Sausage Party (2016) Movie Review

January 22, 2018 Steve Baqqi

What is a sausage party? Well, I’m way more partial to the slang term, sausage fest, but this Slate article will break it down for you (Kelly). You could either be talking about an actual social gathering where people are celebrating, cooking, sharing, and eating sausages like a barbeque, or you could be referring to a party or event in which the amount of males grossly outnumbers the females attendance (Kelly). With this in mind, Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg have co-opted the term for their super R-Rated CGI animated comedy, Sausage Party. Sausage Party is as funny as it is obscenely debased, absurd, and wildly inappropriate. The film has an excellent ninety-minute runtime and even tries to deliver commentary on religion, sex, and acceptance in a cruel, intolerant, and harsh world.

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Kevin Hart: What Now? (2016) Movie Review

December 26, 2017 Steve Baqqi

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Kevin Hart’s Kevin Hart: What Now? by Kevin Hart is a comedy special masquerading as a full-length feature film. For the record, I’m not a fan of Kevin Hart and his usual schtick. So why did I go see this movie? Well, there's always the chance that Kevin Hart will be as funny as everyone seems to think he is. Also, Kevin Hart: What Now? is yet another opportunity for Hart to reach out to a massive audience and win new fans like me. He didn’t. Finally, it’s my job. Kevin Hart: What Now? is more of the same. If you like Kevin Hart, you’ll like this.

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The Accountant (2016) Movie Review

October 26, 2016 Steve Baqqi

The Accountant is basically Rain Man crossed with a Bourne film, taken to its extreme. Ben Affleck stars as Christian Wolff, a high-functioning autistic accountant extraordinaire who deals with some of the most dangerous people on the planet. Unfortunately, The Accountant is a very uneven film, with a solid cast and exciting action sequences, but a clumsy and uneven narrative.

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Deepwater Horizon (2016) Movie Review

October 22, 2016 Steve Baqqi

The Deepwater Horizon was a deepwater offshore oil-drilling rig in the Gulf of Mexico that experienced a complete catastrophic blowout on April 20th, 2010. This blowout led to one of the worst environmental disasters in human history, and the largest oil spills in United States’ history. Deepwater Horizon is not concerned with analyzing the aftermath of the blowout, the closing of the sea floor oil gusher, or the environmental damage of the oil spill. Deepwater Horizon is a terrific disaster film that focuses on the human element of the people trapped on the Horizon that fateful day. The film also doubles as a scathing indictment of BP and their policies.

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The Girl on the Train (2016) Movie Review

October 19, 2016 Steve Baqqi

The Girl on the Train (2016) is a simple mystery movie based on a book by the same name, both centering on the lives and extramarital affairs of three women and two men in Westchester County, New York. Rachael, (one of the aforementioned women) a divorced and lonely alcoholic, fantasizes about a gorgeous couple she sees while riding the train every day. The woman of that fantasy couple, Megan Hipwell, ends up missing. Amid her drunken blackouts and emotional frailties, Rachael ends up caught in a web of lies and illicit affairs as she struggles to find out the truth of Megan's disappearance.

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The Wild Life (2016) Movie Review

October 6, 2016 Steve Baqqi

Robinson Crusoe is a classic literary work written by Daniel Defoe in the early 18th century. The story involves the titular character spending thirty years stranded on a deserted island and has since been adapted dozens of times into other media. The Wild Life is an animated film adapted from Robinson Crusoe, unfortunately, it’s god-awful. The film probably hoped to slip under the radar of late summer releases that generally bomb or go unnoticed by the masses. The Wild Life is a Belgian-French film translated into English and released upon a naive and unsuspecting audience. I, unfortunately, paid good money to see this garbage. You should not.

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Nerve (2016) Movie Review

October 4, 2016 Steve Baqqi

Would you, Nerve queries, watch as people did stupid and dangerous things for money? Better yet, would you do stupid and dangerous things for money and notoriety? Obviously. Youtube, WorldStarHipHop, Tosh.0, and Ridiculousness are all testament to humanity’s willingness to endanger their own lives for fleeting moments of fame and fortune as well as the insatiable need of others to watch it happen. Nerve combines this dark facet of human nature with portable technology to create the titular game, Nerve, in which players record themselves doing stupid things for money, and watchers pay to watch and dare players to do said stupid things. Nerve has a refreshingly original concept but the movie is kept from being great by several glaring flaws.

