Chloe Zhao's Directorial Debut Songs My Brothers Taught Me Aches With Reality

Right now in London, director Chloe Zhao is directing The Eternals, the twenty-fifth entry in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. This Angelina Jolie-headlined motion picture will be the fourth directorial effort from Zhao but it will easily be the biggest motion picture she's helmed. Up to this point, Zhao has directed indie features so small in scale that they make the earlier works of fellow MCU directors like James Gunn or Jon Favreau look like Cecil B. DeMille epics by comparison. However, such an intimate storytelling approach has worked exceedingly well for the fascinating stories Zhao (who is tied with Ryan Coogler and Taika Waititi as the most talented director Marvel has ever snagged for one of their movies) has chosen to tell. Such films have included The Rider, one of last years best movies, and her directorial debut Songs My Brothers Taught Me.

Krisha Is A Small-Scale Examination Of The Difficulties Of Escaping One's Past

Our past define ourselves. Not to sound too weird or what have you, but our future and our past can be one and the same creation. One portion of our existence informs the other in numerous ways, sometimes for good, sometimes for ill. Keep this in mind as Krisha unfolds, a motion picture all too aware that our actions from the past have consequences that are felt long into the future. Just because tomorrow comes does not mean the slate is clean in terms of both other people's perception of you and your perception of yourself. That concept can make life a struggle and that's certainly one way to describe the sort of existence Krisha (Krisha Fairchild) is going through on this Thanksgiving Day.

I Saw The Light Is An Abysmal Ode To A Country Music Legend

For those searching for a motion picture that examines the life of 1950's country music sensation Hank Williams in a remotely interesting way, well, you're gonna have to look elsewhere, because such a film is most certainly not what you'll find in the 2016 motion picture I Saw The Light. If you've been looking everywhere for the worst kind of musical biopic, the sort of movie that goes through a real-life individuals life with no compelling drama or filmmaking to speak of, well, I'd ask you what kind of life choices led to you pursuing such a hunt, but I suppose I Saw The Light fits such qualifiers.

Me Him Her Is Simply Generic And Aimless

It's odd just how lifeless Me Him Her is considering how much it constantly strains to establish its own "quirky" and "unique" identity. On-screen text, usually depicted in various different colors and font style, pop up frequently for no good reason while more stylized elements (such as a giant penis that bellows "AAAH!! A PENIS!!" to two different sexually confused characters on two separate occasions) also crop up randomly. One gets the feeling these more heightened entities basically exist as a way to compensate for the lackluster script that thrives on being a hodgepodge of various American indie movie tropes.

Midnight Special Review

Midnight Special is the sort of movie that hits the ground running and never looks back. The story begins in media res and from there backstory is doled out in small doses throughout numerous points. Jeff Nichols shows some obvious ingenuity when it comes to concocting a cohesive narrative with this approach; he's well aware that numerous elements of the plot will be foreign to all viewers and require proper explanation. But he's also not willing to sacrifice the thrust of the narrative so he can have an entire shoehorned in scene that overwhelms the audience with answers. Instead, he lets the tale live and breathe, with clarification coming to light when needed while other aspects of the movie remain satisfyingly ambiguous.

Eye In The Sky Review

Any new technological advancement is going to be met with a wide gamut of responses, especially when said piece of technology can drastically change the way our society operates. Just look at how the very presence of cell phones has upended social conventions the world over. When those leap forwards in technology apply to a piece of military hardware, a whole new level of scrutiny is applied to the object, mainly because, more likely than not, this newly created device could be responsible for the loss of lives. The advent of nuclear weaponry was one such military-related creation that sparked debates about morality that are still ongoing today, while today's modern day military technological advancement that's creating plenty of conversation is drone warfare.

Batman v. Superman Gets Off To Massive Box Office Start At Thursday Night Showings

Night (or should I say knight) has fallen on the box office as Batman v. Superman: Dawn Of Justice got off to a massive $27.7 million start last night at Thursday night screenings that began at 6 PM. That's the second biggest gross for a superhero movie at these kind of screenings, only behind the $30 million sum garnered by The Dark Knight Rises at Midnight showings back in July 2012. This $27,7 million sum puts Batman v. Superman puts this Zack Snyder film ahead of The Avengers, Man Of Steel (which grossed $21 million at 7PM screenings, tickets to which could only be bought at Wal-Mart, and midnight showings) and Avengers: Age Of Ultron. It's also, just from these screenings alone, already the eighth highest grossing movie of Jesse Eisenberg's career.

