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(08/20/18 4:46pm)
by Trevor Sheffield
We live in the Superhero era of filmmaking.
In the wake of the MCU’s rampant unprecedented success, nearly every major studio has thrown their hat into the ring in the hopes of netting some of the collective green this genre never ceases to produce. In many a way, this power-packed entertainment boom brings to mind a time when the western, a genre now all but dormant, was king at the office. It seems like we live in a world where they’re practically giving away movies to any character(s) rendered in ink and paint, almost out of spite.
Released on July 27, 2018, Teen Titans Go! To the Movies attempts to capitalize on this super-mania, and it surprisingly succeeds…to mixed results.
(08/08/18 4:00pm)
We’ve been here before.
(07/31/18 12:04pm)
By Trevor Sheffield
…We’ve been here before.
Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation, released July 13th, 2018 (a Friday, no less), is a film borrowing from the same school of thought that birthed such films as Rugrats Go Wild!, Alvin and the Chipmunk: Chipwrecked, and National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation 2: Uncle Eddie’s Island Adventure. That special part in a series of films where the writers have seemingly run out of ideas two films in (and the first in the case of Cousin Eddie), and decide to make going on a cruise/going “tropical” the focal point of the third outing.
Regardless, what makes this notable in this case is the presence of one Adam Sandler. Former SNL wunderkind and leading man behind such perennial classics as Billy Madison, Sandler has made himself known for shamelessly shoehorning in his friends and family into his work (Ex. Grown-Ups), and filming movies in exotic locales (Ex. Hawaii for Just Go with It, Africa for Blended, an expensive Royal Caribbean cruise for Jack and Jill) practically as an excuse for a “well-deserved” vacation. I bring this up because Sandler is the leading man of the Hotel Transylvania franchise, and for the first time in his career, he’s making a vacation movie where he can’t actually go on the vacation.
What does this mean for Hotel 3? Well, to say the least, it’s complicated.
(07/06/18 4:00pm)
The art of the video game/movie tie-in is a long lost one in this day and age. Up until a certain point, if a blockbuster was in cinemas (especially if it was animated), you knew that there would be a video game adaptation rip roaring and ready to go on store shelves.
(06/29/18 3:55pm)
By Trevor Sheffield
The art of the video game/movie tie-in is a long lost one in this day and age. Up until a certain point, if a blockbuster was in cinemas (especially if it was animated), you knew that there would be a video game adaptation rip roaring and ready to go on store shelves.
Most of them, however, were garbage made for a quick buck.
Case in point, The Incredibles. Released in 2004, the film was among the many animated films of the era that received a home console adaptation to capitalize on its release. Heck, it was one of the few tie-in games that actually got a semi-canonical sequel (The Incredibles: Rise of the Underminer), a rarity in of itself. Cut to FOURTEEN years later, and with Incredibles 2 in theaters, a new game featuring Pixar's first family of superheroes has hit the scene, backed up by a brand new game. However, the blockier format isn’t just a graphical limitation.
(06/01/18 9:00pm)
Disclaimer: As of 5/25/18, Show Dogs has been re-edited to eliminate story elements that may have unintentionally acted in service towards helping groom children for molestation or pedophilia. This review reflects the original cut of the film which included these elements, and as such will stand to critique the film as it was originally intended for theaters before this controversy came to light.
(05/29/18 8:06pm)
By Trevor Sheffield
Disclaimer: As of 5/25/18, Show Dogs has been re-edited to eliminate story elements that may have unintentionally acted in service towards helping groom children for molestation or pedophilia. This review reflects the original cut of the film which included these elements, and as such will stand to critique the film as it was originally intended for theaters before this controversy came to light.
In this cinematic day and age, the family film genre has evolved beyond a lot of the trappings that had formerly characterized it throughout the past few decades. In the 90’s, these movies were characterized with tropes popularized by movies like E.T. and Home Alone, with an emphasis on child empowerment and wacky animal antics. In the early 2000’s, these tropes were (for the most part) overtaken by a need to appeal heavier to adult audiences and a capitalization upon rapidly evolving computer technologies, as characterized through films like the Shrek franchise, among others. Yet, as it stands, the family film genre has improved for the better into the 2010’s, with a greater emphasis on quality and depth through emotion rather than how many fart jokes a person can cram into 90 minutes.
However, despite this age of advancement, certain films squeeze through the cracks that completely ignore this bar of quality. Movies like last year’s Nine Lives, Norm of the North, and even the much maligned Spy Kids 4: All the Time In the World are fascinating in that they feel completely unlike anything coming from this generation of filmmaking, almost solely for the fact that they have refused to change or advance beyond past generations. They feel like cheesy, cornball time capsules from an era long past at best and money laundering schemes by foreign agents at worst.
Show Dogs is of the latter category.
(04/18/18 8:40pm)
To get it out of the way at the top, Rampage is barely anything like its arcade cabinet source material. Originally released in 1986 by Bally Midway (later Midway Games) the game had a simple concept: normal people get mutated into giant monsters (specifically, a massive ape, werewolf, and some Godzilla-adjacent kaiju) then up to three players control these monsters simultaneously and promptly engage in decimating various cityscapes, fighting off the military, plucking people from buildings and eating them for health, and leveling more buildings than a demolition crew on cocaine.
(04/17/18 4:00pm)
By Trevor Sheffield
To get it out of the way at the top, Rampage is barely anything like its arcade cabinet source material. Originally released in 1986 by Bally Midway (later Midway Games) the game had a simple concept: normal people get mutated into giant monsters (specifically, a massive ape, werewolf, and some Godzilla-adjacent kaiju) then up to three players control these monsters simultaneously and promptly engage in decimating various cityscapes, fighting off the military, plucking people from buildings and eating them for health, and leveling more buildings than a demolition crew on cocaine.
A LOT of cocaine.
Regardless, the film adaptation (released on April 13, 2018 and directed by Brad Peyton, whose body of work includes such timeless classics as Journey 2: The Mysterious Island and Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore) keeps the “essential” details (a giant wolf, lizard-creature, and ape named George go to town on a major city) while adding a fourth hulking Goliath into the fray: Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson.
(04/17/18 1:49am)