Friday, July 28, 2017

Comic-Con Trailers (Justice League, and Thor)


So I have never been to Comic-Con. It is something that I think I've always wanted to experience, but I've never had the availability to do it. I usually have work or something in the middle of it so it's not really available to me. This year especially, I have really only experienced the results of Comic-Con through what is publically released. There's a lot of news that comes out about comic book movies at these panels and presentations but you're required to go and read about it. Unfortunately, unless a trailer is released or there is leaked footage online, something I didn't see too much of this year, I just didn't have the time to read about what happened at comic-con.

I also have been behind in my reviews. I have a review for The Flash Season 3 coming up along with a couple of movies. I need to catch up on that. However, I did want to do a quick (if possible) post on the trailers that I did see come out of comic-con and what they mean for the respective universes.

I'll start with Marvel.

So the last Marvel movie that I saw was Doctor Strange. I have still not seen either Guardians of the Galaxy 2 or Spider-man: Homecoming. I'm hoping that that will change soon but the reality is, I'm just not overly excited about Marvel as a whole right now.

There are some great looking movies coming out in the future.

I guess that they did show some footage for Black Panther at Comic-Con but since it was not released to the public, I have no knowledge of it or what it looks like.

The trailer that came out a month or so back for Black Panther looks phenomenal and it is a movie that I feel will be different from the run of the mill Marvel movies I have come to expect. And while I haven't seen Guardians of the Galaxy 2 or Spider-man Homecoming, to me they didn't feel new at all. They didn't feel like much was going to be at stake and I wasn't totally sure if they were going to have any kind of huge impact on the cinematic universe.

I'll remind you that I haven't seen either of them so I don't know if that's true or not. But at least with Black Panther, it feels like something different and I'm in for some new superhero badassery.

Enter Thor: Ragnarok.

Ragnarok is a film that I don't think a lot of people had high expectations for before the first trailer. Now with the newest trailer, it's showing a lot of different places, alien worlds, team ups between Thor, Loki, Hulk, and Tessa Thompson's character Valkerie.

You know how I mentioned that Black Panther was something different than the formula that every Marvel seemed to overuse? Ragnarok seems to be breaking from the mold as well and trying to do something different. The style is a lot of fun, it seems to be a pretty comedy driven movie, especially considering the subject of Ragnarok which is the end of all things in the universe.

And Cate Blanchett's Hela looks phenomenal. I'm hoping that she provides a great villain for the film and she continues to be a presence, especially since her character could substitute the character of Death who Thanos is in love with in the comics.

I am still skeptical of Ragnarok due to the very nature of Thor and how he has always been the least popular of the mainstream Avengers. While Hawkeye is the most useless, I don't know anybody who would say that Thor is anywhere near their favorite Avenger and his previous standalone outings are proof of that. Ragnarok seems to see the character lean into the weirdness and wackiness of the character of Thor and it looks very exciting.


The trailer shows off a lot of things to be excited about. The formation of the buddy team with Thor and The Hulk. The additions of Valkerie (it's always good to get a female hero in the mix) and the return of Loki all coming together to fight Hela and M16 wielding Karl Urban. The humor in the trailer was great. The tone and the scenes with Hulk actually talking in sentences make for some really funny humor. Obviously Bruce Banner somehow ends up on a different planet which is pretty different from the place we saw him last in Avengers: Age of Ultron so how he made his way to Asgard will be fun to explore.


Then we get this cool looking poster where the cast of Infinity War seems to be coming together and everyone has a little bit of a different looking coming into the culmination of all the Marvel movies up until now. And this poster doesn't show Captain Marvel and the role she will have in the film as well as her future in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

But what it does show besides Captain America with a beard and Scarlet Witch with Silver hair are the guys at the bottom in the center. Based on this and the toys that have come out, those seem to be the henchmen of Thanos and it only adds to the threat that our beloved heroes need to face in this final show down.

Besides that... it is some cool artwork.

Before I move on to DC and their treasure trove of awesome. I will say that I was not at Comic-Con so I'm not going to say who won it or not. I have heard that Marvel won due to pure amount of content, but DC won the best trailer. Based on the trailers I have seen... yes I would agree.


Now of course I'm probably biased towards DC since the Justice League has been something I've been waiting years for. But I have had my doubts about this franchise actually getting their shit together.

Despite the success of Wonder Woman, I am honestly still a little worried about Justice League.

2016 was not a good year for DC and one good movie does not mean that they're on track yet. It does not mean that they will be able to recover from the honestly horrible decisions made in the last two films. There are still a lot of basic story elements that will make it very difficult for...


Um... is that Aquaman riding a parademon from the sky like a freaking air surf board?

This movie looks awesome. 

There was honestly just so much to like in this trailer. The Flash's humor, the emphasis in the trailers changing to how much of a badass Wonder Woman is, the fact that Cyborg doesn't look as much like a CGI dumpster fire, the whole rock band roadie look Aquaman has got going on. The action, the humor, even the freaking lighting makes this movie seem like it is not going to be the dark downer that Batman v Superman, Suicide Squad, and yeah I'll admit it, even Man of Steel could be at times. 

This movie looks fun, it looks like an adventure, and it doesn't have to imitate Marvel to do it. 

The great tonal change that came in this trailer gives off the idea that these guys are heroes. They are working to save people, something that has been distinctly missing in previous movies (sans Wonder Woman). They do have a line where they say that Superman didn't just save people but he brought out the best in them. I am someone who actually will defend Man of Steel and Batman v Superman to a certain extent, but the fact of the matter is, I didn't get that from Superman that much. 

