10s Movie Review - How to Be Single

Director: Christian Ditter
Genre: Comedy/Romance
Runtime: 109 minutes
Year: 2016
Starring: Dakota Johnson, Rebel Wilson, Leslie Mann, Alison Brie, Damon Wayans Jr., Anders Holm, Jake Lacy, Colin Jost

Description: A group of young adults navigate love and relationships in New York City.

Review: A film with multiple storylines is a common given in modern day romantic comedies. There is off course so much to tell about love. Since “Love Actually” this concept has almost become a romcom cliché. “How to Be Single” is also set in this format. Not persee a search for love, but the will to live without. And it soon shows there is not a lot to talk about, because the message is clear pretty quick.
In “How to Be Single” we follow four women in New York. All have a difficult time dealing with relationships in their own way. Either because they can’t commit or they simply can’t let go. Alice has decided to take a break from her relationship, in order to find herself. Her older sister Meg is a workaholic with the dream of becoming a mother, without a man. Alice friend Robin lives for parties and having one night stands. Lucy is focused on online dating, without noticing the men surrounding her. And there are plenty of great men in new York. But if you don’t know what you want, it doesn’t help you much. First get to know yourself, before getting to know someone else. This is something that the women in this film don’t really understand.
Alice’s story is the lead, mainly because she is the connection to Robin and Meg. Lucy’s storyline is dangling on the side. And Alison Brie’s talent is underused this way. I will choose Brie’s energetic performance over Dakota Johnson’s anytime. Her character Alice is constantly needing people around her, she is hopelessly naïve and her storyline quickly bores. Her sister’s story has that same effect. And all the male roles lack any depth. Thank goodness for Rebel Wilson, because she is the funny aspect in “How to Be Single”. If it wasn’t for her and Alison Brie, this film would be even worse.
“How to Be Single” does something that has been done so many times before. A very forgettable romcom.

Rating: 2/ 5

Movie Reviews - The Death fo Stalin

Director: Armando Iannucci
Genre: Comedy
Runtime: 106 minutes
Year: 2017
Starring: Steve Buscemi, Simon Russell Beale, Rupert Friend, Jason Isaacs, Jeffrey Tambor, Andrea Riseborogh, Olga Kurylenko, Paddy Considine, Michael Palin, Tom Brooke

Description: Follows the Soviet dictator's last days and depicts the chaos of the regime after his death.

Review: It’s a rather bizarre story, that probably a lot of people don’t even know, but it’s worth it: the death of Sovjet dictator Stalin. Under his command, hundred thousand political opponents were executed or send to the Goelag. It seems that six to nine million people lost their lives under the command of Stalin. No wonder that, when Stalin was found unconscious in his office, help didn’t come running. With this starting point, director Armando Iannucci brings us the somewhay genius “The Death of Stalin”. A tragic comedy.
After Stalin was founf, it took another three days before he was actually dead. The stories of how he was pronounced dead are legendary. But the fight for power after the dictator’s death is also very interesting. These two subjects center this story. Iannucci based his screenplay on a graphic novel by Fabien Nury. And the way this film is styled is pretty remarkable and interesting. All the dialogue is in English and all the actors speak in their own accents, British, American.
The film is also filled with beautiful observations and detail. And in a dark way, this makes the film funnier. Especially the fight for power, after Stalin’s death, were there is a lot of betrayal and stabbing each other in the back. “The Death of Stalin” is sometimes painfully funny. Because you realize that most of it actually happened. The absurd fight for power and they way some situations go.
It’s not a film everyone will see the humor of, but I think for people who enjoy learning about history, it’s a film to watch.

Rating: 4 / 5

Movie Reviews - Red Sparrow

Director: Francis Lawrence
Genre: Drama/ Thriller
Runtime: 140 minutes
Year: 2018
Starring: Jennifer Lawrence, Joel Edgerton, Matthias Schoenaerts, Charlotte Rampling, Ciarán Hinds, Joely Richardson, Bill Camp, Jeremy Irons, Thekla Reuten, Mary-Louise Parker

Description: Ballerina Dominika Egorova (Jennifer Lawrence) is recruited to 'Sparrow School,' a Russian intelligence service where she is forced to use her body as a weapon. Her first mission, targeting a C.I.A. agent (Joel Edgerton), threatens to unravel the security of both nations.

