Tag: Nicholas Braun

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Nicholas Braun And Emilia Jones Set To Star In Psychological Thriller ‘Cat Person’

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If you still don’t know who Nicholas Braun is, well, where the hell have you been? The 33-year-old actor, who stands at a ridiculous 6’7, has been in Hollywood since he was a teenager.

He went from Disney star to legit actor, most recently starring in the incredible HBO series, Succession. You can also catch him in the upcoming film Zola, which is set to be released on June 30.

But in the meantime, let’s talk about some breaking news regarding Braun. It’s being reported that he’s set to star alongside Emilia Jones in the psychological thriller, Cat Person.

If that title sounds familiar to you, it’s because it probably is. It was a super popular short story written by Kristen Roupenian and published by the New Yorker in 2017. It was their most downloaded piece of fiction that year.

Roupenian’s short story turns on the casual, but increasingly discomfiting, relationship between Margot, a 20-year-old college student, and Robert, a 34 man who goes to the movie theater where Margot works.

The flick will be directed by DGA Award-winning Susanna Fogel, and she’s excited to get to work on the project.

Using Kristen’s excruciatingly well-observed short story about the horrors of dating as the jumping off point for an actual genre film, ‘Cat Person’ will explore the hellscape of modern romance and the idea that we have all been the villain in someone else’s story, and the victim in others.

Can’t wait for this one.

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Movie Review: Whiskey Tango Foxtrot – Like a Stylish Documentary with no Narration and No Insight.

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The more movies that Tina Fey makes, the less I like her. It’s not that Whiskey Tango Foxtrot was bad. I’d say it was a middle of the road effort. I just think like with many things Tina Fey put out recently, it could have been better.

In this, Tina stars as journalist Kim Baker, who takes a change of career covering the war in Afghanistan in the early 2000s. The movie is based on Barker’s own memoire about being a correspondent in Afghanistan when the world’s attention had already turned to Iraq.

While I often complain that many Hollywood movies based off of memories go too far off script (American Sniper, anyone?) my main complaint in this one is it didn’t seem to have a script. It felt so disjointed, like a series of vignettes with no unifying theme, other than ‘war sucks’ and ‘no one cares about Afghanistan anymore.’

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Well, I’m sorry journalists, but by the time Iraq came around, I was all warred out. Sue me.

Even Tina Fey’s talent can’t really make this live up to the hype that it got. It really just feels like a war correspondent’s diary where they complain about all the scary work they do, while everyone ignores their stories to blow up the internet with pictures of Kim Kardashian’s ass.

While this movie is seeing some early good reviews from critics, I have to say that its far more likely due to Tina Fey’s likability rather than the likeability of this movie. It’s not a particularly hard hitting film for such a topic, which is fine. If you want to parody, go with parody. If you want to be serious be serious. It feels like they were going for half and half ala MASH but wound up with a mishmash.

Terrible jokes aside, it’s a clichéd movie about a journalist in a war zone learning about themselves at the same time they can’t learn that the American public has the attention span of baby goldfish. It doesn’t matter if you’re covering Godzilla attacking the Empire State Building, we stop paying attention after awhile.

It just felt like there was no real point to this movie. Much like Bakers “white lady reason for being there” this movie feels like a halfhearted effort to put out a female empowerment/self-discovery movie.

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It fell flat for me, despite Fey’s best efforts. Even her character seemed poorly managed, transforming overnight from a wide eyed new kid on the block to a hard bitten journalist is a bit far-fetched. You’d assume that anyone electing to go to a war zone would be a bit worldly to start.

This is more of a watch it at home because you love Tina Fey movie. With no real point, and such a disjointed timeline, this movie felt like a very stylish documentary with no narration and no insight. Yes, the war in Afghanistan sucks. What are we going to do about it? I’m sorry, but I don’t think the message we should be getting from Afghanistan is “it’s a great place for middle-aged white chicks to find themselves.” Seems irresponsible.

WE GAVE IT: 2 Stars – Watch the Official Trailer and Official Movie Poster below!

2 Stars

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Movie Review: Jem and the Holograms – It Was Crap, and Not Just Crap, But Insulting Crap

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Being a good 20 years older than the vast majority of an audience is never a comfortable feeling. Though for this one, I glossed over my unease in order to revel in some nostalgia. As a child of the 80s, I grew up with Jem and the Holograms and was really looking forward to seeing one of my favorite cartoons go live action. I was willing to sit with a bunch of giggling tweens to make that happen.

Then I watched it and said, “Whoever wrote this clearly never saw the show.”

Aubrey Peoples (ABC’s Nashville) plays Jerrica/Jem, a teen who dreams of sharing her music with the world and lives with widowed mom (Molly Ringwald), younger sister Kimber (Stefanie Scott) and foster sisters Aja (Hayley Kyoko) and Shana (Aurora Perrineau) somewhere in generic California. After posting Jem singing a song on YouTube, the teen is thrust into stardom. She catches the eye of Erica Raymond (Juliette Lewis, enjoyably chewing the scenery), the rapacious CEO of Starlight Music, Jem is presented with an offer she can’t refuse. On account of her mom is about to lose the house.

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They ruined it. There is no sign whatsoever of the actual holograms that made Jem so flipping popular to begin with. It was a sci-fi show. Jem lived a secret life and with a touch of her magic earring, became a superstar rocker. She could disappear just as easily and used that to her advantage when dealing with her real arch nemesis. The Misfits.

The closest thing this movie has to sci-fi was a nonsensical robot that made beeping noises.

Are you flipping kidding me? You know why no one ever made this into a movie before? Because they didn’t have the technology to create it. Computer animation, which could have been used heavily in this, wasn’t around yet. Then, we finally got the technology to do this series justice and what did they do?

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Stripped out everything that made the show unique and turned it in Hannah Goddamn Montana.

There is not a damn cliché they didn’t show into this one. Jem learning the hard way the music industry is cruel and friendship is more important. Having no choice but to help because the house is going into foreclosure and everyone’s depending on her. Her ‘music’ being cheapened because of commercialism.

And toss in a bunch of testimonials from teens who don’t exist, gushing about how much Jem means to them, and seriously…I was ready to burn down the theater.

It was an insult to the old cartoon, and too cutesy, cutesy, sugary sweet to be accepted by teens today. It was just plain stupid and obnoxious. This movie literally could have been any other movie. Nothing about it made it Jem. Seriously, it would have been like naming “Entourage” “The Transformers” and expecting no one to notice.

It was crap, and not just crap, but insulting crap. They shamelessly used the name of a popular 80s show and then made no attempt to actually adhere to the formula of the original.

And that’s why it flopped. A movie that cost about $5 million to make pulled in an embarrassing $1 million its opening weekend and never even placed at the box office.

And I’m glad. Because that’s what you get for ruining my childhood favorites.

So Jem the original, worth the watch. This pile of garbage? Not even remotely. I’m not sure what it is, but it sure as hell ain’t Jem.

We Gave it: 1 Star: Official Movie Trailer and Movie Poster Below

1 star

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