Jake Peffer Watches

The Shallows tells the story of Nancy, a college medical student who travels to a secluded beach that was one of the favorite spots of her late mother. Nancy arrives and immediately sees it as the paradise that her mother always told her it was and the perfect place to surf. As the day goes on she meets a few locals, takes in more of the scenery and eventually comes in contact with a great white shark. After being attacked by the shark she finds a small spot of rocks where she is stranded about 200 yards from the shore. With no one around and nothing in her reach to help her she must find a way to get by this shark that won't stop stalking her. For a film set up like this where we have essentially only one character for the duration of the film, you need to see a fairly strong performance by that actor. Thankfully, Blake Lively gives it her all here and carries the film from start to finish. This is a tense film that leaves you on the edge of your seat. Watching this girl ...

Blake Jenner stars as Jake Bradford, a freshman heading to college early to get settled and spend some time with his housemates. Jake will be a pitcher on the school's baseball team and he gets to stay with his teammates in a house on campus. We meet an array of different guys that are all on the team and watch as they have the time of their lives over a three day weekend. From girls to drugs to getting into the baseball spirit these guys get to experience it all. This is what director Richard Linklater calls his "spiritual sequel" to his hit Dazed and Confused and that couldn't be a better way to describe it. Linklater takes what was so great about that film and possibly makes an even better film with Everybody Wants Some!! It hits a lot of the same beats that Dazed and Confused does but it's able to stand on it's own and be different enough to make it stand out. A lot of that should be credited to Linklater but the cast of guys here are a big part o...

The Do-Over (2016) The Do-Over marks the second of four films for Adam Sandler to go straight to Netflix. There isn't much good to describe this particular film although I can say it is quite a bit better than his previous film, The Ridiculous 6. In this film we follow Charlie (David Spade) who runs into his old friend Max (Adam Sandler) at their high school reunion. While the guys catch up Charlie admits to not doing much with his life and basically hating every aspect of it. After hearing how bad Charlie has got it Max decides to take Charlie out for an awesome weekend on his boat where the guys have the time of their lives. That is until Charlie wakes up after Max's boats explodes to find out that Max has faked their deaths and given them both a fresh start with new identities. All seems well until the guys find out the identities they've taken are in deep trouble. It's amazing to me how somebody like Sandler can go from having so much potential early on ...

Triple 9 (2016) Triple 9 is the latest corrupt crime thriller to hit theaters. Here we follow a crew of dirty cops who have to pull off an impossible heist after being black mailed by the Russian mob, led by Irina (Kate Winslet). Along for the ride is Mike (Chiwetel Ejiofor), whose son is also being held by the mob, Marcus (Anthony Mackie), Gabe (Aaron Paul), Russell (Norman Reedus) and Franco (Clifton Collins Jr.). Realizing the difficulty of this heist the team decides they need to pull off a 999, the police code for "officer down," so all the police officers in town will be responding to the officer down leaving them free for the heist. Now the question is what officer is going to be their target? That question is answered when Chris (Casey Affleck) becomes Marcus' new partner. Right off the bat the film sets up the intensity with a great heist sequence to get things started. From there until the end the film never lets up and keeps you on edge until the final s...

Room is one of the most emotional and heartwarming films to come out this year. Director Lenny Abrahamson along with actress Brie Larson and newcomer Jacob Tremblay knock it out of the park with what is without a doubt one of the best films of the year. The story is told from the perspective of Jack (Jacob Tremblay), his mother (Brie Larson) and him live in a very small place that they call room. This is the only place Jack has known his whole life, he's never been able to see the outside world. As he turns five years old Jack's mother decides it's time for them to get out of their current situation. She hatches up a plan to get them out of room and once they do Jack finally gets to witness what the outside world has to offer. Let me just say that going in to this film I really had no idea what it was about. All the descriptions and synopsis' I read didn't leave much to the imagination, but that is how this film should be viewed. Going in without much knowledge ...

The End of the Tour is the latest film directed by James Ponsoldt, which shows the real life story of Rolling Stone reporter David Lipsky (Jesse Eisenberg) spending five days with acclaimed writer David Frank Wallace (Jason Segel) and interviewing him for the famous magazine. This takes place just after Wallace's groundbreaking novel 'Infinite Jest' was released. Director James Ponsoldt takes us through the five day interview and we see as these two guy become good friends but start to constantly bicker and argue the more they get to know one another. It's a real in depth look inside the mind of two clearly talented writers and how much they differ from one another as we watch over the course of the film. This was a pleasantly surprising little film. Not that I expected it to be a disappointment but it surprised me in how genuine and real it felt as the story went along. Watching these two guys and listening to the conversations they have together, you really get a ...

Summertime always seems to be the best time to showcase a coming of age story. That's the setting for the latest film trying to go the coming of age route and that film is Staten Island Summer. In the film we follow Danny (Graham Phillips) and Frank (Zack Pearlman), two best friends who are working as lifeguards during the summer after graduating high school. Both guys are unsure of what they want to do now that they are out of high school but they know for sure that they want to have a great summer. Summer consists of them getting into all kinds of shenanigans with some of their fellow co-workers and it all leads up to one last blow out party to end the summer on the right note. This was a surprising little film. It was completely off my radar until I was able to catch it on Netflix and I must say that it was well worth the watch. While the film does hit many of the same beats other films like it hit and it is really cliche in a lot of parts, it was able to win me over with wi...