Ed's Review Dot Com

Big Talk Productions, Columbia Pictures, Four by Two Films,

Sacha Baron Cohen, Mark Strong, Isla Fisher, Rebel Wilson, Gabourey Sidibe, Penélope Cruz

Two little boys were orphaned at a young age and lived together in an orphanage in Grimsby. They became separated for 28 years, and Nobby (Sasha Baron Cohen) got married and had 9 children and lived a silly life, while his long lost brother, Sebastian (Mark Strong) grew up to become MI-16’s most feared and highly rated assassin. When their paths cross accidentally, the set of on an adventure where every government agent is trying to kill Sebastian while Nobby tries his best to help, but becomes a huge obstacle to Sebastian’s chances to live through this.

Sasha Baron Cohen has built a reputation as the shock jock of modern comedy films. He out-grosses everyone and I don’t mean in the box office, but in just plain gross! This is the third, at least, after Borat and then Bruno. Borat was fresh and a rather clever put on of a movie that was pretty decent. But Bruno was a lot more silly and dumb, and the edge wasn’t there anymore. This is, in my opinion, the worst of the three. Now don’t think my opinion is based on the raunchiness of the gags, it’s that it’s very 14 year old boyish and most of the gags are really recycled old, old jokes. I think perhaps he’s thinking the 14 year old kids (who aren’t allowed in to see this anyway) haven’t heard those old jokes, but I think they probably have. We have scene after scene that is a rip off of old jokes. He seems to be scraping the bottom of the barrel here, and I’m not sure why it’s so hard. Perhaps Sasha B is trying too hard to do everything and is falling into the Eddie Murphy trap when he started trying to do everything from start to finish and ended up making a mess of things. And then we got stuff like Norbert! Perhaps he needs to let someone else so some of the work and concentrate on doing the comedy. This guy has a lot of talent, and can be really funny, but this film just seemed overly stupid and boring. The “gross” stuff (instead of real funny gags) are not shocking anymore in this day of porn on every smart phone. He can’t shock us anymore and needs to up the intelligence of his films a little bit. This was a waste of time for him, in my opinion, and I recommend you don’t spend your hard earned money to see this thing. There are a lot of cameos by fairly big stars, and I’m not sure why they chose to do this. Maybe they thought they were making another Borat or something.

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Cliffbrook Films, Onset Films,

Melanie Papalia, David Schlachtenhaufen, Matt Riedy, Adam Shapiro

Elizabeth Benton (Melani Papalia) is a young woman who takes on the task of studying what people do on chat rooms and web cams. She joins up and basically keeps the camera on all the time. But when she realizes she has witnessed a murder, and tries to notify the police, she realizes that she is in way over her head and has lost control of the situation. She gets her boyfriend to help her try to solve the case, but as the bodies start to pile up, she can see it’s way out of hand.

This is a relatively creepy psycho thriller much like many others of this “computer hacker terror” horror film, and it is relatively scary. Even the acting isn’t all that horrible, even though this is real low budget. The biggest problem I had with this one is that the vast majority of the movie is either a computer screen, and smart phone screen, or video from a web cam, and it’s all very hard to watch and keep up with. It’s more of a cyber horror film that might be more suited to watch on your smart phone. It’s available for streaming, but I can’t see much more value. The tiny screen might actually help this one out a bit. If you are a big fan of horror films, and you can sit through things like this, then you have nothing to lose, but just don’t be expecting to be wowed by this movie, as it’s really only half way there. I have seen much worse, but I’ve also seen a lot better.

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Blumhouse Productions, Paramount Pictures,

Chris J. Murray, Brit Shaw, Ivy George, Dan Gill, Olivia Taylor Dudley, Michael Krawic

The house is back! A new family has moved into the house, and naturally they find a box of old tapes hidden away. When they watch these, they start to see the spooky paranormal entities appearing. Even the old family kids who are now dead come back as little children to torment these new fools that bought this house.

This is, what?, the 37th or so sequel to this series? Trust me, I didn’t spend a penny to go watch this, as the whole thing has grown very tiring to me. This one is one of the worst of the lot, I’m afraid. Well, maybe not. Some of the other versions sucked pretty bad too. This is nothing more than what the rest of them were, so if you love that kind of thing, this is another one. This is just more of the same, and I’m just over it at this point. So sorry this review is so brief, but I didn’t care for the story, the filmmaking, the script (if there is one), the acting, and the sudden loud sounds that are all there are to scare you. If you are really that desperate to be startled, I have a suggestion. At the park, they have a game where people pay a buck or two to shoot a stream of water into the clowns mouth. If you stand with your back to the game, and wait for someone to play, at some point the balloon will pop and give you the same chill this movie would. Save yourself some time, and don’t patronize these folks any more. Maybe they can come up with something just a teensy bit new. And I typically LIKE horror films.

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Paco Cinematografica, Warner Bros., Business Location Sudtirol Alto Adige,

Geoffrey Rush, Jim Sturgess, Sylvia Hoeks, Donald Sutherland, Philip Jackson, Dermot Crowley, Liya Kebede

Virgil Oldman (Geoffrey Rush) is a very high end art auctioneer and connoisseur who handles very high end art sales. But when he is hired to handle the estate sale of a rich heiress Claire Ibbetson (Sylvia Hoeks) who is a very strange character. She refuses to be seen and never goes out in public, and when Virgil meets with her, she is hidden from sight at all times. It appears though that through the years Virgil has been involved in some very shady deals and it this lovely lady may be out for more than it appears.

The right viewer is probably going to love this film. It is excruciatingly slow developing and is done very “artsy”. My problem was that I could not get into the story. The ending was somewhat interesting, but it took a long, long time to get there. Geoffrey Rush was very good as usual, but the story was the problem for me. Now people who love this kind of film won’t be put off by it, but I found it hard to keep my attention. It’s a bit like an old mystery novel that unwraps and peels back layer after layer until you’re surprised to see what you’ve found underneath it all. Personally, I just didn’t really get into the story, and so I didn’t enjoy it very much. Your mileage may vary.

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Chesler/Perlmutter Productions,

Jessica Lowndes, Christopher Russell, Jennifer Gibson, Farrah Aviva, Anthony Ulc

Click here for the home page for Hallmark’s Merry Matrimony.

Seven years ago Brie (Jessica Lowndes) was madly in love with Eddie Chapman (Christopher Russell). But Eddie took off for an opportunity to study in Paris, and they have lost touch. Brie’s heart was broken, but she set her sights on moving forward in her career as a writer for a bridal magazine. She is given the chance to do a spread showing the perfect Christmas wedding and she’s excited to finally get a chance to show her skills. But when she shows up to the shoot, she finds the professional photographer assigned to her is Eddie Chapman. Determined to keep the relationship strictly business, one disaster after another looks to make her shoot a disaster, while Eddie just wants to know why she never contacted him again.

This is run of the mill Christmas story that left me pretty flat. The leads weren’t that impressive. Jessica did her best with what she was given, but she comes off as a bit of a whiny b**tch. Christopher on the other hand seems to be taking every opportunity to push his fake chin to the forefront. It appear he got the chin from Max Headroom, but it is off putting. Meanwhile the whole fake wedding photography bit didn’t resonate either. I truly think this is the least interesting of all the Hallmark Christmas films this year, and I’m sure most guys would agree. The young ladies, however, might find it enthralling. There are the group that loves to read the fashion magazines, and this may be their cup of tea, but it just didn’t seem to work for me. I’d say skip this one and look for one of the other ones that are a lot more interesting.

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