Jake's Cinema Room

This Is Where I Leave You  stars Jason Bateman as Judd Altman, a man who has just discovered that his wife has been sleeping with his boss (Dax Shepard). To make matters worse he receives a phone call not too long after from his sister Wendy (Tina Fey) telling him that their father has just died. Now all the Altman kids are coming home for the funeral and must stay for seven days as they take part in a Jewish tradition called "sitting Shiva." The Altman's don't have the best relationships and once they're all under the same roof chaos ensues. There have been many films that are extremely similar to this premise. A dysfunctional family all come together for one reason or another and have to try and work out their differences for the sake of the family. Been there done that. That's the biggest pratfall for this film, the fact that it is so cliche and hits a lot of the same notes we've seen in plenty of other films. With that being said the film is able t...

What would you do if you knew you only had 90 minutes left to live? In The Angriest Man in Brooklyn  we watch as one man tries to see everyone he can before he dies. Robin Williams, in one of his final performances, stars as Henry Altmann. Henry is a very unhappy man who goes through every day just as miserable as the last. When he goes to visit his doctor Sharon Gill (Mila Kunis), who is experiencing her own rough day, Henry is told that he has a brain aneurysm. This information gets Henry even more angry than usual causing him to get very angry with Sharon which leads to her mistakenly telling him that he only has 90 minutes left to live. Despite not believing he only has an hour and a half left to live Henry sets out to make amends with some of the people in his life that he's wronged including his son, brother (Peter Dinklage) and ex-wife (Melissa Leo). While this film does boast a talented cast the execution feels just a little flat throughout. Not only is the story not al...

Neighbors  is the latest film to star comedian Seth Rogen. Rogen tends to come out with 2 to 3 comedies a year and for the most part the majority of them I have rather enjoyed. This time around Rogen has teamed up with Zac Efron as they go head to head trying to one up each other throughout the film. Seth Rogen and Rose Byrne play Mac and Kelly, a married couple with a new baby girl who have just moved into a great new house. Everything is fine until they have some unwelcome new neighbors move in next door. A college fraternity lead by Teddy (Zac Efron) sets up camp next to Mac and Kelly and now they fear that their baby will never sleep again. They want to approach the fraternity and let them know to keep things down but they don't want to seem like some uncool old folks. That doesn't matter anymore once they call the police on the fraternity and break the trust of Teddy which leads to a war between the college kids and the married couple as they both try to get one anothe...

Romantic comedies continue to get made every year and almost every director and screenwriter continue to do the same things over and over again. It's not often that we get a romantic comedy that tries to do something different, let alone attempts to parody the genre. Director David Wain ( Role Models ) decided to bring his own brand of humor in to try and poke some fun at the genre and showcase just how dumb some romantic comedies can be. In They Came Together , Paul Rudd and Amy Poehler play a couple on a double date as they tell their friends the story of how they met and got to where they are currently. We see it all take place in the same set ups from every romantic comedy we see on a consistent basis. From the introductions of our main characters, to the awkward first meeting, to the eventual conflict, to the reuniting of the characters. All of this is told in really silly situations that are almost too overbearing at times but does provide some good satire on the genre. ...

Buddy cop films have been a hit or miss genre going all the way back to the 80's where we saw some of the very best of the genre. In recent years there haven't been many, mostly because they end up being quite bad like Kevin Smith's Cop Out . But every once in a while we get a good buddy cop film like 21 Jump Street or The Heat . Sadly, the pairing of Kevin Hart and Ice Cube falls into the miss part of the genre with this year's Ride Along . Kevin Hart stars as Ben, a security guard who dreams of being a police officer. He spends the majority of his time playing online games and the rest of his time with his girlfriend Angela (Tika Sumpter). Angela has a brother, James (Ice Cube), who can't stand Ben and doesn't think he's good for Angela. Ben tries his best to impress James but can't seem to win him over. James comes up with the idea to take Ben on a ride along as a way to prove not only if he is good enough for his sister but also to see if he...

