Review: ‘A Wish For Giants’ Warms Your Heart

A Wish For Giants

Release Date: February 17, 2018

Run Time: 1 hour 18 minutes

Reviewed By: Reel Reviews Over Brews

Sophie (Naysa Altmeyer) meets a kindred spirit in Roxie (Alexa Mechling), a young girl with an inoperable brain tumor and the impossible wish to meet Bigfoot. As if the task at hand isn’t hard enough, Sophie must contend with meddling from Derrick (Connor McClain), a fame-hungry classmate born into privilege from her graduate classes. As time grows short and pressures mount, Sophie must align herself with Derrick in order to see Roxie’s wish granted, even if not in the way she may have hoped for. Unknown to everyone is the possibility that there may be magic in the wish of a dying girl, and a truth beyond belief.

Going into A Wish For Giants, I wasn’t sure what to expect. The only other movie with Bigfoot I’ve seen is Harry and the Hendersons. When I was little, Harry used to give me nightmares… who knows why, but this would be my first Bigfoot movie since. So I began this adventure only knowing two things. One was, it was a Bigfoot movie, but not a typical Bigfoot movie. The other was, it won Best Dramatic Feature at a film festival and it is consideration for awards at several other festivals. I can certainly see why it won one award and is in consideration for more. A Wish For Giants was wonderful. It truly warms your heart. You can tell it’s a low budget film (i.e., sound and video quality), but that doesn’t change how great the story line is. I would love to see what a major Hollywood producing company could do with it. Reminded me of a movie you would find on Hallmark or Lifetime. It just had that feel. I think you’ll know what I mean. If you happen upon A Wish For Giants, it’s definitely worth the watch! It’ll leave you with a smile on your face. Now maybe I’ll give Harry and the Hendersons another shot… maybe.

Reel ROB Rating: 6.5 out of 10 stars

Post Credits Scene: No

We want to thank our friends at Reel News Daily for allowing us to do this guest review!

Review: ‘The God Inside My Ear’ – One Trippy Ride

The God Inside My Ear

Release Date: August 2017

Run Time: 1 hour 38 minutes

Reviewed By: Reel Reviews Over Brews

After experiencing a peculiar and sudden breakup with her boyfriend, Elizia discovers a world of conspiracies, strange voices and horrifying visions.

Holy ayahuasca trip, Batman! This is one trippy movie. Go into it with an open mind and you won’t be disappointed. This is certainly one of the better low budget films I’ve seen in a while. I believe the entire movie was completed in 13 days with only $8,000. Damn, that is impressive work! Linnea Gregg as Elizia did a wonderful job. Very impressed with her work. Although hard to follow at times, it had me going back and forth in my own head trying to figure out how it would end. It was certainly a bit of a jaw dropper, which is my favorite kind of movie so that helped make my decision on the higher rating easy. Can’t wait to see what Joe Badon produces next!

Reel ROB Rating: 5.75 out of 10 stars

Post Credits Scene: No

We want to thank our friends at Reel News Daily for allowing us to do this guest review!

Review: ‘Baywatch’ – A Summer Blockbuster Is Coming…

Baywatch

Theatrical Release Date: May 25, 2017

Guest review from Reel Reviews Over Brews

Baywatch is based on the popular 90’s TV series starring David Hasselhoff and Pamela Anderson.  The film stars Dwayne Johnson, playing Mitch Buchannon, who is the head of the Baywatch lifeguard team. The team also includes CJ Parker (Kelly Rohrback) and Stephanie Holden (Ilfenesh Hadera). Mitch has to constantly prove why his team is needed to keep the bay safe. When drugs and dead bodies wash ashore their team has never been more important. The Baywatch team holds tryouts for the few open positions available, which is where we meet Matt Brody (Zac Efron), Summer Quinn (Alexandra Daddario), and Ronnie Greenbaum (Jon Bass).

After Ronnie and Summer prove themselves worthy of the team, Matt Brody continues to bump heads with Mitch resulting in a head-to-head competition with comically ridiculous events that have nothing to do with lifeguarding, but eventually Matt ends up on the team. Victoria Leeds (Priyanka Chopra) is quickly identified as the villain of the film and is suspected of heading a drug ring. The Baywatch team plans how to take down Victoria and preserve the future of the bay, while Matt Brody questions why it’s even the responsibility of lifeguards.

