Sisters: Movie Review

Spends too much time on the big jokes and loses the better human elements.

Sisters is the big screen pairing of SNL vets Tina Fey and Amy Poehler and a movie that appears to be made for that sole reason. You can see both acting ridiculously immature, both trying on a myriad of clothes, from sexy to just non-sense and back to sexy, and both hitting on men, successfully and unsuccessfully. But it’s missing the smarter satirical edge of their small screen shows, the nugget of truth in every-woman Liz Lemon and the charming optimism of Leslie Knope.		2015 Directed by: Jason Moore Screenplay by: Paula Pell Starring: Tina Fey, Amy Poehler

Brooklyn: Movie Review

Beautiful, well-written, powerful

Brooklyn is a beautiful and simply powerful film about life, love, adulthood and home. It’s a story of immigration that should resonate with everybody. How one girl chose her home, and made it her home and the home for her family and future generations to come. It’s a story of loneliness, true love, and the pull of familiarity. It’s a singular story, that revels in it’s simplicity, to reveal grander implications and a universality to connect everyone.		2015 Directed by: John Crowley Screenplay by: Nick Hornby Based on the novel by Colm Toibin Starring: Saoirse Ronan, Emory Cohen, Domhnall Gleeson

Spotlight: Movie Review

Enlightening and moving.

Set in the journalism world of the early 2000s, Spotlight is so engrossed in its subject matter that it takes us there. A team of reporters at the Boston Globe uncovered the truth about priest molestation and the cover-up by the Catholic Church within the Boston area but with the obvious implications for the rest of the world. And the audience is right there with them, interested in the facts, disgusted by the truth.		2015 Directed by: Tom McCarthy Screenplay by: Tom McCarthy Starring: Mark Ruffalo, Michael Keaton, Rachel McAdams and Liev Schrieber

Room: Movie Review

Delivers an emotional punch with sadness, ferocity, intensity and tenderness.

Room is a story that hasn’t been told in this way before, and is probably something you couldn’t imagine since the main plot is very foreign to the majority of us. I also believe that Room is at its best when you go in knowing as little as possible. So to that end, this review will be spoiler-free and frustratingly vague. I’ll apologize for that now, but you’ll thank me later.		2015 Directed by: Lenny Abrahamson Screenplay by: Emma Donoghue Based on the novel by Emma Donoghue Starring: Brie Larson, Jacob Tremblay

Bridge of Spies: Movie Review

A masterful production of Cold War tensions with humour and heart.

It’s hard to imagine a more perfect Hollywood royalty production of a Coen brothers screenplay, directed by Steven Spielberg, starring Tom Hanks, and Bridge of Spies delivers on that perfection. It is dramatic, interesting, beautiful, funny, intense and entertaining from scene-to-scene. It opens with the heart of the Cold War, a foreign spy, on American soil, engaging in secretive behaviour, and then he’s arrested. It’s a mysterious opening, and the film seamlessly evolves from mystery to court room drama to thriller.		2015 Directed by: Steven Spielberg Screenplay by: Matt Charman, Ethan Coen and Joel Coen Starring: Tom Hanks, Mark Rylance

Steve Jobs: Movie Review

The machine side and human side of Steve Jobs are detached but interesting.

Biographical drama Steve Jobs, is a very novel approach to a biography. It’s not the story of his life, but a development of who he is based on a peek into what was happening during three different periods of time. The machine side of Steve Jobs has always been described in a cynical way – cold, manipulative and only caring about results. That side gives us this emotionally-detached methodical overview. The human side doesn’t come through until the end as a father-daughter relationship drama.		2015 Directed by: Danny Boyle Screenplay by: Aaron Sorkin Based on they book by Walter Isaacson Starring: Michael Fassbender, Kate Winslet

Goosebumps: Movie Review

The fun, funny, creepy and thrilling world of Goosebumps.

