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Box Office Weekend: Don’t Breathe Exhales After Topping Box Office
While horror conventionally has a difficult time outside of October to land a coveted first-place finish, the critically acclaimed Don’t Breathe scored big with audiences, easily blowing past its $9.9 million budget with an estimated $26.1 million opening. Suicide Squad finally showed some signs of slowing down, which defied critics to become (now that The Secret Life of Pets has fallen off the li...[Read More]
The Preview Reel: Don’t Breathe to Win Weekend
Welcome to another “Preview Reel” column, where we look at the week’s upcoming wide release movies. The dog days of August are officially upon us and things really slow down at the cineplexes. Suicide Squad continues to dominate the box office, but three newcomers (all with an R-rating) look to take its crown. There’s the new horror flick, Don’t Breathe, from the director of 2013’s The Evil Dead, ...[Read More]
Box Office Weekend: Suicide Squad Holds for Third Week
Suicide Squad may have been a critical dud, but the DC villains may be having the last laugh, holding onto first place for a third week in a row with an estimated $20.7 million weekend and $572.7 million in worldwide take. In second, Sausage Party remained a large draw for the R rated crowd with an estimated $15.3 million weekend and $65.3 million in domestic total, an excellent take so far for a ...[Read More]
Movie Review: War Dogs
The Big Short was one of the strangest success stories of 2015. It was directed by Adam McKay, the guy who gave us Anchorman and Step Brothers and had not shown he was able to direct Academy Award winning movies, but his film about the recession in the mid-2000s became one of the most acclaimed movies of the year. It won the Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay and McKay was even nominated for Best D...[Read More]
Movie Review: Kubo and the Two Strings
“If you must blink, do it now,” Kubo warns the audience in the first seconds of Kubo and the Two Strings. One of the truest lines to ever open an animated movie as the latest offering from Laika (the stop-motion studio behind Coraline, ParaNorman, and The Boxtrolls) is by far their most stunningly beautiful and rewarding effort yet. Reminiscent of classic Pixar films, Kubo and the Two Strings is t...[Read More]
Movie Review: Ben-Hur
It can be very difficult to judge a film on its own merits, especially when it is a story that has been retold several times, and when one of those times was one of the most heavily awarded films in the history of cinema, it has a lot of baggage to live up to. While Ben-Hur has been updated for modern audiences, who wouldn’t dare watch a film older than the 21st century in a serviceable adaptation...[Read More]
Movie Review: Hell or High Water
Hell or High Water succeeding in conning me, an innocent bystander, within the first five minutes of the film. As the screen lights up, viewers are immediately catapulted into a high-speed, ski-masked getaway – settling in for two hours of aggressive antics between a pair of stubble-faced, sooty, Levi-swagged, mustachioed criminals. Or so we thought. Hell or High Water isn’t going to give yo...[Read More]
The Preview Reel: Will Dogs Bury Kubo and Ben-Hur?
Welcome to another “Preview Reel” column, where we look at the week’s upcoming wide release movies. This week sees the release of three vastly different movies, with the true story war comedy War Dogs, the animated Kubo and the Two Strings, and the remake of the classic film Ben-Hur. None of them are expected to set the box office ablaze, but let’s see if any of them are worthy of your time. [divi...[Read More]
Box Office Weekend: Suicide Squad Takes Dive
Suicide Squad may not have had the momentum to carry over from its record breaking opening weekend (falling to a $43.8 million weekend estimate), but the movie has still managed to best its production costs as it crosses $465.4 million in worldwide gross. In the meantime, Sausage Party was not able to quite duplicate that feat with an estimated $33.6 million and the second-place spot, but at a mer...[Read More]
Movie Review: Pete’s Dragon
Disney has been on a hot streak lately with live adaptations of their classic animated films. Even though it was divisive, Alice in Wonderland can be seen as the one that started this whole trend as it went on to gross over a billion dollars at the worldwide box office. Since then we have gotten last year’s charming (see what I did there) Cinderella, this year’s breathtaking Jungle Book, and next ...[Read More]
Movie Review: Sausage Party
Ready for a good time? Great! That just might happen for you if you go see Sausage Party. But be warned. This movie is not a love-it or hate-it film; it’s just not. Sausage Party is a have fun or don’t-have fun film. But if you go into it with the right mindset, trust me, my friends. You will have fun. But heed this warning: if you can’t get past the profanity, you need to walk a...[Read More]
Movie Review: Indignation
Indignation is the story of a complex young man that is beyond his years. Marcus, played by Logan Lerman, is dynamic in this role. When you experience the narrow views back in the 1950s, it’s difficult to imagine how different the world used to be having known only today’s socially acceptable views of tolerance in sexuality and religion. Young Marcus attends university in Ohio. Having ...[Read More]