Let’s be real. After the heartbreaking events of Avengers: Infinity War, we needed some sort of relief from the pain. Marvel’s Ant-Man and the Wasp was just that — a tiny [pun intended] relief.
Continue reading “‘Ant-Man and The Wasp’ Spoiler-Free Review”
In the past few years, reboots have become as ubiquitous as Marvel sequels. It feels like every week a new reboot gets announced. On TV, there’s Will and Grace, Fuller House, and the now-cancelled Roseanne. In film, there’s been 21 Jump Street, The Mummy, yet another Spider-Man reboot and of course, Ghostbusters. It’s hard not to compare Ocean’s 8 to the plethora of reboots that have come down the pipeline. But I can safely say that Ocean’s 8 is exactly what it needs to be. It’s fun, campy, silly, and suave. Every actress was perfect and absolute in the roles. And in so many ways, it checked all the boxes of a good heist film: good tricks, intricate plans, and unexpected plot twists.
Continue reading “‘Ocean’s 8’ is an Exercise in Expectation vs. Reality”
Sequels are extremely hard, especially when you have a completely different person in the director’s chair and the first film was a massive hit. The first Deadpool relied on Ryan Reynold’s charm, crude jokes, and kickass major fight-to-the-death scenes that earned the film’s R-rating. All of that paid off. Deadpool became the second highest grossing R-rated movie in U.S. history after Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ. And, if you’re wondering, yes, the sequel does mention this achievement.
Continue reading “‘Deadpool 2’ Review: Sequel is More of the Same”
In a time where old franchises are dug up from the grave, we now have Blade Runner 2049: the latest movie we never asked for but then Alcon Productions fought for the rights for 12 years and here we are. Because after all, there’s always money in nostalgia.
Continue reading “‘Blade Runner 2049’: More like Blade Snorer ZZZ”
Following the success of the first two films comes the newest sibling to the LEGO world: The LEGO Ninjago Movie. Was it as full of color and artistically beautiful as the first two?
Continue reading “NinjaGO or NinjaNO? – A LEGO Ninjago Review”
I watch, I drink, I spit hot fire. Yup, you guessed it, spoilers ahead.
Colossal checked off a lot of boxes for what I would theoretically enjoy in a movie. Directed by Nacho Vigalondo, it is often funny, surprisingly dark, and an inventive new take on kaiju movies. I like all those things. The lead, Gloria, is easy to root for as played by star Anne Hathaway. And Jason Sudeikis impresses as Gloria’s friend and eventual foil, Oscar. For about half of the movie, I found this all very enjoyable.
Continue reading “The Happy Hour Review: Colossal is Basically White Feminism”
Originally posted at Black Girl Nerds
All that is lacking in substance is made up for with gorgeous imagery in a Zhang Yimou’s new and pointless film, The Great Wall. Whomever his set people are, give them all the awards because they bring their A-game when it comes to costume and set design. But I digress.
I’m not sure what I expected, but I certainly wasn’t expecting the Silk Road version of Edge of Tomorrow featuring giant Komodo Dragons. Shouldn’t a larger budget allow more time to work on perfecting the CGI? How many Adobe-editing programs did they use to get these monsters to look as fake and silly as they do? Zhang Yimou should stick to martial arts dramas because he is out of his element with The Great Wall.
Continue reading “The Great Wall Review: Is It Worth The Watch?”
Doctor Strange, directed by Scott Derrickson (Sinister), tells the story of Stephen Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch), a gifted neurosurgeon who is wrapped up in his own vanity. After karma executes Stephen’s fate he suffers irreversible damage to his hands, destroying his valued medical career. His desperate search for physical healing takes him to the Far East to a place called Kamar-Taj. There he meets the “Ancient One,” (Tilda Swinton) a mystical witch with undisputed power, and Baron Mordor (Chewitel Ejiofor) one of the chief masters of the Kamar-Taj temple. Strange believes the Ancient One is the key to healing his hands and returning back to the medical field. Little does he know he is smack in the middle of a war between good and evil. His visit to Kamar-Taj will be a turning point for Stephen Strange. He chooses to learn the ways of the arts but isn’t sure if this magical war is a good fit for him.
Continue reading “Doctor Strange: Another Rich, White Asshole Courtesy of Marvel”
Nate Parker stars in the Nat Turner biopic film, Birth of a Nation. While most true story adaptations include a few embellishments, don’t go into this expecting anything remotely accurate. After having done some research, very little of what is presented in this film can be found as historical fact. What Parker has created is a sloppy, amateurish, slavery pain-porn film, rife with Christianity overkill. It’s a mockumentary of Nat Turner’s legacy and tries to trick its audience into thinking this is an actual part of history.
