I believe that every movie begins with a simple goal; to create a work of cinema that audiences will find entertaining and engaging. Unfortunately, that goal does not always come to pass for a variety of different reasons. Here are a few films that stand out for me from last year that were not successful at achieving their goal:
"It"
"It", the film based on the classic Stephen King novel, became a massive international success last fall. It scared up over $700 million worldwide and has gone on to become the highest-grossing horror movie of all time. And I just don’t get it. While the film is proficiently directed by Andy Muschietti and looks great thanks to the work of cinematographer, Chung-hoon Chung, "It" feels shockingly routine and lacks any genuine scares. After his younger brother vanished a year ago without a trace, Bill (Jaeden Lieberher), a stuttering teenager, continues to be grief-stricken while his parents are still so distraught that they are neglecting him. Other unexplained tragedies involving missing children in the town have been going on for centuries and Bill and his band of misfit friends discover the culprit; Pennywise, a blood-thirsty, dancing clown played with zest by Bill Skarsgård. "It" has moments that entertain and may sends chills down a few spines yet not nearly enough effort has been made to make the film a truly scary nightmare.
"Rough Night"
The comparison to "Girl Trip", last summer's hilarious hit female-buddy comedy, is inevitable but "Rough Night" ain't even on the same block. This misguided attempt of a dark comedy hit theaters first where it was met with a collective groan and a quick dismissal. Four college friends (Scarlett Johansson, Jillian Bell, Ilana Glazer and Zoë Kravitz) reunite after ten years and decide to have a girl's weekend trip in Miami to celebrate one of them getting married. As cinema history tells us, nothing good will come from this and it doesn't as a male stripper is accidentally killed by one of the ladies. The rest of the film deals with them ridiculously trying to hide and then get rid of the body. Kate McKinnon shows up with a bad Aussie accent as another friend from their college days and "Modern Family's Ty Burrell and Demi Moore appear as a creepy, deviant couple who live next door to their rental house. While the similarly plotted "Girl Trip" successfully combined warmth and uproarious raunchy humor, "Rough Night" is just uncomfortably and incredibly bad.
"T2 Trainspotting"
Much like the follow-ups to movies like "Wall Street", "Basic Instinct" or "300" (to name only a few), "T2 Trainspotting" was another sequel that nobody really asked for. Danny Boyle, now an Oscar-winning director, returns to direct the follow-up to the 1996 film and much of the original cast are back. Irvine Welsh, the author of "Trainspotting", did write a sequel to his book called "Porno" but "T2" uses an original script by John Hodge that is loosely based on both books and follows those junkie Edinburgh lads twenty years later. Mark "Rent boy" Renton (Ewan McGregor) has been off heroin for years and living a normal family life in Amsterdam but divorce and a heart attack brings an end to his peaceful existence. After his marriage fails and loses visitation of his son, Daniel "Spud" Murphy (Ewen Bremner) becomes an addict again. Simon "Sick Boy" Williamson (Jonny Lee Miller) owns a run-down pub and has a coke problem but makes a living blackmailing dirty, old men with his young Bulgarian girlfriend (Anjela Nedyalkova). And Francis "Franco" Begbie (Robert Carlyle) is doing serious time in prison for drugs and robbery. The first film was driven by a reckless youthful energy while "T2" simply wheezes lethargically with sad and depressing middle-age spread.
"Snatched"
"Snatched" was one of the films I was really looking forward to seeing but ultimately it turned out to be one of my biggest disappointments on the year. This lame comedy stars one of the funniest comedians working today, Amy Schumer and features the return of comedy legend, Goldie Hawn who makes her first screen appearance in fifteen years. We also have the reliable talents of Joan Cusack, Ike Barinholtz, Wanda Sykes and Christopher Meloni all on board in supporting roles. With so much talent involved, the question remains why is this film so incredibly inept? One of the biggest problems is the underdeveloped script by Katie Dippold ("The Heat") and the very few laughs generated from it. The film tells the story of Emily (Schumer), after being fired from her job and dumped by her boyfriend, who is still determined to go on a nonrefundable vacation to Ecuador. She talks her unadventurous mother (Hawn) to go on the trip with her and the two end up getting kidnapped and held for ransom by a murderous gang. We spend the rest of this tragic comedy watching this mother and daughter trying to escape from their captors and the unamusing situations that occur during their getaway. Fans of Schumer, Hawn and comedies definitely deserved better than "Snatched".
