Chi-Raq Goes For Broke Creatively And Succeeds More Often Than Not

Chi-Raq, a 2015 effort from writer/director Spike Lee, establishes its go-for-broke tendencies right off the bat by opening with what's basically an overture. A Nick Cannon song entitled Pray 4 My City plays in its entirety while lyrics for the song flash up on the screen against a black background. Once it's finished, we get a unique rendering of the map of America while audio of a pastor's preaching playing in the background. Only then does the story of Chi-Raq get underway. Kicking off with two separate prologues is a bold move and it's one that establishes right away that Chi-Raq is not going to be a movie aiming to be ordinary. Instead, Chi-Raq wants to be bold, unique, and, most importantly, say something about the modern world.

Doomed! Is A Documentary Ode To A Never-Released Superhero Movie

In the history ofcrummy superhero movie creative decisions, outright shelving a nearly finished Fantastic Four movie, originally slated for a theatrical release in 1994, has gotta be up there. It's a bold move that left all the creative participants in the project shocked to the core and turned this Roger Corman-produced motion picture into a legend overnight. 25 years later, no official release of the project has seen the light of day, it's stuck in some vault somewhere at Marvel Headquarters. While we all wait for the Disney monopoly, er, corporation, to maybe possibly release this thing once and for all, the documentary Doomed! The Untold Story of Roger Corman's Fantastic Four allows the creative participants of this fabled film to finally tell their experiences about being a part of the big blockbuster that never was.

Filmmaking Gone Awry Proves To Be Captivating In Lost Soul: The Doomed Journey of Richard Stanley's Island of Dr. Moreau

It's a common occurrence in the modern blockbuster landscape to hear stories of a director originally set to helm a splashy high-budget project get taken off the project during pre-production, reshoots or even principal photography due to that age-old excuse of "creative differences". Josh Trank on Fant4stic, Phil Lord & Chris Miller on Solo: A Star Wars Story, Stephen Gaghan on that upcoming Dolittle movie, oh, the list goes on and on. But few of these departures were as chaotic as when Richard Stanley was fired a few days into filming on his passion project, a feature film adaptation of The Island of Dr. Moreau. What led to Stanley taking this gig in the first place, his firing and the fallout of this decision is chronicled in the documentary Lost Soul: The Doomed Journey of Richard Stanley's Island of Dr. Moreau.

Putting It All On Two Great Lead Performances And A Strong Script Lead Mississippi Grind To A Big Win

I'm always fascinated by major turning points in an actor's careers, that moment where you can clearly see how one movie changed the trajectory of their careers. Think of how Leslie Nielsen forever became associated with spoofy comedies with Airplane! I'm especially fascinated by contemplating what would have happened if those major turning points hadn't happened. Take Ryan Reynolds for instance. He finally secured A-list leading man status with 2016's Deadpool, but between that film and 2013's blockbuster box office bomb R.I.P.D., Reynolds did a number of offbeat indie projects like The Voices, The Captive and Mississippi Grind that allowed him to show off his talents as a performer beyond just cracking wise and breaking the fourth wall. 

Wolf Warriors Comes Off Like The Chinese Equivalent To A Peter Berg Movie

Currently, the big Chinese box office juggernaut is Wolf Warriors 2, an action motion picture that just overtook Stephen Chow's The Mermaid to become the biggest movie of all-time in the country. It's nowhere near done with its massive box office run either and it looks like it'll likely crack $750 million at the Chinese box office, a massively impressive sum. You might be wondering if the box office performance of the first Wolf Warriors was big enough to serve as, with the power of retrospect, some kind of harbinger of the its successor huge success, but in fact, the first Wolf Warriors made a solid but not humongous $80.9 million that made it the 27th biggest movie of China.

There Plenty Of Murder, Incredible Performances And Riveting Writing In The Amazing Second Season Of Fargo

MASSIVE SPOILERS FOR FARGO SEASON TWO WITHIN

Noah Hawley pulled off one impressive magic trick with the first season of Fargo, managing to create the rare TV show based on a movie that not only wasn't hot garbage but was also a great piece of television in its own right. The main question hovering over my mind as I began to watch the second season of Fargo was whether or not Hawley could keep up this level of quality established in the first season, a task near impossible in my mind. Well, uh, he did just that. Fargo Season Two is even better than the first season and a sprawling masterpiece that somehow manages to balance a bevy of plotlines and coalesce them into something constantly riveting.

