Premiering at Sundance earlier this year, the new thriller Searching is now playing in theaters nationwide. Marking the debut of director Aneesh Chagnaty (who also wrote the script), the film is noteworthy for the way in which it tells its story. Searching is set almost entirely on electronic screens, illustrating how technology is an integral part of our lives - for better or worse. That could run the risk of becoming a simple gimmick to make its tried-and-true premise more "modern" for today's audiences, but the end result is something far more than a simple experiment. Searching is a suspenseful drama, buoyed by its innovative filmmaking style and collection of strong performances by its leads.

David Kim (John Cho) and his wife Pam (Sara Sohn) are two loving parents to their daughter Margot (Michelle La). Over the course of Margot's childhood, the family chronicles their adventures on their computer, with photos and videos commemorating Margot's first days of school, her piano lessons, and other special occasions. However, right before Margot begins high school, the Kims are rocked by a tragedy and struggle to adjust to their new lives in the aftermath.

On a night when Margot stays late at a friend's house for a study group, David falls asleep before she gets back home. The following day, David becomes troubled when Margot doesn't respond to any of his messages. Filing a missing persons report, David joins forces with Detective Vick (Debra Messing), and the two work together to uncover any clues they possibly can - including whatever's stored in Margot's laptop - in an effort to find Margot, before something terrible happens.

As indicated above, Searching is told via computer and smartphone screens, a device that helps elevate the final product. The decision to have the mystery unfold through the devices that consume our everyday existence helps complement the movie's themes about personal connections and the dangers (and benefits) of technology. Chagnaty never feels limited by working on this canvas, keeping the proceedings visually engaging throughout Searching's taut runtime and making something mundane like a web search feel very dramatic. There are some neat tricks on display (see: the "sleep screen" transitions to indicate it's a new day), and the technology component helps Searching feel fresh and unique, despite the on-paper setup (teenage daughter disappears) being familiar.

Searchingisn't just an exercise for a showy new style. It helps greatly that Cho gives one of his finest performances as David. One does not need to be a parent to empathize with his character, with the actor brilliantly portraying the desperation of the situation. What makes Cho' 'Searching' Review: John Cho Anchors a Clever Computer Thriller stand out even more is that he has an opportunity to explore various sides of David, taking part in some actions that are morally questionable (but justifiable from his point of view), forcing the audience to contemplate what they would do if they were going through the same thing. Cho has to do much of the heavy lifting and carries Searching on his shoulders, proving he's a more-than-capable leading man.

With much of the focus on David's predicament and search for Margot, the supporting cast has less to do by comparison, but are still solid in their parts. Computer-Screen Thriller ?Searching? Is a Strong Argument for Logging Off is a strong authoritarian presence as Vick, serving as a nice foil for the increasingly concerned and despondent David. The two stars play off each other nicely, despite most of their interactions taking place through FaceTime video chats. Joseph Lee is also good as Peter, David's stoner brother, who has more layers than one might initially think. As for La's Margot, she is a little more than just a human MacGuffin, as there are important moments of character shading that clue the audience into the kind of person Margot is. Admittedly, La doesn't have the biggest role, but she makes for a convincing teenager in her brief scenes.

Even if Searching didn't make effective use of its technology angle, the core story would still work due to Chagnaty's script, which packs an emotional punch from its first moments and never holds back. It's hard to not get caught up in the mystery, and viewers should have fun trying to piece together all the evidence as it comes in. Chagnaty does a solid job keeping viewers on their toes, weaving in several possible leads relatively seamlessly so Searching never feels predictable. In some respects, it actually subverts certain tropes with its twists, making it all the more satisfying an experience.

In the end, Searching is a most pleasant surprise at the tail end of summer, serving up a gripping narrative and an outside-the-box concept that works in spades. Chagnaty announces himself as a director to watch, and it'll be interesting to see where his filmmaking career goes from here. For those looking for a reprieve from the bigger studio tentpoles of the past few months or something creative to bide the time until the Oscar hopefuls start popping up in theaters, Searching is definitely one to check out on the big screen.

Searching is now playing in U.S. theaters. It runs 102 minutes and is rated PG-13 for thematic content, some drug and sexual references, and for language.

Producer: Seth Fuller and Scott Hussion Director: Scott Hussion and Seth Fuller Writer: Victor Zarkoff Stars: Neville Archambault, Chelsea Edmundson, Amber Midthunder, Hank Rogerson, John-Paul Howard, Brytnee Ratledge, Gavin bWhite, Lora Martinez-Cunningham, Brianne Moncrief, Zach Dulin and Kodi Saint Angelo Studio: Gravitas Ventures

Voyeurism of a most extreme sort was the subject of Victor Zarkoff?s ?13 Cameras,? a low-budget thriller that grew increasingly implausible as it progressed but was nonetheless tightly constructed and genuinely creepy. The sequel expands things by adding not only another camera but needless subplots, and the tightness evaporates. ?14 Cameras? becomes a flat, pointless bore, marked by poor writing and slipshod construction, as well as flat directing and amateurish acting.

In ?13 Cameras,? the villain, creepy landlord Gerald (Neville Archambault), simply spied on his tenants until fatally intervening in their troubled lives. It was a slim story, but for the most part was crisply staged and executed. This time around, Gerald is more of an entrepreneur who rents out a baker?s dozen of camera-equipped homes, footage from which he streams out to paying customers on the dark web.

14 Cameras (2018) Movie Review from Eye for Film , however, has his own perverted interests. He keeps Claire (Brianne Moncrief), the pregnant housewife from the first movie, imprisoned in an underground chamber, and when one of his renters, Sarah (Chelsea Edmundson), almost catches him rambling about in her house, he tosses her in as well, though he never seems to have contact with the women except for occasional trips to bathe them tenderly. In one plot thread, Sarah attempts to escape despite Claire?s warnings not to?good advice, as it turns out.

In any event, after a pointless prologue involving a couple (Zach Dulin and Kodi Saint Angelo) who simply banter for awhile before disappearing in their car, the focus shifts to a new bunch of renters: parents Arthur (Hank Rogerson) and Lori (Lora Martinez-Cunningham), their daughter Molly (Brytnee Ratledge) and her horny younger brother Kyle (John-Paul Howard), who has the hots for Molly?s friend Danielle (Amber Midthunder), their guest. Much of the movie is given over to desultory footage of them, enlivened only when one of Gerald?s customers decides to pay the girls an unwelcome visit and Gerald intervenes to protect them.

By ?14 Cameras?: Some Movies Are Just Bad , however, Junior (Gavin White), a teen who lives with Gerald (and may be the son Claire never knew), investigates what his ?guardian? has been up to and decides to save Claire, and the family will become engaged as well. But though Gerald?s flow of footage will halt, a coda is added to suggest there might be life in the old goat yet and the hiatus in his work output could be temporary.

