There is a part of me that does not want to write this. For whatever reason, RoboCop seems to be a beloved classic. I really don’t fully comprehend why. Admittedly, near future is one of the hardest types of sci-fi to do. In some ways, far future sci-fi is much easier to write because you can kind of let your imagination go wild, and if you write about a period of time that is well beyond your lifetime, it will be a long time before your stuff doesn’t really work. But the sci-fi is only one of the problems with RoboCop.

So obviously I didn’t like this film all that much, and this sort of…

Back when I was a kid — geeze, listen to me, don’t I sound old? Anyway…

When I was a kid I loved to play with my LEGOs. I built so many things with LEGOs that I couldn’t possibly remember them all. The thing that I almost always had built and never took apart was a construction that crudely resembled the (original) Starship Enterprise, but that’s another story. I will tell you that in the mid to late ‘80s and early to mid ‘90s, we didn’t have all these fancy LEGO contraptions that “kids these days” have. We had generic LEGO men, and we had bricks of differing colors and differing sizes and…

On the night of June 25th, 2005, a four-man Navy SEAL team - consisting of Lieutenant Michael Murphy, Sonar Technician 2nd Class Matthew “Axe” Axelson, Gunner’s Mate 2nd Class Danny Dietz, and Corpsman 1st Class Marcus Luttrell - is lowered via fast-rope into the Hindu Kush Mountains near the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. Their mission: track and eliminate notorious Taliban leader Ahmad Shah.

Less than twenty four hours later, only one of those SEALs is left alive.

What went wrong? Goatherds. Local goatherds, who stumble across the team in the mountain brush. After confirming that the men…

This is not the Jack Ryan you may know from the books, and this is not the Jack Ryan you may remember from the four previous films. This film is a reboot and an origin story — because that’s what you’re supposed to do these days. I don’t think anyone over at Paramount could tell you exactly what motivated this film to be made other than the vague idea of hearing the ringing of the cash register as the ticket sales poured in. But unfortunately that sort of motivation does not usually produce the most compelling of stories.

I must confess that despite my love for the four Jack Ryan films that…

Let me be clear from the outset, I enjoyed this film quite a bit. That said, I feel like I would have enjoyed it better if I actually liked Disney’s Mary Poppins. As it is I really do not like Disney’s classic film that much. While P.L. Travers’ concerns and complaints about the film may be too far reaching and come from a bit too dour of an attitude, I tend to agree with her underlying issues regarding Disney’s version of the film. It’s too goofy, doesn’t make a lot of sense, has no coherent story, and doesn’t drive its point home. If the whole point of the Mary Poppins story is the saving…

“I found something in the goblin tunnels.”

“What did you find?”

...

“My courage”

“Good, you’ll need it.”

The Hobbit trilogy is, I think, perhaps the ultimate fan fiction for the universe surrounding Middle Earth — that is to say, for The Lord of the Rings. Consider: why would one take a book less than 300 pages and make a trilogy out of it where with The Lord of the Rings trilogy, 3 books of about ~400 pages each were made into 3 films? If the same logic was applied to The Lord of the Rings filmmaking as we’re seeing here with The Hobbit, we’d have 9 films, 3 for each book.

So what has…

I was born and grew up in the 1990s, which means that I was a child during the time period when Disney produced its most successful animated musicals, often referred to as the “Disney Renaissance” and featuring such renowned films as The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast (my review), Aladdin, and The Lion King. While Disney has released a few more animated musicals over the years, the quality has generally not been up to the same standards as those set in the 1990s (though I’m certainly partial to their 2010 offering, Tangled - my review), but with Frozen they finally hark back to those…

What if one night out of every year, the authorities declared all criminal activity completely legal? What would you do? Steal the car you’ve always wanted but never could afford? Plot the death of your boss because he’s such a royal pain to work with?

In a futuristic America beleaguered by crime and overcrowded prisons, the government has sanctioned just such a night — an annual 12-hour period in which any person may commit any crime (including murder) without fear of retribution. Hospitals are shut down. Rule of law is suspended. This night of nights, you are allowed — nay, encouraged — to…

Am I truly desperate? Not really. Am I mad? Possbily. But I liked Thor: The Dark World quite a lot. The film is not without its share of flaws which I shall address, but this film certainly manages to strike a much better note than did it’s predecessor, simply titled Thor. However few critics seem to keep my company on this opinion — well, at least few share my opinion that Thor was not a great film. Indeed, the Tomatometer for Thor sits at 77% while the Tomatometer for Thor: The Dark World sits at only 65% as of this writing.

Story

In short, Thor has been busy restoring order to the nine…