Do not proceed unless you have seen Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker. Spoilers ahead.
Continue reading “Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (Spoiler Review)”Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (Spoiler Review)
The Stranger Thing About That New Ghostbusters Movie
In the last week, we’ve had two early trailers hit for next summer’s highly anticipated movies: Wonder Woman 1984 and Ghostbusters Afterlife. These films kind of sit adjacent to issues that prove the internet has the collective intelligence of a very primitive fungus.
Continue reading “The Stranger Thing About That New Ghostbusters Movie”Based On A True? Story
What responsibility does a filmmaker have when making a film that claims to be “based on a true story” or “inspired by actual events” (or whatever weasel words they use to warn us that they’re making some of this shit up)?
Continue reading “Based On A True? Story”Hollywood and Digital Frankenstein
Since the release of TRON: Legacy, the 2010 sequel to the 1982 pioneer in computer-generated filmmaking, there has been an ominous specter lurking on the horizon. That film featured a digital version of 1982-era Jeff Bridges, and it was unconvincing in a way that audiences found off-putting. Even with the relatively unsuccessful effort to digitally recreate a realistic human, many people saw the handwriting on the wall. As technology advanced, someday it would be possible to convincingly recreate a realistic human character with CGI.
Continue reading “Hollywood and Digital Frankenstein”HBO’s Confederate Problem
In my post about Green Book, I outlined how I thought mainstream Hollywood, as represented by the Academy Award voters, is often content to congratulate itself for its liberalism on racial issues rather than move the discussion forward. Another sign that Hollywood still has much to learn is that the two very talented but very white guys behind Game of Thrones are developing a new project for HBO called Confederate, an alternate-history series in which the Confederacy survives the Civil War and lasts into the Civil Rights era with slavery still intact. Personally, I hope that Benioff and Weiss have so much fun making their Star Wars film trilogy that they forget to circle back to this project.
Continue reading “HBO’s Confederate Problem”Hollywood’s Green Book Problem
As a movie, Best Picture winner Green Book was fine, I guess. It’s certainly worth seeing for the performances of Mahershala Ali and Viggo Mortensen in the lead roles, but the fact that Mortensen was considered the lead actor while Ali was the supporting actor is a clue to why this movie is problematic.
Continue reading “Hollywood’s Green Book Problem”Bill Maher vs. Stan Lee
When Marvel Comics creative force and nerd-culture icon Stan Lee passed away in November of 2018, Bill Maher marked the occasion with a snarky dismissal of Lee’s cultural relevance, suggesting that the popularity of comic book movies and the election of Donald Trump to the presidency are both signs of the dumbing down of American culture. Needless to say, comic book nerds lost their shit.
Continue reading “Bill Maher vs. Stan Lee”Nostalgic Prequelitis
The Star Wars prequels are objectively, irredeemably terrible, a blight not just on the beloved franchise but on narrative storytelling itself. This is not an opinion, but a fact that I hope you will comprehend by the time I am finished here. Sadly, there is a misguided evolution in the thinking of some otherwise rational adults, a tendency to view the prequels in a more forgiving light in the post-Disney era of Star Wars.
You must resist. Do not be tempted by the Dark Side.
Continue reading “Nostalgic Prequelitis”An Animated Debate
If you want to start a spirited debate among a group of technology-savvy young males, wait for one of them to mention the graphics file format known as the “GIF.” They’ll pronounce it with either a soft G, like “giraffe,” or a hard G, like “gift.” Whichever pronunciation they use, correct them by insisting the other one is proper.
Trust me. It’ll be hilarious.
Black Panther: A Colonizer’s Appreciation
In February of this year, assuming you’re reading this in 2018, a little indie movie called Black Panther appeared in theaters and proceed to inhale all the money in the world. Continue reading “Black Panther: A Colonizer’s Appreciation”