(Original Post on Nov. 17 2017. Updated to include latest MCU releases) In 2008 Marvel almost innocuously dropped Iron Man on the world to little hype or fanfare. I remember as a comic-book fan being much more excited for Christopher Nolan's Batman follow-up The Dark Knight and being much more lukewarm towards Marvel as their recent track-record …
Continue reading Ranking the Marvel Cinematic Universe Movies (Updated)
This year I did something I have never done before. I plopped myself in front of a computer at 8:19 am sharp and streamed the Oscar announcements, finding myself completely engrossed as they announced the nominees. There are two reasons why I had never done this. The first is that for many years I lived …
(Since I'm diving deep into both the theatrical and extended cuts of The Lord of the Rings trilogy, let's just assume that SPOILERS will abound.) Like most Tolkien fans out there, the news that they were going to make a “Lord of the Rings” (LOTR) trilogy was something I genuinely geeked out about. And the feeling …
(Note: Almost everything I talk about here is going to be jumping off the very elaborate and well-argued post by Rob Hilton about the "Machete-order" of watching Star Wars movies. To be honest, had Disney not stepped in, I would completely agree with his suggestions and have no reason to write this post. But since the new …
With this post I will pass a semi-decent milestone of making 50 posts. I promised myself when I started this blog that I would at least do 50 posts (before presumably giving up) in order to give the venture of writing about the movies the good college try. And in that intervening period, I've come …
Continue reading Movies That Made Me Fall In Love With The Movies
Sometimes it pays to be first. Back in the 1920s, Universal Studios was the smallest of the big Hollywood studios in desperate search for a defining niche to distinguish them from the pack. And so in a stroke of brilliance, Carl Laemmle Jr. decided to turn to classic horror literature and mined its monsters to …
Continue reading House of Laemmle: Universal Monsters Ranked
"Oooh, I've wasted my life..." - Comic Book Guy Every year that The Simpsons is on the air, it becomes more and more astounding as to what a gargantuan presence it has had in my life. Entering it's twenty-eight year, it is not hyperbole to say that the show has literally been around almost all of my …
Continue reading Ranking Every Simpsons “Treehouse of Horror” Episode Ever
Hollywood has a long history of taking foreign movies, TV shows, and literature and adapting them for a more American context. Sometimes the movies are outright remakes (The Ring, The Departed, Let Me In) or they are reinterpretations of the original material (both American Godzilla movies). The act of adapting non-American material is often fraught with danger as …
Continue reading The Failed Adaptations of “Ghost in the Shell” & “Death Note”
It is hard to overstate just how big a deal The Matrix was when it first came out. The sci-fi action thriller seemed to perfectly combine heady philosophical concepts with kick-ass action. It's dystopic world was at once wonderfully alien and also shockingly not so far from ours. It felt completely relevant to reality at the end …
Continue reading Franchise Ruminations: The Matrix Trilogy as Misunderstood Masterpiece
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