Archive for June, 2015

Movie Rentals Releasing Tuesday June 30, 2015

  • Danny Collins
  • Get Hard
  • The Gunman
  • Kumiko, the Treasure Hunter
  • Last Knights
  • While We’re Young

Author: EdG

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Feigco Entertainment, Twentieth Century Fox,

Melissa McCarthy, Jason Statham, Rose Byrne, Jude Law, Miranda Hart, Bobby Cannavale, Allison Janney, 50 Cent

Susan Cooper (Melissa McCarthy) is a CIA agent, but she works in a basement following super spy Bradley Fine (Jude Law) following him and advising him on his situation in the field. But when Bradley is killed and all the agents are made, and the sale of a portable nuclear bomb is about to go down Susan offers to go out into the field as an undercover spy on a search and report mission. But she gets so involved she gets pulled into the whole secret agent thing in this side splitting comedy.

This was a wonderful experience. We stopped by at one of our favorite Regal theaters on this day when the theater is packed wall to wall with Jurassic World and Inside Out, and we went to see Spy. The theater has been completely remodeled with huge soft leather reclining seats that have foot rests. Kicked off my shoes and enjoyed the air conditioning and a really funny movie. I know Melissa McCarthy isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, but in my opinion she’s getting better and better each and every film. She was wonderfully cast in this film and she carried the movie as well as anyone I could think of. Rarely do I laugh out loud in a theater. I try to chuckle to myself, but I was caught off guard by some very, very funny lines, and I must admit that I don’t know if the writers of this film or if they thought these throw away lines up while they were filming, but the way they were delivered made snort Diet Coke a couple times. This was a damn funny movie. They lampooned James Bond and every other Secret Agent film of the last 50 years, but with the unbelievably incompetent large lady trying to be a bad ass, it was quite different. Not since Mr. Bean have I seen such a bumbler, but she pulls it off and has the stuff to take care of herself and everyone else at the same time. Even Mr. Cent was really funny. We got to travel all over the world, ala Bond, and the scenery was really good, but when you go to see a comedy, you want to really laugh, and this film did the trick for me. This was the best comedic performance I’ve seen in a long time. This is R rated for some violence and some bad language, but it was truly funny and I highly recommend this one as a change of pace from all the Action and Adventure stories out there. There’s plenty of action, but the comedy is the best. See it.

EdG – EdsReview Dot Com – A Movie Review Blog

 

 

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Voltage Pictures, Wonderland Sound and Vision,

Chris Evans, Michelle Monaghan, Topher Grace, Ioan Gruffudd, Aubrey Plaza, Martin Starr, Philip Baker Hall, Luke Wilson, Anthony Mackie

Our narrator (Chris Evans) begins to tell his story of how he tried to write a romantic comedy screenplay. He’s an action writer and love stories with fast chases and big explosions, but his employer tells him he MUST finish this ROM/COM before he can move on to the next action film. His problem is that he is a one night stand kinda guy, who does not believe in the concept of falling in love, so he’s completely out of touch with where to even begin. But when he meets a lovely girl (Michelle Monaghan) he finds himself really attracted to her, but both of them are not looking for romance. As he starts writing his feelings to try to craft a story, things get rather complicated in this new romantic comedy about a guy writing a romantic comedy.

I was not blown away by this story, but it did have some interesting points. First of all we have a guy named “Me” telling us the story. He doesn’t identify either of the two people until the very end, so she is just known as “Her”. The interaction between the two is really rather interesting. Both of them do a decent job with their roles, so the interest level is rather good. There are some fresh approaches to this classic ROM/COM. The problem is that the story goes exactly along the formula and there aren’t any surprises. I think that’s kind of inevitable in this kind of film, however, so I don’t hold that against it. I was just not much invested in the story all in all. I watched it, and I made it through it. I didn’t dislike it, and I am not recommending this as a great work of cinema. But it is a harmless romantic comedy, so if you’re a fan of those or of the actors in the film, by all means give it a shot. It’s up to you.

