Jeremy Renner Goes Hunting Along the Wind River

Remember This? Wind River

Director - Taylor Sheridan

Writer - Taylor Sheridan

Starring - Jeremy Renner, Elizabeth Olsen

I'm changing things up a little here. The previous movies I've covered under the Remember This? tag have been terrible looking flops, often times failing spectacularly on such a scale that it is actually kind of impressive that they were quickly forgotten by society. Wind River is not that kind of movie. It is a modest indie hit, raking in $40 million world wide on a $10 million budget. It comes from the writer of Sicario and Hell or High Water, but this time he is stepping into the director's chair and it does compare favourably to those films. Wind River was well received critically as well, not as well as high previous screenplays, but a high 80s RottenTomatoes score and a mid 70s MetaCritic score bode well for this film. It is a well made crime film featuring a fantastic score from Nick Cave and Warren Ellis, expansive snowscapes filmed beautifully by Ben Richardson and features strong acting. It probably won't get nominated for Oscars and other awards, but Hell or High Water got a Best Picture nomination and was only a little more acclaimed.

The Circle Posits: Big Brother But Good

No company led by Tom Hanks could ever be evil

Remember This? The Circle

Director - James Ponsoldt

Writers - James Ponsoldt and Dave Eggers

Starring - Emma Watson, Tom Hanks, Patton Oswalt, Karen Gillan, Bill Paxton, Glenne Headley, John Boyega

You would think a movie starring Emma Watson and Tom Hanks would be remembered in some way less than six months after its theatrical release just by sheer virtue of a pairing of stars that seemingly appeals to all film watching demographics. It is quite a testament to this particular film that I had completely forgotten about it when I was researching movie for this feature and upon seeing James Ponsoldt's name I had to watch it. Sure it's gotten bad reviews but I figured this combination of Ponsoldt directing Watson, Hanks and a great collection of supporting actors would offer something. I'm a big fan of Ponsoldt's previous work, Smashed, The Spectacular Now and The End of the Tour and was curious as to how his foray into (moderately) big budget filmmaking would go. The answer: not so good.

Matt Damon Scales The Great Wall

Remember This? The Great Wall

Director - Zhang Yimou

Writers - Carlo Bernard, Doug Miro, Tony Gilroy, Max Brooks, Edward Zwick and Marshall Herskovitz

Starring - Matt Damon, Jing Tian, Pedro Pascal, Willem Dafoe, Andy Lau

Remember earlier this year when Matt Damon was the lead in a big $150 million Chinese blockbuster about The Great Wall of China? No? Really? Jimmy Kimmel even joked about it at the Oscars. Well you missed out on Matt Damon fighting evil green demon dogs alongside a bright and colourful Chinese army. It isn't even as bad as you think it is. Matt Damon doesn't completely save the Chinese by himself. Jing Tian helps him! Or more accurately, they help each other. Xin Ren and all that. Well spoilers! The humans win! Anyways, this movie was a massive hit in China and made basically nothing in North America which is not entirely surprising. I'm pretty sure they don't go ga-ga for our mythological films (checks box office gross of that King Arthur movie, yup, they did not go for that) so it's quite logical that a film heavily rooted in Chinese legend would make very little impact in North America.

Remember This? xXx: Return of Xander Cage

xXx: Return of Xander Cage

Director - DJ Caruso

Writer - F Scott Frazier

Starring - Vin Diesel, Donnie Yen, Deepika Padukone, Ruby Rose, Kris Wu, Toni Collette

Surely you remember that Vin Diesel returned to the xXx franchise back in January, right? Xtreme Mountain Dew James Bond. Wait, did you completely forget xXx was even a thing in the first place? I guess you can be forgiven considering it has been 15 years since the original and nobody cares about the Ice Cube starring sequel. Ice Cube's mother doesn't remember that being a thing. Well anyways, Vin Diesel returns as Xander Cage, aka the coolest motherfucker who's ever lived, to fight terrorists or evil governments or something and he's brought a cast of friends that a cynical person would say are only there to boost the international box office. Sure Donnie Yen broke out to Western audiences with Rogue One but I'm willing to be nobody in North America had ever heard of Deepika Padukone or Kris Wu. Vin Diesel wants that Asian market.

Remember This? The Bye Bye Man

The Bye Bye Man

Director - Stacy Title

Writer - Jonathan Penner

Starring - Douglas Smith, Lucien Laviscount, Creddisa Bonas, Carrie-Anne Moss, Doug Jones, Faye Dunaway

Remember This? is a new feature meant to highlight films that got big releases and then quickly vanished from our collective consciousnesses. In most cases, all involved are probably happy for this but I feel like their shame should be preserved. A rough guide for films appearing in this column is a film must have received a wide release in at least 2000 theatres according to BoxOfficeMojo and have been released during the last calendar year. Bonus points will be awards to franchise movies that get quickly abandoned because of their higher level of difficulty. The Bye Bye Man, a PG-13 horror film dumped into theatres in January was quite obviously destined for complete dismissal by the public but it is warranted? Yes. After watching it I can definitively say nobody else should ever watch this movie.