Warner Bros. announced all of their 2021 movies would be released in theaters and on their streaming service HBO Max simultaneously. This has ruffled the feathers of a few of their partners and filmmakers. These films will debut on streaming for a limited time. Then after a 2-4 week period they will leave streaming and then…
Revisiting ‘Orange County’ Ninteen Years Later
Plot: An over-achieving high schooler’s life turns upside down when a guidance counsellor mistakenly sends in the wrong application to his only applied school: Stanford. One of those movies like “Ghost World” and “Legally Blonde” where the description can’t do justice to the experience. I heard some idle talk about how this movie was proof that…
Did Last of Us Part II Deserve Game of the Year? 2020: Gaming in Review
What does it say about the industry to reward The Last of Us Part II? Is it an endorsement of crunch? Back in March, Jason Schreier wrote about an industry problem that surrounds the game. Developer crunch. People working long hours, often unpaid overtime on games that are too long, are announced too early and…
After 2020, Where Do Hollywood Movies Go From Here?
Now that 2020 is over, and a number of blockbuster films have released post-pandemic such as; TENET, MULAN, and Wonder Woman, we can evaluate.* There’s no speculation. This year was terrible for movies. I am finding it hard to scrape together a top 10 list, I think I will bunch with TV and Video Games….
Is ‘Wonder Woman 1984’ in 2020 a Comedown or an Uplift?
This movie was supposed to come out November 1st, 2020. And yet despite the extra time the special effects are bad, the writing sloppy and the film edit drags. I can’t explain how the film came in initially hot and highly rated. Maybe during the pandemic critics were clamoring for anything. With positive reviews like…
How Much Soul Has Disney-Pixar Got?
Director: Pete Docter (Inside Out, Up, Monsters Inc.) Kemp Powers Writer: Pete Docter, Mike Jones, Kemp Powers Music By: Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross Jazz Compositions and Arrangements by: Jon Baptiste Soul has a bad screenplay. Initial presumptions of the film being exactly like Inside Out plus Coco are spot on. With unclear story rules and…
With ‘The Mandalorian’ Season Two, Star Wars Finally Climbs Out of the Sarlacc Pit
Written and Directed By: Jon Favreau Music By: Ludwig Goransson Produced By: Kathleen Kennedy and Colin Wilson [Warning Mild Spoilers Ahead] Despite watching the first season as soon as it concluded a year ago, I did not like The Mandalorian and found it overhyped. The idea of making a live action Star Wars TV series…
‘The Wolf of Snow Hollow’ is One of the Best Films of the Year!
It’s like if Paul Thomas Anderson made a horror movie. Around this time four years ago, I sang the praises of Don’t Breathe. A sleeper thriller hit, the kind of genre success I only catch on Home Video at the end of the year after everyone sings its praises. The Wolf of Snow Hollow lives…
RE-ƎVALUATION: TENET enjoyable more AT-HOME versus IN-THEATERS
Watching it In-Theaters I was but The Protagonist, but now I am Neil. I worked very hard on my TENET REVIEW. Considering I made a calculated risk to go see it during the pandemic and worked a month to edit in in video format. I thought it was too impenetrable with a pile of nothing…
Case 10 – Wonder Woman 1984: A Post-Pandemic Release Strategy
Friday March 13th: Hollywood’s last stand before pulling most major releases from the schedule. One of the last movies released was a mid-range Blumhouse film, The Hunt. It made a few bucks, shuffled quickly onto premium Video On Demand and despite its pedigree, wasn’t very good. Friday November 13th, Universal released a Blumhouse movie: ‘Freaky‘….
Quibi Obituary
I would have liked to see what amateurs could have done with this format, the sort of YouTubers who put YouTube on the map before it got corporatized. Quibi is coming from the opposite direction. Introducing amateurs would have left it so much to gain. Its an exemplary reason why it failed because it…
Triggering Toxic Film Discourse
I am offended, not because of who I am, but because of what I love. In spring, a breakthrough Guardian article dared to suggest two outlandish things: that in my third year of Film Studies I likely had a girlfriend. And that if I loved film I would introduce her to it by sitting her…
