Movies Category

Oh, Facebook.  Thank God I have you to tell me what I want.  Think of all the things I’d miss out on if I just stuck to Netflix reruns of Archer. When I logged on the other day, I found the typical slew of game and app suggestions accompanied by the usual “10 of your friends like this” tagline.  I was just about to download Siege of Legends (or Legend of the Siege, I can’t remember which), when I stumbled upon an ad quite different from the cutesy FlappyBird ripoffs. Read More

A little over a week ago, Deadline Hollywood announced that The Last of Us, a popular video game published in 2013, had been greenlighted to become a feature film. The Internet exploded with simultaneous cries of joy and pain, with more pain than joy coming from the diehard gamers, and even more “meh” coming from people who have no idea why they should care.  Now that the proverbial storm has passed, I’d like to take a moment to examine what’s going on here. Content gets adapted to the silver screenRead More

When I was a kid, my mom always knew to save the newspaper the day after the Academy Awards. It was my prized possession; pieces of paper documenting all of the happenings of the night before—opinions on the dresses, the dates, the scandals, the letdowns, the surprises, the not-so-surprises. There was always a splash of judgment across the media, claiming what went wrong that year. But for me, it was the memory of who stood there on stage, in front of their peers expressing sheer gratitude of acknowledgement. Year afterRead More

In somewhat of an upset, after J Law took home the Golden Globe in January, “12 Years a Slave” star Lupita Nyong’o won the Best Supporting Actress Oscar at last night’s ceremony.  Before Christoph Waltz called her name, many of us hadn’t heard of Miss Lupita, daughter of Mexico City and graduate of the Yale School of Drama, but since she took the stage we can’t wait to see what she does next.  Check out her show-stopping acceptance speech here: Not since Jennifer Lawrence tripped on her way to theRead More

It’s a strange and exciting time to be a comic book fan. It used to be that only A-grade characters like Superman and Batman could be afforded the big screen treatment, but that’s clearly no longer the case, ever since the X-men and Spider-man films helped the genre to explode in the early 2000s. The fact that my mother knows who Hawkeye is goes to show just how deep these movies have penetrated our culture, and as far as anybody can tell, they show no signs of slowing down.  MovieRead More

The LEGO Movie just might be the best commercial ever made. By the time the credits start rolling, there’s a good chance you’ll feel the nagging urge to head to your parents’ house, dust off that old box of mismatched LEGO sets, and relive your childhood by making something weird and wonderful.  Kids leaving the theater will be inspired to create their own brick-based adventure, which naturally requires buying more LEGO products. Their parents, charmed by the film’s messages of collaboration and creativity as well as their own reawakened nostalgia-Read More

Late last night, the world got a taste of the next chapter in the Marvel saga, and it’s a wild a departure from the clash-and-bang comic book adaptations we’ve come to expect. “They call themselves the Guardians of the Galaxy.” Forget the Avengers, this August a new team of superheroes will be raiding both the megaplexes and your pockets.  Led by Peter Quill (the Parks and Rec scene-stealer Chris Pratt), or Star-Lord as he’d like to be known [“you know, the legendary outlaw…?  Forget it”], these intergalactic misfits include theRead More

I don’t go to the movies much these days, as with my new Apple TV, I usually use Netflix, or, for recent movies, I partake in the joys of online piracy and streaming. But every now and then I hear enough fantastic things about a movie that I’m inclined to go see it on the big screen. Peter Berg‘s Afghan War epic, Lone Survivor, was one such film. Dudes I trust, such as Bill Simmons, called the film “the most extraordinary war movie since Saving Private Ryan” and piled enough praise on theRead More

Hold all the sequels, reboots and feature length pornos, there’s only one reason to get excited about going to the movies this year.  And that reason still has a long way to go before it roundhouse kicks its way onto the silver screen. Last month, the internet got a taste of what may be the greatest ’80s cop movie of all time.  Fans of kung fu action, dinosaurs, machinegun toting Vikings, time travel, explosions, arcade robots, Nazi butt-kicking, and gravelly cop voices drooled over the trailer for “Kung Fury,” directorRead More

If you found yourself packed into the multiplex these past couple weeks (and chances are you have, considering the Hoth-like temperatures sweeping most of the nation), then you may have noticed a theme in the sampling of previews.  Big budget trailers usually showcasing the latest feature-length Marvel commercial or Michael Bay vehicle have taken a decidedly spiritual turn. Get ready for a year of biblical proportions.  Over the next 11 months, Hollywood is planning to churn out more Biblical fair than in the last 11 years combined.  This seems likeRead More

If you’re like the rest of the Internet, you raised your fists in protest when the Golden Globe Nominations were announced a couple weeks ago.  While award’s season backlash is nothing new, what makes this round of indignation so special is its direction at an entire category of the awards, notably Best Motion Picture, Musical or Comedy.  As they stand, the nominees include such hilarious, feel-good flicks as Her, Inside Llewyn Davis, Nebraska, The Wolf of Wall Street, and American_Hustle American Hustle. See any particularly funny movies on that list?  NeitherRead More