Though Zarkoff wrote the script for this sequel to his surprise little succ�s d?estime, he passed directing duties along to producers Seth Fuller and Scott Hussion, who exhibit little flair for structure or pacing and are unable to draw anything but the most elementary performances from the cast, although it must be admitted that Archambault remains a menacing presence. Fuller also served as cinematographer, and shows little aptitude in that capacity either. Editor Zach Lee gives the picture no perceptible rhythm, failing to inject any excitement into what is pretty flaccid footage.

/www.instapaper.com/read/1136470867">14 Cameras (2018) Movie Review from Eye for Film .freetls.fastly.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/14-cameras-1366x848.jpg" alt="14 Cameras 2018" />

It?s hard to tell if the makers of the bewilderingly awful home invasion thriller 14 Cameras? which follows cartoonishly gross Internet voyeur Gerald (Neville Archambault) as he uses nanny-cams to spy on a nuclear family at a secluded California summer house ? believe that web users are innately monstrous or if the Internet only underscores mankind?s innate cruelty.

On the one hand, disaffected teenager Molly (Brytnee Ratledge), one of Gerald?s four victims, evokes the nihilism of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and seemingly speaks for screenwriter Victor Zarcoff when she diagnoses Gerald?s monstrous behavior: ?Some guys are just fucked up.?

On the other hand, Zarcoff and neophyte co-directors Seth Fuller and Scott Hussion mystifyingly juxtapose Gerald?s skeevy real-world behavior ? he likes to sniff women?s pantiesand drink milk straight out of the carton! ? with the childish shit-posting that defines the members of his private ?dark web? chat room. It?s especially hard to understand why one anonymous user seems to quote John Belushi?s 14 CAMERAS when he asks Gerald to auction off his unwitting camera subjects: ?How much for the girl?!??

Unfortunately, Archambault?s churlishly over-the-top performance makes it impossible to take 14 Cameras seriously, no matter how you interpret Gerald?s actions. He breathes (heavily) through his mouth and waddles around like a cartoon yenta with his shoulders hunched, his eyes wide open and his jaw sticking out. Archambault?s perplexingly broad mannerisms suggest that the Internet, like bad horror movies, is only as bad as you make it.

14 CamerasDirected by Scott Hussion and Seth FullerGravitas VenturesOpens July 27, Cinema VillageAvailable on demand

/whipanger9.odablog.net/2018/12/06/hereditary-the-new-horror-movie-reviewed./">Hereditary, the new horror movie, reviewed. .googleapis.com/afs-prod/media/media:c76b156cc2444c658c1ddca1d0c09d2c/1521.jpeg" alt="Hereditary 2018" />

In Ari Aster?s intensely nightmarish feature-film debut ?Hereditary,? when Annie (Toni Collette), an artist and mother of two teenagers, sneaks out to a grief-support group following the death of her mother, she lies to her husband Steve (Gabriel Byrne) that she?s ?going to the movies.?

A night out with ?Hereditary? is many things, but you won?t confuse it for an evening of healing and therapy. It? HEREDITARY like the opposite.

Aster?s film, relentlessly unsettling and pitilessly gripping, was a midnight sensation at Sundance and ever since has carried with it an ominous air of danger and dread: a movie so horrifying and good that you have to see it, even if you shouldn?t want to, even if you might never sleep peacefully again.

The hype is mostly justified. ?Hereditary? is a strikingly accomplished debut that heralds the arrival of a new, brashly manipulative filmmaking talent. Aster?s film might be littered with horror clich�s ? candle-lit s�ances, creepy attics, satanic symbols, dogs that know something?s up ? but the frightful power of ?Hereditary? comes less from its genre framework than the menacing exactitude of its Greek tragedy tale about the horror of what ?runs in the family.?

It begins with a succinct three-paragraph newspaper obituary. The 78-year-old mother of Annie has died, and her sudden absence from their mountain home has an eerie if relieving feeling. Annie makes elaborate and autobiographical miniatures (following the obit is a slow shot into one of her dioramas, seamlessly morphing into her son?s bedroom) and she?ll later recreate the funeral service.

But her mother?s passing is complicated. When Annie reluctantly joins the support group, she, in a rush, explains how her mother was manipulative, how she wouldn?t let her mom near their first son, Peter (Alex Wolff), but, out of guilt, allowed her to grow close with their now troubled and unnerving 13-year-old daughter Charlie (Milly Shapiro), whom she immediately ?sank her claws? into. Dementia, psychosis, suicide and multiple personality disorder are all in the family history, she says.

?She was a very difficult woman,? says Annie. ?Which maybe explains me.?

The mother may be dead, but she can just as surely control her daughter?s life from beyond the grave. Let?s just say things start going a tad awry.

The subtext of ?Hereditary? ? the latest in a run of intelligent and stylish indie horrors (?The Babadook,? ?It Follows,? ?The Witch?) ? isn?t hard to decipher. (Sophocles is being taught in Peter?s high-school class.) Nor are many of the frights hard to see coming. What?s horrifying, though, is how inexorably they arrive, with the absolutism of genetic destiny. Aster, who also wrote the film, fills his movie with foreshadowing clues that give the gruesome events to come a cruel note of inevitability. There?s a curse on this family, whether by ghost or DNA.

They?re a vividly drawn family. Charlie sleeps in a treehouse amid birch trees, has a perilous nut allergy, and makes ghoulish arts-and-crafts projects. When a bird flies into her classroom window, she scissors its head off and puts it in her pocket. Peter is more apparently normal: a shaggy-haired stoner with a crush on a pretty girl. Wolff is very good in the part, growing increasingly panicked as the family demons he has tried to ignore consume him.

The fullness of the characters and Aster?s patient, controlled camera (Pawel Pogorzelski supplies the pristine if sometimes showy cinematography) make the grisly scenes to come all the more squeamish. The kids get the worst of it, and the worst of ?Hereditary? is indeed vicious, even sadistic.

Byrne is, as ever, a figure of reason, resistant to his wife?s ever rising paranoia. But this is, overwhelmingly, Collette?s film. Much of supernatural flights of ?Hereditary? might not have come off without such a formidable actress grounding it. There are other actors who could capture the overwhelming grief and disintegration of Annie, but there might not be another who could also do it with flashes of sarcasm and fury and exasperation. In an increasingly surreal horror movie, she is staggeringly real.

