: Allegiant – Part 1, and that is down right terrible for a few reasons.

One, the first movie was called Divergent, not The Divergent Series: Divergent. You knew there would be more movies, you shouldn’t try to change the series names after you have already started.

Two, I didn’t name my review for the second one The Divergent Series: Insurgent, I just did Insurgent like a sane person.

And three, of course they took the third book of a trilogy and split it up. It will make them more money, regardless of how much it hurt the product (see Mockingjay Part 1 and Part 2). But they have absolutely no reason to throw “Part 1” at the end of the title. You know why? Well, the title of the fourth movie isn’t even The Divergent Series: Allegiant – Part 2. It is The Divergent Series: Ascendant. There is no Allegiant – Part 2 officially, even though the fourth and final film is the second half of the Allegiant book.

What a fucking clusterfuck of a titled series.

Thankfully we have teenagers with attitude to save us.

At the end of the first film, I thought out gang was leaving the walled city of Chicago behind, to advance the plot. I was wrong, they just went to the woods outside of Chicago. At the end of the second film, I thought everyone was leaving the walled city of Chicago behind, unified and scared, to advance the plot. I was wrong there too apparently.

Right away, Evelyn (Naomi Watts) now in control, decides it is best for the gates to be sealed and everyone be locked in. Security is ramped up and there to be trials for everyone on the losing side. Mentally at this point, I was about to throw my pen at the screen and walk out. If they don’t ever leave Chicago I will freak out.

Thankfully, I guess, our small crew of characters still wants to break out and see the world. Tris (Shailene Woodley), Four (Theo James), Peter (Miles Teller), Christina (Zoë Kravitz), Caleb (Ansel Elgort), and Tori (Maggie Q). This makes them traitors, so Evelyn has Edgar (Jonny Weston, our wannabe Jai Courtney) to hunt them down.

So what’s on the other side? Well, a lot of desolation. Some war shit happened. Nukes and all. But they are found by the Bureau of Genetic Welfare, a scary sounding company for sure, who let’s them know that Chicago was an experiment and more secrets about the world. I will let them stay secret. It is led by the director (Jeff Daniels), who is happy for Tris being Divergent, because it means their experiment worked!

Tris is now a hero who will save the world, and maybe save the impending war in Chicago. The remaining crew are working surveillance and security for the BGW while she has all the fun.

Returning actors include Octavia Spencer and Daniel Dae Kim. New people are played by Nadia Hilker, Andy Bean, and Bill Skarsgård.

The future is so weird and full of fucking CGI.

I have a lot of problems with this film and I have to get specific to let you know some of the things that really irked me. So there will be spoilers, arrr. But here is what it has to boil down to: the writers. No, I don’t mean Veronica Roth, the writer of the book. I don’t plan on ever reading them, but I have heard the final book is terrible. So maybe the studio agreed, because they hired three people to write the screen play, Bill Collage, Adam Cooper, and Noah Oppenheim. The first two co-wrote The Transporter Refueled (sigh, with Luc Besson) and Exodus: Gods and Kings among other things, and Oppenheim was one of three people on The Maze Runner.

They do not have the best credentials behind them, but more importantly, none of them worked on the previous two films. So not only did they apparently stray away from the source material of the books, but they collectively just went off the rails with no regard for continuity, characters, or sensibility. This movie is, dare I say, stupid. A childish word not meant for a serious movie review like this one, but the only one that really fits. Scenes are loosely connected by the plot, but with people who seem to not remember the past in any way shape or form.

All of my best actions seem to be about Four and when he gets to the Bureau so let’s just use him. He is put on security, told it will take him a long time to get used to the new future tech before he can go on missions. He figures it all instantly, of course, he was a fantastic fighter dude. He wants to go on the next mission, is told no, but like in a “No, wait don’t do it, no” apathetic way. Literally no one tries to stop him doing anything. Getting on the space ship, interacting with the natives, seeing what they really do with the natives. There was no resistance at any way, as the writers didn’t even know what they were doing.

While on the mission, he is yelled at by a commander who thinks he shouldn’t be here because he is too new and should stay out of trouble. You know who is sitting two seats away from him? Fucking. Christina. Also from Chicago. No way as good of a fighter as Four. But apparently she also did everything in the short amount of time (despite barely acknowledging her once they arrive), can also go on missions, and is given no shit. Hell, she even gets to interact with the natives and let Four know what is up, in front of everyone, and no one still cares. It was terrible to watch as the film was full of these tiny -> big inconsistencies.