I haven’t read an R.L. Stine book in 20 years, and so, at the same time, I am both in the target audience and not in the target audience. It can be hard to sell it as a kids movie to today’s kids and as a nostalgic kick to yesterday’s kids, and yet that’s exactly what Goosebumps has done. Give our young hero a witty line and let Jack Black as author R.L. Stine have one creepy look, and it took just a few quick minutes to be transported back into the fun, funny, creepy and thrilling world of Goosebumps.		2015 Directed by: Rob Letterman Screenplay by: Darren Lemke Based on the books by R.L. Stine Starring: Dylan Minnette, Jack Black and Odeya Rush

The Stanford Prison Experiment: Movie Review

Recreates the experiment with intensity and alarming intrigue.

Based on the psychology experiment conducted by Professor Philip Zimbardo at Stanford University in the summer of 1971, the film The Stanford Prison Experiment is just as shocking even when we know the results. Watching it all unfold in this straight-forward recreation is still distressing, stunning, and alarming thanks to the fantastic ensemble cast and a chronological re-telling that really helps to put it in context		2015 Directed by: Kyle Patrick Alvarez Screenplay by: Tim Talbott Starring: Billy Crudup, Ezra Miller, Michael Angarano, and Olivia Thirlby

Sicario: Movie Review

Evil Mexican cartel drug lords, shady FBI agents, and little of interest.

Sicario is the type of film which starts with an idea, or just a basic premise, and then decides on all the elements that make it up afterwards. Kate Macer (Emily Blunt) is a young, idealistic FBI agent thrust into the world of Mexican drug-trafficking. That’s the world they created, and after a few supporting characters and hiring a cinematographer, they stopped short of actually having an interesting story to tell.		2015 Directed by: Denis Villeneuve Screenplay by: Taylor Sheridan Starring: Emily Blunt, Benicio Del Toro

Pawn Sacrifice: Movie Review

Interesting line between arrogant genius and sympathy for mental illness.

Pawn Sacrifice is the biographical story of Bobby Fischer. And interestingly, perhaps taking a cue from its subject, it doesn’t have a direct structure. It just takes a few of the significant events of Bobby’s life, occasionally told out of order, and lets the importance of these moments build up who he is. An extra piece of the puzzle of who Bobby Fischer is gets added with each scene.		2014 Directed by: Edward Zwick Screenplay by: Steven Knight Starring: Tobey Maguire, Michael Stuhlbarg

The D Train: Movie Review

Juggling two great characters with comedy and disparate tones.

I love Jack Black and James Marsden more than the next person and the two of them starring in a character-based dark comedy is even better, but “The D Train” is a tough sell for even their biggest fans. First it takes two characters, both of whom are interesting and both of whom are based on very real and relatable character traits, and then it gives them a twist, and then it cartoonizes them. Or, they were cartoonized first, it can be a little hard to separate how this was all thought up in the first place.		2015 Directed by: Andrew Mogel, Jarrad Paul Screenplay by: Jarrad Paul, Andrew Mogel Starring: Jack Black and James Marsden

The End of the Tour: Movie Review

A battle of writers and a friendship with depth.

The End of the Tour is a conversation, a friendship, and a battle of intelligence and neuroses. David Foster Wallace (Jason Segel) has just emerged onto the literary scene with the publication of Infinite Jest, hailed as the best writer of his generation. David Lipsky (Jesse Eisenberg) is a new hire at Rolling Stone magazine and convinces his boss to let him cover the end of Wallace’s book tour, interview him and write an article.		2015 Directed by: James Ponsoldt Screenplay by: Donald Margulies Based on the book by David Lipsky Starring: Jason Segel and Jesse Eisenberg

Before We Go: Movie Review

A simple conversation becomes fun, funny and romantic with two great characters.

Before We Go is simple, romantic, talkative, conventional and it's great. It's exactly what you want in a character-based, dialogue-driven romantic drama where nothing happens other than two characters meet and get to know each other over one night in New York City. The characters are engagingly real, compassionate and yet cynical, and they beautifully evolve after knowing each other for just a few hours. The dialogue is witty and insightful and elevated to dynamic levels by the talented leads.		2014 Directed by: Chris Evans Screenplay by: Ron Bass, Jen Smolka, Chris Shafer and Paul Vicknair Starring: Chris Evans and Alice Eve

Digging for Fire: Movie Review

Lack of murder mystery still reveals a funny and insightful film.