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Lights Out (2016) Movie Review

September 22, 2016 Steve Baqqi

Lights Out is another in a series of refreshing horror movies that have been released this year. Lights Out revolves around a dysfunctional family haunted by a malevolent spirit who cannot come into contact with light of any kind. That simple explanation doesn’t do the film justice. While the film isn’t as original as it thinks (see Darkness Falls, a terrible movie), it is a surprisingly good low budget horror film relying on the old ‘stay out of the dark’ trope.

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Don't Breathe (2016) Movie Review

September 19, 2016 Steve Baqqi

Boy, I bet the creators of Don’t Breathe are kicking themselves that they didn’t get the rights to the name Lights Out, the summer’s other surprisingly good horror/thriller. Still, Don’t Breathe is a simple and evocative title that matches the excellent trailer for the film. Don’t Breathe has a fairly original premise for the home invasion sub-genre: three idiots decide to rob a blind guy, thinking he’ll be easy prey. They quickly realize they messed with the wrong damn blind guy. The tables quickly turn on the idiot thieves and they become trapped The Blind Man’s home while he stalks them. Desperate to survive and escape the prison of their own making, the thieves uncover even more horrifying and disturbing details, while their psychotic blind captor hunts them down.

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Morgan (2016) Movie Review

September 17, 2016 Steve Baqqi

When I told my friends the latest movie I saw was Morgan, they each responded the same way. “Morgan? What’s that about? I haven’t heard or seen anything about it?” It seems as though Morgan failed in the advertising department which is a shame since more people won’t know how bad this movie was. Morgan is a film about bioengineering a being for less than noble means and SURPRISE, SURPRISE, that turns out to be a pretty terrible idea for everyone involved. Created destroys creator, blah, blah, blah, this movie sucks.

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War Dogs (2016) Movie Review

September 15, 2016 Steve Baqqi

Todd Phillips knows how to make a comedy about man-children who are unwilling or unable to grow up. Old School, The Hangover, and Due Date are all testament to Phillip’s uncanny ability to explore this arrested development. In War Dogs, Phillips attempts to move on to more serious fare, yet he can’t seem to leave behind the comfort of his comedic roots. As a result, War Dogs is a half comedy, and half Lord of War ripoff fused together into something that is neither wholly compelling, nor all that horrible either.

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The Infiltrator (2016) Movie Review

September 7, 2016 Steve Baqqi

Is there anything Bryan Cranston can’t do? I mean seriously, after appearing as everyone’s favorite meth kingpin, he’s been given a blank check to do whatever he wants. He’s generally starred in terrible dreck the past couple of years like Red Tails, John Carter, Rock of Ages, Total Recall, Godzilla, and Madagascar 3 but everyone gave these a pass; because come on! He is the one who knocks! Besides, he paid his dues for years with Malcolm in the Middle, and all it takes is just one Trumbo to remind us who we’re dealing with. Having said all that Cranston is one of the few good things about The Infiltrator, a boring, clichéd, undercover drug drama.

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Bad Moms (2016) Movie Review

September 1, 2016 Steve Baqqi

In Roger Ebert’s glowing review of Bridesmaids, he mentions that “[The Film] definitively proves that women are the equal of men in vulgarity, sexual frankness, lust, vulnerability, overdrinking, and insecurity,” and Bad Moms reminds me of this (Ebert). The film is a fantastic romp that doesn’t disparage mothers at all. Just the opposite in fact. The film is a hilarious comedy that evokes the best works of modern comedic masterminds Judd Apatow and Todd Phillips.

