TIFF REVIEW: The Predator [2018]

Did I say that out loud? Writer Shane Black had a good year in 1987. He burst onto the action screenwriting scene with Lethal Weapon. Co-wrote the cult classic children versus Universal monsters fantasy The Monster Squad with Fred Dekker. And landed a supporting role in the Arnold Schwarzenegger-starring Predator as an exfil team member unwittingly embroiled in a fight against an alien hunter of unfathomable power. It’s therefore only fitting that he’d reunite with Dekker three decades later to direct a new installment in the latter’s oft-returned to franchise.…

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REVIEW: The Guilt Trip [2012]

“This place smells like strawberry gum” I never would have thought the aspect of The Guilt Trip I most dreaded would be its one saving grace. Barbra Streisand has never been—and still isn’t—one of my favorite movie stars and the prospect of her playing an overbearing Jewish mother was not an appealing one. I assumed if anything could save what appeared to be a lame pastiche of cinematic tropes mixing the road trip with the out-of-touch parent/child relationship, Seth Rogen would be it. But while his attempt at veiled anger…

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