Digging for Fire is both Joe Swanberg's funniest film and most mature film to date. It's another one of his indie films with mainstream accessibility, but it should be noted that it's not a murder mystery, or murder mystery comedy, as it easily could be with the excellent premise with such great potential.		2015 Directed by: Joe Swanberg Screenplay by: Joe Swanberg, Jake Johnson Starring: Jake Johnson, Rosemarie DeWitt

We Are Your Friends: Movie Review

An overly dramatic, mostly uninteresting story of a DJ.

There are three (well, actually, four) things that We Are Your Friends wants you to know: Zac Efron is really hot; electronic music is really cool; and Emily Ratajkowski has really nice boobs. Presumably you already know and/or don't care about points one and three which leaves you with the music. Thankfully, it didn't give me a headache and when Efron was actually creating his tracks, it was even interesting; just not enough to carry the entire movie.		2015 Directed by: Max Joseph Screenplay by: Max Joseph and Meaghan Oppenheimer Starring: Zac Efron

A Walk in the Woods: Movie Review

A simple journey with light humour.

Bill Bryson's memoir and trek along the Appalachian Trail are recreated (and changed) in A Walk in the Woods. It's a very light film, filled with Bryson's famous wit, and simple comedy as two septuagenarians go on an adventure which even people half their age would have difficulty with. Bill Bryson (Robert Redford) is just ready to shake up his life rather than head into retirement and instead of hitting the trail alone, he's joined by his old friend Stephen Katz (Nick Nolte).		2015 Directed by: Ken Kwapis Screenplay by: Rick Kerb, Bill Holderman Based on the novel by Bill Bryson Starring: Robert Redford and Nick Nolte

American Ultra: Movie Review

Goes for more action than comedy, but is entertaining.

American Ultra is trying to juggle quite a few ideas, a few genres, and different styles of humour, but it can be a genuinely good time in its earnestness to be entertaining. First it's a stoner comedy and it's a Hollywood-style shoot 'em up action movie, all the while actually being based in reality – albeit a hyper-stylized, uber-violent, way over-the-top form of reality. And you usually can't put those adjectives and the word “reality” in the same sentence, so you can get a sense of the problems that American Ultra is creating for itself.		2015 Directed by: Nima Nourizadeh Screenplay by: Max Landis Starring: Jesse Eisenberg, Kristen Stewart

She's Funny That Way: Movie Review

A farce that pays tribute to a bygone age of movies.

She's Funny That Way is the story of a prostitute named Izzy who becomes an actress named Isabella and the theatre director who changed her life. The movie's a throwback to the screwball comedies of the 1940s where movies were seen as magical and and an escape from one's life. While this doesn't reach the same heights as a must-see comedy, it is clever and funny in its own way.		2014 Directed by: Peter Bogdanovich Screenplay by: Peter Bogdanovich Based on play by Louise Stratten Starring: Imogen Poots, Owen Wilson

Irrational Man: Movie Review

Shifting from drama to comedy with murder.

Irrational Man doesn't feel like a Woody Allen movie, even though it is one. The beautiful cinematography comforts you as it opens with a very odd tone, and we know the older-man/younger-woman relationship story is going to come, but it still doesn't feel right. Part of the problem is that it's supposed to be one of his comedies, even though the lead character, Joaquin Phoenix as Abe, acts as though it's a drama.		2015 Directed by: Woody Allen Screenplay by: Woody Allen Starring: Joaquin Phoenix, Emma Stone

Ricki and the Flash: Movie Review

The family drama and comedy end up playing back-up to Ricki and her songs.

Meryl Streep is Ricki. I think it has already been determined that she can play whatever she wants and an aging rock star who still glams it up as if it's the 1980s and as if she's still in her thirties, doesn't even seem like a stretch anymore. For the movie itself, Ricki and the Flash is stretching and contorting itself into whichever genre it feels like being in the moment.		2015 Directed by: Jonathan Demme Screenplay by: Diablo Cody Starring: Meryl Streep

Jimmy's Hall: Movie Review

A premise of fun combined with fascinating history of Ireland.