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The Legend of Tarzan (2016) Movie Review

July 25, 2016 Steve Baqqi

The Legend of Tarzan is, along with The Shallows, another surprisingly good film of 2016 (and forget what the Tomatometer says). I went into this film with extremely low expectations and The Legend of Tarzan exceeded all of them. That’s not to say that the film is great or even very good, no it's far from it. But The Legend of Tarzan isn’t a terrible either. It's an epic reimagining of Tarzan that stumbles but succeeds in being a satisfying adventure film.

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The Purge: Election Year (2016) Movie Review

July 24, 2016 Steve Baqqi

The Purge has always been an extremely in your face franchise. The first Purge, to paraphrase MovieBob, was a brilliant idea that was utterly wasted on a silly home invasion movie. It’s sequel, The Purge: Anarchy, (remember Yahtzee’s formula from Independence Day: Regurgence) took the basic idea and setting and turned it into a graphic, intense, revenge action flick. Frank Grillo starred as Sergeant Leo Barnes, part Urban Rambo part Charles Bronson- Death Wish style baby. It was a massive improvement over the original, and par for the course was extremely over the top with its themes and graphic violence. The third sequel, The Purge: Election Year, wisely follows in its predecessor's footsteps by continuing to focus on Leo Barnes and using the extremely tense current (2016) election year as its political backdrop.

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Independence Day: Resurgence (2016) Movie Review

July 22, 2016 Steve Baqqi

One of my favorite critics, Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw, once described a formula for making a good sequel. He said, “A good sequel is one that uses the original as a jumping off point for a whole new story with whole new technology. While a bad sequel merely wallows in the original like a hippo in a vat of liquidized children.” Croshaw was talking about video games, but this formula can be applied to Independence Day: Resurgence and is helpful when explaining why it's a horrific disaster. The film certainly showcases new technology both in the film, and in terms of CGI since the original, and that’s about it. Independence Day: Interstellar Regrets is a terrible travesty.

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The Shallows (2016) Movie Review

July 20, 2016 Steve Baqqi

The Shallows surprised me. I figured it to be a hackneyed star vehicle that showed off Blake Lively’s ample talents while a bunch of brown people die to save her. And while it does feature an attractive starlet who isn’t known for her acting prowess, and the only people who die are brown (it’s because they’re in Mexico guys), The Shallows is much better than a hackneyed star vehicle. The film is a straightforward but strong survival thriller.

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The Secret Life of Pets (2016) Movie Review

July 17, 2016 Steve Baqqi

The Secret Life of Pets has a simple but rather interesting premise, “What do your pets do when you’re not around?”. The film, made by Illumination Entertainment (Despicable Me, Minions), features an all-star cast led by Louis C.K., Eric Stonestreet, and Kevin Hart. Despite the potential to be great, The Secret Life of Pets is exactly as it’s billed, a wild adventure through New York City featuring talking animals that’s entertaining but has little else to offer.

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Central Intelligence (2016) Movie Review

July 14, 2016 Steve Baqqi

Like many children of the 1990’s, I was and have been a huge fan of Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson since he wrestled in the WWF (later WWE) and continued to be a fan as he successfully transitioned from wrestler to successful Hollywood actor. Unlike many people today, I am not that big a fan of Kevin Hart. His shtick as a comedian, i.e. “I’m short, black, and get into zany situations because of this” tends to wear thin on me very quickly. Having said that, the comedic duo of Hart & Johnson is (pardon the pun) rock solid in Central Intelligence and the movie as a whole is a funny and entertaining action comedy.

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The BFG (2016) Movie Review

July 9, 2016 Steve Baqqi

Finding Dory continues to rake in cash for the House of Mouse and it’s possible that Disney could have the top four highest grossing films in 2016 before the dust settles. Unfortunately for Disney, The BFG is going to end its extraordinary run of financial success. The BFG only made $18.77 million in its opening weekend, against a budget of $140 million, and will be lucky to earn half of that back. It’s actually quite puzzling as to why the film did so poorly. It has all the pedigree of a blockbuster: The film is co-produced by two of the biggest names in the business, Spielberg and Disney, it’s based on the Roald Dahl classic of the same name which has sold over 37 million copies, and it's a fun, family friendly, and visually stunning film.

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