TAG (2018) and GAME NIGHT (2018) occupy the same shelf in my mind. Both are foul-mouthed comedic romps of mischief between grown ups acting like kids who take their kid games a little far. Ed Helms and Jason Bateman, the interchangeable well-meaning married men who hesitate then act with whimsy edging on insanity. 
Rachel McAdams & Isla Fisher play the competitive trophy wives with violent tendencies but good hearts. Increase the casts to ensembles including the likes of SNL’s favorite Mad Man John Hamm, New Girl‘s Nick Jake Johnson, Avenger’s Hawkeye Jeremy Renner and more. Roll those dice, and it’s game on.
Car chases, crazy fight sequences, violence, drug use and constant language, as well as some blatant discussions about sex make both of these pretty edgy almost raunchy comedies.
If we’re talking straight filmmaking, the major flaws lie in negligent storytelling, not poorly made movies. In fact, some decent editing and stunt work exist in both films. 
Game Night is a quick giveaway in which the characters know too much too soon and are able to escape and outwit the bad guys every time.
Tag entrusts some all-stars with too many boring scenarios hoping famous faces will mask the lack of plot. Otherwise, they could never get a gorgeous journalist to tag along for such a spiraling schlep.
I suppose some would say I’m being too harsh to mindless dirty comedies. Perhaps some would prefer the bliss of ignorance. I suppose in this time-is-money world, I would just prefer to protect viewers from wasting both.
Delightfully surprised by this one. It had the best effects to date, and I was equally won by humor and lighthearted giddy snark as Benedict Cumberbatch embraces his Marvel side. The pace of the film somehow works despite the constant embedding of exposition in tectonic spinning and explosive flair. It’s rather beautiful.
Some may complain about the heavy-handed mysticism present, but Strange himself keeps the Film leveled as a man of sarcasm and science.
Log line it: when a self-centered brain surgeon tests fate one dark and stormy night he is left incapacitated without the use of his hands, so his medical quest leads him on a spiritual journey – one which forms his heroic destiny.
Dr. Strange will return and with him a host of Marvel merch and intertwined storylines. Those infinity stones have birthed quite a following from Hydra to heart-valves to Galaxy Guards with great musical taste. Now they have a mystic who can control time, and somehow it works.
The team of reporters followed every lead they could. Each rabbit trail lead to new victims who called themselves survivors, and for good reason. Many of the now grown children who had been molested had killed themselves. Most had turned to drugs or another kind of stimulant, perhaps to numb themselves from the painful truth.
The three reporters Sacha Pfeiffer, Michael Rezendes,, and Matt Carroll were brilliantly played by Rachel McAdams, Mark Ruffalo, and Brian D’arcy James. In an interview with NPR, (
Their bold boss Walter “Robbie” Robinson, played brilliantly by Michael Keaton, said that he didn’t know that he ever came across as harshly as he did, and after seeing “himself” in the film, he called Sasha to apologize for ever treating her rudely. I didn’t see rudeness. I saw and empathized with the entire team as they spent a year or more of their lives buried in painful interviews and research. The topic alone would exhaust any group of reporters, but the Spotlight team sat neck-deep in it for years in order to bring truth into the light.
A few weeks ago, my class had the rare and incredible opportunity to Skype Mr. Matt Carroll. Hosted brilliantly by another teacher who used to write for the Boston Herald, she fielded questions that students posed so Matt could talk about the personal pain of writing a story like this. He spoke of the difficulty of his particular job and the excitement of finding evidence that they could finally print. He spoke of and his fear for his family and community at the time knowing one of the priests lived down the street from him. He talked about long days and months of answering phones after the story broke. He mentioned how wild it was seeing someone play him in a movie. His doppelgänger hated the mustache but conveyed the gentle intensity, sorrow and stubborn search for truth perfectly.
Carroll said that the actors had one dinner out with the Spotlight team and in that short time picked up their mannerisms, accents, quirks. They all said that watching themselves on-screen was odd since the actors were so spot on.
This difficult topic makes your blood boil, and rightfully so. You want to fight with the Spotlight team. You see the hours, days, years that they poured over old newspaper clippings, record books, information outlets, and their own notes before they ever printed a story. Journalism, it seems, is mostly about research, interviewing honest sources and getting the facts straight. Or, at least it used to be.
Splatter: on FILM 