Cleaning Out The DVR Yet Again #36: Term Life (dir by Peter Billingsley)

Posted on December 7, 2016 by Lisa Marie Bowman

(Lisa recently discovered that she only has about 8 hours of space left on her DVR! It turns out that she’s been recording movies from July and she just hasn’t gotten around to watching and reviewing them yet. So, once again, Lisa is cleaning out her DVR! She is going to try to watch and review 52 movies by the end of Thursday, December 8th! Will she make it? Keep checking the site to find out!)

I recorded Term Life off one of the Starz channels on November 13th.

Vince Vaughn co-starred in two movies in 2016 and both of them were a little bit different from the fratty comedies for which he is best known. One of the movies was Hacksaw Ridge, in which Vaughn was cast against type as a tough drill sergeant. Hacksaw Ridge is one of the best films of the year and it features Vaughn’s best work since he appeared in 2007’s Into The Wild. The other film was Term Life, which had a very limited released in April and is now popping up on cable.

In Term Life, Vaughn plays Nick Barrow. Nick is a thief but he doesn’t actually steal anything. Instead, he plots heists and then sells his plans to the highest bidder. However, Nick has somehow managed to get in trouble with the mob, with a corrupt cop (Bill Paxton), and with … well, with everyone. I say somehow because it wasn’t always clear why everyone was so obsessed with killing Nick. They just were.

Knowing that his days are probably numbered, Nick takes out a life insurance policy on himself. He names, as the sole beneficiary, his estranged daughter, Cate (Hailee Steinfeld). With his reluctant daughter accompanying him, he goes on the run. While Nick and Cate finally start to bond and repair their damaged relationship, the very bad men searching for Nick kill a lot of people.

So, this is a weird one. At times, this film is a typical generation gap comedy, with Vaughn playing the former-cool-guy-turned-befuddled-dad who freaks out when he sees Cate’s bra hanging from a shower rod. This part of the film is actually kinda likable. Vaughn and Steinfeld are believable as father-and-daughter and their scenes together are sweet if predictable.

But then you’ve got the rest of the film, which is basically Bill Paxton brutally murdering people. The violence comes on so strong that it feels totally out-of-place when mixed in with scenes of Nick and Cate bonding. It’s such an abrupt tonal shift that it makes it impossible to get into the film.

Term Life has a cobbled together feel to it and it doesn’t help that it features the type of heavy-handed narration that feels as if it was added at the last minute in a desperate attempt to bring some sort of coherent structure to a messy film. On the plus side, both Vaughn and Steinfeld are believable and you occasionally care about their father-daughter relationship. On the negative side, likable characters keep dying.

In other words, see Hacksaw Ridge.

Ant-Man Keeps the Marvel Train Moving Along

Posted on April 13, 2015 by Arleigh

Will Marvel Studios have it’s first misstep when Ant-Man arrives in theaters this July? Or will it surpass many people’s expectations the way Guardians of the Galaxy did when it came out late summer of 2014? These are questions that fans and critics alike have been pondering since the rather underwhelming teaser trailer which was released earlier this year.

Now, with Avengers: Age of Ultron just weeks away from bulldozing over everything in it’s way it looks like Marvel and Disney have turned their attention to getting the Ant-Man hype train up to speed. If any film needs some fueling up it would be this one which has had a more than contentious production. It loses it’s original director in Edgar Wright after he and the heads at Marvel Studios (Kevin Feige) disagreed on how to proceed with the film. The search for a director to replace Wright became a game of which comedic filmmaker would pass on the project next (Peyton Reed finally was the last man standing).

When the teaser finally came out the tone it gave seemed too serious for a film that was being billed as a sort of action-comedy or, at the very least, an action film that included more than the usual comedic beats than past films in the MCU.

Today we see the first official trailer for Ant-Man and gone is the super serious tone of the teaser and in comes a mixture of action and comedy. It’s a trailer that actually gives us an idea of the sort of powers the title character has outside of being just being tiny. Then we get more than just a glimpse of Scott Lang’s main antagonist with Corey Stoll in the role of Darren Cross aka Yellowjacket.

Maybe this film will still end up giving Marvel Studio it’s very first black-eye, but this trailer goes a major way in making sure it doesn’t happen.

Ant-Man is set for a July 17, 2015 release date.

Trailer: Ant-Man

Posted on January 6, 2015 by Arleigh

First they said that Guardians of the Galaxy will be the first misstep in the rolling juggernaut train that is the Marvel Cinematic Universe. How could a film adaptation of a comic book that even hardcore readers barely know ever hit it big with the general public. Yet, it more than shot down detractors and nyasayers to become the biggest hit of 2014 and help usher in a major change in how people will now look at the MCU.

So, Guardians of the Galaxy wasn’t the first mistake. Then it has to be 2015’s Ant-Man starring Paul Rudd and a film already known for being the one where Edgar Wright was forced to leave as director. Yes, this will be Marvel Studios first misstep and it will show that Kevin Feige’s producer-driven plan will never trump the creative-driven director tradition.

So, during the season premiere of Agent Carter, we finally have the first official trailer for Ant-Man. Time will tell if this does become Marvel’s first bump in their road to world domination or will it surprise everyone the way Guardians of the Galaxy did this part summer of 2014.

Ant-Man is set for a July 17, 2015 release date.

Trailer: Riddick (Red Band)

Posted on July 19, 2013 by Arleigh

In 2000, a small little scifi-horror film came out starring that guy from Saving Private Ryan. We didn’t really recognize him as the household name of Vin Diesel we know now. It was still that guy who was in that Spielberg WWII film. Pitch Black was a modest success, but modestly enough that a sequel was greenlit right after with a much bigger budget. This sequel was less scifi-horror and more of an epic scifi film that was trying to be the Dune of it’s time. The Chronicles of Riddick wasn’t a modest success this time around and plans for a third film to finish off the trilogy never got off the development stage.

Vin Diesel has since become a big star of some caliber with his Fast and Furious franchise. With the success of the latest film in that franchise it looks like Universal had given the Diesel the go-ahead to make a third film in his scifi franchise simply titled, Riddick.

With a more modest budget than the second film, Riddick looks to return Vin Diesel’s character back to something more similar and thus safe. Riddick is back on a death world of a planet inhabited by dangerous critters who mayor may not hunt once an prolonged darkness sets in. Riddkc must also deal with a pesky band of mercenary bounty hunters after his hide. Where the second film tried to build on the character’s background and further his story in a space opera-like way this red band trailer shows that Riddick is best when playing the anti-hero who may or may not be the villain as well as the hero of the story.

Riddick is set for a September 6, 2013 release date.