2012 saw an unnecessary reboot of the Spider-Man franchise. With a new cast and new director things could have really gone either way for the film. Financially it performed quite well and audiences seemed to like it despite many similarities to the first Spider-Man film. As for me I thoroughly enjoyed The Amazing Spider-Man , it had some good aspects to it but was flawed in a lot of ways as well, most of the flaws involving the villain The Lizard. Sure enough a sequel was definite thing and while it does have some fun moments it ultimately disappoints more than anything. This time around Peter Parker (Andrew Garfield) has a lot on his plate. He's graduating from high school, still trying to figure out his relationship with Gwen Stacey (Emma Stone), trying to maintain a decent homelife with his Aunt May (Sally Field) and take down any criminals as his alter ego Spider-Man. One of a few villains Spidey must stop is troubled Oscorp worker Max Dillion (Jamie Foxx) who transforms in...

The first Captain America  film was one that I enjoyed the hell out of but wouldn't consider to be one of the best films from the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Captain America: The Winter Soldier  on the other hand is second to only The Avengers  as my favorite film in this action packed universe. Combining a superhero film with a spy thriller, as well as a few new great characters makes this film a big step up from the first. This time around Steve Rogers (Chris Evans) is still adjusting to life in the modern world. He's getting better acquainted to the future but still misses the good old days in the 1940's. A new threat against S.H.I.E.L.D. brings Steve face to face with someone from his past in the form of The Winter Soldier, a Soviet agent who may be more skilled than Steve himself. What worked so well in the first film was that the filmmakers were able to make a superhero film work as a period piece. Having a superhero who lives in the 1940's is no easy task to...

Vince Vaughn hasn't had a lot of luck in recent years when it comes to picking good roles. Ever since his smash hit Wedding Crashers  in 2005 things have seemed to go down hill. From Fred Claus  to The Watch  to last year's lackluster The Internship  it's just been one critical and financial failure after another. Vaughn's latest film, Delivery Man , tries to be somewhat different from his recent roles but ultimately ends up on the same level of those films. David (Vince Vaughn) is a nice guy but he's somewhat of an underachiever. He could work harder at his job as well as in his relationship with his newly pregnant girlfriend Emma (Cobie Smulders) who doesn't believe that David is the right man to be a father. Things change even more for David when he finds out that he's the biological father of 533 kids from donating mass amounts of sperm in his 20's. Of those 533, 142 of the kids have filed a lawsuit against him to reveal his identity. Now David m...

It’s been 15 years since The Best Man was released in theaters. The film was met with modest praise and went on to become somewhat of a cult classic since its release. Now the gang is all back in The Best Man Holiday which picks up 15 years later with everybody in the cast returning as well as Malcom D. Lee returning as director. This time around the gang is getting together for the holidays. Once everyone is together old rivalries and romances are brought back up as well as some new conflicts and issues. Harper (Taye Diggs) hasn't had a bestselling book since his last book that set off his best friend Lance (Morris Chestnut) who found out in the book that Harper had slept with his wife Mia (Monica Calhoun). Harper has a new book in mind, this time about Lance’s football career, but he doesn't want to bring it up to him in fear that he won’t want it to be written. Elsewhere, Julian (Harold Perrineau) has found a sex tape of his former stripper wife Candace (Regina Hall...

Every time Martin Scorsese directs a film, no matter what it's about, it is something to be on the lookout for. Same can be said for Leonardo DiCaprio as well, and when the two collaborate on a film together the chances of it being a great film are even higher. With The Wolf of Wall Street, Scorsese and company put together one of the most rambunctious and off-the-wall comedies in recent years. The story, which is based on a book of the same name, follows Jordan Belfort (Leonardo DiCaprio) as we watch his rise to a wealthy stockbroker to his fall involving crime, drugs and corruption. This marks the fifth time Scorsese and DiCaprio have worked together on the same film and this one is certainly different than the rest. We usually don't see comedies from Scorsese, or DiCaprio for that matter, but they manage to put together the best comedy of 2013. Clocking in at just under three hours the film does overstay it's welcome by about fifteen minutes but that really is the o...