Need For Speed Movie Review

Cast - Aaron Paul, Dominic Cooper, Imogen Poots, Scott Mescudi, Harrison Gilbertson, Michael Keaton, Ramón Rodríguez, Rami Malek

Direction - Scott Waugh

Genre - Action

Duration - 2 hours 10 minutes

Story: Tobey Marshall (Paul) and friends are struggling to keep their garage business from going broke. He reluctantly accepts an offer from wealthy ex-NASCAR driver Dino Brewster (Cooper) to soup up a Ford Mustang for a big price. However, Tobey soon finds himself in a race that's about revenge as well as redemption.

Review: Aaron Paul's (of Breaking Bad fame) character Tobey is loosely reminiscent of Ryan Gosling's look in 'Drive', minus the gore. He speaks very little and prefers to put the pedal to the metal. His friends Maverick (Mescudi), Joe Peck (Rodriguez), Pete (Gilbertson), Finn (Malek) and him make a living by modifying and racing muscle cars. But the money's barely enough, so when Paul's former rival Dino pays them a visit, he offers Tobey 25% to trick out the Mustang, valued at $2million.

While Tobey's pals are incredulous about the idea, he is more pragmatic and accepts, knowing that the money could really come in handy for the garage. They do the modification so well that an exotic cars investor called Julia Maddon (Poots), whom they meet at a party, is impressed and says she'd buy it for $3 million if it can exceed 230 mph. When the car clocks 234 mph, the deal is done.

But simmering tensions between suave bad boy Dino and righteous Tobey come to a head during a race when Dino, Pete and Tobey race three illegally imported Koenigsegg Agera supercars. Tobey is double crossed by Dino and the former ends up serving a two-year prison sentence. When Tobey leaves the slammer, all he desires is vengeance - preferably on a racetrack and in fourth gear.

The setting for this 'battle royale' is the big ticket De Leon race organized by a reclusive individual called Monarch (Keaton). Although light on plot and performances, the film delivers exactly what it promises. Devoid of CGI, the races you see are real and the stunts, really well done. Apart from Paul's promising performance, it's the supercharged cars that tear up the asphalt and steal the show in this one.

3 Days to Kill Movie Review

Cast -  Kevin Costner, Amber Heard, Hailee Steinfield, Connie Nielsen, Tómas Lemarquis, Richard Sammel

Direction -  McG

Genre -  Action

Duration - 1 hour 50 minutes

Story: CIA agent Ethan Renner (Costner) wants to retire and reconnect with his wife Christine (Nielsen) and daughter Zoey (Steinfeld). Before he can, he is tasked with one final dangerous mission.

Review: McG has many music videos as well as films like Terminator: Salvation and Charlie's Angels Full Throttle to his credit. Here, he ropes in Costner for a surprisingly fun flick, written by Luc Besson and Adi Hasak. The film manages to combine elements of camp with a vamp CIA assassin called Vivi Delay (Heard), father-daughter bonding, teenage angst, humour and car chases down cobbled streets and Parisian pavements.

Renner finds out that he has terminal cancer one day. Faced with this eventuality, he moves back to Paris where his wife and daughter live, to spend some quality time with them. His Parisian apartment, however, is inhabited by a family of African squatters. So, he has no choice but to move in with Christine till the squatters move out after a stipulated time.

While Renner tries to get reacquainted with Zoey, Vivi tracks him down near a market one afternoon, and makes him an offer he can't refuse - nab a dangerous arms trafficker called The Wolf (Sammel) and his lieutenant called The Albino (Lemarquis). In return, she offers him the elixir of life - a potion delivered in a syringe which looks like it was nicked from a kid's chemistry set.

Combining a catwoman bodysuit with over-the-top innuendoes - suggestively straddling his lap while injecting him with the medicine, lascivious movements, puns about making him feel good - these aren't the only things that make Renner's heart race. The medicine too gets his heartbeat up and Vivi tells him that generous slugs of vodka are the antidote to that. The villains look like stock Cold War era villains handpicked from the 70s. It all leads to a showdown between Renner and The Wolf at the unlikeliest of events.

