I know I am part of an infinitesimal minority, but I wish Hollywood would consider a one-year moratorium on superhero films. Between all the origin stories, the sequels, the spinoffs, the spoofs and the too-soon reboots, I have had my fill of big-name actors in ridiculous outfits allowing their stunt doubles or digital stand-ins to save […]
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Adam Sandler and his spooky pals take a “Summer Vacation” and remind us all of the power of acceptance and understanding. Even on a good day, it’s easy to feel like America has turned into a horror movie, where the terrors of “The Purge” franchise feel all too real outside of the theater. The need […]
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Tonight I checkout out “Pokémon Detective Pikachu,” released in 2019, and I will let everyone know what I thought about it. If you are a child of the 90s or the parent of one then you absolutely know what Pokemon are. These animal-like creatures live in the Pokemon Universe (obviously) and have human trainers who […]
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Fourteen years ago, Pixar came out with the superhero “The Incredibles,” an animated film about a family that has superpowers when the government forbids them for being different, hides in a suburban environment. The movie won an Oscar, which means the long-awaited most-wanted sequel, released in theaters ten days ago, had a lot to live […]
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Over the course of the 15 years between Toy Story and Toy Story 3, Pixar Animation Studios underwent a monumental evolution from a computer firm taking its first steps into animation to an industry-changing powerhouse. Over the nine years between How to Train Your Dragon and the new trilogy-capper How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World, DreamWorks Animation went through […]
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Real science takes as much of a beating as Scrat, everyone’s favorite sado-masochistic rodent, in “Ice Age: Collision Course.” So much so, the filmmakers behind this fifth character-jammed and decidedly jumbled outing in the glacial animated franchise felt the need to recruit astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson (both as a narrator and in weasel guise, complete with […]
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A popular topic that has been bobbing about the internet these days: Will the summer of Hollywood’s sequel and prequel box-office discontent bounce back with the arrival of “Finding Dory,” Pixar and Disney’s double-dip back flip into the same animated pool of undersea beings that propelled 2003’s wondrously endearing “Finding Nemo”? Therefore, it is a […]
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The “Harry Potter” prequel “Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald” is a big-budget, holiday-timed blockbuster about … racism, which may not exactly be the joyful, escapist entertainment families are looking for this time of year. Certainly, J.K. Rowling’s entire literary and cinematic empire is based on a foundation of serious, moralistic themes, explored through an […]
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When my family and I decided to see Ralph Breaks the Internet on Thanksgiving, I was excited. I really liked Wreck-It Ralph for being a love letter to old-school gaming while also having a heartwarming story of friendship, selflessness, and learning to accept with grace that which you can’t change. Now the sequel takes the same colorful characters to […]
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Deep Purple famously asked their sound engineers to make “everything louder than everything else”, a phrase variously adopted by the likes of Motörhead and Meat Loaf to characterise their OTT ethos. It’s clearly struck a chord with George Miller as he reboots his low-budget 1979 road-warrior hit with more money, more trucks, and much more noise. Watching Mad Max: […]
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