 Rating: 3 out of 5 starsGenre: Documentary
Run Time: 1 hour 30 minutes, Rated PG-13 Written & Directed by Kirby Dick (The Invisible War, This Film Is Not Yet Rated, Outrage) There is absolutely no denying that the documentary, The Hunting Ground (opening today), is about something important. It attempts to shed light on the horrific, yet mostly silent epidemic of rape crimes on college campuses across the United States. This is a real problem, one that is under-reported and perpetually mishandled in ongoing attempts to save each particular university some face, in the eyes of what could be massive public-relations nightmares. So not to under-cut the topic - and that I cannot stress enough - but The Hunting Ground's approach to presenting their argument, is about as "fair and balanced" as a Fox News report on the President. In other words, it takes nuggets of underlying truths and expands upon them to come to the most misinformed, misguided and ridiculous of conclusions.
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 Rating: 2 out of 5 starsGenre: Horror, Thriller
Run Time: 1 hour 21 minutes, Rated R Starring: Heather Sossaman, Will Peltz, Courtney Halverson, Shelley Hennig, Moses Jacob Storm, Renee Olstead, Jacob Wysocki Directed by Levan Gabriadze (Lucky Trouble) The entire movie Unfriended (opening today) takes place on a laptop. Yes, the whole thing. As if we don't spend enough time in front of our computer screens, Unfriended invites us out to a theater to stare blankly at a computer screen for a laborious 82 minutes, which most of the time would be considered a short run time for a feature, but here is made to feel like an eternity. Beyond this gimmicky premise, Unfriended is a thin, pathetic attempt at horror, as seen through the eyes of the Snapchat and Instagram generation.  Rating: 3 out of 5 starsGenre: Drama, Mystery
Run Time: 1 hour 40 minutes, Rated R Starring: Jonah Hill, James Franco, Felicity Jones, Gretchen Mol Based on the memoir by Michael Finkel Written and Directed by Rupert Goold (feature-film directorial debut) True Story (opening today), like most "true stories" that make it to the big screen, is only based on a true story, with the usual number of movie-making stretches thrown in to try to spice things up. But the taste of this one is still bland. The over-riding problem with this true crime tale is that it's as manipulative as its subject, which might have been by design, but nothing ends up ringing "true" at all.  Rating: 3 out of 5 starsGenre: Documentary
Run Time: 1 hours 24 minutes, Rated PG Starring: Seymour Bernstein, Ethan Hawke Directed by Ethan Hawke (The Hottest State, Chelsea Walls) Ethan Hawke is best known as the Academy Award nominated actor in recent movies like Boyhood, The Purge, or Before Midnight, but he has been known to put on his director hat occasionally. He directs and appears in his first documentary effort, Seymour: An Introduction (opening today), a simple and very personal examination of a master pianist, composer and mentor, Seymour Bernstein. |
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October 2024
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tom santilli movie reviews
Tom Santilli is a professional film critic, TV personality, host and
the Executive Producer of Movie Show Plus.
He also is the featured film critic appearing on WXYZ Channel 7 Action News in Detroit,
and appeared weekly on FOX-2 in Detroit from 2016-2020.
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