Taking cues from Roman Polanski?s ?Rosemary?s Baby? and Nicholas Roeg?s ?Don?t Look Now,? ?Hereditary? has you turn over and over questions of what?s really happening. Is Annie?s mother a supernatural force or is Annie conjuring her own insanity? ?Hereditary? loosens its grip on you as it wobbles toward an ending that trades ruthless family dramatics for a more genre-typical occult conclusion. But it?s the first time that you can breathe and relax: Oh, right. It?s just a movie.

?Hereditary,? an A24 release, is rated R by the Motion Picture Association of America for ?horror violence, disturbing images, language, drug use and brief graphic nudity.? Running time: 127 minutes. Three stars out of four.

What a great cast! Manoj Bajpayee and Tabu! You do not want to remember their earlier films together which were nothing but disastrous: Gaath and Dil Pe Mat le Yaar (both released in the year 2000). Unfortunately, this time too the duo simply fails to deliver.

How thanostv ham! Sushant Dubey (Manoj Bajpayee) tries really hard to be sleazy to the receptionist at the hotel, staring at her cleavage. He just does such a terrible job of it, and looks uncomfortable saying things like, 'My wife and daughter will leave in the morning, do you think I will need a single room?'

Aparna Dubey (Tabu) is made to carry a blanket stuffed with pillows that does not remotely look like a child. Effort from the production team is zilch. Movies of the seventies and eighties made more effort when they showed bodies going over a cliff than shown here. It's obvious that there is no child.

http://ow.ly/YLJ4101nKXd don't even wish to groan about very obvious inaccuracies: the child is three years old, and Tabu is carrying baby diapers for her, and you are alarmed at the pills! Most pediatricians prescribe syrups to babies and toddlers and not pills!

There is a brief moment where you are forced to watch a love-making scene between the Dubeys and you know they are unhappy doing what they are made to do. Thankfully their roll in the bed is fuzzed out of focus.

The child is missing by the morning. We discover many things about Sushant and Tabu and how they met. What you don't understand are Tabu's motives for anything she does and Sushant's either. If your met someone, and they carried a chopper in a baby's diaper bag, you would put as much distance between you as it was possible, no? Maybe that is the mystery.

Alas, it is for Inspector Buddhu (Annu Kapoor who was last seen hamming it in Baaa Baa Black Sheep) and his Tweedledee and Tweedledum cop duo assistants who have to solve the mystery of the missing kid. Their supposed Shenanigans are so tedious, you are too exhausted to ask the writer director how he managed to sell such tiresomeness to the production house?

Perhaps Tabu's face has undergone some reengineering (the stars are in the business of looking good, so we're not complaining!) and that is why she looks odd initially, but then everything she says is either shrill or vapid, you begin to look out for scenes with Tweedledee and Tweedledum.

Of course, not one police officer bothers to check or even confiscate Manoj Bajpayee's cell phone to corroborate the stories he's telling. The background music tries really hard to create some sort of ambience but ends up being super annoying. Even worse is Annu Kapoor speaking Hindi in a Bihari accent and even speaking French (so grating to the ears!) to prove that he is indeed Mauritian.

At least it looks super fly. It?s too bad that Director X (born Julien Christian Lutz), the Canadian short-form film master for the likes of Rihanna, Drake and Nicki Minaj, stumbles when he has to stretch a scene past video length. He sets his blaxploitation remake in present-day Atlanta to separate it from the 1972 Harlem-based original, directed in a more straightforward-but-effective style by Gordon Parks Jr. (whose father, incidentally, took the reins of the equally influential Shaft the year before). It?s still basically the same plot, but instead of Ron O?Neal in the role of reluctant drug dealer Youngblood Priest, model-handsome Travis Jackson steps up to the plate and steals every scene that?s not first purloined by his awesome, straightened, upswept hair. The hair wins every time. If hair could act, the Jackson tresses would be up for a follicular Oscar.

The story twists are basically warmed-over tricks from screenwriter Alex Tse. Priest is a street-bred success, one so smooth that he can sweet talk his enemies out of shooting him. But he wants one big score before leaving the game to live large in Montenegro with Georgia (Lex Scott Davis), his girlfriend, and their mutual sex toy Cynthia (Andrea Londo), who?s conveniently handy whenever Priest hankers for a threesome in the shower. That scene will draw derisive, #TimesUp laughter wherever movies are shown. So, for that matter, will the risible dialogue, like the voiceover inanity, ?No car can outrun fate.? Good to know.

Even the violence has a stale feel, enlivened only by the presence of Jason Mitchell (a brilliant Eazy-E in Straight Outta Compton) as Eddie, Priest?s right-hand in the cocaine-dealing business. It?s a problem for the movie having Mitchell around because he can actually act ? which makes things worse for Jackson, a successful singer, dancer and songwriter whose thespian skills here and on such TV shows like American Crime have yet to rise to the occasion. In his scenes with his right-hand man or Michael Kenneth Williams? mentor or Esai Morales? Watch SuperFly 2018 , the man of the hour simply flounders. Even the Snow Patrol, a group of rival coke dealers who dress absurdly in white parkas in the steaming Georgia sun (!), show more personality. ThanosTV and gunplay in the world can?t disguise the void where characterization should be. As for the white characters, corrupt cops personified by Brian F. Durkin and the against-all-odds excellent Jennifer Morrison seem like refugees from relic TV shows that died decades ago.

The stylistic approach employed by director/co-writer Aneesh Chagantry – that of having the movie screen show only what’s on a computer’s desktop – is both Searching’s greatest asset and its most significant drawback. Although observing various programs being opened and closed, peeking into someone’s social media accounts, and watching home videos may not seem like an inherently cinematic way to tell a story, it’s mostly effective – at least until late in the proceedings. At that point, with the narrative demanding an expansion from the confines of a computer screen, Chagantry is forced to pull in TV news broadcasts and security camera footage.

Searching is watch searching 2018 , effectively paced mystery-thriller with a powerful emotional component. In addition to the Hitchcockian elements surrounding the disappearance of a high school girl, the film takes the time to develop the intra-family relationships using intimate videos. These chronicle happier times in the Kim family – times before David (John Cho) lost his wife, Pam (Sara Sohn), to cancer, thereby making him the sole parent for his daughter, Margot (Michelle La). We are exposed to a variety of candid moments during the opening credits, tracing Margot’s development from a cheerful young girl to the closed-off 16-year old we meet briefly via FaceTime before she disappears.

