13 Days of First-Time Frights: The Fly

13 Days of First-Time Frights is a series of reviews for October 2019 where Douglas Laman, in the spirit of Halloween, watches and writes about thirteen horror movies he's never seen before. These reviews will be posted each Tuesday and Thursday as well as the last three Wednesdays of October 2019.

Entry #4: The Fly

Scientist Seth Brundle (Jeff Goldblum) is working on something quite impressive. It's not something he's willing to share with just anyone, but he does end up bringing reporter Veronica Quaife (Geena Davis) back to his workspace to check out what he's managed to create. Turns out, Brundle has created a revolutionary teleportation device in the form of two telepods. It's still in need of tweaks so that it can properly transport human tissue but it's already transporting clothes from one place to the next without issue, surely humans can't be far behind. Veronica Quaife begins to chronicle Brundle's trial and error exercises in getting this machine to work properly and in the process the two of them being to fall in love.

The 160-Minute Runtime of Nashville Flies Right By Thanks To How Well-Made It Is

Welcome to the Bi-Centennial Celebration of America. The year is 1976 and everyone is gearing up to celebrate 200 years of existence for the United States of America. Nashville follows the lives of a wide assortment of characters in Nashville, Tennesse over the course of a few days, with one of the key unifying elements across this bevy of storylines being that a controversial political figure is preparing to give a speech in this Southern city. Among the people we follow over the course of Nashville are singer Linnea Reese (Lilly Tomlin), her husband Delbert Reese (Ned Beatty), rocker Tom Frank (Keith Carradine) and so many others. The cast is so dense that it includes Jeff Goldblum showing up in an assortment of dialogue-free appearances as a figure only referred to in the credits as The Silent Tricycle Man.

The Prince of Egypt Is An Outlier In DreamWorks Animations Filmography Very Much For The Better

Today, DreamWorks Animation is known for one thing and one thing only: computer-animated movies with pop culture references and pop songs a-plenty. That's a touch unfair to their entire catalog of the studio that also includes deviations from that norm like How to Train Your Dragon or Kung Fu Panda, but there's also no denying that it's an apt summarization of most of their output. The trailer for their newest film, Abominable, feels like a microcosm of all the stereotypes associated with DreamWorks Animation, from an extended belching joke to the closing gag of a yeti dancing around to the tune of Shake It Off by Taylor Swift. That's a DreamWorks Animation movie right there, through and through.

Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom Is The Cinematic Equivalent To Kid Rock's All Summer Long

I sure do hope anyone who goes to see Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom is familiar with every little detail of the original Jurassic Park film because this movie is obsessed to a creepy degree with homaging that particular entry in the franchise. All kinds of nostalgic fan-service moments crop up throughout the story, ranging from an appearance by the cane topped by an ambered mosquito that John Hammond once carried around to an appearance by the flipped over Jurassic Park van that fell into the T-Rex paddock to a comically extraneous cameo appearance by Dr. Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum). Colin Trevorrow and Derek Connolly pack their dismal script with all kinds of references to the original, a task they become so preoccupied with that they forget to make all that much that is unique or interesting for this brand new Jurassic Park adventure.

Hotel Artemis Is An Unusual But Delightful Getaway Spot

I've stayed in a number of oddball hotels in my life, including one located somewhere in Texas that totally felt like the sort of location that characters go to get either arrested, shot or both in a Coen Brothers movie, but I've never stayed at a hotel like the Hotel Artemis, a hospital/hotel exclusively for criminals located in Los Angeles in the near future. It's a place run by The Nurse (Jodie Foster) and her dutiful assistant Everest (Dave Bautista), who take care of any criminals who need some under-the-radar fixing up so long as said criminals have an official membership. The newest people to check into this hotel are bank robbers Sherman (Sterling K. Brown) and his intensely damaged brother Honolulu (Brian Tyree Henry).

Isle of Dogs Is A Very Very Good Boy And Deserves A Belly Rub

One of the many pieces of connective tissue between the assorted directorial efforts of Wes Anderson is the element of families, Wes Anderson loves to explore complex, typically fractured, family dynamics. Whether it's the two brothers who lead Bottle Rocket, the expansive Tenenbaum clan or Mr. Fox and his kin, Anderson is fascinated by the storytelling possibilities offered up by complicated families. It's a recurring narrative pattern of his that has served him well in the past, but he's been eschewing it in his most recent works, first in The Grand Budapest Hotel and again in his newest feature Isle of Dogs. Both of these movies are superb works that indicate Anderson works just fine as a filmmaker without the aid of family dynamics in the stories he tells.