I actually just thought of this but follow me here. It is pretty much confirmed that Superman will appear in the film. If you've been following the news of Justice League at all, you'll know that they had to extend the shooting for the film by a couple months and because of this they need to CGI Henry Cavill's mustache he's growing for Mission Impossible 6. Besides the fact that that is hilarious and is going to be on my mind every time he's on screen, it does confirm that Superman is going to be in the film and at certain points will have a CGI upper lip. 

Now the trailer does allude to that. 

At the end of the trailer, Alfred sees someone who we do not see and he says, they said you'd come, let's hope you're not too late. 

Everyone assumes that this is Superman and it probably is. I have heard some theories that it is Supergirl and as much as I'd be interested in something like that, I think it's too early and I don't want this movie to get bogged down with the Supergirl storyline as well. 

However, while Superman will no doubt come back in the present day, I'm wondering if he will also be shown in a flashback or two. 

I get the feeling that the creative minds at DC have recognized that maybe they didn't show as many scenes of Superman actually saving people as they could have. What if to set up the premise, they have flashbacks to prior to Superman's death and actually show him saving people. This would allow for the movie to focus mainly on the members of the Justice League who have showed up predominately, leave the Superman cameo for the end, and allow for a little bit of background and show people that the Man of Steel was the symbol of truth, justice, and the American way of life, we just didn't see it that much. I think it would provide some context and foreshadowing when he ultimately does come back, it's something that the audience has been waiting for. 

I am already suspecting that the movie is going to have some flashbacks. Piecing together some of the footage of Steppenwolf with the footage of the larger battle scenes with Amazonians riding on horseback, I can guess that they're probably going to have a flashback explaining the origin of Steppenwolf in this film, so why not have a couple of flashbacks to give Superman a little bit of context and maybe he can be a symbol that every member of the Justice League saw and was inspired by. 

Is it going to happen? I don't know, probably not. It's honestly a point of the movie that I am very nervous for because they already kind of botched Superman by killing him in the first place so I'm not sure what to think yet.

But speaking of Steppenwolf... he looks awesome!


We actually don't get a full shot of the villain, but we do see him and his axe having appearances and even little skirmishes in Themiscyra and Atlantis. With his army of parademons and his awesome look, I have high hopes for this villain. I foresee DC taking a page from Marvel and focusing more on their heroes than the villain, but that doesn't mean that he won't be good. 

I think the part of Steppenwolf that everyone loved though was his voiceover where he says that this world is left defenseless because we don't have any Kryptonians anymore... or any LANTERNS!

I don't think that Hal Jordan or any of the Lanterns are going to show up in this movie, but the very mention of them got people like myself really excited. 

There are plans to make a Green Lantern Corp movie in the near future. I'm not totally sure what the plot of that movie will be but apart of me wants them to show Steppenwolf killing Ryan Reynold's Hal Jordan and that leads him to proclaiming that there are no more Lanterns. As mediocre of a film that is and how much it really doesn't need to be apart of this cinematic universe, I feel like it would be a really funny way to connect the two.

I still don't think we're going to see any Lanterns in this film, but it gets me and a lot of other people excited.

And that's pretty much all there is to talk about Justice League. I have to keep reminding myself that I've been in this position before where I have been excited for a DC film and have been disappointed, but this movie continues to dish out some really great footage and I'm excited for it.

The other news that came out of DC was an announcement of future DC films that are coming out. Now I have learned to kind of take these lists with a grain of salt because a couple years back DC did the same thing. They had this long list of films from Wonder Woman, Green Lantern Corp, Shazaam, The Flash, and that list they put out was not totally accurate. I'm going to guess that this list is still pretty inaccurate, but here are some of the films that they said are on the docket for DC.

Aquaman (2018)
Shazaam and Wonder Woman 2 (2019)
Cyborg and Green Lantern Corp (2020)

Along with that they announced Suicide Squad 2 was happening as well as The Batman directed by Matt Reeves, Batgirl directed by Joss Whedon, an untitled Nightwing film, a Gotham City Sirens Film, Justice League Dark, and of course the Flash movie would be titled Flashpoint and follow the Flashpoint storyline.

If you read my Flash Season 3 review, I mentioned that I wanted to talk about the future of Flash movies and it's mainly because of this choice. There is A LOT to unpack with this direction choice. So much that I do need to do it in a totally different post. Whether it's a good idea or not, I need to discuss the repercussions of this choice because it could change everything.

I actually think above everything else, this was the most radical choice of everything that DC stated in their comic-con presentation.

But overall, I was very excited by all the news that I heard from Comic-Con 2017. Is there anything I missed? Is there anything that was really worth talking about and I didn't think it was that important. Where do you see the DC cinematic universe going? Do you like the choices being made? Comment and Discuss below! You can also send me your thoughts on Twitter @MovieSymposium as well as send me your requests for films I should review in the future. If you follow me on Twitter, you can get updates on future movie news and reviews coming out of this blog.

I'll leave you with this. So Ready Player One was one of the trailers that Warner Brothers dropped that wasn't apart of the DC presentation. It's not really a movie I've really been looking forward to and I can't say I'm overly excited for it right now... but there are some cool things in this trailer and it's worth checking out. Enjoy!





The Flash Season 3


It is becoming more and more difficult for me to sit through a 23 episode season like that of The Flash. That's not saying anything bad about the season itself, but I have just grown so accustomed to the 13 episode arch done really well in shows like The Newsroom, House of Cards, or Stranger Things. However, I have enjoyed the first two season of The Flash so much that it wasn't really a question whether or not I was going to watch the third season when it made it's way onto Netflix.