For David, what happens with his daughter unfolds in an uncomfortably believable fashion. It’s every parent’s nightmare – the banality of everyday life suddenly becoming undone by the terror of loss. The sense of verisimilitude, enhanced by the way in which Chagantry presents the story, makes events seem real, and there’s an earned emotional underpinning that many thrillers lack. Although a close cousin to the “found footage” horror style (also used to middling effect in both Unfriended and Unfriended: Dark Web), this feels less like a gimmick and more like a legitimate storytelling device. As David’s nonchalance escalates to worry and eventually panic as he is unable to contact Margot, Searching coils us tighter than a spring. Eventually, when it’s no longer possible to blame a dead cell phone battery or an overnight camping trip into an area with no signal, David is forced to admit that something is very wrong. He files a missing persons report and is contacted almost immediately by the competent, helpful Detective Vick (Deborah Messing).

Most of the film develops along traditional mystery lines as David combs through the electronic clutter left behind by his daughter, contacting her on-line friends and watching a series of web broadcasts that show a different side of her than the one he’s familiar with. He discovers things about her that he didn’t know but none answers the central question: Did she run away, was she abducted, or did something else happen? Is she alive or dead?

Searching is as good at creating an emotional response as it is generating suspense. It does both effectively, although some of the needs of the genre cause the movie to overreach during the last 15-20 minutes. There’s something “tacked-on” about the resolution that had me wondering whether this represented the original vision of Chaganty and co-writer Sev Ohanian. For what http://bit.ly/2PitmaC (and without giving anything away), I think the choice made in the film is the right one.

For the actor best known as Harold (of the Harold & Kumar movies) and the rebooted Hikaru Sulu in the three latest Star Treks, John Cho proves capable of commanding the screen in this atypical format. As a father trapped by devastating circumstances, the actor shows a gradual unraveling, his composure breaking down. His face becomes gaunt, his eyes and expression zombie-like. His need to do something forces him out of his comfort zone and into areas that endanger the integrity of Vick’s investigation.

As the movie unfolded, I tried to imagine how it might work if told in a more traditional fashion. It’s difficult to gauge because it would be difficult to paint such an intimate portrait of Margot’s inner life using conventional flashbacks. The shortcuts available to Chaganty by remaining rooted in the electronic realm allow him to deepen the mystery, enhance the characters’ backstories, and encourage a sense of audience participation. By using programs, applications, and websites everyone knows, Searching makes familiarity a critical tool. Quibbles about the resolution aside, this thriller engaged me on a level that few movies do, drawing me into the mystery with its voyeuristic perspective and not letting go until the closing credits.

Drake Doremus continues his dispiriting descent into dumb drama with his third deeply defeatist look at the deepening difficulties of finding love in the technological era in a row. It started with the bland ? Zoe Movie Review & Film Summary (2018) ,? got worse with the banal ?Newness,? and now brings us to the baffling ?Zoe,? a film premiering on Amazon Prime today. One only hopes the director of "Like Crazy" moves on to new subject matter now that his trilogy is mercifully over. Netflix has long been accused of burying their Original Programming with too little promotion and menus that make it hard to find the new stuff. Amazon may want to take a page from their competitor?s handbook and make ?Zoe? a little hard to find.

?Zoe? opens with the title character, played by L�a Seydoux, being asked questions designed to find her the perfect partner. She says that she wouldn?t want a potential beau to know that she used to be heavy and pauses when asked if she would help a loved one take their own life if that?s what they wanted. Clearly, this is going to be one of those deep dives into how people have been trained by dating services and app culture to believe that there?s such a thing as a perfect match. It's a film both cynical about the systems we use to find love and the human need to find companionship at all costs.

Leading people to their mathematically determined soulmate is only one of the goals of tech genius Cole (Ewan McGregor), who works with Zoe on a line of high-tech synthetic replicants. Cole should be a fascinating tech genius, but he's a typically mopey Doremus creation, having split with his wife (a wasted Rashida Jones) after a program he helped develop told the couple they wouldn't last. "Zoe" imagines a world in which an app score can end a loving relationship, which may be the most cynical thing I've seen in a film this year.

Most of the synthetics designed by Zoe and Cole are built in a way that makes them look incredibly fake, built more for the efficiency of household chores or menial jobs. Of course, those aren?t the only synthetics out there and Cole has developed a line of androids who are extremely advanced and look just like you or me or Theo James, who plays Ash, Cole?s latest creation (I?d like to believe the name is an ?Alien? reference given Ian Holm played an android with that name in the Ridley Scott classic, but probably not). As if the service that can say without fail whether or not a relationship will last and the synthetics trying to be human aren?t enough for Zoe review ? Ewan McGregor falls for a robot in stylish, dour drama , this vision of the near-future also includes a drug that allows people to recreate the endorphin rush of falling in love for the first time. It?s a little bit of ?Her,? a little bit of ?Westworld,? a little bit of ?Love Potion No. 9,? and a whole lot of annoying dialogue about what love means.

The main ?twist? of ?Zoe? occurs deep enough into the film that I won?t spoil it here but suffice to say that Cole and Zoe?s relationship is ?complicated.? The two people working to ?improve? the dance of love for others have trouble finding the right steps with each other. Despite the best efforts of McGregor to imbue his lovelorn protagonist with relatable emotional depth, there?s never an emotional hook to make you honestly care about these people. And so the non-stop, navel-gazing, faux philosophical dialogue about love starts to feel like some strange experiment itself. It reaches points of near-parody, not unike overhearing drunk college kids talk about dating apps and the meaning of love at 3 AM at a party you really want to leave. These are people who think lines like ?It?s better to feel pain than to feel nothing? are deep. It almost makes one wonder if it wasn?t created by a computer program itself, one designed to write a ?movie about love in the future.? Although Zoe review ? Ewan McGregor falls for a robot in stylish, dour drama could have probably come up with something better than this.

/dejesuscalderon2981.de.tl/That-h-s-my-blog.htm?forceVersion=desktop">Radius (2017) Movie Review from Eye for Film V1_.jpg?cb=e5877215e3f36009859b15c517e7420f&w=640" alt="Radius 2017">

I will say this for Radius: it has a hell of a premise.

The new thriller from Quebecois filmmakers Caroline Labr�che and Steeve L�onard ? who made the 2011 time-travel comedy Lost Cause ? Radius opens strong, efficiently establishing its weird and intriguing concept.

In a field outside of a small town, an injured man (Diego Klattenhoff, of Homeland and The Blacklist) snaps awake. He quickly discovers that he has no idea who he is, which is bad, and that any living thing that comes within 50 feet of him simply drops dead, which is definitely worse.

Sensibly enough, he goes into hiding until he encounters another amnesiac (Charlotte Sullivan) whose presence somehow disables the effect. Who are Radius (2017) Movie Review from Eye for Film and what?s going on? Well, Radius (2017) Movie Review from Eye for Film ?s where it all falls apart.

