FREE STATE OF JONES (2016)
Gary Jones’ film based on his own screenplay from a story by Leonard Hartman is based on the true life story of Newton Knight who during the American Civil War in 1863 served as a medic for the Confederate Army. Opposed to slavery and the fact that the war was mostly about rich white land owners wanting to preserve the status quo, he opted to help the wounded than fight the Union. Feeling that the poor whites fighting the war were little more than indentured servants to the p
THE SHALLOWS (2016)
Jaume Collet-Serra’s film from a screenplay by Anthony Jaswinski featuring a standout performance from Blake Lively, is both entertaining and very intelligent in its execution. Far from being just a standard shark attack movie the filmmakers tackle this story from various angles, exploring the state of mind of the main character and various decisions she is contending with. Beautifully photographed by Flavio Labiano with special effects shots that look so real you wonder how
INDEPENDENCE DAY: RESURGENCE (2016)
Roland Emmerich’s film based on a screenplay that he co-wrote with Dean Devlin, Nicolas Wright, James A. Woods & James Vanderbilt is a sequel to 1996’s INDEPENDENCE DAY and essentially the same story repeated over again sans Will Smith. Though I appreciate the artistry involved in the making of this film along with the many fine actors involved, this film is a major disappointment and essentially a waste of one’s time in viewing it. Since it becomes abundantly clear that the
FINDING DORY (2016)
Andrew Stanton directed this delightful sequel to 2003’s FINDING NEMO, with this film concentrating on the quest to find Dory’s parents despite the fact that she has short term memory loss, proving it can be quite a challenge at times. However Dory has a heart of gold and despite her disability has the aid of Marlin and Nemo, a father/son clownfish duo from the first film who figure just as prominently in this film as the first. Though this film’s focus is mainly on Dory, she
CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE (2016)
Rawson Marshall Thurber directed this comedy action film from an original screenplay he co-wrote with Ike Barinholtz and David Stassen. It is about two high school friends who reacquaint themselves twenty years after graduation and the changes that have taken place in the meantime. Though a comedy film with “only in a movie” type of scenarios, it has a surprisingly good script while tackling the meaning of true friendship, the act of forgiveness and how devastatingly cruel te
THE CONJURING 2 (2016)
James Wan’s film based on a screenplay he co-wrote with Chad Hayes, Carey Hayes and David Leslie Johnson is a type of follow-up to the 2013 film THE CONJURING but is able to wholly stand on its own without viewers having had to have seen the first to follow the storyline. The film follows the true life couple Ed and Lorraine Warren as they travel to England to aid the Hodgson family who were experiencing paranormal activity in their Brimsdown, Enfield council house in 1977. S
NOW YOU SEE ME 2 (2016)
Jon M. Chu’s film from a screenplay by Ed Solomon and based on a screenplay and characters created by Boaz Yakin and Edward Ricourt is engrossing and well written and a superior film to its predessor NOW YOU SEE ME. Though this film stretches the imagination as what’s actually possible in magic, it does bother to explain how the tricks/illusions took place even though I doubt in the real world this might actually happen or be possible. However this is an entertainment and mea
(2016) WARCRAFT
Duncan Jones directed this film from a screenplay he co-wrote with Charles Leavitt based on the video game WARCRAFT from Blizzard Entertainment. The Orc clans (a group of semi-human alien beings) looking to escape their dying world, escape through a portal to the human world of Azeroth and thus begins the conflict of war and the inevitable resolution that there must be another way to live in the same world together. I really was not very interested in this film and considerin
FINDING DORY (2016)
Andrew Stanton directed this delightful sequel to 2003’s FINDING NEMO, with this film concentrating on the quest to find Dory’s parents despite the fact that she has short term memory loss, proving it can be quite a challenge at times. However Dory has a heart of gold and despite her disability has the aid of Marlin and Nemo, a father/son clownfish duo from the first film who figure just as prominently in this film as the first. Though this film’s focus is mainly on Dory, she
THE LOBSTER (2016)
A film directed by Yorgos Lanthimos from a screenplay he co-wrote with Efthymis Filipou is a type of Orwellian/dystopian drama that has an absurdist premise that singles are given 45 days to find the perfect mate or be turned into the animal of their choice. On the flip side there are the radical loners living on the edge of society in the woods that forbid personal/sexual relationships who are as brutal in their approach to members who break their code of conduct, forcing ev