EdG – EdsReview Dot Com – A Movie Review Blog

 

 

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Columbia Pictures, Media Rights Capital, LStar Capital,

Hugh Jackman, Sigourney Weaver, Sharlto Copley, Dev Patel, Jose Pablo Cantillo, Miranda Frigon

Engineer Deon Wilson (Dev Patel) is working for an outfit that makes and sells police and military robots. They’re looking for the next big thing, but Deon is working on making the robots more like humans, with feelings and emotions and the ability to learn. Unfortunately the company isn’t interested in that, and are looking for the next big killer robot. Deon trashes the robot, but decides to keep it himself and take it home to work on it in his spare time. Meanwhile, Chappie (Sharlto Copley) becomes aware, and runs across some two bit drug dealers who are in big trouble for owing a lot of money and see Chappie as a way to pull the big heist they’ve been planning. Chappie is caught in the middle between his maker and these thugs and then the action starts.

I was very anxious to see Chappie. I kind of wanted to see it in the theater, but didn’t make it, but I was delighted when I saw it coming out on DVD. In fact, my wife and I recently spent a week on Catalina Island and took the freshly arrived Chappie DVD with us to watch in the hotel. We got our snacks, turned up the air conditioner and sat down to watch this movie finally. Boy was I disappointed. Now, I certainly expected it to be a rip-off of the “Short Circuit” series. “Number Five is alive.” But I really enjoyed those movies despite Steve Guttenberg. And I was frequently reminded of that throughout, but that didn’t bother me. This was also a blatant rip off of all the “Robocop” films too, which didn’t bother me. But still I was deeply disappointed while watching it. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but it was very low budget looking. The acting was pretty bad, perhaps Dev Patel excepted and Hugh Jackman and Sigourney Weaver were only here for window dressing. Their parts added nothing of value to the film. Furthermore, the storyline wasn’t very good. If anything it was childish and mostly silly. This concept had so much potential. So what was wrong with it. Well, after coming back from the island and doing some research about the movie, I found it was from the same guys who made “District 9”. Now “District 9” was a sci-fi adventure and loved by a lot of people, but I wasn’t impressed with it for the same reasons. It felt like it wasn’t Hollywood material. In fact, Chappie gave me the same feeling “District 9” did. Chappie was filmed in South Africa. I got the feeling I was watching a student film for a college assignment. It was very JV and not very well done. The cinematography was pretty good and the sets and locations were alright, but the script and the performances were juvenile. But the worst part of all was the patched together ending. It was simply awful. This ending turned the whole scientific feel of the film, which wasn’t that bad, and turned it into an extremely childish fairytale ending. I felt really cheated by the ending. It was simply horrible. All in all, I expected a great experience and for me it was a dud. I wish I had left this one alone. I tend to do my research on a film after I’ve seen it, so as not to go in with a lot of preconceived ideas, but in this case, if I had known how disappointing it was, I would probably have skipped it. Well, maybe not, but I would suggest a Short Circuit/Robocop double feature and leave this one alone!

EdG – EdsReview Dot Com – A Movie Review Blog

 

 

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Universal Pictures, Dark Castle Entertainment, Woestijnvis,

Karl Urban, James Marsden, Wentworth Miller, Eric Stonestreet, Matthias Schoenaerts, Isabel Lucas, Rachael Taylor

Five married professional men in the city have keys to a loft in a large apartment building. Here they can bring their conquests for a private tryst while hiding from public places and their wives and families. But when one of the guys arrives at the loft and finds a beautiful girl murdered in the bed, he calls the others. This could be the end of the line for these guys and all their deeds may become known if word gets out. But the door was locked and the alarm was set, and all the keys are accounted for, so who is responsible. This who-done-it story is full of twists and turns and lots of lies and deceit in this crime thriller.

This film is definitely a crime thriller with the usual secrecy and deceptions, and the cast is really solid. With some top notch actors here, the talent is very good. The movie, however, has it’s flaws. The story is fresh enough, but the screenplay resorts to the usual plot devices and in that sense it feels very familiar. There could have been a little more effort put into the story to make it less predictable. The final big twist you can see coming a mile away. The actors are working hard, and they really give their best. This has the film of one of the old film noir detective films of old, but the difference is that the guys pretty much need to find out what happened themselves, knowing that the killer is probably one of their friends. This makes trust pretty difficult when you don’t know who is responsible for the terrible thing that happened here. The film is rated R, but there is very little actual sex and violence in the film itself. Instead it is a very adult story, and the subject matter itself is what gets the R rating. It’s not what you see, but what you experience that is for grown-ups only. If you like mysteries, this one is interesting and is good enough, but it’s not a great film that you need to run out and chase down on it’s merit alone.

EdG – EdsReview Dot Com – A Movie Review Blog

 

 

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