Real-life spouses John Ducey (who also wrote the script) and Christina Moore are a meet-cute couple who start out swimmingly but take an unexpected turn at the holidays when it’s revealed that he believes in Santa—like legit believes. Of course, it’s all just pretense for a holiday film designed to […]
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Something from Tiffany’s
Zoey Deutch and Kendrick Sampson star in this lukewarm adaptation of best-selling author Melissa Hill’s 2011 book about two couples whose lives are intertwined when Christmas presents go wrong. While it’s certainly a step up from most rom-com schlock you see these days, the super-quick (and unrealistically painless) resolution cheapens […]
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The Whale
Brendan Fraser delivers the performance of a lifetime as Charlie, a morbidly obese online English teacher who’s relegated to the couch all day and is apparently mere moments from certain death. Written by Samuel D. Hunter (based on his own play) and directed by Darren Aronofsky, this, as you might […]
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Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio
It seems rather poetic (or maybe just coincidental) that one of the worst movies of the year and one of the best are both riffs on the age-old tale of the wooden boy with the nose that grows. While the Robert Zemeckis-directed dud with Tom Hanks was a ridiculous disappointment, […]
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Violent Night
In a nutshell—‘Die Hard’ with Santa Claus… and a sense of humor. David Harbour leads the way as the real-life jolly ol’ St. Nick in this ultra-violent but also ultra-fun action flick that pits one man against a band of baddies when they try to steal millions from a super-dysfunctional […]
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Christmas with the Campbells
Co-written by Vince Vaughan, this raunchy take on a Hallmark holiday movie does have a couple of moments that make it pseudo-worth a watch… but not much more than that. Brittany Snow is a photographer who decides to spend the holidays with her ex’s parents (George Wendt and Julia Duffy) […]
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Your Christmas or Mine?
What might well have been a beyond-cheesy groaner of a Hallmark holiday movie on this side of the pond instead arrives as a quirky, charming, and ultimately fun comedy-of-errors flick straight out of the UK. Asa Butterfield (‘Hugo’) stars as James, who (in an O. Henry-type twist) tries to surprise […]
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Four Samosas
If Wes Anderson directed a low-rent mash-up of ‘Ocean’s Eleven’ and ‘Clerks’ and set it in LA’s Little India, the result would be writer-director Ravi Kapoor’s brilliant ‘Four Samosas’. Hilarious and fun (but destined to come and go without anyone even knowing it exists), this sneaky-good Indie flick is a […]
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Troll
Director Roar Uthaug (2018’s ‘Tomb Raider’) takes the age-old mega-monster movie and breathes some new life into it with this surprising cinematic treat, straight from Norway. We’ve heard the story a zillion times before (monster threatens major metro area, military mobilizes, overlooked scientist winds up saving the day), but there’s […]
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A Hollywood Christmas
Ugh. Shame on me for even giving this thing a try. In theory, the premise is okay—a Hollywood director (Jessika Van) finds out that her studio is axing the Christmas film division, so it falls on her assistant (Anissa Borrego) to frame her life as a holiday movie in the […]
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