If you're not familiar with the premise of CW's The Flash, it follows the story of the famous DC Superhero, the Flash. It's the story of Barry Allen (played by Grant Gustin) a young attractive (it's the CW people) CSI who when he was really young, his mother was murdered by a yellow flash. Of course since that sounds crazy, his father was accused of the murder of Barry's mother and went to prison for it. Barry's life is changed when he is struck by lightning and is endowed the power of super speed. He joins a group of scientists at STAR Labs, the epicenter of the lightning that gave Barry his powers and he and his friends work together to take down criminals who have powers of their own.

I have reviewed the first two seasons of this show and if you read them, you'll know that I love this show. What I liked about the first and second season was that they really seemed to build off of one another really well. The first season established a universe where Barry would be able to build his skills and become the powerful superhero that we now love to watch just go and do his superhero thing. The second season built off of that and expanded the universe to other worlds. No longer was Barry and his friends confined to their world, they could fight bad guys on Earth 2, 3, 4, 19, wherever. And these alternate universe provided for some really fun characters and it also gave the actors opportunities to do something different with the characters they had already established.

The second season was also really great because it was streamlined with very few filler episodes. The filler episodes worked to explain character motivation and develop a more personal story. But the story was streamlined to center on The Flash developing himself as a hero against an absolute evil like Zoom. The second season did a really good job at balancing conflict of Zoom with the personal struggle that Barry is going through throughout the season. It really does become a personal story and that personal story brings us into the third season seamlessly.

The second season ends with Zoom tragically killing Barry's father right in front of him. Barry is eventually able to defeat zoom but he is incredibly distraught by the loss of his father, especially after he had just been released from prison. Although Barry seems to have won and possibly has a great future with Iris, in his grief he runs back in time and prevents the murder of his mother at the hands of The Reverse Flash. I remember watching the last episode in awe because having Barry go back and make this change is a drastic choice. It felt like a drastic choice at the last episode and it feels like a drastic choice throughout the third season.

The third season begins in the alternate universe that Barry created by saving his mother that he calls Flashpoint. Things are pretty great for Barry. His parents are still alive, he starts to hit it off with Iris despite having not grown up with her. But then he starts to lose his powers and his memory. Along with that, tragedy starts to hit and he realizes that this is not his world and he needs to go back and fix what he tried to change. While he does, he realizes that the world he left is not exactly the same and there have been multiple changes.

And really the rest of the season is Barry dealing with the consequences of this monumental change. The interesting way that they manage to bring in more people with powers in this season is the blending between the universe Barry created, Flashpoint, and the regular universe. A mysterious villain named Alchemy starts giving people powers and their personalities are blended with the personalities of their alter ego from flashpoint. Now this is only loosely explained and there are points where it doesn't exactly make sense. I will get to that when I start talking about particular characters, just know that while that part is kind of cool, it also is a little bit confusing and poorly written at times.

Another downfall of this choice was that The Flash is starting to develop a little bit of the Arrow syndrome in that they start developing characters who originally didn't have powers and weren't superheroes into partners to the main character. I haven't watched past season 2 of Arrow so I assume it's a little more complex than I'm making it out to be, but eventually Barry's friends all start developing super powers and then there's alternate versions of The Flash fighting with him. You've got Kid Flash, and Jessy Quick, and the Jay Garrick version of The Flash from Earth 3.

I don't think it's done horribly, but I think there is merit in a show maintaining its focus on one hero and I felt as the third season finally met a critical mass where every other character has super powers. If everyone has powers, suddenly the people who do start to lose their uniqueness and it becomes more and more about people's powers instead of their personalities. Again, I think they have a little bit more time before it gets to that point, but there are red flags throughout this season that make me think the show might be headed towards a down turn.

The other issue with this season is the repetitive villains, especially the main one. Remember in my season 2 review where I mentioned that the appearance of Zoom was good, but a little bit of a retread from what had happened before. A new speedster shows up and beats the living crap out of Barry. He has some time of self doubt, there's a loss of someone close to him, but Barry eventually gains the physical and emotional strength to vanquish his enemies.

Well they freaking did it again!

While I mentioned that Alchemy was the villain starting off, it shouldn't be a surprise that he was the front for the larger villain that is Savitar. And if you're looking at that picture and saying, hugh that guy looks like a transformer, well yeah, until you figure out who Savitar actually is, it's basically like Barry is fighting a giant transformer and it's the exact same story we saw in Season 2. For some reason, the Flash doesn't really seem comfortable pitting Barry up against a big bad villain that isn't a speedster and it's starting to show in the show.

Savitar proclaims himself as a god and Alchemy is giving people powers to be apart of his cult of darkness or some kind of bullshit like that.

Eventually when it is revealed who Savitar is, I will say it is kind of interesting, but it was also something that I called from the beginning. You actually don't really need to be paying that much attention to figure it out pretty quickly which was a little bit disappointing. Three seasons in and this show is not very good at setting up stories that are not predictable.

HOWEVER!

The predictability and formulaic nature of Savitar is offset by the direction that the season goes into by the 9th or 10th episode.

At a certain point, Barry runs into the future for the first time and sees a horrible future of Savitar brutally murdering the love of his life, Iris. Barry is already dealing with the consequences of changing the course of time after Flashpoint and then the rest of the season it becomes Barry's personal mission to do just that, change the course of events that lead up to Iris's death.

That is the meat and potatoes of the season. It's done, really, really well.

Honestly, the first 8 or so episodes are really filler and reintroduction episodes and those episodes were the most difficult to get through. I felt like I did when I was watching Arrow, just slugging through each episode very slowly and not really feeling the true purpose. But when you see Savitar murder Iris, suddenly all bets are off. The focus of the turns directly towards the goal of Barry trying to save the love his life.

And it works because these two have been cooking since episode one. And this is the first season they actually get together, and it actually really works. I really like these two together and you definitely see the love between them.

