(text)Horror movies are often judged according how effectively they scare us, but the classics are almost always about more visceral thrills, and with Get Out the first time feature director Jordan Peele offers a reminder of the genre’s versatility.
[p] Horror movies are often judged according how effectively they scare us, but the classics are almost always about more visceral thrills, and with Get Out the first time feature director Jordan Peele offers a reminder of the genre’s versatility.
[H3] It’s a 99% on Rotten Tomatoes
(text)Inverting suburban horror tropes, the storyline finds a young black man (Daniel Kaluuya) meeting his white girlfriend’s (Allison Williams) parents for the first time – a visit that starts with all the awkward tension you’d spect before taking a more sinister turn.
The reviews says Peele’s pulled off an audacious debut here, bleeding horror and comedy in service of a storyline whose scary elements are just one layer of intelligent, timely look at modern American race relations.
[H4] Should I see it?
If you’re up for a frightening night out that’ll also make you laugh and make you think, critics urges you to Get Out and see this.
GWEN STEFANI: YOU MAKE IT FEEL LIKE CHRISTMAS — Pictured: (l-r) Santa Claus, Gwen Stefani — (Photo by Paul Drinkwater/NBC)
The Counselor (2013, 35%)
Ridley Scott! Directing from an original script by Cormac McCarthy! What could go wrong? How about the fact
that, despite his A-list status, every other movie Scott directs is actually Rotten? Or that McCarthy had never
written a screenplay before, and his trademark gritty pontificating does not a good script make?
The Book of Henry (2017, 21%)
After directing Jurassic World to $1.5 billion and signing on to do the ninth Star Wars movie,
Colin Trevorrow took a quick detour to make passion project The Book of Henry. It’s a
manipulative, misconceived movie involving adult predators, dead kids and brain tumors, and Naomi Watts prowling
the neighborhood with a sniper rifle. The movie choked on a 21% Tomatometer, and three months later, Trevorrow
exited from directing Star Wars.
The Beach (2000, 19%)
Just two years into Rotten Tomatoes’ infancy, and four years after the groundbreaking
Trainspotting, Danny Boyle’s The Beach was a high-profile embarrassment that caused the
director and his star Leonardo DiCaprio — still in the suffocating afterglow of Titanic — to hit the
comeback trail. Boyle’s next movie would be zombie flick-revitalizer 28 Days Later, while DiCaprio
bided his time subjugating
Don’s Plum. Oh, and starting a
fruitful working relationship with Martin Scorsese.
The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (2014,
52%)
A Spidey reboot so soon after Sam Raimi’s infamous Spider-Man 3? Sony ran the risk of audiences
getting fed up being whipped around like so much wrist web around Manhattan, but that was before seeing how well
Andrew Garfield slipped into the role in the Certified Fresh Amazing Spider-Man.. Then came the sequel,
which, fittingly, had the same faults of Spider-Man 3: indifferent direction and way too many villains.
It was enough to get Sony to tie a complicated knot with Marvel, and bring the character over to the MCU.
Suicide Squad (2016, 26%)
After two dour Superman movies from Zack Snyder, comic book fans were hoping to hang their cape on
Suicide Squad for a little levity in the world of DC. Squad was the live-action debut of fan
favorite Harley Quinn, it had Will Smith, the promotional material and trailers were on point, and director
David Ayer had proven himself in other tough genres. Alas, it had the same incomprehensible plotting and muddled
character treatment that plagued the preceding DCEU efforts.
Live By Night (2017, 35%)
At one point, each Ben Affleck-directed movie was ranked 94%. That’s even
more impressive than winning the big Oscar for a movie about a fake science-fiction movie (the closest that
genre will ever get to Best Picture). So Live by Night, Affleck’s gangster period piece, had all the
trappings of another success. And that’s all the more alarming when critics riddled it with a 35% score, leading
to a $10 million domestic gross.
King Arthur: Legend of the Sword (2017, 29%)
H’wood has been drawing from the public domain well hardcore these past few years (think Jungle Book,
think Tarzan, think too many movies with the word Origins in the title), so what did this
movie with Charlie Hunnam as chav Arthur have going for it? Well, the director was Guy Ritchie, who was coming
off of cult pleaser Man From U.N.C.L.E. and did a bang-up job updating Sherlock Holmes. (That one time,
at least.) Did we mention Arthur as a chav? Oi! Ultimately, we’re calling this a major turkey because it
presaged for all the turkeys that would quickly follow: Summer 2017 was a tastefully apocalyptic season as
multiple Rotten blockbusters bombed in a row: Baywatch, Transformers: Is It The Fifth One?,
and Pirates: The One That Just Came Out. Naturally, when we got covered in The New
York Times, a major studio chief executive “declared flatly that his mission was to destroy the review-
aggregation site.”
