Thursday, May 4, 2017

Arch Campbell's Weekend Movie Guide (5/5/17)

Chris Pratt stars in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2

From our friend, Arch Campbell...

The Lost City of Z - 4 Stars. Classic film epic based on the life of British explorer Percy Fawcett and his obsession with the Amazon. A grand experience with echoes of "Heart of Darkness" and "Lost Horizon."

Paterson - 4 Stars. The great Adam Driver plays a Paterson, New Jersey bus driver named Paterson who writes poetry. Quirky, moving and great fun.

Best New Bet > Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 - 3½ Stars. Delightful follow-up to the original summer blockbuster action movie starring Chris Pratt. Funny, ironic and a lot of fun.

Arch with Will Ferrell & Zach Galifianakis (r)

Get Out - 3½ Stars. Breakthrough satire/comedy/horror tale. Black kid visits white girlfriend's secluded home, and suspects something weird. Comic Jordan Peele directs with a sure hand.

Their Finest - 3½ Stars. A young woman comes of age during the World War II London Blitz as a script writing working on morale boosting government films. A winning mix of oddballs and romance, amidst the daily threat of death.

The Lego Batman Movie - 3½ Stars. Animated comedy based on the Batman character. Hilarious from the first frame onward.

I Am Not Your Negro - 3 Stars. James Baldwin’s haunting writings brought to life with the voice of Samuel Jackson.

Hidden Figures - 3 Stars. Inspiring story of three brilliant black women who faced prejudice and gender discrimination working in the space program in 1961. They kept John Glenn aloft.

Gifted - 2½ Stars. Family custody drama over a math prodigy. The kid is cute; but the story's familiar. and I didn't buy the resolution.

Going in Style - 2½ Stars. Better-than-expected remake of 1979 George Burns comedy, with Michael Caine, Morgan Freeman, and Alan Arkin as angry senior citizens, turned bank robbers.

Colossal - 2 Stars. Anne Hathaway stars as a millennial trainwreck, somehow connected with a Godzilla-style monster terrorizing Seoul. Full of metaphors, but not nearly as cool as some would have you think.

Free Fire - 2 Stars. Gun deal goes bad, really bad. 90 minutes of cartoon violence with a lot of OMG moments. Empty, but fun... but empty.

The Zookeeper's Wife - 2 Stars. A Warsaw family uses their zoo to protect Jewish refugees during the Nazi reign. Falls short of better Holocaust stories.

The Promise - 1 Star. Clunky romance, set against the Armenian genocide of World War I. Bad script, poor acting, and way too long.

The Circle - Zero Stars. Cliche-ridden high-tech thriller in which Emma Watson does a lot of speechifying, as she dreams up ideas for an evil high-tech outfit. With Tom Hanks and Patton Oswalt, both poorly used.

Visit Arch's website for his (unrivaled) take on movies. He remains the only other (we're not self-hating) critic, whose opinion we admire and respect.