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Veronica Pena (690 KP) rated Fighting with My Family (2019) in Movies
Apr 14, 2020
I quite liked this film. It was a little predictable at times, but it was also really heartwarming and based on a true story, which I love. I also love that they showed home videos and things during the credits, that’s my favorite part of watching any film that’s based on a true story. I think it just makes it feel more real and it connects the story a bit more in a way that just doesn’t happen if they don’t show pictures and videos.
I liked that the film was about Paige. There are some pretty big names in this film, Vince Vaughn and Dwayne Johnson being two, and it didn’t feel like they were taking away from her or her story. It felt like they were there to lift her up, which I appreciated.
I think this movie is a good watch if you want something lighthearted but still a nice feel good.
I liked that the film was about Paige. There are some pretty big names in this film, Vince Vaughn and Dwayne Johnson being two, and it didn’t feel like they were taking away from her or her story. It felt like they were there to lift her up, which I appreciated.
I think this movie is a good watch if you want something lighthearted but still a nice feel good.

Garth Davis recommended A Woman Under the Influence (1975) in Movies (curated)

David McK (3576 KP) rated Catch Me If You Can (2002) in Movies
Mar 11, 2023
Spielbergian drama starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Tom Hanks and supposedly based on the true-life story of Frank Abagnale Jr (I wonder how much of it is, how much made up, and how much dramatised?), with DiCaprio playing the role of Frank Abagnale, who successfully bluffed his way into work as a co-pilot at a major airway, as a doctor and as a lawyer all before he reached his 18th birthday.
In order to do so, he also forged numerous official documents, which brings him to the attention of Carl Hanratty (Tom Hanks), who makes it his mission to capture Abagnale, with the two then forming a sort of co-dependent relationship on each other.
It's not a bad movie by any means, with it also attempting to provide some form of justification/explanation for Frank's actions through the lens of his childhood and his relationships with his parents, although I did find it a little slow to start with.
In order to do so, he also forged numerous official documents, which brings him to the attention of Carl Hanratty (Tom Hanks), who makes it his mission to capture Abagnale, with the two then forming a sort of co-dependent relationship on each other.
It's not a bad movie by any means, with it also attempting to provide some form of justification/explanation for Frank's actions through the lens of his childhood and his relationships with his parents, although I did find it a little slow to start with.

Charlie Cobra Reviews (1840 KP) rated Good Boys (2019) in Movies
Jul 7, 2020
South Park Meets Super Bad In This Summer Comedy
Good Boys is a 2019 comedy movie directed by Gene Stupnitsky and written by Stupnitsky and Lee Eisenberg. Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg served as producers under their Point Grey Pictures production company. It was also produced by Good Universe and Quantity Entertainment and distributed by Universal Pictures. The film stars Jacob Tremblay, Keith L. Williams, and Brady Noon.
Entering 6th grade and dealing with their own personal problems, friends Max, Thor and Lucas are presented with the opportunity to attend a party thrown by the popular kids. However nervous that this will be their first "kissing" party, Max and his friends lose his dad's valuable drone while spying on his neighbor Hannah to learn more about kissing. And their journey to get it back is full of chaos and shenanigans they likes of which they are not prepared for.
Now this movie was really funny and had me laughing. Man it got me reminiscing about how my friends and I were pretty much our own version of the gang from South Park. What I enjoyed the most was that the movie had a great way of showing the kids struggle to understand things that you would think they would know because of how they act older by cussing and talking about other adult stuff. I really liked their group dynamic and the acting from them was really top notch. This movie really made me laugh but also made me miss my group of friends that I grew up with and used to hang out with all the time. I give this movie an 8/10 and say that if you are looking for something to make you laugh, then you need to check out this movie.
Entering 6th grade and dealing with their own personal problems, friends Max, Thor and Lucas are presented with the opportunity to attend a party thrown by the popular kids. However nervous that this will be their first "kissing" party, Max and his friends lose his dad's valuable drone while spying on his neighbor Hannah to learn more about kissing. And their journey to get it back is full of chaos and shenanigans they likes of which they are not prepared for.
Now this movie was really funny and had me laughing. Man it got me reminiscing about how my friends and I were pretty much our own version of the gang from South Park. What I enjoyed the most was that the movie had a great way of showing the kids struggle to understand things that you would think they would know because of how they act older by cussing and talking about other adult stuff. I really liked their group dynamic and the acting from them was really top notch. This movie really made me laugh but also made me miss my group of friends that I grew up with and used to hang out with all the time. I give this movie an 8/10 and say that if you are looking for something to make you laugh, then you need to check out this movie.

