1.5 Razors

The Lie

/ / Home Video
  • Title: The Lie
  • IMDb: link

The Lie movie posterThe Lie is a joyless exercise featuring Peter Sarsgaard and Mireille Enos as a pair of divorced parents who decide to to work together to hide the fact that their daughter (Joey King) is responsible for the death of one of her friends (Devery Jacobs) during a contrived set-up in the film’s tiresome first act.

The film features the parents making a series of bad decisions, including trying to throw suspicion on the missing girl’s father (Cas Anvar) as the reason for her disappearance by painting him as a child abuser while forcing their daughter to echo the lies to the police. Sarsgaard and Enos do what they can, but there’s not much here to work with, while King is stuck with a character the script can never properly come to terms with. Melodramatic as a tween with her first phone, events spiral out of control and even an absurd late twist can’t save what is best forgotten.

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Spenser Confidential

/ / Home Video
  • Title: Spenser Confidential
  • IMDb: link

Spenser Confidential movie reviewSpenser Confidential is loosely based on Robert B. Parker’s novels about a smart-ass Boston private investigator. And when I say loosely, I mean screenwriters Sean O’Keefe and Brian Helgeland may have glanced at the spine of one of the dozens of Spenser novels written by Robert B. Parker over the decades. The film re-imagines Spenser (Mark Wahlberg) as a recently-paroled cop who spent five years in prison after beating up his superior officer (Michael Gaston) on his front lawn after the police captain buried evidence on the brutal murder of a protester (Avery Grant).

With dreams of being a truck driver, Spenser is pulled back into the muck when the police captain and another officer are murdered on the day Spenser is released from prison. Although only a suspect for about five seconds, Spenser decides to look into the situation on his own. Hawk (Winston Duke) is re-imagined as a young kickboxer rather than the world-class hitman with a shared boxing past with Spenser. Alan Arkin co-stars as gym owner Henry Cimoli who, along with training Hawk and giving Spenser a place to stay, helps Spenser and Hawk on the case.

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Captain America

/ / Television Reviews
  • Title: Captain America (1979)
  • IMDb: link

Captain America review

Throwback Tuesday takes us back to one of the more unusual adaptations of Captain America. 1979’s made-for-television movie Captain America is a bizarre experience that reminds you just how far Marvel has come over the years in licensing their characters for live-action films. Set in the 1970s, Reb Brown stars as Steve Rogers. This Steve isn’t a World War II veteran. Instead, he’s a former soldier and dirt bike racer, now retired beach bum. Dr. Simon Mills (Len Birman), a colleague of Steve’s father, reaches out with an offer. There’s this serum you see which will only work for Steve. A couple of attempts on Steve’s life, one leaving him near death, lead to Steve being reborn as Captain America, a name we’re told his father’s enemies used as an insult, or at least a Six Million Dollar Man approximation of what Captain America would look like on a shoestring budget.

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Jay and Silent Bob Reboot

/ / Home Video
  • Title: Jay and Silent Bob Reboot
  • IMDb: link

Jay and Silent Bob Reboot movie reviewEven for a guy who hasn’t had an original idea in a decade, Jay and Silent Bob Reboot is incredibly lazy. Writer/director/star Kevin Smith reunites familiar faces with a sequel of sorts to one of his lazier projects, but still infinitely more entertaining, Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back. Not much has changed for the drug-dealing pair of Jay (Jason Mewes) and Silent Bob (Smith) who take a road trip to Hollywood to prevent another movie about the comic characters they inspired from being made.

Jay and Silent Bob Reboot is a tired film that makes the likes of Cannonball Run II and Smokey and the Bandit Part 3 look inspired by comparison. Along the way the pair will run into several familiar faces reprising their roles from various Smith films. Some of these play a marginal role in the plot such as Shannon Elizabeth who introduces Jay to his illigetimate daughter Milly (Smith’s real-life daughter Harley Quinn Smith), many are completely superfluous, and some don’t make any sense whatsoever (such as Matt Damon‘s bizarre cameo). There are also new cameos from the likes of Fred Armisen, Melissa Benoist, Chris Jericho, Chris Hemsworth, and others.

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It’s All Downhill From Here

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: Downhill
  • IMDb: link

Downhill movie reviewIt’s surprising to me that a film co-written and co-directed by Jim Rash could turn out to be such a joyless exercise in futility. Along with Nat Faxon, Rash attempts to remake the Swedish dramedy Force Majeure for American audiences. Something obviously got lost in the translation.

Will Ferrell and Julia Louis-Dreyfus star as Pete and Billie, a married spending a ski vacation in the Alps with their two sons. The family witnesses a controlled avalanche that terrifies them, but actually never put the members of the family in any real danger. Pete running away to save himself creates tension among the group, especially when he fails to acknowledge or apologize for his actions.

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