BradWesley123's Movie Journal- October 2014

Think Like a Man Too takes whatever charm the original hand and snuffs it out with a "wild" Vegas vacation that runs through every cliche in the book. The only redeemable quality in the movie is the cast, even if they seem pretty indifferent about what's going on around them. Skip it.

Space Station 76 pretty much tosses a bait-and-switch at the audience; based on the extraordinarily '70s costumes and sets, many were expecting a goofy homage/parody of classic 1970s sci-fi cinema but ended up getting a surprisingly melancholy story of about depressed and lonely people coping with 1970s malaise. As it is, without expectation, this is oddly charming movie that doesn't hit all it's targets, but hits just enough to keep it interesting. Jack Plotnick's direction is confident, the production design, costumes, and makeup are all superb, and the cast, especially Patrick Wilson, are equally strong. You may not like it, but it's certainly worth a look.

A goofy movie with a squandered story. Surrogates takes what could've been a smart sci-fi/action flick about various aspects of human life and gives it the completely muddled and uninspired makeover befitting a modern day action thriller.

While it's more conventional than it thinks it is and the stand-up routines aren't that funny, Obvious Child is an entertaining rom-com thanks to deft direction from Gillian Robespierre and a superb performance from Jenny Slate.

Tequila Sunrise is an excellently made movie, but poorly scripted one. The story is incredibly convoluted and highly confusing, which would be slightly acceptable if the film had any momentum. It just sort of lurches haphazardly from scene to scene. Even the usually solid actors seem unmotivated. At least it looks excellent

Are You There is essentially every bro-mance movie of the last ten years thrown in a pot with an added dash of self-importance. The cast mainly plays to their strengths to varying successes, though Poehler is unfortunately given nothing to do with a shrill role. The script is clunky and tonally erratic, which is surprising considering it came from the man who brought us Mad Men. There are a couple of laughs though, and it's never genuinely unwatchable. It's just lackluster in almost every regard.

Palo Alto is a standard indie-flick with a few decent performances and a strong style, but not much in the way of story and a plodding pace.

The tonal shift in the middle is a bit too abrupt, but overall Cold in July is a fun mystery/thriller with a trio of strong performances from it's leads, and some excellent small-scale action.

There are some big laughs in A Million Ways to Die in the West, but they're way too few and far between, leaving an incredible amount of dead air. Plus, while he isn't as terrible as most have said, MacFarlane doesn't make for the most convincing lead.

It's all just so damn absurd. Winter's Tale just sort of drops us into it's bonkers world without any introduction or clarification; a world with little logic and bored/awful performances (Russell Crowe should've honestly been cut from this movie, he's almost embarrassing). The worst part though, is that somewhere within this hot mess, there's an excellent love story waiting to be made. There's a bundle of potential here. It's not a total wash though; the costumes are solid and Caleb Deschanel's cinematography is almost enough to make this one recommendable...well, not really, but's very good.

There's an intriguing premise here and some genuinely striking visuals, but the story really goes off the rails, with a twist ending that seems design to induce "wtf?'s" from the audience rather than close out a story.

While the revolutionary sci-fi flick that critic's promised, Snowpiercer is a smart and thrilling action movie with some big ideas and solid execution. The only real problem is the film's final twist, which feels like to much of "see what we did there" twist rather than one that shapes what came before it.

Judging by the film, I don't think the makers of Sex Tape know anything about sex, or relationships, or logic, or normal human emotions, because there's nothing on display in this movie to suggest otherwise. There are a lot of things I could say about this film, but doing so would make me remember this "film". The only decent thing in it is Jack Black's cameo, which suggests a much funnier movie with him in the lead. Otherwise, this is one of the worst movies I've seen in years.