Carol Review

The new and unexpected tends to always be frightening. Anything that upsets the established conventionality of our lives can be seen as a threat or it can be seen as a chance to grow as a person, to explore new realms of our very lives. Unfortunately, many take the route of looking at the unknown as inherently troublesome, and that certainly applies to members of the LGBTQA community, whose lifestyle is one that many have and continue to fight for. Both in the past and still in our modern society, the idea of two guys or gals living together is treated as an affront to "family values" and "traditionalism", a way to simply upend the standard way society looks at the idea of what constitutes two people in love. Members of the LGBTQA community have had to suffer under the burden of these suffocating customs for decades as they try to make their lives their own.

The Walk Review

October 2015 may go down in the history books as the "Dramatic Movie Massacre", a period where a horde of dramatic features debuted in a short window of time and basically trampled on each other, reducing the majority of the movies released in this time period to being major box office duds. Two of my favorite films of last year (99 Homes and Steve Jobs) ended up tanking big time thanks to the insane amount of competition, and one other victim of this brutality was the newest endeavor from director Robert Zemeckis in his 37 year long career in Hollywood.

Amy Review

So many new musicians are unveiled to the world as a the newest "rags-to-riches" story, someone just like the folks who are buying and listening to all of these musics. It's partly a marketing scheme, one that helps potential purveyors of tunes to feel like the artist in question is "one of them", but also a way to inspire potential up and coming artists, which I suppose could be construed as an extension of marketing itself. Amy Winehouse, the subject of the documentary Amy, was that sort of individual who really was your average everyday individual thrust into the limelight because of her incredible vocal abilities.

The Hateful Eight Review

In his past two movies, Quentin Tarantino went wider in scale than he ever had before, allowing Inglorious Basterds and Django Unchained to depict the time period their stories were set in an appropriately sweeping manner. One got a sense of the scale of depravity that Nazi's and slave owners in these movies were inflicting on individuals via the scope that each plot possessed. Now, with his newest film, The Hateful Eight, Tarantino goes smaller, much much smaller. Much more in the vein of Reservoir Dogs, The Hateful Eight sticks to one location for the majority of its run time and centers itself on eight morally dubious individuals existing a few years after the Civil War has concluded. And none of these eight fellows can be trusted.

My 18 Hour Theatrical Star Wars Marathon Experience

Six days ago, I got a call from a good friend of mine who had an early birthday present to give me; he was taking me to the all-day Star Wars marathon at the Cinemark West Plano and XD theater. This would be an event where all six Star Wars films would be shown on the big screen and then culminating in the premiere of The Force Awakens. It sounded crazy, it sounded bonkers, it sounded like the type of undertaking only a madman would do.

So of course, I was pumped out of my mind for it. No kidding here, this was probably one of the best birthday gifts I've ever received in my life.

Star Wars: The Force Awakens Review

Warning: This is a spoiler free review of The Force Awakens, but thanks to the uber secretive marketing, pretty much every aspect of the film is being kept under wraps. Ya wanna go into this one colder than the Snow Miser? Don't read this review, which won't spoil plot twists or spoilers, but will basic information about the characters that hasn't been spelled out in the TV advertisements. 

During the 135 minute running time of Star Wars: The Force Awakens, there is nary a glimpse of Max Rebo or any other member of his blue, super adorable, pachyderm resembling species. Therefore, I dub this film a failure of the highest order and ask J.J. Abrams to spend the rest of his life in a Yoda-esque exile.

OK, OK, all super nerdy Star Wars joking aside, let's march onward with the review of what's likely the most anticipated film in the past decade.

"But Don't You Go Anywhere": The All Too Real Fantasy World Of Calvin And Hobbes

Good stories endure. There's a reason the plays of William Shakespeare still get performed to rapturous reception, and it's the same reason why Mark Twain still has countless copies of his books sold across the country every year. Characters that one can relate to, humor that strikes ones funny bone just right, pathos that hit home for all of us, those are the ingredients that can make a piece of pop culture stick around through the ages. In this case, those are the exact elements that have helped an eight year old boy and his tiger be discovered by new readers even after its stopped creating new
content twenty years earlier.