But hey, at least the camouflage makes sense for this film!

This happens to be the type of film where 90% of the problems would be solved if the main characters would just actually talk to each other. Of course, lazy writing prevents this, turning it into a lame RomCom, without the Com and very weak Rom.

And really what really boils my corn is the ending. Look back at my description of how the first two films ended. This one ends with everyone ready to leave the walled city of Chicago behind, unified and scared. What makes me so upset about this ending is that it is almost exactly the same ending as the second film. Sure, things happen in this film, but outside of some knowledge gained, every single relevant person is in the exact same position they were a movie ago, totally going to do the things they promised to do this movie. Shit. This film series is like a horrible time warp, making me relive the leave Chicago plot over and over without ever really getting to do so.

I fully expect the final film to begin with everyone collectively breaking their legs, so that they all have to stay in Chicago for the whole film. That is the level of quality of writing I have come to expect from this franchise and next summer cannot come soon enough so that it can finally be over.

Who is General Tso? Was he a real man? Did he like food or chicken? Did he make Chinese food? Did he make Chinese American food? Why do people even like this stuff?

Well, if you have wondered any of this, you have come to the right documentary. The Search For General Tso answers all of these questions and more! Hell, it does it in under 80 minutes as well. That means you can watch even more documentaries in a single day!

First of all, we have to accept that you can go to any Chinese restaurant around the country and basically get the same exact menu. The same chicken dishes, beef dishes, fish, pork, appetizers. Hell, might even get crinkle fries. You will get some soy sauce packets, the orange sauce packets (whatever the fuck that is), some fortune cookies, and probably get your food in a typical container.

Look at the picture below. If you go to the store, you will probably see a visual menu with that bad boy on it, General Tso’s chicken, and it will look a lot like that.

Why is that?! Again, it will explain how that ended up working out.

First of all, I should mention that General Tso was a real person and a pretty bad ass warrior. He made the rank of General!

And this is food for any military commander.

So the actual search for General Tso ended up being pretty easy. Since he has museum’s named after him, and whole buildings in parts of China.

That means the next hour of the documentary has to talk about something. So it talks about everything. Chinese immigration to the US, lack of jobs for immigrants / policies to prevent the Chinese from doing a lot, turning traditional Chinese food into Americanized versions, the rise of Chop Suey, why everything looks the same, and the eventual decline of the food.

And what’s that? Oh yeah, when General Tso’s chicken came into being. Where it came from, who invented it, and why it became super popular after the fact.

The Search for General Tso is a weird documentary and clearly it goes over a lot of information. It is incredibly informative, but not necessarily on information you ever thought you would care about. I feel like I learned a lot in the time frame, but I also felt like I could have learned more.

This film felt like the post it notes on the subject. The quick and dirty to tell the story, but without getting into the nitty gritty details. They spent maybe 3 minutes talking about Jewish families and Chinese Food, but there is a lot of history there. There could have been more on other dishes that started and why they became familiar. They didn’t even start to touch on the Chinese Buffet phenomenon, which probably had an interesting story as well.

A good start, but damn it, I want more.

Miracles From Heaven is the latest close to Easter Christian film release to happen this year, the first being Risen, and the next one after this being God’s Not Dead 2. I figured I should tell you that these all exist, because it is easy to get lost in it all.

Miracles is by the people who brought us Heaven Is For Real from a few years ago, also based on a book based on a true story. And of course, Heaven is in both titles. They want you to know right off the bat what you are getting in to.

Sure, I almost never rate Christian films highly, because they are all pretty similar. Overacting, cheesiness, non realistic situations, straw men, whatever. But what annoyed me in particular about this one ahead of time was the marketing. I barely saw anything for it, but I did see a viral post on the Facebook. At the risk of giving this random person more views, here it is if you haven’t seen it.

Now, first of all, yes it is just the trailer. And the trailer is cut off on the left and right due to the actual size of the post. But this trend of having text on the top and bottom of gifs or videos is incredibly annoying. First of all, it takes away from the original creators of the gif/video, and puts someone else’s mark on it. It usually changes the distortion of the video and makes it smaller. But lastly, what an annoying thing to even write on just a trailer to get people to share. It feels underhanded and deceptive almost. I hope I don’t start seeing more of these, because people will fall for this way of advertising apparently and not realize how crap it is.

