Reagan is such a conservatively-made movie that it would almost be pointless to go after the film for its politics. Revered to most as the first conservative president of the United States of America, Ronald Reagan’s presidency was a touchstone of the 80’s and there’s no denying how deep his political influence ran afterwards.
By: Jessica Goddard Full disclosure: I am bad at watching war movies. I watch war movies out of some (likely misdirected) sense of duty – if actual human beings lived these horrors, I should be able to stomach cinematic recreations of them, is my thinking. But, I find it very hard to watch people die (which I’ve chosen to attribute to a smug overabundance of empathy) even if it’s only a performance. For this reason,…
I Can Only Imagine is, more or less, about the act of forgiveness. And just like that personal journey, this movie starts out tough before it starts feeling better for everyone.
By: Nick Ferwerda A Dogs Purpose tries to demonstrate how strong a bond between man and man’s friend can truly be. It’s also about a dog (voiced by Josh Gad) finding what its life purpose is over the course of multiple lives and many different experiences. It’s odd how five screenwriters (including W. Bruce Cameron – the author of the best-selling book this film is based on) have failed to authenticate characters or emotion – it’s all a…
By: Trevor Jeffery Truth is a factually interesting docudrama, with the unfortunate side effect of also being a huge downer – how can you chippily walk away from a film if its thesis is essentially “modern journalism is dead”? It’s 2004, just months before the American Presidential election, and Mary Mapes (Cate Blanchett) has got a story. And as a producer for CBS’s documentary/news series 60 Minutes, she’s got a platform. She’s uncovered that there…
By: Addison Wylie Movie 43 is an anthology film with a stacked cast. It’s been pushing its alleged “audacity” and “outrageousness” in order to get YOU in that theatre seat. However, there is something to be said about how much the marketing has pushed that angle in our faces. When a movie is urging moviegoers to focus on an element about the movie (in this case, its sheer outlandishness) instead of the actual movie itself…