I think it's safe to say that this has not been a great year for movies thus far. I know the better stuff tends to be backloaded into the latter half of the calendar, particularly during the fall and early winter for Awards Season, but 2024 has noticeably been on the underwhelming side. Normally by … Continue reading This Film is Not Yet Watchable – June 2024
We're but a few more days away from this year's Oscar nominations, and as such, it's time to continue our marathon through Netflix's "For Your Consideration" campaign (click here for Part One and Part Two of this mini-series). I have to admit this marketing strategy doesn't make all that much sense to me, as the … Continue reading DownStream – The Big Red N-velope, Part Three: The Undercard
The Year of Our Lord of the Rings Two Thousand and Twenty-three is almost in the books, and quite frankly, I'm relieved. This has been one of the more difficult years in my life, not the least of which because my mother died and I'm dead flat broke. But also, it just feels like this … Continue reading This Film is Not Yet Watchable – December 2023
For the longest time, making a good movie based on a video game was one of the toughest nuts to crack in the entertainment industry. Part of the problem was that far too many tried to make a basic genre film within the universe of what was, at least for the time, a very limited … Continue reading Games of Thunder – Gran Turismo
I really liked the first Shazam! movie from a few years ago. It was delightfully low stakes, Zachary Levi was tremendous as the titular original Captain Marvel, and honestly it was nice to see one of these superhero movies set in Philadelphia and largely not succumbing to cheap jokes and insults about the City of … Continue reading Family Feuds – Shazam! Fury of the Gods
It's almost March, the time of year when things really start to turn around. The Oscars are handed out, the NCAA Tournament begins, snow starts melting, work tends to pick up in my little sector of the entertainment industry, and Hollywood studios start putting out some really good movies. Okay, everything but that last part. … Continue reading This Film is Not Yet Watchable – March 2023
I am now 24 films deep into this year's field for the Animated Feature Oscar. Only three entries remain after this, and of those three, only one will definitely become available this month. The debate for me then becomes whether to watch it and give it a standalone review, wait until the other two get … Continue reading Back Row Thoughts – Animation Nomination, Part 3
First off, I just want to deliver a brief apology for the delay in this review. I saw this movie a few weeks ago, but then spent about two weeks covering this year's Brooklyn Film Festival for my friends at "No Rest for the Weekend." I'll have a recap post in the coming days, but … Continue reading Sounds Easy Enough – A Quiet Place Part II
I Actually Paid To See This 