And of course, you also have to see the trailer for this film, which tells 100% the whole damn story of the movie.

Oh hey. That guy. I like that guy. Never mind, I need to see this movie!

Let’s journey back in time to a few years ago to Texas. Near Ft. Worth, not near Dallas. We will meet the Beam family, which is a strange last name to hear a lot as you will assume bean half the time. The patriarch is Kevin (Martin Henderson), a veterinarian, who recently convinced his wife, Christy (Jennifer Garner) to let him open up a bigger clinic. They have a lot of animals on their large farm, but also three daughters: Amy (Brighton Sharbino), Anna (Kylie Rogers), and Adelyn (Courtney Fansler).

Anna is our main girl though, the middle child, because she has stomach pains and no one knows how to help her. Eventually they figure out that her intestines are not working, they are basically bloated and paralyzed, so she cannot eat any solid foods. She has to switch to liquids. It is a disease with still no known cure, so it is mostly about making her comfortable through all the pain and living with her for the few months or years she may have. But Christy will not accept it. So no matter the cost, no matter the strain on her family, she will help her daughter. They even get her into the best doctor who works with kids with these sorts of problems. Dr. Nurko (Eugenio Derbez)! Except he is in Boston with a long waiting list.

Well, they will get through this. No matter who loses faith. No matter who gives up on life. No matter what strange accidents that might occur eventually and cure the disease surprisingly despite no known cure.

Also featuring some smaller roles from Kevin Sizemore, Queen Latifah, Bruce Altman, and John Carroll Lynch as the preacher.

Damn this family just looks perfect.

Okay here we go. Miracles From Heaven was not as bad as most other Christian cinema. It wasn’t overly cheesy, nor was it overly preachy. The acting was average to good, only poor acting coming from some random extras. It also did a lot better at connecting to the viewer on an emotional level. It doesn’t make it a great movie, it just makes it better.

Now of course, I am still a relatively new father. So movies that are about the potential (or actual) loss of a child, especially a girl, really get right up into my brain and make me feel the sad feels. So yes, Miracles From Heaven made me cry. Not just once, or twice, but several times. Just getting caught up in all of the emotions, the sad and the happy. After all, once you start flowing, it is hard to really stop. So obviously the film did a wonderful job there of jerking the tears.

In all honesty, a lot of me just seemed to feel bad for Kevin, who had to try and hold everything together, working long hours, still taking care of the kids and missing out on events, while trying to be an emotional rock for his family.

But enough about that. This movie did feel too long. And if you saw the trailer, there is not a whole lot of reason to see the movie outside of an emotional experience, because you see how she even gets healed. There were a lot of unnecessary scenes without any real payoff, like Queen Latifah’s character. You could cut her out of the movie easily and you wouldn’t miss out at all. It felt like there were several potential ending points, which kept me feeling tied down. And of course story wise, there isn’t a whole lot of plot.

Only one “prayer” scene felt really awkward or out of place, and that was when Christy was losing her faith and yelling at the sky. There was also a heaven scene that got really strange, but I guess it was required to happen.

Oh well. A decent recounting of the true story of a girl who had issues who then lost them after getting into an accident. What it doesn’t try to do is prove that Jesus is real through the story. It is only a small part. Unlike Heaven Is For Real, which is all about trying to prove it with terrible evidence, this is a story about a family going through a tough time and becoming stronger on the other side. Miracles is now the new film that I will compare all future Christian films to.

It took me so long to watch Sleeping With Other People, because I made a lot of assumptions based on the title.

I assumed it was about two people in a relationship who were going through a tough time. Their sex drives were low but their love was high and that was making them frustrated. So they agreed to let themselves sleep with other people. Just to spice things up.

I didn’t feel like seeing it, because I already saw that movie in The Freebie. And hell, I also saw Hall Pass which was similar enough and shares a main actor.

But I was wrong, and the assumption made us all assholes. Or something like that.

Shit, here they are sleeping with each other. What the fuck movie title?

Let’s start out in 2002 or so. I forget the year. Early new millennium! Lainey (Alison Brie) is banging on a dorm room door, trying to get some sex with some loser. Before she gets kicked out, Jake (Jason Sudeikis) says she is here as his guest, so they hang out and talk about her issues. And they have sex, both of them being virgins after a long night of getting to know each other.

