New at BOP: Review: Matrix Resurrections Movie Review: Moonfall Movie Reviews: Scream The #1 Movie in America November Forecast The Many Saints of Newark October Forecast New Trivia Question All site updates Share & Save   Tweet Print this column

Please. We're all busy watching football.

Kim Hollis: What movies have you watched lately, and what did you think of them?

Matt Huntley:

1. The Possession: Not bad for a typical Hollywood "child-possessed-by-demon" movie (with some truly effective moments, especially toward the end), but also not good enough.

2. The Words: Blatant storytelling, but engaging drama and good performances make it worthwhile.

3. Night Moves (1975): Terrific film noir with Gene Hackman.

4. The Rules of the Game (1939): Classic from Jean Renoir about the erratic behavior of high society folk in pre-WWII France. Bizarre and unpredictable.

Tim Briody: If someone here didn't take one for the team and see Oogieloves (thus accounting for about 16% of its total box office), I will be severely disappointed.

Max Braden: David already knows that I've been waiting for this moment to tell everyone about my new favorite movie of the year, which nobody has seen (because it didn't actually record any box office). I haven't loved a movie this much since Black Dynamite or maybe Easy A. It may have been partly due to watching the movie at 3 a.m. when I was starting to get loopy from exhaustion... but no, it's great. Detention is part slasher, part high school comedy, part time travel movie. It is as self-aware as Scream, but the slasher aspect is barely seen for the first half of the film, and they don't even get to detention until an hour into the movie. "They" include Shanley Caswell as the outsider high school girl, Josh Hutcherson as the cool guy, and Spencer Locke as the dim blonde. The movie just gets crazier and crazier, and with so many '90s references I was shocked to find myself nostalgic. Highly recommended, and when you see it and don't agree with me, I recommend you keep your lips zipped.

I had to go see The Expendables 2. It's an '80s guy's moral imperative to see an expanded dream team of action stars. I didn't mind the slow pace of the first one too much, but the paint-by-numbers story of this one annoyed me. The new guy should have been wearing a red shirt when he announced his dreams of retiring from mercenary life to live with his girlfriend in their modest dream home in Paris.

Premium Rush reminded me of bike movies Rad and BMX Bandits from the '80s, as well as Better Off Dead and Ferris Beuller's Day Off because of the cop chasing Joseph Gordon Levitt and constantly yelling "Stop, NYPD." A little too Keystone Cops while taking itself seriously, and Michael Shannon has been much better in all his other movies.

I went to see Lawless because I'm a huge fan of Tom Hardy (moreso Warrior than Dark Knight), but he was trying too hard to be understated in this movie. It was all right, but I'd pick The Untouchables and Legends of the Fall over it.

Continued:       1       2       3       4       5       6