Review: “Red Sparrow” is an old school spy story, filled with betrayal, twists and strange accents. The film is almost completely set in Russia and Eastern Europe, but all characters are portrayed by non-Russians taking on a Russian accent. It doesn’t have the nuance of a John Le Carré film, but it’s a simplistic and entertaining spy thriller.
Jennifer Lawrence plays Dominika Egorova, a promising ballet dancer who is part of the Bolsjoi ballet. She has lived for dancing all her life, but due to a certain turn of events, has to end her career. Manipulated by her uncle Vanya Egorov, she starts working for him. He is an important man working for the SVR, the Russian CIA. Dominika is trained to become a Sparrow, special spies who use their bodies as a weapon.
“Red Sparrow” is an interesting spy thriller, that has more to offer than some cheesy and cliché twists or typical spy operations filled with betrayal and lies. But it doesn’t have the substance that movies like “Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy” have.

Rating: 3,5 / 5

Five to Watch - Movies Starring Jack Black

“The house with a Clock In Its Walls” is now playing in theaters and it stars Jack Black, one of my favorite funny guys. He doesn’t only seem like an all-around down-to-earth nice guy, he is genuinely an actor I love to watch. I decided to create list of five films, that I find worth watching. Somehow they are underrated or overlooked.

Bernie
In small-town Texas, the popular mortician Bernie Tiede strikes up a friendship with Marjorie Nugent. She is a wealthy widow well known for her sour attitude. When she becomes controlling and abusive, Bernie goes to great lengths to remove himself from her grasp. Jack Black plays the role of Bernie and it’s easily one of Black’s best performances. It’s a weird true story, but this movie took me by surprise. It’s highly overlooked.

High Fidelity
Set in a record store, that doesn’t get a lot of costumer’s. It follows Rob, the store owner portrayed by John Cusack, who’s dealing with some problems. Jack Black plays the role of Barry, an exhibitionist music freak who wants to be in the music business himself. “High Fidelity” finds a good balance between humor and drama, but is mostly carried by the music and the meaning of it in the character’s lives. I think it’s an underappreciated movie, more people should love it. As Rob, I’m an avid top 5 list maker and “High Fidelity” is definitely in my top 5 of all-time favorite movies!

The Big Year
Three fanatical bird-watcher, played by Owen Wilson, Jack Black and Steve Martin, spend an entire year competing to spot the highest number of bird species. I loved the theme, it’s a feel-good film. It could have easily fell into the ridiculous comedy trend, where everything that can go wrong, goes wrong. Luckily that didn’t happen and this film felt fresh and I really enjoyed it. It’s such an underrated film.

Be Kind Rewind
Mos Def and Jack Black play tow bumbling store clerks, who inadvertently erase the footage from all of the tapes in their video rental store. In order to keep the business running, they re-shoot every film in the store with their own camera, with a budget of zero dollars. This is a film that probably doesn’t speak to the younger crowd. Us 80s and 90s babies, we know what the phrase ‘be kind rewind’ mean. Because how annoying was it that you lend a VHS tape to someone and they’d return it to you without rewinding it. The cheap ways to recreate expensive special effects of some of our favorite movies. Those are the most fun parts of the film, when they are shooting the movies. Sometimes hilarious. And for someone who is creative herself, I can appreciate the creativity behind it all.

Orange County
Shaun Brumder is a local surfer kid from Orange County, played by Colin Hanks. He dreams of going to Stanford to become a writer and to get away from his dysfunctional family. Somehow mistakes are made and Shaun doesn’t get into Stanford. With the help of his brother Lance, a role by Jack Black and his girlfriend Ashely, he tries to do everything to get into the school. I don’t think there are a lot of people that even know this film. I know my friends haven’t, which is such a shame. It’s a good film, with great humor and fun characters. Like Jack Black’s Lance, he is hilarious as Shaun’s useless and lazy brother. I’ve seen it many times, there was a time I rewatched it several times a month.

00s Movie Review: Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby

Director: Adam McKay
Genre: Comedy
Runtime: 108 minutes
Year: 2006
Starring: Will Ferrell, John C. Reilly, Sacha Baron Cohen, Leslie Bibb, Gary Cole, Jane Lynch, Michael Clarke Duncan, Amy Adams, David Koechner, Rob Riggle, Molly Shannon, Greg Germann

Description: Number one NASCAR driver Ricky Bobby (Will Ferrell) stays atop the heap thanks to a pact with his best friend and teammate, Cal Naughton, Jr. (John C. Reilly) But when a French Formula One driver (Sacha Baron Cohen), makes his way up the ladder, Ricky Bobby's talent and devotion are put to the test.

