A bigger post, cause I owe you so many reviews. Don’t worry, they’re coming this month.

Fathers and Daughters

I did not like the direction it took, but we all know there’s usually a reason for girls to sleep around. I expected the film to be a little more emotional, but I’m still glad I reached for it. Why would Amanda’s character give that original script away? It’s such a nice little souvenir from her dad. Little Minx from The Whispers is definitely one of the kid actors to look out for.

7/10

Anesthesia

Dull characters of five separate stories that don’t exactly interact the way they should. The film should focus on the Professor’s life only, not his stiff family. How he taught, helped Kristen’s character in starting her recovery and him being stabbed. The writer of this film thought ‘oh let’s see how many problems can we fit into the film and maybe we’ll find some sort of deeper meaning at the end’. Why all the secondary characters? Why spend 1/3 of the film on the addict who tried to help the professor at the end? I watched it when I read about the attack, and honestly the attack itself, professor’s retirement speech, and Kristen’s self harm storyline were the only profound-like elements.

6.5/10

Miss You Already

We all have that one slutty friend who sleeps around, and has weird sexual encounters which put them in trouble. The film was pretty much what I expected, even though I thought it would be lighter and more uplifting, and giving some piece of hope to people who are left to deal with a loss of their loved ones. None of the characters were especially likeable, and I think it’s true that you need to leave someone behind for a while if they’re in one of their crazy spirals, so they don’t drag you down with them, but on the other hand, that’s not what a best friend would do, but there’s only so much a person can take. I heard two other actresses were supposed to play Drew Barrymore’s character but dropped out due to scheduling conflicts. Rachel Weisz was one of them, and boy would I have loved this film so much more if Rachel starred in it! Just imagine it… Toni Collette and Rachel Weisz playing friends? Yes please! We surely missed out on something special! The other actress who was considered for the Drew Barrymore role was Jennifer Aniston. I still would have liked her better for this. I hope she dropped it for Cake, not Horrible Bosses 2.

6/10

Max

What a enjoyable drama/adventure/family film. Yes all three in one, which doesn’t happen that often anymore. I honestly don’t think it could be much better. The final woods scene is captivating and I bet It’ll stay on minds of many pre and 13teens, like Bridge to Terabithia did on mine. The ending credits are accompanied by a rendition of Bob Dylan’s Forever Young. The film also stars Lauren Graham, who portrayed one of the main characters on Parenthood. And Parenthood has a legendary theme song, that just happens to be Forever Young. A coincidence? Maybe, but also a nice touch for someone who misses their weekly dose of tears Parenthood never failed to provide. I like Lauren as a mom, in Max she tried to get her husband and son to reunite while mourning the loss of her son, and she’s definitely the selling argument here. Max is a delight to watch I would recommend for entire family. I’ll show it to mine, and hopefully they’ll adore it as much as I did.

‘A hero always tells the truth no matter what people think about him or no matter what the consequences are. And you have always been that way Justin.’

‘Dad’s left a really weird message and disappeared.
Let’s do this.
Max… go search.’

8/10

The Barefoot Executive

Most of the time I’m disappointed with the films they give us on Netflix UK. I know Americans are getting all these nice titles and over 70 new films a day, and we the British get only one or two really crappy ones per day, and every other day we don’t get anything at all. The Barefoot Detective comes off Netflix tomorrow, so I have just finished watching it. It is a really witty Disney film from ’71. It gets funnier by the end when everyone assumes two TV executives want to jump off a building, when it’s the titled monkey who locked them out. Their own TV station films it all live and it’s just amusing. ‘They took it of the air and I don’t even know what happened to John’ don’t we all TV obsessed people know it oh so well. I was disappointed when the main character let them buy him off, but it’s a family film, so it all ended well.

‘We interrupt to bring you a special newscast of a sensational suicide try on Wilshire Boulevard in Los Angeles. Our special UBC helicopter enables us to bring you an exclusive close-up view of the pair attempting suicide. These pictures, live from the scene.’
‘There you are. Another first for UBC. Oh, no!’

6/10

Bushwhacked

Not as funny as I expected it to be, would it be better if I watched it as a kid? Maybe if I was a scout. Did they really take the charges away and gave him an award for basically kidnapping the kids? Family films are so outlandish sometimes. Also, I think that was Patty form The Leftovers.

‘Ok, it’s two longs and one short.’
‘No, no, no, stop. Stop wait. Two shorts and one long.
‘Oh great! What are we supposed to do, cross that letter out?’

