“Marketing and fourth wall breaking are arguably too meta. An audience paying to rebel against nay-saying corporate figureheads by seeing Deadpool – “the movie the studio didn’t want to make” or some such nonsense – are simultaneously paying a salary. Involving lesser X-Men mutants only furthers the agenda. Never mind that jokes about throwing away cash on prior Reynolds superhero failures are totally okay; we’re all supposed to laugh at ourselves for expecting better.”
Filed under Movie/Blu-ray Reviews
“Integral to the Fantastic Four as characters is acceptance – being okay with differences, making the most out of what you are, even if that is “fantastically” unique. Here being different means being confined to rooms or being forced to hide out in a secluded forest until an inter-dimensional madmen opens a black hole. For what they were, the mid-2000 Fantastic Four films made the title heroes superstars. They were loved and appreciated by society at large for their unique qualities. The reboot reviles their existence, treating them like disabled animals in cages to serve an agenda of authoritative paranoia.”
Filed under Movie/Blu-ray Reviews
“Unlike Lucas though, Abrams is strung up in a system. He’s not independent. At least, not independent enough. His ideas never feel like his own. The film lacks a definitive signature. Force Awakens is often suffocated by an array of hurried nostalgia and inorganic reveals. They become a running joke in and of themselves. These incidences are less connected to a story than they are to merchandising. Spaceballs continues to be right.”
Filed under Features
“The film makes space interesting even if like any fiction it must fudge the particulars. Watney is the best teacher. All of the expository explanations which build the aura of danger also construct plausible science about the complexity and unknowns of interstellar travel. Studios are producing a bevy of these as the space movie trend begins to spike again – from the fiction-y science of Interstellar to the science-y fiction of Gravity – hopefully sparking a needed real world resurgence in exploration and discovery.”
Filed under Features
“Home breaches a race barrier which has impacted mainstream animation with few exceptions, say Disney’s Princess & the Frog. Importantly, Home treats the scenario without drawing attention to it. Demographics are not split, nor does Home feel inaccessible to anyone. Its culture is safely middle class. Of course, kids won’t notice because kids won’t care – unless they’ve been told to.”
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“Barely Lethal does nothing with its premise. It neither rips the foundation of the teen comedy to pieces nor establishes a base to break from a male-dominated action scene. Scenes are shot as if for a Nickelodeon special. The falsely feminine, dreamy haze is obnoxious rather than suitable. Maybe a female director would have shifted the tone. As it sits, Kyle Newman, who lensed the successful geek road trip Fanboys in 2009, seems caught in the same world. Barely Lethal is written so the geek inevitably gets the girl.”
Filed under Movie/Blu-ray Reviews
“Horror films use women for their bodies. It Follows uses women to progress a conversation through the cliché, then tramples tradition to depict sexualization as an inherent fear. Is It Follows preaching? Maybe, but for understanding – for crucial perspective on a topic this genre is so fond of manipulating for profit.”
Filed under Movie/Blu-ray Reviews
“Paramount’s logo fades and the retelling of a fateful day when machines take control spreads across screens in a titanic display of impersonal nuclear fury – for the fourth time in the series. The introductory chunk of Genisys is fanatical about repeating the past in this way. Scenes recall key incidents and nostalgic moments in a blur of expository storytelling. Time-crossing Terminators find themselves, identical Terminators fight as if Genisys were invaded by fan fiction, and shape shifting Terminators melt. When it’s over, Genisys hits a full stall, but there is no wish for the guns to come back. Please, no more guns in this Terminator movie. To think those words would ever be uttered.”
Filed under Features
“But, Ted 2 is still funny. It works. Unconventionally at times, but the successes are there. McFarlane is often critically berated for his vicious R-rated crudeness yet in-between the poop jokes – and Ted 2 has ’em – is a sly, socially conscious… think piece? Does such a film count? People do react to comedy now. They form movements around it. A generation doesn’t have Kronkite. They have John Stewart and John Oliver. Hell, this film has a John too. Maybe it’s a John thing.”
Filed under Features
“The park is open. Blaring the magnificence of composer John Williams’ Jurassic Park theme, the sights begin dropping in droves. There’s Jimmy Buffet’s Margaritaville in the corner. A licensed gift shop to the left. Corporately named restaurants following up the street. Coupled with the identifiable theme, Jurassic World seems to be celebrating itself. How odd.
That is corporate culture though. Bloated, self-indulgent. “Look what we made with our money.” Jurassic Park is like that. Here’s a CG dinosaur eating someone. We made that. Here’s another. Made that one too. Cost a ton, spared no expense. It’s a rally of reptile feasting and human bloodshed. In short, two full hours of extinct, digitally formed creatures munching on an island of tourists, including those who wish to save their $20 booze while being dive bombed by Pteranodons.”
Filed under Features
Matt Paprocki 