Mike's Movie Tips

1.5/4 Starring: Scarlett Johansson, Jillian Bell, Zoe Kravitz, Illana Glazer, Kate McKinnon, Paul W. Downs Rated R for Crude Sexual Content, Language Throughout, Drug Use and Brief Bloody Images My brother's bachelor party last year went off without a hitch, thank you very much.  We and a few of his friends went to Nashville for some partying, go karts and good food.  I suppose I should be grateful for that.  I could have been as unfortunate as Scarlett Johansson: trapped in a bad SNL skit that won't end with four irritating shrews and a dead body. Jess (Johansson) is stressed out.  She's running behind in the polls for a Senate seat (despite the fact that her competitor has taken the Anthony Wiener method of getting himself on the front page) and her bachelorette party is this weekend.  Nevertheless, she decides to go to Miami with her college friends: the awkward and in-your-face Alice (Bell), the rich bitch Blair (Kravitz), the lesbo activist Frankie ...

3.5/4 Starring: Greer Garson, Walter Pidgeon, Teresa Wright, Richard Ney, Dame Mae Whitty, Henry Travers Not Rated (probable PG for War Scenes) War movies are usually about the battles.  Movies like " Saving Private Ryan ," " Black Hawk Down ," " Fury " and others dominate the genre.  There are others, such " Schindler's List ," which studied two men on opposite sides of the morality spectrum, or " Black Book ," which used war as a setting for a psychological thriller.  But these movies are rare.  "Mrs. Miniver" is different in the sense that it looks at war from the perspective of average citizens.  It views war as a reality; something that didn't have a beginning, middle or end.  Air raids, destruction and death had become common place.  There really isn't anything quite like it.  The closest film I can think of is " Grave of the Fireflies ," although that's a bit of a stretch. The film open...

3/4 Starring: Lewis MacDougall, Felicity Jones, Sigourney Weaver, Toby Kebbell, and the voice of Liam Neeson Rated PG-13 for Thematic Content and Some Scary Images One can make many claims about "A Monster Calls."  Weird, bizarre, depressing, hard to understand.  All true.  One cannot claim that this movie plays is safe.  "A Monster Calls" is not an easy film to experience or even conceive of.  It relies heavily on metaphor, intuition and subtext.  The elements don't always gel, but the end result is worth experiencing.  Perhaps more than once. Conor (MacDougall) is not a happy child.  His mother Lizzie (Jones) is dying, his father (Kebbell) is lives halfway around the world, and the prospect of living with his grandmother (Weaver) is not a pleasant one.  One night at 12:07 a.m., the yew tree in the nearby graveyard comes to life as a monster.  The Monster (Neeson) tells Conor that he will return to tell him three stories and the...

2/4 Starring (voices): Owen Wilson, Cristela Alonzo, Larry the Cable Guy, Nathan Fillon, Chris Cooper, Armie Hammer Rated G My relationship with Pixar's "Cars" franchise is not strong.  I started watching the original on pay-per-view but fell asleep (and was unimpressed with what I saw).  I never saw "Cars 2."  I was wary of approaching this movie with so little familiarity with it's respective franchise.  But then I remembered that Pixar's target audience is little kids, and therefore unlikely that their films demand fanboy obsessiveness like the Marvel Cinematic Universe does. That said, "Cars 3" is a pretty lame movie.  It follows the Pixar formula of telling a story to convey a certain theme (in this case, it's that time never stops), peppering it with humor, action and heart.  The thing is, it doesn't do any of that well.  The humor is hit-and-miss with the misses being the most prominent (although there is a hilarious sequ...

1.5/4 Not Rated (Probable PG for Some Animated Violent and Sexual Images) Roger Ebert once said that he thought the spoof genre was the hardest to review.  Which makes sense, since acting, storytelling and so on are beside the point.  I disagree.  My review of " Scary Movie " was fairly easy to write, if memory serves.  True, it's a futile endeavor to discuss the performances of Anna Faris or Jon Abrahams in a pure parody, but there is fertile ground for a film critic to discuss. No, I find that documentaries are the hardest to review because none of the traditional talking points apply.  They don't have actors, dialogue or directorial style.  Reviewing a documentary is like reviewing a college lecture or a newspaper article.  The only thing worth noting is what the film contains.  And unless they're unbelievable good or horrifically bad, there isn't a lot to say more than that. Which brings us to "Video Games: The Movie."  A terribly...

1.5/4 Starring: Tyrese Gibson, Meagan Good, Game, Larenz Tate, Henry Hunter Hall Rated R for Strong Violence and Pervasive Language When did action movies stop being fun?  When I was growing up,  I would watch movies like " Speed ," " True Lies ," and " The Rock ."  They were just as violent as "Waist Deep," if not more so, but they were fun.  There was joy in their construction.  They were entertaining.  "Waist Deep" wants to be an action movie with a social ax to grind, which is fine by me.  It's difficult, but it can be done (see " Set it Off " for an example).  But this movie has a flat screenplay, lousy performances and a director that tries in vain to salvage what cannot be saved.  This movie is a waste of time and money. O2 (Gibson) is an ex-con trying to get his life back on track.  He's been out on parole for a month, and is determined to make a better life for himself and his son Junior (Hall).  Howev...

2/4 Starring: Robin Tunney, Fairuza Balk, Neve Campbell, Rachel True, Skeet Ulrich, Assumpta Serna Rated R for Some Violence and Terror, and for Brief Language "The Craft" is your standard order 90's girl power movie.  Nothing more, nothing less.  Even with those unambitious goals, it's still not a very good movie.  With pedestrian direction, a bland screenplay and an hour of no real conflict, it's hard to imagine that this became a cult hit. Sarah Bailey (Tunney) is a high school student moving from Los Angeles to San Francisco with her parents.  After being humiliated by Chris Hooker (Ulrich), the school stud, she falls in with Nancy (Balk), Bonnie (Campbell) and Rochelle (True), the school outcasts.  Actually, it's the other way around.  You see, the three girls are witches.  Like, real ones.  They sense that Sarah is a witch too and conspire for her to join them so they can be a quartet and become more powerful.  Initially, the lo...