Diminishing returns often befall a film series that really had nothing new to offer past its initial installment. Jurassic Park is unfortunately such a series. The original Jurassic Park was a cultural phenomenon, creating an excellent monster/survival movie to go along with its groundbreaking special effects. The Lost World: Jurassic Park was a letdown as…
I remember being thirteen and accidentally stumbling across Stargate: Atlantis and falling in love with it immediately. After looking through my father’s DVD cabinet in search of something to watch, without a moment of hesitation I took season one up to my bedroom and watched it over the course of three wonderful days. This was the very…
A new sci-fi short called ALL YOUR BASE ARE BELONG TO US, inspired by the famous Internet meme and line of dialogue from a video game, is currently on Kickstarter seeking funds. The story is a futuristic tale of underground crime bosses who use mind control to turn ordinary citizens into criminals, essentially “live”…
Written for the Screen & Directed by Andrew Niccol Starring Saoirse Ronan, Jake Abel, Max Irons, Diane Kruger, William Hurt and Emily Browning PG-13, 126 minutes It now seems a grave miscalculation that, in an alien invasion movie, we will automatically be rooting for the humans. This thought had never occurred to me until after…
Steven Spielberg’s big budget remake of War of the Worlds begins in what is becoming the most stereotypically cool way to open a movie; Morgan Freeman’s voice. He doesn’t actually show up in the movie, just his voice. It’s like they took a pre-existing audio version of H.G. Wells novel as read by Morgan Freeman…
Directed by M. Night Shyamalan Written by M. Night Shyamalan and Gary Whitta Starring Jaden Smith, Will Smith, Sophie Okenodo, and Zoe Kravitz PG-13, 100 minutes The earlier work of M. Night Shyamalan had a profound effect on my movie-going tendencies. So much so that his recent cinematic contributions have been more disheartening to me…
When a film series has run its course and the most interesting aspects of a story as told through multiple installments has been pillaged, the last people this news seems to become apparent are those in charge of producing them. It gets to a certain point where any new addition to a film “franchise,” because…
Directed by Joseph Kosinski Written by Joseph Kosinski, Karl Gajdusek and Michael Arndt Starring Tom Cruise, Olga Kurylenko, Andrea Riseborough, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Melissa Leo and Morgan Freeman PG-13, 124 minutes Oblivion wears its inspirations on its sleeve but leaves its heart on ice. It takes its sweet time building to something grand in scale but…
My first entry in this column was the Spielberg film A.I., a movie I utterly despised as a nine-year old child but grew to admire and ultimately like following recent subsequent viewings. The year following A.I. Spielberg unleashed the Tom Cruise sci-fi actioner Minority Report, a movie that a mild-mannered ten year-old kid walked into…
In celebration of next year’s Mad Max videogame and the hopeful release of Mad Max: Fury Road, I will be taking a look back at one of my favorite cinematic trilogies of all time. The film that started it all, Mad Max, is not indicative of what the franchise is known for when people think…
At about the ten-minute mark of Primer, Shane Carruth’s directorial debut, we have a shot of our fledgling engineers/super best friends talking over their work as the camera lingers from the outside through windows in the garage door like some ineffectual voyeur. The camera, and we, are ineffectual in the sense that for the most…
Directed by Zack Snyder Written by David S. Goyer Starring Henry Cavill, Amy Adams, Michael Shannon, Russell Crowe, Diane Lane, Kevin Costner, Antje Traue, Laurence Fishburne, Ayelet Zurer, Christopher Meloni, Richard Schiff, and Harry Lennix PG-13, 143 minutes Man of Steel is the second best Superman movie ever made, but that claim comes along with…