Then you know, they lost touch over time. Now it is modern day. Jake is addicted to sex, full on. He has sex a lot, is known as a player, and has even gotten around to his job. He is trying to sleep with his new boss (Amanda Peet).

Lainey is addicted to…love! She breaks up with her boyfriend whom she has been cheating on with constantly. With Matthew (Adam Scott), a gynecologist, the guy who she tried to sleep with in college so long ago. Except he has a pregnant wife, but she can’t get over him.

Either way, Lainey and Jake eventually meet up and go on a small date. They both open up with their relationship problems and agree that sleeping with each other would be a bad thing. They should remain just friends, avoid sexy talk if possible, and just help each other with their issues.

But you know, this is romance thing. That’s all I will say.

Also starring Anna Margaret Hollyman, Jason Mantzoukas, Natasha Lyonne, and Andrea Savage.

Taking off shirts at a kids birthday party is one way to avoid sexy time.

Sleeping With Other People is one of those strange movies that doesn’t even show some sexy times occurring. I am not clamoring for penetration in film or anything ridiculous, just that the sex they show looks very unnatural, with the characters wearing all their clothes still and usually just collapsing at the end. Yes, this happens all the time now it seems, especially with the PG-13 Rating. But this movie is rated R. Let’s use the old internet sexist phrase, “Tits or GTFO.”

Sorry to be crass. But just an annoyance and a strange step away from realism that has been growing.

There are amusing moments in Sleeping With Other People, but I think the downfall of the film is in its dramatic moments. They tended to feel a bit more nonsensical than the comedic ones, which is normally opposite. I could never fully connect with either character, who both were living lies for months. They needed Mike Tyson to just walk up to them and say “Now Kith” to get it over with.

This analysis is dull, because the movie is just so damn average. It is a mediocre plot, with average acting, an occasional funny moment, and many without. Watch it if you like the actors, ignore it otherwise.

Cloverfield was a very polarizing movie back in 2008. Most people you would talk to had strong feelings one way or the other, but if you went on the internet you will find almost universal praise. Time changes everything.

Now imagine everyone’s surprise when the first trailer of 10 Cloverfield Lane appeared a mere three months before the release date. No one knew it was coming, nor did they know what it was about. Produced by J.J. Abrams, he described this film as a “blood relative” to the original Cloverfield. Again, a vague statement.

Needless to say, this is not a sequel to Cloverfield. The Director admitted just days before release that it technically didn’t even take place in the same Universe as the first film. No relation at all. Unfortunately, these quotes aren’t plastered on the commercials and posters. I predict a lot of people going into this film and being upset at the lack of monster. Abrams also said he intended for the Cloverfield name to be a sort of anthology of similar-esque films, but each unique and on its own. Like a Twilight Zone movie franchise, without a narrator.

However, I’d watch all three of these actors play board games for two hours and rate it a 5 out of 4.

Michelle (Mary Elizabeth Winston) is leaving her fiancé/husband Ben (Bradley Cooper). You don’t need to know why, but she is moving out, grabbing only a few things, and hitting the road. Hell, you don’t even have to know about the weird power outages affecting the coast. You just need to know that Michelle is now alone and driving off somewhere that no one knows about. Which is why when she gets into an accident and ran off the road, her friends and family will have a hard time finding her.

Especially when she wakes up in a room, full of scratches and hurt knee. She is down to her underwear and handcuffed to the wall in a mostly barren and locked room. Shit.

Her captor is Howard (John Goodman), a gruff man who claims he saved her life. They are in a bunker because something bad has happened on the surface and the air is toxic. So he claims. He wants her to treat him with respect, saving her life and all. He is totally the best guy right? And he just so happens to have a shelter with tons of locks, food for years and a social room, just in case anything goes down. Surely he isn’t a bad guy. He just luckily found her in the wreck and helped her, for sure, right?

Well, there is another guy in there too. Emmett (John Gallagher Jr.), who claims he helped build the shelter and broke his arm trying to get in. He was not kidnapped like she might have been.

Either way, the dynamic is fucked up, lots of secrets, who the fuck knows what is going on outside, we just know that they will be together in there for some time.

So better get used to staring at Howard’s fat ass dancing.

10 Cloverfield Lane, as I already mentioned, with upset a lot of people because it won’t feature the monster from Cloverfield in any way, and that is appropriate backlash given the secrecy and vagueness of it all. That should only affect this film, and not any future planned movie in this franchise-lite universe thing they are planning.

