by Philip Price The Blackening “The Blackening” is a throwback of sorts to the satires that dominated the early aughts in the wake of the runaway success of “Scary Movie,” which for someone who became a teen at the beginning of the millennium, is oddly comforting even if the overall execution is fairly slight. Director Tim Story (“Barbershop,” “Ride Along”) has been coasting for some time, relying on the charisma of his casts and your most basic set of filmmaking tools to pump out middle-of-the-road, largely comedic fare that offends no one and entertains most, but choosing to take on something like “The Blackening” seemed as if it might be a chance for Story to do something more daring; a social satire that turns genre stereotypes on their head? Provocative, right? Unfortunately, this is not the case. That said, the charismatic cast is completely winning (co-writer Dewayne Perkins, Melvin Gregg and Grace Byers standing out especially) despite Story's inability to enhance the comedy while falling completely flat in regard to the scares whereas the screenplay (which Perkins co-wrote with Tracy Oliver) thankfully offers both plenty of humor and potent observations that feed off the old premise/new protagonists idea to keep the fun (and most of the characters) alive. About My Father “About My Father,” directed by Laura Terruso, is an old-school comedy that goes for as much heart and story as it does laughs even if it only succeeds about half the time in each aspect. As someone who’s not really a fan of Sebastian Maniscalco’s stand-up comedy, I kind of expected worse, but he’s enlisted enough heavyweights to support him here that the film easily meets its modest objectives. Speaking of heavyweights, the scene between Robert De Niro and Kim Cattrall is the best in the movie and their chemistry is palpable while David Rasche absolutely kills it and almost steals the film entirely.
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