Review: NASCAR: fast cars driving hundreds of laps on a simple oval track. In America it’s one of the most viewed sports. The NASCAR world was already put in the spotlight with the Tom Cruise film “Days of Thunder” and in the animated Disney film “Cars”. In “Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Rocky Bobby” it takes on the comedy genre and the world is brought to us with a big fat wink.
We follow Ricky Bobby, a successful NASCAR driver. At first, everything goes uphill for him. Rocky becomes an egocentric superstar, but eventually ends up in the gutter. And everything that he once had and loved, slips through his fingers. And although this all sounds super cliché, which it is, the film is so entertaining and funny.
Will Ferrell is one of those actors that makes me laugh, no matter what. I just have to look at him and he cracks me up. And surely not everyone likes his humor. If you don’t like Will Ferrell’s films or roles, you don’t like this one either. Because it’s Will Ferrell, being Will Ferrell. The humor is never subtle, yet very hilarious.
Sacha Baron Cohen is really funny as Ricky Bobby’s big rival, Jean Girard. The way he pronounces Rocky Bobby is something that cracks me up constantly, even now, while writing this review and saying it in my head. My dad can do a killer impression of him by the way!
“Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby” is definitely not a masterpiece or one of America’s best comedies. But somehow, this movie always makes me laugh out loud and that’s what a fun comedy should do.

Rating: 3,5 / 5

10s Movie Review - Happy Death Day

Director: Christopher Landon
Genre: Horror/ Thriller
Runtime: 96 minutes
Year: 2017
Starring: Jessica Rothe, Israel Broussard, Ruby Modine, Charles Aitken, Laura Clifton, Jason Bayle, Rob Mello, Rachel Matthews, Ramsey Anderson, Brady Lewis, Phi Vu, Tenea Intriago, Blaine Kern III, Cariella Smith, Jimmy Gonzales, Billy Slaughter, Donna Duplantier

Description: A college student (Jessica Rothe) must relive the day of her murder over and over again, in a loop that will end only when she discovers her killer's identity.

Review: Using the concept of 1993s “Groundhog Day” and combine it with the slasher genre. A film where college student Tree relives the same day, over and over again. But she also dies each day.
Tree is a somewhat superficial, bitchy girl that one day wakes up in some guys dorm room one morning on her birthday. At the end of the day she is murdered by a masked killer. The next day, she wakes up, in the same place at the same time, on her birthday. She relives the same say and at the end of the day, someone kills her again. The reason is unknown, but she now has time to find out who her killer is. But like a cat with nine lives, she will eventually run out of lives.
“Happy Death Day” turns a standard slasher film, into a somewhat original and fresh horror film, by adding the original twist of the repeating day to the plot. It was a surprisingly fun film. Definitely not brutal, scary or bloody enough for the real horror fans, but for the viewers that aren’t massive horror fans it’s perfect.
The repetitive style of the film, gives the makers some room to be creative in all the ways Tree can die. Which becomes somewhat of a running gag throughout the film. And the film is not super serious. It adds some humor to the mix as well, which makes it even more fun to watch somehow.
The motive of the killer is a bit stupid, but the characters in the movie also believe that. So in a way, the movie mocks itself. Which adds a star to my rating.
“Happy Death Day” was better and more fun then I initially thought.

Rating: 3,5/ 5

10s Movie Review - Flatliners

Director: Niels Arden Oplev
Genre: Science Fiction/ Thriller/ Drama
Runtime: 110 minutes
Year: 2017
Starring: Ellen Page, Diego Luna, Nina Dobrev, Kiefer Sutherland

Description: Five medical students, obsessed by what lies beyond the confines of life, embark on a daring experiment: by stopping their hearts for short periods, each triggers a near-death experience - giving them a firsthand account of the afterlife.

Review: Another remake. Only a few really succeed. And “Flatliners”, a remake from the 1990 version, is not one of them. This is proof a totally useless remake.
The original “Flatliners” by director Joel Schumacher, wasn’t the best film in the first place. But it was entertaining and was solid. This remake doesn’t add anything new and is hardly ever surprising. It’s just an incoherent mess.
The story stays the same though. We follow a group of ambitious medical students. Courtney has a theory, which can give you a look inside the brain of someone who just died. Her experiment involves dying, stopping the heart for a minute, and then bring the patient back. During this minute, they monitor the brain activity. Courtney does it herself first and lets her fellow students bring her back. After Courtney’s near dead experience, things start happening to her. She remembers things that happened years ago, can all of a sudden play the piano extremely well and copies a recipe from memory. Soon her friends all want to experience it too. But it’s not all good. They start seeing things, that are not there.
All the characters are stereotypical: The rich boy, know it all, hard worker. And good performers like Ellen Page and Diego Luna can’t help any of that.
In the first half hour, a lot happens. The voluntary patients are confronted with their worst nightmares, which turn out to be things they feel guilty about. Director Niels Arden Oplev doesn’t know how to dose it here. The film is also very repetitive and along the way the movie gets less and less credible.
“Flatliners” is a big miss, very forgettable and wasn’t scary or inventive at all. I almost flatlined.

Rating: 1,5/ 5