At the 2022 Fantastic Fest, actor/stunt choreographer/director Kensuke Sonomura unveiled his second feature film Bad City, the follow-up to the 2019 release HYDRA. His sophomore crime drama packed in as much intrigue and even more blood-letting, all aided by stellar… Read More ›
“There’s a shortage of perfect movies in this world. It would be a pity to damage this one.” Actor Cary Elwes on Twitter in response to the news of a potential remake of The Princess Bride (1987). There are few… Read More ›
What is to be said about the recently late, great William Friedkin’s The Exorcist (or in the case of the actual title shown at the beginning of the film, William Peter Blatty’s The Exorcist, if you want to get technical… Read More ›
“Don’t watch the mouth; watch the hands.” – Peter B. Parker (voiced by Jake Johnson) in Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse In 2018, a brand-new Spider-Man story hit theaters and audiences would not be the same. That’s an enormous statement and,… Read More ›
I’m not saying that history is inaccurate, but I adamantly and blatantly refuse to believe that directors Luca Bercovici and Joe Dante had similar ideas about green terrifying creatures coming to torment humanity. I know sometimes ideas are borrowed from… Read More ›
Whether we’re willing to admit it or not, the majority of us in the United States are immigrants. Unless we can track our lineage to the Indigenous peoples of the land, we come from the United Kingdom, Ireland, Scotland, China,… Read More ›
Inevitably, whenever a new Batman-related project is announced, conversation swirls as to which of the prior actors to portray DC’s Dark Knight, a.k.a. The World’s Greatest Detective, is the best. Due to biases known and unknown, this so often turns… Read More ›
Adapting stories from one medium to another is difficult, a task made exorbitantly more difficult when based on a book by a beloved children’s author (notwithstanding controversies). Yet, here stands director Danny DeVito’s 1996 fantastical dramedy Matilda, a film which… Read More ›
There is always a lingering feeling that a movie, particularly one that is genre based, released at a poor time (like against a juggernaut such as Barbenheimer) or just not in the Halloween season, has a clear reason for the… Read More ›
Of the complaints from audiences swirling around regarding Hollywood, the big ones usually refer to the lack of original ideas and the reliance on remakes, reboots, and sequels. Yes, movie-making is a business, so studios look for reliable intellectual property… Read More ›
No Hard Feelings was a welcome reminder of a story that does not get made anymore. Jennifer Lawrence (Causeway) stars as Maddie, a 32-year-old bartender and Uber driver in Montauk, New York. After having her car repossessed and facing bankruptcy,… Read More ›
Over the last several years, Walt Disney Studios has made a point to adapt one of their well-regarded animated films into live action. Appreciation for each one ultimately comes down to two things: what relationship the audience has to the… Read More ›
Grief and regret are often places where time travel films either begin or end. They certainly utilize these emotions because if one were healthy and happy, there’d be no desire to change the outcome. When Aporia first hit my radar,… Read More ›
In August 2022, director Huang Jianming (Bobby the Hedgehog) took audiences on an adventure on the island of Kunlun wherein a banished doctor tried to make things right. It’s a colorful tale featuring a collection of characters that seem inspired… Read More ›
For two days in January 1984, Hong Kong experienced its first riot in 17 years. The violence stemmed from outrage over a tax increase which impacted the taxi drivers of the region. According to The New York Times, over 150… Read More ›
Well before I ever saw a single one of the Todd Durham-created, Genndy Tartakovsky-directed Hotel Transylvania films, I knew that Drac doesn’t say “blah blah blah blah.” Which is to say that the influence in pop culture had grown widely… Read More ›
For every general genre in storytelling, there’s a subgenre within it that enables a storyteller to narrow their focus, thereby utilizing specific tools to explore their themes. It’s the difference between a chiller or thriller in horror, slapstick or screwball… Read More ›
“When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, ‘Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.’ To this day, especially in times of ‘disaster,’… Read More ›
Despite being in development for years, the Warner Bros. Pictures release The Flash landed with more of a thud than most would have guessed. It centers a beloved DC Comics character in their first solo live action outing, utilizes a… Read More ›
With the tragic death of Bruce Lee, there was a massive hole left in the martial arts cinema community that led to a genre of exploitation films centered on capturing the essence of Lee through imitation via actors Bruce Li… Read More ›