Continue reading “Birth of a Nation is Poorly Done Slavery Pain-Porn”
Miss Peregrine’s Home For Peculiar Children is the YA/action adventure film directed by the master of macabre, Tim Burton. This is the live-action adaptation of the book by author Ransom Riggs. Rumor has it that the books have potential and are engaging. That’s too bad because the movie isn’t any of those things. This painfully slow adaptation isn’t a return to form for Burton. It’s the same old hokey filmmaking, but time actress Eva Green is the victim! He really wants to show the audience that he still has that Beetlejuice, Mars Attacks charm. He wants you to know that his version of what is weird is acceptable. In a time where weirdness, geekiness, is the new norm, his message, and Miss Peregrine seem 10-years too late.
Continue reading “Miss Peregrine’s Home For Peculiar Children: Another Tim Burton Borefest”
Suicide Squad director and writer David Ayer has written a screenplay that is flat and not very exciting. The editing is all over the place and most of the characters are boring. This may not be all Ayer’s fault. According to the Hollywood Reporter, Warner Brothers gave him only six weeks to write whatever he could and went straight to shooting. Why did the studio let this happen?!
I will give Ayer props for making the cast unique in that it’s one of the few (maybe the only) comic book film with such a diverse group of actors in major roles.
Continue reading “Admit it: Diversity Saved ‘Suicide Squad’”
First things first: Pan — opening in U.S. theaters this weekend — is a colorful, action-packed PG-13 reimagining of the origins of Peter Pan and his relationships with and to Captain Hook, Tiger Lily, and Neverland as we know them through J.M. Barrie’s play and novel and their myriad subsequent Broadway, Disney, and Hollywood (re)interpretations.
My daughters, ages 11 and 6, enjoyed the film, and the 6-year-old, who often asks to leave the theater during intense or “scary” action sequences, made it through with only a bit of parental ear-covering during loud bits. The world-building and -design and the effects were beautiful and well-done, with visual call-backs to many fantasy, science fiction, and action films that parents will recognize fondly (the Mad Max films and Avatar being just an example) and original effects like giant bubbles of water containing aquatic life floating in the sky that I will remember for a while. But it’s the twists, and the questions and consequences they bring up, that I want to talk about now. So from here on in, SPOILERS AHEAD.
Continue reading “‘Pan’ and the Amazing Technicolor Natives”
[I wanted to write this reflection the weekend of its release. I decided that I needed a little more time because the film hit home in too many ways and I needed some space from it to get a better handle on how I wanted to approach it. This will not be a typical review, nor will it be an endorsement — despite my endorsing the film whole-heartedly. I have no idea what this is, but I needed to get it out.]
Hip-hop is fandom. While it may not be explicitly geek/nerd culture, it is fandom of the highest order. If anyone chooses to refute this, they aren’t being intellectually or culturally honest. Never has this connection been so blatantly displayed than in Rick Famuyiwa’s 2015 gem of a film, Dope. [I have a lot more to say about this. Watch this space in the next month or two]
As humankind ventures deeper into a digital being, Mad Max: Fury Road reminds us that we still live in an analog world. Life after the apocalypse will have no synthesized dings or chimes for audio cues, we will have only the roar of revving engines, bursting flamethrowers, war drums, and a gas-powered electric guitar to warn us that danger is in the distance.
It took 30 years for George Miller to return to the wasteland, but the timing couldn’t have been any better. Miller has taken the uncompromising arthouse nature of the original Mad Max movies, and combined it with 30 years of experience and the technology to create the fully realized, seemingly impossible world of Fury Road.
The result is an action movie that will be the benchmark to which every one to follow will be judged.
Avengers: Age of Ultron was the perfect summer popcorn film. It’s a big, loud and frenetic superhero movie with a decent amount of heart.
[Ed. note: Not to mention the second biggest opening weekend in history. Who’s the first? The first Avengers movie, of course.]
The story was a bit shaky at times, but the performances were strong because of the cast chemistry and the trademark Joss Whedon banter. Meanwhile, the visuals were outstanding, the fight scenes were expertly choreographed, and there were a couple of interesting twists regarding one of the main characters.
In the immortal words of Jim Carrey: “How was your weekend?” For the new DreamWorks film, Home, it was a very good weekend indeed. As of this writing, Home has raked in $54 million and is the #1 movie in the U.S. — despite some naysayers‘ predictions. This is the studio’s highest non-sequel opening since 2009’s Monsters vs. Aliens. And it is daughter approved:
“Daddy. This movie is official.”