"Ghost in the Shell"
Even without the whitewashing controversy involving the casting of Scarlett Johansson as a clearly Asian character, "Ghost In The Shell" had other serious problems. Based on the popular Japanese manga, this Hollywood version spent most of their time and money on developing visual effects and action sequences and far less on plot and characters. Set in the near future, Hanka Robotics have secretly developed the ability to merge a human brain with an artificial body or "shell". Against the wishes of the inventor, Dr. Ouelet (Juliette Binoche), the experiment of the former Mira Killian, whose body was badly damaged and has become the cyborg, Major (Johansson) will be used as a deadly counter-terrorism operative. The rest of the muddled story involves sabotage within Hanka and the mystery of Killian's past. But the most infuriating thing about "Ghost" is that this is another American film that completely mistreats the glorious gifts of France's "La Binoche".
"Justice League"
"Justice League" brings together some of the world's greatest super-heroes; Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, the Flash, Aquaman and Cyborg. What should have been a thrilling and exciting adventure turned out to be a whole lot less. Dull, uninspired and pointless, "Justice League" lets down comic-book fans with a film that simply goes through the motions and makes zero effort to elevate the material to higher than average. A perfect example of lazy film making at it's finest.
With the release of the comedy, "Snatched" this past weekend, Goldie Hawn has made a very welcome return to film after a fifteen year hiatus. The seventy-one year old actress first became noticed in the late '60's on the sketch-comedy show, "Laugh-In" before branching out to the movies and earning an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress with her first major film, 1969's "Cactus Flower" and later appearing in such films as "Shampoo", "Overboard", "Death Becomes Her", "First Wives Club" and one of her biggest hits and career-defining character, "Private Benjamin". Hawn began her path as a performer with a giggly, dumb blonde persona before shedding that to take on roles that were far more complex and tenacious.
While it is wonderful that Goldie Hawn has come back to acting, "Snatched" is hardly the best vehicle to showcase her gifts. So Vulture has made a rundown of the twenty-eight feature films the actress has made to date and selected her ten best screen roles.
The summer movie season is almost upon us and while there will be plenty of the usual expensive sequels, remakes and comic-book thrillers to drive audiences in to theaters, there's clearly a change in the air. Not only will there be plenty to see for adults during this season but I've noticed a very large number of female-driven films of all genres on the slate to be released. This is certainly a welcome development that is a long time in coming. Kids, teenage boys and nerds are not the only people that might want to see a movie this summer. There are a great number of interesting releases due over the next four months I want to see but here are ten movies I particularly want to put a spotlight on:
All release dates are subject to change:
"SNATCHED"
Release date: May 12, 2017
Goldie Hawn returns to the big screen after a way too long of an absence in the action-comedy, "Snatched". She plays an unadventurous mother who is convinced to go on a trip to South America to help cheer up her recently dumped daughter when they are kidnapped and must escape through the jungle. Ike Barinholtz, Wanda Sykes and Joan Cusack also star. Oh. And Amy Schumer is in this too.
"WONDER WOMAN"
Release date: June 2, 2017
After getting an exciting tease of the character in the otherwise underwhelming, "Batman vs. Superman", the first big screen treatment of "Wonder Woman" is finally here. This is an origin story set in the early 20th Century when Diana (Gal Gadot), an Amazon goddess living on the all-female island of Themyscira, meets a downed World War I pilot (Chris Pine) who has washed up on shore. Falling for the handsome man and fascinated by his stories, Diana decides to go off with him to discover his world and help fight in this war. Patty Jenkins (best known for directing "Monster", the film that won Charlize Theron an Oscar) directs.
