Teaser Trailer for BRIGHT Starring Will Smith

During the Oscar telecast on Sunday night Netflix decided to debut a first look trailer for their latest original feature film, Bright, which is written by Max Landis (Chronicle, American Ultra), directed by David Ayer (Fury, Suicide Squad), and stars Will Smith. Yes, Will Smith is in a feature length film that will not be making its premiere theatrically, but rather through the streaming service that you can enjoy from the comfort of your own home, on your own TV, on what would typically be a night out at the movies. The pros are obvious: your $10 a month subscription saves you a fair amount in ticket costs, the boxes of candy from Walgreen's are less than one box at the theater, you have a twelve pack of sodas in the fridge that cost less than the smallest drink at your local franchised cinema, and depending on your entertainment set-up your viewing experience might even be comparable to that of what a theater can offer, so what might the cons be? The theatrical-going experience is one of the last standing traditions in the world that can bring people together without much risk of tearing them apart at the same time. The theatrical experience is something you can't re-create in your home no matter how big of a television, projector, or how many people you watch with; there is something singular about sitting in the dark with strangers and experiencing an artists singular vision no matter the genre classification. Whether the purpose is to move us, make us laugh, or frighten us such an experience can only be felt or conveyed when it becomes apparent how a film might not have affected just you, but those from different walks of life who just witnessed the same thing. The last edge the theater chains held over the heads of its competitors was exclusivity in material, but with Netflix now holding the keys to movies with stars such as Will Smith in them the tide suddenly seems to be changing at a much faster rate. All of that said, Landis has called Bright his Star Wars as it is set in a modern take on a fantasy world where Smith's human cop is forced to work with an orc partner (Joel Edgerton) in order to find a powerful wand sought after by many. Bright also stars Noomi Rapace, Lucy Fry, Edgar Ramirez, Margaret Cho, Ike Barinholtz, and debuts globally this December.

Mr. CHURCH Review

While Mr. Church might have initially been looked at as something of a return to quality movie-making for star Eddie Murphy it is more a return to the realm of inoffensive movie making than anything else. Mr. Church is certainly no Pluto Nash or Norbit...hell, it's not even Meet Dave (which I admittedly never finished), but it isn't the high-reaching piece of transcendent cinema that encapsulates all the major themes of one's life that illustrates mistakes made and identities redeemed that it seemed to want so badly to be in its trailers either. Rather, Mr. Church is a pleasant enough distraction about a kind-hearted man that is largely elevated by the credible performances of its two leads. Both Murphy and Britt Robertson (Tomorrowland) deliver the necessary sympathies to draw on audience emotions that keep us invested in the sometimes tedious story that strings us along for decades with large stretches where little to nothing happens or is revealed. Fortunately, it isn't really the narrative that is meant to drive Mr. Church though, but rather the core relationship that forms between Murphy's titular character and Robertson's Charlotte Brody which remains the reason we become and stay as invested as we do throughout the sometimes tepid 100-minute runtime. The film, which comes from TV writing veteran Susan McMartin in her first feature film credit, feels rather episodic as a result with director Bruce Beresford (Driving Miss Daisy, Double Jeopardy) doing little to add any filmmaking flairs as, at the age of seventy-six, seems to be on auto pilot. In that way, Mr. Church is very much a competently made and sometimes even emotionally affecting film, but most of the time it feels like a Hallmark movie that is emotionally manipulative for reasons of knowing it has little else to offer by way of connecting with its audience. It is a holiday Hallmark film that escaped the clutches of such a fate by appealing to talent such as Mr. Murphy by being a project not typically offered to the comedian and thus an opportunity after an intentional hiatus to do something different. Murphy, while doing his best to salvage this sappy if not occasionally comforting piece of melodrama can't rescue the project from total mediocrity, but he puts forth a valiant effort and that is duly noted.

THE DARKNESS Review

If one tends to keep up with things such as what type of films studios or production houses make or acquire it is possible to be excited for a film based solely on the people backing it. Whether it be the ever-reliable A24 or Megan Ellison at Annapurna Pictures if either of these studios are attached to an upcoming release I tend to be interested solely because they make interesting and diverse choices in the movies they choose to release. In the realm of horror-especially smaller, more independent horror-there has been one name that has risen above the rest in recent years and that would be Blumhouse Productions run by its founder and CEO Jason Blum. The guy has had a pretty strong track record as he's been behind some of the biggest recent horror franchises including the Insidious and Paranormal Activity films, even resurrecting M. Night Shyamalan's horror career last year with The Visit, but that isn't to say there haven't been a few stinkers along the way either. Every genre has them, but horror somehow seems to suffer the most. With The Darkness Blum and co. have, for some strange reason, decided it was a good idea to give the guy who's directed two Wolf Creek movies a nice enough budget to cast the likes of Kevin Bacon and Radha Mitchell in a screenplay (written by director Greg McLean and a couple of Shane/Shayne's) that is more than happy to go through the obligatory horror movie check list and mark off every cliché imaginable. The Darkness is a bad movie. There are no if's, and's, or but's about it-it flat out sucks and there is hardly anything to redeem its many, many shortcomings much less being worth anyone's time lest they might waste it on this schlock. Even worse, this outright terribleness is apparent right from the get-go. For some reason actors like Matt Walsh and Jennifer Morrison (who I assume are generally busy people) agreed to show up for what couldn't have been more than a two day shoot to capture what is the set-up and a handful of expositional dialogue in such strained and phony ways that there was no denying the quality of what was to come. When ones dialogue can't even be conveyed believably by someone as incredibly endearing as Walsh, there's a problem.