American Honey

Yeah, I don't know. I was worried about not liking this film, as by many accounts it was one of the year's best. It seemed to me it was just going to follow around some asshole teens while they acted like garbage humans for a while. And that's pretty much what I walked away feeling, as well. Maybe I missed something. LaBeouf was tremendous, and the cinematography was quite stunning, but I found the film far too indulgent, with a runtime of nearly three uneventful hours.

6.5/10

In a Valley of Violence

This fairly formulaic western revenge film somehow manages to be equal parts comedic and menacing. Ethan Hawke is wonderful as the lead, and aside from a few instances of over-acting from the rest of the cast, I found this film to be a delightful genre piece.

8/10

Jack Reacher: Never Go Back

I found this film to be a disappointing half-hearted attempt at recreating the magic. Almost every single aspect of this film is lesser-than; the action scenes are stilted and fraught with shaky-cam, the plot is far less interesting, and the performances more phoned-in and forced (save for Cobie Smulders, who was fantastic).

5/10

Jack Reacher

From the first chilling scene, I was completely enthralled with this film. The mystery unraveled in a very satisfying way, and watching Tom Cruise do what he does best is always tremendous fun. The action set pieces are interesting and hit hard, and the film just never stops being a great time.

9.5/10

Tickled

As various podcasters and film-critics I follow mentioned this documentary, they all had two things to say about it. It was about the world of Competitive Endurance Tickling, and it quickly turns into one of the most bizarre and surreal documentaries they've ever seen.

Having now seen the film, all I can do is echo those two statements.

9/10

The Accountant

Ben Affleck delivers yet another strong performance, and the supporting cast is just as good. The action sequences hit hard, and felt like a mix of the Batman sequences from Batman v Superman mixed with a dash of John Wick. The narrative is somewhat complex, and left me with a few unanswered questions about character motivations, which hurt the film a bit, but I quite enjoyed to deliberate unraveling of layer after layer as the film progressed.

7.75/10

Middle School: The Worst Years of My Life

Setting aside the caveats that go along with family films, and the disbelief that must sometimes be suspended (especially when your film is about middle school and not a single teenager curses), I really enjoyed this film.

The lead is a talented young artist, and the film embraces that with wonderful daydream sequences in which his illustrations come to life. The criticisms leveled at our education system and standardized testing were great to see, and Andrew Daly was a solid overbearing, out-of-touch principal/dictator. There is also a surprising emotional heft to the film that I didn't expect at all, but worked quite well.

8.25/10

The Birth of a Nation (2016)

For a film with such a strong 'Best Picture' buzz a few months ago, I expected so much more than this. Woefully underdeveloped characters, absolutely no sense of subtlety, and every female "character" was essentially an object only present to move the plot forward. The cinematography was interesting at times, and a few of the shots are certainly going to linger, but this film was simply not good.

4/10

Masterminds

For a comedy with a cast as strong as MASTERMINDS, I expected to laugh a lot more than a couple times. The plot was also fairly underwhelming.

4/10

Deepwater Horizon

Aside from a slightly-above-average third act, this film struck me as a cookie-cutter disaster/survival film. Solid, but mostly unexciting.

6.5/10