Labr�che and L�onard have the answers, and they dole them out with a self-seriousness that?s at odds with the pulpy, B-movie vibe of their premise. They?ve cooked up a couple of very clever problem-solving sequences ? what if the police find them and put them in separate cars? What happens if one of them gets in a packed elevator and the other doesn?t? ? but they also have to fill a lot of time, so the actors spend a lot of time driving or standing around looking gloomy and perplexed.

And as they do, the movie?s compelling, what-the-hell mood drains away into a series of disappointed shrugs with the occasional disbelieving snort.

Also, I think I was harder on Colossal than I needed to be.

There's been a select few instances where the influence of extreme Japanese filmmaker Kinji Fukasaku has trickled into the American genre film landscape. The most obvious is Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill (which was dedicated to the violent maestro), while the work of Neveldine/Taylor certainly owes more than a little debt to that auteur's hyper-kinetic camerawork. More recently, Joe Lynch's Mayhemfelt like, if you replaced everyone but Steve Yuen (who was deliberately placed at the forefront of that DTV splatter opus) with actors of Asian descent, you'd have a rather obvious homage to the late Battle Royale and Yakuza Papers great.

Enter Monster Party. The latest from burgeoning lo-fi genre writer/director Chris von Hoffmann (Drifter), takes a premise we've seen a few times before ? criminals breaking into the wrong house, only to find themselves confronted by pure evil (think: Don?t Breathe) ? and filters it through the class conscience sociopolitical gore porn of Fukasaku's later output. The subtext becomes text as a trio of B&E brats (Sam Strike, Brandon Michael Hall, and Halloween?s Virginia Gardner) end up trying to rob the Malibu mansion of a serial killing family (Julian McMahon, Robin Tunney, Erin Moriarty, and Kian Lawley) who are holding their annual "intervention" dinner, celebrating "sobriety" from killing the underclass with fellow high society murder addicts. Don't even ask what's howling in the basement, as von Hoffmann seemingly isn't content until his picture goes full-blown People Under the Stairs by its ultimate digital reel.

There's a manic energy to Monster Party that keeps it propulsive and watchable, with von Hoffmann constantly moving the camera, as if the machine itself is uncomfortable with the events it? MONSTER PARTY Review: Malibu Battle Royale capturing. Even when the lens is steady, the movie is elevated by creative setups, such as an early moment where the director mounts his rig to a creaky merry-go-round. This same live-wire sense of style carries over into the performances, especially the attendees at this messy abstinence party. Sometimes these turns tip over into ridiculous caricature (such as two coked out "blood brothers", played by Diego Boneta and Jamie Ward), but then cult leader Milo (a cool as always Lance Reddick) becomes gravity personified, reeling them all back in. It's a pretty neat track the young filmmaker pulls off with his performers, lending the low budget endeavor an air of schizo class.

Unfortunately, the lack of resources behind Monster Party sometimes gets the better of the movie. MONSTER PARTY Review: Malibu Battle Royale is often under or flatly lit, lending many scenes a cheap, amateurish look. Simultaneously, von Hoffmann's love of nasty gore is certainly admirable, but a few severed hands and split heads look like nothing more than props purchased from the clearance aisle at Halloween Express come November 1st. You can do blood on a budget (just look at Tate Stiensiek's work on fellow RLJ title Puppet Master: The Littlest Reich for a solid example), yet one suspects von Hoffmann (wisely) committed a sizable portion of his funds to the recognizable faces on display.

Still, the ambition and daring knack for nihilistic violence is undeniable, even as the seams on this tiny production show. Damning a movie of this size because it tries to flex outside of its comfort zone seems like a rather foolish thing to do, as it's way more entertaining to see a contained picture attempt to go "big" and fall on its face a few times than play it safe and become another boring, middle-of-the-road Redbox Special. For a certain brand of cult film aficionado, Monster Party is going to be a ton of fun, as the influences are proudly worn on its sleeve, especially once our central robber arms himself with a literal samurai sword. Von Hoffmann's probably got a decent career shocking the shit of us in the near future. Let's just hope some ballsy producers give him a few more fun coupons to play with next time.

MONSTER PARTY Review: Malibu Battle Royale is in theaters and on VOD now.

I haven't yet seen director/writer/editor/composer Andy Mitton's previous two features, We Go On and Yellowbrickroad, but having watched his new film The Witch in the Window (formerly known as The Vermont House) at Fantasia 2018, I'm going to have to rectify that as soon as possible.

The story follows New York City denizen and middle-aged dad Simon (Alex Draper) as he picks up his son Finn (Charlie Tacker) from his estranged wife Beverly (Arija Bareikis). The goal is to fix up a house in the middle of nowhere, Vermont, get Finn away from the Internet and city life, and to bond with some quality father-son time.

Problem, is the fixer-upper in the countryside already has a resident of the permanent kind, Lydia. The issue with most haunted house stories is that they never tread new ground, exhausting the same plot points and tropes again and again.

I'm thrilled to say that The Witch in the Window (coming to Shudder soon) has no such downside, and the premise of sprucing up an old house with a ghost in it will be where comparisons with this feature and Old Dark House stories end.

The best part of watching films is the hunt for the elusive gem that surprises and surpasses expectations, and The Witch in the Window is it. When you think you know where the film is going, you won't. The interactions between the aggressive ghost Lydia and Simon and Finn are quite different from what we're used to seeing; they're scared, but they confront her head-on at times, even going right up to her when she's asleep in her favorite chair.

Even better? There' THE WITCH IN THE WINDOW Terrifies and Surprises that gave me actual goosebumps --- and the other filmmakers I attended the screening with felt the same way. We rhapsodized on the effectiveness of that scene and its ability to absolutely surprise us. THE WITCH IN THE WINDOW Terrifies and Surprises to be able to reveal the trick that Mitton used within his excellent trick, but it'd be evil of me to spoil such a beautiful, chilling scene.

In fact, to say much more at all about the plot of the film does it a disservice. I'll say that this is a heady nightmare of real-world horrors and the poignancy of knowing that you really cannot protect the ones you love, no matter how much you try. The Witch in the Window is gloriously written, acted, and directed; it's a horror film set in mostly one location, but it's also a discovery into what you can really do on an independent film with a likely tiny budget and crew.

Don't go into THE WITCH IN THE WINDOW Terrifies and Surprises expecting the big budget ballast of Hereditary, but an indie completely different that doesn't show the supernatural so much as makes you feel it. At its, the The Witch in the Window is a study on the loss of those you love and hold most dear. Check this one out as soon as you can if you love quiet horror that burns slow until you don't know you're almost out of wick. Highly recommended.

Disney?s big-budget attempt to adapt E.T.A. Hoffmann?s 1816 fantasy and Tchaikovsky?s ballet is a muddled mess, comparable to ?A Wrinkle in Time.?

