Review: "Me and Earl and the Dying Girl" (****½)

Thomas Mann and Olivia Cooke star in "Me and Earl and the Dying Girl."

An adaptation of the same-titled novel by Jesse Andrews, “Me and Earl and the Dying Girl” is about a self-aware and 'gopher-faced' (his words, not mine) high school senior named Greg (Thomas Mann) who is forced, per his mother’s request, to hang out with Rachel (Olivia Cooke), a classmate who could barely be called an acquaintance, once she’s been diagnosed with cancer. And the result of that first, initial, forced hang-out is… well, it’s magic. And Alfonso Gomez-Rejon’s direction is risky and wild and perfectly on point. He creates a world you want to live in and characters you want to believe in.

Review: "Fury" (***½)

Shia LaBeouf, Logan Lerman, Brad Pitt, Michael Peña & Jon Bernthal star in "Fury"

Very rarely do I enter a theatre completely blind to what it is I’m about to see. I’m too greedy, too curious and far too impatient for the kind of diamond-like discovery that comes with digging in the dark. That analogy may have fallen a bit flat, but the point I’m trying to make here is that this was my experience with “Fury;” I went into the theatre knowing only that it was a war movie and that Brad Pitt was in it. I hadn’t heard too much about the film, and I never really felt any pressure to see it. I hadn’t heard anything too great about it, though to be fair, I hadn’t heard that anyone despised it, either. The buzz surrounding “Fury” was essentially non-existent… for me, at least. The only reason I did see this movie was because it was a very, very rainy Sunday and, quite simply, I love the movies. Plus, I have less a tendency to watch period pieces in the comfort of my own home. Had I not seen “Lincoln” in theatres, I never would have watched that movie; and I’m glad I did see it, it’s a very good movie, but I have some sort of mental block against them. They’re not very easy for me. All that being said, “Fury” was a movie I thoroughly enjoyed.