THE NICE GUYS
Directed by Shane Black/Written by Shane Black & Anthony Bagarozzi
Shane Black takes us back to the '70s and into the world of porn and politics for this buddy "cop" movie. Cop is in parenthesis because Russell Crowe and Ryan Gosling are private dicks and not real cops. But they are really funny-- well, at least Gosling is. Crowe's more of the straight (but very, very violently tough) man. But either way, it works as I laughed throughout the film. But Nice Guys should seriously rethink its title, because these two investigators wouldn't have gotten shit done if it wasn't for Angourie Rice, who played Gosling's character's daughter, actually doing all the real detective work. Sure, she's nice, but not a guy. I was able to forgive most of the film's convenient script, except for one goddamn idiotic sequence that still angers me as I write this Lil' Review. In fact, it bothers me so much, it's gonna keep this very fun film from getting an A (or even a B+).
GRADE: B
THE CONJURING 2
Directed by James Wan/Written by Carey Hayes, Chad Hayes, James Wan & David Johnson
It's The Conjuring 2: Scary European Vacation as the Warrens head to England to deal with the infamous Enfield Poltergeist. Here, much like the original, Ed and Lorraine do everything they can to help some children battle demons, while simultaneously doing everything else they can to forget that their own child even exists. Unlike the first film, though, it's actually... kind of boring. Sure, it's got a few jump scares here and there, but the pacing is kind of all over the place. At one point (SPOILER ALERT) Patrick Wilson actually plays an entire Elvis song on guitar, which I think was almost a full minute and a half longer than it took for Vera Farmiga to explain the very complicated haunting/possession PLUS the time it took her to figure out how to solve it. I loved the original Conjuring and 2 is not bad-- especially for a sequel. It just falls a little short of the high expectations set by its far superior predecessor.
GRADE: C-
Reviews by Dan Sinclair