In Victorian London, the story begins with inventive young Clara Stahlbaum (Mackenzie Foy) in the attic demonstrating her elaborate Rube Goldberg-type mousetrap to her younger brother Fritz (Tom Sweet).

Although their mother Marie (Anna Madeley) recently died, their doleful father (Matthew Macfadyen) and older sister Louise (Ellie Bamber) are determined to celebrate the holiday. Clara?s gift is an ornate egg-shaped box with a cryptic message ?Everything you needs is inside.? But there?s no key.

On Christmas Eve, Clara?s eccentric godfather Drosselmeyer (Morgan Freeman) traditionally sets up an elaborate treasure hunt, so each child can find his/her own gift. Clara?s is the key, which is promptly snatched by a mischievous mouse, leading her into an ?Alice in Wonderland?-ish parallel world where time moves faster.

On her quest, Clara is befriended by a Nutcracker soldier, Capt. Philip Hoffman (Jayden Fowora-Knight), who tells her that her mother was Queen of the Four Realms. So Clara is greeted as a Princess by Sugar Plum (Keira Knightley with cotton candy hair) from the Land of Sweets, Hawthorne (Eugenio Derbetz) from the Land of the Flowers and icicle-bearded Shiver (Richard E. Grant) from the Land of Snowflakes.

Clara?s told that the fourth realm belongs to towering Mother Ginger (Helen Mirren), who has declared war, and Clara is expected to stop it because her mother ? mechanical-minded Marie ? created this living Toyland through engineering/physics. But, of https://www.thanostv.org/movie/the-nutcracker-and-the-four-realms-2018 , things are not as they seem.

Meanwhile, lovely ballerina Misty Copeland twirls on a picture-book stage set and there?s a gigantic CGI mouse that?s comprised of a multitude of tiny mice moving as one.

So what went wrong?

Perhaps it began with Ashleigh Powell?s revisionist script which was subsequently changed by the original director Lasse Hallstrom, then replacement director Joe Johnson ? with additional material by uncredited Tom McCarthy. Lacking a unified vision, both directors wallow in chaotic, extravagant details.

On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, ?The Nutcracker and the Four Realms? is a dizzying, floundering 5. Bah, humbug!

Since 1993?s ?Groundhog Day,? there have been a growing number of instances in TV and film of using the ?one day on a loop? plot point. In fact, at the rate they?ve been churned out, it?s fair to say that it?s less of a trope than a full-fledged subgenre. Whether it?s the horror of ?Triangle,? the comedy stylings of ?Premature,? the crime caper elements of ?Retroactive? and ?Blood Punch,? or the sci-fi action of ?Edge of Tomorrow,? this subgenre allows for an exploration of other cinematic staples in new and interesting ways.

Playing with the Sisyphean nightmare of repetitive life, it opens up avenues for exploration on the subtle variances that come when making small changes in a routine. So it makes sense that this narrative device would also be used for a horror comedy like ?Happy Death Day,? delivering an unbalanced film where the comedy mostly lands but the horror aspect falls distantly behind. The movie has inventive elements to it and lots of positives like creative editing and strong performances, but it ultimately underwhelms due to its lack of urgency or an underscoring point.

Sorority girl Theresa ?Tree? Gelbman (Jessica Rothe) wakes up on her birthday in a stranger?s (Israel Broussard) bed. She quickly and rudely extricates herself from the situation before going about her day being a narcissistic mean girl who loves partying and kind of hates everyone else around her. After a day of belittling others, ignoring her father and hooking up with her married professor, Tree goes out to a party only to be butchered by some stranger in a baby mask. Then, she wakes up and is forced to keep reliving her birthday, with each cycle ending with her being killed in some way by this malevolent slasher. As Tree becomes weakened with each subsequent loop, she must uncover the identity of her murderer and stop him from completing the fatal task so she?s not doomed to repeat this horrible day forever.

Director Christopher Landon makes a lot of intriguing choices with ?Happy Death Day,? using the clever script from Scott Lobdell to tell the Nietzschean story of a repeating day with a lot of humor. Rothe is very engaging as the lead, projecting a strong bitchy outside while still earning the audience?s sympathy for her plight. She delivers great lines and is game to try anything the script calls for, adding to the lunacy of the situation. watch happy death day 2017 with Broussard is also authentic, even if it is obvious and clich�d, but it still makes their bond absorbing and fun to watch. And as ?Edge of Tomorrow? taught viewers, a montage of horrible deaths can be quite amusing, especially if the victim is a bit of a shit. When it comes to the comedy aspect of this horror comedy, most of the notes are spot on and do a good job of quickly establishing characters and getting to some unexpected punchlines in smart ways.

Unfortunately, it?s the horror part that suffers in this film. While there are some stakes put in place, which is a clever way of lending limitations and a ticking clock on a possibly endless situation, there is a real lack of urgency or tension from the presence of the killer. The simplistic design of the baby mask and dark hoodie is pretty great, harkening back to the fun slashers of the 1980s, but a lack of gore or any real sense of the impact of the violence robs the film of anything remotely scary. Though the idea of solving one?s own murder is always a fun premise and is a brilliant plot device to use within the time loop archetype, the killer needs to be more menacing and there need to be more scares for it to feel impactful.

While the movie is edited quite well, including a few moments of very strong blocking, ?Happy Death Day? is not a visually interesting film. There are a few moments of flashy filters and a couple tilted cameras, but it looks more like a mid-tier college comedy than a weird horror flick. The strong performances and inventive script choices deserved a better treatment visually to make it more interesting and to better establish the tone.

Ultimately, it seems that ?Happy Death Day? is more invested in being a fun comedy with some smart ideas than being a genre-bending movie that weaves multiple tones into a singular work. However, it does many things very well and is propelled by the charisma and talents of Rothe. It?s just a shame that with so many chances to shake things up, it failed to take on more riskier elements to produce something that?s as horrifying as it is humorous.

From the very first shot, Nicolas Pesce?s ?The Eyes of My Mother? unsettles as a broken woman staggers along a deserted country road before collapsing in front of an oncoming truck. It will be a long time before we learn who she is or what has happened to her; meantime, there are more than enough horrors to keep us occupied.

Sliced into three increasingly dismaying sections ? abruptly labeled Mother, Father and Family ? and shot in liquid black and white, the story (by Mr. Pesce) details the gradual unraveling of Francisca (Kika Magalhaes), a young Portuguese-American woman.

As a child, Francisca coolly absorbed the anatomy lessons that her mother, a former eye surgeon, delivered with the help of animal carcasses. And when a beaming psychopath invades her family?s lonely farmhouse, Francisca observes his bloody purpose with the same clinical detachment.