Lighthearted while managing to mix a torture scene with a recipe for spaghetti sauce, the film's myriad elements come together with a deft touch, without losing the plot.

A Haunted House 2 Movie Review

The Bottom Line : More of the same, no matter how lame.

Opens : April 17 (Open Road Films)

Production companies: Automatik Entertainment, Baby Way Productions

Cast: Marlon Wayans, Jaime Pressly, Essence Atkins, Gabriel Iglesias, Ashley Rickards, Affion Crockett, Steele Stebbins, Cedric the Entertainer, Missi Pyle, Hayes MacArthur

Director: Michael Tiddes

Screenwriters: Rick Alvarez, Marlon Wayans

Producers: Rick Alvarez, Marlon Wayans

Executive producers: Stuart Ford, Brian Kavanaugh-Jones, Todd King, Steven Squillante

Director of photography: David Ortkiese

Production designer: Ermanno Di Febo-Orsini

Costume designer: Ariyela Wald-Cohain

Music: Jesse Voccia

Editor: Tim Mirkovich

Rated R, 87 minutes

Marlon Wayans, Jaime Pressly and Gabriel Iglesias co-star with support from Cedric the Entertainer in a follow-up to last year’s horror-movie spoof.

With the Scary Movie franchise, the Wayans brothers tapped into a lucrative vein of lowbrow humor parodying popular horror releases. Marlon Wayans attempted to extend that run with 2013's A Haunted House, which tanked with critics but paid off nicely at the box office. While critical response is likely to be replicated on the sequel, a $40 million gross may not be, given the film's tapped-out formula and lack of differentiation from the original.

A year after his ex-girlfriend Kisha (Essence Atkins), possessed by a tenacious demon, gets summarily dispatched, Malcolm (Wayans) prepares to move in with new girlfriend Megan (Jaime Pressly) and her kids Becky (Ashley Rickards) and Wyatt (Steele Stebbins). Next door neighbor Miguel (Gabriel Iglesias) appears relieved that the house is occupied again, but by examining footage from his extensive network of in-home video cameras, Malcolm soon discovers that it was never fully vacated, after Becky finds a mysterious wooden box in the basement and Megan retrieves a creepy looking doll in 19th century dress from an old wardrobe. Meanwhile, Wyatt starts developing a fixation on an invisible friend named "Tony," who proves highly disapproving of Malcolm.

Goodbye to All That Tribeca Review

The Bottom Line : A surprisingly sexy tale of emotional rebuilding.

Venue : Tribeca Film Festival, World Narrative Competition

Production: Epoch, Remain Calm Productions

Cast: Paul Schneider, Melanie Lynskey, Audrey Scott, Anna Camp, Heather Graham, Heather Lawless, Ashley Hinshaw, Michael Chernus, Amy Sedaris, Celia Weston

Director-Screenwriter: Angus MacLachlan

Producers: Mindy Goldberg, Anne Carey

Director of photography: Corey Walter

Production designer: Chad Keith

Costume designer: Kim Wilcox

Editor: Jennifer Lilly

Sales: Jessica Lacy, ICM

Rated, 86 minutes

Paul Schneider plays a man reeling from an unexpected divorce in the directorial debut of "Junebug" scribe Angus MacLachlan.

