Sigourney Weaver

The Defenders – The H Word

/ / Television Reviews
  • Title: Marvel’s The Defenders – The H Word
  • wiki: link

Marvel's Defenders - The H Word 1 television review

For a show that had 65 previous episodes to set-up all the characters necessary to tell a combined storyline, the first episode of The Defenders spends an awful long time reintroducing us to the characters from each show. Luke Cage (Mike Colter) is released from prison, thanks in part to the help of Foggy Nelson (Elden Henson), and returns to Harlem and Claire (Rosario Dawson). Danny Rand (Finn Jones) and Colleen (Jessica Henwick) stop their worldwide travels searching for the Hand and return to New York after an encounter with a familiar deadly warrior. Jessica Jones (Krysten Ritter) is slowly drinking herself to death and refusing to take any case until threatened to stay away from the search for a missing architect piques her interest. And Matt Murdock (Charlie Cox), long since putting his horned-mask and billy-club aside, continues to struggle against leaving that part of his life behind.

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A Monster Calls

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: A Monster Calls
  • IMDb: link

A Monster Calls movie reviewReminiscent of other movies about a kid losing himself in his imagination rather than deal with the difficulties of his life, A Monster Calls is a visually impressive adaptation of the book of the same name. The story may not offer a darkness as palpable as “The Nothing” (points for all who get that reference), but there’s plenty of real emotion beyond Conor’s (Lewis MacDougall) struggle to hide from both the constant bullying at school and his mother’s (Felicity Jones) deteriorating health.

Conor’s fantasy comes in the form of a giant walking tree who returns night after night to share stories with the boy while demanding Conor reveal the truth concerning his own dark nightmares. Once played out the plot plays a bit too much like a bizarre therapy session, but the film’s message certainly rings true.

Other aspects of the script deal with Conor’s loose relationships to both his father (Toby Kebbell), who has moved on to a new family, and his grandmother (Sigourney Weaver), who is just oblivious and strict enough not to understand Conor’s struggle but never mean enough to come off as evil.

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Who You Gonna Let Go to Voicemail?

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: Ghostbusters
  • IMDb: link

GhostbustersWriter/director Paul Feig‘s lazy adaptation of the much-beloved 1984 comedy Ghostbusters isn’t the complete trainwreck I half-expected. The movie does have its share of laughs, and the CGI ghosts (with a couple of notable exceptions) are impressive. It’s too bad the script is not. While the film offers glimmers of what could have been, we are instead left only with regrets about what is.

Offering us an all-female team-up of three white scientists and one regular Joe who happens to be black, the 2016 lacks the chemistry of the original movie which it attempts to make up for with a variety of cheap body humor jokes and a series of running gags like how hopeless their man-servant (Chris Hemsworth) is. Desperately missing an unscrupulous Bill Murray character on the team to stir the pot, instead we get a stick-in-the-mud (Kristen Wiig), a loud-mouth (Melissa McCarthy), the crazy one (Kate McKinnon), and of course their new sassy black friend (Leslie Jones). I’m almost positive these characters are given names at some point, but they are so paper thin the movie offered me no reason to learn, let alone remember, them.

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Heartbreakers

/ / Home Video
  • Title: Heartbreakers
  • IMDb: link

Heartbreakers2001’s Heartbreakers, a film about a mother/daughter (Sigourney Weaver, Jennifer Love Hewitt) team of con artists working to scam to separate a wealthy man (Gene Hackman) from his money, is more notable for its cast than its plot. Yearning to get out from under her mother’s thumb Page (Hewitt) decides to target her own mark in a goodhearted bar owner (Jason Lee) she inevitable falls for. The women also must deal with their last previous mark (Ray Liotta) who shows up looking for his money.

More dumb romcom than smart heist/con film, Heartbreakers is a mixed bag, although it does provide some humorous moments. The cast (including appearances by Anne Bancroft, Ricky Jay, and Sarah Silverman) is fine but they’re mostly slumming it here in movie that belongs on home video. Re-released on Blu-ray, the movie includes the previous behind-the-scenes feturettes and deleted scenes but lacks the audio commentary from the DVD release.

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Exodus: Gods and Kings

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: Exodus: Gods and Kings
  • IMDb: link

Exodus: Gods and KingsThe tale of Moses is hardly new ground for Hollywood. Director Ridley Scott‘s version of the story is a mishmash of disaster porn and drama casting a mostly pale-white cast in the role of Egyptians and their Jewish slaves which, when not not off-putting, is occasionally unintentionally hilarious such as Sigourney Weaver and Joel Edgerton (reminding me of crazy Marlon Brando from The Island of Dr. Moreau) as Egyptian royalty.

Exodus: Gods and Kings isn’t a bad film per se. It’s competently handled and I actually think it’s more successful than last year’s similar biblical big-screen epic Noah, but it fails to add anything new to the story to justify it’s $140,000,00 cost. The effects are effective but not memorable. And the addition of 3D adds a dimension but is far from enveloping.

The film’s most bizarre choice, which may create a backlash within its desired audience, is the decision to cast God in the role of a petulant and impatient child (Isaac Andrews) who forces Moses onto a path and then throws a tantrum when his prophet fails to move quickly enough.

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