Crisp Criticism - "Neighbors", "Chef", "Blue Ruin", "Million Dollar Arm"

by

Julien Faddoul

Neighbors

A couple with a newborn baby face unexpected difficulties after they are forced to live next to a fraternity house.

Yet another dreary, foul-mouthed, mean-spirited comedy where no dialogue is scripted and with everyone concerned believing that white people acting like black rappers and images of erect penises are automatically hilarious.

d – Nicholas Stoller

w – Andrew J. Cohen, Brendan O’Brien

ph – Brandon Trost

pd – Julie Berghoff

m – Michael Andrews

ed – Zene Baker

cos – Leesa Evans

p – Evan Goldberg, Seth Rogen, James Weaver

Cast: Seth Rogen, Zac Efron, Rose Byrne, Dave Franco, Christopher Mintz-Plasse

Chef *

A prominent Los Angeles restaurant Chef  quits his job after refusing to compromise his creative integrity and undertakes the running of a food truck instead.

An attempt by its maker to communicate his experience working with “big Hollywood”. The result is cute, harmless and simplistic.

wd – Jon Favreau

ph – Kramer Morgenthau

pd – Denise Pizzini

ed – Robert Leighton

cos – Laura Jean Shannon

p – Jon Favreau, Sergei Bespalov, Karen Gilchrist

Cast: Jon Favreau, Sofia Vergara, John Leguizamo, Scarlett Johansson, Oliver platt, Bobby Cannavale, Dustin Hoffman, Ronbert Downey Jr, Amy Sedaris,
EmJay Anthony

Blue Ruin *

A homeless man murders an ex-convict in an act of vengeance and finds himself pursued by the man’s family.

As a thriller, this is expertly made, but too much behavior is devoid of logic for the sake of keeping an unmerited air of shrouded mystery over the plot.

wd – Jeremy Saulnier

ph – Jeremy Saulnier

pd – Kaet McAnneny

m – Brooke Blair, Will Blair

ed – Julia Bloch

cos – Brooke Bennett

p – Richard Peete, Vincent Savino, Anish Savjani

Cast: Macon Blair, Devin Ratray, Amy Hargreaves, Kevin Kolack, Eve Plumb, David W. Thompson, Brent Werzner, Stacy Rock

Million Dollar Arm

A sports agent stages an unconventional recruitment strategy to get talented Asian cricket players to play Major League Baseball.

Incredibly stupid Disney sports movie. Avoid at all costs.

d – Craig Gillespie

w – Thomas McCarthy

ph – Gyula Pados

pd – Barry Robinson

m – A.R. Rahman

ed – Tatiana S. Riegel

cos – Kirston Leigh Mann

p – Mark Diardi, Gordon Gray, Joe Roth

Cast: Jon Hamm, Pitobash, Suraj Sharma, Madhur Mittal, Aasif Mandvi, Lake Bell, Alan Arkin, Bill Paxton, Darshan Jariwala