Matthew Krueger (10051 KP) rated Remember the Titans (2000) in Movies
Nov 28, 2020
Denzel Washington (1 more)
Will Patton
Fight For What You Love The Most
Remember The Titans- is a excellent movie. Its powerful, moving, heartwarming, dramatic, family-moving, and based on a true story. Also it has a excellent cast. Both Denzel Washington and Will Patton are excellent. I didnt realize that Ryan Gosling was in this. He is so young in this. Anyways its a excellent football movie.
The plot: In Virginia, high school football is a way of life, an institution revered, each game celebrated more lavishly than Christmas, each playoff distinguished more grandly than any national holiday. And with such recognition, comes powerful emotions. In 1971 high school football was everything to the people of Alexandria. But when the local school board was forced to integrate an all black school with an all white school, the very foundation of football's great tradition was put to the test.
Its excellent.
The plot: In Virginia, high school football is a way of life, an institution revered, each game celebrated more lavishly than Christmas, each playoff distinguished more grandly than any national holiday. And with such recognition, comes powerful emotions. In 1971 high school football was everything to the people of Alexandria. But when the local school board was forced to integrate an all black school with an all white school, the very foundation of football's great tradition was put to the test.
Its excellent.

Awix (3310 KP) rated And Soon the Darkness (1970) in Movies
Jul 31, 2020 (Updated Jul 31, 2020)
Slightly underpowered psycho-horror movie. Two nurses on a cycling holiday in France find themselves being stalked by a murderous psychopath, but who? There are various slightly suspicious French locals about the place (mostly played by Hungarians and Czechs, because all those foreigners are the same, aren't they), most of whom insist on not knowing any English. Merde!
Sticks admirably to genre conventions, up to a point, and it has a certain sort of bleak creepiness. However, it feels very long and slow - short on incident, certainly, also on warmth and humour (I know it's a horror movie, but you need some light and shade). Considering this is practically the very next thing the Avengers TV show team did next - the script is by renowned pulp storytellers Brian Clemens and Terry Nation - you could be forgiven for expecting something with more charm and imagination.
Sticks admirably to genre conventions, up to a point, and it has a certain sort of bleak creepiness. However, it feels very long and slow - short on incident, certainly, also on warmth and humour (I know it's a horror movie, but you need some light and shade). Considering this is practically the very next thing the Avengers TV show team did next - the script is by renowned pulp storytellers Brian Clemens and Terry Nation - you could be forgiven for expecting something with more charm and imagination.

