Tag: cinema

REVIEW: ‘Ford v Ferrari’ has fine tuned performances, but is also formulaic

Ingenuity can be daring sometimes and often requires pushing boundaries. That’s what the main characters in “Ford v Ferrari” must do in this movie, and fortunately the film documenting their work is above average.

Matt Damon stars as Carrol Shelby here, a former race car driver who puts his expertise into designing cars. In an effort to boost sales and to prove Ford can compete with international vehicles, the company drafts him to create a car faster than a Ferrari.

In order to test the car and help point out the flaws, Shelby enlists the help of Ken Miles (Christian Bale), an elite driver who can race with the best of them. The process is made difficult, though, because of corporate interference.

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Monday Movie Report: Disney/Marvel schedule release dates

While details and titles for several upcoming Marvel movies remain undisclosed, the studio and parent company Disney have scheduled many of them for release.

According to The Wrap, Marvel Studios and Disney set release dates for five untitled films on Oct. 2, 2022, Feb. 17, 2023, May 5, 2023, July 28, 2023 and Nov. 3, 2023.

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REVIEW: ‘Midway’ is stuck in mediocrity

If you want to talk about turning point battles in American history, Midway is easily one of the most important. The results allowed the United States to bounce back at a critical time in the Pacific Theater, considering what happened months earlier in Hawaii.

The portrayal of the battle here, though, leaves a bit to be desired.

The film is the second major portrayal of the battle. In fact, it shares the same name, too, as the year 1976 also saw a movie titled “Midway.” Like that picture, the 2019 version, directed and produced by Roland Emmerich, begins before the battle.

Pearl Harbor is attacked and in the ensuing months, officials in Washington and the Pacific are trying to organize a response as sailors and airmen are anxious to fight back. The film follows key figures in the lead up to Midway as they try to outwit the Japanese military, such as Admiral Chester Nimitz, commander of the U.S. Pacific Fleet, and Lt. Edwin Layton who worked intelligence.

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REVIEW: ‘Doctor Sleep’ won’t put one to sleep, but is forgettable like a dream

Stephen King’s universe really needs an equivalent to Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters.

“Doctor Sleep” begins roughly a few months after the events of “The Shining.” Dan Torrance is still being somewhat haunted by the Overlook Hotel, but eventually manages to get things under control in that regard thanks to his Shining power. Unfortunately, though, his life takes bad turns and he later ends up becoming homeless and addicted to alcohol.

Dan (Ewan McGregor) does come across another man, Billy (Cliff Curtis) in the northeast, though, who helps him get back on his feet by bringing him into rehab and assisting him in getting an apartment. However, while he seems to be settling in and even using his power for some good, trouble rears its head with a new threat. That threat is a group of people who not only stay alive, but keep their youth, by killing individuals with Shining powers and breathing in their life force.

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REVIEW: ‘The Lighthouse’ is a captivating film creation

While “The Lighthouse” is simply centered on two men and a maritime structure, it also happens to be one of the best films of the year.

Director Robert Eggers returns with “Lighthouse,” his follow up to his feature debut, 2015’s “The Witch,” which earned a lot of acclaim. This time around, his latest movie follows Thomas Wake (Willem Dafoe) and Ephraim Winslow (Robert Pattinson), two lighthouse workers who’re tasked with operating an Atlantic coast facility for about a month.

The experienced worker, Thomas, takes the night shifts and operates the tower to guide ships, while Ephraim is given mostly maintenance work. The labor is tough but appears fairly routinely. However, strange occurrences start taking place and Ephraim begins questioning what’s real and what’s not.

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Monday Movie Report: Hollywood Film Awards announced

The first award event of the season took place this past weekend, with both “Ford v. Ferrari” and “The Irishman” having a good deal of wins.

While it’s viewed as one of the less prestigious ceremonies of the season, the Hollywood Film Awards still give trophies to usually above average films and provide a spotlight to some of the best films the year has to offer. Last year, films such as “Black Panther” and “Green Book” earned trophies at the HFA and later went on to have plenty of award season success.

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REVIEW: ‘Terminator: Dark Fate’ excels where it counts: the action

So this is a “Terminator” film where a person or machine from the future has to fight off a far more deadly machine also from the future in order to protect someone.

Sound familiar?

This time around, the movie is more focused on a new character, rather than Connor family like previous installments. Dani Ramos (Natalia Reyes) is the main protagonist in “Dark Fate” and is being hunted by a terminator. Because of the action taken by Sarah Connor in “Terminator 2,” though, the terminator hunting Dani is from an AI program in the future called Legion, rather than Skynet.

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Halloween Adventures in B-Movie Horror 2019 Part 5

Happy Halloween and welcome to the final installment of this year’s write-ups. So for Part 5 we’re leaving behind the 80s and 90s and jumping right into the early 2000s. Both of these movies I’m writing about today are from sub-genres that were popular at the time.

“Live Feed” is a sort of torture horror piece, coming two years after the first “Saw” and a year after “Hostel.” “Awakening,” meanwhile, released four years after “28 Days Later” and two years after the “Dawn of the Dead” remake.

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Halloween Adventures in B-Movie Horror 2019 Part 4

The last flicks for this Halloween Horror Fest will be on movies from the 2000s, so this is the final write-up featuring late 80s and early 90s films. Thankfully, one of these is an anthology!

Anthology movies are features with usually three to four separate stories, which may or may not tie together depending on who the filmmakers are. The next movie here is one where the stories are a little more loose.

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REVIEW: ‘Countdown’ is generic, hollow horror

What can’t movie demons possess at this point? In “Truth or Dare” one could possess a thought-process game among friends, and now one possesses an app.

The latest horror movie to hit the PG-13 market features a number of people discovering an app that can tell when a person is going to die, counting down everything from the years to the seconds. The app is a simple running clock, and many laugh it off as a joke.

However, that is until a few look at the phone and see they only have a few days or hours left. Sure enough, those people end up dying. After some deaths from the app early on, the character Quinn enters the mix. Played by Elizabeth Lail, Quinn is the main character and apparently is set to die in the next several days. Deciding to take action, she and another character, Matt (Jordan Calloway), try to figure out how to change fate.

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