Jimmy's Hall is the true story of Irish activist Jimmy Gralton. It's a story that very few people probably know, but after hearing it, it's the type of story that needs to be told. The movie opens in 1932 but tells the history of everything that happened previously – most notably, the Irish War of Independence from 1919 to 1922. 10 years later, the citizens of a small community are getting ready for a more peaceful existence and a more optimistic future.		2014 Directed by: Ken Loach Screenplay by: Paul Laverty Based on the play by Donal O'Kelly Starring: Barry Ward, Jim Norton

Paper Towns: Movie Review

A fun and enjoyable teen journey of comedy, adventure, mystery and coming-of-age.

A beautiful girl moves in next door to a geeky little kid, and the boy immediately falls for her. It's not hard to see why; she's beautiful with alluring eyes that can make good guys fall for bad girls. She's not the girl next door, but the mysterious girl next door, and he's going to watch her and admire her from not too far away. Paper Towns starts with the boy and girl at age 8 and she's baiting him into their first adventure.		2015 Directed by: Jake Schreier Screenplay by: Scott Neustadter, Michael H. Weber Based on the novel by John Green Starring: Nat Wolff, Cara Delevingne

Trainwreck: Movie Review

Too many sex jokes almost derails this very funny romantic comedy.

Trainwreck opens with a perfect setting scene where a father explains to his two young daughters that he's divorcing their mother. Monogamy is not real and used a metaphor with the young Kim's doll. Why play with one doll when you can play with multiple dolls? And why can that first doll tell you which dolls to play with? Don't all dolls deserve to be played with? Younger sister Kim seemed to understand, but it was older sister Amy who took the advice to heart.		2015 Directed by: Judd Apatow Screenplay by: Amy Schumer Starring: Amy Schumer, Bill Hader

The Breakup Girl: Movie Review

Leads three different sisters through life with a perfect mix of comedy and drama.

The Breakup Girl is Claire (Shannon Woodward). She's 29, a writer, and happily in a serious relationship. Well, maybe not happily. She's described as the type of girl who always finds something to stress about. Whether it's the meddling of her older sister or the free-spirited nature of her younger sister. She doesn't have a great relationship with her sisters. And then her boyfriend dumps her. Claire just wants to be upset but her family finds ways to impose further.		2015 Directed by: Stacy Sherman Screenplay by: Stacy Sherman Starring: Shannon Woodward, Wendi McLendon-Covey and India Menuez

No Way Jose: Movie Review

Not enough comedy to break up the pessimistic monotony.

No Way Jose stars Adam Goldberg as Jose, born as Joseph Stern but he's 1/8th Mexican so Jose it is. There's a lot of humour present in the lead character but he's also very tiring, pessimistic, passive aggressive, and did I mention tiring? He complains for the full hour and a half run-time of the movie. While some of his complaints are funny, there is just no reprieve from his verbose pessimism.		2015 Directed by: Adam Goldberg Screenplay by: Adam Goldberg, Sarah Kate Levy Starring: Adam Goldberg, Ahna O'Reilly

Ted 2: Movie Review

Crasser doesn't always equal funnier.

The general rule for sequels is bigger and bolder. Ted 2 is just crasser, and that doesn't make it better. Ted and Tami-Lynn have gotten married and decided to have a baby. Ted, of course, can not produce a baby so the first third of the movie are the most ill-conceived, disgusting jokes of Ted and John pulling the worst stunts ever for securing a sperm donor. Some of it is still funny (Ted dressed as Paddington bear to break into Tom Brady's house) but most of it is just how far can we take these jokes.		2015 Directed by: Seth MacFarlane Screenplay by: Seth MacFarlane, Alec Sulkin, and Wellesley Wild Starring: Mark Wahlberg, Seth MacFarlane

Me and Earl and the Dying Girl: Movie Review

Trades away sentimentality for quirky humour but doesn't go far enough.