NEW YORK — In his first film as a director, Junebug screenwriter Angus MacLachlan goes back to North Carolina for the story of a man blindsided by divorce. Paul Schneider shines in the role, stumbling through a dating world that has changed since his character got hitched, thanks mostly to social media. His turn is a fine fit for the seriocomic spirit of a picture that, while less distinctive than the earlier film, should have little trouble connecting with viewers beyond the fest circuit.

chneider's Otto Wall is an avid runner who can barely cross a room without tripping on something. After he's injured in an ATV accident, his daughter Edie (Audrey Scott) asks mom Annie (Melanie Lynskey), "Why do these things always happen to Daddy?" "Because he doesn't pay attention" is the reply.
While Otto comes across as a very caring husband and father, clearly the film agrees with Annie's diagnosis. Otto is flabbergasted when she announces she wants a divorce — or, rather, when her therapist (Celia Weston) does, in a comically infuriating scene. The break is official before he can even process it, but a Facebook-enabled discovery that Annie had been cheating helps Otto get comfortable with the idea of dating new women.

Every divorce should be this hard: With seemingly no effort online, Otto has soon connected with three different beauties who want nothing from him but sex. (One of the women goes haywire later, but what's a breakup without a hot rebound fling with a manic-depressive?) While he certainly enjoys himself, though, Otto's confused by the lack of interest in deeper connections -- something MacLachlan clearly sees as tied to our present mode of friending. His need for something grounded is more pressing in light of his relationship with Edie, who is growing distant for reasons he can't peg.

Some of those have to do with Annie, and MacLachlan manipulates us a bit in order to make us blind in the same ways Otto has been: Otto's ex behaves with such cold self-absorption, kicking him out of his home and then expecting him to make everything easy for her, that we can't help but long for a showdown in which he makes her see how awful she's being. The film pointedly denies us this gratification, and eventually suggests we were wrong to want it -- that although we never witnessed his failures in the relationship, they were real, and his job now is to grow instead of vent his anger.

From this stance, even the most interesting of Otto's love interests — an old summer-camp girlfriend coping with losses of her own, played beautifully by Heather Lawless — is at best a catalyst, nudging him to be more attentive to the bonds he has before trying to forge new ones. The lesson may be too pat, but Goodbye is gentle in the delivery.

Home, James Movie Review

The Bottom Line : This low-key, low-budget effort has a genuine regional
flavor

Director : Jonathan Rosetti

Screenwriters : Julie Gearheard, Jonathan Rosetti

Opens April 18 (Devolver Digital Films)

Cast: Jonathan Rosetti, Kerry Knuppe, Julie Gearheard, Rick Dacey, Kathleen Rose Perkins, Marshall Bell

Producers: Julie Gearheard, Jonathan Rosetti, Colin Moran Erin Anne Williams

Director of photography: George Su

Editor: Karoliina Tuovinen

Composer: Noah T.

Not rated, 84 min.

Jonathan Rosetti's debut feature concerns the ill-fated romance between two Oklahoma natives torn apart by conflicting goals

A good example of genuine regional filmmaking, Home, James is suffused with the bleak atmosphere of its Tulsa, Okla. setting. Jonathan Rosetti’s debut film about the troubled romance between a photographer and a hard-drinking socialite is modest in its aspirations and execution, but it delivers an affecting portrait of a relationship threatened to be torn apart by conflicting goals.

Oklahoma native Rosetti, who also co-scripted, plays James, a photographer by day and a "sober driver" by night. The latter vocation, which provides the film its title, refers to his driving inebriated people home in their cars with his scooter stowed in the trunk.

One evening his clients include Cooper (Kerry Knuppe), a beautiful young woman who's so drunk that she can't even tell him her home address, instead repeatedly delivering the command, "Home." A romantic relation between the two immediately develops, although she informs him that she plans to move to New York City in just three weeks.

James, whose photography career is just on the verge of taking off thanks to the offer of a gallery show, has no desire to leave his native city. But Cooper, who seems to have unlimited means, is too restless to consider staying.

"Don’t you want to be someplace where more things are happening?" she asks.
As his new lover's departure becomes ever more imminent, James finds himself increasingly despondent and becoming angrily sullen to his friends (warmly played Rick Dacey and co-screenwriter Julie Gearheard). He also begins drinking heavily -- no small irony considering his way of making a living -- at one point having an accident while driving his scooter while drunk.

