Am I having a senior moment? For the life of me, I still cannot remember the name of this movie without looking it up. I can always recall the “Going” part but then it gets muddled in a lot of different ways – “Going Out In Style”, “Going All The Way”, “Going Out On A Limb”, “Going For Broke”, and on and on. I mention that because the first impression given by the title, i.e., generic, forgettable, and lazy, is a good summary of this film. Along those same lines, with how generic it is I am not one bit surprised to have just 
discovered this is a remake of a 1979 movie starring George Burns, Art Carney and Lee Strasberg. I guess I am about 65 years too young to remember that one, even though I was alive when it came out.
I think I am still about 65 years too young to find the 2017 version tolerable. And that’s a shame for three reasons: (a) Academy Award Winner Michael Caine; (b) Academy Award Winner Morgan Freeman; and (c) Academy Award Winner Alan Arkin. I absolutely love each of those old guys. They are endlessly charming even when they phone it in. And they are totally phoning it in here, probably because they knew that even at 100% effort this movie would still suck.
If you absolutely have to watch this movie, you will not suffer all that much. You may giggle once or twice and you will feel good despite your cold-hearted cynicism when [SPOILERS] they get away with the heist [SPOILERS].
But why would you watch this shitty film when, if you want a movie about getting even with those evil banks, you could watch Hell or High Water, which just came to Netflix and is not only a fantastic film, it also has Jeff Bridges in the curmudgeonly old guy role to tick that box.
Or if you want to be charmed by Michael Caine, you could watch any movie Chris Nolan has directed in the last decade (literally). And for an instant Caine fix while deciding which Nolan film to pull from your DVD collection, I present Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon trading Michael Caine impressions in The Trip.
Morgan Freeman? Since you can catch him in basically any movie ever, it is almost guaranteed that you can be charmed by him in a much better film (but be sure NOT to resort to Ben-Hur). If I had to pick only one, it would be The Shawshank Redemption – that is peak Mo-Free on display as an old criminal with a heart of gold.
Alan Arkin? Argo and Little Miss Sunshine. The perfect grumpy old guy double feature. It’s just so easy to find something better to watch.
That’s the problem with Going In Style. There are so many superior options, you have to wonder why anyone even bothered, other than Caine, Freeman and Arkin who I hope got paid at least as much as their bank-robbing characters did. See? I can’t hold anything against those guys, not even this terrible movie.
Once in a while I wish I had a more literary mind. When I write, it’s pretty direct and while I used to attempt subtext I’ve pretty much given up on it at this point – too much effort for too little payoff. But that’s for my writing, where no marks are given for artistry. All that matters is the end result.
I’m not sure if it was because Mayhem stars Steven Yeun (Glenn from the Walking Dead), or because of the bass-heavy soundtrack and quick cuts that almost have a sound to them, or because the theatre showed a George Romero anti-texting ad just before the movie started. One way or another, Mayhem almost immediately reminded me of the Resident Evil franchise. That’s probably NOT the franchise that director Joe Lynch was hoping to emulate, and may be taken as an insult, but I don’t mean it as one. It’s a great match for the movie’s frenetic, claustrophobic, satirical look at an office building full of potential murderers and murder victims.
For a movie whose very title references souls and finding meaning within glossy shells, Ghost in the Shell is unbearably hollow. The packaging is nice but there is nothing underneath. At all. It will leave you with a number of questions but none of them will be existential.
beautiful but emotionless robot? As always, the answer is DEFINITELY YES AS LONG AS SHE RSVPS from the Hollywood Foreign Press and PROBABLY SINCE WE NOMINATED ENOUGH BLACK PEOPLE LAST YEAR WE HAVE A 5TH SLOT FOR A WHITE IN 2018 from the Academy.
I’ve been to France twice and would go back in a heartbeat if we got the chance. It’s a beautiful country with so much history, and their climate is warm enough that their spring feels like summer to Canadian visitors like us. And above all else, the food in France is wonderful – the French do gourmet dining as well or better than anyone else in the world. Eleanor Coppola seems to have similar feelings in France but instead of wistfully looking at pictures of Paris (which is what I’m doing right now), she got to work and made her own chance to spend time there, by writing and directing Paris Can Wait.
The loss of Anton Yelchin somehow seems larger as time passes. As you probably know, he died tragically about a year ago, crushed by his own (faulty) car as he checked his mail. The outpouring of grief from his peers was massive at the time, and the more I learn about him, the more I get it. He was a glue guy, an artist, a student of film, a true professional. He made everything easier for those around him. Those sentiments were echoed by Gabe Klinger during the Q&A for Porto at SXSW. Porto is Klinger’s first narrative feature and he freely admitted how much Yelchin helped everyone involved and made the project better, because of Yelchin’s vast knowledge of and experience in making movies.
Other than a major difference in size, Godzilla and a drunk have a lot in common. They both stumble around erratically, they both have a temper, and they both wreck a lot of stuff. Though Colossal does not feature Godzilla, presumably due to licencing issues, it does feature a giant monster terrorizing an Asian city (though this time it’s Seoul, Korea instead of Tokyo, Japan). As you’d expect, the monster’s appearance is big news, so even Gloria (Anne Hathaway) hears about it eventually. It takes a while for her though because of how drunk she got the night before.
The Ballad of Lefty Brown starts from an interesting place. Writer/director Jared Moshe was curious about the bumbling sidekick in John Wayne movies, the guy who functioned as comic relief. That archetypal character could not do anything right, so why did someone like John Wayne choose to have a bumbling guy like that as the one watching his back?
No matter how hard you try, you can’t see everything at a festival like SXSW. To prepare for these big festivals, we study the schedule like our lives depend on it, read the synopses repeatedly, and try to see as many of our favourite artists as possible. All that prep work helps a lot, but sometimes a tight schedule makes a choice for us. That happened today with Small Town Crime and we were better off for it. Put simply, Small Town Crime is an indie gem that is one of the best films I’ve seen in 2017.
Functioning both as a whodunnit and an offbeat action-comedy, Small Town Crime is consistently good, especially when Hawkes’ character shares the screen with Forster’s concerned grandfather and Clifton Collins Jr.’s refreshingly self-aware pimp. Writer-directors Eshom and Ian Nelms clearly recognized what they had and give those three characters a hefty share of screen time. That must have been particularly difficult here since the cast is extremely deep. Even with the focus on that trio, I was left wanting to see more of them. I’d be first in line for a sequel (or a television series) showcasing more of their adventures.
Anytime you get a chance to watch Alien with Sir Ridley Scott, you take it. How great is it that we got that chance? Even better, Scott was not alone. He brought Alien: Covenant footage with him, as well as Covenant stars Katherine Waterston, Danny McBride, and Michael Fassbender. An entertaining Q&A took place after the bulk of the new footage. We didn’t learn any big secrets but it’s obvious that all three actors were thrilled to have had the chance to work with Scott, particularly McBride who joked that his parents were thrilled he was finally making a real movie.
The new footage proves that Scott is not afraid to rip himself off, and that’s great news as far as I’m concerned. You would expect Alien: Covenant to bear at least a passing resemblance to Alien (as the former’s purpose, aside from making tons of money, is to bridge the gap between Prometheus and the original quadrilogy. But the similarities are greater than that, they’re intentional callbacks to the original. That made the footage from Covenant FEEL like Alien, as it took us to the same places that Alien did, only now we know what’s going to happen (and what has to happen). Scott delivers on his setups with glee, letting us know he’s right there with us. A facehugger scene featuring Billy Crudup was especially awesome. It’s a good bet there will be more moments like that in the footage still to come.
ASSHOLES WATCHING MOVIES 