It’s taken a bit too long for Marvel Studios to finally add some balletic action to their films; sure, seeing the likes of Thor and Black Panther punch bad guys in the face had their moments of ingenuity here and there, but for the most part, the MCU has been content to have their heroes fight in more or less one style: basic hand to hand fisticuffs (usually backed by the occasional shaky cam and editing seen in most action films nowadays). In whatever Phase the MCU finds itself in (is it 4?), the answer to their slowly dulling fights…
The Faustian bargain, a tale older than your favorite grandparent, is by this point a story so well covered and re-interpreted and remixed by multiple adaptations in different medias that works have now just thrown the story itself away and just kept its general themes of “biting off more than you can chew” and “hey, making deals with demons is a bad idea” and placed it into other stories. …
From the beginning, the CANDYMAN series has always been about the power of legends and myths and the ways in which they shape us and how we (unknowingly or not) shape them. Initially finding life as the creation of acclaimed writer Clive Barker in his short story entitled THE FORBIDDEN, CANDYMAN was eventually crafted into a horror-thriller film helmed by writer/director Bernard Rose in 1992, where the elements of myths converged with America’s brutal and bloody racial history. The vengeful ghost of an 1800’s-era black painter wrongfully accused of a crime and subsequently brutally murdered by a bloodthirsty crowd of…
Writer/director James Gunn may in fact be some sort of comic book movie wizard. After successfully bringing the B-Team of Marvel Comics, The Guardians of the Galaxy, to the big screen, Gunn’s unabashedly tongue-in-cheek aura found itself a hot commodity. Even after a few minor controversies surrounding some rough jokes on Twitter and a brief banishment from the overlords at Disney (and a just as quick un-banishment), Gunn still found another opportunity to bring his unique mindset to another B, or at least by this point, C-Team, this time across the street at DC Comics with THE SUICIDE SQUAD.
After…
A little history lesson in the love affair between this “writer” and the G.I. Joe toy lines (and subsequent hope for the film adaptations to be good). As a kid, I loved G.I. Joe even if I never actually watched the show; through just good old cultural absorption and the fact that the Joes were just balls to the wall soldiers duking it out with an evil rival rivals headed by dude in a helmet, I was riveted. One Christmas, my mother being the knowing angel she is, knew I was a G.I. Joe fan and proceeded to gift me…
What makes a man honorable? Is it the number of foes he’s slain in battle? The places he’s traveled to and discovered? The family he’s raised and shaped? Or is it something beyond that? Or possibly, is it something less than what we imagine “honor” to be? The topic of honor and heroism haunts both director/writer David Lowery’s THE GREEN KNIGHT and the young man at the center of the story destined to be shaped by his own quest for something close to glory.
Gawain (Dev Patel) when we first find him is far from glorious, locked in the throes…
Nostalgia is a hell of a concept. It’s a memory that can simultaneously turn our viewing of past events into something more or less than what it actually was…usually being the former. At the very least, the concept of nostalgia can make for a good theme for a film to center around or, more specifically, for a film studio looking to get some easy eyes on their wide collection of products and franchises. So it goes with the long belated (and possibly awaited, depending on who you ask) sequel to the Michael Jordan/Nike vehicle, in LeBron James’ quest to take…
Hey now! It’s “the beach that makes you old” movie I’ve been hearing so much about! Genuinely funny memes aside, it’s always an exciting time when a new M. Night Shyamalan movie comes out because whether it’s mind-blowingly good or “can’t look away” terrible, most, if not all of the storied director’s works end up being memorable in some form or fashion. In the case of his newest work, the bluntly titled OLD, what Shyamalan cooks up falls somewhere in the middle of his best and his worst, unevenly taking trips to both sides of the filmmaker’s talents and flaws.
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Unquestionable talent can, at its apex, overcome any noticeable flaws surrounding it. In the case of Hayao Miyazaki’s PONYO, a lushly animated fable about a fish princess falling head over fins for a human boy, the talent of Miyazaki’s deft hand at animation is so powerful and immense, that even as the film itself has a few noticeable clunks, the end result is something as magical as the beings within it.
From the very first reel, PONYO establishes itself as a movie full of wonder and out-there ideas. A talented animator no doubt, another skill Miyazaki presents is a truly…
There’s just something about a film set during those youthful summer months of our childhoods that captures my attention. While the days of my youth were hardly as adventurous and memorable as those put to film, the best films set during the bright, sunny, and free days of summer always captured that mystical period of time where everything was possible and tinged with a bittersweet feeling of fleetness. …