Unfolding with Watch The Eyes of My Mother 2016 of dialogue, Francisca?s maturation from watcher to doer would be laughable if performed with less nuance or photographed with less originality. Desperately hugging her father?s corpse in clouded bath water, or swabbing inky pools of blood, Ms. Magalhaes, a former dancer, uses her expressive eyes and graceful limbs to bring the intimacy and sensuality of her actions to vivid life.

Like Cocoon for the preteen set, the Diary of a Wimpy Kid comedy franchise moves into film number four after a five-year break with The Long Haul and a new slate of youthful actors replacing now-adult originals.

Social media didn?t pause to consider diarist Greg Heffley with a five o?clock shadow when mounting a #NotMyHeffleys hashtag campaign. Chill, furious texters: this cast is just as fun as the factory-issue. They take over without a hiccup to deliver the same kind of kid-level laughs and slapstick shenanigans that carried Jeff Kinney?s bestselling illustrated kids' novel series to the big screen.

Jason Drucker (replacing Zachary Gordon) gives 12-year-old Wimpy Kid Greg a touch of world-weariness while Charlie Wright trades some of Rodrick?s meanness for added laughs with even more d?uh factor as the dim-bulb older brother. Alicia Silverstone and Tom Everett Scott are now in the thankless Susan and Frank parental roles.

Susan comes up with a great idea for a family summer road trip to visit the boys? meemaw (grandma) for her 90th birthday. And she?s confiscating their phones, including husband Frank?s, to ensure maximum bonding time on the long drive.

Anchoring the car-seat role is troublesome 3-year-old baby brother Manny (twins Dylan and Wyatt Walters), who is occasionally the smartest one in the bunch.

https://www.thanostv.org/movie/diary-of-a-wimpy-kid-the-long-haul-2017 at a goofy theme restaurant sets Greg up for major humiliation when an incident in the ball pit makes him a combination Internet meme and laughingstock. Redemption could come via a new viral video to replace bad memories, if only he could manage to detour the vacation route to a Player?s Expo convention to meet his gamer hero. And maybe there?s something in it for Rodrick.

David Bowers, who co-wrote the script with Kinney, is back directing, keeping things moving with sped-up camera action, inspiration from National Lampoon?s Vacation and liberal lifts from Alfred Hitchcock.

The running joke sees Susan promoting unplugged family togetherness while everybody, including dad, is suffering device withdrawal. Even Manny has his own version when his pacifier goes missing. Mom?s attempt to plug holes with lame games and a trip to a country fair nets only sarcasm from the older boys and a piglet prize for Manny that adds a smelly passenger to the van.

I haven't yet seen director/writer/editor/composer Andy Mitton's previous two features, We Go On and Yellowbrickroad, but having watched his new film The Witch in the Window (formerly known as The Vermont House) at Fantasia 2018, I'm going to have to rectify that as soon as possible.

The story follows New York City denizen and middle-aged dad Simon (Alex Draper) as he picks up his son Finn (Charlie Tacker) from his estranged wife Beverly (Arija Bareikis). The goal is to fix up a house in the middle of nowhere, Vermont, get Finn away from the Internet and city life, and to bond with some quality father-son time.

Watch The Witch in the Window 2018 , is the fixer-upper in the countryside already has a resident of the permanent kind, Lydia. The issue with most haunted house stories is that they never tread new ground, exhausting the same plot points and tropes again and again.

I'm thrilled to say that The Witch in the Window (coming to Shudder soon) has no such downside, and the premise of sprucing up an old house with a ghost in it will be where comparisons with this feature and Old Dark House stories end.

The best part of watching films is the hunt for the elusive gem that surprises and surpasses expectations, and The Witch in the Window is it. When you think you know where the film is going, you won't. The interactions between the aggressive ghost Lydia and Simon and Finn are quite different from what we're used to seeing; they're scared, but they confront her head-on at times, even going right up to her when she's asleep in her favorite chair.

Even better? There's one particular scene that gave me actual goosebumps --- and the other filmmakers I attended the screening with felt the same way. We rhapsodized on the effectiveness of that scene and its ability to absolutely surprise us. I'd love to be able to reveal the trick that Mitton used within his excellent trick, but it'd be evil of me to spoil such a beautiful, chilling scene.

In fact, to say much more at all about the plot of the film does it a disservice. I'll say that this is a heady nightmare of real-world horrors and the poignancy of knowing that you really cannot protect the ones you love, no matter how much you try. The Witch in the Window is gloriously written, acted, and directed; it's a horror film set in mostly one location, but it's also a discovery into what you can really do on an independent film with a likely tiny budget and crew.

Don't go into the film expecting the big budget ballast of Hereditary, but an indie completely different that doesn't show the supernatural so much as makes you feel it. At its, the The Witch in the Window is a study on the loss of those you love and hold most dear. Check this one out as soon as you can if you love quiet horror that burns slow until you don't know you're almost out of wick. Highly recommended.

It comes as no surprise that Ulrich Seidl, the director of Dog Days, comes from a documentary background. This, his first feature film, is a harrowing and unflinchingly realistic look at modern suburban life. FAMILY MOVIE REVIEW INFORMATION FOR PARENTS AND KIDS is, though, that it lacks any kind of a narrative or a character worth rooting for. The film unfolds over two hot and sticky days in the suburbs of Austria. We meet several characters, and in a structure similar to Robert Altman's Short Cuts, we spend some time with each individual before moving on to the next. Among the denizens: Anna, an insane young woman who spends her days hitchhiking and pestering those that pick her up with nonsensical ramblings and cruel insults; Mr. Walter, a domineering retiree whose need for control compels him to weigh sugar packets from the supermarket; a nameless teacher who uses rough sex as an outlet for her repressed anger; a divorced couple still living in the same house, unable to co-exist peacefully. There are more, but these are the most significant. The film's slow pace is exacerbated by Seidl's refusal to introduce a significant plot device to move things along. Review: Dog Days is an ensemble comedy with a shagginess that?s part of its charm that this play out like one of his documentary films, with the mundane reality of everyday life taking center stage, prevents the movie from ever becoming more than an occasionally shocking but quite often dull slice-of-life pic. But for a little while, it's fairly compelling stuff. These characters are wholly original and would likely never exist in a mainstream Hollywood film, and for that, Seidl should be commended. The first hour or so, where we're first meeting the characters, is pretty riveting. These are people that live among us, though fortunately, most of us go our entire lives without actually meeting any of them. But it's the second half that ultimately kills Dog Days. Dog Days ? ? 1/2 has passed and now it's the second day, and there's absolutely nothing new to discover in this final hour. It's more of the same (the same being nothing), and without the freshness of discovering the characters, there's not much left. And while a sequence detailing the revenge of an abusive character elevates (if only temporarily) the film from its depressing doldrums, there's really not much here worth recommending.

