Director: John Krasinski
Writers: James C. Strouse (as Jim Strouse)
Stars: Sharlto Copley, Charlie Day, Richard Jenkins, John Krasinski, Anna Kendrick, Margo Martindale

Synopsis: A man returns to his small hometown after learning that his mother has fallen ill and is about to undergo surgery.

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Ever since 2005, John Krasinski has filled our hearts with joy. Seeing him play Jim Halpert on The Office just made the world fall head over heels in love with the american actor. But, like most up and coming actors, Krasinski wants to achieve a bit more with his career, broadening his horizons and expanding his knowledge on film. Krasinski begins this process with his first feature film The Hollars.

The Hollars stars Krasinski in the lead role, and he shares the screen with several other all star actors and actresses. The Hollars revolves around John Hollar (John Krasinski) who returns to his hometown to visit his mother Sally Hollar (Margo Martingale) after it is discovered that she has a brain tumor the size of a softball. John returns home to take a glorified walk down memory lane with his ex-lovers, brother, father, and even some new enemies that emerge.

The Hollars is a wonderful statement on the life of suburban families. Despite that the meaning of the film is incredibly joyous, the film has several flaws. First of all, the screenplay is horrendous. A good majority of the lines that characters say are pure exposition. They speak their thoughts with no hesitation at all proving that bad screenwriting can ruin an otherwise perfect film. The Hollars has a lot of potential, and several things about the film create exquisite emotion with the audience. Just, the characters speak in one of the most fake ways I’ve seen in a film.

Another poor aspect to the film is the characters. Krasinski and his screenwriter Jim Strouse do an excellent job at making sure each character has an arch. Every character learns something, and has discovered a new aspect of themselves by the end of the film, which is
satisfying, but we as an audience have no reason to care about the characters’ growth. The characters do grow and morph into people with new perspectives on life but that means nothing if I can’t care or love the character. Events just sort of occur in The Hollars, without giving us any connotation as to why we should care about these characters. So when poor things happen to the characters, no emotion is shared with the audience. It’s all just pointless interactions with pointless results.

However, the film does manage to give quite the underlying message that does stick with you quite well. Even though the events that occur carry no substance, the events do bring a perspective about life to light. The message being “things happen, death, heartbreak, realization that you won’t be with someone again, you are going to let people down, and you are not always going to get what you want, but that’s okay.” And this is a magnificent way to bring an element of lightheartedness to the smorgishboard of depression that is splattered throughout the film. The Hollars does not deliver in a lot of areas, but as far delivering a message and making the audience understand something about human life, it does achieve this immaculately.

As far as directing for Krasinski, this is not something to be ashamed of. Krasinski clearly has a vision as a director, and knows what he is doing behind the camera. He manages to create emotion and get emotion in the performance of his actors, which is the most stressful part of directing, and he nails it. This is not a bad debut, Krasinski fires on all cylinders as a director, and I would be more than willing to be that the reason that this film lacks in many other ares is because of the screenplay.

The Hollars is an insanely average film. A film that tries to be serious at times, but cannot help but be comedic, while also managing to deliver a powerful stroke of emotion through it’s subtext. The Hollars cannot decide what it wants to be, so the film leaves it up to the audience for how they perceive what they just watched. And for me, the screenplay is horrendous, the acting is top notch with an all star cast, and Krasinski need to get another shot at directing more films because he clearly has a vision that needs to be seen and recognized.

Overall Grade: C

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Director: Tim Burton
Writers: Ransom Riggs (based upon the novel written by), Jane Goldman (screenplay)
Stars: Eva Green, Asa Butterfield, Samuel L. Jackson, Ella Purnell

Synopsis: When Jacob discovers clues to a mystery that stretches across time, he finds Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children. But the danger deepens after he gets to know the residents and learns about their special powers.

