Teensy Reviews: 6 Films We Didn't Review Properly

These reviews could fit in a tweet. Presented to assuage Nathaniel's guilt from not having properly reviewed them when they arrived, though he sometimes dropped hints of his feelings in other contexts.

IN THEATERS

Swiss Army Man (Daniels)
Story: A suicidal man (Paul Dano) finds companionship and a new zest for life when he meets a corpse (Daniel Radcliffe)
Review: Wobbly start, Self sabotaging end. But, Oh!, those imaginative mental heights in the middle. 
Grade: Middle Hour: A- / The Rest: C+

Genius (Michael Grandage)
Story: An account of the long working relationship between famed editor Max Perkins (Colin Firth) and one of his literary finds Thomas Wolfe (Jude Law). Let us not mention the women (Nicole Kidman, The Lovely Laura Linney) lest we rage again at the terrible gender politics
Review: The work of an editor is shape & rhythm, so why is a film about a great one lumpy and lead-footed? Over and under-acted at once. 
Grade: D- 
Extra: Amir's festival review

The Shallows (Jaume Collet-Serra)
Story: A grieving med school dropout is attacked by a shark and stranded in the ocean alone. Can she survive? Review: Mechanical, but that's meant as a compliment. It plays. Slight with just enough bite (sorry). Bonus points for Steven Seagull.
Grade: B 

ON DVD & BLURAY

The Bronze (Bryan Buckley)
Story: Two former Olympic champions (Melissa Rauch & Sebastian Stan) fight over a promising new female gymnast
Review: Rude and daring. But its suffocatingly narrow comic tone mars the promising conceit, good jokes, and a lunatic sex scene. 
Grade: C+ 

How to Be Single (Christian Ditter)
Story: Four single girls (Dakota Johnson, Leslie Mann, Rebel Wilson, Alison Brie) try to find themselves... and maybe a boyfriend... in Manhattan.
Review: Unexpectedly involving performances. Fun. And yet, as uneven and generic as first dates. One entire storyline needs to go.
Grade: B- 

10 Cloverfield Lane (Dan Trachtenberg)
Story: A woman (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) wakes up chained up by a man (John Goodman) in an underground shelter. Should she fear the man or the apocalypse he swears is raging outside the bunker? 
Review: Discomforting. What it lacks in scope, it makes up for in propulsive plotting: from frying pan to fire to inferno.
Grade: B 

Streaming: J Edgar Drinking Games & Elizabeth's Golden Foreshadowing

Do you purchase or rent DVDs movies anymore or just wait for streaming -- however long that takes? If you do the following titles have emerged in the past week on Blu-Ray or DVD: The Finest Hours in which Chris Pine gets a man vs. ocean movie cuz Chris Hemsworth got one;  Gods of Egypt which is terrible but in so-bad-it's-great way; How to Be Single which is better than you'd think but way overstuffed but you should probably see it for another great performance variation on "the boyfriend" by Jake Lacy (he's got that market covered but he's so good at it with no two characters feeling like the same guy); Pride & Prejudice & Zombies which is fun for what it is if nothing more; also new are Race, Risen, Triple 9, and Zoolander 2. 

But on to the fun part, New to Streaming. Because, to quote the one and only Carrie Fisher:

Instant gratication takes too long.

Let's do our fun little freeze frame game on new streaming titles. The following films were frozen on one image completely at random to see what showed up. They're all new on either Netflix of Amazon Prime. Ready? Let's play!

J Edgar (2011) on Netflix

Charles Lindbergh. Lindbergh's baby has been kidnapped.

A fun drinking came while streaming J Edgar in five easy steps
1. Take a drink every time you wish Clint Eastwood wasn't terrified of color
2. Take a drink every time you wish Tom Stern would throw a damn light on the set for once
3. Take a drink every time you see bad old age makeup in closeup
4. Take a drink every time you're glad AMPAS dodged a bullet on this one and it's not part of Oscar history
5. Die of alcohol poisoning. 

Six Degrees of Separation (1993)

You said when artists dream they dream of money.
...I must be such an artist.

Love this movie. Stockard Channing was just sensational in it. (And what a great Best Actress year 1993 was)

Elizabeth: The Golden Age (2007) and more after the jump...

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