Erika (17789 KP) rated Mortal Kombat (2021) in Movies
May 8, 2021
You know when you watch a movie, and you're completely entertained during it, but afterwards, all you remember is the action portions, and none of the plot? That's me right now, after watching this movie just a little less than three hours ago.
I'll get this out of the way, the plot was obviously forgettable. Now, if this was a dramatic film, this would be a huge issue, but, this is a movie based on the first insanely violent video game ever produced. I was there for the fighting, and not the plot. The main focus was Cole, and sorry, but he was kind of a yawn until he got his stuff together.
Now, let's get into why I saw this movie. The action, the fighting, the gore. This earned its R-rating. The fighting choreography was great, and I loved that they used the some of the same moves from the video games. Also - the fact that some of the characters quipped with the closing fight messages was hilarious. The best placed one was 'Flawless Victory', after a kill.
Sub-Zero has always been one of my favorite characters, so I was glad he got the most screen time, out of the villain squad.. I have to say, as the movie was nearing the end, I was wondering when Scorpion would make his grand entrance. Finally, the pay dirt came at the very end, and yes, the 'Get Over Here' line did make an appearance.
They obviously left it open-ended for a sequel, which has been green-lit already. You can bet I'll be there on opening day for some big, dumb, gory fun.
I'll get this out of the way, the plot was obviously forgettable. Now, if this was a dramatic film, this would be a huge issue, but, this is a movie based on the first insanely violent video game ever produced. I was there for the fighting, and not the plot. The main focus was Cole, and sorry, but he was kind of a yawn until he got his stuff together.
Now, let's get into why I saw this movie. The action, the fighting, the gore. This earned its R-rating. The fighting choreography was great, and I loved that they used the some of the same moves from the video games. Also - the fact that some of the characters quipped with the closing fight messages was hilarious. The best placed one was 'Flawless Victory', after a kill.
Sub-Zero has always been one of my favorite characters, so I was glad he got the most screen time, out of the villain squad.. I have to say, as the movie was nearing the end, I was wondering when Scorpion would make his grand entrance. Finally, the pay dirt came at the very end, and yes, the 'Get Over Here' line did make an appearance.
They obviously left it open-ended for a sequel, which has been green-lit already. You can bet I'll be there on opening day for some big, dumb, gory fun.

