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Review: In the Detroit-set 'Kin,' a kid with a very big gun

In the teen sci-fi thriller ?Kin,? a shy 14-year-old kid finds unearthly powers in the vacant warehouses of Detroit ? an intriguing if standard young-adult premise that dissolves before your eyes in this inept and erratic directorial debut.

Jonathan and Josh Baker?s ?Kin? expands from their 2014 short ?Bag Man,? a film that must have shown enough promise to attract a topline cast featuring Zoe Kravitz, Dennis Quaid, James Franco and a couple prominent late cameos in the full-length feature. But ?Kin,? as is common to late-August releases, has the uneven, half-baked feel of franchise designs gone bust.

It stars newcomer Myles Truitt as the young Eli, whose adoptive family could be cheerier. Quaid plays his gruff blue-collar father; the mother is gone; and his older brother, Jimmy (Jack Reynor) is just getting out of prison after six years. A not great situation quickly goes downhill when Jimmy?s brutal debtors (led by Franco? KIN : LE COMMENCEMENT (2018) ) come to collect.

When things get bloody, Jimmy misleads Eli about what?s happened, and the two flee westward with a bag of cash, uprooting from the dark streets of Detroit for a cross-country chase that, to a surprising degree, plays out at a Midwestern strip club, where they meet Kravitz? Review: In the Detroit-set 'Kin,' a kid with a very big gun , and a Reno casino. Before leaving, Eli, while wandering the vacant buildings on his bike, comes across an alien gun that proves predictably handy in the showdowns to come, but that also sends a pair of very human-sized aliens on his path, speeding along ? just like the extraterrestrial pursuers of ?Under the Skin? ? on motorcycles.

But should a movie about a parentless 14-year-old be centered on a gun, one that only he can fire? Is that empowering? The underlying odiousness of the gun violence ? both regular and ray ? in ?Kin? is particularly questionable given its PG-13 rating.

But the bigger problems in ?Kin? have more to do with the script by Daniel Casey which takes implausible turns without grounding any of the action in the characters. Given the film?s title, and that the filmmakers are themselves twins, you would expect the brother relationship at the heart of the movie to be something more than it is. But Eli and Jimmy seem worlds apart, even when they?re talking to each other. For a movie centered on brotherhood, it?s remarkably empty of any sense of kinship.

When one character chases after them, she sums it up: ?$60,000 and a space gun? Who the hell are you people??

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The Austin Chronicle

Much like Monsters, Inc., this animated children’s film inverts the common storyline about human beings’ fear of others and puts the focus on the fears that other species have for human beings – in this case, a village of yetis who live in the Himalayas, high above the clouds. A baroque system of beliefs that are literally carved into stones keeps the community happily whirring and isolated from anything that might contradict its basic tenets (i.e., an origin story in which yetis were pooped from the butt of the Great Sky Yak and that the sun is a giant snail that needs to be wakened every morning by a giant gong). The opening tune attests to their “perfect” lives but warns that the stones should not be doubted: “If you have a question, stuff it down,” they sing. The plot of Smallfoot inherently challenges the wisdom of this philosophy and sides in favor of truth and the questioning of authority. ?SMALLFOOT? ? Yeti Player One � FreshFiction.tv is a film that encourages young yetis everywhere to cast off their intellectual blinders.

