Mike's Movie Tips

3/4 Starring: Jovan Adepo, Wyatt Russell, Mathilde Ollivier, John Magaro, Pilou Asbaek, Iain De Caestecker, Dominic Applewhite Rated R for Strong Bloody Violence, Disturbing Images, Language, and Brief Sexual Content There's a nice 95 minute genre flick buried inside "Overlord."  It has other problems, such as an inconsistent tone and a tendency to take itself too seriously at times.   But its length is its biggest Achilles' heel.  Shave ten minutes or so off this horror flick and you'd have a nice little genre flick.  Okay, maybe not so nice, but you get my drift. Boyce (Adepo) is a simple guy from Louisiana who has found himself right in the middle of World War II.  In preparation for the D-Day landing, he and his squad are tasked with blowing up a radio tower in a church.  But his plane is shot down, and when he gets to the ground, he finds that the only ones left are the wisecracking jerk Tibbet (Magaro), the shy photographer Chase (De Caestecker) and

2.5/4 Rated PG-13 for Brief Strong Language In 2015, mountain climber/filmmaker Jimmy Chin and his wife Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi released " Meru ," which is easily the most beautiful, fascinating and harrowing documentary about climbing that I've ever seen.  I strongly suggest that you check it out.  I thought it was of a such excellence that I fudged my parameters by about four months so I could include it on my Top 10 list of 2016 (had I not been such a procrastinator, I would have been able to include it on my Top 10 list of 2015, but I digress).  So when I found out, quite by accident, that Chin and Chai Vasarhelyi were coming out with a new documentary about climbing, I was excited. Why did I not like this movie as much?  I'm not quite sure.  The film is professionally made.  The suspense remains high (at times reaching such levels that I had to turn away) and it's never boring.  Maybe it's because the lead individual isn't especially endearing

3/4 Starring: Shohreh Aghdashloo, Mozhan Marno, Navid Negahban, Ali Pourtash, David Diaan, Parviz Sayyad Rated R for A Disturbing Sequences of Cruel and Brutal Violence, and Brief Strong Language I've taken a great pride in not letting my political or moral views cloud my judgement when reviewing films.  After all, a movie is the artist's statement and should be viewed on those terms, not my own.  So while I disagreed with the point of view of the Christian film " War Room ," it did accomplish what it set out to do and was on some level entertaining (this does not include the scene where the lead character literally casts Satan from her house...I'm sorry, but my conscientiousness does not extend that far).  By the same token, I shared the same viewpoints as Ale Abreu, but I elected not to recommend his experimental animated film " Boy and the World " because it was unbearably dull. Why the disclaimer?  Because I have very serious reservations abo