almost-christmas

Almost Christmas

After the death of his wife the family patriarch, Walter, played by “I’m too old for this shit” Danny Glover, attempts to get through his first Christmas.  Writer/Director David E. Talbert gently starts the movie with a clever introduction of Walter and his wife, Grace, a cute young couple happily in love, and moves us through the years.  The clips, in particular, show Grace feeding Walter a piece of sweet potato pie, a Christmas staple, setting up the hole in the hearts and the stomachs of all who will feel abandoned by its absence; by not seeing it waiting for them to eat this year, by not seeing the maker of the pie.  As we meet the present day widower, we feel we know him and for him.

Struggling with whether or not to now sell his house, Walter decides not to tell his family but rather brings them all together for possibly one last Christmas in the family home.  His adult children start to file in, some of whom don’t get along very well, and he finds himself playing referee almost immediately.  All he is asking for from them is five good days, is he asking for too much of them?

Through the film, there are tender moments and comedic moments.  Mo’Nique is responsible for most of the comedy relief.  She plays Aunt May and steps into the role of her sister, trying to make sure this dysfunctional family doesn’t fall apart. She does a great job of making the audience laugh, dealing with the burden of the holiday and the heavy hearts within the house.  Writing slapstick comedy and mixing it with the appropriate amount of drama, plus the perfect chemistry of the actors on screen, makes this film one Talbert can be proud of.

“I’d put it alongside any of the comedy holiday greats”.
Shari K. Green

Sr. Film Writer and Community Manager, tmc.io

There are a lot of moving pieces and a lot going on with this cast from Malachi (Malco) venturing into a business deal that would kill his mother’s favorite charity to drug use by Walter and Grace’s youngest son (Usher).  The sisters are about to kill one another, and while that’s going on one of the men, Uncle Lonnie, (Smoove) is doing the unthinkable during this holiday break with a cashier he meets at a store.

How these moments are handled, with fights or teasing, is what you’ll find it hard not to remember.  Hysterical scenes of the family coming together, such as a scene where they dance away the grief over their missing mother for a moment and flashes of discussing their mother and how much she loved them are the points of most significance in a film that almost all are.  The emotion is palatable and at times such as this in life, “Almost Christmas” will be one you’ll be unable to forget this season.  It’s usually a good sign that the director has done his job when at the end of the movie, nobody wants to leave.  Rather than stay for a second showing, you can always purchase this to keep for your very own as I intend to do.  This was almost the perfect Christmas film.  There were a few incidents where the performances went a little over the top but outside of those moments I’d put it alongside any of the comedy holiday greats going as far as to say you’ll feel the same way.  Take my advice and add it to your collection.

The Pickle Recipe

We are introduced to Joey Miller (Dore) a broke father working as an MC or deejay in the Detroit area, specializing in weddings and Bar Mitzvah.  His daughter is about to have her Bat Mitzvah, something he’s looking forward to having a hand in deejaying, when an accident occurs; blowing up a wedding celebration.  All of his gear, his lighting and sound equipment, is destroyed beyond repair.  He finds out that it’s going to cost him $20,000 to get things rolling again, a sum a little high for him to handle.  Now entering the fun is our antagonist, the ex-wife’s new horse buying husband, Harris, who Joey now has to compete with for the love of his own flesh and blood.  With all of the money he’s losing, as well as his reputation with his daughter being on the line, Joey finds nowhere to turn for help but to his horrible uncle Morty (Paymer).  Hitting rock bottom, he decides to aid Morty who has been alienated from his eighty-five year old mother Rose’s life for being a weasel.  Rose is played by the talented Lynn Cohen from “Manhattan Murder Mystery,” “Deconstructing Harry,” “Munich” and “The Hunger Games: Catching Fire” to name a few, and her extraordinarily priceless, unique and well guarded pickle recipe so something Mort has been trying to get his hands on for a long time.  Morty wants Joey to steal it for their own personal gain before she takes it to the grave with her as it would do no one any good if she passes without passing it along.  Question is, can Joey “obtain” this recipe for his uncle from his own grandmother?