Migo (Tatum) is a yeti in training to take over the position of the village gongkeeper, which is currently held by his father (DeVito). Quite by accident Migo overshoots his gong target and discovers a world beyond the mountain’s edge, which the stones describe as a vast nothingness. Migo witnesses an airplane crash and a smallfoot pilot parachuting from the wreckage. Yet when he tells the villagers about his experience and his sighting of the mythic smallfoot people, the Stonekeeper (Common) banishes him from the community for contradicting its precepts. Wandering alone, Migo discovers the secretive Smallfoot Evidentiary Society, led by the Stonekeeper’s own daughter Meechee (Zendaya). In the human village below the clouds, Migo makes awkward friends with Percy (Corden), the preening television host of a nature show, who is struggling between his desire for fame and his ideal of integrity. (Corden’s lyrically reworked version of the song “Under Pressure” is a hoot.) Migo brings Percy back to the yetis to prove his assertion about the existence of the smallfoot, but the society’s center cannot hold amid the revelation of these new truths. LES ABOMINABLES PETITS-PIEDS (2018) with Migo the origins of the yeti myths, which were formed as self-protection against the human enemies who sought to capture and kill the gentle giants. And true enough, some rough encounters between the human and the yeti occur later in the film. A police barricade even separates the two groups at one point, trading on images recently popularized during the notorious contretemps in such places as Ferguson, Mo., and Charlottesville, Va.

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Hush Movie Review & Film Summary (2016)

Mike Flanagan?s ?Hush,? which premiered at the SXSW Film Festival last month before popping up on Netflix today, is an old-fashioned home invasion thriller that works on its own modest terms. It?s one of those simple horror flicks that?s so streamlined it feels long even at only 82 minutes. It might have worked better as a short film or installment of an anthology series like ? http://ow.ly/4pVw101nKyn of Horror,? but Flanagan has a notable skill in building tension and then just allowing it to simmer. He doesn?t resort to the jump scare tactics that mar so many similar low-budget films. In fact, the most terrifying, shocking moments in ?Hush? typically come without the loud music cue or pouncing cat that producers commonly think is necessary to get you jumping. There are choices in the final act that I won?t spoil but really didn?t work for me (the script foreshadows it, which made me dread its inevitability even more), but this is a better-than-average, essentially-VOD thriller for the weekend that could offer a glimpse at the future of festival-to-streaming titles.

Maddie (Kate Siegel) is a deaf-mute writer, living in a secluded home. It?s a set-up that short story master Stephen King would love, and it?s no coincidence that we see his Mr. Mercedes on a dresser. The film?s greatest strength is highlighted in the first scene, as Maddie cooks dinner: the sound design. thanostv hear eggs cracking, onions being sliced, asparagus sizzling on the stove?and then the sound falls away as we close in on her face. She has been deaf since the age of 13, and we get a bit more of her history and the way her mind works when neighbor/friend Sarah comes over for a brief visit (Samantha Sloyan).

After Sarah leaves, Maddie goes back to cooking. We see a screaming Sarah run toward her kitchen door, pounding on it for help, but Maddie is completely unaware, even as a crossbow-wielding maniac (John Gallagher Jr. of ?10 Cloverfield Lane? and ?Short Term 12,? very good here against type) slices Sarah?s throat about ten feet from her neighbor. He even knocks on the door. Maddie doesn?t respond. The masked killer becomes fascinated with Maddie, and decides he wants to prolong her fate and play games with her. He starts by stealing her cell phone and texting her pictures of herself that night. Then, even after the cat has revealed himself to the mouse, he doesn?t just kill her. In ?Hush,? the psychotic killer?s motives are vague, so if he?s just a lunatic killing for fun, why not have a little bit more of it?

Flanagan is surprisingly reserved with ?Hush? in that a lot of filmmakers would have fallen back on more tricks to keep the audience engaged in what is a largely silent film. He doesn?t allow the unnamed ?Man? to monologue his way through the movie. He doesn?t amp up the score (at least until the final act). He really lets his set-up work for the middle 40 minutes of the film as our only two characters move toward the inevitable climax. And he saves a few surprises for the final act.

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DVD Talk Review of the DVD Video

Nick Jr.'s ThanosTV is based on Beatrix Potter's popular series of children's books; he's so popular, in fact, that our heroic hare is actually the oldest licensed character. This show premiered in late 2012 as a holiday special that drew over three million viewers and, months later, continued as a regular animated series. A second season has already been ordered...but for now, 18 episodes (containing two 11-minute stories apiece) were originally aired through October of last year. It took almost six months for a wide DVD release of these episodes and, disappointingly enough, this self-titled first volume contains less than a quarter of Season One's content. This won't come as a surprise to most parents, but such a shrewd release strategy all but ensures that (a) some of these episodes may never be released on home video, and (b) you'll pay through the nose by the time you're done. In the long run, only Star Trek fans have it worse.