‘What is this, a parade? Come on! Would you move your wrinkled asses? I’m in a hurry here! Ha ha, I’m gonna run you over!’

‘Oh my God, we’re trapped with a murderer!’
‘A psycho murderer!
‘I don’t think they cover that in the manual!’

3/10

The 33

The Chile mine catastrophe starring Antonio Banderas and Juliette Binoche. I thought it was wonderful, and It left me tear-y eyed through most of it. It’s unbelievable that after 69 days all 33 of them made it out of the mine.

8/10

Vacation

Chevy Chase is 72? Where did the time go? Vacation is the continuation of the Vacationseries, but now starring  Clark’s son. The film reminded me of The Millers, probably, because of the road trip, just minus the fun parts, but with the awkward mother-son-sister kissing the whole 90 minutes instead. Most of the jokes were cheap, and did not remind me of the original Vacations at all. Puking and swimming in a waste lake are cheap tricks you pull when you run out of ideas. And honestly, the excessive puking only worked in Pitch Perfect, and while we’re at it, excessive shitting, in Bridesmaids. Why would the driver follow them all the way? Wouldn’t a normal person write down their registration number and called the cops? The opening and ending scenes were probably my favorite. I also liked the little brother swearing all the time. The film tried to be as funny as the original Vacations, but it failed miserably. To music lovers, Julian Casablancas wrote and sang one of the songs in the soundtrack, called 11th Dimension. Check it out if you like The Strokes.

‘This is some bullshit right here!’

‘Stop saying weird shit like that!’

2/10

The Killing Room

Similar to The Circle, but I wish the control room people would not pick who dies themselves, and they’d actually let the victims choose. Why wouldn’t families know where they went, at least one person most have told someone. Most of them did have an emergency contact, so how would none of them say they’re gonna be under this or this address. I liked it till they said it was a government project training American suicide bombers, what? That ruined the whole film for me. Would you sign up for an experiment you would not know the rules of just to get 250 dollars?

5/10

Wicked Little Things

It was a little all over the place, and you’d think the little zombies would go after people responsible for their death not kids and teenagers.

5/10

Charming Christmas

I have been following Julie Benz’s career since Dexter, well at least most of it, I have never seen Defiance or much Buffy and many other films, but I’ve seen a couple, and by some weird coincidence, I watched 3 films of hers in the last 3 weeks. If you’re patient, you’ll eventually see my notes on The Circle, which I thought was an incredible thriller, and The Search for Sophie Parker, which everyone who follows sex crimes in papers and their portrayal in films and tv, should watch. Charming Christmas, also starring David Sutcliffe, or Christopher from Gilmore Girls, was sweet and charming, and that’s about it. I see this pattern with Hallmark’s Christmas films, there’s no backbone in their stories. Even though there is one Hallmark Christmas film I actually loved (Christmas Detour), all of their other Christmas films are just bad romcoms with pairings that don’t even go well together. The storyline is almost never meaningful or interesting, it’s always just ‘finding love for Christmas’ or ‘saving Christmas’, which is not challenging enough even for lovely women who’s favorite film genre is romantic comedy. Charming Christmas was all of that, and I thought David’s character was trying to over-charm us all. No guy is that charming, and just because he loves Christmas? What about the friends/workers with their boring back stories? Who cares that some worker of the main character is a dancer and broke her leg and wants to dance?  They were just trying to fill the holes in the script in, so it reaches 90 minutes. Also, was that Jake Epstein from Degrassi?

3.5/10

Indigenous

It should have just been the biography of the blogger who got killed in one of Panama’s passages almost 3 years ago. If not, why even mention it? It’s not like the creatures took him. This was just like any other woods based horror, with The Descent’s inbreed, blind creatures. It should have just ended with them being killed, they should have skipped posting it on YouTube and declaring sightings of these creatures all over the US, but that’s low budget horror, it can almost never be just right.

5/10

Jamie Marks is Dead

I did not know Cameron Monaghan (Ian from Shameless) was in it until I watched it. I picked this film up because of the cover, and I just felt like a thriller/mystery film. The movie was disappointing, don’t ask me how can you be friends with a ghost, or touch it, I don’t think they’ve been doing any Casper film since the 90s. Why would you run away with a ghost? Why would your girlfriend be okay with you running in the woods with some ghost? Why were Liv Tyler and Judy Greer even in the film? They didn’t bring anything to the storyline. The ending was just as slow paced as the rest of the film, and I think it would have made more sense if Jamie was actually – spoiler – murdered.

5/10