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Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children is the latest young adult book to transition to the big screen. There have been many lucrative franchises and films that never should have been greenlit, if you ask me. Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children, however, is a visionary spectacle in all phases. Tim Burton is the only person that can bring author Ranson Riggs narrative to the big screen. I went into this movie with no knowledge of the source material, but I think regardless of whether you’re a fan of the book or Burton himself, there is much to appreciate here. It’s perhaps an open question regarding potential sequels to this film, but on it’s own, Miss Peregrine does deliver some warmth.

Jacob “Jake” Portman (Asa Butterfield) is misunderstood by his parents but is very close to his grandfather Abraham (Terence Stamp). Grandpa tells countless stories about the time he lived in a house with “the special children” before joining the British army. After tragedy strikes, Jacob travels to Wales, the location of Grandpa’s old school, with his father Franklin (Chris O’Dowd ) to see if Grandpa’s stories and photos are real or just hocus pocus. The pair finds the house as nothing more than a shell of its former self, as it was hit by German bombs on Sept. 3, 1943. Searching his own, Jacob enters a portal that lands him back to Sept. 3, 1943, and he soon discovers Tim Burton’s marvelous set pieces. The school beautifully sits isolated by itself in a sea of trees and a myriad of plants and trees. Every inch on the school is a thing of beauty but nothing as beautiful as Miss Peregrine (Eva Green) herself. Miss Peregrine is dressed in all black and easily stands out among the crowd. Miss Peregrine can on occasion transform into a Peregrine falcon, and when she does it’s like watching the Mona Lisa being painted.

Jacob learns about the “recessive” gene of peculiarity and is introduced to the other children. Emma (Ella Purnell) is Jake’s low-key love interest who lightness requires her to metal boots so she doesn’t get whisked away. Other peculiars include a pyrokinetic teenager, an invisible boy and a teenager who can resurrect those dead for a limited time.

For the first hour, this movie is well on its way to being one of the Tim Burton’s best works due to its strong and vivid narrative. The film started to lose its steam though when we learn about the wights (undead human creatures that hunt and kill peculiars). The wights are lead by Mr. Barron (Samuel L. Jackson) and I just didn’t feel like they posed a real threat. Maybe the film didn’t flush out their characters enough for the film, but either way, they didn’t quite work here.

If Burton would have focused more on the relationship between Jake and Emma, instead on opting for an extravagant special effect ending, this really could have been something special. Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children is no Harry Potter but it has intrigued me enough to see a sequel if it does get greenlit. I would like to see how the relationship between Jake and Emma progresses and would also like to see more of Miss Peregrine.

Overall Grade: B

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Director: David Mackenzie
Writers: Taylor Sheridan (screenplay)
Stars: Ben Foster, Chris Pine, Jeff Bridges, Gil Birmingham

Synopsis: A divorced dad and his ex-con brother resort to a desperate scheme in order to save their family’s ranch in West Texas.

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If you saw David Mackenzie’s Starred Up in 2014, you knew that Hell or High Water would have atmosphere, and boy, does it. The gritty, stark aesthetic of west Texas is viscerally on display. The heat is almost palpable and the rural setting works as its own character. Mackenzie is a director that fully knows how to capture a specific world, on a limited budget at that, and he is on his “A” game with Hell or High Water.

Toby (Chris Pine) and Tanner (Ben Foster) are brothers who are robbing banks and on the run. Marcus (Jeff Bridges) and Alberto (Gil Birmingham) are the two Texas Rangers who have been tasked to find and catch these thieves. These Rangers certainly know their way around rural Texas, but they are not aware of how motivated Toby and Tanner are, which makes these brothers more difficult to find than they originally thought. We find out that Toby is desperate and he is willing to go to extreme lengths to take care of his family, as well as serve a nice side dish of revenge in the process.

Taylor Sheridan’s screenplay is a shining star in Hell or High Water. His script is streamlined, well balanced and thematically very rich. Additionally, it’s very funny. For as thrilling as this film is, it’s chock full of humor at the same time. It certainly helps when you have the comedic chops of Jeff Bridges, who is as hysterical as ever in High Water. His dynamics with Gil Birmingham are quite terrific and their chemistry couples very well with Sheridan’s solid writing. The same can be said for Ben Foster and Chris Pine, who are playful at times, but overall offer a more dramatic arc that crystallizes in some rather provocative ways.

