Tinseltown Reviews

Crazy Rich Asians  is a romantic comedy-drama directed by Jon Chu and starring Constance Wu, Henry Golding, Michelle Yeoh, Awkwafina, and Gemma Chan. Based on Kevin Kwan's novel of the same name, the film centers on Rachel Chu, an Asian-American professor who travels to Singapore to meet her boyfriend's family only to discover that they are (say it with me now) crazy rich Asians. The film is the first by a major Hollywood studio to feature an entirely Asian cast in a modern setting in 25 years. Final Verdict Crazy Rich Asians  is a rom-com through and through, and comes with all you'd expect in a rom-com. However, the Asian  part of the movie isn't tacked on, as it's clearly weaved throughout the narrative which focuses highly on the ideas of family, lineage, and culture. All parts of the movie were well-acted (especially the hilarious Awkwafina) and the movie features a good number of Asian celebrity cameos. Perhaps most impressive was the film's tre...

Incredibles 2  is a Pixar animated superhero film written and directed by Brad Bird, starring Craig T. Nelson, Holly Hunter, Sarah Vowell, Huck Milner, Eli Fucile, Samuel L. Jackson, Bob Odenkirk, and Catherine Keener. The movie is the long-awaited sequel to 2004's The Incredibles  with almost the entire core cast reprising their roles. Incredibles 2  picks up where the first movie left off, with the Parr family operating as the superheroes called the Incredibles for three months after Syndrome's defeat. However, supers are still illegal, and this film centers around Helen Parr/Elastigirl being recruited by a telecommunications company to regain the general public's support of supers with the hopes of one day making supers legal once more. The Negatives I was very nervous about this movie from the moment it was announced, and that's because Pixar doesn't really DO sequels--and for good reason, too. All of Pixar's movies have the same basic formula: a ...

Deadpool 2  is a satirical black comedy superhero movie from the studio that killed Wolverine. The movie is directed by David Leitch, and stars Ryan Reynolds, Josh Brolin, Morena Baccarin, Julian Dennison, Zazie Beetz, Brianna Hildebrand, and Stefan Kapičić. In the movie, Deadpool must overcome a personal tragedy, which he tries to cope with by protecting a young mutant using the newly formed X-Force team from the time-traveling soldier Cable. If you liked the first Deadpool , you'll like this movie as well. You won't love it, but you'll like it. It's a wild avalanche of snarky fourth wall-breaking humor and comic violence that seeks to please the comic book nerds as well as the regular movie-going audience. There are a lot of great jokes in here and the movie stays consistently funny from beginning to end, especially with every time it pokes fun at the superhero movie industry which has only grown since its last debut in 2016. Of all the new characters in ...

A Quiet Place is a 2018 horror thriller directed by John Krasinski (of The Office US fame) who also plays the lead character. The movie also stars Emily Blunt, Millicent Simmonds, and Noah Jupe as a family living in a post-apocalyptic world dominated by monsters who hunt by detecting even the slightest sound. Mankind is mostly wiped out, and whatever specks of humanity remain must stay separate and small in order to hide from the monsters. This film follows the story of a single family as they struggle to stay alive in a world drenched in silence. We all know the premise: make a noise and you die, and yet actually experiencing the movie yourself is way more haunting and tense than you'd expect. Krasinski and the filmmakers had a stroke of genius with the concept of having to keep as quiet as possible, and boy did they milk that as much as they could. The entire movie is extremely quiet with characters rarely ever even speaking. Often times the most you'll hear in ...

Game Night  is a thriller comedy directed by John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein, starring Jason Bateman, Rachel McAdams, Kyle Chandler, Billy Magnussen, Sharon Horgan, Lamorne Morris, Kylie Bunbury, and Jesse Plemons. The movie follows a highly competitive, game-loving couple Max and Annie who are having trouble conceiving, which they believe is due to Max's feelings of inferiority towards his highly successful brother, Brooks. They and their friends have a tradition of weekly game nights, and when one game night hosted by Brooks spirals out of control, the friends are swept into a real-life murder mystery filled with conspiracies, plot twists, and a whole lot of laughs. This movie was something of a surprise hit, and I'm sure most people haven't even heard of it, which is a shame considering how funny it is. We all knew Jason Bateman (of Arrested Development  fame) is a comedy genius, but Rachel McAdams shines as his costar with just as great a performance....

Lady Bird is a 2017 comedy-drama film directed by Greta Gerwig and starring Saoirse Ronan, Laurie Metcalf, Tracy Letts, Beanie Feldstein, Lucas Hedges, and  Timothée Chalamet, following the life of a girl named Christine who prefers to be called "Lady Bird" in her last year of high school. There are loads of YA coming-of-age movies nowadays where the main character is a teenager who is inherently different in some way and learns important life lessons after falling in love with someone who is their equal or opposite. In essence, cheesy love story between two teens that helps them grow and of which four out of every five leads to at least one of them dying (think The Fault in Our Stars , If I Stay , The Space Between Us , pretty much every John Green book). Lady Bird is a refreshing new take on the genre in which the love story that the main character grows from isn't a romantic one (in fact, she's tried and failed at doing just that), but rather a materna...

It (also known as It: Chapter One ) is a supernatural horror movie directed by Andy Muschietti based on the 1986 Stephen King novel of the same name. The movie stars Bill Skarsgård, Jaeden Lieberher, Jeremy Ray Taylor, Sophia Lillis, Finn Wolfhard, Wyatt Oleff, Chosen Jacobs, Jack Dylan Grazer, and Jackson Robert Scott and follows seven kids dubbed "The Losers Club" who find themselves haunted by a mysterious being called Pennywise the Dancing Clown. The Characters My biggest concern during this movie was that there would be too many characters. With seven different characters comprising the main cast (especially seven child actors), there were definite red flags in the movie. And while the movie doesn't pull it off 100%, it did do an overall excellent job with it. Not all the characters were given adequate screen time and a few felt unnecessary--mostly Mike (the black kid) and Stan (the Jewish kid). Of course, I understand that you really do need all the kids f...

The Big Sick  is a 2017 romantic comedy directed by Michael Showalter and starring Kumail Nanjiani, Zoe Kazan, Holly Hunter, and Ray Romano. The movie is written by and based on Kumail Nanjiani and Emily V. Gordon's story of how they met and fell in love while also dealing with the hardships of being in love and being in a cross-cultural relationship. When tragedy strikes, Kumail has to face his growing relationship with Emily's parents and come in terms with his views on his own family and culture. The film had its world premiere at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival where it won wide critical praise. It's funny, full of heart, and makes for a great movie to watch on a date. The Characters Kumail Nanjiani steals the show as a fictionalized version of himself. Unlike typical rom-com male leads, Nanjiani is quieter and unassuming.  Love Story 's iconic "Love means never having to say you're sorry" is an utter lie and  The Big Sick  knows it, giving ...

Wonder Woman is a 2017 superhero movie directed by Patty Jenkins and starring Gal Gadot and Chris Pine. The film follows Diana Prince (Gadot) as she trains to become a warrior before meeting Steve Trevor (Pine) and deciding to leave her home island of Themyscira to fight alongside him in World War I. It's no secret that the Marvel Cinematic Universe has been something of a cultural phenomenon ever since the original Iron Man  released in 2008. It's also no secret that the DC Extended Universe has been doing everything it possibly can to catch up to the MCU's massive financial success, unfortunately with relatively little to show for it. The DCEU's previous three entries-- Man of Steel , Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice , and Suicide Squad --have been anything from moderately successful to abject commercial and critical failures. The DCEU is in desperate need of at least one successful film to ready audiences for Justice League , to be released November of this year...