The Fast & the Furious franchise is nothing short of bizarre. I mean, sure, it’s mostly straightforward. Fast cars. Exotic locations. Hot women. That’s about as surefire a formula as any for successful popcorn fun, but there’s something about this particular string of movies that strikes a nerve in a way that most other action [...]
By all accounts, NBC’s Hannibal should not be a show I’m even watching, let alone breathlessly anticipating every week. For starters, it’s a prequel, that laziest form of storytelling that offers much in the way of fan service but little in the way of drama or surprise, as the audience always knows exactly where the [...]
Stop-motion wizard Ray Harryhausen, one of the great titans of fantasy cinema, died today at the age of 92. His legacy will last for as long as there are monster movies, and we would be remiss if we didn’t do our part to help commemorate his life and work. So go watch this video compilation [...]
Let’s talk numbers. Three: The number of Iron Man films that Disney outfit Marvel has produced. Seven: The number of films Marvel has released in theatres. Five: The number of films Marvel currently has in production. Two: the number of films that Shane Black has now directed. 1,000+: Movies about robots. This is where context [...]
Massive spoilers of Iron Man 3 to follow. Seriously, don’t read this if you haven’t seen the movie yet. In the Marvel Comics universe, the Mandarin is Iron Man’s greatest villain — an Asian scientist and fighter who gains superpowers courtesy of ten alien rings constructed using technology far more advanced that even Tony Stark [...]
The Cult Spark Podcast crew is back to preview the 2013 summer movie season, walking you through all the films you should be excited to go see during the next four months. Additionally, Tim outs himself as a Scott Pilgrim vs. the World hater. Bob cops to having never seeing a single Fast and Furious [...]
Kickboxer might be the quintessential Jean-Claude Van Damme movie. He’s got other films that are more outrageous, more action packed, more filled with ridiculous one-liners and films that are bigger in scope. But few of them seem to encapsulate so fully the things that Van Damme gravitates toward and prioritizes as an actor. It has [...]
There’s a sort of kneejerk reaction to Pain & Gain that makes you want to cast Michael Bay in a different, better light. His latest film, a longtime passion project masquerading as a true crime opus, is a prime example of the right director marrying into the right material. But Bay’s always been capable of [...]
Attempting to sum up director Joseph Kosinski’s Oblivion after walking out of the screening this past Tuesday, I came up with the following equation: Wall-E + Tron: Legacy + The Matrix = Oblivion Looking around online since, I’ve seen people make similar comparisons, so I know my formula is sound. And though it wears its [...]
I’m willing to bet that, for most people, The Road Warrior – George Miller’s diesel-fueled sequel to Mad Max — was the first glimpse they’d ever gotten of the fearsome presence of Vernon Wells. That was the case for me, and it’s a performance that I can’t quite shake for a number of reasons. Wells [...]
Evil Dead, the reboot of Sam Raimi’s 1981 horror classic, isn’t the abomination you might have feared. It’s respectful and technically solid, and there are stretches where director Fede Alvarez shows he possesses some of the raw skills Raimi himself was putting to good use more than 30 years ago. But none of this makes [...]
The Veronica Mars movie Kickstarter project — a new way for entertainment corporations to drain your wallet or a nifty solution for sidestepping soulless movie studios entirely? Our podcast team tries to find an answer in this installment of the Cult Spark Podcast. (Spoiler alert — they mostly end up just fighting about it.) Also [...]
