2234 Best Movies to Watch In English (Page 147)

Even if it knows to keep its ambitions modest, Holiday in the Vineyards still doesn't find much to do for its small cast. The actors do what they can and certainly seem like they're having fun play-acting a warm Christmas romcom, but when all is said and done there simply isn't anything particularly striking about the collection of romcom-isms assembled for this movie. Even the film's premise—which seems to promise a unique clashing of values between a small town and big capitalist business—resolves things with little more than a pat on the back. It's certainly sweet on the surface, but these people we're asked to to spend 107 minutes with still feel like strangers to us by the end.

Genre: Drama, Romance

Actor: Alan Toy, Annika Noelle, Carlos Solórzano, Cullen Douglas, Eileen Davidson, Gregory Zarian, Josh Swickard, Kaleina Cordova, Manuel Rafael Lozano, Omar Gooding, Paul Witten, Sol Rodríguez

Director: Alex Ranarivelo

Rating: PG

There's no doubt that this documentary on Jolly Joseph ought to be more interesting to those who are closer to the actual events of the case; it definitely has enough mystery and intrigue to be a good story. But the way it's been presented here is just too tedious for its own good, sticking to the same-old true crime devices and eventually devolving into discussion that sounds more like gossip. It's understandable that the primary suspect isn't in this film to be able to provide some sort of counter perspective, but the interviewees who do get to say their piece don't add particularly memorable insight into the circumstances surrounding these details, which can just be read up online.

Genre: Crime, Documentary

Actor: Jolly Joseph, M. S. Mathew, Remo Roy, Renji Wilson, Rojo Thomas

Director: Christo Tomy

The Spy Kids movies have always been knowingly corny, which hasn't changed for this latest installment—it's just that it also has an odd lack of color and personality to its generic action movie shenanigans. This is especially disappointing given the film's focus on video games, which it only seems to understand in their most surface level terms. And because there's a lack of definition in the movie's rules and logic, the plot progresses without any weight or sense of mounting excitement. These are just people going through the motions toward some unclear message about the value of honesty and kindness, which never really factor into the actual adventure and keep the status quo firmly unchanged.

Genre: Action, Action & Adventure, Adventure, Comedy, Family, Science Fiction

Actor: Billy Magnussen, Connor Esterson, D.J. Cotrona, Everly Carganilla, Gina Rodriguez, Jersey Johnston, Joe Schilling, Neal Kodinsky, Patricia Vonne, Solar Dena Bennett, Zachary Levi

Director: Robert Rodriguez

Rating: PG

There’s no way to escape it– the plotline of One True Loves feels like the other side of Cast Away (2000), but instead of focusing on the survival aspect, it focuses on the wife trying to move on with grief. The original novel portrays Emma moving on through reclaiming her past, and learning to appreciate the roots she’s tried to forget with her lost husband. However, the film adaptation falters in depicting the personal, inner world of Emma, as it bungles through the timelines with Hallmark-esque quotes and disarranged scenes. It tries to save the film through its star-studded cast, but their decent performances can’t save the way the film is structured.

Genre: Comedy, Drama, Romance

Actor: Beth Broderick, Christina Bach, Cooper van Grootel, Gabriella Garcia, Gary Hudson, Jacinte Blankenship, Jay DeVon Johnson, Jessi Goei, Kelvin Hodge, Lauren Tom, Luke Bracey, Michael OKeefe, Michaela Conlin, Oceana Matsumoto, Oona Yaffe, Phillipa Soo, Simu Liu, Tom Everett Scott, Victoria Blade, Wil Deusner

Director: Andy Fickman

Rating: PG-13

Genre: Comedy, Romance

Actor: Charithra Chandran, Charles Camrose, Daisy Jelley, Dhanushka Anson, Guz Khan, Kunal Nayyar, Lucy Punch, Madeline Holliday, Maisie Peters, Nick Frost, Sebastian Croft, Tanner Buchanan, Tim Downie

Director: Alex Pillai

Whether you enjoy it or not, edgy, offensive comedy has become a legitimate style of its own—which means there's a way to get it right. Matt Rife has confidence and a decent range of tricks to keep his routines dynamic, but far too much of this set is spent simply pointing out different things and people who piss him off, for reasons that he doesn't articulate very well. Insults can be funny if they're cleverly written enough but Rife only ever sounds like he's trying to prove himself to his haters, not through his own creativity but by bragging that he has a Netflix special now. Even for comedians who like to punch down, you have to have some humility; anything less is just a drunken rant.

Genre: Comedy

Actor: Matt Rife

Director: Erik Griffin

Rating: R

About My Father is clearly intended to be a cringe comedy a la Meet the Parents (it even features Robert De Niro as another grumpy dad), but it stretches the concept of “funny” so thin that the memory of that scene in which a cat pees on the contents of a smashed urn will feel like dizzying comic heights in comparison. The premise — an Italian-American man struggles to win the acceptance of his WASPish in-laws — might have made sense 100 years ago, but today, it strikes as farfetched. Even without that weak foundation, much of About My Father has a shaky grasp on what makes a movie work. The screenplay feels like the product of crudely stitching together several over-manufactured set-pieces, with the result being an almost total lack of fluidity and characters who often contradict themselves.

The film starts out on its worst foot: star–co-writer Sebastian Maniscalco lays the voiceover on thick, while Sebastian’s brash Sicilian father Salvo (De Niro) is so unceasingly negative that it turns a presence that should be great into one that’s only grating. Though it does find something of a footing as a saccharine family drama in its back half, it’s much too little, too late.

Genre: Comedy, Drama

Actor: Adan James Carrillo, Anders Holm, Brett Dier, David Rasche, Kim Cattrall, Leslie Bibb, Robert De Niro, Sebastian Maniscalco

Director: Laura Terruso

Given the nature of the subject (the discovery of a species that predates humans), this installment of the Unknown documentary movies has more fanfare than its predecessors. The narrative never transcends positing that a Homo Naledi is just like Homo Sapiens, but not really. The experts' enthusiasm is often unsettling when you quickly realize that no opposing view is mentioned. In other installments, the balance of arguments for and against discoveries made the narrative compelling. However, Cave of Bones is suspiciously wrapped in (and warped by) the need to have Homo Naledis feel different from humans. What is initially fascinating eventually lends itself to fatigue when discoveries and philosophized theories are repeatedly aggrandized. 

Genre: Documentary

Actor: Lee Berger

Director: Mark Mannucci

Rating: PG