Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens finally came out a couple weeks ago, and I’ve seen it twice since then. The honeymoon phase is over, I’ve heard a lot of praise and a fair share of criticism, and with that I’d like to run down some things I’d like to see from the next installment in this new trilogy. Some of these things I’m eagerly anticipating, while others are more in response to criticisms I have after digesting the content more thoroughly.Read More »
Star Wars: The Force Awakens is the seventh installment in the Star War series, directed by J. J. Abrams and starring Daisy Ridley and John Boyega, alongside Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher, Mark Hamill and others reprising their iconic roles. The film is the first to be released after Disney’s acquisition of Lucasfilm back in late 2012. It is easily the most highly anticipated release this year, as it is the first new Star Wars film released in a decade after the conclusion of the prequel trilogy. The story continues from 30 years after the end of Return of the Jedi, where a Resistance force backed by the New Republic still fights against the First Order, an organization which rose from the ashes of the fallen Empire.Read More »
Grave Encounters is a 2011 Canadian found-footage horror film, written and directed by The Vicious Brothers. The film is a collection of footage from the final episode of a fictional ghost hunting TV show called Grave Encounters, which was cancelled after airing its fifth episode. This sixth episode was never broadcast. The host and crew are investigating the abandoned Collingwood Psychiatric Hospital, a supposed hotbed for paranormal activity thanks to its tortured history. After touring the grounds during the day they have the groundskeeper lock them in, from sundown until 6:00 AM, as they begin their mission to capture footage ghostly activity.Read More »
The Halloween season is upon us once again, and for me that means I’m watching a lot more horror movies than I normally would. Over the last few days I watched Oculus and Sinister, in that order, both of which are rather recent releases. I enjoyed them both — especially the former — but watching them has got me particularly thinking a lot about explanations and the unknown in the horror genre.Read More »
Having been curious since it came out, this past week I watched Scooby-Doo! WrestleMania Mystery, a direct-to-video movie co-produced by Warner Bros. Animation and WWE Studios. I’ve been a casual fan of pro wrestling and the WWE for a few years now, and I grew up enjoying a lot of Scooby-Doo, so the idea of the two pairing up seemed both bizarre and entertaining.
The movie played out exactly as anybody familiar with a Scooby-Doo storyline would expect, complete with red herring antagonists, really convoluted technology and plot devices, and an obvious twist reveal on who the monster really was. I understand the intended audience, so I’m not going to fault the movie for all this. It was a lot of fun to watch.Read More »
Ant-Man, directed by Peyton Reed and starring Paul Rudd, is the latest Marvel Studios addition to the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU). The story follows Scott Lang (Paul Rudd), an ex-con who is recruited by aged scientist and former Ant-Man Hank Pym (Michael Douglas) to wear a suit that permits its user to shrink to the size of an insect while increasing proportionate strength. Lang must pull of a heist to steal a replication of Pym’s technology, stopping it from falling into the wrong hands.Read More »
It Follows is a 2014 supernatural horror film, directed by David Robert Mitchell and starring Maika Monroe. The story follows Jay Height (Monroe), a girl who is pursued by a supernatural entity after having sexual relations with a boy while on a date. She quickly learns that the entity can take the form of any person — stranger or familiar — and will endlessly pursue her until it catches her, unless she passes the curse on to someone else by having sex with them.Read More »
Mad Max: Fury Road is an Australian-American post-apocalyptic action film directed, produced, and co-written by George Miller. It is the fourth film in the Mad Max franchise, starring Tom Hardy as the title character Max Rockatansky, and Charlize Theron as Imperator Furiosa. Following a catastrophic nuclear war, the world is a desert wasteland where gasoline and water are rare commodities. Max, a lone survivor, is captured by the War Boys, members of Immortan Joe’s army — a tyrannical cult leader whose seat of power is a citadel with access to fresh water and agriculture. After being deemed a universal blood donor for War Boys in need, Max gets caught up in the pursuit of Imperator Furiosa. She is one of Joe’s higher ranked officers who betrays him by attempting to smuggle his harem of wives — selected for breeding — away from his citadel.Read More »
A lot of films were left on the backlog from Halloween last year that I simply didn’t get to. There were either others I was more interested in, or I simply didn’t have time. So, I recently decided to dive into one of them and watched Atrocious, a 2010 Spanish found-footage horror film by director Fernando Barreda Luna. Though I didn’t know much about what to expect, the description and preview images looked intriguing enough that I was hopeful for a compelling found-footage experience.Read More »
Avengers: Age of Ultron, directed by Joss Whedon, is the latest entry on the big screen for the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU). This is the second Avengers film, following the team of Thor (Chris Hemsworth), Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.), Captain America (Chris Evans), Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner), Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson), and the Hulk (Mark Ruffalo). Wanting to create a world where their team is no longer necessary, Iron Man aka Tony Stark creates Ultron (James Spader), an artificial intelligence with the capacity to protect the world from another alien invasion (as seen in the first Avengers film). Ultron becomes too advanced too quickly, however, and only sees destruction as a viable option for “peace in our time.”Read More »
Muse with Me 