Tag Archives: Movies

Trailer Tuesday: The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies

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Welcome to “Trailer Tuesday” where I talk about trailers for upcoming movies.

The final film in The Hobbit trilogy is approaching.  It has a new subtitle, The Battle of the Five Armies, which replaces the earlier title There and Back Again.  And until they come up with a way to turn The Silmarillion into a series of films or they decide to make The Ongoing Adventures of Legolas and Gimli (which I would totally watch), this will be the final film in Peter Jackson’s epic Middle Earth saga, comprising six movies over 13 years.  And now we’ve got the first teaser trailer for this final film.  Take a look, and read on for my thoughts below:

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Review: The Hundred-Foot Journey

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Sometimes when you go out to a nice restaurant you want the newest, most exciting thing on the menu.  You want something that will challenge your taste buds, something surprising and original, which gives you unique ingredients in unforeseen combinations, blowing your mind with its creativity.  Other times you want something intimately familiar, a favorite dish you’ve ordered countless times before.  It may familiar and routine, but while the mind craves the new sometimes the heart longs for the familiar.  The same could be said for film.  In The Hundred-Foot Journey, the characters spend their days trying to reconcile the new and creative with the old and familiar.  As for the movie itself there’s little new to shock and surprise, but in its familiarity the film feels intimate and reassuring, hitting all of the familiar beats of a dish that we may know very well yet is still wonderfully crafted and a joy to eat.

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Review: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

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I was a huge Ninja Turtles fan growing up.  I had all of the toys, watched the cartoon show every day, dressed as a Ninja Turtle for two different Halloweens (Michelangelo and Donatello), and the first time I went to New York City I pointed to a manhole cover and asked my mom if that was where the Ninja Turtles lived.  I even repeatedly watched the video of the musical stage show.  In fact, the only aspect of the Turtles that I was never interested in as a kid were the comics.  But more than anything, I watched the 1990 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie over and over again.  It was the first film that I ever completely memorized, and I wore that VHS out.  I was originally supportive of resurrecting the Turtles for the big screen, as I feel like they fill a niche that most other comic book superhero movies seem to miss.  However, the end result fails to capture what made the Turtles special to begin with and is nothing more than a watered-down shadow of the well know characters, too eager to be “cool” to be of much interest.

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Review: Into the Storm

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It’s inevitable, if unfair, that Into the Storm is doomed to be compared to Twister.  Twister, despite having its fair share of detractors, has become the default tornado movie, so well and widely known that almost everyone is familiar with it, perhaps because it is shown with surprising regularity on various cable channels.  It’s also a film that I deeply love and I think is an unappreciated masterpiece, none of which could bode well for Into the Storm.  But I’ve long believed that familiar stories are worth retelling, and a new take on something old can still have value, so I went into the movie somewhat dubious, but hopeful that it might hold its own.  Unfortunately, the only conclusion I could draw by the end also happens to be an unfortunate and overused pun that I nevertheless feel compelled to make: it sucked.

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Review: Guardians of the Galaxy

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Story is made up of much more than plot. I’ve often seen movies with original or unique plots praised for having a great “story,” while other movies get criticized for a dull “story” when in actuality they mean a predictable plot. To me, I envision the term “story” to be the equivalent of everyone sitting around a campfire listening to someone spin a tale. I’d much rather hear a familiar yarn interestingly told, by someone who knows the best way to engage those of us around the fire, read the audience and hit our emotions, rather than someone who tells a completely unique series of events but does so in a flat monotone, convinced that their plot is interesting enough to excuse them from doing the hard work required to make the story engaging. Why do I bring this up? It’s because Guardians of the Galaxy has a plot that is derivative and predictable, but it is so wonderfully, cleverly and creatively told that as a “story” it is one of the most unique and unpredictable I’ve watched in a long time.

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Trailer Thursday: The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1

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Jennifer Lawrence as Katniss Everdeen

Welcome to “Trailer Tuesday” where I talk about trailers for upcoming movies.

I’ve actually got two new trailers for The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1 for you today.  First up is a followup to the previous teaser, which showed President Snow giving an address to Panem with Peeta surprisingly by his side.  He’s once again addressing the nation with Peeta beside him, but this time he has another guest and things have a remarkably different tone even before the surprise at the end of the address.  Take a look and read on for my comments and the first full teaser trailer for Mockingjay – Part 1.

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Review: Earth to Echo

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Nostalgia can be dangerous, especially when it comes to the film industry.  Nostalgia is what gives us endless remakes, reboots and sequels to what’s come before, in the place of more original fare.  It seems like most people would choose to go to a film based on something that they’re familiar with than take a chance on something new, and the studios know this.  Nostalgia is often served up as a method of forging an emotional connection with an audience, in place of real emotion in the story.  But nostalgia can be dangerous from the other side of things too, when it prevents us from giving a film a chance simply because it looks similar to something we’ve seen and loved before.  (I recently had a long argument with a coworker over whether movies released today will still be watched in 50 years as movies from the 1960’s are still watched today, with the twist being that he doesn’t see modern movies because he doesn’t think they can possibly compare to the films of his youth.)  I think Earth to Echo has become a victim to nostalgia.

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Trailer Tuesday: Big Hero 6

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Welcome to “Trailer Tuesday” where I talk about trailers for upcoming movies.

A couple months ago we got our first look at Big Hero 6, the upcoming collaboration between Marvel and Walt Disney Animation Studios, in the form of a cute teaser trailer.  We’ve now got a new, bigger trailer, as well as finally some confirmed information about the voice cast.  Watch the trailer below and read on for my thoughts:

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Trailer Thursday: Guardians of the Galaxy final trailers

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Rocket Racoon

Welcome to “Trailer Tuesday” where I talk about trailers for upcoming movies.

I’ve posted a lot of Guardians of the Galaxy since we got our first glimpse of it, and that’s not about to stop now.  Today we’ve got three “final” trailers for the film, the first of which is actually a “viral” commercial for a Galaxy Getaways, while the second and the third are “extended looks” at the film.  At this point, I doubt they could show us much more of the movie without delving into serious spoilers, and even some of these may be pushing the limit of how much people want to know before they see a film.  They also give us a much better glimpse at the emotions and the characters of the film, along with several more complete scenes instead of just isolated clips.  But let’s start with Galaxy Getaways

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Review: Edge of Tomorrow

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After Oblivion opened last year and was greeted with a general shrug, people started asking all sorts of questions.  Had Tom Cruise’s box office clout finally faded, leaving him nothing more than an aging star doomed to appear in endless Mission Impossible sequels instead of more interesting fare?  Did Oblivion‘s failure combined with that of After Earth signal the end of the days when a big name actor like Cruise or Will Smith could draw audiences to the theater by the strength of their name alone?  Are original science fiction films dead altogether, leaving us nothing but sequels, remakes and reboots?  Edge of Tomorrow (and its box office performance) doesn’t exactly answer any of those questions, despite being a fun and entertaining movie, but it perhaps postpones the day when both science fiction films and the concept of the box office star are declared dead.

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