Some parents may take issue with Peter Rabbit's mantra of "take what you can get"; after all, this little fella (along with his pals Benjamin Bunny and Lily Bobtail) lies, cheats and steals more than Eddie Guerrero. Of Watch Peter Rabbit 2018 , Potter's source material never shied away from the fact that yes, these are animals that can't help but scavenge for their dinner of crunchy, delicious radishes. But I can see their point: Peter Rabbit's characters are anthropomorphized more than ever here, boasting a slick sheen of CGI and a sassy, sarcastic vocabulary that doesn't always feel like a good fit. Still, the stories are rarely anything less than sweet and (mostly) innocent...but considering this show is aimed at the preschool set, it seems just a little out of bounds in certain regards. In any case, lessons are usually learned and no real harm is ever done, but I'd imagine most kids and their parents would probably get more enjoyment out of DVDs like this one.

Eight stories on this DVD include "The Tale of the Radish Robber", "The Tale of Two Enemies", "The Tale of the Greedy Fox", "The Tale of the Secret Treehouse", "The Tale of Benjamin's Strawberry Raid", "The Tale of the Lying Fox", , "The Tale of the Angry Cat" and "The Tale of Mr. Tod's Trap". All together, this accounts for the first four episodes of Season One, although the 2012 pilot special ""Peter Rabbit's Christmas Tale" is not included for obvious reasons. Paramount's DVD package predictably arrives without bonus features, though at least the original widescreen format is preserved.

Presented in the show's original 1.78:1 aspect ratio and enhanced for 16x9 displays, Peter Rabbit looks good with mild reservations. The textured CGI artwork leans on the soft side (more an issue with standard definition or the source material than a transfer problem), while colors are accurate and no edge enhancement is apparent. Modest but regular amounts of interlacing are present, however, which weakens the already-soft image just a little bit more. Peter Rabbit still looks OK and most kids won't pick up on any problems, but there's certainly a little room for improvement here.

The audio doesn't suffer from any technical problems, as this Dolby Digital 2.0 mix offers clean dialogue, background details and a fair amount of channel separation. The music is definitely mixed on the loud side (especially the opening and closing credits), although this may very well be a source material issue. Any complaints with the voice acting, of course, also shouldn't put the DVD rating at fault. Either way, Peter Rabbit generally sounds good and, considering the occasional video problems, this audio presentation gets an easier pass in direct comparison. No subtitles have been included...and while this disc offers optional Closed Captions, they're obviously not compatible with 16x9 displays.

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Loving Pablo review ? Javier Bardem's Escobar flick fails to sniff out new lines

If nothing else, Fernando L�on de Aranoa?s latest film Loving Pablo has given us the sight of a corpulent Javier Bardem hustling nude through the jungles of South America, semi-automatic rifle in hand, desiccated buttocks practically flapping in the wind. It?s a bizarre scene, kind of funny and kind of pathetic, and thoroughly memorable. If only Aranoa could conjure another scene, even another image quite as surreal.

Because http://tinyurl.com/ya23p946 about Pablo Escobar, the paunchy cocaine baron Bardem effortfully portrays in this adaptation of the memoir Loving Pablo, Hating Escobar, was larger than life. Already dramatized everywhere from Netflix?s Narcos to a movie-within-a-movie on Entourage, his story brings him from humble beginnings as the most ruthless kingpin in Colombia through a stint as a publicly elected (well, ?publicly elected?) official to his inevitable fall from power.

Aranoa?s film attempts to put a new spin on this colorful tale by telling it through the perspective of that memoir?s author, Escobar?s longtime mistress Virginia Vallejo (Pen�lope Cruz). But even with the newscaster-turned-accomplice calling the shots, Escobar remains the star of the show.

