Kev's Reviews

Since the conclusion of the seemingly endless Harry Potter saga, director David Yates' resume has thinned as he slid quickly off the Hollywood grid. Going for a comeback, Yates made an attempt to reinvent Tarzan, which grossed $347.2 million in box offices worldwide, deviating from the wizard assembly line, proving that he was not a one-trick  pony. Meanwhile,  J.K. Rowling, unable to steer clear from her fetish for magic, published a novel - eerily similar to the series that put her on the map. she title it  Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them. Don't   be deceived by the incredibly love name. It's not related to Harry Potter - although, film-wise - the two could be twins. This spin-off frames the adventures of Newt Scamander (Eddie Redmayne) as he delves in New York's secret community of witches and wizards seventy years before Harry Potter reads his book in school. In the briefcase he carries, magical creatures mischievously rummage about, sometimes falling ou

Strike three!  I am not going to get started it on the title. I have exempted the dashes because they have overused that joke. Good news: we've gotten pass Maya's compulsion to smother JJ. He meets some cool friends and hears about a bonfire everyone is going to but JJ can't go due to the inaccessible condition of the  outside venue. Predictably,  Maya embarrasses her son by requesting the social gathering be canceled, straining JJ's bonds between him and his classmates. Soon, the students speak out against JJ. But when Maya realizes she was wrong, the two stage a fake prank to encourage his classmates to have a change of heart. Meanwhile, Jimmy helps Ray settle into the new home. Once again, JJ comes across as a burden because he's in a wheelchair. It's human nature to feel self-conscious, especially if you are the new kid. Here, the show had a choice. once again, we see Maya meddling. When I was in grade school, I would talk to my OI teacher (which is no

Medicine Creek, Kansas is a quaint town where Main Street spans the length of two blocks and everyone knows everyone. Townsfolk are content with their quiet lives - which is why they were stunned when word spreads that a murder has happened, drawing FBI Agent Pendergast to the dreary town. within 24 hours, reporters flock to the little town, in the August heat, where Pendergast confirms that the deceased were - in fact - killed. Soon, neighbors begin to disappear - and reappear - as counter-top pieces.with eighteen year-old misfit Corrrie Swason, Pendergast digs up secrets swirling around the cursed community from its buried past - the Ghost Warrior Massacre of 1853 - and the truth about  Medicine Creek's biggest enigma, coming face to face with unfathomable evil lurking beneath the surface. Childs' masterful storytelling and shady characters drive the story forward, slowly building the suspense in his page-turner which should soon join the classics, like Frankenstein and

Okay, they've got to stop with spelling out the titles of the episodes . We get it, JJ speaks through an augmentative communicator. This joke was cute the first go-around, not so much the second. In this episode , JJ (Micah Fowler) gets a new aide, but his overbearing mother isn't too keen on the new sidekick. Of course, the personal assistant makes some mistakes, including getting into the van and driving away without JJ (the funniest scene in the episode). Maya's fears about allowing Kenneth to be J.J.'s full-time aide is confirmed when J.J. chooses to skip out on a physical therapy appointment to watch cheerleaders in practice as they pander to him; Jimmy shows Dylan how to be un-neighborly. Irritatingly predictable, Maya finds out about J.J.'s extracurricular activities and scolds Kenneth for allowing this to happen. Predictably, the mother and son have a fight about who Kenneth should obey - a very quiet one , at that. I have to admit, I sympathized with J

There are more than 1 billion individuals  in the world have some form of disability,, making up about 15% of the world's population. Between 110-190 million people have very significant difficulties in functioning. People with disabilities are more likely to be unemployed than non-disabled people  (according to The World Bank ). apparently, this finally hit some LA producer, jarring him or her to make a TV series. Great! At last some recognition. Or , at least the idea was great.         Don't get me wrong. Micah Fowler has potential as the supposed main charecter but appeareduce to be outshined by the overbearing Minnie Driver , who plays the role of Maya DiMeo - the caring mother who constantly interjects into her children's lives. Here, the producers were spot-on. But, then again, so were the producers of Modern Family. Now for the elephant in the room - the van! Maya pedals around in a mother of a van, handicap accessible for JJ. Of course, the pilot

