Grab Your Catnip For The Musical Madness of Cats

Musicals are inherently absurd creations. People don't sing their feelings in real life, after all. Because they work as the antithesis to reality, the best musicals can create sights & sounds you'd never see in another medium of creative expression. Avenue Q, for example, where else could you see a puppet show that doesn't even try to conceal that the puppets are being operated by people? Or how about Little Shop of Horrors or The SpongeBob SquarePants Musical? Both thrive on unabashed weirdness! Such strange yet enjoyably bold creativity is why I love musicals. When people think of musical oddness, though, one go-to reference point might be Andrew Lloyd Webber's 1981 musical Cats.

Hobbs & Shaw Hits the Accelerator When It Comes to Absurd Mayhem

Right now, I'm reading Film History: An Introduction (Third Edition) by Kristin Thompson and David Bordwell for the first time and it's a fantastic read, it's been so much fun to discover new terminology related to the oldest eras of cinema and learn factoids related to the earliest days of the major movie studios. Plus, the writing style of Thompson and Bordwell is extremely adept at explaining new concepts or ideas (like dadaism, for example) to readers who might be unfamiliar with them. My only real grievance with the book is that it doesn't contain any chapters dedicated to Hobbs & Shaw, a Fast & Furious spin-off movie that might just represent the peak of cinema as an artform. The Lumiere Brothers would have wept succulent tears of joy if they could have lived to see this David Leitch directorial effort.

Bet On The Actors Excelling And The Camerawork Underwhelming In Molly's Game

Aaron Sorkin has been writing movies and TV shows for 26 years now and somehow, in that entire period of time, he's never directed anything before his 2017 feature film Molly's Game. This is especially regarding his TV work, the guy was the creator of four different TV shows, one of which (The West Wing) ran for over 150 episodes, and he never once directed an episode of any of these programs despite frequently writing the scripts for individual episodes. Taking all of that into consideration, it's utterly shocking he's taken this long to get behind the camera but he's done just that with the motion picture Molly's Game.

Thor: Ragnarok Is Here To Have Giddy Cosmic Fun And It's Impossible Not To Join In

For his newest motion picture, Thor has embraced the Skuxx life by taking on New Zealand filmmaker Taika Waititi to direct Thor: Ragnarok, an exciting directorial pick that pays off in dividends with one a movie that's just true blue fun through and through. Similar to how Waititi was able to wring humor out of merging realism with romantic-comedy tropes in his debut movie Eagle vs. Shark and smashing together the world of vampires with everyday normalcy in his 2015 comedy What We Do In The Shadows, Thor: Ragnarok offers the filmmaker the chance to juxtapose Marvel superheroes with loads of offbeat comedy that proves to be supremely entertaining.

The Mountain Between Us Is So Trite And Dull, It's Chilling

Rare is the trip by airplane that goes exactly as planned. You're bound to end up getting transferred to another flight or missing some piece of luggage or landing hours later than originally expected if you end up choosing this mode of transportation. Dr. Ben Bass (Idris Elba) and Alex Martin (Kate Winslet) were already facing the kind of mundane difficulties we all go through when trying to embark on a flight, namely being unable to get on flights they absolutely need to get on for extremely important personal events (Bass has a patient he has to perform surgery on while Martin is getting married the next day).

A Boring And Meandering Plot Make Sure That The Dark Tower Crumbles

When I finished watching Percy Jackson & The Olympians: The Lightning Thief back in February 2010, I was crushed. One of my favorite books, The Lightning Thief, had come to the big screen in a big-budget live-action movie and it was terrible. In taking the source material to the screen, they'd make drastic alterations to the book, which isn't inherently bad of course, but the changes they made here were just awful and somehow the execution of characters and plot details from the book were even worse. All those years of anticipation for a proper movie were answered by this trash heap of a feature film, one that seemed far more intent on kick-starting the next big fantasy movie franchise like Harry Potter than creating an actually good movie.

My Thoughts On The Dark Tower Trailer

Despite the fact that it's coming out on August 4th, you'd be hard-pressed to find evidence that the new Dark Tower movie even existed considering the previously non-existent marketing campaign
Sony/Columbia has been putting up for the motion picture. Aside from a solitary poster and some footage shown off exclusively to movie theater owners at CinemaCon, nada, nothing! But that changed this morning when Sony/Columbia finally decided to throw the world a bone and give this long in-development movie a trailer! Check it out and my thoughts on it below!

Krall, The Villain Of Star Trek Beyond, Is A Terrifyingly Timely Creation

STAR TREK BEYOND SPOILERS AHOY!

