TRAVIS BYRAM'S MOVIE REVIEWS

We really don't deserve Hugh Jackman. He's made nine on-screen appearances as Wolverine, including his most recent/final/best outing in James Mangold's Logan  this year. With almost decades with the claws on, I'm glad to see him usher in a new era of his career as P.T. Barnum in Michael Gracy's The Greatest Showman . An original musical with the music team Pasek and Paul, fresh off Oscar wins for La La Land , I was excited to see Jackman in the lead. His Jean Valjean, whose veins we got to see in full throttle in Les Miz, was an intense revelation, a testament to the fact that Jackman can beat up bad guys but also belt out tunes. And though it might appear that this is his sole vehicle, there's a lot of talent that gets introduced in The Greatest Showman , and for the most part this movie delivers. First, it's important to direct you to the film's Rotten Tomatoes page. It seems to have the opposite problem of The Last Jedi, which notoriously has a 91% ...

Kicking off the feel-good movie of the year that is Denis Villeneuve's "Prisoners" is a scene where your typical blue-collar family (Hugh Jackman, with a perfect American accent and Maria Bello with their son and young daughter) visits another typical blue collar family (with Viola Davis and Terrence Howard as the parents) for Thanksgiving. After a walk where the two girls pick off icicles on a large white van, they excuse themselves from listening to Terrence Howard's horrendous trumpet playing to pick up a red whistle they left at Jackman's daughter's house. When the parents go back outside, poof, the children have disappeared. This remarkably grim, depressing and involving film is a surefire for the upcoming Oscars, and is one of the year's best thrillers by a landslide. With it's lengthy two and a half hour running time, one would expect there to be a significant amount of character study, and the actors, along with a labyrinthine script from Aar...

Before I go into detail about the powerhouse musical that is "Les Miserables" (referred to as "Les Mis" in this review, though throughout awards season I've heard it referred to as at least 5 other titles.), let me exclaim my bias for musicals, as I have worked on several of my high school's musicals along the way.  At first guys never want to profess their interest for the movie musical, but after a "Grease" or "Sound of Music," their interests are usually turned for the best.  The truth is, despite the macho stereotype, there are decent, non-Disney musicals out there on the market for an audience, and "Les Mis" happens to be one of them. Well, I suppose you could go into a "Grease" or a "Seussical" with no prior musical background and still be pleasantly surprised.  "Les Mis" is strictly for musical lovers, as it's not so much a musical as it is an opera (think "Jesus Christ Superstar,...