As a fan of comic books and comic-book movies, I’m moved to take a long, hard look at one of the fundamental eccentricities of our chosen genre and ask ourselves: Why the hell would anyone dress up like that?
Continue reading “Thoughts on Justification, Retconning and Superhero Costumes”
Aw, what a great time.
Orange is the New Black is like a pirate broadcast from a happier, matriarchal universe where women dominate the airwaves, and we just happened to get one of their prison dramas.
Season two wasn’t perfect, and that’s OK. This show doesn’t need a handicap. It’s not the kind of show where we have to wave away great swaths of imperfection (LOST) or the kind of great show where we have to overlook one (or more) weak performances (January Jones on Mad Men). Nope, this show is mostly fantastic from bow to stern. Let me try to break down why:
Continue reading “A Welcome Shift in Perspective for Orange is the New Black”
Doug Liman calls on perennial tough guy Tom Cruise to play a wimp in the opening reels of his crackerjack-entertaining sci-fi action flick Edge of Tomorrow, and Cruise is up for the challenge. The movie falls into the same proud tradition of time-loop head-spinners like Groundhog Day, as well as some other memorable episodes from the annals of TV sci-fi. I’ll get to those in a moment, but first I wanted to touch briefly on Cruise’s performance and the relationship between “character” actors and leading men.
Bryan Singer’s sprightly Days of Future Past jettisons most of the youngsters from the 2011 reboot in favor of the series’ new leading men, James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender. It’s the right call, but the filmmakers commit one small blunder: They make Wolverine the hero.
SPOILERS AHEAD!
Frank Pavich’s documentary, Jodorowsky’s Dune, looks at the fantasy of an ultimate, unlikely fanboy and asks what might’ve been. At the risk of committing geek heresy, I suspect we might be better off not knowing.
I never knew the moon landing happened at night.
SPOILERS AHEAD!
Godzilla director Gareth Edwards made the wise choice to go old-school with his 2014 reboot, tapping into the venerable franchise’s most potent power source: our shared dread of disaster, both natural and man-made.
SPOILERS AHEAD!
I’ve got the funny feeling that Mad Men might just end on a happy note.
I can’t in good conscience recommend Harmony Korine’s haunting Trash Humpers to everyone. But there’s a certain subset of our audience who’ll find it irresistible.
Continue reading “Haunting Endurance Cinema: Harmony Korine’s Trash Humpers”
Robert J. Peterson, Author 