As with the Lorraine Bracco?s point-of-view move in Goodfellas, the film places a greater focus on the notion of unwilling complicity than most in the gangster genre, but still struggles to produce much original insight. In adherence with an apparent rule that all crime sagas must begin in medias res, we first join Virginia as Pablo?s empire crumbles and she takes asylum in an undisclosed location with DEA protection, represented in the film by a savvy agent courtesy of Peter Sarsgaard.

Though that one scene all but lays out the entire plot before the movie itself can do so, we tumble back in time nevertheless to the first fateful meeting between the star-crossed lovers at a swanky party on Pablo?s compound. While that sequence is not technically a shot-for-shot remake of Leonardo DiCaprio first laying eyes on Margot Robbie in The Wolf of Wall Street, squint your eyes a little and it might as well be.

Pablo proves irresistible to Virginia. Not that he makes it easy on her ? besides rocking a gut that could conceal a regulation bowling ball, he makes stomach-churning threats against her life and in what might be an even crueler move, forces her to purchase a diamond necklace for the wife he won?t leave. Even when he intimidates or verbally abuses her, however, she comes back after he does something thoughtful, like brutalizing the ex-husband that won?t sign Virginia?s divorce finalization papers. Until, as the opening scene informs us upfront, she doesn?t.

The film features Virginia in enough scenes that we?re made to believe Aranoa has a sincere interest in her reluctant moral compromise, but she?s only ever a mirror through which we catch the reflection of Pablo. The voice-over narration coming from Cruz (another tick on the Goodfellas homage checklist) does the audience the service of walking them through an intricate culture of drug trafficking, and provides direct insight into her estimation of the rapidly deteriorating situation.

But those thoughts almost always revolve around Pablo and his endless complexities. He turned the Medell�n region of Colombia into a war zone where street kids get a cash reward for every slain cop?s badge they turn in to the cartel. At the same time, he funneled a great deal of his blood money back into the local economy and defended the nation?s poorest citizens when no one else would. For a film ostensibly about Virginia, she?s left with little to do besides fret, stray, and return while Pablo lives his life.

At least Cruz and Bardem appear to be having a ball with the 80s milieu and their characters? outsized personalities. The costuming and hair, from Bardem?s curly black hairpiece to Cruz?s eternally fluffed-up coiffure, add a bit of color to the routine, and Bardem?s fat-neck prosthesis is weirdly transfixing. And thanostv rises when their fiery attitudes mix and threaten to combust; though the script is in English for what Bardem has confirmed were wrangling-a-budget reasons, their spats spark with such passion that a viewer can nearly hear the Spanish behind it.

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GOOSEBUMPS 2: HAUNTED HALLOWEEN

Witches, werewolves, creatures, spiders, mummies, pumpkins? Halloween is always a colorful combination of characters and frightful findings. The same can be said about R.L. Stine?s popularGoosebumpsbook series. Given the number of books he?s written over the years, it?s no wonder that the 2015 film decided to take an ensemble approach to the author?s creations instead of adapting just one story. The meta-approach to bringing the stories to the big-screen while acknowledging the author?s popularity within the film resulted in tongue-in-cheek family fun. GOOSEBUMPS 2: HAUNTED HALLOWEEN takes a very similar approach but sets it during? you guessed it. Now, https://www.thanostv.org/movie/goosebumps-2-haunted-halloween-2018 have a film made up of Halloween,Goosebumpscharacters, self-aware humor, and even Nikola Tesla (yes, the famous inventor). While the combination should work on paper, these ingredients come together into a concoction that?s never as sweet or fun as the first entry.

