99 Homes: Movie Review

Making deals with the devil – thrilling, intense, fascinating.

99 Homes is the best film ever made about the housing crisis. It combines the reality (banks foreclosing on homes) with real emotion (option-less people both heartbreakingly giving up and being pushed to their violent limits) surrounding a story about a ruthless villain turning a down-on-his-luck victim into a rising star using the basic film formula of descent-into-madness. It is both a taut, entertaining, comedic thriller and emotional family drama. Or arguably, a Greek tragedy.		2014 Directed by: Ramin Bahrani Screenplay by: Ramin Bahrani, Amir Naderi Starring: Andrew Garfield, Michael Shannon

Everybody Wants Some!!: Movie Review

Finds a few golden nuggets in the entertaining realism.

In just the last two years, filmmaker Richard Linklater has looked at a boy’s formative years, the marriage of two middle-aged characters, and now he’s going back to college. He has called Everybody Wants Some!! a spiritual sequel to the 1970s high school stoner comedy Dazed and Confused. A highly regarded early film for him, but one that I could just never get into. Instead of the last day of high school, it’s now the first weekend of college in the 1980s for a new set of characters.		2016 Directed by: Richard Linklater Screenplay by: Richard Linklater Starring: Blake Jenner, Ryan Guzman, Tyler Hoechlin, Glen Powell

Eye in the Sky: Movie Review

Smart, thought-provoking thriller.

CD, collateral damage, is the one term used to describe a little girl selling bread in Nairobi. Eye in the Sky is a tough watch, but it so expertly weaves in between the characters on different continents that all have a stake in this deadly (no matter how you look at it) attack. Military personnel have zeroed in on a person of interest, a radicalized terrorist who is literally plotting the destruction of countless of lives.		2015 Directed by: Gavin Hood Screenplay by: Guy Hibbert Starring: Helen Mirren, Aaron Paul, Alan Rickman and Barkhad Abdi