Continue reading “An Endorsement of Home: It’s Daughter Approved”
Many of us nerds were bullied as kids, and subsequently we dreamed not of a world without violence, but some sort of payback. Slicing up our tormentors with lightsabers or adamantium claws. Slow motion punching the jock bully in the jaw, hopefully while beautiful women were watching. As we grew older, some of us questioned this desire for retribution, our conditioned response (particularly in straight males) to strike back. But what do we do with these contradictory feelings, our questioning of violence as power against our catharsis when we see the bad guy get his comeuppance?
The Japanese cult classic film Battle Royale looms large in the minds of pop culture nerds ambivalent over our negative reaction to violence and our desire to see stylized versions of it. Battle Royale is almost meta in its questioning of this contradiction: a future Japan is made safe by telecasting, once a year, a brutal contest wherein a random class of young people is set in a trapped zone with weapons, and only one person is allowed to leave alive.
Continue reading “Have Anarchy and Eat it Too — The Purge: Anarchy Doesn’t Quite Make It”
If you haven’t seen Guardians of the Galaxy yet, you will. Director James Gunn and his cast — starring Chris Pratt, Zoe Saldana, and Bradley Cooper — have found that cross section of great action and effects, genuine mirth, and likability, that makes for a movie that kids will fondly remember into adulthood. What was once widely thought of as a long shot in Phase Two of Marvel Studios’ cinematic universe, Guardians could very well be the new Star Wars to this generation’s adolescent filmgoers. Halloween is going to see a lot of trees and raccoons running through the front yard for years to come. Toys will be flying off the shelves. And Marvel has $94 million reasons to celebrate its box office dominance.
Which is not to say that Guardians is the new sci-fi G.O.A.T., but rarely does a film so effectively appeal to both youth and adults. And, unlike Marvel’s previous films, young fans of Guardians get an all-new set of characters to love that don’t belong to their parents. Like Harry Potter before it, Guardians will belong uniquely to this generation of toy-buying, cosplaying kids.
Continue reading “NOC Reviews Guardians of the Galaxy: Hooked on a Feeling”
This is actually not a review. This is an endorsement of the new South Korean/American science-fiction film Snowpiercer, currently in theaters.
Bong Joon-ho is a director to watch. From The Host in 2006 and Mother in 2009, I’ve been checking for his work for years. He has such a solid visual storytelling style that he elevates even the most middling of scripts. I really cannot wait to see what he does next. If you have yet to see the aforementioned films, you need to handle that as soon as you can.
I’m out of town, and there’s a movie theater a block from my hotel. As a father, I don’t get to the moviehouse often unless it’s a kid’s movie. So over the weekend, I figured I’d treat myself to a movie. What’s the worst that can happen? The answer to that question: the theater is only showing Transformers: Age of Extinction.
Continue reading “Why Did I Watch the New Transformers Movie?”
Beware ye who may read this, for there be slight spoilers ahead.
In an embarrassment of riches as far as summer movies go, there was one that I had no intention of missing in the theatres. Maleficent was that movie.
As you would expect, this is a retelling of a story that you only think you know. Like the mega-popular Broadway musical Wicked did for The Wizard of Oz, Maleficent retells the tale of Sleeping Beauty from another point of view. Oh, and what a tale it tells! But that is also where I had the most problem with the movie.
Last night, I had the distinct honor to attend a screening of To Be Takei — the new documentary about Start Trek actor, civil rights activist, and social media maven George Takei — as part of the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center‘s ongoing Asian Pacific Heritage Month celebrations. Bookended by remarks from Smithsonian APAC Director Konrad Ng and a Q&A with the film’s subjects, the entire evening was a celebration of one of our culture’s most trailblazing icons.
Having made its debut at Sundance in January, To Be Takei was recently acquired by Starz for digital and theatrical distribution later this year. In advance of its formal theatrical release, the film has been doing the festival rounds and made its Washington, DC premiere at the Warner Brothers theater inside the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History. I was lucky enough to check it out with the homie (and fellow NOC) Patrick Michael Strange.
One thing Japan gets screwed out of are movie release dates. Half the time we won’t get a movie until a good four to six months from the original date from the States. There are a few exceptions though, with The Amazing Spider-Man series being one of them. Having watched it about a week ago, I’ve had some time to reflect on the sequel to the 2012 superhero reboot.
Entertaining? Yes. Amazing? Not quite.
Needless to say, minor spoilers will follow.
Continue reading “The Amazing Spider-Man 2: Maximum Spider?”