Besides Jack Black reprising his role as famous horror writer R.L. Stine ? in what feels like a stint filmed over the course of a weekend ? we?re treated (or tricked, depending on how you look at it) to a whole new family-friendly cast of characters in a new setting. Sonny and Sam (Jeremy Ray Taylor and Caleel Harris) discover a hidden room with a chest when they are scavenging in an abandoned home. Inside the chest, they discover a locked book titledHaunted Halloween. When they open it, they flip through it and realize it?s unfinished. What they initially don?t realize is that they also resurrected Slappy the ventriloquist dummy. It?s now up to the two friends and Sonny?s sister Sarah (Madison Iseman) to stop Slappy from bringing Halloween characters to life and destroying their town.

R.L. Stine?sGoosebumpsbook series is one of the reasons why I?m the horror fan I am today. There are other films, books, and tv shows that formed the macabre mind I have today, butGoosebumpswas one of the first. Even though I went into the 2015 film adaptation with apprehension, I left feeling that GOOSEBUMPS perfectly captured the tone of Stine?s children?s stories while incorporating a clever conceit so that all of the writer?s creations can emerge on-screen.

Director Ari Sandel has a hard time finding his footing taking over for Rob Letterman. The jokes don?t land quite right, the scale of it all seems smaller and cheaper than it should (similar to the TV show), and the film bounces between scenes somewhat sporadically, feeling as if it doesn?t quite know what it?s doing. Granted, Watch Goosebumps 2: Haunted Halloween 2018 of the blame can be put on the script by Darren Lemke. Once the film turns into Slappy?s show, the characters serve more as conduits to explain the plot instead of genuine and goofy kids. They ?randomly? stumble upon R.L. Stine?s name when researching weird paranormal events online. Next, they suddenly know how to use the book to beat the demons. And of course, they know Slappy will use Tesla?s coil to bring everything to life. A number of plot points are clumsily shoe-horned into the dialogue to push the film from one visual gag to the next.

GOOSEBUMPS 2 isn?t without a few fun and scary moments that page-turning fans will appreciate. Like the garden gnome scene in the first film, the gummy bear setpiece makes for a gooey treat as the little guys morph into one another to create a larger demon bear. And, of course, there?s the fan-favorite Slappy. While he wears out his welcome on screen, his introduction in the spooky old house is the perfect example of a less-is-more style of scare, free of the CGI to come. By the time he?s raising an army of monsters in a department store, you get the feeling that the screenwriter might have mashed two film ideas together: a Slappy spin-off film and a remake of the first film.

It?s trying to be a love letter to the season of Halloween (complete with a HALLOWEEN III: SEASON OF THE WITCH visual nod). It?s trying to be a creepy doll film. It?s trying to be a fun family film. It?s trying to be a ?Goosebumps Greatest Hits? creature feature. It even feels like it?s trying to be an anti-bullying PSA in the first half with a number of drawn-out scenes. GOOSEBUMPS 2: HAUNTED HALLOWEEN wants to be all this and more, but it can?t quite achieve any of these as it lives in the monster-sized shadow of its predecessor.

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I Don't Feel At Home in This World Anymore

This was originally reviewed as part of our Sundance 2017 coverage.

PLOT: After her home is burglarized, a depressed nurse (Melanie Lynskey) and her oddball neighbor (Elijah Wood) try to track down the culprits, but find themselves pulled into an inevitable, violent confrontation.

REVIEW: I DON?T FEEL AT HOME IN THIS WORLD ANYMORE, which takes the cake as the most unwieldy film title in recent memory, is the directorial debut of Macon Blair. Best known for starring in Jeremy Saulnier?s BLUE RUIN and co-starring in his follow-up, GREEN ROOM, Blair, who also penned the screenplay, establishes himself as a major director in his own right. Already snapped-up by Netflix, this comic neo-noir seems tailor made for that streaming platform, and is the kind of interesting genre mash-up that should help make the service a legit destination for indie auteurs.

