The Manchurian Candidate (2004) Updates The Original Movie For Better and For Worse

SPOILERS FOR BOTH VERSIONS OF THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE AHEAD

Raymond Shaw (Liev Schreiber) is a hero. That's what everyone says. Responsible for saving the lives of nearly everybody in his platoon back in the early 1990s, Shaw has gone from being a legendary veteran to a potential Vice-President candidate. His former superior, Major Bennett Marco (Denzel Washington) spends his days prevailing people with tales of Shaw's courage. But what if the truth wasn't what it seemed? Recurring dreams that Marco and Shaw keep having indicate that maybe something else happened to Marco and Shaw's team on that fateful day on the battlefield. Maybe their minds were altered as part of a larger global conspiracy...and maybe that conspiracy has grisly plans for supposed hero Shaw.

Defending Your Life Provides an Imaginative and Thoughtful Rendering of the Afterlife

You gotta begin your movie with a bang and Defending Your Life certainly starts off its story with a whopper of a development. Before the opening credits even begin, the protagonist, Daniel Miller (Albert Brooks), has died. On his birthday no less! Yes, while driving around in a new car and loudly singing along to a tune on the radio, Daniel didn't see that bus headed straight for him until it was too late. Just as he's about to collide with the vehicle, Daniel awakens in another place entirely. The now-deceased Daniel is in the afterlife, though he's in neither Heaven or Hell. Turns out he's in Judgement City, a place of purgatory where Daniel learns that humans are not the only beings in the universe.

North Texas Film Festival 2019: The Laundromat Is Expansive To A Fault

Where has all the money gone? That's what Ellen Martin (Meryl Streep) wants to know. She just lost her husband in a tragic accident on a tour guide boat and in the wake of such a miserable turn of events has been informed that the company behind the boat her significant other perished on has lousy insurance that won't be giving her any kind of pay-out to help soothe her turmoil. Who could be behind such a scam? Well, that would be Jurgen Mossack (Gary Oldman) and Ramon Fonseca (Antonio Banderas), two men running an insurance company that operates numerous shell companies that allow the wealthiest people on the planet to keep their money secure and free of being taxed. It benefits the powerful but for everyday individuals like Ellen Martin, it only produces nightmares.

Julie & Julia Offers Up Two Pleasant True Stories For The Price of One

The saddest part of watching Julie & Julia in 2019 is that it feels as foreign from modern American cinema as 1953's The Big Heat (another movie I watched for the first time yesterday). Can one even imagine the current version of Sony/Columbia, whose present-day slate features Peter Rabbit, Men in Black International and a Morbius the Living Vampire movie, spending $40 million on a delightful mid-budget movie like this? Julie & Julia was mighty profitable in its initial theatrical release and scored a Best Actress Oscar nomination, but if they tried to make it today, well, they'd have to make it as an eight-episode Netflix miniseries, there's just no room in the modern American marketplace for movies that aren't made for under $10 million or over $250 million.

Hot Off The Presses Is Steven Spielberg's Entertaining New Drama The Post

Steven Spielberg's been directing movies since the early 1970's and Meryl Streep got put on the map as an actor of note forty years ago with The Deer Hunter. In the multiple decades they've both worked as prominent figures in the American film industry, it's utterly shocking their paths haven't crossed before now (though Streep did have a voice-over cameo in Spielberg's 2001 masterpiece A.I.: Artificial Intelligence). Such an odd lack of artistic collaboration is finally rectified for The Post, Steven Spielberg's new drama that pairs Streep up with Spielberg regular Tom Hanks for a timely tale of heroic journalism standing up to corrupt forces in the American government.

An Aggravatingly Generic Execution Of An Equally Generic Story Leaves The Devil Wears Prada Stumbling

Looking back on The Devil Wears Prada, it feels like some kind of scrapbook chronicling the pivotal career turning points for the many actors who starred in it. For Anne Hathaway, it cemented her as a person who could headline a financially lucrative movie that didn't have Princess Diaries in the title, something she's been able to prove again and again over the years. Meanwhile, Emily Blunt got put on the radar with her work here while veteran character actor Stanley Tucci got easily his biggest gig yet that was followed by an Oscar nomination and memorable performances in movies ranging from Best Picture winner Spotlight to Captain America: The First Avenger. And a little-known figure Meryl Streep achieved her biggest movie ever at the domestic box office at the time.