This movie was definitely not meant to be taken seriously… and at points throughout the film, pokes fun at how ridiculous the situation might be. Plain and simple, this IS your typical summer blockbuster movie. A decent amount of action and just enough comedy to make this an enjoyable movie, not to mention, there is definitely no shortage of attractive people.

Jon Bass leads the way in the comedy field with several funny moments as the tubby nerd who has a thing for Kelly Rohrback‘s character. Johnson and Efron have plenty of good scenes together and a great running joke that Johnson refuses to call Efron by his actual name. We really enjoyed this movie… more than expected. The plot was simple, but this movie was just meant to entertain the hell out of you. It accomplished that, in our eyes. You can’t go wrong with explosions and comedy, but we certainly felt the need to overhaul our beach bodies after it was over.

Reel ROB Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

Post Credits Scene: No (Gag reel & extra scene DURING credits)

We want to thank our friends at Reel News Daily for allowing us to do this guest review for them!

Review: ‘On The Road, Somewhere’ Is An Enlightening Adventure

On The Road, Somewhere

Available May 23, 2017 on DVD

Guest review from Reel Reviews Over Brews

On The Road, Somewhere starts with 3 friends; Oliver (Arnold Martínez), Moises (Javier Grullón), and Hemingway (Victor Alfonso) planning a road trip around the Dominican Republic.

Oliver’s main objective of this trip is to say goodbye to his girlfriend before she leaves for New York. Hemingway is trying to get away from his family and become a writer, even though being a writer is frowned upon in their society. Lastly, we have Moises, who is the photographer of the group. He loves photography and is on a quest to capture the perfect picture before starting his career in engineering. This “tripod” encounters a lot of interesting people that help them grow along their adventure. The ones that we get to meet are a famous photographer, a lustful artist, and a hitchhiker from Haiti. On top of the interesting people that this group gets to meet, their constant car trouble causes them to keep changing their travel plans. This journey they’re on could be their last hurrah…

This movie did a great job portraying what a road trip with friends is like. We have been on a lot of road trips together and just like Oliver, Moises, and Hemingway, we also have plenty of teasing, talks about girls, and are constantly trying to stay out of trouble. There are always interesting people to meet and crazy situations that occur when you go on these adventures. On The Road, Somewhere portrayed that extremely well. They also did an excellent job capturing the beauty of the Dominican Republic. There are a few questions left unanswered at the end of the movie, but really, our biggest complaint would be that we were only able to be apart of the group’s journey for a little over an hour. Just when we feel we are getting to know the main characters, the movie is over. It’s very easy to see why this movie won “Best Feature Film” at the 2015 Miami International Film Festival. By the end of this trio’s enlightening adventure, they had us counting down the days until our next road trip… and it can’t come soon enough!

Reel ROB Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

Post Credits Scene: No

We want to thank our friends at Reel News Daily for allowing us to do this guest review for them!

 

Review: ‘Even Lambs Have Teeth’ Has A Pretty Good Bite

Even Lambs Have Teeth

Available Now: iTunes, Amazon, Google Play, Vudu, & VOD

Guest review from Reel Reviews Over Brews

Two best friends, Sloane (Kirsten Prout) and Katie (Tiera Skovbye), are trying to raise some extra cash for their shopping spree in New York by working at an eco-farm. While waiting for a bus to take them to the eco-farm, two brothers, Jed (Garrett Black) and Lucas (Jameson Parker) befriend the girls. The brothers offer to take Sloane and Katie to the farm, however, the girls instead are taken to the brother’s home where they are drugged. When they wake up they find themselves chained up in shipping containers and soon find out they are going to be used as sex slaves. Katie’s FBI uncle, Jason (Michael Karl Richards), gets a bad vibe about how the girls are making out and goes on the hunt to find them. Eventually the girls escape, but instead of running, they return to the crime scene to seek revenge… that’s when things get ugly!