We all know what fear is. Nary a day can go by where the sensation doesn't penetrate our entire bodies. It's not a new feeling of course, but it's easy to see why many would feel particularly terrified in the wake of recent events. In the past month, the largest single massacre in American history occurred at a Florida nightclub, multiple police officers were killed in Dallas, Texas, a disturbing amount of incidents involving police officers killed unarmed African-Americans have occurred, a man drove through Black Lives Matter protesters, countless more individuals were slaughtered on Bastille Day in France. How could one not be gripped by feelings of fear at such events occurring?

Set Phasers To Awesomeness For Star Trek Beyond

Each of the Star Trek movies that have emerged since 2009 seem to have taken direct inspiration from different noteworthy motion picture. That first feature in this rebooted franchise was very much inspired by the success of then recent reboots like Batman Begins and Casino Royale while Star Trek Into Darkness was an obvious attempt to mimic how most second films in major blockbuster franchises (think The Empire Strikes Back) are the "darker" story. Now Star Trek Beyond arrives very much as a post-Guardians Of The Galaxy Star Trek adventure. Colorful looking aliens have a greater presence than they did in the last two Star Trek movies, tunes from the 80's surface at critical moments, there's a greater emphasis on the dynamic of the main group of characters and new character Jayllah (Sofia Boutella) and her trait of not quite understanding certain aspects of the English language bear a notable similarity to Drax The Destroyer.

Finding Dory Review

There's been some understandable apprehension lobbed at the slate of future movies emerging from PIXAR Animation Studios, namely in the fact that three of the four films the company will be releasing until the end of the decade are follow-ups to existing motion pictures. It's easy to see why such a feeling exists, not only because I've felt it time after time again, but also because the studios output has included features like Up, WALL-E or Inside Out whose basic premises seemed to defy conventional family-friendly American animation routines. To now see Cars 3 and Toy Story 4 on the horizon from a studio championed for its originality can't help but leave one with a tad bit of disillusionment.

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.

Zootopia Review

Some of the most loved rhetoric to describe gestating projects by Hollywood producers is "grounded" or "realistic", mainly as a way to give prospective moviegoers the idea that the film in question will be akin to box office hits like The Dark Knight. Typically though, the movies in question end up just diluting the color grading and making everything super gloomy in terms of tone instead of going for the rich characters and thrilling action that made The Dark Knight and other successful "grounded" and "realistic" motion pictures so unique.

Idris Elba And Matthew McConaughey Set To Star In The Dark Tower Movie

There are movies that spend so long in development hell, one can be forgiven for being more than a tad dubious that such films would ever actually reach the silver screen. Some (like box office smashes Deadpool and Avatar) do eventually get made, while the likes of Hellboy 3 and The Goon are longtime residents of Development Hell, as is The Dark Tower, a feature film adaptation of Stephen King's critically acclaimed novel. Ambitious plans for this film have existed for years now, with various actors, directors and studios circling the project before failing to get it off the ground.

Four Ways To Fine-Tune the James Bond Franchise

Let me start this essay out by saying upfront, no, I don't think the James Bond franchise is "doomed" or "busted" or any phrase like that. Financially, the series is doing just fine, and while Spectre was a sloppy mess of a film, it wasn't a Batman & Robin level disaster that capsized an entire saga. Long-term franchises like Star Trek, Star Wars, Batman and, of course, the granddaddy of all summer blockbuster franchises, 007 himself, have high points and low points. When you're around for that long, it's just the law of averages that you'll miss a film every so often. For every excellent Skyfall, there's bound to be a film like Spectre waiting in the wings.

Tom Hiddleston As Loki Will Return In Avengers: Age of Ultron!

You want to protect the world
But you don't want it to change

These ominous words are spoken by Ultron within the trailer for The Avengers: Age Of Ultron, and they do a superbly effective way of reminding one how much impact each of the individual heroes have had on the world at large. Since teaming up to protect New York, the Presidents been kidnapped, an Infinity Stone almost destroyed reality itself and HYDRA forces have come up again. The influence of Iron Man and the like are felt in numerous positive ways...but they also can have negative consequences on those they care about.

New Jungle Book Movie Adds Ben Kingsley To Awesome Cast!

Ben Kingsley?Trevor Slattery 

I absolutely love Disney (which, interestingly enough, was my first word spoken as a human being!), but I'm especially fond of their work on the animated side of things. Out of all 53 animated features Walt Disney Animation Studios has made though, my all-time favorite may be The Jungle Book, a superbly crafted masterpiece that just has no shortage of energy, fun and engrossing characters. That classic film is the next Disney animated film in line to be given the live-action/CGI treatment that was bestowed upon Alice In Wonderland and Maleficent. A remake of this movie should make my blood boil, but with the talent already lined up for it (and plenty more to come!) the project so far sounds delightful.