The Peanuts Movie Review

As a lifelong aficionado of the the world of Charlie Brown (in a fit of gratuitous self-promotion, allow me to link to an essay I wrote over the comic in honors of its 50th anniversary), in theory, a 21st century theatrical feature based on these characters should be something I despise. No doubt such a film updates individuals like Lucy and Linus by giving them cell phones, Vine accounts and other necessities of modern day existence. But a remarkable amount of restraint is shown by the filmmakers responsible for The Peanuts Movie, with the feature refraining from up giving Snoopy a "Poochie" like update in favor of retaining his personality that has managed to work OK for 65 years now.

Supergirl Series Premiere Review

SPOILERS AHOY!

After launching Green Arrow and The Flash to their own individual TV shows, Greg Berlanti and Andrew Kreisberg have shifted their attention to getting a third DC Comics mainstay her own television program; Supergirl. While she's been a mainstay in a number of animated TV shows for years now, her live-action appearances have been limited to a recurring role on Smallville, her own 1984 solo feature film featuring Faye Dunaway and Peter O'Toole and a brief cameo in a segment in Movie 43 where she was played by Kristen Bell. Thanks to the massive marketing campaign they've given the show, it's fairly obvious that CBS hopes this new show will take her to the next level of pop culture recognition.

Steve Jobs Review

Now that I'm juuust old enough to put my younger years into a larger context, it strikes me that 2010 may have been one of the most formative cinematic years of my entire life. That specific period of 365 days brought out a number of important films that shaped me, including Toy Story 3, The Other Guys and the first Coen Brothers, Christopher Nolan and Edgar Wright films I saw on the big screen (hell, I could ramble on for hours on the personal importance of just Scott Pilgrim vs. The World!). Another film from that year that has cemented itself in my subconscious? The Social Network.

Crimson Peak Review

God bless Guillermo Del Toro. He's such a fascinating filmmaker, so obviously in love with the worlds he creates, it's endlessly charming. Also fun to see is how much variety there is in his filmography in terms of what genres he'll explore. Fantasy for Pan's Labyrinth, sci-fi for Pacific Rim, and now dramatic supernatural romantic period piece horror in Crimson Peak. That description may make the project sound like a hodgepodge of a creation, but don't fret, it's instead a delightful mixture that utilizes each of its distinct individual elements to their fullest potential.

Bridge Of Spies Review

It's interesting to compare this summer's biggest film Jurassic World to its predecessor Jurassic Park, especially since it reveals the finer intricacies that make that 1993 motion picture such an involving feature. Not only does Steven Spielberg have a better eye for spectacle than Collin Trevorrow and his blue-soaked visuals (the T-Rex's entrance alone is a master course in pacing), but there's a brain on that movies shoulders, a cerebral streak that makes the world that characters like Alan Grant and Ellie Satler inhabit all the more enriching. Hell, that scene where John Hammond waxes poetic to Satler on why he wanted to make Jurassic Park in the first place over a dish of ice cream is one of the best moments in the entire film.

Goosebumps Review

Debuting in 1992, the 62 Goosebumps books written by R.L. Stine over a five year span were some of the most influential of all literature in that era, delivering thrills for younger readers to enormous sales numbers. After the original series concluded with Monster Blood IV (which seems to be a hard book to come by given the $25 price tag a used copy of the novel goes for on Amazon), the series endured into the 21st century with Goosebumps 2000 and Goosebumps HorrorLand keeping Stine and his scary creations alive and well in the pop culture consensus.

The Cobbler Review

It wouldn't be shocking if the high concept premise of The Cobbler had been the story for a late 90's-early 2000's comedy starring Jim Carrey in the fashion of Liar, Liar or Bruce Almighty. Instead, it's the plot for not just easily the lowest grossing feature of Adam Sandler's career, but also a film that had the most anemic box office career of any movie in 2015 (it grossed under $25,000 domestically in an extremely limited theatrical release). Adding insult to injury, the motion picture was savaged by critics, and after finally seeing this infamous entity, I can now add my voice to the chorus of dissatisfaction The Cobbler has garnered.