THE REVIEW CORNER

Starring: Dylan O'Brien, Kaya Scodelario, and Will Poulter Directed by: Wes Ball Screenplay by: Noah Oppenheim, T.S. Nowlin, and Grant Pierce Meyers Based on the novel by James Dashner      Is this an aMAZEing film?  Sorry, pun intended.  Read on to find out.      Thomas (Dylan O'Brien) is thrown into a group of boys that are trapped inside a maze.  They have no memory either.  They're trapped in a part of the maze they call "the Glade".  Each month, a box shows up with another boy and some supplies for the boys already in the Glade.  There are enough of them that they have been able to form an order.  The "runners" are part of this order and their job is to spend each day mapping the maze in order to find a way out.  The maze keeps changing every night, making it quite difficult to find a way out.  There are also creatures called Grievers they have to contend with.  Runners who don't return at the end...

Starring: Liam Neeson, Dan Stevens, and David Harbour Directed by: Scott Frank Screenplay by: Scott Frank Based on the novel by Lawrence Block     There are movies about disturbing people who do disturbing things to others.  This film takes it to an uncomfortable new level.     New York City, 1999: Matthew Scudder (Liam Neeson) is a former cop now turned private investigator.  He "does favors for people, and in return, they give [him] gifts."  A high profile drug trafficker named Kenny Kristo (Dan Stevens) needs Scudder's help.     Kristo's wife has been kidnapped.  She's been killed even though he paid the ransom.  Kristo needs Scudder to find these people who killed his wife.  So, he will travel all over New York City trying to find these people, but what he finds will prove to be very disturbing.     These men have found a new target and it is up to Scudder to stop them before they do something bad to anoth...

Starring: Helen Mirren, Om Puri, Manish Dayal, and Charlotte Le Bon Directed by:  Lasse Hallström  Screenplay by: Steven Knight Based on the book by Richard C. Morais      A word of advice, don't see this movie on an empty stomach.  I've never been made so hungry by watching a movie until I saw this film.      The Kadam family has just moved to a small town in France from India to start a restaurant.  They want to introduce the people there to the delights of Indian cuisine.  Across the street from where they open the restaurant is the best restaurant in town, owned by Madame Mallory (Helen Mirren).  Her restaurant is known throughout France and specializes in fine French cuisine.  She is confident that the Kadam family's restaurant will fail and fail miserably because the people will not want to try Indian food.  The family thinks otherwise.       As time passes, the Indian restaurant becomes mo...

Starring: Ellar Coltrane, Patricia Arquette, Lorelei Linklater, and Ethan Hawke Directed by: Richard Linklater Screenplay by: Richard Linklater      A film 12 years in the making.  Now, that's a long time to make a movie, and yes, it is worth seeing!!      This is the story about a young boy, Mason (Ellar Coltrane), and his life as he grows up until he goes away to college.  The film follows his whole family from the time he is about six years old to the time he is about 18 years old.  He must navigate a life with his sister, Samantha (Lorelei Linklater), his divorced parents (Patricia Arquette and Ethan Hawke), while his mother remarries twice and his father comes in and out of his life.       For the two hour and 45 minute duration of the film, we watch as everybody grows up, even the adults.  We watch as everybody matures over time and grows both individually and as a family unit, even though the family units chan...

Starring: Frank Grillo, Carmen Ejogo, Zach Gilford, Kiele Sanchez, and  Zoë Soul Directed by: James DeMonaco  Screenplay by: James DeMonaco       " Blessed be our New Founding Fathers for letting us Purge and cleanse our souls. Blessed be America, a nation reborn."       In the not too distant future, America has changed quite a bit.  A new government has come to power known as the New Founding Fathers, and has basically turned the American government into religion.  People are constantly saying the quote above.  The NFFA has established a new annual holiday called the Purge, where all crime, including murder, is legal for 12 hours.  Supposedly, the Purge has made America a more productive society and it does more good than harm.        The first film in the series came out last year, and follows an affluent family who lives in a gated community and their attempt to survive the purge inside their home....

Starring: Zach Braff, Kate Hudson, Joey King, Pierce Gagnon, Josh Gad, Mandy Patinkin, and Jim Parsons Directed by: Zach Braff Screenplay: Adam J. Braff and Zach Braff      Here's Zach Braff's decent movie about a rather unlucky guy.  Some might call him a loser, others might simply see him as unlucky.      Aidan Bloom (Zach Braff) is a struggling actor who's married and has two kids in Jewish day school, thanks to his father, Gabe (Mandy Patinkin), who is nice enough to pay for them to attend school.  Gabe is dying of cancer and needs the money used for putting the kids through school for his treatment.  His wife, Sarah (Kate Hudson), works but doesn't make enough to pay for private school.  While Aidan and Sarah decide whether or not to put their children in public school, Aidan does his best to homeschool them while he navigates various auditions.  Aidan must navigate a lot that is going on in his life.  On top of all t...

Starring: Andy Serkis, Jason Clarke, Gary Oldman, Keri Russell, and Toby Kebbell Directed by: Matt Reeves Screenplay by: Mark Bomback, Rick Jaffa, and Amanda Silver      A second movie to tell us how the Planet of the Apes really began.      At the end of Rise of the Planet of the Apes, a disease broke out.  It killed off most of the human race and made apes into rather intelligent creatures, now led by Caesar (Andy Serkis).  By the time the story of Dawn of the Planet of the Apes starts, the remaining humans in San Francisco have joined together and live in a survivors colony inside the city.  But they need power that only a specific dam can provide, and that requires going into ape territory, just across the Golden Gate Bridge (the posters you see around town; they lie.  The Golden Gate Bridge is intact in the film, not destroyed, like the posters show).  Until now, the humans and the apes live in harmony and it seems as if t...