XXX Factor

With its sequel being released today, I thought this was the perfect time to look back at 2014's The Equalizer – the first time the director/actor duo of Antoine Fuqua and Denzel Washington re-teamed since their impressive 2001 effort Training Day (they have since filmed The Magnificent Seven and The Equalizer 2 together). Loosely based upon the 1980s television series of the same name (starring Edward Woodward), Denzel Washington steps into the role of Robert McCall. . . a lonely, quiet and highly OCD man living in Boston. . . who is clearly low on sleep – as he spends his evenings at an all-night diner reading classic literature. During his days, he works at a big box hardware store, a semblance of a bland, repetitive life (his mind often lingers on the past, a complicated history of regret and loss). . . his fellow employees constantly guess what his former job was. . . McCall claims he was a former Pip (as in Gladys Knight & The Pips), showing off his dance moves as the much younger employees look up the reference.

An oft-used motif in the sports genre is the underdog story – Rocky, Rudy, Miracle (about the 1980 U.S. Olympic hockey team), and so many others feed off of the audiences love of cheering for the expected loser (as is the case with the stories these films are often based on). One such feature that follows this well trodden path yet finds some new ground to surprise is David O. Russell’s 2010 feature, The Fighter. Based on real life boxer “Irish” Micky Ward (Mark Wahlberg), the Lowell, Massachusetts native has become a stepping stone for other boxers making their way up towards a title opportunity. Managed by his domineering mother, Alice (Melissa Leo), and trained by his character of a half-brother, Dicky Eklund (Christian Bale) – a former boxer who had potential (going head to head with Sugar Ray Leonard in 1978 – actually knocking the icon down. . . the legend makes a cameo in the film), but has become a crack addict.

Well, if for some reason you’ve ever had the random thought that it would be cool seeing a group of board game loving friends wrapped up in a Taken-like kidnapping mystery – unbeknownst to them (for a good portion of it), then 2018's Game Night is for you. To have some fun, I have tried to work as many titles of games into this review as possible. Written by Mark Perez and directed by John Francis Daley (Bones’ Lance Sweets) and Jonathan Goldstein (the pair were part of the writing staff behind Spider-Man: Homecoming), the plot follows a group of weekly game nighters. . . ultra-competitive married couple Max (Jason Bateman) and Annie (Rachel McAdams), long time sweethearts Kevin (Lamorne Morris) and Michelle (Kylie Bunbury), and the oft ridiculed for having a new piece of dim-witted arm candy each week, Ryan (Billy Magnussen – delivering a great comedic performance in which he too is rather dense) – he has finally surprised the gang by bringing a sharp Irish lass named Sarah (Sharon Horgan); each week is a constant battle to discover who will be numero UNO.

The obituary – the last call, the final farewell, the closing shindig (likely the only remaining time you’ll be the centre of attention), basically a public invite looking for a person’s friends and family to come together for one last time to say goodbye, to tell stories, and to find some solace in closing the book on a man or woman’s story. . . but is it truly the end? Opening with an obituary, first time filmmaker Ari Aster’s Hereditary transports us into a reeling family dynamic, a group that have about as much promise in their lineage as the Usher’s (the Edgar Allan Poe characters, not the hip hop/pop artist). With mental illness coursing through their blood, Annie Graham (Toni Collette) did not exactly have a great relationship with her mother – often estranged, the elderly lady, who lived with dissociative identity disorder, ended her days dealing with dementia, further adding to the enigma that was her highly private life.

The anticipation was palpable. . . after a bunch of unique trailers (Superman phone booth spoof, deceased PBS artist Bob Ross riff, ‘oh shit, we forget to put the computer generated effects in’, and apologies to David Beckham), Deadpool has finally returned to theatres – one of the most anticipated R-rated sequels in quite some time. And, for the most part, it thrives. This time directed by stunt man turned action maestro David Leitch (John Wick; Atomic Blonde), he reintroduces us to Wade Wilson, aka Deadpool (Ryan Reynolds), the sarcastic, fast-talking quasi hero who cleans up the streets by leaving one dead body after another littering them. Though all is not well, and we soon flash back to learn why our protagonist is so morose – a nice touch, while he sulks, he plays a music box that features Wolverine impaled on a stake. *** Warning, one major and a few minor spoilers in the upcoming paragraphs.***

Baby Driver, Atomic Blonde, Dunkirk. . . three movies over the past year or so that have set a new standard for the way music and sound are used in the context of movies. A Quiet Place continues the recent trend, with its clever use of sound, and the lack thereof, playing an integral role in this very unique horror film. Perhaps the closest thing to a silent movie since Academy Award Best Picture winner The Artist (2011), John Krasinski co-writes and directs this original story. A post-apocalyptic type tale, yet with all the beauty of nature, aliens have invaded the planet, decimating the population and causing fear and chaos to run rampant in the hearts and minds of the secluded populous that is left – the audience is not provided with a glance as to how all this happened, but rather, enters the tale eighty-nine days after first contact.