Ed's Review Dot Com

Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation, Red Hour Films, 21 Laps Entertainment,

Bryan Cranston, James Franco, Zoey Deutch, Megan Mullally, Griffin Gluck, Keegan-Michael Key, Zack Pearlman, Casey Wilson, Andrew Rannells

The Fleming family, Ned Fleming (Bryan Cranston), kind Dad whose old school print business is struggling, but is trying hard to succeed. Barb Fleming (Megan Mullally) Mom who has no clue that her husband’s business is in trouble, Scotty Fleming (Griffin Gluck) young teen son who is trying to be cool, but doesn’t understand, and Stephanie Fleming (Zoey Deutch) who is attending Stanford University and about to graduate, are all looking forward to the holidays. But Stephanie has a plan. She’s been dating a secret boyfriend, Laird Mayhew (James Franco) and wants to surprise the family to spend Christmas in California and meet her new boyfriend. But what she doesn’t know is that Laird is planning to ask her to marry him and being a nice guy wants to ask Ned for his blessing first. But Laird is a REALLY unusual guy and Ned is a bit over-protective, so just about everything that can go wrong, does go wrong until it looks like the whole family is about to go back to Michigan and come completely apart before the big Christmas Day.

This is a raucous comedy full of very over the top raunchy comedy that is off the chain! This is a very funny movie, but written by Jonah Hill and Produced by Ben Stiller, this is certainly a mature comedy. The comedy, though, fires on all cylinders and is very laugh out loud funny throughout. I really enjoyed Cranston as the uptight over-protective father, and Franco is hysterically funny in this role. This kind of role really suits him, and though I’ve seen some sketchy performances from him in the past when he’s out of his element, this is the role he was born to play. Everyone else is loads of fun too, and everyone gets punch lines throughout, so everybody is really having a great time. Some of this is so ludicrous, but still so darn funny. Very well put together by people who really get comedy, this was a very funny film, and if you don’t mind the strong “Borat-like” R rating, give it a shot. It was really a crack up.

EdG – EdsReview Dot Com – A Movie Review Blog

Movie Rentals Releasing Tuesday January 10, 2017

• The Accountant
• The Birth of a Nation
• Deepwater Horizon [Click Here for Ed’s Review]
• Kevin Hart:What Now?
• Max Steel

XYZ Films, Resolute Films and Entertainment, Zapruder Films,

Matt Johnson, Owen Williams, Josh Boles, Ray James, Andy Appelle, Jared Raab, Sharon Belle, Kirsta Madison, Joe J. Thomas, Tom Bolton, Johnny Osmorkrovic, Chris Gonsalves

Matt Johnson and Owen Williams play two NASA operatives who are searching for a mole inside the CIA that might be giving secrets to the Russians. It’s 1967 and in the middle of the cold war, as well as the space race. Russia has launched Sputnik and President Kennedy has decided to do whatever it takes to put a man on the moon. But during the “mole searching” they overhear a conversation that the U.S. is nowhere near ready to land a man on the moon, and this shakes them to the core. But they hatch a plan to fake the moon landing on a Hollywood stage, and use the fact that Stanley Kubrick is actually filming a fictional movie about the Space Race, so they sign on as “NASA advisors” to learn how to make a fake space landing on the sound stage.

This movie was a real blast for the guys who made it. It was not that much fun to sit through though. I don’t have any problem with a fictional film about the fake moon landing, and I do believe the research that they did was sufficient to tell the story. It’ just the way they told it. The who movie was pretty much ad libbed on the set, and I guess that shows. Lots of it was disjointed and hard to follow, and it was just not that well done. It was a great concept, and an interesting idea, but the execution lacked too much to pull it off. I put this movie in my queue because it looked like it would be better than it actually turned out to be. Since there really wasn’t much of a script, the whole thing jumped around and wasn’t very coherent. I think this was a missed opportunity, and hopefully this might get remade with a budget and a script writer and be a much better film.

EdG – EdsReview Dot Com – A Movie Review Blog

Lionsgate, Room 101, Snoot Entertainment,

James Allen McCune, Callie Hernandez, Brandon Scott, Valorie Curry, Corbin Reid, Wes Robinson

Though no one has found the Blair Witch, nor any trace of the girl who disappeared there, a group of college kids think they have a great idea to camp out in the woods and search, using a drone, for a clearing and the house that was in the found footage of the first film. Something, or someone is out there in the woods with them.

