Batman Returns Is Weird For Sure But It Doesn't Add Up To Much

Boy howdy, is this ever a weird movie.

It's Time For A Charming Romantic-Comedy With Blast From The Past

When the nuclear apocalypse comes (and considering Trump's daily tantrums, that may come sooner rather than later), we shall gather around fires and tell tales of the past, before the world came crashing around all of us. It'll be like that scene in Reign Of Fire where Christian Bale and Gerard Butler retell the Star Wars movies to a new group of youngsters in order to spark their imaginations and keep the power of stories alive. Yarns shall be spun and one such tale that shall be passed onto the post-apocalyptic denizens of the future will be the legend of leading man Brendan Fraser, who, for some reason, got abandoned by Hollywood in the 2010's despite showing some very clear talent as a leading man.

Disney Byways: THE COUNTRY BEARS

For this week's Disney Byways column, regular writer Gillianren has graciously allowed Douglas Laman (NerdInTheBasement) to fill in for her. Being a major Disney nerd himself, Doug is extremely grateful for this opportunity and hopes not to muck things up while Gillianren is briefly away!

Hollywood loves to create imitations of what's successful. This has been true for decades upon decades, so it might strike some as puzzling that Disney has actually done only two movies based on their theme park attractions (The Haunted Mansion and Tomorrowland) ever since those Pirates Of The Caribbean movies took off like a flash. While we sometimes hear rumblings of a Jungle Cruise movie (they've been trying to get that made for over a decade now) or Guillermo Del Toro's Haunted Mansion project, Disney seems to be in no rush to do a bevy of motion pictures based on their universally beloved theme park attractions.

The Jungle Book Review

I'm a hardcore Disney fan (my first word as a human being, believe it or not, was Disney), but, to be perfectly frank, this new wave of live-action adaptations of classic Disney cartoons hasn't really done much for me. Alice In Wonderland was typical modern day Tim Burton pablum, Maleficent's few interesting ideas (namely weaving in a metaphor for rape into the backstory of its titular character) were severely overshadowed by how tedious and uninspired the rest of the film's story and characters were and Cinderella was only inoffensive at best. But finally, oh finally, one of these live-action adaptations has finally turned out to be a well-made movie in its own right.

Eddie The Eagle Review

Eddie The Eagle is a feature film adaptation of real life figure Eddie Edwards (here played by Taron Edgerton), whose life-long ambitions to participate in the Olympics seem to have a chance of coming true when he discovers the art of ski jumping. With more than a little help from former athlete Bronson Peary (Hugh Jackman), Eddie hopes to beat the odds and fulfill his sports-related dreams. Basically, what ya have here is the prime premise for a conventional inspirational sports drama, and Eddie The Eagle embraces the conventions of this subgenre with aplomb, flaunting its hokey tendencies the way Jeff Wells parades his own blatantly sexist attitude towards women.

Trolls, Pets And Kevin Spacey As A Cat Abound In New Family Movie Trailers

With a high profile family film like Kung Fu Panda 3 coming out this Friday, it's to be expected that a number of family films have released trailers in order to get them seen in front of prospective audiences coming out to see Po the Panda. We got four trailers to look at today, so let's get started with my favorite of the bunch...

Kubo And The Two Strings
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p4-6qJzeb3A

Holy hell, how is this being done with stop-motion animation? Every frame of this trailer is absolutely beautiful to look at, but thankfully, there's not just style that one can gawk at in this trailer. I love how this trailer doesn't try to fill every second with hyperactive noise and/or jokes, but rather, establishes the plot, atmosphere and characters in a pleasant manner. All of that, plus, a roster of excellent voice actors (Charlize Theron! Ralph Fiennes! Rooney Mara! Matthew McConaughey!), and that excellent Beatles cover, and yeah, it's super easy for me to dub this as one helluva trailer. Consider Kubo And The Two Strings officially one of my most anticipated movies for the year.

Did ya like the atmospheric beauty of that Kubo trailer? Well, the rest of these trailers substitute that for bathroom humor and dancing to pop songs so....yay?

The Secret Life Of Pets
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UZJVc_JTI_w
Marking the fourth trailer for The Secret Life Of Pets in the span of seven months (and we've still got five months to go until this movies actually released!), this one brings more of a concrete plot to the proceedings, depicting Max (Louie C.K.), a dog, feeling his life upended when his owner gets a new mutt, Duke (Eric Stonestreet). Basically, it's the same character dynamic Toy Story and Over The Hedge have already done, and this trailer really brings nothing new to the table in terms of plot points or gags. It also looks like they're getting as much mileage as possible out of that heavy metal poodle joke, huh?

The Angry Birds Movie

I was relatively kind to The Angry Birds Movie when its first teaser arrived back in late September, but that goodwill towards its marketing has vanished with this new trailer. All I can really say about this one is that if you've ever had the compulsion to see a movie where Danny McBride spits urine into the eager mouth of Josh Gad, it looks like we've got a movie for you!

Trolls
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tDnRVKPjj8k
Oh my God.

This is real.

Small, easily marketable and toyetic characters dancing to a modern dad pop song (in this case Watch Me Whip/Watch Me Nae Nae)?

We've reached peak DreamWorks folks.

Hey, remember how good the How To Train Your Dragon movies were? Yeah, those were awesome.

Nine Lives
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dPxI4yOKdgc
Early candidate for most bizarre project of 2016? I'll say yeah. Was this made by someone nostalgic for the days of late 90's live-action Disney family films (the kind made on the cheap and quick like You Favorite Martian and the That Darn Cat! remake), cause that's the kind of cinema this trailer evoked to me. I kind of wish with a premise ripped straight out of a Tropic Thunder trailer parody they went with a more oddball premise than more of this "dad needs to learn to spend more time with his kid" tripe. I'm also pretty certain nothing Christopher Walken does here will top this beautiful insanity from Gigli:

Jersey Boys Review

The Good, The Bad and The Jersey

Unbenonkwest to the band, the car, a Transformers in
disguise, had pulled up on its own to watch them sing. 

Whenever someone brings up Jersey Boys, they don't talk about the story, or Frankie Valli or the Broadway show from which it's adapted. The one thing everyone chatters about is the fact that Clint Eastwood, The Man With No Name, is directing a musical! How does that work out? Well, if Eastwoods first musical was Little Shop of Horrors or Mamma Mia! or something, yeah, I'd totally see that. But Jersey Boys in its cinematic incarnation (I've never seen the show on stage) isn't truly a musical, not in the "Let It Go" sense. Characters sing, but considering the real life people on which the characters are based on actually did this for a living, it feels natural to have some tunes going around.