To get close to her and getting the recipe, Joey starts working in her deli.  Rose is nearly a said and loved by all of her employees who immediately do not trust him, as they never have Morty.  Getting close to procuring the recipe but then she changes her mind, Joey gets frustrated and is about to give up when Morty doubles the reward to $40,000.  Joey digs in and gets help to get his treasure.

The attempt to pull at your heart strings feels contrived and though there are some strong performances, it simply doesn’t work.

Shari K. Green

Sr. Film Writer and Community Manager, tmc.io

Most of the individual actors are good, especially Cohen.  The concept is charming and Rose is sweet… she’s cranky and she’s lovable at the same time, but the story is ridiculous and late night television entertainment at best.  I’m sure what was a small budget didn’t help the production value and without mass appeal and with no real audience this will fall into obscurity.  A scene teaching someone how to be Jewish was the real low point and with Morty suggesting Rose be water boarded to get the recipe, that’s hard to say but it truly was.  There is some appeal found when her recipe is trying to be duplicated but not enough to suggest this is a film you must see.  The attempt to pull at your heart strings feels contrived and though there are some strong performances, it simply doesn’t work.

Why Him? Official Red Band Trailer

Over the holidays, Ned (Bryan Cranston), an overprotective but loving dad and his family visit his daughter at Stanford, where he meets his biggest nightmare: her well-meaning but socially awkward Silicon Valley billionaire boyfriend, Laird (James Franco). A rivalry develops, and Ned’s panic level goes through the roof when he finds himself lost in this glamorous high-tech world and learns that Laird is about to pop the question.

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales Teaser Trailer

Johnny Depp returns to the big screen as the iconic, swashbuckling anti-hero Jack Sparrow in the all-new “Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales.” The rip-roaring adventure finds down-on-his-luck Captain Jack feeling the winds of ill-fortune blowing strongly his way when deadly ghost sailors, led by the terrifying Captain Salazar (Javier Bardem), escape from the Devil’s Triangle bent on killing every pirate at sea—notably Jack. Jack’s only hope of survival lies in the legendary Trident of Poseidon, but to find it he must forge an uneasy alliance with Carina Smyth (Kaya Scodelario), a brilliant and beautiful astronomer, and Henry (Brenton Thwaites), a headstrong young sailor in the Royal Navy. At the helm of the Dying Gull, his pitifully small and shabby ship, Captain Jack seeks not only to reverse his recent spate of ill fortune, but to save his very life from the most formidable and malicious foe he has ever faced.

Bridget Jones's Baby

Bridget Jones’s Baby

I’ll admit I was skeptical.  ‘Our favorite “singleton” having a baby?!’  With television programs, this is usually the “jump the shark” moment.  Have studios learned nothing from that?  How could this be good for a film that centers on our “Bridge” and her love affairs?!

Back in 2001, I met Bridget Jones in “Bridget Jones Diary” and have seen the film a dozen times or more since.  If I happen by while someone’s watching; I’ll watch, too.  If it’s on cable, I can’t resist and will stop flipping and complete the film.  I loved Oscar® winner Renée Zellweger’s performance and her commitment to authenticity with the character that she took on.  She was willing to gain a lot of weight, which for a woman in Hollywood is an extremely risky move, she looked “mousey” and her hair was generally a complete mess the entire time she was on screen.  No matter.  The success of the film proved that with a sound tale to tell, good actors and ability to provide realistic, more importantly, relatablestorylines, anything is achievable. 

Risk to her health was not taken this time as Zellweger once again plays Bridget Jones, oddball and overall crazy person.  She remained her svelte self and even though her character is pregnant this time around she preferred padding to real weight gain, letting the make-up department get her to where she needed to be.

What “Bridget Jones Baby” mostly gives is why you loved it in the first place and that is mostly what you’d hope… Bridget.  In fact, it felt a lot like the first one without being unoriginal.  Needless to say, there’s a fight between two men and you picking sides is once again at the heart of things. 

