I am a Generation One Transformers child. I grew up riding my BMX to the store using my paper route money and allowance to buy Transformers action figures (this is back when child labour was only semi-frowned upon and letting kids go door to door at 5 AM multiple days a week was okay).
This weekend saw the opening of the sports film You Gotta Believe. Every generation has a "sports film" – for some it's Field of Dreams, for others it's A League of Their Own or The Sandlot, and for me it was Bad News Bears.
I'm not a huge horror fan; my tastes in the genre are very specific. If it's an Eldritch Lovecraftian tale, a lush gothic terror, or a pastoral folk horror? Count me in. Mainstream A-list stars and a hot TV actor/indie director making his first genre film using a flashy gimmick with lots of mainstream media buzz? Not interested.
I wasn't sure what to think going into The Marvels. While I was a strong supporter of Brie Larson as Captain Marvel, the eventual eponymous film that we got and the uneven use of her in subsequent appearances had me uncomfortable.
Review: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem
Posted by: Matthew Ardill • July 31, 2023 @ 3:38pm
On a Sunday in 1990, I stood in an empty mall (stores where I lived weren't open on Sunday back then) waiting in line for the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles film with my little brother. At 16, I was a fan of Laird and Eastman's black-and-white indie comic.
A hagiography is defined as two things: the writing of the lives of saints, and a biography that idealizes its subjects. The new Disney+ biography Stan Lee does both of those things and fits the descriptor perfectly.
Stan Lee is a controversial character.
Let me start by saying that I have a troubled relationship with the Transformers film franchise. I am a Gen-X Gen 1 Transformers lover who dreamt of owning my own Metroplex play set.
When Marvel announced that they hired James Gunn to direct a Guardians of the Galaxy film, my first reaction was "huh?" A Troma director with a problematic social media presence whose biggest claims to fame were 2 films about worms -- one big (Tremors) and one small (Slither) -- and a deconstruction of the superhero genre (Super) starring Rainn Wils
I stood in the audience to see New Order, a band with a dark and tragic past whose phoenix-like rise from the ashes of Joy Division was the source of several documentaries and biopics.
When you watch a documentary called Weed & Wine, you pretty much know what you're getting into: you're going to learn about two worlds that are similar and yet different. This is personified in a cannabis farmer from California and a family vineyard in France. The film does this quite well. I was genuinely interested, and learned in a way that didn't feel heavy handed.
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