"BEATRIZ AT DINNER"
Release date: June 9, 2017
The film making team of director Miguel Arteta and writer Mike White, who brought us the indie classics, "Chuck & Buck" and "The Good Girl", have reunited once again for "Beatriz at Dinner", a timely dark comedy that examines the growing disparity between the haves and the have-nots along with causal racism and xenophobia that has become far more prevalent in this country. Salma Hayek plays Beatriz, a holistic medicine practitioner who ends up at a party of one of her wealthy clients and gets in to a politically charged run-in with a successful businessman (John Lithgow).
"MY COUSIN RACHEL"
Release date: June 9, 2017
Daphne du Maurier, the British novelist, has had many of her books and short stories turned in to films, the most notable being Hitchcock's versions of "Jamaica Inn", "The Birds" and "Rebecca". "My Cousin Rachel" has been made before in 1951 (which starred Richard Burton and Olivia de Haviland) and this latest features Rachel Weisz and Sam Ciaflin. It's about a young man (Ciaflin) whose wealthy cousin dies, leaving his vast fortune to him. But he's convinced that his new wife, Rachel (Weisz) was behind his death to get her hands on his money. However, after meeting this enchanting woman, he falls in love. Could his suspicion about her be misguided? Or maybe not?
"THE BEGUILED"
Release date : June 23, 2017
Director Sofia Coppola returns with her version of "The Beguiled", a Civil War set drama based on the novel by Thomas P. Cullinan that was first made in to a film in 1971 and starred Clint Eastwood and Geraldine Page. Colin Farrell now plays the injured Union solider rescued by a student at an all-girls boarding school. Nicole Kidman is the headmistress who reluctantly allows him to stay until he regains his strength. Trouble brews with this handsome lone man surrounded by this group of lonely young women. Kirsten Dunst and Elle Fanning (who both previously worked with the director) also appear in this film which will make it's world premiere at this year's Cannes Film Festival in May.
"OKJA"
Release date: June 28, 2017
"Ojka" is another English-language feature from Korean filmmaker, Boon Joon-ho following his well-received first, "Snowpiercer" from 2013. A young girl (Ahn Seo-hyun) fights bravely against a powerful, international organization to protect her best friend, who happens to be a giant, animal-like creature named Ojka. An impressive cast includes Tilda Swinton, Jake Gyllenhaal, Paul Dano, Lily Collins and Giancarlo Esposito but the problem is that Netflix has picked-up the film, so I fear this will barely get a theatrical release. I hope I'm wrong and they will begin to follow what Amazon has successfully done with the films they acquire.
"A GHOST STORY"
Release date: July 7, 2017
The last time filmmaker David Lowery and actors, Casey Affleck and Rooney Mara came together, it was with "Ain't Them Bodies Saints", an acclaimed romantic-crime drama in 2013. They have come back together for "A Ghost Story" which has already been met with rapturous praise at this year's Sundance Film Festival. It tells the surreal story of a recently departed man (who looks like a Halloween costume version of a ghost) attempting to reconnect with his distraught widow.
"GIRLS TRIP"
Release date : July 21, 2017
"Girls Trip" is a raunchy rom-com involving four childhood friends (Queen Latifah, Jada Pinkett Smith, Regina Hall and comedian, Tiffany Haddish) who decide to reunite in New Orleans during the Essence Music Fest. It's safe to say that wild adventures and sex-filled escapades will certainly be found in this road-trip comedy.
"ATOMIC BLONDE"
Release date: July 28, 2017
Charlize Theron is back in fine ass-kicking mode in the action-thriller, "Atomic Blonde". Based on the graphic novel, "The Coldest Day", the Oscar-winner plays Lorraine Broughton, a top British spy sent to Berlin shortly before the wall is set to come down to investigate a mysterious murder of an undercover agent by other spies. James McAvoy co-stars as a Berlin station chief assigned to help Broughton maneuver through the city. Stunt coordinator turned filmmaker, David Leitch ("John Wick") directs.
"DETROIT"
Release date: August 4, 2017
Loosely based on the 1967 Algiers motel incident, "Detroit" examines how a police raid at the motel during a racially charged riot sets off a violent and deadly rampage throughout the Motor City. The Oscar-winning team of director, Kathryn Bigelow and writer, Mark Boal (who brought us "The Hurt Locker" and "Zero Dark Thirty") are behind this intense period drama.
