Catherine Hardwicke’s (Twilight) cancer melodrama Miss You Already is a big, brash and bold weepie in the grand old Hollywood tradition…Writer Morwenna Banks’ script hits all the anticipated marks, knows exactly which button to push, everything building to the expected tear-filled coda guaranteed to have the majority of those sitting in the theatre grabbing Kleenex and smudging their eyes dry.

The Peanuts Movie might not be anything more than what it is expected to be, but, just as importantly, it isn’t anything less than that, either. To paraphrase a speech made once upon a time in a pumpkin patch, there’s no hypocrisy to be found in any of this, just sincerity, pretty much as far as the eye can see.

“When you watch the film, you realize how big the moment was, how this movement represented more than just getting the right to vote…”
– Suffragette director Sarah Gavron

As terrific as it all looks, as expertly crafted as it might be, Spectre just isn’t all that good a movie…It is a tired retread that offers little new or original, taking 007 to the one place he’s arguably never been before: irrelevance.

But Abrahamson’s direction is just so strong and Donoghue’s script so refreshingly honest it’s hard to get to angry about little things that don’t rise to the same level of near-perfection the majority ascends to. Ultimately, Room (2015) is a lithe, deeply moving wonder that builds to a miraculous coda, the hope pulsating through my soul a feeling of true bliss unlike any I’ve felt watching a movie this entire year.

An enjoyable gore-filled trifle, [Scouts Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse] is an absurdist combination of Shaun of the Dead, Dead Alive, The Goonies and American Pie, and while things never go anyplace surprising, it’s all so easygoing and good-natured I had a good time watching it even if part of me knew better than to do so.

But some of these filmmakers, like Mendez, like Schifrin, like Parker, do a wonderful job, crafting short, sweet and merrily ghoulish holiday-themed yarns deserving of praise. As anthologies go, [Tales of Halloween] is a heck of a lot of fun, even the misses having a spunky, go-for-broke attitude worthy of going a tiny bit crazy for.

The Gallows isn’t very good. I gave it a second chance mainly because I feel like the filmmakers do have some talent, and while the idea they’ve come up for the film isn’t entirely original it’s still solid enough the potentially for a solid ghost story is definitely present. But it’s just so dumb, consistently so. Worse than that, it’s boring, trying to watch it again, even while folding laundry and doing dishes, about as tedious an operation as any I’ve attempted in quite some time.

Double time! Now happening in Cinema Squabble #22 (download .mp3): Squabblers at the ready: Sara, Adam and Brian. Listen in on the Halloween spirit discussing scary movies going back all the way to the year 2000! Reactions to new releases include Burnt, Beasts of No Nation, Room, Scouts Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse and Our […]