Monthly Archives: November 2016

Almost Christmas (2016) Review: A Well Cast Bad Ensemble Despite being declared “Most wonderful time of the year”, Christmas has its fair share of critics. Truly, some people don’t enjoy agonizing over the perfect gift, and then spending money on it, for people, that they don’t really care for. That last bit is at the heart of ‘Almost Christmas’, a movie that tries to capture the awkward tension inherent with family gatherings. Isn’t Christmas grand?  For all its attempts at emulating a complex family dynamic, ‘Almost Christmas’ mostly misses the mark. Danny Glover’s Walter is the patriarch of a big family, whose members bring not only their luggage, but all their baggage too. Baggage that seems a little too familiar. There’s the dad that works too much, the sisters who’ve hated each other since they were little. Every character in the film is instantly recognizable, which makes it fairly easy to figure out where everyone will end up when the cameras stop rolling.Predictability doesn’t make or break a film. The most formulaic of films can have several moments that delight and excite. In the case of ‘Almost Christmas’, those moments are few. Much of the humour is reliant on slapstick, like the wacky uncle falling off a roof after trying to fix a broken roof ornament. While hilarious in a cartoon, when it’s a JB Smoove, it’s a little sad, despite Mr. Smoove's well practiced cartoonish expressions. If you find yourself feeling sad more…

Tyler Perry's Boo! A Madea Halloween (2016) Review: The Horror. Maybe once it was a good idea. Dress up like the matriarch of a black household, hire hard working black actors and actresses, and write stories that appeal to a group of people who’ve historically been under and misrepresented. On paper, everything Tyler Perry does is not only smart, but it’s also important. At it’s best, you have films like ‘Madea’s Family Reunion’, at it’s worst, you have this film.Now I know this review is meaningless. Tyler Perry movies attract the type of loyalty that renders any critical analysis of them moot. They get people to see them no matter how bad it might actually be. Having understood that, I still need to say what this movie was to me. Induldge me, if you will. For Boo, A Madea Halloween, Tyler Perry plays a man at the end of his rope. Unable to tame the feral beast that is his rebellious 17 year old daughter. Despite this, he refuses to lay a hand on her. When it seems she has intentions of sneaking out to a college party she has no business going to, he calls in the sternest hand he knows, his dear Aunt Mabel, otherwise known as, Madea.The first act of the movie, leading up to Madea’s appearance, is palpably grating. How Tyler Perry can be so convincing in the role of Madea, but so tepid playing it straight is baffling.…

The Girl On The Train (2016) Review: Gone Girl: Lifetime Edition 'The Girl On The Train’ is a movie, based on a book, that’s about not judging a book by it’s cover. It tells the stories of three women, each at different stages of their lives. Rachael, the girl on the train herself, pines for the life of the youngest woman, Megan. Megan would do anything to escape the clutches of domestication that is so embraced by Anna. The message then at the end of the day is, no matter what you choose to do, you’ll probably be miserable. A lesson learned in 'Revolutionary Road', when Jack and Rose got to live their happily ever never.Now the way it was going, the movie was set to have a strong message about defying the perceived notions of what it means to be a woman, and breaking free of the roles assigned to women by society. Motherhood is no longer the end all be all. Somewhere along the line though, the movie’s message becomes drastically muddled as it goes further down the rabbit hole of a mystery thriller, as one of the three women goes missing.So all right, it’s not a revolutionary film about modern day feminism, it’s instead a noir thriller. But maybe it’s both? Either way, you look at the case and all of its mysteries through the eyes of Rachael. She’s the main witness to the crime but there’s one problem.…