Tag: Gabrielle Union

Cinema Dispatch: Breaking In

~ Matt Vetrano ~ Leave a comment

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Breaking In and all the images you see in this review are owned by Universal Pictures

Directed by James McTeigue

I mean if nothing else, this can’t be a worse Mother’s Day film than Mother’s Day.  Well that’s a bit unfair as I DID like what I saw in the trailers which involved Gabriel Union kicking the crap out of a bunch of home invaders, and a basic premise like that is almost foolproof in how easy it is to at least make a COMPETENT thriller with it.  Does this latest entry in the genre prove to be a breath of fresh air and something wholly original, or is this yet another run of the mill action film that doesn’t live up to its marketing campaign?  Let’s find out!!

Shaun Russell (Gabrielle Union) is a mother of two (Seth Carr and Ajiona Alexus) whose father (Damien Leake) had recently died and she’s in charge with handling the estate.  She drives out with her kids to the dude’s summer home which is a giant fortress of a place with an extremely elaborate security system and a whole lot of bad memories if Shaun’s reactions are anything to go by.  Sadly the unpleasant memories are the least of her problems as she soon finds out that three criminals (Billy Burke, Levi Meaden, and Richard Cabal) were already there searching for the old man’s secret stash of cash.  Now that Shaun and her kids are there though, they have to readjust their plans and start taking hostages.  The good news is that they manage to get the kids.  The bad news?  Shaun slips right out of their hands and is now SUPER pissed!  Can Shaun save her family before the bad guys get desperate?  What secrets were her father hiding in the house, and are they worth killing for?  Will Shaun tap into her inner Liam Neeson and teach these bastards a lesson in who NOT to fuck with!?

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“If you let my children go now, that’ll be the end of it.  I will not pursue you, but if you don’t, I will look for you, I will find you, and I will kill you.”     “Oh crap!  She saw that movie too!!”

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Cinema Dispatch: Girls Trip

~ Matt Vetrano ~ Leave a comment

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Girls Trip and all the images you see in this review are owned by Universal Pictures

Directed by Malcolm D Lee

I am so not looking forward to this one.  They just kept playing that trailer over and OVER again in front of everything I saw, and I never once found it funny; especially that joke (and I use the term loosely) about infectious diseases NOT being spread through the rectum.  Are we supposed to laugh because it’s ignorant?  I don’t know, but all that said it’s got a decent enough looking cast and trailers don’t ALWAYS accurately reflect the finished product.  Maybe there’s a chance this will turn out fine!  That’s possible, right!?  Well let’s find out!!

The movie is about four friends who were besties in college, but then life happened and they started to drift away as they found love, careers, and other things that kept them busy.  We’ve got Ryan Pierce (Regina Hall) who’s a self-help celebrity married to some dude named Stewart (Mike Colter), Lisa Cooper (Jada Pinkett Smith) who’s a divorcee as well as a helicopter mom, Sasha Franklin (Queen Latifah) who was going to be a great journalist but is stuck writing about celebrity gossip on her blog, Dina (Tiffany Haddish) who’s… well THE WILD CARD I guess.  Anyway, the titular trip of the movie happens when Ryan has an opportunity to get a TV show and is meeting up with the TV executives in New Orleans while she’s ALSO giving a speech at a women’s conference of some kind; both of which by the way are happening over the same weekend as the Essence Music Festival.  Given this once in a lifetime opportunity, she decides to call up her friends and invite them for a wild weekend which will surely be filled with shenanigans and wine coolers!  Of course, things don’t go as planned as all four of them have issues that bubble up to the surface during the trip and Ryan is at risk of losing that TV show deal if things get too far out of hand.  Can Ryan keep things under control between her wild friends and even her husband long enough to get what she’s always wanted?  Will Sasha betray her best friend once she gets her hands on some juicy gossip about her and her love life?  Will the other two resolve… whatever story arcs THEY have!?

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A selfie stick is the PERFECT accessory for any occasion… IN BED!!

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Cinema Dispatch: The Birth of a Nation

~ Matt Vetrano ~ 1 Comment

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The Birth of a Nation and all the images you see in this review are owned by Fox Searchlight Pictures

Directed by Nate Parker

To tell you the truth, I was not looking forward to seeing this and was up until the last minute figuring out if I wanted to take a pass on this considering the controversy surrounding the filmmaker’s past deeds.  Ultimately, I am a film critic and decided that I might as well have an informed opinion on something rather than avoiding the topic.  Not to say that someone choosing not to see this is making the wrong choice as it’s not anyone’s place to tell anyone else what to go see at the theater (I avoided that last Dinesh D’Souza film like the plague despite it sticking around for an embarrassingly long time at one of the theaters I frequent), rather I’m just letting you know what my reason was for deciding to review this film.  Does it manage to be a great film even with the controversies surrounding it, or will this be so bad that we can easily dismiss the film and its director?  Let’s find out!!

The movie is about the life of Nat Turner (Nate Parker who also writes, directs, and produces) who famously led a slave rebellion in 1831 that killed a bunch of slave owners before… well go read the Wikipedia page or watch the movie to find out what happened.  But what about his life BEFORE killing white people?  What drove the man to commit such acts of violence, especially considering how deeply religious he was?  After all, wasn’t one of the commandments THOUGH SHALL NOT KILL?  Well we get those answers as the rebellion itself is the climax to a character study of one man who faced indignity after indignity throughout his entire life and even saw it first hand when his master (Armie Hammer) had him go around to other plantations to preach the word of God to those slaves to keep them nice and complacent rather than rebellious and stabby.  What other challenges did Nat have to face before turning to the sword?  Well, you’ll just have to see the movie to find out!

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“I’ll go for the gut, Ax Guy can sweep the legs, and Hammer Bro?”     “Yes Nat?’     “Smash their fucking skulls in!”     “You got it!”

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