This is certainly a terrific showcase for lead Melanie Lynskey. An indie stalwart, whose films, such as the underrated HELLO, I MUST BE GOING, too often come and go without much buzz, Lynskey gives a awards caliber performance. Depressed but not humorless, this worn-down nurse feels isolated from those around her, with her only lifeline being a stoner friend who?s outgrowing her now that she has a child. Her feelings of alienation are exacerbated by the break-in, but given that only a laptop and some china were taken the police essentially shrug-off the crime.

Through some mild detective work, she manages to find significant clues pointing her in the direction of the thieves, enlisting her kung-fu-loving neighbor, the rat-tailed, church-going Elijah Wood to help her out. Both are pulled into an underworld they have no concept of and are utterly unprepared to deal with, and after a comic first half-hour, the film morphs into a thriller not far removed from Sundance hit COLD IN JULY.

http://ow.ly/GcsT101nKYo ?s directorial talent is clear as day, with beautiful 2:35:1 compositions that cry out to be seen theatrically (which is unlikely given Netflix?s model), and uniformly excellent performances. Wood?s been really solid in his recent indie work, but to me this is his best performance in a long time, and he?s used in a unique way by Blair, who, it wouldn?t be http://bit.ly/2Q8Fpwt to imagine could have played this role himself.

Blair?s also done a good job slowly, but surely, building tension to the sudden explosion of ultra-violence in the finale. Straddling many genre lines, the film could have been a jarring mess, but Blair makes the transitions smooth and naturalistic. The baddies, led by the psychotic David Gow, the fragile Devon Graye and a nearly unrecognizable Jane Levy, are scary enough that you keep hoping Lynskey and Wood will be able to avoid them - although the confrontation does not disappoint. Blair?s brothers, Brooke and Will, contribute a memorable score along the lines of their work for BLUE RUIN and GREEN ROOM, and the oddball soundtrack choices, including Echo & the Bunnymen?s ?Bring on the Dancing Horses? give this a distinctive musical identity, something we don?t often see in mainstream films nowadays.

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Redbad (2018) Movie Review from Eye for Film

In most of the countries where this film is seen, viewers will likely never have heard of Redbad. In the Netherlands and northern Germany, especially among supporters of the Frisian independence movement, he's a familiar name, but there's still not a great deal known about his story. Something of a political inconvenience in the years after his death, he was quietly omitted from records, and some sources even suggest that information about him was destroyed. All this is quite convenient for a hero - fans are largely free to project onto him what values they like. It also offers plenty of potential for a film, though the Redbad we meet here is a less consistent figure, at times too complex to fit the hero mould, at times too heroic to be convincing as a man.

The 8th Century was a time of significant religious tension in northern Europe as the new Middle Eastern god sought to supplant those native to the region. Neither side is portrayed here in a flattering manner, at least not from the point of view of a modern audience. The Vikings practise human sacrifice, partly in an attempt to ensue good harvests and military victories, partly for political expedience - the public gets what the public wants. The Christian Franks consider themselves more civilised but are not averse to a spot of torture or wife beating and have no qualms about slaughter in battle. http://bit.ly/2rfgA34 use a shield wall technique that relies on cooperation, but they're ill-disciplined. The Vikings mostly rely on running at their enemies whilst roaring a waving swords, a technique that worked well for them for several centuries (though better with axes). Somewhere in the midst of all this, Redbad finds himself wondering about philosophy and strategy and better ways of doing things. He's remembered as a warrior, but as with Genghis Khan or Robert the Bruce, it's really his intellect that matters.

http://ow.ly/Tx6E101nKWM carries the central role well but the role doesn't always fit with the film, which demonstrates that uncertainty of pacing and purpose all too common when an action director takes on a biopic. Director Roel Rein� seems caught between attempts at realism and playing to the crowd. His battle sequences tell an interesting story, initially chaotic, later sharpening up and becoming tactically intriguing as Redbad develops a clearer idea of what he's doing and starts to innovate. That much of what we see involves warriors simply straining and flailing against each other is entirely realistic but it means that the early conflicts offer limited satisfaction for the viewer. By contrast, the final battle scene is stagy in the extreme. Redbad's emotional journey and developing political awareness are approached in a similar way.