I have been dreading watching this film. I saw it released on DVD this week, and was sorely tempted to skip it. But I figured I had a duty to see if there was anything here. Well, my first ideas were right, and I should have skipped it, as should everyone, but especially those who appreciate horror. This isn’t a very good film. First of all, the vast majority of shots in this movie are of leaves, lights, fires, eyes, noses, rocks, etc. I am so tired with the shaky handheld crap and it’s so far past time to stop doing that. If you don’t have any money to make a movie, don’t fall for this trap of making a movie with no budget by using a handheld cheap ass camera and just swinging it around so that nobody can see that you don’t have anything. Truthfully, most of the time is spent on stuff you can’t recognize. Even the so called ending is flashes and glimpses of shaky images that don’t show anything. Secondly it’s mostly dark, which makes it even tougher to see anything, although I admit, there’s nothing scary in that woods in the daytime. Finally, nothing new has happened since the first film almost 20 years ago, as it’s essentially identical in plot to the original. I must admit I have never appreciated the Blair Witch movies, although the first one, when it came out, was really well advertised with a fake website that convinced everyone that this was a true story and on the level. This film can’t do that, and them saying that this poor girls is still wandering around out there is not going to be convincing to anyone who knows about the original. There was just no need to make this movie, and I’m not sure why they even tried. This is the most boring thing I have ever seen. Stay far far away from this one. I warned you!

EdG – EdsReview Dot Com – A Movie Review Blog

Captivate Entertainment, Double Negative, The Kennedy/Marshall Company,

Matt Damon, Julia Stiles, Alicia Vikander, Tommy Lee Jones, Vincent Cassel, Riz Ahmed, Ato Essandoh, Scott Shepherd

Jason Bourne (Matt Damon) is still out there, and still on the run from the CIA and Director Dewey (Tommy Lee Jones). He’s got a friend in Agent Nicky Parsons (Julia Stiles) who downloaded all the secret files in order to expose the secret stuff that is going on. The files include the Treadstone Project of which Jason is a part. Turns out he has other connections to the project that he was certainly not aware of, so as the CIA sets off a worldwide manhunt to bring in Nicky, they hope to bring in Bourne at the same time. But he’s not likely to give up easily.

With James Bond regularity we get Bourne after Bourne after Bourne. I would love to say I hate these movies, but the truth is that I don’t. But there is a great difference between Jason Bourne and all the James Bond movies. Each of the Bond movies has a villain, often a new one with a new set of plans and plots. The main things stay the same with the agency, but they are always a fresh new story. Every Jason Bourne story has the same thing. It’s Matt Damon hiding out from the CIA and trying to keep one step ahead while they chase him and try to shut him down. The one trick pony is that he doesn’t know who he really is, or how he came to be. Each film builds a little on this premise, but they are all essentially the same story. This is my problem with them. Dang it, they action is good, and the special effects and chases are well done, and Matt Damon play the spy guy good enough, as well as Tommy Lee Jones playing the corrupt CIA chief, but essentially you could sit down and watch any one of this whole series, and to tell the truth, I don’t even remember how many of them there have been, and I don’t want to take the time to look it up. So unfortunately I can’t get too excited about this, and I start to wonder when they’re just going to stop it, or come up with a new plot. When a new Bond film comes out, I’m there first weekend to see the next series, but when another Bourne movie is released, I always decide to skip it and wait for the DVD. i end up watching it, and I end up enjoying the action, but it seems it’s just been dragging out a bit too much. There must be Bourne fans out there who are dying for the next one, and if you’re one of those, please comment and let me know why it’s so exciting to watch the same plot over and over again. It’s like watching Kitchen Nightmares with Gordon Ramsey. They’re fun, but they always are the same. Restaurant in trouble because owners don’t want to change. Ramsey eats their food which they think is great and it totally sucks which pisses them off entirely. They start out making changes, but the service runs terrible and the thing blows up and somebody wants to quit. Then they have a heart to heart, Ramsey changes their mind, and they come back and have a great service after Ramsey remodels the place. Every episode has been the same exact formula. Here, you’re going to see Bourne on the outside running for his life trying to stay one step ahead of the agency who are trying to kill him to shut him up. It’s a close call but he escapes and finds out a couple more bits of info on who he was. Then wait for the next one and repeat the same thing. For that reason, unless you really love the series, I don’t recommend wasting any more time on the same movie all over again.

EdG – EdsReview Dot Com – A Movie Review Blog