Sheridan smartly interweaves two different story threads together, while giving weight to them thematically and making each character’s motives very lucid. There is real emotion behind the entertainment value of Hell or High Water. The subtle commentary toward the banking industry, especially as that relates to familial turmoil, is very poignant in this film. Mackenzie and Sheridan offer many layers that resonate those notions in clever ways that are ultimately potent by the time we get to the film’s big reveal. If you thought this would be a simple thriller, you would be wrong. Hell or High Water is riveting to watch on the surface, but underneath it offers some dramatic ideas that many people will sympathize with by the films end.

Nick Cave and Warren Ellis offers a musical score that exquisitely amplifiels Giles Nuttgens’ blistering cinematography. The music fits this setting well, but more than that, it reaches to the emotional core of this film at the same time. If you ask me, it is one of the best scores I’ve heard all year.

Hell or High Water is a film that has everything. The acting is superb, the direction is on point and the film is both dramatically moving and entertaining as hell. It’s also thematically heavy in all of the right ways. Mackenzie is a forced to be reckoned with and I, for one, cannot wait to see where his career goes after seeing this film.

Overall Grade: A

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Hear our podcast review on a previous Extra Film:

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Director: Antoine Fuqua
Writers: Richard Wenk, Nic Pizzolatto
Stars: Denzel Washington, Chris Pratt, Ethan Hawke, Vincent D’Onofrio, Haley Bennett

Synopsis: Seven gun men in the old west gradually come together to help a poor village against savage thieves.

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Set in the 1870’s, the town of Rose Creek is under siege by industrialist Bartholomew Bogue (Peter Sarsgaard). Emma Cullen (Haley Bennett) enlists the help of The Western Avengers to help them take Bogue and his men. The Western Avengers are bounty hunter Sam Chisolm (Denzel Washington), gambler Josh Faraday (Chris Pratt), sharpshooter Goodnight Robicheaux (Ethan Hawke), tracker Jack Horne (Vincent D’Onofrio), assassin Billy Rocks (Byung-hun Lee), Mexican outlaw Vasquez (Manuel Garcia-Rulfo ) and Comanche warrior Red Harvest (Martin Sensmeier). It takes a good director to handle an Avenger ensemble and Antonie Fuqua, a fantastic action and thriller director, was a perfect choice.

I am not a western fan at all, so this movie was not something on the surface that I would have seen on my own accord, but being a film critic I am willing to give almost any movie a chance. From the jump, this movie wastes no time in diving into the action which prompts the recruitment of the Western Avengers. The leader of the group is Sam Chisolm, played by an excellent Denzel Washington. The Magnificent Seven is the third pairing for Washington and Fuqua (Training Day and The Equalizer), so Washington’s strengths are played on very well here. As Chisolm, he has that Training Day attitude.

The action scenes are a plenty in this film and the IMAX sound enhanced the viewing experience, but the issues for me evolve around the supporting characters. The bad mix of personalities at times is awkward, especially when all members of the team are together. However, I do appreciate the diversity of the team ensemble and how they play with that throughout the film. I’m usually a fan of Chris Pratt but his characters’ jokes didn’t work for me here. The overall dynamic of the team was playful but very disjointed at times.

I don’t why Haley Bennett, who plays Emma Cullen, was not given more to do in this film. She holds her own in several parts of the film and is one of the most logical characters in this film. She is also the films MacGuffin, so it doesn’t make sense when she more or less disappears in the film’s back half. Bennett is great but her character is mostly wasted.

I do not watch many Westerns, and maybe the pacing of the film is typical for films in this genre, but The Magnificent Seven felt much longer than it needed to be, by about 25-30 minutes. There is a reason why I do not like remakes or re-imaginations and this film did not offer anything but a mediocrity of the original.

Overall Grade: C

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Hear our podcast review on Episode 188, coming soon.

