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Posts Tagged With ‘ john goodman ’

 

Wannabe

March 17th, 2019

Do you know what drives me absolutely batty? When a movie doesn’t know what it wants to be. You’d think that would be reasonably easy to work out, right? Perhaps not, but let’s perform a thought experiment from a couple of angles. Imagine you’re a screenwriter. A major studio hires you to pen the latest installment of their box-office dominating franchise. To do that, you need to figure out genre and tone. With genre, are you making a superhero movie? An action flick? A comedy? Science fiction? If you want to blend the genres, great. The Cabin in the Woods is ultimately a horror movie that... Read More

Hit Like A Girl

July 30th, 2017

Are we entering an action movie Rennaissance? Maybe, because God knows we need it. Whether we like it or not, things have changed. As much as I’m a shill for the Marvel Cinematic Universe, it’s a fact that superhero movies have largely taken the place of action movies. They’re still around, but these days theaters are filled with spandex, Avengers, and surly mutants. We’ll still see the occasional Mission Impossible, but those tend to be the exception more than the rule. Maybe that’s a good thing. Maybe the relative drought forces us to appreciate it when a particularly... Read More

All Hail the King

March 12th, 2017

Sometimes a giant ape is just a giant ape. Sometimes not. If you’re a filmmaker, the trick to making a memorable creature feature is to make sure your message doesn’t overwhelm your entertainment value. Yes, you can read 1933’s King Kong as a screed about the racist fear of black sexuality. Yes, you can also read 1954’s Godzilla as Japan grappling with their anxiety over nuclear power. But you can also read those two movies as being about: A giant gorilla killing people and wrecking stuff. An atomic lizard killing people and wrecking stuff. Hey, if you’re looking... Read More

The Bunker

March 13th, 2016

All you really need to know about 10 Cloverfield Lane is that it’s an efficient and intelligent thriller. It works best if you just go into the theater cold. In fact, you should stop reading my review immediately, trust me, and go see it. Still here? If you’re hoping for a spoiler-riffic review, sorry, Sparky, it ain’t gonna happen. However, we can go into detail without going into detail. Let’s clear up a couple of things first. You can be forgiven for wondering if this film is a sequel to 2008’s Cloverfield. To refresh your memory, that was the J.J. Abrams-produced... Read More