Tag: film

Black Panther: Wakanda Forever – Grief And The Power Of Women

November 21, 2022

How do you make a movie when your main actor had an untimely death? Can a film franchise be successful in the absence of its star? The recent release of Marvel’s Black Panther: Wakanda Forever has tackled those questions and more, and have come up with something different and wholly satisfying.

Warning: Some spoilers ahead. If you haven’t watched the movie yet, I would come back to this post after you have.

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Movie Review: Frozen 2

December 2, 2019

Sequels to critically acclaimed films can often come with a little trepidation. They can either be really really good or very very bad. Most of the time it’s the latter rather than the former. It’s no secret that Hollywood has a current love affair with sequels and reboots. Frozen 2, the sequel to 2013’s surprise Disney hit Frozen, was an inevitability even if the movie didn’t get made immediately after the first. Though Frozen 2, like Toy Story 4, wasn’t a movie we necessarily needed, the powers that be at the House of Mouse knew how to employ good writers to come up with a continuation of a story we didn’t know we wanted until now.

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Anime Review: A Silent Voice

July 1, 2019

The old adage, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you,” is one we hear constantly but isn’t always practiced as much as we would like it to be. What we say and do to everyone we meet matters, and a kind word or action holds as much power as negative ones do. The anime film A Silent Voice examines what happens when we don’t treat each other with compassion and understanding.

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Higher, Further, Faster: The Friendship Between Captain Marvel’s Carol Danvers and Maria Rambeau Is One Of The Highlights Of The Film

March 25, 2019

Marvel films are always a big event. People flock to their local theaters to see their favorite comic book characters come to life on the silver screen and settle in for cool choreographed fights, stunning special effects, and keeping their eyes peeled for Stan Lee’s standout cameos (RIP). While those may be some of the reasons to catch a Marvel movie, whether you’re a diehard comic book fan or a casual one, what shouldn’t be overlooked are those quieter, intimate moments that pull you into the hero’s or heroine’s personal life to discover what makes them the humans behind the legends. The tight friendship between Captain Marvel and her best friend Maria Rambeau is one of the best takeaways from the newest Captain Marvel movie. Warning: Contains some light spoilers about Captain Marvel.

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Crazy Rich Asians: The Rom-Com I Never Thought I Wanted But Needed

August 20, 2018

Going to the movies often offer a chance to escape. A chance to leave your problems at the door and live vicariously through fictional characters put in extraordinary situations. The film Crazy Rich Asians is pure escapist entertainment at its finest.

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For The Love Of Books: When Films Inspire You To Read The Original Book

March 5, 2018

It has been a common practice for Hollywood to turn to books for their next great movie project in the last few years. For every Harry Potter or Hunger Games that gets chosen to go from page to screen, you have to wonder if studios really can’t come up with their own ideas without falling back on authors, who are creating and publishing books daily, as their main source for an original story. Sometimes, the books’ movie counterparts wind up being a critical success at the box office, or they flop spectacularly. There’s really no magic formula to predict which adaptation will get a favorable response from audiences. It’s really the luck of the draw. Whether you’re for or against books being turned into films, one good thing to come out of Hollywood’s interest in the written word come to life is getting those same audience members to pick up and read the book the movie is based on, if they haven’t already.

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Wonder Woman: The DC Film We’ve All Been Waiting For

June 5, 2017

The latest movies to come out of the DC extended universe have been mostly disappointing. The release of Man of Steel in 2013 was about an average reception by both critics and fans, some critical about the direction the story took, specifically Superman’s big battle with General Zod towards the end of the movie. Last year’s releases of Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice and Suicide Squad wasn’t any better either. Both films suffered from convoluted stories, terrible editing, and really bad plot holes. The only good thing both films seem to have going for them was the brief introduction of Wonder Woman in Batman v Superman and Margot Robbie’s turn as Harley Quinn in Suicide Squad. With DC struggling to score a home run in the box office that its rival Marvel seems to be hitting without any real trouble, the only exception being Christopher Nolan’s Batman films, you almost had to wonder if DC’s time in the movie business may be over. Wonder Woman is the latest studio entry for Warner Bros. Pictures and DC Entertainment. A lot has been riding on this film to succeed and to pull DC out of its slump. Luckily for the studio execs and for the people who have been dying for a juicy female led movie that’s entertaining and more, Wonder Woman has pulled off what the previous roster of films haven’t.

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Movie Review: Kingsglaive – Final Fantasy XV

August 22, 2016

When it comes to Final Fantasy games, most gamers will almost always tell you their favorite installment in the series, either debating or exchanging stories about why they feel Final Fantasy VII is the crowning jewel of the series or dismissing it as highly overrated in favor of Final Fantasy X. Final Fantasy is no stranger at trying to extend their property to film by creating an original story with Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within or extending an already established video game universe with Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children. The latest entry into the Final Fantasy movies venture is Kingsglaive: Final Fantasy XV.

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Listmas 2015: Five Films That Got Me Into The Christmas Spirit As A Kid

December 21, 2015

We all grow up with certain family traditions and traditions tend to be more prominent around the holiday season. It has become a family tradition over the years for my mom and I to be responsible for putting up and decorating the Christmas tree. Time would be set aside on the weekend to take out and dust off boxes of ornaments from the closet and play Christmas music as the lights were strung and our favorite ornaments got a chance to be admired on the evergreen branches once again.

Once the tree was done and decorations were up, Christmas never really felt like Christmas until I dug out my favorite holiday movies and watched them again in anticipation for the arrival of Christmas Day, dreaming of all the cool and wonderful toys I’d get to unwrap and play. Being brushed with a burst of childhood nostalgia as Christmas is only a few days away, I compiled a list, in no particular order, of the Christmas movies I absolutely had to watch every holiday season. I may be a grown woman who hasn’t seen these movies in ages, but the ones on this list are very near and dear to my heart.

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Why We Need More Movies Like Mad Max: Fury Road

June 15, 2015

Last month I saw one of the biggest and most critically acclaimed movies of the summer––Mad Max: Fury Road. Directed and co-written by George Miller, who also co-wrote and directed the original Mad Max films starring a much younger and then unknown movie actor named Mel Gibson, it’s a sort of sequel to the films with actor Tom Hardy now in the role of Mad Max.

The plot of Fury Road is pretty much the same, set in a post-apocalyptic world in a barren desert wasteland, where corruption, totalitarianism, and self-preservation reigns supreme in this grim and harsh landscape. There’s little room, if any, for hope, compassion or goodwill towards men. Max Rockatansky introduces us to this world in the first few minutes of Fury Road’s opening, but the real surprise is when the viewer begins to realize this isn’t really Max’s story. It belongs to Imperator Furiosa. The following post will contain spoilers, so please read at your own discretion.

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