A decade has passed since Jason Bourne turned his back on the CIA. Trying to draw Bourne out of hiding, CIA director Robert Dewy (Tommy Lee Jones) assigns an assassin to kill Bourne. On the run with rogue  employee at the Treadstone Paris safehouse,  Nikki Parsons (Julia Stiles).  Much like The Bourne Supremacy, the termination goes awry and the Dewy's hitman ends up shooting Parsons instead of Bourne which paints a bulls-eye on Dewy's back.  It seems as though the actions taken by the CIA swirl around a network hack "worse than Snowden." - a sign that Paul Greengrass has what I call  Filmmakers Block  - the Hollywood version of  Writer's Block  - blowing a lot of hot-aired action sequences to compensate for the crumbling, over-used plot. I thought,  this isn't the Greengrass-Damon creation that is Bourne. Jason Bourne is not a cliché.  Unfortunately, I was wrong. I was baffled! Then, I figured it out.  Action flicks like this heavily rely on t

    1863, Mississippi farmer Newt Knight serves as a medic for the Confederate Army. Opposed to slavery, Knight would rather help the wounded than fight the Union. After his nephew dies in battle, Newt returns home to Jones County to safeguard his family but is soon branded an outlaw deserter. Forced to flee, he finds refuge with a group of runaway slaves hiding out in the swamps. Forging an alliance with the slaves and other farmers, Knight leads aa rebellion that would forever change history. “It's a tale of racial liberation and heroic bloodshed that is designed, at almost every turn, to lift us up to that special place where we can all feel moved by what good liberals we are.”,   says Owen Gleiberman, movie critic for Indiewire.com . I second this sentiment. This true-story-based film doesn’t suck on the teet of special effects or the belabored so-called “wow” factor that ims regrettably favored by puff pieces that dominate in ticket sales. Rather, the fi

Before Whitey Bulger, before Al Capone came two of the most notorious gangsters, London-based Reggie and Ronnie Kray.  The Kray Twins were the forerunners of organized crime. The identical crime-lords -  both roles played by Tom  Hardy - might have been vicious thugs but they also rubbed shoulders with the wealthy and powerful, building their empire in the East End of London.  Similar to American gangster Al Capone, the twins accrued glamorous lifestyles to cover up their brutal killings. If you can look beyond their barbaric ways, you'd find the Kray's underlying charm. Falling for Reggie, girlfriend-then-wife Frances (Emily Browning) tells the story as an omniscient narrator (even though she dies roughly two-thirds into the movie). Since her image of Reggie is obscured by love, in the beginning, he comes across as suave and sophisticated. Weary of Ronnie, Frances maintains her distance but still is fascinated by his quirky charm. As Dan Jolin from empireonline.com wrot

While exploring uncharted wild American frontier in 1823,  Hugh Glass (Leonardo Dicaprio) becomes severely wounded in a bear attack and is left for dead by his own troop of explorers. Glass must utilize his survival skills to find a way back home to his beloved family. Grief-stricken and fue led by vengeance, Glass treks through the wintry terrain to track down John Fitzgerald (Tom Hardy), the former confidant responsible for abandoning him. Yes, Hugh Glass was a real frontierman who was almost  killed by wilderness in pursuit of vengeance against the men who left him for dead. But how much of the story after that was real? Time calls it, "A fictionalized version of the tale was recently brought to life by Birdman director Alejandro González Iñárritu ... based on the 2002 Michael Punke novel of the same name" . Glass joined a team headed up by Andrew Henry traveling up the Missouri River and the Grand River of modern-day South Dakota. It was on that trip that a grizzly b