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 Next Thor Movie Has Its First Brilliant Trailer

The Thor movies are definitely the sore spot in the Marvel Cinematic Universe that isn't Iron Fist or Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. I like the first movie well enough and think the second one has its moments (most of them all coming from Tom Hiddleston) despite some heavily flawed storytelling. But this upcoming third Thor movie, Thor: Ragnarok, has had everyone eagerly anticipating for it one big reason: Taika Waititi. The man behind What We Do In The Shadows and Hunt For The Wilderpeople is taking the director's chair. How can you not get excited for that???

Well, prepare to have your anticipation skyrocket further as the first trailer for Thor: Ragnarok actually just drop, almost out of nowhere. Take a look below!

Independence Day: Resurgence Is A Repugnant Fusion Of Noise And Tedium

Sometimes you leave a summer blockbuster feeling elated, the imagery and characters on-screen having just about made one's day. Other times you leave with mixed emotions", not having despised what occurred but also certainly not enjoyed it. And then there's how I felt about upon leaving Independence Day: Resurgence, a movie that left me only feeling aggravation. By the end, of the motion picture, I felt a great kinship with The Grinch since  all of the chaos on-screen only registered to me as "NOISE! ALL THE NOISE NOISE NOISE!"

LEGO Jurassic Park Trailer Adds Humor To The Dino-centric Franchise

LEGO video games are about to celebrate an entire decade of prosperity and success, as it was back in 2005 that the first video game to take an existing property and bring it to life via LEGO's (that first game, by the by, was LEGO Star Wars: The Video Game). This approach has been done to massively popular pop culture entities such as Harry Potter, Marvel superheroes and Indiana Jones, but in honor of the release of this summers new movie Jurassic World, the Jurassic Park franchise will be the next to get a LEGO video game. A trailer for that game has been released this morning, which you can watch below!

Mortdecai Review

The Art Of War...On Quality Comedy

Watching the trajectory of Johnny Depp's career has, at this point, become far more entertaining than many of the features he chooses to star in. Aside from Into The Woods, he hasn't appeared in a feature that's grossed $100 million in four years (when the last Pirates of The Caribbean film was released), and while the forthcoming Whitey Bulger biopic Black Mass holds potential to restore some luster to his body of work, Mortdecai isn't just another Johnny Depp misfire, it's an aimless clunker of a film in it's own right.

Sin City: A Dame To Kill For Review

Superfluous Sin Soaked Cinema 

Visual effects have come so far in the last twenty years, it's one of the more mind-boggling aspects of modern day filmmaking. Ever since Steven Spielberg showed off those CGI dinos wrecking havoc, the possibilities for visual effects seemed endless. Robert Rodriguez has taken advantage of those possibilities several times in his career, namely in the first Sin City (which I have not seen) and it's sequel, Sin City: A Dame To Kill For. That follow-up is the subject of this review and unfortunately, the innovation in its visuals seem like the only thing given any thought in this film.

The Trailer For Mortdecai Shows Johnny Depp Like You've Never Seen Him Before...Quirky And Humorous

I like Johnny Depp a lot and I'm certainly not alone. The dudes got a ton of successful movies under his belt, and while some weren't good (Charlie And The Chocolate Factory namely), roles like Jack Sparrow and Rango had him subverting the norm to create fantastic and engaging characters. His recent movies (especially Transcendence) have been lacking, but as I pressed play to watch, for the first time, the trailer for his next feature film Mortdecai, I hoped the trailer would show promise of Depp restoring some luster to his career.

I Wanna See That!: Jurassic Park

In this Thursday fixture, I Wanna See That!, I take a look at specific trailers that are both well crafted and have some kind of importance to them beyond just informing you a film is coming soon. This week, hold on to your butts, because I'm going to some amusement park Steven Spielberg made.

Happy 4th Of July Nerds!!

Yes, it's that terrific holiday where we celebrate this great country of ours by, in my case, eating tons of food,  dealing with a headache and watching Jeff Goldblum blow up aliens! Obviously, that means no other content besides this post will go up today (no The List!! this week, but it'll return next Friday!) But a review of Tammy will go up tomorrow, and regular daily content will return on Monday! Feel free to browse the many reviews on this site over the weekend, as well as all the other wonderful weekly columns I write every weekday.

Have an amazing Independence Day guys and gals!! MURICA!!!!