Mini Reviews

I have seen a lot of movies that I haven't written about. Either I didn't have the time or didn't have very much to say. Looking back at my list, most of them fell on the mediocre scale, but here are a few mini reviews for the bigger releases I missed as well as two movies that might make it on to my Best and Worst lists.

Horrible Bosses 2
Stars: Jason Bateman, Jason Sudekis, Charlie Day, Chris Pine, Christoph Waltz, Jennifer Aniston, Jamie Foxx
Plot: The three lovable goofballs from the first movie decide to go into business for themselves, but when a rich businessman steals their idea, they orchestrate the kidnapping of his spoiled son as payback.
Thoughts: Chris Pine is very pretty. I will never complain about having to look at him for two hours. Other than that, this is pretty much exactly what you would expect if you saw the first one - a ridiculous, sometime funny, sometime eye roll inducing comedy.
Grade: C+

Obvious Child
Stars: Jenny Slate
Plot: After a one night stand leads to an unwanted pregnancy, a New York City comic, who is kind of a mess, tries to figure out what to do with her life.
Thoughts: I heard so many good things about this movie, but it was a huge disappointment for me.  Does it want to be a romantic comedy for the hipster set? Does it want to be a quirky coming of age movie? Does it have to have so many sophomoric jokes? I'm sorry, but fart jokes are for 13 year old boys, not seemingly well educated people who get to write screenplays for a living.
Grade: D

Wild
Stars: Reese Witherspoon,  Laura Dern
Plot: After a divorce, a heroin addiction and the death of her mother, lost soul Cheryl Strayed decided to find herself by hiking the 1100 mile Pacific Crest Trail.
Thoughts: I absolutely loved the memoir on which this was based. The movie? Not so much. Don't get me wrong. It's incredibly well made with superb performances. I loved the flashback segments, but as much as I love me some Reese Witherspoon, I can only take a much of watching her walk and eat and try to put up a tent. It just all became a bit redundant after a while.
Grade: B

The Gambler
Stars: Mark Wahlberg, John Goodman, Brie Larson, goddess of the world Jessica Lange
Plot: A college professor with a gambling addiction finds himself in way over his head when he owes extravagant amounts of money to three different scary loan shark types.
Thoughts: While I appreciate a good nihilistic lead character more than you can imagine, this movie never quite reached the sum of its parts. At times, it felt exciting and brilliant, and at others lazy and cliche. I read that this was originally going to be a Scorsese / DiCaprio project and I can't even imagine how good it could have been then. But I guess unlike our titular character,  those guys know when to walk away.
Grade: C+

The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies
Stars: Martin Freeman, Orlando Bloom, Lee Pace, the exquisite cheekbones of Cate Blanchett
Plot: We are nearing the 9 hour mark and things are happening and there is a war and, honestly, I'm not that into it AND THEN BIRDS START DROPPING BEARS INTO THE FIGHT AND SHIT GETS REAL.
Thoughts: I have a love-hate relationship with The Hobbit movies that mostly leans toward the latter. I mean, I loved the second one as much as I hated the first one. The last in the trilogy (Fingers crossed) is mostly boring until the epic battle scene FINALLY starts. Somewhere in an alternate reality black hole bookshelf,  there is a really bad ass four hour / two movie version of The Hobbit that I'd like to see.
Grade: C-

Blue Ruin
Stars: Macon Blair
Plot: A drifter enacts revenge when the man who killed his family is released from prison.
Thoughts: The plot of this movie is as simple and straight forward as they come. There is probably about fifty sentences of dialogue in the while movie. The lead actor kind of has a Zach Galifianakis meets Nathan Lane thing going on. The director wears his love for the Coen Bros. firmly on his sleeve. And despite or because of all that, this is one of the best movies I have seen all year. It's a thrilling slow burn modern day masterpiece with a star who is so mesmerizing you can't even stand to blink. Why isn't Blair a huge star? Why isn't everyone every where talking about this movie all the time? I have no idea.
Grade: A