Author Archive
Film Review – The Equalizer 2
Remakes of old TV shows have long been a kind of investment safety net for Hollywood. They get to take something with built in brand recognition, an already established outline of a concept or story, and often premade characters that they can simply recast. Whether…
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Film Review – The First Purge
4 Movies in, this series with the Twilight Zone-esqe premise, continues to be an exercise in frustration. We all know the setup by now: Once a year, the American government declares that all crimes are legal for 12 hours. This is in an effort to…
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Film Review – Book Club
The movies have a problem with age. After a certain point in life, Hollywood seems to think either actors are too old to star in anything anymore or that audiences won’t care about anyone with a gray hair. And as bad as that is all…
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Film Review – Love, Simon
Sweet, sincere, a bit too obvious, funny, yet also guilty of explaining things versus actually portraying them, all of these can be ascribed to the new teen dramedy Love, Simon. It’s a bit aggravating in a way, because representation in pop culture is extremely important.…
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Film Review – Early Man
Meh. It’s okay. Look, Aardman Animations has long been a high benchmark for quality stop-motion hand crafted animation. From their very earliest works like the incredibly funny Oscar winning short Creature Comforts (that’s the one with the zoo animals giving interviews to an unseen documentary…
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Film Review – Father Figures
In the 21st Century there is probably no more influential figure in mainstream Hollywood film comedy than Judd Apatow. While he didn’t invent character based comedy, he definitely proved that it could be popular and make money. For a long time big screen comedy was…
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Film Review – The Shape of Water
In their truest form, fairy tales, especially the ones that have lasted over time, have a dark undercurrent to them. They might be about something fanciful, but often there is something sinister lurking around the edges of the story in their original form. The Little…
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Film Review – Coco
It’s a careful balancing act, making a movie that both celebrates a heritage in an entertaining fashion and yet doesn’t trivialize that same culture. It’s an especially tricky balance when creating an animated kid’s movie which usually trade in generalities or quickly referenced stereotypes. Representation…
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