STORY: Goodbye to All That: Tribeca Review

The film is less notable for its simple storyline than its well-drawn characterizations and such incisive details as the use of split-screen that mirrors both the characters' central conflict and James' method of photography using a dual-frame camera. The numerous examples of his work on display provide a vivid illustration of the city's urban landscape.

Made for just $50,000 raised via a Kickstarter campaign, Home, James is a fine example of making more with less.

   

Time is Illmatic Tribeca Review

The Bottom Line : Fans will embrace this walk down memory lane.

Venue: Tribeca Film Festival, Special Events

Production: Illa Films

Director: One9

Screenwriter: Erik Parker

Producers: Anthony Saleh, One9, Erik Parker

Director of photography: Frank Larson

Editors: David Zieff, One9, John Kanellids

Music: B. Satz

Sales: Josh Braun, Submarine

Not Rated, 74 minutes

Nas remembers the birth of his extraordinary hip-hop career.

NEW YORK -- Superstar MC Nas remembers his humble roots in One9's Time is Illmatic, an evocative appreciation of his debut album on the occasion of its 20th anniversary. Though presented concurrently with the inevitable CD reissue (titled Illmatic XX), the doc avoids the prefab feel of many similarly targeted music films, instead offering a strong sense of the neighborhood -- New York City's Queensbridge Houses, the largest public housing project in the U.S. -- that served as both a rallying cry for musicians who grew up there and a constant threat to their lives. Though too limited in scope for much of a theatrical life, the film will play well to hip-hop fans on cable.

One of the aspects that keeps Time from projecting an advertorial vibe, its indifference to outside voices, may also leave casual fans wanting a bit more: The director never offers the expected testimonials from fellow musicians and others attesting to Illmatic's influence on hip-hop (though Cornel West does pop up briefly). We're presumed to understand the platinum-selling record's legacy going in. Instead we dive in with plentiful first-person storytelling from both Nas (born Nasir Jones) and his brother Jabari "Jungle" Jones, with crucial input from their father, jazz musician Olu Dara. (Producers who crafted the record's beats make quick but welcome appearances as well.)

While the star tends toward earnestness -- the "who'd'a thought...?" appreciation of someone not taking stardom for granted -- Jungle provides much of the account's color, both getting many of the film's laughs (in a post-screening concert, Nas chuckled that Jungle was the film's star) and providing an eyewitness account of what Time presents as the catalyzing moment of the artist's career: the shooting death of Willy "Ill Will" Graham, the rapper's close friend and collaborator in early hip-hop experiments. After that tragedy, which happened in their building's courtyard, Nas threw himself into the creative burst that quickly drew attention from outside Queensbridge.

The filmmakers focus more on storytelling -- recounting rivalries between Queens rappers and the South Bronx's Boogie Down Productions; early support from Roxanne Shante and MC Serch; the rapper's discovery by and quick signing to Columbia Records -- than on making the most of the period's music. This is not one of those rock docs that makes viewers move in their seats, and it often cuts away from its best performance footage before we're ready to leave. It's busy saving space for later concert scenes, present-day performances of songs made famous on Illmatic.

STORY: Music Docs Take Center Stage at 2014 Tribeca Film Festival

These segments afford little examinations of individual songs -- as when Q-Tip cites a couplet from "One Love" that eloquently describes how the mass incarceration of young black men destroys families and communities. But they aren't as musically thrilling as the vintage footage.
The doc barely talks about how the record was received and what it led to -- a career full of multi-platinum records and sold-out arenas -- but it wraps up with some time at Harvard, where a new Nasir Jones Fellowship will promote hip-hop scholarship. The Ivy League is an odd place for the film to go in its one request for outside legitimization of the artist's work. But for a rapper who once lamented that his people are in "projects or jail, never Harvard or Yale," perhaps it's appropriate.

