I have a confession to make—I like M. Night Shyamalan. As someone who purports to like film as art, I know that makes me an outsider. But I have to tell the truth. I think The Sixth Sense, Unbreakable, and Signs are legitimately great films. I think even his second-tier movies like The Village and Lady in the Water are fascinatingly flawed films. Even his disasters such as The Happening are more interesting to watch in their badness than many directors’ simply forgettable productions. Don’t get me wrong—Shyamalan has made some terrible films along with his great ones, but I…
Author: Justin
Read More
Long before Marvel had taken to the big screen to build a cinematic universe (but long after they had already started one on the printed page), author Stephen King built one through his novels and short stories. Most famously through his The Dark Tower series, King left breadcrumbs between books as characters and, most importantly, locations crossed over. The most famous of those locations? Castle Rock, Maine. Such is the setting of Hulu’s new series that early on pitched itself as a King cinematic universe on the small screen, but underdelivers on that aspect. Castle Rock is a small-town where…
The opening moments of Bumblebee play like an apology letter to longtime fans. We’re dropped onto Cybertron with the Autobots and Decepticons battling it out, but these are the classic designs most people recall from the original 1980s cartoon, and not the overly complicated mechanical monsters from the Transformers film series. Optimus Prime looks like Optimus Prime. Soundwave looks like Soundwave. Director Travis Knight sets the stage with those opening moments for a Transformers movie that will be decidedly different than any we’ve seen before. Bumblebee serves as a sort of soft reboot of the franchise—technically this takes place in…
Every year I like to showcase some of my favorite games from the past year. 2018 has been a remarkable year for games in not just quality, but variety. My top ten are below, but real quick some honorable mention callouts for Dragon Ball FighterZ, Octopath Traveler, Dragon Quest XI: Echoes of an Elusive Age, Onrush, House Flipper, Pokémon: Let’s Go Pikachu!, The Messenger, Minit, and Two Point Hospital. That’s a whole lot of gaming to keep you busy. 10. Florence (Mobile) Last year I was surprised by including visual novels in my top ten, and here I’m again surprised…
The new Sandra Bullock horror-thriller feels so much like a pair with the Emily Blunt led A Quiet Place that it’s kind of hard to believe it’s a coincidence they saw release within the same calendar year. While A Quiet Place took away its characters ability to make any sound or else die, Bird Box strips their sight as they have to remain blindfolded or the monsters will force them to commit suicide. Yeah, it’s one of those high-concept horror films. Bird Box is actually of a trend lately with apocalyptic horror films. Obviously, the top-rated cable show remains The…
I’m not sure I’ve ever watched more than a few minutes of any of the Teen Titans animated programs. I’m a huge fan of the DC Animated Universe, or at least the older stuff including the Batman, Superman, and Justice League animated series, but Teen Titans just never drew my interest. So, what made me sit down and watch and entire movie about them? Stellar reviews. Let’s get it out of the way first—this film is deserving of the praise it has received. It’s a genuinely inventive and fun animated romp. The story is that the Teen Titans, a sort…
Sony’s last three Spider-Man outings, without the help from Marvel they received on Homecoming, have produced the woefully bad Amazing Spider-Man 2, the bland Amazing Spider-Man, and the just plain bizarre Spider-Man 3. So, seeing that their next effort would be an animated film that featured a minimum of six different Spider people did not inspire great confidence. However, in the wordily-titled Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, Sony has produced maybe not just the best animated film of the year, but one of the best Spider-Man films ever. Into the Spider-Verse is mostly a Miles Morales film. If you don’t follow…
Fine, I’ll admit I didn’t fall in love with the original Creed. While both Stalone and Jordan are excellent in the film, it mostly felt like a remake of the original Rocky. So, while I admired elements of it quite a bit (particularly Stalone’s performance), I can’t say I was ecstatic when they announced the inevitable Creed II. Then they said the name Ivan Drago. Creed II is basically a sequel to both the original Creed and Rocky IV—the one that literally draped Stalone and Dolph Lundgren in the American and Soviet flags, respectively, to symbolize the Cold War. Drago’s…
I really enjoyed the first Wreck-It Ralph movie. While not quite delivering on its full premise of a journey into the world of arcade characters, it did tease those characters enough and deliver on the heart of the story to make me happy to hear a sequel was in the works. When I heard that sequel would focus on the internet more than video games, I was disappointed but willing to give the creatives over at Walt Disney Animation Studios the benefit of the doubt. After all, this is the studio that has given us Tangles, Frozen, Moana, and the…
When I was a kid, I watched every episode of She-Ra. That might have made me an anomaly to marketers who saw it purely as a girls’ show, but honestly you could have given me any spinoff of He-Man and I would have watched. How does He-Man’s barber give him that perfect bowl cut every time? I’d tune in every afternoon to find out! But between the cartoon and the toys I discovered something—She-Ra was better written than her big brother. That’s not saying much, but it gave me some hope for Netflix’s reimagination of the series. The new She-Ra…