filmlover

This movie is kicking ass so far at the box office. If Passengers ends up being a major underperformer I'm inclined to think the people that would've gone to see that will check this out instead.

Oh dear lord. I'm not sure there even is a starting point to discuss what went horribly wrong with Collateral Beauty. This movie is about as heartwarming and uplifting as getting a Christmas card that was found in the CVS trash bin, then urinated on, and then caked in mud by a loved one. It warps the mind that no less than 5 (soon to be 6) people who have either won or been nominated for Oscars signed on to a script that even the Hallmark Channel would reject for being too tacky. Let's just CinemaSins this bitch and do a run through of all the nonsensical bullshit that happens in this movie, shall we? I'm spoiling the movie, don't say you weren't warned. 1) The whole premise of the movie is icky from the setup. It's been three years since Will Smith's daughter has died of cancer and his co-owners/"friends" Edward Norton, Kate Winslet, and Michael Pena are becoming increasingly worried for their once joyous, now catatonic friend who writes letters to Death, Time, and Love. Smith's co-owners are also becoming worried that their advertising agency is about to go under and that they'll lose their jobs because of Smith falling out of touch with reality. So what do they do? Their plan is to hire struggling stage actors Helen Mirren, Jacob Latimore, and Keira Knightley to play Death, Time, and Love to interact with Smith while Ann Dowd stalks him and records everything, digitally erasing the struggling actors afterwards so that the video can be shown to the higher-ups on the board to prove that Smith is mentally incompetent to run the company. Yes, you read that correct: the three so-called friends plan on helping their buddy snap back to life...by GASLIGHTING him? And they actually believe they're helping him. Are they fucking insane?! 2) Smith starts lurking around a support group for parents who lost their children run by Naomie Harris. The point of Harris' role for the most part consists of repeating the movie's already stupid title over and over, as if "collateral beauty" will eventually mean something profound. It never does. 3) In a flimsy attempt at running storylines parallel to Smith's, each of his three co-owners are facing their own dilemmas: Norton's daughter hates him because he cheated on his ex-wife and ruined their family, Winslet wants to have a baby but has waited until it's too late to have one, and Pena is dying of a terminal illness and is keeping it a secret from his family. These just reinforce how emotionally false the whole movie is. 4) And now, we get to the movie's twists, which are so out of left field and ridiculous that even Shyamalan would cringe. The first is that Smith and Harris are eventually revealed to be ex-husband and ex-wife, and that the children that they lost was in fact the same exact young girl, and that he's been pretending he doesn't know her and she's gone along with this whole charade the entire time. IS THIS MOVIE FOR REAL?! How is that supposed to help anybody through their grief?! Is the screenwriter that out of touch with reality? 5) The movie's other insane twist is one of the most pathetic attempts at an "AHA!" moment that I've ever seen in a movie. In the last scene, Smith and Harris are back together taking a walk. Smith turns around sees Mirren, Latimore, and Knightley (who I will say has never looked more beautiful than she does in this; hey, gotta find a silver lining somewhere!) on the bridge smiling at him. When Harris turns around, they aren't there! BOOM! Did the three of them just sit around hoping that Smith's horrible friends would come along and present their crazy scheme? Are they like Mary Poppins where it's off to help the next grieving individual? This movie: It's tempting to give it an even lower grade, but it did entertain me enough because of how ridiculous it all is, and the actors do give solid performances despite having to work with dog shit and deserve props for somehow getting through this movie with a straight face. This holiday season has seen the release of Manchester by the Sea, a drama about dealing with loss and grief that is riveting, crushing, and very much true to life. Collateral Beauty is none of those things. This is a graceless, phony, and absolutely dunderheaded excuse for a motion picture that only the easily manipulated or a connoisseur of bad movies could enjoy that will rightfully go down as a low point in the filmographies of all the talented cast while wasting one of life's most precious entities, which happens to be personified within the movie. D

@MrPink will be happy (or in this case probably sad) to hear that I may not have gotten the Dunkirk trailer before Rogue One last night but did get it before Collateral Beauty today. Actually, he should see that movie. Everyone should. A true you-have-to-see-it-to-believe-it trainwreck.

Everyone needs to see it at some point. This is a bad movie lover's dream come true.