So when you see Iris die in the future, you know that Barry will stop at nothing to assure that she is safe and survives.

And yeah, it still falls a little bit under the melodrama that is almost a requirement if you're going to try and get a show on the CW. The one bad part about season three is that unlike Season 2, where I felt like the filler episodes were used to build the characters and make you love them even more, I did feel that, with some of the filler episodes, to which there are many, there were a couple where drama was created just for the sake of drama being created. And these dumb conflicts didn't even last for an extended period of time, they would really only last an episode and things would go back to the way things were before.

For example: the big reveal at the end of the first episode where Barry comes back from fixing Flashpoint is that he comes back to the house and figures out that Joe and Iris don't talk to one another. GASP. But literally in the second episode, that conflict is quickly resolved and by the third episode, there is really not sign of Joe and Iris ever having any kind of bad blood between them.

One of the other continuous conflicts that arise is the drama that occurs because people start to realize that Barry went back and mess with the timeline.

On a separate note, one of the best things to come out of this season was the fact that I now knew what memes like this meant...


But here's the issue with the timeline drama. Barry goes pretty much the entire season with people giving him shit for going back and changing the timeline for his own purposes... and they're not wrong. Pretty much all of the issues that come up in this show is caused by Barry. It becomes a little bit difficult to really defend the hero when the people who have qualms with him are totally justified.

One thing I did like about this season was how the roles of the members of Team Flash changed from what they were like in seasons 1 and 2.

First, the team expands. You've got Wally West (played by Keiynan Lonsdale) who actually takes up a pretty important part of the team for just being introduced in the past season. Cisco (played by Carlos Valdes) starts to develop his vibe powers and he actually goes out and takes part in the action. But he also takes up a little bit of a leadership role with a change up from Harrison Wells (played by Tom Cavanagh. Caitlyn Snow has her own personal drama that actually changes up her role quite a bit. She still is pretty prevalent in the season and she actually has a pretty big part, especially near the end of the season. Joe's (played by Jesse L Martin) role doesn't change a lot. He's still the father figure for Barry. He has his own little romance in the show which was cute but really was only filler in the grand scheme of things. And Iris changed her role from the supportive adoptive sister and really good friend of Barry's to the girlfriend. It's not a bad role, just not a lot has changed besides the fact that Barry comes home to her.

I do have to talk about one character in particular that I think was a little bit divisive. If he wasn't divisive to other people, he was definitely divisive for me because I could never really decide if I liked him or not.

And that is H.R. Wells or as I like to call him, Hipster Wells.

I have to give the writers credit. Somehow they managed to continuously give Tom Cavanagh work despite his initial character dying. In this season, the previous Harrison Wells decided to return to his Earth with his daughter. He did however work with Cisco to find a suitable replacement and that ended up being this guy. At first, it really only seems like the difference between the two is that one Wells wears a fedora and plays with drumsticks wherever he goes and the other one is stoic and creepy.

And at first, I didn't love this idea. I didn't really see the reason to get rid of old Harrison Wells and I thought the reasoning to find another Wells was really random. But I'll admit it, eventually I started to enjoy H.R. He had a lot of heart and while it's revealed he's not the brightest bulb on the tree, he still does contribute to the group and he does help. But if you've watched the whole third season, you'll know that the end of the season does not leave this character on a high note and I'm thinking it might be time for Harrions Wells to be reduced to a guest star role when Harrison Wells from Earth 2 comes to visit. But overall, we just don't really need another variation of the character.

The other character worth mentioning is Caitlyn Snow. I apologize if this is a spoiler but yes, she does get freezing powers and she does run the risk in the season of becoming Killer Frost.

However, for the casual observer, there is a difference between Caitlyn taking on freezing powers, and her straight up becoming Killer Frost with her horrible, HORRIBLE wig.

There is a slight explanation and it has a little bit to do with Alchemy and Savitar bringing the personality of Caitlyn's alter ego back from Flashpoint, but if you're not paying attention, you can quickly forget about that and it becomes very confusing why Caitlyn becomes this Dr. Jeykll and Mr. Hyde character. Literally, her evil alter-ego cannot be reasoned with and it doesn't make a lot of sense. Remember how I said there were a lot of valid reasons why people become pissed at Barry because he messed with the timeline? Well there are a lot of reasons why Caitlyn shouldn't become Killer Frost, but we're supposed to just sit there and accept the plot convenient storyline like there's nothing wrong with it. That was a little bit annoying.

If you want to talk about extra characters, a familiar face if you're a fan of the Harry Potter films is a constant guest star on the show.

Tom Felton, AKA Draco Malfoy, joins the cast as the arrogant crime scene investigator that Barry created with the creation of Flashpoint. I always thought his sudden appearance was really random and it's never really explained, but hey, they wanted to create a new character and he's not the worst thing to ever come out of the show.

In the beginning of the season, Felton's character Julian is mainly just a thorn in Barry's side. He's not portrayed as a bad guy, just an annoying obstacle that Barry has to overcome as one of the many consequences of Flashpoint. But eventually Julian becomes a bigger part in the story and they use him pretty well. I can't say I'm totally happy with how they used him but because Tom Felton is a pretty decent actor, it was kind of fun having him in the show.

The one issue that arises with Julian is that at a certain point when his arc is somewhat complete, he kind of takes a back seat and all the great back and forth him and Barry have kind of goes away and he just becomes more of a love interest for Caitlyn Snow. And I wouldn't be bothered by that if this wasn't the season where everyone seemed to be hitched off by the end. Cisco, Caitlyn, HR, Joe, EVERYONE seems to be paired up to a love interest and these romances are just not really done that well.