Charlie Cobra Reviews (1840 KP) rated Hellboy (2019) in Movies
Jul 7, 2020
Entertaining Hell Yes, Great Hell No
Hellboy is a 2019 supernatural superhero movie based on the Dark Horse Comics character created by Mike Mignola. It is the third film in the franchise and is also a reboot of the series. It is directed by Neil Marshall with screenplay by Andrew Cosby and distributed by Lionsgate. The film stars David Harbour, Millar Jovovich, Ian McShane and Daniel Dae Kim.
In the Dark Ages, Nimue, the Blood Queen, nearly destroyed humanity with a deadly plague. Immortal, she was only defeated by King Arthur with the help of Merlin and the magical blade Excalibur. She was beheaded, dismembered, and her remains scattered over Europe. In present day Tijuana, Hellboy (David Harbour), searches for a missing B.P.R.D. agent, Ruiz. Hellboy discovers Ruiz has been turned into a vampire and while trying to reason with him, Hellboy is forced into a confrontation which ultimately leads to the death of the agent. Meanwhile a mysterious person speaks with Baba Yaga, a witch-like creature, seeking revenge on Hellboy, and is told to locate the remains of Nimue and resurrect her.
This has been a really hard movie for me to review. I genuinely enjoyed it while watching it in theaters. That being said, this movie is a train wreck and I can't recommend for people to spend money to see it unless you wait for it to be at the dollar movies or Redbox. There were just so many things that I guess I was blind to while watching it, that i just shrugged off or didn't pay much attention to. Like all my reviews this will be as spoiler free as possible but i have to acknowledge major flaws that other critics and reviewers brought up. And there were a lot, I mean right now the critics are tearing this movie a new one. First, I thought David Harbour did as good a job as anyone could do replacing Ron Pearlman as Hellboy in this film. But replacing such a beloved and likeable character with a funny and charismatic personality which Pearlman made his own, he had his work cut out for him. I don't think he's ever acted with all the makeup and prosthetics and it showed because I don't think he was as expressive as he could have been. Plus this movie was also made with a different director and not Guillermo Del Toro, so it was already going to have a way different feel to it. To me though, those weren't the things that contributed the most to the failure of this movie, it's more of the other things I'm still getting to. This was a reboot of the series and they decided to go with a different group of supporting characters, and to also make the plot or story more closely related or similar to the comics (the source material). Now usually sticking with what the comics have for the story is always better than changing it in my opinion but it seems for this film that they chose to incorporate several different storylines and characters and felt like it was too much crammed into too little. Also this movie was all over the place, story wise and literally. It seemed the characters kept having to travel unnecessarily. It felt like the supporting characters were just thrown into the story and it didn't bother to introduce them to the audience correctly. Everyone just got a flashback and or had themselves or their origin "expositioned" into the movie. I liked a lot of the character designs and thought a lot of the CGI was well done, in places, however it seems like they had different animators or studios work on different scenes or characters and some of it was horrible. The dialogue was really bad too. There were a lot of jokes and one liners that just fell flat and nobody laughed, plus like i said way too much exposition. There was a character who wears a headdress that was so big it looked ridiculous, which I wonder if it was done on purpose. And there was a character whose clothes tear when they transform and they automatically have pants when they transform back, which makes no sense. The plot too was not very sound and full of plot holes and things that didn't make sense, were just added in, or were part of scenes that got cut along the way. It hurts me to give this movie a score so low but I give this movie a 5/10.
Now I'm not saying don't watch it. I just can't recommend you drop as much cash as you usually do to see it in theaters. I personally still really enjoyed it and was genuinely entertained. It was awesome to see the blood and gore in a darker Hellboy movie and the action was great even if the CGI always wasn't. The music even if it didn't fit the tone or every scene was great. If your expecting the Hellboy from the Guillermo Del Toro films you might just hate this movie. But if you're just looking for "Big Red" to beat up on some baddies then I think you might get a kick out of this movie. Hey, some critics are saying that it's so bad it's good.
In the Dark Ages, Nimue, the Blood Queen, nearly destroyed humanity with a deadly plague. Immortal, she was only defeated by King Arthur with the help of Merlin and the magical blade Excalibur. She was beheaded, dismembered, and her remains scattered over Europe. In present day Tijuana, Hellboy (David Harbour), searches for a missing B.P.R.D. agent, Ruiz. Hellboy discovers Ruiz has been turned into a vampire and while trying to reason with him, Hellboy is forced into a confrontation which ultimately leads to the death of the agent. Meanwhile a mysterious person speaks with Baba Yaga, a witch-like creature, seeking revenge on Hellboy, and is told to locate the remains of Nimue and resurrect her.
This has been a really hard movie for me to review. I genuinely enjoyed it while watching it in theaters. That being said, this movie is a train wreck and I can't recommend for people to spend money to see it unless you wait for it to be at the dollar movies or Redbox. There were just so many things that I guess I was blind to while watching it, that i just shrugged off or didn't pay much attention to. Like all my reviews this will be as spoiler free as possible but i have to acknowledge major flaws that other critics and reviewers brought up. And there were a lot, I mean right now the critics are tearing this movie a new one. First, I thought David Harbour did as good a job as anyone could do replacing Ron Pearlman as Hellboy in this film. But replacing such a beloved and likeable character with a funny and charismatic personality which Pearlman made his own, he had his work cut out for him. I don't think he's ever acted with all the makeup and prosthetics and it showed because I don't think he was as expressive as he could have been. Plus this movie was also made with a different director and not Guillermo Del Toro, so it was already going to have a way different feel to it. To me though, those weren't the things that contributed the most to the failure of this movie, it's more of the other things I'm still getting to. This was a reboot of the series and they decided to go with a different group of supporting characters, and to also make the plot or story more closely related or similar to the comics (the source material). Now usually sticking with what the comics have for the story is always better than changing it in my opinion but it seems for this film that they chose to incorporate several different storylines and characters and felt like it was too much crammed into too little. Also this movie was all over the place, story wise and literally. It seemed the characters kept having to travel unnecessarily. It felt like the supporting characters were just thrown into the story and it didn't bother to introduce them to the audience correctly. Everyone just got a flashback and or had themselves or their origin "expositioned" into the movie. I liked a lot of the character designs and thought a lot of the CGI was well done, in places, however it seems like they had different animators or studios work on different scenes or characters and some of it was horrible. The dialogue was really bad too. There were a lot of jokes and one liners that just fell flat and nobody laughed, plus like i said way too much exposition. There was a character who wears a headdress that was so big it looked ridiculous, which I wonder if it was done on purpose. And there was a character whose clothes tear when they transform and they automatically have pants when they transform back, which makes no sense. The plot too was not very sound and full of plot holes and things that didn't make sense, were just added in, or were part of scenes that got cut along the way. It hurts me to give this movie a score so low but I give this movie a 5/10.
Now I'm not saying don't watch it. I just can't recommend you drop as much cash as you usually do to see it in theaters. I personally still really enjoyed it and was genuinely entertained. It was awesome to see the blood and gore in a darker Hellboy movie and the action was great even if the CGI always wasn't. The music even if it didn't fit the tone or every scene was great. If your expecting the Hellboy from the Guillermo Del Toro films you might just hate this movie. But if you're just looking for "Big Red" to beat up on some baddies then I think you might get a kick out of this movie. Hey, some critics are saying that it's so bad it's good.

