BradWesley123's Movie Journal- December 2015

It's expertly acted, but the great acting can't make up for the blandness at Glass Chin's core. The acting is superb, with every performer giving their characters lived-in personalities, but the story is the typically rote, down-on-his-luck boxer stuff. There's certainly style to be found here; little touches that liven up regular gangster plotting, but it's just not enough.

Magic Mike XXL looks beautiful; from the cinematography to the routines to the bodies, it's all top notch visual splendor. The story is just so fucking disappointing, taking the innovation and commentary of the original and replacing it with a "getting the gang back together"/road trip flick that never justifies it's existence. It pretty much exactly what we thought the original would, and that's not a compliment.

Directors Boden and Fleck (Half Nelson) once again extend a humanist eye to a couple of downtrodden characters in the exceptional Mississippi Grind. The script is delicate and subtle, until it falls apart (a bit) in the last act, but it's the performances that linger once the movie is over. Ryan Reynolds does some of his finest work here, balancing smug and vulnerable with aplomb, though it's Ben Mendelsohn who owns the movie with his sensitive worker as a gambling addict. There are numerous supporting characters that come in and out, all with performers giving it their all (the screenshot above, with Mendelsohn and Analeigh Tipton, is one of the most achingly realistic scenes I've seen in recent memory). The last act does fall a bit short, at least compared to the brilliance of the first two, but it's not enough to drag down an otherwise strong motion picture.

It's really difficult to describe how awful this movie is. It's too easy to call it laugh free, lazy, ignorant, etc. But sometimes, the right answers are the easiest ones. Please, don't watch this movie, it's not worth it. It's not even fun to watch in a "so bad it's good" sort of way. It is an abysmal, two hour slog into nothingness that even Sandler can make it through. Seriously, he's so lethargic here that you just wanna give him a pillow and tuck him in. Worst of 2015 by an incredibly wide margin and, in a year that gave us Fan4stic, Pixels, and Entourage, that's a pretty large achievement.

Solid if completely predictable, Testament of Youth is an occasionally emotional, though more restrained, look at love in wartime that works largely due to the work of Alicia Vikander.

A great idea that wasn't thoroughly thought out, Cooties strains it's talented cast in an often annoying and shrill film that mistakes chaos for comedy. There are a few funny bits, the idea is so goofy that it couldn't be completely unfunny, but they're spread so thin (or used so often) that they lose impact.

An often hilarious and deeply felt film, Tangerine is a bold new step for indie-cinema. With it's use of transgender leads, both of whom (Kitana Kiki Rodriguez and Mya Taylor) are superb, and it's use of cameras, the film was shot on a series of iPhones, give the film and vibrant, urgent look/feel the keeps you on the films roller coaster. Sure to be a cult hit.

Despite a set of excellent leads, Beginners is an often dull retread of better man-child/coming-of-age flicks.

A slight yet sweet and witty flick, Shaun the Sheep Movie is a fun animated film that doesn't totally pander to child audiences.

A nasty redo of a comedy classic, Vacation updates the National Lampoon staple while, unfortunately, absorbing some of the absolute worst tendencies of modern studio R-rated comedies. The film is just so damn bitter that any of the fun that happens in the film, and there are a few solid laughs in here, are bulldozered by the films rampant cynicism. The cast does rise above the material though, with Helms and Applegate making for a game pair of leads (though the youngest of the Griswold kids is one of the most annoyingly repugnant to grace cinema in years). A truly missed opportunity.

The cast is strong, with Green and Mikkelsen doing top-notch work, the action brutal, and the scope suitable to western ambition. Nevertheless, The Salvation is too derivative to leave much of a lasting impact. It's simply a pretty solid revenge flick.

Not as transcendentally terrible as I expected, though still bad, Fant4stic is less a movie than a collection of differing tones and spare scenes attempting to resemble a film. The first 50 minutes or so aren't that bad; they're slow as hell, but it could be forgive if the next 50 expanded on that (admittedly though, there's little in the first half of this movie that implies that Trank's cut would've been any better). Instead, the film essentially resets and the production woes begin to overtake the picture. The last twenty minutes are some of the most out-of-nowhere and incomprehensible in all of film history. It honestly doesn't feel like an actual film, just a rough cut of dailies.

Better than I expected (though I was expecting trainwreck), but still something of a retreading, over-the-top mess, Pan is a visual marvel with a boring origin story. The script is likely the biggest problem, taking too much from other films and giving the audience an origin story that we weren't asking for, but the cast is pretty rough here too. Aside from the young Levi Miller, who does okay with what he's given, everyone seems pretty miscast, especially Hedlund, who puts so much strain into every line of dialogue that I was worried that his voice box was going to explode. Visually the film is quite impressive, with strong use of makeup and production designs. It relatively fun given the right setting (mine was a drab, rainy Sunday afternoon.

The story is as rote as they come, and the cast alternate between smug to solid, but the visuals are impressive and the soundtrack is killer. We Are Your Friends is pretty much a distillation of many personality problems with millennials, but it's somewhat entertaining thanks to some strong visuals (there's an extremely well-done scene at an art gallery that blends live action and animation to produce thrilling results) and an excellent soundtrack. Still not great, but could've been worse.

Hungry Hearts starts off pretty strong, with a first hour that ramps up tension and creates some thrilling possibilities. The problem is that it doesn't really do anything with them in the second half, instead becoming more of a mental health drama. While a fair amount of it works, thanks to the powerhouse performances from Driver and Rohrwacher, there's just too much of a drop in momentum for hour one to two.