Seriously, a certain point, a character by the name of Gypsy shows up (played by Jessica Camacho). We don't know much about this character except that she is some kind of bounty hunter from another dimension and she has basically the same powers as Cisco, and for some reason that is reason enough for him to say, "SHE IS THE ONE, SHE IS SOOOO INTO ME!". It really has to be one of the most forced relationships I've seen and it doesn't help that these two really don't have much chemistry. And this isn't the only situation like this in this season. I can't go into them all but there were a few more hints of The CW in this season that made me a little bit annoyed. The Flash was always a show that while it had the attractive people, it never felt melodramatic. And even the times where it was melodramatic, it was okay because we liked these characters and they deserved relationships and the little drama that came out of it. 

But even Barry and Iris fall to some really dumb drama at a certain point.

I've said it before and I'll say it again. This season benefits because it takes something that was already being built up for two seasons, a relationship that was fine, and made it actually really genuine and sweet.

So when stupid shit happens and Barry and Iris's relationship seems like it's at stake, it doesn't have much of an impact because with the show's track record and how normal people would act in a situation like the one they describe, we know they're going to get back together or move past this obstacle in an episode or two. And I get it, you gotta keep thing interesting and there's only so many new villains you can introduce before the villain of the week routine gets boring, but the show seems to be getting into a mindset that they can do no wrong... and this season proves they can do wrong.

I'm going to end the regular review here because I want to do a review on the ending. I also want to talk about the future of Flash films and what I am expecting of the 4th season. But for now, I will keep it at that and say that Season 3 of the Flash hopefully showed the creators that there are holes in the armor. This was not a bad season. With a couple of mishaps and a kind of botched ending, The Flash Season 3 was pretty solid. But I worry about the future of the show and that they might be stepping away from the comic book elements that made this show great and falling back into the comfortable CW drama. They're not there yet but Season 3 shows that they could potentially be on their way.

But what did you think? Have you seen Season 3 of The Flash? Are you excited for Season 4? Comment and Discuss below! You can also send me your thoughts on Twitter @MovieSymposium as well as your requests for films and TV shows I should review in the future. If you follow me on Twitter, you can get updates on future movie news and reviews coming out of this blog.

I'll leave you with this. If you haven't watched Season 3, this trailer is going to give some spoilers away so that is your warning. I'm going to make mention of this trailer when I do my part 2 of this review. But for now, Enjoy!



Sunday, July 16, 2017

The Longest Yard


I have actually never seen this entire movie before. I've seen the majority of the film, but I guess I've never seen the entire movie. The scenes that I did see prior to this viewing, I thought were really funny and it kind of gave me the impression that this was one of the last good funny Adam Sandler movies did. Don't get me wrong, there's a lot of really great things in the movie... but there's also a lot to talk about.

The Longest Yard is a remake of the 1974 film of the same name starring Burt Reynolds. And that is the only reason that Burt Reynolds was in this movie. Really, he serves little to no purpose and he looks like he's bored out of his mind. Now that I got that out of the way...

The remake follows the story of Paul Crewe (Sandler) a former NFL player who ends up in prison following a drunken binger involving the always gorgeous Courtney Cox with an incredibly low cut blouse. I know that detail is not totally relevant to the overall story but that's an example of things that this movie decided to focus on instead of good storytelling or letting us get to know Crewe in a way that makes us like him at all, so I'll make mention of it... Courtney Cox looks great in the 5 minute cameo she has.


Crewe goes to a penitentiary in Texas where the Warden wants him to coach the semi-pro football team the guards have set up. Now I'm not totally sure how he goes from being propositioned to being the coach of the guards team to being the coach of a team of convicts in the prison. There was something about how he wanted to set up a game with the guards and the prisoners so the guards could get an easy win, but somehow that turned into a full time coaching position for Crewe and that's really the focus of the movie. Crewe, with the help of a kind inmate named Caretaker (played by Chris Rock) who knows how to get things, starts coaching a rag tag group of hardened inmates who just want to beat the crap out of the guards.

The best parts of this movie, besides the final game obviously, is Adam Sandler trying to recruit convicts from a wide variety of groups. Yeah you've got a lot of stereotypes and let's be real, Sandler is not exactly your go to person when you're trying to not do an offensive stereotype. However, he does get a good group of funny characters and at least with Chris Rock next to him, it doesn't look like Sandler is just a normal white guy in a sea of racial stereotypes.

But the main struggle of the film is Crewe trying to get all these angry convicts to work together and actually make a half-way decent football team. Of course they play dirty but so do the guards and it's a pretty fun romp if you're not thinking about it too hard.

The main appeal of the movie is the physical comedy, and yeah there's a lot of it.

The movie is not really based in any kind of reality as a lot of the hits and tackles in this movie would kill certain people. But the physical stunts used in the film are actually pretty funny and the timing is also really fun. Like a lot of comedies, The Longest Yard is probably funnier if you watch it with a group of people instead just by yourself. But I think you'll still probably enjoy the film for the physical humor.

The part where the movie starts to flounder a bit is in the dialogue and the actual story.

I already mentioned how I'm not totally sure how Crewe goes from being a potential coach for the guard's team and instead becomes the coach for the convict team. At a certain point, I think the movie kind of forgot what the purpose of the game was supposed to be. And if it didn't, the audience definitely does.

But the end of the film, the final game between the convicts and the guards feels like they've been building up to this one game when in reality it's not that important of a game and not even the reason that Crewe was brought in in the first place.