A Arrival La La Land Love & Friendship Manchester by the Sea Moonlight A- The Edge of Seventeen Eye in the Sky Finding Dory Hacksaw Ridge Hell or High Water Moana Zootopia B+ 10 Cloverfield Lane Bridget Jones's Baby Captain America: Civil War Deadpool Doctor Strange Don't Breathe Everybody Wants Some!! Ghostbusters Hello, My Name is Doris The Jungle Book The Nice Guys Nocturnal Animals Sausage Party B Bad Moms Central Intelligence Deepwater Horizon Eddie the Eagle Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them How to Be Single Kung Fu Panda 3 Me Before You Money Monster Rogue One: A Star Wars Story The Secret Life of Pets The Shallows Star Trek Beyond Sully B- Allied Florence Foster Jenkins Jason Bourne The Magnificent Seven Nerve Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping War Dogs Whiskey Tango Foxtrot X-Men: Apocalypse C+ 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi The Accountant The Boss The Girl on the Train Hail, Caesar! The Legend of Tarzan Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising Swiss Army Man C Alice Through the Looking Glass Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates Snowden Triple 9 C- Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2 Now You See Me 2 D+ Suicide Squad D Collateral Beauty Independence Day: Resurgence Next Passengers (December 21) Sing (December 21) Why Him? (December 23) Fences (December 25) Hidden Figures (December 25) Jackie (December)

I just saw Collateral Beauty. Oh god. Oh my god this movie. A full review is coming later (because the ridiculous bullshit that unfolds in this movie deserves it) but everyone on BOT needs to see it. It truly is a once-in-a-blue-moon fiasco that you have to see to believe.

I'll miss Michael Sheen's more hammy performances. His turns in those Twilight movies and Tron: Legacy were life-giving.

I think it's time you post a pic of yourself if you're such an expert.

Would you take issue if a man said the same things? Between this and "no one will see La La Land because Emma Stone is too skinny," you're on a roll these days.

La La Land making more in 200 theaters than Manchester by the Sea in over 6 times as many. Remember when @Christmas Baumer said it wouldn't even make $30M in total?

It's still funny how successful women makes so many people feel insecure. You'd think it was 1972 or something.

I'd be nervous right now if I were Passengers.

Obviously Santa has decided you've been a very bad boy and deserve a lump of coal in your stocking instead.

I'm pretty sure it was originally supposed to open in limited on December 16, then was switched to open wide on Christmas Day without a limited bow, then had its limited release reinstated at the 11th hour.

I'm pretty sure business La La Land was even more insane than it was for Rogue One last night at my theater (even though the latter is on 4 screens and in the biggest theaters, compared to 2 for La La Land, 1 in another big house and the other in a semi-big house).

Box Office's long range for this has fallen from $145M to $120M and they're usually optimistic. You can start to taste the blood in the water tbh.

Fences looking at a $108K weekend from 4 theaters for a PTA of $27K. Should do much better in wide release on Christmas Day, it feels like this limited start was added at the 11th hour.

Don't forget The Nice Guys as well! That scene with him on the toilet still makes me laugh every time I think about it.

This one dude said out loud "Lightning McQueen doesn't die, he becomes a meth addict" to which his female friend yelled a few seats over "OMG WHY WOULD YOU SAY THAT?!1" At first I was wondering why these people were freaking out over the Cars 3 trailer, but then it dawned on me that they were around 8 when the first Cars came out.

I'm pretty sure Unforgettable is attached with Collateral Beauty (since both are WB dramas)... ...which I'm seeing tomorrow with free passes we found that haven't been used yet. Pray for me.

Saw the movie tonight. FYI for those curious the trailers I got were Logan, Kong: Skull Island, Power Rangers, The Fate of the Furious, Guardians of the Galaxy 2, Cars 3 (priceless reaction from the rowdy youngsters in the crowd), Transformers #Whatever, and Valerian & the City of a Thousand Planets.

This is obviously a bit of a comedown from the euphoric highs of The Force Awakens but Gareth Edwards has delivered a solidly entertaining outing that serves as a satisfying bridge between Revenge of the Sith and A New Hope. I feel like the biggest problem here is the writing, as these aren't the most memorable characters the franchise has served to date. Felicity Jones and Diego Luna are good actors who give competent performances, but we never really care for either of their characters even beyond the fact we know beforehand that no one will be alive at the end of the movie. In fact, despite a lot of strong talent among the cast, most of them end up underused, as Ben Mendelsohn can't do much with an underwritten villain part and Forest Whitaker is barely even in the movie. I did enjoy Donnie Yen and the robot voiced by Alan Tudyk, though. Coincidentally, the movie is at its best when it ties directly into the other films (I don't think I have felt a bigger moment of delight in a movie theater this year than during Darth Vader's first appearance). The visuals are, of course, astonishing, even though the most impressive special effect is how they bring Peter Cushing back in a seamless matter 20+ years after his death. Not the best Star Wars movie ever, but a nice entrée between The Force Awakens and Episode 8. B

This is starting to remind me of The Tourist: popular stars near their peak in a movie with poor reviews and muddled marketing.

I actually think I saw some theaters have them up while looking at Rogue One tickets the last few weeks, but they might have cancelled them after they figured the ice cold reviews were coming.