My wife and I have an almost contest that we do when we go to a movie these days. We don’t really compete against each other per se, we just stare in incredulous shock as we count the amount of production companies/studios are involved in the making of a film. Before watching The Amazing Maurice, [...]
The year 2022 was an odd one for film (some might call it "2020 part 2" or "2020 2") entirely because the studios suffered from similar supply chain issues that plagued most other industries during the year. No, they didn't lack building materials or suffer from cargo ships being backed up at ports or in [...]
It's been said that Kevin Feige, the president and mastermind behind Marvel Studios (AKA the MCU) is the greatest casting director of all time. He and his actual casting director, Sarah Finn, definitely have an uncanny eye for talent and really excel at choosing actors and actresses that have been previously overlooked or just hadn't [...]
Hollywood has a history of releasing films that have been butchered in the editing room. Now, some of these might have happened because the script couldn't be salvaged or that test audiences just were not having whatever that piece of cinema was trying to sell. A recent example of this is Fantastic Beasts: Crimes of Grindewald. [...]
In a time in the not too distant past my friends would regularly ask me about whether an upcoming or recently released superhero film was DC or Marvel. However, now it's not nearly as ambiguous; the term "MCU" (Marvel Cinematic Universe) has entered the cultural zeitgeist and people know exactly which side of the comics [...]
More is not always better, especially in films. In fact, I would say that it's more often than not the opposite case. George Lucas thought he constantly had to outdo himself and kept adding plot lines for the audience to follow to each sequel's third act (culminating in 3 for Return of the Jedi and The Phantom [...]
I love the decade of the 1970's which has some of my favorite films and certainly my favorite genre of music, disco (excluding the genre of film scores). And the second prequel film from Illumination's Despicable Me franchise is jam-packed with both the music and references to the movies of my favorite decade. And while the [...]
It’s an odd thing to follow up a TV series with a movie feature. It’s an even more odd to have a sequel to said feature. It’s easy to see why Focus Features decided to do a sequel: the first film, which was released in 2019 and named simply Downton Abbey, is their most successful movie [...]
I'm not sure what this says about me, but out of all characters in all the literature I've consumed, Albus Wulfric Percival Brian Dumbledore is my favorite. He is always the smartest person in the room while also being the kindest. He is far from perfect, yet that that imperfection endears me to him more. We've [...]
Channing Tatum has had an interesting rise to stardom. Many don't realize that he got his start in Coach Carter, but then stole the show in the first Step Up film. Since then he has had roles in what seems like the gamut of genres, including Sci-fi (Jupiter Ascending), action (GI Joe, Haywire), historical fiction (The Eagle), and even straight [...]
