Tangerine (Quick Review)

Tangerine is the indiest of indie films I’ve ever seen!

Paddington (Quick Review)

Paddington is a good family film, one both adults and children can enjoy for different, yet similar ways. Quality live-action family films have become a rarity in modern cinema; at some point during the mid-2000s, family films became primarily associated with animation made by the likes of DreamWorks and Pixar.  Live-action became split between adult, teen, and gimmicky kid’s films (the ones which engage 7 year olds while torturing their adult guardians).  Paddington proves the genre’s far from dead however, along with being a good reminder of what families have been missing.  It’s a well-made film full of funny moments, sad moments, and most importantly, touching moments.

Minions (Quick Review)

The Despicable Me franchise can be summed up overall as, “ehh”.  More precisely, if I were giving out star ratings, each film would receive 2 ½ stars out of 4—the typical rating for a sub-par film containing decent content, yet not worth recommending as a “must see” for theatrical viewing.  Minions is no exception, being a decently entertaining, yet unremarkable film about some very cute creatures.  The story is incredibly straight forward: the Minions have been around since the dawn of time, existing solely to serve the most villainous master around.  They continuously move from boss to boss, as the film informs us, “Finding a master was easy, keeping one is where things got tricky”.  After failing their latest boss Napoleon, the Minions escape and take refuge in Antarctica—they soon fall into a deep depression after being master-less for so long, prompting one courageous Minion Kevin (Pierre Coffin) to go out in search of a great villain to follow.  Alongside Kevin comes the rebellious Minion Stewart and adorable Minion Bob (both also voiced by Pierre Coffin).

Me and Earl and the Dying Girl (Film Review)

Me and Earl and the Dying Girl is a high-school coming-of-age film which deeply admires artistic cinema—using unconventional methods while maintaining enough traditional elements to work with both mainstream and art-house audiences…in other words it’s a really good film. 

Ted 2 (Film Review)

My thoughts on Ted 2 are essentially the same for the first film; it’s a high quality, very funny episode of Family Guy.  The film’s humor is crude, politically incorrect, and entirely unapologetic—similar to what Pitch Perfect 2 aimed to accomplish, expect here it’s funny and lacking mean-spiritedness.  Ted 2 shares with Family Guy a love for isolated cutaway gags, 1980s film references, and several musical numbers; unlike most modern Family Guy episodes however, the film’s humor is effective, its jokes plentiful, and its characters entertainingly likable.