Authors Anonymous Movie Review

The Bottom Line : This forced mockumentary-style comedy could have used a rewrite

Opens April 18 (Screen Media Films)

Production: Forever Sunny Productions, Bull Market Entertainment

Cast: Kaley Cuoco, Chris Klein, Dennis Farina, Jonathan Bennett, Tricia Helfer, Jonathan Banks, Dylan Walsh, Teri Polo

Director: Ellie Kanner

Screenwriter: David Congalton

Producers: Ellie Kanner, Hal Schwartz

Executive producers: Jonathan Bennett, Kaley Cuoco, Cynthia Guidry, Laine Guidry

Director of photography: Tobias Datum

Editor: Stephen R. Myers

Production designer: Travis Zariwny

Costume designer: Samantha Kuester

Composer: Jeff Cardoni

Rated PG-13, 94 min.

Ellie Kanner's comedy concerns a writer's workshop wracked with jealousy when their newest member lands a lucrative publishing deal.

With its mockumentary-style, semi-improvised portrait of a writer’s workshop whose mostly untalented members become consumed by jealousy and petty bickering, Authors Anonymous sounds like a terrific concept for a Christopher Guest movie.

Unfortunately, Guest didn’t make it.

Rather, it’s the work of director Ellie Kanner and first-time screenwriter David Congalton, who have produced a tediously unfunny comedy that is chiefly distinguished by the fact that it marks one of the last screen appearances by the late Dennis Farina who steals the film as a Tom Clancy-obsessed, would-be military thriller writer.

Utilizing the format that has now become all too cliché-ridden thanks to its endless use in television sitcoms, the film depicts the jealousy and turmoil that besets the aspiring scribes when their newest member, the bubbly and seemingly vacuous Hannah (Kaley Cuoco), suddenly lands a publishing contract and six-figure movie deal.

Naturally this upsets the others, including upscale married couple Alan (Dylan Walsh) and Colette (Teri Polo), the former of whom is constantly dictating ideas for books into his pocket recorder; pizza delivery man and carpet cleaner Henry (Chris Klein), who’s obsessed with F. Scott Fitzgerald and harbors a torch for Hannah; slacker William (Jonathan Bennett), who reveres Charles Bukowski; and the humorously named John K. Butzin (Farina), who takes matters into his own hands by self-publishing his book thanks to a shady overseas outfit called “You Are the Publisher.”

Featuring endless first-person monologues, the film exploits its characters’ neuroses and pretensions to little comic effect. With the exception of Klein’s unassuming Henry, who seems genuinely sweet, they’re a mostly unappealing bunch, but not in a funny way. The satirical digs are not so much pointed as merely uncomfortable, such as when Butzin attempts a book signing event at a hardware store only to sit morosely alone, unbothered by the patrons intent on getting past him to purchase supplies.

Cuoco, playing a variation of her character on The Big Bang Theory, is a charming screen presence, but it’s Farina who provides the most fun, especially in a scene involving his sexy, much younger girlfriend (Tricia Helfer) when he turns around and happily looks directly into the camera with a leering grin planted on his face. It’s a genuinely funny moment, marred only by the realization that we’ll no longer have the opportunity be treated to the actor’s wonderfully deadpan comic style.

Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014)

Steve Rogers struggles to embrace his role in the modern world and battles a new threat from old history: the Soviet agent known as the Winter Soldier.

