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. 

Captain Marvel Has A Great Mixture of Cosmic Weirdness And Character-Driven Poignancy

Remember how twelve years ago Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer turned Galactus into a gigantic cloud because the prospect of doing a comic book accurate version of the gigantic space God in a purple hat was apparently too goofy for a live-action movie? Well, welcome to March 2019, where the modern cinema scene is so immersed in oddball comic book cosmic details that Captain Marvel can open, with no introductory text crawl or some expository voice-over narration, with its titular lead superhero living a day-to-day life on the alien planet Hala under the names Vers while Academy Award nominee Jude Law portrays her mentor who talks about the "Kree Supreme Intellegence" and warns his pupil about the dangers of shape-shifting Skrull aliens.

Ben Mendelsohn Excels In An Otherwise Average Take On The Robin Hood Mythos

Robin Hood has been a fixture of movie theater screens for exactly 110 years now, with everyone from Percy Stow to Errol Flynn to Disney to Mel Brooks to Ridley Scott giving their own unique take on the Robin Hood mythos. The newest take on this material comes from director Otto Bathurst, making his feature film directorial debut with this project, working from a script by Ben Chandler and David James Kelly that reworks the Robin Hood mythos into something that kind of wants to make the character into a superhero but also into a grounded n' gritty individual as well as a figure of political intrigue. Why they didn't also try to make him into a screwball comedy leading man while they were at it is beyond me.

The Land of Steady Habits Thoughtfully Probes The Long-Term Consequences Of A Persons Actions

Watching Ben Mendelsohn get interviewed on Jimmy Kimmel Live! this past Thursday allowed me the chance to become even more impressed with Mendelsohn as an actor than I already was and I already was pretty impressed with him! Ben Mendelsohn exuded a self-deprecating yet quietly confident charm in his interactions with Kimmel, a sharp contrast to the scummy morally duplicitous characters he usually plays in films and television programs. The whole process of acting is about immersing oneself in a role drastically different from their own everyday persona but one can take for granted just how wide the gulf between a person's performance and their actual personality can be until you see the guy who helped create the Death Star being a total charmer on late night TV.

Ready Player One Is, For Better And For Worse, A Traditional Action Blockbuster

After a whole decade of being absent from the realm of American blockbuster cinema, director Steven Spielberg returns to the genre he helped bring into existence with Ready Player One, an adaptation of a 2011 novel penned by Ernest Cline. Given just what a tremendous track record Spielberg has with blockbuster fare (I'd personally say his only two real misses in that subgenre would be Temple of Doom and The Lost World), the idea of him returning to rollicking escapism science-fiction blockbusters sounds like a winning prospect, though the excerpts I've read from the Ready Player One book (which, for full context, I've never read in full) did make the source material he was adapting seem more creepy than exciting, thus diluting my excitement for this newest Spielberg fetaure immensely.

An Inability To Be More Introspective Hinders Darkest Hour Greatly

Winston Churchill certainly has been a popular figure in pop culture lately, hasn't he? The likes of Michael Gambon, Brian Cox and John Lithgow have all portrayed him in major roles on various film and television programs over the last two years. Add the Joe Wright-directed Darkest Hour as the newest piece of evidence that Winston Churchill is having a resurgence in his modern-day pop culture presence as Gary Oldman, with the aid of extensive makeup work, becomes the newest actor to portray this former British Prime Minister who played a crucial role in a number of events during World War II.

The Trailer For Rogue One: A Star Wars Story Is Here!

It's a Star Wars world, and we're all just living in it. After The Force Awakens broke every box office record in the book, not to mentioning earning acclaim from both moviegoers and critics alike, Disney/Lucasfilm are off on their plan to make a new Star Wars movie every single year. The current plan is for every other year to deliver a traditional Star Wars episode chronicling the tale of Rey, Finn and Poe Dameron, while alternating years will be home to spin-off features that are a "Star Wars Story".