John Carter (2012, 51%)
“Is it just me, or do we actually know how to do this better than live-action crews do?” Finding
Nemo director Andrew Stanton humbly pondered in a New Yorker piece during production
of John Carter (née Mars). Hopes were high for these Pixar directors to make good on breaking
free of the animation “ghetto” (Brad Bird made Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol the year before),
and rival executives were anticipating they’d be taken down a notch, especially for having the gall to adapt
something as difficult and weird as Edgar Rice Burroughs’ books. John Carter‘s anemic marketing and
failure to break past the Fresh barrier led to a cosmic box office bust.
Home on the Range (2004, 54$)
The year is 2004. It’s been 10 years since Walt Disney Animation’s last masterpiece, The Lion King. The
Pixar new wave had changed the industry, and traditional animation was on its way out. Home on the
Range was Disney’s attempt to match the high irreverence of 3D cartoons, which only alienated critics and
audiences. The studio produced only computer animation from there on, save for 2009’s The Princess and the
Frog, which, though Certified Fresh, would again fail to find a global audience.
[blockquote] “The sheer dexterity is overwhelming and only the sternest viewer will be able to resist the onslaught of such thoroughly marketed magic.”
[blockquote] “The sheer dexterity is overwhelming and only the sternest viewer will be able to resist the onslaught of such thoroughly marketed magic.”
[H5] Video embeds below. This one is from MPX, using our shortcode
[H2] Video embeds below. This one is from YouTube, using our shortcode
[H2] And finally a stand-alone photo with subtitle
“Hi, I’m James Franco”, said James Franco.
[H2] (Shortcodes test > movie_link > used on Total Recall and listicles in general. This photo has credit)
Memoria (2016)100%
(Photo by Monterey Media)
As if it weren’t enough that Memoria served as one of a whopping nine movies Franco released in 2016, it’s also based on a short story he wrote — all of which might make it sound like the vanity project to end all vanity projects, if not for the universally positive critical reception it earned during its limited release. Granted, at five reviews, we’re dealing with a limited sample size — at a certain point, Franco becomes too prolific even for people paid to watch the movies — but a rave is a rave, and this quiet character study about a troubled Bay Area teen earned its share, with its author’s supporting turn as a concerned teacher helping anchor the drama. “Despite clocking in at a scant 70 minutes,” wrote Michael Rechtshaffen for the Los Angeles Times, “Memoria manages to make a hauntingly poetic impression.”
[H3] (Shortcodes test > movie_block > used on Critics Consensus, Parental Guidance and more.)
The concept of death isn’t exactly taboo in animation — as any film lover can tell you, countless classic cartoon characters are orphans, and the loss of a loved one has offered the motivation for many an ultimately heartwarming tale. But it’s rare to see a family-friendly movie whose plot is centered around mortality — let alone one that takes pains to honor the traditions of a culture that many viewers consider foreign. Leave it to Pixar to take both leaps with Coco, in which a young Mexican boy named Miguel (Anthony Gonzalez) is caught between his dreams of being a musician and his obligations to his family. With a story (and overall aesthetic) influenced by the Mexican holiday of Día de Muertos, Coco represents a thematic and visual departure for the studio — which is exactly why critics say the movie is such a delight. While audiences can still expect all the tight storytelling craft and attention to detail that’s become synonymous with the Pixar name, the end result is still fresh enough to avoid feeling like formula. Whether Coco‘s characters remind you of your own family or you don’t know your mariachi from your norteño, this looks like a sure thing for families heading out to the theater over the long holiday weekend.
[H2] (Shortcodes test > movie_link with Tomatometer)
Critics Consensus:How the Grinch Stole Christmas brings an impressive array of talent to bear on an adaptation that honors a classic holiday story -- and has rightfully become a yuletide tradition of its own.
Synopsis: This made-for-TV Christmas special is a classic. Based on a Dr. Seuss book, it is about a Christmas-hating Grinch who [More]
Critics Consensus: Deftly directed by Ernst Lubitsch from a smart, funny script by Samson Raphaelson, The Shop Around the Corner is a romantic comedy in the finest sense of the term.
Synopsis: Alfred Kralik (James Stewart) and Klara Novak (Margaret Sullavan) are employees at Matuschek and Company, a general store in Budapest. [More]
Critics Consensus: With the combined might of Bing Crosby, Fred Astaire, and Irving Berlin working in its favor, Holiday Inn is a seasonal classic -- not least because it introduced "White Christmas" to the world.
Synopsis: In this Irving Berlin musical, Jim (Bing Crosby) and Lila are members of a performing trio who plan to quit [More]
Critics Consensus: Irrefutable proof that gentle sentimentalism can be the chief ingredient in a wonderful film, Miracle on 34th Street delivers a warm holiday message without resorting to treacle.
Synopsis: In this Christmas classic, an old man going by the name of Kris Kringle (Edmund Gwenn) fills in for an [More]
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