There are many reasons why very bad movies are made and released to the world. In my opinion, it is never enough to just have a bad script that someone thinks should be made into a movie. Its also when a named actor, in this case Katie Holmes reads an extremely bad script and for some reason, decides to take the role.

Why or how could anyone, read something as bad as “Brahms: The Boy II” and then decide to take the part? When the TV show Dawson’s Creek ended its run in 2003, most people probably thought that the break out star would be Katie Holmes, but instead Michelle Williams has been by far the most successful in the entire cast. The reason for this is, she never took any role for money, only for quality. She took many low paying Independent film roles that were all about the quality of the part and in the last 17 years these decisions have paid off with a very large number of acting nominations and wins. Unfortunately, none of the other cast members of Dawson’s Creek have been nearly as successful as Michelle Williams and this is all a result of bad decision making.

Brahms: The Boy II is the sequel to a movie I did not see, “The Boy”, released in 2016 and both of these movies are about a doll that is alive and has evil powers. Why have so many movies about evil dolls that come alive been made? I for one, have no idea. There are many reasons why this film is so bad, but the most important reason is, at no point did anything scary happen. There was nothing about this story that only at times seemed like it was a horror movie. This entire idea, where a woman’s son finds a doll in the woods and brings it home is contrived and makes little sense. This film is bad across the board and one of the worst horror movies ever made.

The Rotten Tomatoes rating for this film is a shocking but accurate 0%. Hopefully Katie Holmes career can survive this movie, but over time, too many bad acting parts will destroy any career. Run from this extremely bad movie.

The new movie “The Photograph” is about life’s many trade-offs. Do I take that risky job that may not work out, to realize my life long dream or take the safer route and be happy in my personal life but miserable in my professional life. If I get married now, what will this mean to my professional future and perhaps being able to retire young, much later in life or maybe never. All of us face these questions, challenges and decisions about what direction we are going, every day. Life is not an Excel spreadsheet where we can do “what-if” analysis and instantly know if that decision is ultimately the correct one. Life is a crap shoot for most of us and we all hope that the decisions we make will ultimately make us happy in the long term.

The Photograph is one of the few movies I have seen that is entirely about the consequences of life decisions within 2 stories about a woman who meets a man she eventually dates in the present day. Versus her mother 30 years earlier who falls in love but decides to make entirely different life choices based on her dream of being a Photographer in New York. This very well written story teaches us that at a minimum we can learn from the life decisions of our parents or other people to help us decide what is the right choice to make in our own lives..

The Photograph stars newcomers LaKeith Stanfield and Issa Rae who both do an outstanding job with this very well written screenplay. The Rotten Tomatoes ratings are a solid 76% and I agree with this rating and recommend this film.