In 2015, Victor Zarcoff's 13 Cameras gave audiences chills with its story of a creepy landlord spying on a young couple through the use of hidden cameras. 14 Cameras is a sequel that tries to build on this idea, using the same villain but having him do everything on a larger scale, with more potential victims, more obvious nastiness and more explanation. As 14 CAMERAS when films take this route, something is lost in the process.

In this film, Gerald (Neville Archambault) rents out a holiday home, using a picture of a blandly smiling young woman as cover. " 14 CAMERAS seems nice," one soon-to-be tenant says, though there's never any evidence that Gerald has the communication skills to impersonate a friendly person online, and we've all lived with the internet for a little too long now for anyone to put much trust in a picture alone. In fact, familiarity with the internet is a big problem for this film, which relies on its characters' naivety and also pitches the dark web as the source of ultimate evil without anything to tell us why that evil would be interested in Gerald's tenants and not preoccupied with all the other much more extreme material available out there. The one balancing factor here is that Gerald himself may be less in control of his online dealings than he thinks.

14 cameras is at its strongest when depicting the conflicts that Gerald's behaviour, which quickly extends to stealing from his tenants and messing with their stuff, provokes between them. There's the potential here for interesting character drama and although there are no standout performances the actors still succeed in creating tension. Archambault himself struggles to do so, his character having lost much of his initial impact due to being robbed of his mystery. He's now reduced to the status of an ugly person - with thinning hair, bad skin and hunched shoulders - preying on the supposedly beautiful out of bitterness or spite. Any more complex motive has been dropped in favour of more shambling, wheezing and general misfortune cast as repulsiveness - something that smarter horror films were challenging as far back as the Forties. It's lazy filmmaking and, more to the point, it robs the story of power.

Also missing here, to the film's detriment, is Zarcoff's directorial skill. Newcomers Seth Fuller and Scott Hussion just don't have the same ability to generate atmosphere. The sharp editing that's vital to success where multiple scenes are shot from static camera positions isn't there either. Towards the end, when we step outside the frame of the house and the action is captured more fluidly, the film starts to find its own visual voice, but by this point it has squandered most of its opportunities and has to build up again from scratch.

There is, admittedly, plenty of weaker stuff out there built around similar ideas, and we are at least spared the discomfort of watching deliberately low quality, scrappy footage over and over again. Fuller and Hussion aim to build up character-based horror and wisely steer clear of jump scares, with the exception of a couple of moments that play relatively well. There's 14 Cameras (2018) Movie Review from Eye for Film -constructed scene involving a dog that plays effectively with audience expectations. But the thing is, there's also a lot of better stuff out there on this theme, and so although this isn't wholly awful, there's not much reason to give it 90 minutes of your life.

It comes as no surprise that Ulrich Seidl, the director of Dog Days, comes from a documentary background. This, his first feature film, is a harrowing and unflinchingly realistic look at modern suburban life. The trouble is, though, that it lacks any kind of a narrative or a character worth rooting for. The film unfolds over two hot and sticky days in the suburbs of Austria. We meet several characters, and in a structure similar to Robert Altman's Short Cuts, we spend some time with each individual before moving on to the next. Among the denizens: Anna, an insane young woman who spends her days hitchhiking and pestering those that pick her up with nonsensical ramblings and cruel insults; Mr. Walter, a domineering retiree whose need for control compels him to weigh sugar packets from the supermarket; a nameless teacher who uses rough sex as an outlet for her repressed anger; a divorced couple still living in the same house, unable to co-exist peacefully. There are more, but these are the most significant. The film's slow pace is exacerbated by Seidl's refusal to introduce a significant plot device to move things along. His insistence that this play out like one of his documentary films, with the mundane reality of everyday life taking center stage, prevents the movie from ever becoming more than an occasionally shocking but quite often dull slice-of-life pic. But for a little while, it's fairly compelling stuff. These characters are wholly original and would likely never exist in a mainstream Hollywood film, and for that, Seidl should be commended. The first hour or so, where we're first meeting the characters, is pretty riveting. These are people that live among us, though fortunately, most of us go our entire lives without actually meeting any of them. But watch dog days 2018 's the second half that ultimately kills Dog Days. The first day has passed and now it's the second day, and there's absolutely nothing new to discover in this final hour. It's more of the same (the same being nothing), and without the freshness of discovering the characters, there's not much left. And while a sequence detailing the revenge of an abusive character elevates (if only temporarily) the film from its depressing doldrums, there's really not much here worth recommending.

Teen Titans Go! To the Movies Summer is a time for superhero blockbusters�for big-budget action, adventure, and superhuman feats that save the entire universe. But DC�s animated superhero movie Teen Titans Go! To the Movies takes moviegoers� obsession with superhero blockbusters and turns it into a crazy comic adventure. Teen Titans Go! To the Movies follows the lovable band of young superhero misfits as they join their leader, Robin (voiced by Scott Menville), in his quest to have his very own movie and be considered a real hero. When their trip to Hollywood ends in humiliation, Robin and the rest of the Titans hatch one plan after another to try to get the attention of big-time director Jade Wilson (Kristen Bell) and their fellow heroes. But their mission is derailed by Slade (Will Arnett), a supervillain with his own dastardly plan for world domination. Though most of DC�s recent releases have been dark and heavy and way too serious, that�s definitely not the case here. Teen Titans Go! To the Movies is unapologetically silly and generally sophomoric�which, if you�ve seen the Cartoon Network series, is no big surprise. The characters are all eccentric in their own way, with strong personalities and teenage attitudes. But it�s all playful and fun, with a sarcastic sense of humor. Kids will definitely appreciate the silliness of it all�not to mention the superhero action and adventure. But this isn�t just a movie for kids. Grown-up viewers will be surprised by the clever comedy. Beyond the fart jokes, you�ll find humor that�s smart and self-aware, loaded with references to other DC characters, popular superhero movies, and other superhero universes. There are fun cameos and loads of inside jokes�many of which will probably fly right past your head. Admittedly, there are some times when the jokes miss the mark�or where the story just gets a little too out there. And it�s clear that the filmmakers are used to creating short cartoons�because, at times, the story feels somewhat random and choppy. But, thanks to its quirky characters and clever comedy, its flaws are pretty easy to overlook. watch teen titans go! to the movies 2018 Go! To the Movies may look like superhero-lite�like a superhero movie made just for younger audiences�but there�s more to it than that. No matter what your age, if you love superhero movies�but you don�t take them too seriously�you�ll enjoy this silly, sophomoric, yet surprisingly smart animated adventure. Listen to the review on Reel Discovery: