Spoilerpiece Theatre

What's that phrase? "Verity, verity, I say unto you," right? Or something like that. This week Evan and Dave hop on the VERITY (2:20) train. Colleen Hoover's bestselling novel gets big-budge big-star treatment, with Anne Hathaway as Verity, a shitty (personality-wise) writer, who's catatonic; Dakota Johnson as a young writer hired to ghostwrite Verity's last three novels in a series; and Josh Hartnett as Verity's husband. Also: Mr. Hartnett, nice to see back in the bigs! VERITY's title and title character are clumsy clues as to what's going on in this movie: Did Verity kill her daughter? Did she confess in an autobiography? Is she really catatonic? Will the Yankees take the pennant? We answer all those questions (except the Yankees one), and have a good time taking apart this movie's many flaws, however watchable the final product may be. (And did we mention Michael Showalter directed this fucker?!!) Over on Patreon, we talk about the 2016 thriller HUSH.

This week Dave strolled into a screening of PRIMETIME (3:00), the new feature in which Robert Pattinson plays Chris Hanson as he rides To Catch a Predator to success while navigating (dumb) personal and (avoidable) professional crises. Then Evan and Dave break down UNABOMBER, a new Netflix film with Shailene Woodley and Russell Crowe about hunting down - wait for it! - Ted Kaczynski. UNABOMBER jumps back and forth in time over two narratives, and Evan and Dave found one infinitely more compelling than the other. Guess which! Over on Patreon, we watched 9 TO 5 in tribute to Dolly Parton.

There's a new RESIDENT EVIL film, and it's made by the guy who made WEAPONS (and BARBARIAN), which Evan and Dave are both fans of, so yay! But, as sometimes happens on Spoilerpiece Theatre, one of them really dug it, and the other thought it was fine. But the movie has some cool set pieces up its sleeve, and it takes a novel approach in adapting a video game for the big screen. (We agreed on that.) Over on Patreon, we talk about Paul W.S. Anderson's 2002 adaption.

This week Evan and Dave take a look at IT ENDS, a movie that has been out a couple weeks, in which four friends are stuck on a road that seemingly goes on forever. Why watch IT ENDS, you ask? In addition to the studios releasing f*ck-all this week, we've also been hearing things about IT ENDS: It's creepy! It's eerie! It's a nailbiter! It's a shitty GROUNDHOG DAY! Say no more. We're in. Over on Patreon, we watched the 1984 classic (question mark?) THE KARATE KID.

Evan's and Dave's schedules diverged this week, so Dave tackled ONSLAUGHT (3:37), director Adam Wingard's latest. Dave was and is a big fan of Wingard's 2011 slasher YOU'RE NEXT, about a trio of home invaders running into someone in the home who was raised in a survivalist camp. But ONSLAUGHT ain't that; it's an action-thriller-horror hybrid about a fascist doctor making super soldiers, who - natch - get loose. This movie has killin' aplenty. But is it good killin'? Meanwhile, Evan took in MAYDAY (27:40), an action-comedy with Ryan Reynolds as an American pilot downed in Russia who meets Kenneth Branagh, a former KGB agent who wants to defect to the United States because he loves TOP GUN. Yeah, this movie takes place in 1987. Over on Patreon, we talk about the 1971 revenge flick GET CARTER, starring Michael Caine.