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Director: Oliver Stone
Writers: Kieran Fitzgerald (screenplay), Oliver Stone (screenplay)
Stars: Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Shailene Woodley, Melissa Leo, Zachary Quinto

Synopsis: The NSA’s illegal surveillance techniques are leaked to the public by one of the agency’s employees, Edward Snowden, in the form of thousands of classified documents distributed to the press.

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If there’s anything the director Oliver Stone is known for it’s making thought provoking, and provocative films. But more than anything he is becoming especially known for his films that take a firm political stand, and films that have a definitive political viewpoint. Films like JFK, Platoon, Natural Born Killers, we see elements of these divisive and stand off-ish style of film making. And Oliver Stone manages to deliver these punches yet again in his latest film; Snowden.

Snowden is a biopic drama film that surrounds the life of Edward Joseph Snowden. If you are not aware, Edward Snowden was the man who released that the NSA was spying on the United States, and was charged with many different crimes for “blowing the whistle.” The film begins with Snowden, played immaculately by Joseph Gordon-Levitt, discussing what he has stolen and what he has learned with a documentary filmmaker and a journalist in a hotel room. The movie then bounces from this hotel room, to events in Snowden’s life, how he attempted to join special ops, his first job at the CIA, and eventually his glorious entrance into the NSA. Snowden is filled with some miraculous hits, but also some devastating misses. Ultimately making for a solid biopic, re-introducing Oliver Stone.

Let’s start with a miss, the film first and foremost is grudgingly long. Oliver Stone typically likes his films on the longer side which normally can be fine because he tends to keep us entertained. Snowden is one of the films on the longer side, that does not keep us entertained. With several scenes dedicated to Snowden’s love life, or just pointless interactions with pointless character, the film drags and drags. Usually we can expect this in a biopic, and the insanely strenuous run time is mildly justified by Stone wanting to shovel as much “Protest your government they’re spying on you” into the film. Which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, the writing in the film is not half bad. The screenplay is well written and all of the actors or actresses deliver their lines incredibly well, just we see the same scenes over and over.

That being said, seeing Levitt act for two and a half hours in a lead role is absolutely marvelous. Levitt has always been an underrated actor in my opinion and I think he finally gets a chance to shine in this movie. Channeling his inner “geek” and showing off his paranoid and anxious side, Levitt is absolutely electrifying in his role of Edward Snowden and definitely deserves some attention from the academy. Levitt carries a good portion of the film on his back and refuses to let Stone’s abrasive visual style outshine his performance. And this makes for some well deserved acting.

Another kind of drag to the film is the score is a bit unnecessary and just unfitting at times. There are some scenes where hardcore techno music plays abruptly in and out. Which does not necessarily fit the scene it’s being used in but then other times instead of letting drama unfold or letting the actors reveal the drama, we receive a score to slap us in the face as if saying “Hey pay attention this part’s important!” The score can be an absolute booster to emotion in a film, and Stone is usually pretty good about when to use it and when not to use it, but this time he fails.

The counter argument to the score making the audience almost feel like idiots is the story does not. The film assumes the entire world knows the story of Edward Snowden, but tells the entirety of the story with exquisite detail anyway. The slightest detail of Snowden’s life or career is not left out and we get to see every angle of it. That being said, the film also does not treat the audience like they are idiots. At times when most film makers feel the need to explain time and time again what is happening or explain a complex piece of storytelling because they are worried the audience won’t understand, Snowden ignores this stigma and just serves us the facts on a silver platter. We receive every bit of information and it is served in a professional and delicious matter.

Oliver Stone returns with his drama biopic Snowden, and he is back and continuing to take the same stance that he typically does. Which is not a bad thing, Stone is good at what he does and he does it effectively. Our thoughts are provoked and we are forced to take a stand. Snowden has a few flaws, but overall the film delivers on it’s punches, guaranteeing a jolly good drama film.

Overall Grade: A-

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Hear our podcast review on Episode 187, coming soon.

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