Tag: Movies

Categories
Art Artist Films Greatness Music Pop Culture Wu-Tang Clan

Favorite vs. Best

What is the best film of all time?

Most film scholars (and wanna-be film scholars) proclaim that it’s Citizen Kane, Orson Welles’s 1941 masterpiece that inarguably changed filmmaking forever. Casablanca, Lawrence of Arabia, The Godfather, and Gone with the Wind are often in the conversation as well.

Excluding The Godfather, how many times have you heard someone mention one of those films as their absolute favorite? How many are populating a casual filmgoer’s top five? How many Lawrence of Arabia conversations have you experienced in your life?

Continue reading “Favorite vs. Best”
Categories
Books Movies TV

Imagining a Proper John Grisham Universe

I’m unashamed to be a John Grisham fanatic.

While his work has been derided as “legal thrillers [that] are no more mentally taxing – or unpredictable – than fairy tales,” I enjoy them. Well, most of them. Some are quite bad, but there are a few that are actually very good. Most fall somewhere between the two. I usually read biographies and other works of nonfiction, but Grisham is like a reading vacation for me. I don’t have to read with a pen in my hand or work to untangle the density of the prose, and I love his pacing. Also, I listen to his audiobooks as background noise while working or doing things around the house.

As not only a Grisham superfan, but also the internet’s expert on all his books, I decided to take a look at how a live-action Grisham universe could look.

Continue reading “Imagining a Proper John Grisham Universe”
Categories
Films Movies

#RestoreTheSnyderVerse

Zack Snyder’s Justice League is an instant classic. It improbably exceeded the hype and continued to advance a beautiful, operatic, tragic epic story.

We need the sequels to see how it all ends.

Continue reading “#RestoreTheSnyderVerse”
Categories
Films Pop Culture What If

What If: Jim Carrey as Batman

Riddle me this…

In the mid-90s, Jim Carrey was in the midst of an epic run of box office hits. From 1994 – 1998, he starred (or co-starred) in eight films, all of which grossed at least $100 million dollars globally, with three of them doubling that figure and three more tripling it.

Halfway through that streak he brought his talent and star power to the film that had the highest domestic gross of 1995 – and sixth-highest worldwide – playing the Riddler in Batman Forever.

Continue reading “What If: Jim Carrey as Batman”
Categories
Films Movies

In Defense Of… “The Incredible Hulk”

1_gU5QPdKOrYcIAekNoY9OQA

The Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) has completely changed Hollywood. From the proliferation of comic book heroes to the notion that every major movie studio now needs its own universe in which its characters can interact through multiple films, Marvel has laid the path that all others are following, praying that they will find the same success. The films within the MCU have combined for a box office total of an estimated $14.8 billion worldwide, including five films raking in more than a billion each. In short, “Marvel has made consistent hits, which is supposedly impossible in a creative business.” But, to hear some tell it, Marvel’s record is not perfect and there are a few black marks on the studio’s résumé.

Actually, one of those marks is green.

Continue reading “In Defense Of… “The Incredible Hulk””
Categories
Books Films Movies

Who Owns a Fictional Character?

For decades, fans and critics begged for Harper Lee, author of To Kill a Mockingbird, to write another a novel.

In 2015, they finally got their wish. Kind of.

And, as always, you should be careful what you wish for.

Continue reading “Who Owns a Fictional Character?”
Categories
Children's Programs Fatherhood Movies TV

How Toys on YouTube Invaded My TV

To say that the nature of television is changing would be a massive understatement.

Continue reading “How Toys on YouTube Invaded My TV”
Categories
Films Greatness Movies

In Defense Of Tom Cruise

1-zJXBXgkMWWoZV52SrC231w

“Cruise hadn’t hurt his box-office draw — his movies continued to be successful. But Hollywood was convinced he was poison, a religious fanatic, and possibly unhinged.”

– Amy Nicholson, L.A. Weekly

Tom Cruise is an all-time great actor. Don’t believe it? Look at how many people have won or been nominated for Oscars playing opposite him. He makes every actor that shares the screen with him better.

Continue reading “In Defense Of Tom Cruise”
Categories
Films Hip-Hop Music Rap

No Streaming: Why I Choose to Control My Media

It seems everyone is now listening to streaming services. From Spotify to Pandora to Tidal to Beats 1 Radio, there are plenty of options.

Continue reading “No Streaming: Why I Choose to Control My Media”
Categories
Films In Appreciation of

In Defense Of: “The Godfather Part III”

THE GODFATHER PART III, Al Pacino, 1990, © Paramount/courtesy Everett Collection, GD3 095, Photo by:

“Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather Part III isn’t just a disappointment, it’s a failure of heartbreaking proportions.”

– Hal Hinson, The Washington Post

If the popular narrative is to be believed, The Godfather Part III is an abhorrent film, one that has no redeeming qualities and is so awful that it brings shame upon not only the first two films of the series, but also to America and the entire human race.

Continue reading “In Defense Of: “The Godfather Part III””