Humor is throughout the plot, aimed straight at Jones and her choices.  She has two nights with two different men and now, not knowing who the father of the baby is, she’s trying desperately to find out the answer to this predicament she’s in… without letting them know what she’s up to.  Her prenatal doctor is played by Emma Thompson and she couldn’t have been more delightful.

For the most part, the secondary characters are a joy and add surprisingly detailed elements to what could have been a disaster.  What made it work was its ability to remain a Bridget Jones film.  It was as reliable as Bridget herself, yet at the end, it introduced her reason to be a little self indulgent and close her diary for good for it’s time to put someone, other than her lovers, in the forefront of her life.  There are a few moments that are very touching, even scenes from the first film that will have you realizing how many years have gone by. 

So, which man will get her heart, Mark or Jack?  You’ll have to watch and see.  Will it be the one you want her to end up with?  You’ll have to return and answer that for me yourself.  So, if you liked the first movie, you’ll like this one.  Aside from a few silly scenes, I have to recommend you check this out for a good laugh; it’s enjoyable and amusing.

Masterminds movie poster

Masterminds

“Masterminds” is a comedy based on the true story of one of the largest bank heists in America… and one of the most simplistic minds there is.  Galifianakis plays David Ghantt who would do anything for the woman of his dreams.  Galifianakis would do anything for a role, going as far as “sharting” in a pool for this one.  Okay!  I couldn’t help myself.  I laughed at that.  Sometimes the really stupid funny makes me giggle and this is about as stupid as they come. 

Based in North Carolina, Hess uses every southern stereotype he could find from wood paneling on all the walls to a high-rise double-wide trailer to the hicks in them but the worst is the extra nauseatingly thick accent Galifianakis uses.  It gets old very fast but there’s something about his comedy in this movie that you can’t help but find amusing and enjoy.  I’d guess it’s his chemistry with director Jared Hess of “Nacho Libre” and “Napoleon Dynamite” that works to create a blissfully ignorant hayseed who is somehow still smart enough to pull of a 17 million dollar heist for the woman he loves, Kelly (Wiig), who is not his fiancé, might I add.  His fiancé is Jandice and portrayed by McKinnon who does white trash brilliantly and the only way to describe her character is “weird”.  McKinnon is always good at weird but this Jandice character goes way beyond the norm.  Wiig, executes the love interest in the film and is, for the most part, playing straight for a change.  There are a few laughs from her but it seems oddly fitting that she is the balance to all of the crazy going on; you expect insane from her in a film like this but when she delivers compassion and caring for someone getting taken advantage of, the story seems more real.

Kelly gets David to help her and her pals steal the money and behind his back they have planned on David to also be the fall guy.  Steve Chambers (Wilson) is running the show and after David steals the money from Loomis, Fargo & Co., which becomes the second largest cash robbery in U.S. history, even appearing on shows like “America’s Most Wanted” because of it, he sends David to Mexico with a small allowance until things cool down and they “meet up with him later.” While they are living the good life, he’s in Mexico waiting for his girl.  So, perhaps the David in the film isn’t so far removed from reality.  However, feeling the pain of being the patsy, perhaps an exaggerated film of bringing them all to justice was his best revenge.

The sight gags in “Masterminds” are great.  The characters are grotesquely over-the-top and you’ll laugh but to dig deeper into what you’re seeing, the structure isn’t there and doesn’t hold up.  It feels as if you’re clicking on Youtube, looking for the funny clips and all the while not as entertained in-between the clicks. However, the costume changes and bizarre you get from Galifianakis and then the relationship that develops between him and the man sent to kill him, Mike McKinney (Sudeikis), makes this absurd film one to take a peek at.  It has that “Napoleon Dynamite” feel to it and I wouldn’t be surprised if it picks up momentum with people watching this more than once to take it all in again and to perhaps take another look at the characters to figure out who may have taken the still missing two million dollars.  Now you’re interested.  By the way, stay at the end for some extra fun stuff.