Full text review available on Geek.com

Also this week: LEGO BATMAN

Darkness. No parents. Full review on Geek.com 

People seem to have either grown up with THE GREAT OUTDOORS as a family VHS staple or have never once heard of it. I was in the first camp. This one’s for you, Dad.

So, apparently this tweet got kinda popular:

Here’s the thing about “economic anxiety” and racism: If someone is ONLY a good person when their life is good? Not actually a good person.

— Bob Chipman (@the_moviebob) February 2, 2017

Do I stand by it (and the rest of the “tweet chain?”) Yeah, pretty much. I tend to regard social media as a stream of consciousness kind of thing, i.e. if I have something to say I think might deserve quoting or preserving, I’ll put it here or into one of the shows. But once in awhile I guess a solid thought sneaks out amidst all the shouting into the void. Continue reading →

Was going to hold this script to run the episode closer to Ramadan, but it suddenly felt more pertinent to do it now.

So. As many of you are no doubt aware, I’m currently in production on the next installment of “Really That Good,” the subject of which is THE MATRIX.

As you might imagine, THE MATRIX is a particular daunting target for analysis because it’s so densely layered with symbolism and reference but also because so much has already been written, blogged, vlogged etc about it – so it’s easy to get lost in the noise doing even basic research. Also complicating matters: The cultural understanding of the film/franchise keeps shifting as we come to know more about the extremely private Wachowskis as filmmakers and as individual persons.

With that in mind, I’m reaching out to my diverse and well-informed readership for some help on this one: Continue reading →

“We get some closure, a final battle and yet another new twist in Alice’s backstory which is actually pretty clever and might even have felt pretty substantive regarding the mythos and build-up if they hadn’t already reworked whatever her backstory was supposed to be three or four times before this.” — Full review available on Geek.com

Been waiting on a real look at this one for some time – looks like it won’t disappoint. The bare premise is a winner: Two former High School enemies meet again by chance as adults in the upscale NYC social scene and immediately resume violently beating the shit out of eachother; but  the trailer seems to give away an interesting degree of just how absurdly the story is supposed to spin out from there. Looking forward to the reception on this one.

Full piece available on ScreenRant. Excerpt:

“If the goal here is to ruffle Hollywood’s stuffed shirts, wouldn’t taking the wind out of an audience-beloved weepie (think Forrest Gump) or an arthouse prestige piece (think Nocturnal Animals) have greater effect than tossing one more egg at something “everyone” already agrees is bad? Nevermind how history can change the broad understanding of a film; for example, Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining received two Razzie nominations, while Paul Verhoeven’s Showgirls was dubbed the “Worst Picture” of 1995 – yet in the present, the film is typically seen as more of a subversive cult-classic (whose director just helmed the freshly Oscar-nominated Elle).”

Read the full column here.