Air Force One Is Like Catnip For 1990s Blockbuster Fans Like Myself

You know what strain of blockbuster cinema I love? 1990s disaster movies! Chalk up my fondness for this subgenre partially to nostalgia, I distinctly remember spending my early teen years huddled over a small TV where I watch VHS copies of Armageddon, Volcano and Independence Day. More often than not, these films had cornball dialogue out the wazoo and broadly-drawn out characters...so why couldn't I get enough of them? Well, the heavy presence of explosions didn't hurt, but I also was drawn to the optimism that permeated so many of these movies. In the face of asteroids, aliens or whatever kind of disasters faced our planet, these movies depicted an array of human beings coming together to help one another and the human race. There's something noble and irresistibly hopeful about that.

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.

Bram Stoker's Dracula Is A Sexually Charged Piece of Cinema That Makes For A Delightful Watch

Bram Stoker's Dracula is one horny movie. It's so horny you might as well call it a crash of rhinos. It's so fixated on getting it on that one is surprised some James Brown tunes don't pepper the soundtrack. Director Francis Ford Coppola has assembled an A-list cast and some extraordinary production design, not to mention Bram Stoker's iconic source material, to create a vivid erotic fever dream about the one, the only, the vampire called Dracula. That description is meant to be a compliment, Bram Stoker's Dracula has refreshingly no inhibitions about what it wants to be is and fully embraces any opportunity to revel in both sex and hamminess, frequently at the same time.

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 Hitman's Bodyguard Is Paint-By-Numbers Action Fare But At Least The Two Leads Are Fun

Considering Samuel L. Jackson has been a prominent figure of American cinema for nearly a quarter-of-a-century now and also considering that Ryan Reynolds has become (after a couple of big box office duds that seemed to suggest he might not get there) Hollywood's go-to leading man thanks to the rousing success of Deadpool, it feels like it was just about inevitable that the two would star in a movie together. They've managed to do just that with director Patrick Hughes (the guy who directed the third Expendables movie) new movie, The Hitman's Bodyguard, an R-rated action film that allows both Reynolds and Jackson to drop all the buckets of profanity and hardcore violence that their past biggest movies are known for.

The Space Between Us Gets Lost In Space

How come more of these romantic dramas aren’t from a female perspective? Like, any person of any gender can enjoy a romantic movie but these particular movies do have a notable female fanbase and are typically marketed towards women, not to mention that the most famous of these features (The Notebook, Twilight and The Fault In Our Stars for instance) are told through the prism of women. It’s kind of odd to me then that so many of these movies go for an overtly male perspective that relegates women to the sidelines as thinly sketched romantic interest material. Wouldn’t you be better served getting a woman as the face of the project and tying the premise into issues facing specifically women instead of treating your target audience as just a poorly defined object for your male protagonist to covet?

There....Is....A...Brotherhood! Of Maaaaaaaannn (Down)!

The gradual downfall of Shia LaBeouf over the past decade has been sad to watch to be sure. Once the protege of the likes of Steven Spielberg, LaBeouf has been entangled in a number of legal issues for the past 11 years that have just gradually escalated in their craziness. The dude's basically unemployable by major studios at this point due to his erratic behavior and it's a shame that all of his actions (a number of which, like the plagiarism fiasco, are detestable) because he is talented and deserves better movies to star in than Man Down, a war movie that's been dumped into a small amount of theaters in the first weeks of December and I can't quite say such a release pattern is too ill-fitting for a movie of this level of quality.

The Fifth Element Review (Classic Write-Up)

The Fifth Element is a walking-talking contradiction of a movie when it comes to its story. Namely, it's a film stuffed to the gills with characters, concepts and mythology, all of it newly created (it's not based on a toy, comic book, TV show or previously existing source material). There's so much going on, yet, it all flows as seamlessly as a peaceful river. All of the various subplots co-exist in entertaining harmony, one of the many positive aspects of The Fifth Element that makes it such an exciting and memorable adventure.

Criminal Review

OK, so, the plot for Criminal is more than a bit dense, so allow me to parse through it with a synopsis. Jericho Stewart (Kevin Costner) is a criminal serving a life sentence who, thanks to being thrown out of a car as a child, basically has no frontal lobe. The movie uses this as an excuse for why he has no moral compass or any knowledge of what emotions are. That lack of a frontal lobe is also why Jericho specifically is the perfect candidate for a procedure wherein scientist Dr. Franks (Tommy Lee Jones) will inject Jericho with the memories of the recently deceased secret agent Bill Pope (Ryan Reynolds), who tragically passed away while doing the cinematography for The Jungle Book. High-ranking military official Quaker Wells (Gary Oldman) hopes that, with Pope's memories in Stewart's body, he'll able to retrieve the whereabouts of a man who has control of an arsenal of nuclear weaponry.

Dawn of The Planet of The Apes Review

I Hate Every Ape I See, From Chimpan-A, To Chimpan-Z

There will come a day, when the courage of apes fail...
but it is not thsi day!

When Rise of The Planet of The Apes came out in 2011 and became a financial and critical success, there was one thing everything was eager for; a sequel. After all, this prequel to a certain beloved 1968 film (yep, you guessed right; all these movies are prequels to Bullitt) leads to a very definitive conclusion that could still have many great stories to tell leading up that ending. With a new director (Matt Reeves), a new cast of humans and a greatly expanded budget at their disposal, the movie utilizes all of its resources to create a fantastic movie, one that's got thrills and thoughtfulness to spare.