My Own Little World

Movies about the making of other movies are often really tricky to get right. The most notable examples of this struggle in my mind are Hitchcock , about the making of Psycho , and Saving Mr. Banks , about the making of Mary Poppins . Both are perfectly enjoyable films, but they struggle with a balance between summarizing the film’s existing Wikipedia article and giving us a new take on an already somewhat known story. Neither of these films succeeds at walking that line. In comes The Disaster Artist , James Franco’s look into the production of one of the best worst movies of all time. It does what no film about a film has done for me before: it separates itself from the film it is about enough to stand on its own as a great film. That being said, I do not think that it would be a smart move to watch The Disaster Artist without seeing The Room . There’s so many things in this film that are made that much funnier if you’ve already seen The Room – especially James Franco’s a...

I've taken a little more time in prepping my year-end wrap-up this year, mostly because I was making sure I had seen everything I wanted to in theaters before publishing. Like last year, I've written mini-reviews on all the films that I either saw too far into their theatrical run to do a full review on or after their home video release. Without further ado, I present to you Part 3 of the Rest of 2015... Ant-Man  - Buy it.   What sets Ant-Man apart is its unique tone. From 2014 on Marvel has done a really good job of making each film's tone distinct, and this continues with Ant-Man . It feels less like a superhero film and more like a heist comedy, allowing Paul Rudd to flex his comedic muscles quite a bit. The way Peyton Reed crafts the film's shrunken sequences puts a very unique mark on this Marvel film that will allow it to stand apart from the rest of their body of work.  Grade: 85 The Hunger Games: Mockingjay, Part 2  - Watch it.  Mockingjay...