Me and Earl and the Dying Girl, as the title suggests, is a quirky indie comedy; trying to subvert traditional mainstream sentimentality with referential humour. When it's trying to be funny, it is mostly funny. But it doesn't veer away from its mainstream source – girl dying from leukemia – as much as it thinks it does, and there isn't as much substance to make it more impactful or meaningful, or sentimental.		2015 Directed by: Alfonso Gomez-Rejon Screenplay by: Jesse Andrews Based on the novel by Jesse Andrews Starring: Thomas Mann, Olivia Cooke

Love & Mercy: Movie Review

A tragic but admirable tribute to Brian Wilson.

As the tagline says, Love & Mercy is the life, love and genius of Brian Wilson. Jumping from the early hits of the Beach Boys, to the lonely and fragile life of adulthood and back to the dramatic transition period of Brian Wilson and the Beach Boys, the film is a very stark, intricate and achronological examination of mental illness and musical genius. It stars Paul Dano as the young popular Beach Boy Brian Wilson and John Cusack as the older, former Beach Boy, the damaged and tragic Brian Wilson.		2014 Directed by: Bill Pohlad Screenplay by: Oren Moverman and Michael Alan Lerner Starring: John Cusack, Paul Dano, Elizabeth Banks and Paul Giamatti

Spy: Movie Review

Funny as a spy spoof but does venture into spy action.

Spy is not quite a spy movie nor a spoof of the genre but somewhere in between. Sticking with the latter would have been better, but at least it is funny through-out the entire run-time. Every scene from the Bond-esque opening to the end credits has multiple laughs. Some so funny that you can't help but laugh obnoxiously, probably to the annoyance of fellow movie-goers, except that they're laughing as well.		2015 Directed by: Paul Feig Screenplay by: Paul Feig Starring: Melissa McCarthy, Jude Law, Rose Byrne, and Jason Statham

Results: Movie Review

Good characters don't get much of a story to tell.

Set at a gym, Results is occasionally funny, sometimes interesting, but it's paper-thin plot means there's nothing to drive the film forward and the film has relatively little to say as it goes next to nowhere. It's the characters that form the story for the movie, and they are well-crafted characters, you just wish they had more to say or do. It's also not set at a gym, it just introduces the characters there.		2015 Directed by: Andrew Bujalski Screenplay by: Andrew Bujalski Starring: Kevin Corrigan, Cobie Smulders, and Guy Pearce

Aloha: Movie Review

A sometimes funny romantic comedy with a plot but it falls short.

Aloha is Cameron Crowe's latest romantic comedy about military personnel in Hawaii. It has three different elements, each carrying a comedic vibe, and while they do all come together rather nicely, none of them completely work on their own. The first is a plot – a somewhat ridiculous, strangely compelling story about a broken (literally in some aspects) and slightly volatile former NASA scientist working for investors trying to weaponize space. Then there are on-going stories about various Hawaiian myths. And finally the romantic subplot.		2015 Directed by: Cameron Crowe Screenplay by: Cameron Crowe Starring: Bradley Cooper, Emma Stone

Drunk Wedding: Movie Review

Random drunk idiots at a wedding does not provide humour or anything else.

Drunk Wedding. Well, let's see, grab a video camera, go to a wedding, record some random drunk guests and you'll probably get something better than Drunk Wedding. A style that needs to leave the world of cinema now, it's shot in shaky-cam from the point-of-view of the guests like personal home videos and is just as poorly shot and edited as any family wedding or holiday videos that you could grab from your own shelf.		2015 Directed by: Nick Weiss Screenplay by: Anthony Weiss, Nick Weiss Starring: Christian Cooke, Victoria Gold

Pitch Perfect 2: Movie Review

A fitting follow-up to the original and the girl power that got them here.

Three years later, the Barden Bellas are a huge success. Three straight national championships, the toast of Barden University, now performing for President Obama. Pitch Perfect 2 opens with a cheesy but funny performance editing in real shots of the president. Fat Amy's grand entrance doesn't go as planned and late night comics are using her in their opening monologue puns. They've been stripped of their country-wide tour and have one last shot at the world championships otherwise the Barden Bellas will no longer exist.		2015 Directed by: Elizabeth Banks Screenplay by: Kay Cannon Based on the book by Mickey Rapkin Starring: Anna Kendrick, Rebel Wilson, Brittany Snow and Hailee Steinfeld