But what's more in this film is that fact that I'm supposed to be rooting for Crewe as he is the hero of the movie. But the truth is, Paul Crewe is an asshole and it's really not until the end of the movie that you actually start to see him change. The majority of the film, he's just got this entitled look about him and there's not really a point in the movie where I didn't really feel like he wasn't just doing this to save his own skin. And because the characters are such hyperboles, you don't really get a sense that Crewe is friends or has much of a connection to these convicts.

The only relationship that gets any kind of genuine development is that of Crewe and Caretaker. I suppose in a way, that's the only one that really mattered. But that's the issue with the movie. It really wants to get to the parts where a bunch of convicts are beating the shit out each other and the guards that it really doesn't focus on any characters development or even introductions.

I know I said the only reason Burt Reynolds is in this movie is so they can have a callback to the original movie that this one was remaking, but he's also a great example of one of the most rushed introductions ever.

Crewe and Caretaker are sitting feeling overwhelmed by the giant task of getting these convicts to work together and then Burt Reynolds comes in like a streak of mustached lightning, says I'm a former Football player, I'm gonna coach the team, and Crewe and Caretaker are like... okay.

And that happens with almost every character. Another example of this is the Warden and all the characters that surround him.

James Cromwell plays your typical corrupt, evil Warden and that's pretty apparent from the beginning. I guess it's something to applaud the movie for, they kind of assume the audience knows the tropes of the evil Warden, his corrupt head of the security (played by William Fitchner) and his crony political advisor, a random guy who is dressed like a plantation owner. It's like they scream, "I'M THE BAD GUY" without saying a word.

But again, the movie doesn't really develop these characters at all, so when dramatic things happen like Fitchner coming to respect Crewe near the end of the film, it doesn't really make a whole lot of sense. But hey, it's an Adam Sandler movie, what did I expect?

The unfortunate thing is, piecemealing this movie together with the best scenes, assuming that all the character development and story structure was set up prior, I actually thought this was a good movie. I thought that maybe if you take away all creative control from Sandler and just put him in a property that has worked in the past, maybe you can get a halfway decent movie and actually get one of these movies to have a point instead of just being mindless raunchy comedy like all of other Sandler's films.

But as a whole, the movie is not saying anything. It doesn't have anything to say about prison corruption, or really any kind of good triumphing over evil story. They never even question at any point that maybe some of these guys are innocent or that they're actually good guys despite their criminal record. It totally owns the fact that all these guys deserve to be in prison so let's just watch them beat the crap out of one another.

And I'm not saying this movie really needed to have some deep message. That's obviously not Sandler's style. Adam Sandler movies are turn off your brain comedies where you just watch raunchy comedy with people getting hit in the nuts over and over again.

This movie was directed by Peter Segal, the same guy who directed Tommy Boy, 50 First Dates, and Get Smart. While these aren't phenomenal movies, they do manage to tell a story with halfway decent characters you care about while still making you laugh.

What happened here? I don't care about any of these characters, I don't care if they win or lose, and I don't care about why they're in prison.

The only person I slightly cared about was Caretaker and (spoilers) he randomly burns alive in this movie. Yeah, a mindless physical comedic romp with Adam Sandler has a scene where Chris Rock, playing one of the only really likable characters, who about 15 minutes ago was telling us about his wife and kids back on the outside, gets burned alive...

I think there was a version of this movie that had a lot more heart and where something like the death of the heart and soul of the team would actually trigger some emotion and would be a real rallying cry. But as it is, Crewe carries on like Caretaker was never really in the film and Sandler just gives the I don't give a shit style of acting.

There legitimately was a time where I only had seen the last 40 minutes of the film which is basically just the final football game after Chris Rock had burned alive horribly. There was a time I had no idea that Chris Rock was in this film. And to be honest, I never felt like I was missing something. I like Chris Rock in this film, like I said he's one of the only likeable characters. But just watching the last game, you would think that this was just a buddy movie with Sandler and Reynolds. That's a perfect example of how the heart of this film is so minuscule that you don't really recognize that it's gone.

I don't think The Longest Yard is a bad movie. Of all the Adam Sandler movies there are in the world, it actually probably ranks pretty high. But that is saying something about the kinds of movies you're getting when you go into an Adam Sandler movie. When a really forgettable mediocre film like this is one of his better ones, maybe Netflix should stop giving him multiple picture deals.

But those are my thoughts on The Longest Yard. What do you think? Have you seen the original? How does it compare to this one? Comment and Discuss Below! You can also send me your thoughts on Twitter @cmhaugen24 as well as send me your requests for films I should review in the future. If you follow me on Twitter, you can get updates on future movie news and reviews coming out of this blog.

I'll leave you with this. It's a little bit strange to think how old Burt Reynolds is. It was a big deal earlier this year when he made a rare appearance for the new movie that came out earlier this year, Dog Years. I mean the guy is 81... good for him you know. Enjoy!


Saturday, July 15, 2017

War Machine


For some reason I have been really focused on Netflix originals over the past few weeks. I guess there's a lot of original content that has come out of the streaming service and I've wanted to check some of it out. I personally love the idea of Netflix, Amazon, Hulu, and other streaming services coming out with their own content because you get a whole lot of strange movies and TV shows. Some of them are good, some of them are not so good, but you still get something different.

War Machine was a film that really came out of no where for me. Of course the big draw of the film is the fact that Brad Pitt stars in it, but when I did more research, I figured out that the movie is loosely based on the career of General Stanley McChrystal. If you follow me on Twitter, you'll know that I'm interested in politics and the military just as much as I am interested in film so War Machine definitely was multiple interests coming together.

War Machine follows the story of General Glen McMahon (played by Pitt). He is appointed by President Obama to go to Afghanistan, take over the Joint Forces, and end the war. With him, he takes an entourage full of colorful generals and colonels, some of them are based off of actual people the same way McMahon is based off of McChrystal.