There's some great moody cinematography on display here but large stretches of the film are desaturated, a technique that's popular with filmmakers working on low budgets who want to look stylish but which has, by way of that popularity, come to look tedious and cheap. Most of what's included in these sections could be cut and the film would be no poorer for it - indeed, at nearly three hours long, it could really do with an editor. It would be easier to connect with Redbad's character and passions if the film were not trying to cover every conflict in his career, most of which contribute little to the sense of story. It's more successful in its intimate moments, when dealing with small numbers of characters and giving us room to get to know them. Loes Haverkort and Lisa Smit make an impression as the two women in Redbad's life, as fierce in battle as any of the men, but some of the actors are at the best when standing at the back and not speaking.

What makes this film significant beyond its focus on a neglected European hero is its treatment of his religious ideas. Without wanting to give too much away, one might note that this could lead to it having problems getting screened in parts of the US. Epic heroes making the particular impassioned arguments that Redbad does here have been absent from cinema for most of its history, judiciously ignored as Redbad was by those who came to power after he died, and it's good to see that their time has finally come - cinema is, with this film, a little closer to growing up and looking squarely at the world in all its diversity.

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Salyut-7 (2017) Movie Review from Eye for Film

We get so used to the dominance of English-language and, particularly, American cinema in the mainstream that it's easy to forget that it isn't just the language that has the upper hand - but also the stories. Get off the planet and - outside the arena of genre science-fiction - the dominance is even more great. This is one of the reasons why Klim Shipenko's Salyut-7 is such a treat.

thanostv does it view an Apollo 13-style mission from an entirely Russian cosmonaut perspective - even going so far as to briefly feature a couple of US astronauts waving nonchalantly from a distance to the heroes of the drama - Shipenko's film is a match for US output in terms of its look and technical skill.

The plot elements feel familiar - the space station that has lost touch with ground control, the forcibly retired cosmonaut (Vladimir Vdovichenkov), who is called back for one last mission to rescue it, the inexperienced co-pilot (Pavel Derevyanko) who finally gets his shot at going into space because he has the engineering skills to get the station working again. But despite the familiarity, there is a genuine sense of the unknown for non-Russian audiences, who are likely to be unfamiliar with the Salyut-7 story - it must be said that the tale has also been 'beefed' up with some additional incident, although Schipenko says that all the events here occurred in one Soviet mission or another.

thanostv to see the usual Ground Control US politics switched out for Russian concerns, including the fear that a foreign power will get hold of the stricken station and, with it, Soviet technology. There's also a real sense of cultural difference in some of the motifs used, such as the recurring appearance of the 1980 Olympic mascot bear Mishka (the action is set in 1985). It's also hard to imagine a US filmmaker having the nerve to include one of the best moments here - the sight of one cosmonaut sparking up a ciggie in space. The cinematography by Sergey Astakhov and Ivan Burlakov, approaches Gravity accomplishment, on a fraction of the budget.

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17 to Paris Movie Review

Barely a year away from turning 90, Clint Eastwood has remained one of Hollywood's most prolific filmmakers. Since winning an Oscar for directing 1992's Best Picture, Unforgiven, Eastwood has been someone to follow closely.

That eleventh hour Oscar contender seems to have driven Eastwood away from dark, introspective tales and towards celebrating modern day American heroism. He followed that up with Sully, a well-reviewed, well-attended drama about US Airways pilot Chesley Sullenberger's fast-thinking Hudson River landing. The 15:17 to Paris is much in the same vein, but Eastwood goes even one step further by casting the real men who were involved in stopping the 2015 terrorist attack on a Paris-bound train.