Awix (3310 KP) rated Underwater (2020) in Movies
Feb 9, 2020
Solid (if slightly derivative) horror-SF movie with extra added treats for fans of classic weird fiction. Following a disaster at a deep-sea drilling site, the survivors must try to make their way to safety, contending with the collapsing installation and grotesque and hostile marine creatures. Who or what exactly have they woken up...? One of those movies where you can have fun spotting all the things it's ripping off (Alien, Gravity, The Abyss, numerous others) but none the worse for that: the movie plays with genre tropes intelligently even if some of the storytelling could have been tighter.
That said, I probably wouldn't have bothered to see this movie if a member of my RPG group hadn't spotted that it contains a fairly sizable easter egg of particular interest to us, so we trooped down en masse and mostly had a very enjoyable time. Fans of Providence's most famous writer of horror stories will probably also get a kick out of Underwater, although I would imagine this works equally well for the uninitiated. Solid production values, decent direction and performances from a good cast; I imagine this film will find a natural home in the 9pm slot on the Horror Channel and do very well for itself there.
That said, I probably wouldn't have bothered to see this movie if a member of my RPG group hadn't spotted that it contains a fairly sizable easter egg of particular interest to us, so we trooped down en masse and mostly had a very enjoyable time. Fans of Providence's most famous writer of horror stories will probably also get a kick out of Underwater, although I would imagine this works equally well for the uninitiated. Solid production values, decent direction and performances from a good cast; I imagine this film will find a natural home in the 9pm slot on the Horror Channel and do very well for itself there.

Bostonian916 (449 KP) rated The 5th Quarter (2010) in Movies
Aug 17, 2020
Based on an inspirational true story about the death of a young man and the repercussions on his family.
While the story is true and quite good, there are events in the movie that I feel were added for cinematic effect, which in and of itself isn't terrible, but in the broad scheme of the movie they were absolutely not needed.
The story is good enough when told that it didn't need some of the filler that was added and unfortunately some of the filler was never actually tied into the actual story, which I found disappointing. Also, while I understand that it was done in an effort to appeal to a larger audience, some of the language in the film was more vulgar than what I though was appropriate for a film that touted itself with religion as the underlying grace.
If you've read many of my reviews, you know that I don't necessarily have a problem with vulgarity in general, but when a movie makes a claim as one thing and then presents itself as another, that's a bit of a crux for me personally.
Beyond that, Aidan Quinn and Andie MacDowell were both brilliant in their respective roles.
While the story is true and quite good, there are events in the movie that I feel were added for cinematic effect, which in and of itself isn't terrible, but in the broad scheme of the movie they were absolutely not needed.
The story is good enough when told that it didn't need some of the filler that was added and unfortunately some of the filler was never actually tied into the actual story, which I found disappointing. Also, while I understand that it was done in an effort to appeal to a larger audience, some of the language in the film was more vulgar than what I though was appropriate for a film that touted itself with religion as the underlying grace.
If you've read many of my reviews, you know that I don't necessarily have a problem with vulgarity in general, but when a movie makes a claim as one thing and then presents itself as another, that's a bit of a crux for me personally.
Beyond that, Aidan Quinn and Andie MacDowell were both brilliant in their respective roles.