Batman v. Superman Review

"She's talking to angels
Counting the stars
Waiting for Superman to pick her up
In his arms" - Daughtry 

In the final scene of the 1959 Francois Truffaut film The 400 Blows, the lead character, a young boy named Antoine Doinel, finally makes it the beach, a serene domain full of the kind of peace and tranquility he's been yearning for. Yes, he's made it...but at what cost? He's alienated his parents, turned to a life of crime, sullied his reputation, he's sacrificed so much to get here. The closing shot of the motion picture focuses solely on the face of Antoine Doinel, an expression of remorse and confusion over realizing all that has been lost in his pursuit of escaping his demanding life. It's a haunting facial expression....and the very same one that was etched onto my face when I emerged from my Thursday night screening of Batman v. Superman: Dawn Of Justice.

The Brothers Grimsby Review

In the decade since the massive box office and critical success of Borat, Sacha Baron Cohen has struggled to replicate the affluence of that 2006 feature. He attempted to bring the mockumentary format back for Bruno in 2009 to far smaller success while his 2012 effort The Dictator went for a conventional narrative structure to no better results. His newest feature film, The Brothers Grimsby, is the first movie for Cohen to incorporate action and to not be directed by Larry Charles, instead going for Transporter 2 and Clash Of The Titans helmer Louie Leterrier. Unfortunately, Grimsby has also been a box office dud and, in my book at least, also fails to restore any luster to Cohen's lackluster post-Borat projects.

10 Cloverfield Lane Review

"Monsters Come In Many Forms", so says the poster for 10 Cloverfield Lane, a not so subtle nod to the film's spiritual predecessor Cloverfield. No Kaiju or even direct connections to that 2008 Matt Reeves production can be found here, but a foreboding atmosphere can be found in this new movie that's just as terrifying as any big city-destroying monster. The basic premise of 10 Cloverfield Lane emerges from one simple thought; what if you were trapped in a doomsday bunker with an untrustworthy and heretofore unknown individual?

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.

The Final Batman v. Superman Trailer Brings Brawny Batman Busting Bones. Plus, Wonder Woman Speaks!

It's been ten long months since the first Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice trailer was unleashed onto the public. That's keeping in tune with (skipping over Jonah Hex, the two Red movies, Green Lantern and Watchmen) the marketing campaigns for the last three DC Comics features, Man of Steel, The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Rises. Both of those movies had year long marketing campaigns that stretched onto eternity. However, Batman v. Superman had, well, it's had to tackle a bit more negative buzz in its trailers than those three titles. For every trailer (the Comic-Con promo) that goes over well, another piece of the marketing puzzle (the April 2015 teaser trailer and the spoiler heavy December 2015 trailer) just falls flat.

B.O.O.: The DreamWorks Animation Movie You Will Never See

There is an animated family comedy named B.O.O.: Bureau of Otherworldly Organisms starring Seth Rogen and Mellissa McCarthy as crime-fighting ghosts. Their foe? Bill Murray as an evil ghosts. This feature had a plot that basically sounded like a more family-friendly version of the 2013 box office dud R.I.P.D., had Rashida Jones, Matt Bomer and Octavia Spencer in supporting roles, and was slated to be released this past June.  However, it was pulled from the release schedule just six-and-a-half months prior to its release. Apparently, the film was in post-production when it was cancelled, to the point that when director Tony Leondis was announced as the director of The Emoji Movie, the press release for that development noted that his previous film, B.O.O., had actually been completed under his watch.

What Is 10 Cloverfield Lane? Who The Hell Knows, But The Trailer For It Is Pretty Memorable

Let's time travel back to the year 2007, when an eleven year old NerdInTheBasement saw Transformers on its second day of release. My first theatrical PG-13 experience, I got a thrilling rush when, prior to the screening, the trailer for the R-rated Superbad played. Woah! An R-rated movie! What a time to be alive! Sure, it was the green-band trailer and so no nudity, drug use or explicit swearing was to be found, but still, it was the trailer for what was pretty blatantly an R-rated feature film. Could it get any better than this??