The film jumps around chronologically, but settles on the friendship of our three leads, formed in childhood at the Christian school where military-obsessed Spencer (William Jennings) and his best friend Alek (Bryce Gheisar) meet fellow principal's office fixture Anthony (Paul-Mik�l Williams). The three grow up making moderate trouble, so that moms (Jenna Fischer and Judy Greer) are called into visit teachers and learn about ADD. This first third of the movie is surprisingly full of faces familiar from television comedy, as Jaleel White ("Family Matters"), Tony Hale ("Arrested Development", "Veep"), and Thomas Lennon ("Reno 911!& thanostv ;) all show up.

Of course, the main body of the film casts the real Spencer Stone, Alek Skarlatos, and Anthony Sadler as themselves. It is Stone who emerges as the lead. One day while working at Jamba Juice, he serves a Marine and develops his dream to join a demanding specific branch of the Air Force. click here gets into shape and pushes himself in training, but has to settle for a different branch.

What seems to be another American Sniper-type story turns into just three friends vacationing together in Europe. They do what young men do: get drunk, chase women, use a selfie stick to document the trip. Of course we know from the title and design that we're leading to the titular train ride in which an absurdly well-armed ISIS terrorist is prepared to kill a whole bunch of people. He picked the wrong train, though, with these three guys, especially Stone, aboard. He also seems to be to terrorism what the Wet Bandits are to home burglarly, which helps.

15:17 isn't as harrowing as you might expect. The attack itself the whole film is building up to is short as it should be. The design invites comparisons to Sully, which got a 90-something minute feature out of a 90-second incident. This isn't nearly as compelling or well-structured a drama as that film, which should have competed for major Oscars last year.

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What Will People Say Movie Review (2018)

This relentlessly upsetting film, written and directed by Iram Haq, begins by showing Nisha (Maria Mozdeh), the teen daughter of Pakistani immigrants, living a relatively Westernized teen life in Norway. She hangs out with pals, smokes a little weed, dates a red haired fellow named Daniel. Tasked with bringing a package to her dad?s shop, she?s instructed by her mom to cover up, and Nisha puts a jacket on, covering her navel-revealing midriff top.

The tensions between traditionalist parents (there?s also an older brother, who?s obedient and dutiful to the point of obsequiousness) and child seem genuine, but negotiable. That all changes when, one evening, Nisha and Daniel come into her bedroom via the fire escape of the family apartment. ?Have you asked my parent to marry me? Then what are you doing here?? Nisha jokes with Daniel. They indulge in mild kissing. There?s no indication much more than that is going to happen. But Nisha?s father Mirza (Adil Hussain) presumes everything?s already happened when he storms into the room, pummels the crap out of Daniel, and bellows accusations at Nisha.

Mirza?s brutality is sudden and implacable. Soon he?s escorting Nisha back to Pakistan, where?s she?s to stay with his mother and his sister. We don?t know the endgame Mirza has in mind: to make Nisha more devout? Or just fob her off permanently. ThanosTV of her situation is brought into near-horrific focus on Nisha?s first night with her new family. Sleeping next to a younger cousin, that girl asks her, ?Who do you like best: Rihanna or Beyonc�?? The girls who?s supposed to be unlearning Westernization can?t get the hell away from it.

As bad as Mirza is?and before he takes leave of Nisha to go back to Norway, he tries to bribe a hug from her with chocolate chip cookies?her new family is rather worse. They act very kind and proper, but move on step out of line and they? ThanosTV . After one perceived misstep, Nisha?s uncle visits her late in the night. Do you want to be married off to a villager, he asks. ?You?ll be milking buffaloes for the rest of your life,? he says with something like glee. Then he burns Nisha?s passport. ?You?re our daughter now.?

I didn?t want to see any of the characters causing Nisha suffering to be shown the error of their ways. I wanted to see them defenestrated. When a friend of the Pakistani family, a nice young man named Amir, began showing interest in Nisha, I did not want to see that interest reciprocated. I wanted her to snub him hard. But at this point in the movie she is terribly lonesome and he does seem kind. And boom, their affinity leads to more trouble for Nisha. Terrible trouble.