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The Point of Movies: What is it?

1/8/2017

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Big Budget Films and Perception

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I think people lose sight of what a movie is supposed to be about. It's entertainment. Often times, entertainment is not perfect. A musical track may not be mixed the way you wanted it, maybe the bass was a little light or you didn't like how they buried the background singer. Someone else may have a different opinion on both points. Movies are in the same boat but usually, when we don't like a film, we don't watch it again and again. 

Some films are once and done. Some dramas, difficult biopics, whatever the case may be (I'm thinking something like Syriana but don't necessarily mean to pick on that). Others get people coming back to catch things they missed or simply because they enjoyed the experience so much the first time, they couldn't resist. A great example would be any Star Wars movies. When people dislike them, they still revisit 3+ times. And yet some would call the prequels failures.


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October Movie Fest: Complete

10/31/2016

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The Horror Films

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Halloween is my favorite holiday and so we celebrate it pretty much throughout October. I take my real vacation at this time and we try to watch 1 movie for every day of the month. These are horror movies only on the list I'm about to share. We saw other stuff in October (like Jack Reacher and I watched a couple of things one off) but we focused on random, scary stuff.

Please note that our rating system is not based on great movies. We rated them according to the cheesy horror flicks that they were. A 5 star movie for us does not hold the same place in my heart as say, Inception but in the scheme of what we saw, it means we were thoroughly entertained. The exception to that rule is Extraordinary Tales, which I absolutely LOVED.

Anyway, what you're about to see below is the movie we watched, the rating we gave it (1 to 5) and what Rotten Tomatoes gave it. Enjoy!


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Star Trek: Beyond

7/25/2016

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MASSIVE SPOILERS!!!!

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Star Trek got a reboot a while back with new actors playing 'iconic' roles from the Original Series aired in the sixties. Why did I need to start this review like that? Because the writers sure didn't remember where their work came from. Or at least, they forgot where some of their characters came from.

While the supporting roles of Doctor McCoy, Sulu, Chekov and Scotty are left relatively untouched, key other characters are dramatically impacted by the modern day. As if they need to apologize for what Gene Roddenberry created, they have nerfed Captain Kirk, buffed Uhura and altered Spock...well, a lot. 

In this latest installment, Star Trek: Beyond, they have taken steps to at least get original again (they didn't bring back Harry Mudd or Klingons) but in so doing, they just...found something flat. It falls into the trap of other big budget titles which rely on character interactions to save them from poor story telling. You go to see people talk to each other (like Thor 2--people want more Loki, they don't care that the dark elves have been basically imprisoned for thousands of years and shouldn't have better technology than the culture which thrived through that time). Let's look deeper.


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Stories in Media (MAJOR Spoilers)

7/2/2015

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This contains spoilers for Jurassic World, Assassin's Creed games, Arkham Knight, Thor 2, Avengers 2 and Kingsman.

Movies and video games are big business. They have a lot of dollars thrown at them to create a captivating experience. Big budget titles show off top of the line special effects and big name actors. They even go so far to capture high quality intellectual properties like comics, novels and biopic material. Many of the huge game franchises were spawned from when they could still make something unique and not give the investors an ulcer. 

Despite all this money tossed around, story seems to get the shaft, especially when it comes to sequels. Now, we rely on charming actors and their characters to carry weak plots and it works great. Products which have no business finding success are runaway hits and it seems like people are either not discerning or simply don’t care.


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    Robert Hazelton

    Author of several books, composer of several CDs. Please check out the rest of the site for some of my work.

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