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 [...]
Let’s face it, there’s quite a bit wrong with Live Free or Die Hard. Everybody’s got one bone or another to pick with the film, and, in most cases, they’re justifiable. Still, Live Free has enough working for it that it winds up being a completely serviceable action flick, just one that sadly falls short [...]
“Who said we were terrorists?” — Hans Gruber, Die Hard It’s in this very moment — in Alan Rickman’s amused, conversational delivery of that simple line — that John McTiernan’s genre-defying classic Die Hard begins to toy with our expectations on its way to becoming more than anyone ever guessed it could be. And it’s [...]
Platinum Games has finally shown off a bit of the Nintendo Wii-U exclusive Bayonetta 2, which is already looking pretty good even in development form. The director on the first, Hideki Kamiya, has taken the role of supervising producer on the sequel while Yusuke Hashimoto, producer of the original game, takes over the reins as [...]
After playing the demo for Visceral Games’ highly anticipated Dead Space 3 last night and getting some hands-on time with both the single player and co-op components of it, I can say with great relief that Dead Space 3 is still as scary and intense as ever, if the bit I got to experience was [...]
It was about half hour before Final Destination 2 would start, and I’d already eaten a couple of “special” cookies, which I then chased down with a triple espresso from Starbucks. By the time the projector started to roll, I wasn’t just wired to the gills — I was on another planet completely. And yet [...]
“And Charlie … you fuck with me, I’ll blind the kid and shoot out her knees.” — Timothy, The Long Kiss Goodnight I mean, I could pretty much leave it at that and be done with it. Once you start threatening children, you’re automatically ranked up to grade-A douche status, no questions asked. But seeing [...]
Guillermo Del Toro’s Pacific Rim is something I’ve been waiting patiently for since hearing the first bit of buzz on it from last summer’s San Diego Comic-Con. Giant robots fighting giant monsters under the direction of one of the most imaginative directors working today? That alone is enough to get me interested, but what really sparked [...]
“You musta thought it was white boy day.” — Drexl Spivey, True Romance An actor should be able to disappear into whatever role he or she is given. That’s gospel. Gary Oldman wasn’t exactly famous by the time Tony Scott’s True Romance hit theaters, but he’d already left his mark in several meaty roles, most [...]
I’m very on the fence about the above trailer for the upcoming film adaptation of Max Brooks’s seminal zombie epic World War Z. I do like the general feel of it. Scenes of a zombie outbreak set near its beginning always make me uneasy, and I think they’ve done a good job here with instilling [...]
There’s a moment in Sinister, maybe about halfway through, where the ending is clearly telegraphed to any viewer paying even the base level of attention. In fact, much of the movie is predictable due to the heavy use of typical misdirection tactics and other familiar horror movie staples. Yet the moments that do work allow [...]
