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…
Category: Analysis
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….
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…
Versions of ‘V For Vendetta’
“We’ve swept this place and you got nothing, nothing but your bloody knives and your fancy Karate gimmicks.” – Creedy Originally written for Sean Moreland’s ‘Comic Book Literature’ class at University of Ottawa. The most audacious thing about V for Vendetta (2006) is the comic book it decides to adapt. Capitalizing on the early superhero boom…
TENET should provide Masks as a Cinematic and Social Responsibility
To the Warner Bros. TENET Marketing Department, Christopher Nolan wrote an Op-Ed in March about the social responsibility of supporting local theatres. A cinematic champion, the director received his fair share of criticism trying to promote moviegoing during the pandemic. I think most people detect that this is a director who makes movies and doesn’t…
Why ‘Finding Nemo’ is My Favourite
Vote For Nemo in the Ultimate Summer Movie Showdown. I used to be embarrassed to say that Finding Nemo was my favourite movie. I remember seeing it in theatres on June 20th 2003. It was Father’s Day week and my mom had suggested me and my father go for some much needed male bonding time….
Counterpoint: “Kingdom of Heaven” Director’s Cut Is Not the ‘Holy Holy’ Film Nerds Think
A beautiful but imperfect film that is good not great. It seems these days with film criticism, that every movie either has to be great or terrible. In the fifteen years since Kingdom of Heaven was released, film criticism has grown its own sub-economy. A Collider article recently shared to Reddit went viral about Kingdom…
Revenge of the Sixth: A Defense of the Battle of the Heroes
Preamble: Any skillfully made film with enough craft and popularity can be interpreted in a variety of ways, so it stands the highest grossing film of 2005, which is celebrating its fifteenth anniversary today gets its ride. We’re talking identity politics, social and political commentary, unwanted scientific takes, needless and thin arguable subtext, and general…
