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Movie Review: The Birth of a Nation
The Birth of a Nation is so heart-wrenchingly moving. A biography of the emancipation movement that began with Nate Turner, slave and preacher, a character played brilliantly by writer/director Nate Parker. The story begins in the antebellum South in 1809. Nate as a very young man is thought to be a leader that will do great things, having some unique marks that was felt only a leader would have. ...[Read More]
The Preview Reel: Horizon Promising for Burton
Welcome to another “Preview Reel” column, where we look at the week’s upcoming wide-release movies. After a somewhat disappointing start for The Magnificent Seven and Storks last weekend, this week looks to pick things up with three very different wide-release offerings. We have the true-story environmental disaster flick Deepwater Horizon, the return of Tim Burton with Miss Peregrine’s Home for P...[Read More]
Box Office Weekend: Eight Figure Box Office for Magnificent Seven
The Magnificent Seven opened the final weekend of September with an estimated $35 million in domestic box office earnings…and while its $90 million costs may be tough to top (even with foreign box office adding to the totals), it was still enough to hold back the debut of Storks, which brought in an estimated $21.8 million against $70 million in costs. Both films pushed the previous champ Su...[Read More]
The Preview Reel: Are These Seven Magnificent?
Welcome to another “Preview Reel” column, where we look at the week’s upcoming wide release movies. The fall movie season is in full swing, and as Sully continues to dominate the box office, it looks like we might have our first blockbuster of the fall season in The Magnificent Seven. Warner Bros. looks to cash in on the lack of family options in theaters with their latest animated offering, Stork...[Read More]
Box Office Weekend: Sully Rides High for Second Week
Sully not only held up well in its second week with a small drop in revenue (an estimated $22 million), but held onto first place with ease…the second-place finisher, Blair Witch, did not even break $10 million, with an estimated $9.7 million. Still, the latest horror entry in the long dormant franchise managed to nearly double its $5 million costs in a single weekend, even if it’s critical ...[Read More]
Movie Review: Complete Unknown
Alice (Rachel Weisz) is in China cut open by a magician, in an ER room telling a patient to breathe, in Tanzania researching insects, and in a parked car spying on a suburban house. Complete Unknown begins by showing what it is to live as someone who, at the very least, is running from their past and has not developed an adult capacity to deal, and at the most, is inhabiting a semi-psychotic state...[Read More]
Movie Review: Blair Witch
A couple months ago my friend and I went to go see Lights Out on the opening Friday night. A trailer started playing where it showed a couple of kids going into the woods and some scary things start happening to them, typical stuff. My friend leans over to me and says, “This looks exactly like The Blair Witch Project.” I smile and agree as the trailer ends with the title of the movie being reveale...[Read More]
Box Office Weekend: Sully Lands On Target
Critics and audiences again made Captain Sullenberger a star. With Tom Hanks in the lead role, Sully, the story of the 2009 “Landing on the Hudson,” brought in the crowds with an estimated $35.5 million – though – though it has a $60 million budget to cover. With only $10 million to cover, When the Bough Breaks, the thriller of a husband, a wife, and an unstable surrogate mother, did well on its o...[Read More]
The Preview Reel: Hanks and Eastwood to Triumph
Welcome to another “Preview Reel” column, where we look at the week’s upcoming wide-release movies. The summer movie season is officially behind us, and even though there seemed to be more disappointments than pleasant surprises, we have a lot to look forward to this fall. This weekend features a potential early award contender in Sully, a romantic thriller in When the Bough Breaks, and another ha...[Read More]
Box Office Weekend: Don’t Breathe Regulates Labor Day Box Office
Things are looking good for Don’t Breathe as it enters its second week at the top of the box office class. Through the holiday weekend, it held onto quite a bit of its income, as an estimated $19.6 million added up to a $55 million domestic total – well above its $9.9 million costs. And though it had much more ground to make up, Suicide Squad remained critic-proof and a success, staying in second ...[Read More]
The Preview Reel: Slim Holiday Pickings
Welcome to another “Preview Reel” column, where we look at the week’s upcoming wide release movies. Labor Day weekend is notoriously slow for the movie industry, and this holiday weekend is no exception. With two hardly talked about movies being released this weekend, the romantic drama The Light Between Oceans and the supernatural thriller Morgan, it should be a quiet weekend at the cinema. They ...[Read More]
Movie Review: Morris from America
Morris from America is about xenophobia and stereotypes, bullying, living as expatriates and mourning the death of a wife and mother, but mostly it is about the tenacity carried out with a striking tenderness by Curtis (Craig Robinson), a newly single dad taking care of his teenage boy, Morris (Markees Christmas) in Heidelberg, Germany, where they are, as he puts it to his son, “the only two broth...[Read More]