The film takes a look at a man who really only knows war and has the ambition to be the one to end a war that had been going on for close to a decade. His plan to do that though requires a surge of troops and a whole lot of money and attention coming directly from the President, someone McMahon doesn't get a lot of face time with.

The great part about the film is that it is a satirical film. The acting and the characters are over the top and ridiculous, nothing like the people that they are portraying. While the mannerisms and characteristics might be hyperbolized, it still brings home a couple of really interesting points about the War in Afghanistan on both sides of the argument.

The truth is that the movie has a pretty anti-war message, especially near the end, but it does point out a lot of the hypocrisy and poor decisions and outlooks made by both McMahon and his men, AND the Obama administration.

Cameron from Ferris Bueller's Day Off actually has a role as a member of the Obama administration and he's one of the biggest assholes of the movie because they do point out that the administration had no intentions of winning the war as much as they did getting the United States out of it. There's even a scene where McMahon is straight up stiffed by the President of the United States. For someone who is supposed to be put in charge of the War in Afghanistan, they do make a point to how infrequently the President met with his top general. Now I don't know how much of it is true and how much of it is leaning into the satire, but the movie does pull some truth dropping humor throughout and it really hinges on Brad Pitt.

There are a lot of fun characters in this movie and there are a lot of celebrities involved. Ben Kingsley plays an incompetent version of Hamid Karzai the President of Afghanistan and it is hilarious!

But the obvious star of the film is Pitt. McMahon is a bit of a goofy guy. He walks funny, he doesn't seem very bright at times, and he never really gets the message that the movie is trying to flaunt in front of him. And yet you get really connected to him and there's a lot of sympathy you start to feel towards his character. There's actually another cameo where it's stated to his face that he's a good man, but his methods and his ambition may get in the way and cause a lot of violence and deaths in a war that was very unpopular around the world.

As stated before, as much as they try to throw in some jabs about Obama and his handling of the War in Afghanistan, this movie has a pretty one sided message and it's pretty anti-war.

But the thing that makes War Machine really stand out from other war films is that with the exception of a really great scene near the end where they follow a Marine platoon in a mission in Afghanistan (with members played by Will Poulter and Keith Stanfield), the majority of the movie focuses on the generals that are making decisions at the top for these Soldiers.

Now I will say that their representation of war isn't exactly accurate and it's done that way to make a point, however, I did find it interesting that the majority of this movie was centered on Generals who barely go anywhere near combat. There does seem to be a disconnect between the troops and the generals pushing for more war efforts in the country. Again, it goes into the idea of McMahon having a perspective that isn't exactly bad or evil, just misguided. It's part of the reason the character is sympathetic and funny.

And that's another thing I appreciated about this film.

I remember when McChrystal was fired. The media coverage on the firing was not flattering and it kind of painted McChrystal as insubordinate and unprofessional. I don't know how much of the facts of McChrystal's firing carried over into the depiction in War Machine, but it made me wonder how much of the firing was McChrystal being unprofessional, and how much of it was political and just poor media coverage. War Machine gives a little bit more fair look at the entire career of the 4-Star General. It doesn't really paint him as unprofessional, it just paints him as out of his league when it came to the politics of war and how it was never really about winning or even fighting a war, it was about the politics of it.

I don't know, maybe I'm misinterpreting it, but it made me want to read more into the McChrystal firing because while the movie does not pull any punches on the character of McMahon, it also doesn't paint a great picture of Obama's foreign policy and his handling of the War in Afghanistan.

But all politics aside, I thought that War Machine was a really funny and poignant movie. It had a great message and it executed it in a way that was very enjoyable. If you're a fan of satire, you're definitely going to like War Machine. I've discussed this film with liberals and conservatives and heard praise on both ends. Regardless of political affiliations, I get the feeling most people are going to enjoy, War Machine.

But those are my thoughts, what did you think? What do you think of Netflix's original content? Are they creating the right stuff? Is it high quality to you? Comment and Discuss below! You can also send me your thoughts on Twitter @cmhaugen24 as well as send me your requests for films I should review in the future. If you follow me on Twitter, you can get updates on future movie news and reviews coming out of this blog.

I'll leave you with this. Like I said, I've been watching a lot of Netflix originals as of late. Here's what I'm looking forward to later this month. Enjoy!


Sunday, July 9, 2017

Sense8 Season 1


Sense8 has always been a combination of something very original and intriguing, and something poorly written and over pretentious. This was my sentiment even before the July 4th weekend where I binge watched all 12 episodes of the first season. This has been my and many other people's sentiment of the Wachowskis for many of their projects in the past. 

The directors of The Matrix and it's lesser sequels, the Wachowskis have had a long career spanning multiple movies, two gender transitions, and a wide range of critical reception. Looking at their IMDB page, I realize that their careers were defined early by the expansive universe of the Matrix. These two were involved with The Matrix for so long and not just in the movies but in the video games, and animated pictures that went along with it. I can understand that they would want to transition to something different. And to be honest, they haven't had as nearly as toxic a career as someone like M. Night. Shyamalan or Michael Bay. V for Vendetta is a great movie and the Wachowskis were involved with writing the screenplay. I've written two posts on Cloud Atlas and it continues to be a movie I like to re-watch, not necessarily because it's a phenomenal movie but because the ideas ad way it's portrayed is so interesting. There is of course Jupiter Ascending... I'm gonna be honest, there's not a lot I can do to explain that dumpster fire but one bad movie doesn't necessarily destroy a director's career, maybe Sense8 is something different. 