Directors: Anthony Russo, Joe Russo

136 min  -  Action - Adventure   4 April 2014 (USA)

Stars: Chris Evans, Samuel L. Jackson, Scarlett Johansson, Robert Redford

Writing Credits

Christopher Markus - (screenplay) &
Stephen McFeely - (screenplay)

Ed Brubaker - (concept and story)

Joe Simon - (comic book) and
Jack Kirby - (comic book) Cast (in credits order) complete, awaiting

Produced by

Victoria Alonso - executive producer
Mitchell Bell - associate producer
Louis D'Esposito - executive producer
Kevin Feige - producer
Alan Fine - executive producer
Michael Grillo - executive producer
Stan Lee - executive producer
Nate Moore - co-producer

Music by : Henry Jackman

Cinematography by : Trent Opaloch ... director of photography

Film Editing by : Jeffrey Ford ,Matthew Schmidt

Casting By : Sarah Finn Production

Design by : Peter Wenham

Art Direction by

Steve Christensen
Beat Frutiger
Kevin Ishioka
Gary Kosko
Thomas Valentine - supervising art director

Set Decoration by : Leslie A. Pope

Costume Design by : Judianna Makovsky

Production Management 

Danielle Daly - post-production supervisor
JoAnn Perritano - unit production manager
Helen Pollak - production manager
Jason Pomerantz - production manager (IMAX version)
Jason Tamez - production supervisor
Elona Tsou - production supervisor: Cleveland

Walk of Shame (2014) Movie Review

A reporter's dream of becoming a news anchor is compromised after a one-night stand leaves her stranded in downtown L.A. without a phone, car, ID or money - and only 8 hours to make it to the most important job interview of her life.

Genre : 95 min  -  Comedy  -  2 May 2014 (USA)

Director: Steven Brill

Writer: Steven Brill

Cast

Elizabeth Banks,James Marsden,Ethan Suplee,Gillian Jacobs,Sarah Wright,
Oliver Hudson,P.J. Byrne,Lawrence Gilliard Jr.,Willie Garson,Bill Burr,
Kevin Nealon,Richard Cabral,Alphonso McAuley,Ken Davitian,Tig Notaro
Liz Carey

Produced by 

Matt Berenson - executive producer
Ted Gidlow - executive producer
Sidney Kimmel - producer
Gary Lucchesi - producer
Eric Reid - executive producer
Tom Rosenberg - producer

Music by : John Debney

Cinematography by : Jonathan Brown

Film Editing by : Patrick J. Don Vito

Casting By : Jennifer L. Smith , Tricia Wood

Production Design by : Perry Andelin Blake

Art Direction by : Alan Au

Set Decoration by : Karen O'Hara

Costume Design by : Lindsay Ann McKay

Makeup Department 

Meagan Herrera - key hair stylist
Cheryl Marks - hair department head
Judy Yonemoto - key makeup artist

Production Management 

Ted Gidlow - unit production manager
Marci Rosenberg Gayner - production supervisor (as Marci Rosenberg)

Second Unit Director or Assistant Director

Stephen E. Hagen - first assistant director
Dillon Neaman - second second assistant director
Darrin Prescott - second unit director
Jon Recher - second assistant director
Marie-Hélène Riverain - additional second assistant director

Art Department

Kenny Abney - construction coordinator
Cameron Blake - art department
Reginald Dechard - set dresser
Guillaume DeLouche - property-master/armorer
Warren Drummond - storyboard artist
Bill 'Kauhane' Hoyt - standby painter
Michael Kocurek - propmaker
Michael Mestas - set dresser
Wendy L. Schilling - props buyer
Anne Tobin - art department coordinator
Taylor Vaughan - props
David Venezky - leadman set decoration

Visual Effects by 

Flavia Dias Riley - visual effects producer: Cutting Edge
Ian Dodman - compositor
Scott Dougherty - visual effects executive producer: Furious FX
Helen Kok - visual effects producer: method studios
David Lingenfelser - executive visual effects supervisor: Furious Fx
Dean Richichi - digital compositor
Thorsten Rolle - matte painter

Stunts 

Krista Bell - stunt double: Elizabeth Banks
Jeremy Marinas - stunts
Robert Nagle - stunt driver
Chris O'Hara - stunt performer
Darrin Prescott - stunt coordinator
Roger Sampson - stunt double: Ken Davitian
Todd Schneider - stunt double: James Marsden
Aaron Toney -  stunt double: Alphonso Mcauley