First, we loved the title to this movie!! The first half of the movie felt like a straight forward horror flick. We quickly find that Sloane is more willing to toe the line of reckless, while Katie is more reserved and hesitant… at first. As the movie progressed it becomes apparent these girls would get their revenge and we became eager to see how they would pull it off. Sloane and Katie had our attention from the beginning and never lost it. We found it hard not to love them, especially when they started on their rampage, we couldn’t look away. Once the second half of the movie got going, we felt it became less of a horror movie and more of a thriller. The revenge scenes felt more fun than scary, as the girls got pretty creative with their torture techniques. Although the dialogue did get a bit stale at times and some of the plot was predictable, in the end this horror movie DOES have a pretty good bite! We highly enjoyed it.

Reel ROB Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

Post Credits Scene: No

We want to thank our friends at Reel News Daily for allowing us to do this guest review for them!

Review: ‘NOLA Circus’… the most average show on Earth

NOLA Circus

Theatrical release date: April 21, 2017
VOD (Video On Demand) release date: April 25, 2017

Guest review from Reel Reviews Over Brews

NOLA Circus is a comedy, directed by Luc Annest, about two competing barber shops in New Orleans, that are right across the street from one another, and the ridiculous events that take place surrounding the owners and their friends and families.

One of the barber shops is owned by Will (Martin Bradford), a black barber who loves afros and regularly gives speeches on racial issues. Will is having a secret love connection with Nola (Jessica Morali)a white woman dreaming of a career in showbiz. Will’s rival, Marvin (Vas Blackwood), is a sex addict who is having an affair with a local drug dealer, Karen (Kamille McCuin). The drama in everyone’s lives seems to all come together at once, creating a series of crazy events. Whether its Nola’s brother, Denzel (Reginal Varice), beating up pizza delivery guys to “protect” his sister or the KKK going after Will, you just never know what will happen next.

Nola (Jessica Morali) is the focal point in this movie. The “circus act” of events all seem to stem from her life. Without Jessica Morali this movie would have gotten an even lower rating. NOLA Circus is labeled a comedy, but we only found ourselves laughing only a few times and most of those times can be found in the trailer. With the amount of craziness going on in this movie, it’s easy to see why it would get put in the comedy genre… we however, just didn’t find it that amusing. With a similar premise to the Barbershop franchise, we were expecting more out of NOLA Circus. So was this circus, “The greatest show on Earth?” Not by a long shot… average at best.

Reel ROB Rating: 2.5 out of 5 stars

Post Credits Scene: No

We want to thank our friends at Reel News Daily for allowing us to do this guest review for them!

Review: ‘Queen of the Desert’… More Like, Queen of the Deserted

Queen of the Desert

Theatrical release date: April 7, 2017

VOD (Video On Demand) release date: April 14, 2017

Guest review from Reel Reviews Over Brews

Queen of the Desert starring Nicole Kidman, is the true story behind Gertrude Bell, an English writer and traveler, among many other titles. She explored, mapped, and formed strong relationships with leaders of the Middle East. Her accomplishments lead her to become highly influential to British imperial policy-making. Bell was very trusted and given a tremendous amount of power by the British, for a woman at the time. Reading even a little bit about Gertrude Bell’s life, will open your eyes to just how incredible this woman’s accomplishments are… let alone for a woman in the early 1900’s! With the help from T. E. Lawrence, aka Lawrence of Arabia (Robert Pattinson), she gave support to the Hashemite dynasties, in what is known as Jordan and Iraq today.

Sadly, this movie boiled down to Bell (Nicole Kidman) dealing with the heartbreak of the men she fell for, British Officer Henry Cadogan (James Franco) and Lieutenant Colonel Charles “Richard” Doughty-Wylie (Damian Lewis).

Kidman did her best to keep Bell memorable throughout and was the main reason this movie didn’t sink further. Director Werner Herzog did a great job mesmerizing us with the panoramic shots of the desert and all of its beauty, but that was about it. Herzog had poor transitions throughout the movie, which certainly made things more difficult to follow than they could have been. The exploration portion of the movie felt empty as it seemed to just have her wandering around in the sand. The movie should have focused more on what the final 20 minutes were about, rather than the pointless relationships she made with the men she fell for. Gertrude Bell is an influential and powerful role model for women everywhere and deserved a better told story. In the end, we felt deserted from what could have been a great movie…

Reel ROB Rating: 2 out of 5 stars

Post Credits Scene: No

We want to thank our friends at Reel News Daily for allowing us to do this guest review for them!