The movie on its own is tense as fuck. Twists, turns, and maybe even a pitfall or two. It traps the viewer in this bunker along with our main character, creating a dense atmosphere of hopelessness and confusion. Our heroine is particularly fun to watch because she isn’t just a held captive. She is resourceful, smart, and takes an active part in her own life, attempting to both escape and figure out what the hell is going on.

Winstead does a fantastic job of carrying the film as the main protagonist, but almost equally important is Goodman. He acts the fuck out of this movie, walking the fine line between concerned father figure and potential sociopath. The viewer can never really determine with any certainty just what he is thinking, as the whole film is generally from Winstead’s point of view. He is unnerving and also a bit sympathetic.

It is important to not overlook the third member of the bunker, Gallagher Jr. His character provides some comic relief and sense of hope. This movie would be much darker and a horror film if his role wasn’t in it.

Finally, what helped amplify the movie into complete crazy territory was the sound effects. Everything was loud and jarring and the sound made every scene ten times better. The people behind it in this movie were outstanding and deserve a lot of the praise into making this film feel so unsettling.

10 Cloverfield Lane is good thriller/drama/sci-fi (maybe!) film that leads the viewer on a strange journey. Monsters do come in all shapes and sizes after all.

I cannot stand Terrence Malick films. No I haven’t seen a lot of them. I haven’t even seen The Thin Red Line.

But I have seen The Tree of Life and To The Wonder. The former I couldn’t get behind at all, despite some lovely visuals, and the latter was just a complete train wreck from my point of view.

Some people call him pompous, some just refer to him as art house, and I just cannot stand his movies as of right now. So sure, I will give Knight of Cups a chance. But I am going in with a huge bias on my shoulders that I cannot shake. I will never get the time I lost from To The Wonder. Never.

Given the director, you have to assume every shot, no matter what, is actually a metaphor.

Also given the director, describing the plot of the film can be a bit tricky. So let’s run to IMDB for some help:

A writer indulging in all that Los Angeles and Las Vegas has to offer undertakes a search for love and self via a series of adventures with six different women.

Our writer is of course Rick (Christian Bale), whom is apparently good at his job and sought over, but he cares not about his job that much. He cares about his past and who he is going to fuck next. And that means he has more than six relationships in the film, as there are a lot of unnamed girls without speaking roles.

The six women include: Nancy (Cate Blanchett), his ex-wife, Elizabeth (Natalie Portman), a museum enthusiast, Helen (Freida Pinto), a model, Della (Imogen Poots), a free spirit, Karen (Teresa Palmer), a stripper from down under, and Isabel (Isabel Lucas), who, I dunno, likes beaches I guess. They all like beaches though. Beaches are kind of a big thing here.

Oh and he has family! Wes Bently plays his brother, Brian Dennehy his dad. Antonio Banderas has some role of significance, if you can call it that. But I don’t know what or why. Some rich guy.

There has never been a more metaphor-y beach.

I tried, I really did, to understand this movie from a different light. To think about the bigger themes that he might be getting at. To imagine the scenery as its own character. This was all advice people gave to me about Malick movies. Despite my hatred for the last two movies, I knew I had to watch this one do my best to review it fairly, because only watching movies I will probably like does not make me a great film critic.

But this movie just felt like a waste of time. It is two hours long and it felt like it was over three hours. The film felt like it was about to end three separate times before it finally showed the credits. The story that was told could have ended at any moment, because it is hard to say that there really was an actual ending they had in mind. It was all very spiritual and airy. Rarely do you see any character actually talking. Most of the dialogue is spoken over scenes of characters living and interacting with each other. And of course other dialogue is made by never seen characters, some talking poetically, or telling random stories, or…just who the hell knows.

Knight Of Cups is a confusing film. It is broken down into sections named after Tarot cards, which is also where the title comes from. And if you try hard, you might figure out why a section with the characters in it is called The Moon, or Freedom, or Death. Knight of Cups is presumably made so that you can derive your own opinions on the film based on what you get out of it.

And what I get out of it is a big waste of time. Sure, there are some well shot scenes. A whole lot of beaches, and some Californian mountains and death valley. But if I cared about well shot pictures of nature, I’d be watching Planet Earth, not a film that should have a basic story.