Movie

There’s a scene in Shazam! that I think perfectly sums up how I feel about it. Cutting from an action packed scene, we’re shown a shot of a young boy smashing together Batman and Superman action figures together, making action noises and having fun. His attention is grabbed by something out the window, and we see Shazam fly by while fighting the main villain, and he notices the boy. Wide eyed and open mouthed, the boy drops the Batman and Superman figures to the ground.

When first announced, Shazam! sounded like an announcement by a studio building out a serious...

Marvel Studios right now is sort of enjoying the status Pixar did in the last decade - the studio name alone is an indication of a level of quality to expect. Unlike Pixar, however, Marvel Studios seems to be getting better with age. Captain Marvel is the 21st feature film in the franchise, and also functions as an origin story for the character. It also happens to be one of the best superhero origin stories in the Marvel canon, taking the formula found in earlier films like Iron Man and Doctor Strange, and tossing it aside for an identity crisis mystery.

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If you haven’t been brought up to speed over the last eleven years of Cars history, I’ll help you out. The Cars movie only exists to sell toys. And if you’re parent, it’s likely you know this pretty well by now. Pixar makes bank selling Lightning McQueen and Mater toys. However, as a film franchise, it’s one of the worst Pixar properties in their long and successful film history. Of all their movies, Cars 2 is the only critically panned Pixar film to date. Usually, when a sequel gets panned, a studio...

When I was in third grade, I really wanted to see the movie Blank Check. My parents, on the other hand, weren’t so thrilled. Eventually, I convinced them to rent it for me and I loved it. As expected, they didn’t. Honestly, in my childhood mind, I didn’t understand why. But then I re-watched it this year and it all made total sense. Blank Check is geared entirely to kids in every way imaginable with no logical reasoning built into the story whatsoever. And who remembers Blank Check? No one. Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie ultimately makes the same mistake as ...

Alien has always been one of those hallmark, eye-opening sci-fi movies, not just for its frights but also how it stretched the genre. It’s been decades since the first movie hit theaters and now we’ve had multiple installments. Of those movies, I would argue only three are good: Alien, Aliens, and Prometheus. All the others are either bad or just plain awful. Alien: Covenant essentially improves on the flaws of Prometheus, uses a tried and true formula that works,...

Anime to live action adaptations have a troubled history. Unless I’m forgetting something, I don’t believe there has ever been a successful or well-done adaptation of an anime movie or television show. Of the most recent ventures, Dragonball: Evolution and Speed Racer were both critical and box office failures, and that’s putting it nicely. Ghost in the Shell, then, had quite the mountain to climb to overcome past grievances and honor both the original anime movie while introducing the story to non-anime audiences. While it’s not perfect by any means, struggling...

Christopher Nolan has never shied away from bold decisions, creating unique cinematic effects like Inception's mind-bending hallway scene, casting oddball actors like Heath Ledger as The Joker, and telling stories in mostly non-linear and splintered fashions. In the past, his creative instincts have led him to great success both critically and financially. Now, he's making another bold move, and no it's not casting One Direction heartthrob Harry Styles (though, that is head scratching), it's creating a PG-13 war movie. Most war movies before the late 1960s have been given either a G or PG rating and the tone of many of those films instilled a sense of pride, honor, and glory...

[caption id="attachment_382796" align="aligncenter" width="570"] A view from behind the yellow line (for photography) in South Korea's Demilitarized Zone across to North Korea[/caption] As I looked across the Demilitarized Zone (a layered valley of autumn-tinged fields and soldiered fences) my heart sank with a heavy realization: Korea had more than governments, economics, armies, allies and living conditions dividing it; the landscape glowered at me as the greatest separation. North Korea was (and is) treeless. It's not that there were a few slopes recently logged or mining operations...