Florence Foster Jenkins Just Can't Quite Carry A Tune Or Its Story

It's pretty clear that Florence Foster Jenkins wants to be the new watermark for inspirational cinema, the kind of film that's a feel-good adventure that inspires individuals to embrace their own talents and not let the obstacles of the world get in their way. A noble artistic goal, but one that's distinctly at odds with the true-ish story it's presenting that concerns a woman named Florence Foster Jenkins (Meryl Streep) who has dreams of singing in super public places, despite her vocal talent not being the best around.

Manhattan Review (Classic Write-Up)

Certain filmmakers have a recurring feature in their filmography to utilize their city/state of birth as a prominent figure in their motion pictures, taking a well-known location and attempt to weave in more nuance and depth into an environment and its inhabitants that many may normally dismiss as just a tourist trap. Jean-Luc Godard has Paris, France. Richard Linklater has Texas and, of course, Woody Allen has New York. For his ninth motion picture, Manhattan, (one that came two years after Annie Hall, Allen's movie that won Best Picture at the Oscars), the importance of New York to the filmmaker can be seen in how this film is titled after one of the five boroughs that can be found in New York City.

Adaptation Review (Classic Write-Up)

Adaptation Is The Sincerest Form of Flattery

A meta approach to a film or TV show or any piece of media is not uncommon, but it is unique for it to be embraced as heartily as it is by Adaptation, a 2002 Spike Jonze directed feature that goes absolutely all in when it comes to utilizing this style of storytelling. How exactly does the movie engage in a meta narrative you ask? Why, by focusing on an exaggerated version of the films screenwriter, Charlie Kaufman (Nicolas Cage). 

Mamma Mia Review (Classic Write-Up)

Yooooouuuu Can Jiiiii-iiiiiive

The world of music is a complex one filled with wonder and beauty. It's the kind of medium for artistic expression that allows for a wide gamut of ideas and tones to be crafted, perfect for telling stories of all shapes and sizes. Over the career of any given singer or band, the discography of any musical entity is bound to have tunes with a humongous range of ideals. Some songs could be sad, some could be happy, and ABBA certainly took advantage of all the possibilities that music offered to create a massive amount of famous songs.

My Current Best Supporting Acting Nominee Predictions!! (January 1, 2015 Edition)

Well, here's the final (for now!) set of my Oscar predictions. This time around, I'm covering the Supporting Acting categories, Best Supporting Actor and Best Supporting Actress specifically. Shall we get this started then?

Into The Woods Review

Come, Read This Review For A Spell

If you've been around me for more than five seconds, you're bound to know I'm a big fan of musical theater. Aside from appearing in small parts of performances of Annie and Little Shop of Horrors (I played the first customer who buys Audrey II, thus dooming humanity), I'm seen countless musicals on stage and in cinemas. Into The Woods is one I wasn't a huge fan of, though that was more due to me having only seen the first act of the show than a statement on the quality of the production itself.

New Into The Woods Trailer Shows Off Songs, Characters, Bizzare Johnny Depp

Hollywoods treatment of musicals in things like trailers has always been peculiar. Very rarely are the actual songs from the film depicted in the advertising materials, a weird predicament considering the epic musical number Let It Go became one of the most beloved pieces of Frozen. After the smash hits Les Miserables and the aforementioned Frozen, the two big musicals for this Christmas have reversed this trend, with Annie trumpeting its tunes in its trailer, while Into The Woods makes up for its musical free teaser with this theatrical trailer that boasts plenty of singing. Check it out below!

Box Office Analysis: Walden Media, The Box Office Flop Factory

Few studios or filmmakers can create a dud like Walden Media. Now, admittedly, these guys aren't the only one financing the projects they find themselves in, and they don't distribute any of their projects. But they do have a hand in what films they get attached to, and the majority of them are adaptations of books that look incredibly generic in marketing materials. It's no shocker to me that the few hits they've been a part of (The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, Witch and The Wardrobe, Charlotte's Web, Journey 2: The Mysterious Island) had effective marketing campaigns or the presence of Dwayne Johnson.