Sense8 is a TV series on Netflix. It follows the stories of 8 individuals from different parts of the
world who, after a tragic death by a mysterious woman, start to realize that they are connected telepathically. They can communicate with one another from miles away and they can even call upon the skills and expertise of one another to help out each other in time of need. The story mainly centers on the personal struggles these two are going through, all with an underlying plot concerning a deeper conspiracy to capture Sensates by a mysterious man (played by Terrence Mann).

All these characters are different and have their own struggles they go through in their own part of the world. You've got Will (played by Brian J Smith) who plays a cop from Chicago. Then there's Nomi (played by Jamie Clayton) a transgender hacker and blogger. Sun (played by Doona Bae) a Korean business woman with a family in the midst of corporate crimes. Lito (played by Miguel Silvestre) a Mexican actor who is still in the closet about his sexuality despite having a romantic relationship with another man. Wolfgang (played by Max Riemelt) a safe cracker trying to score big with his friend in the criminal life of Germany. Riley (played by Tuppence Middleton) a DJ from Iceland dealing with a shady and tragic past. Capheus (played by Amel Ameen) a taxi driver from Nairobi trying to help his mother who is dying of AIDs. And Kala (played by Tina Desai) a pharmacist from India who is going into a marriage to a man who she does not love.

If it sounds like those are a lot of characters with a lot of plot lines that really don't connect to a larger sci fi plot, you wouldn't be wrong. Good sci fi is never fully about the science fiction plot, it takes in the characters, their problems and trials, and ties it into a larger goal or conflict. An example of when this is done right is Stranger Things. The main story was the disappearance of Will Byers and while the entire show was trying to find him and uncover the mystery of his disappearance and the upside down, the show still took some time to develop the characters outside of the supernatural and sci fi elements of the story. Sense8 takes that time... and then some and at a certain point you kind of forget what the overarching plot is while you're watching these people live their lives.

And that wouldn't bother me so much... if not for a couple of reasons.

1. The science fiction plot is actually kind of intriguing. The opening scene focuses on Daryl Hannah's mysterious character as well as Naveen Andrews. It's obvious there's something supernatural happening and as the scene ends, you know that there is something bigger going on. But while most sci fi shows would continue to remind you of the over arching science fiction plot that a lot of people, like myself, came to watch this show for, Sense8 really puts that on the back burner and because of it, I'm still not totally sure what Naveen Andrew's whole deal is, what Terrence Mann is doing in this show, and how it all connects these 8 people. All I know is the individual stories of these 8 people. And I'll be fair, the actors in this show are pretty good and I did start to care about these characters because of the acting. But each one of these people could be the focus of their own Netflix drama. I would watch a 10 episode series on Capheus, a poor guy from Nairobi who gets caught up in some dangerous people to get his mother AIDs medication. The list goes on. But for some reason the Wachowskis thought that it was necessary to have all these random people on this show for what reason? There's supposed to be some big message about empathy and the interconnectedness of humanity. And I get it, but it's a really thin moral to tag onto this very original sci fi and cast of very good actors.

2. The script is not very good. I'm just going to put it out there. And a lot of it is because of this heavy handed message the Wachowskis are trying to get across throughout 12 episodes that they really only needed one for.

A lot of people who praise this show on the internet make mention that they love how diverse the cast is and how it's such a multicultural cast. And don't get me wrong, I think having multicultural casts is a good thing. But I don't think they should create this multicultural cast only for the sake of having a multicultural cast. Having diversity doesn't necessarily make good stories. And again, we're getting beaten over the head with their message for 12 episodes when one episode was really enough. The thing is I think I know why the Wachowskis do this, because it's not just Sense8 that does this. Heavy handed messages happened in V for Vendetta, Cloud Atlas, and Jupiter Ascending. For some reason the Wachowskis really want to push for some big philosophical message because that's where they've seen their biggest success.

The Wachowskis have had a pretty successful career all things considered. Yes there is Jupiter Ascending (and I honestly don't know if Speed Racer was good) but overall, I can't say I've hated more than half of their movies, which is a lot more than you can say for a lot of directors. In every movie where they have had to write dialogue, it has been bloated with philosophical exposition and beats the audience over the head with really heavy handed messages. It was definitely the case with
the Matrix with long winded speeches from characters who are obviously religious allusions, and philosophical rants that sound really smart but in reality aren't. In V for Vendetta, this worked for the advantage of the movie because that was an overly political movie and the philosophical dialogue about the follies of a government that takes too much power actually worked towards the revolutionary themes and atmosphere. But the Wachowskis really started to hedge their bets with Cloud Atlas where there were long winded philosophical speeches that felt unhinged and out of place. It's very much like Shyamalan where something is clearly an allusion to some kind of religious figure or philosophical belief that the Wachowskis obviously believe in but it's almost like we got hit in the head with that philosophy and the Wachowskis are in the background yelling, "ASK ME WHAT IT MEANS!!!!!"

I think because the Matrix blew up in such a huge way where there were philosophy books written about the universe the Wachowskis built, they believed that success is defined by large universe building and philosophical impact instead of cohesive and comprehensive story telling. They started to take a downturn with Cloud Atlas, they really missed the mark with Jupiter Ascending, and they went full bananas with Sense8.

So going back to the script. This show is written really, really horribly. Almost every single episode is so preachy with some kind of reference back to how we're all connected and we need to find the beauty and connection in life. And this is a shame because the characters are well written. I know that sounds counter-intuitive, but the characters are created so that you do care about them. That is difficult as you have 8 very unique characters and yet they are able to create stories that made me care about these people and how they were going to deal with their problems.

How they deal with their problems is another story.

First off, these characters start seeing each other in very awkward and strange places. Instead of freaking out that there's a naked German guy in front of her, Kala immediately falls in love with this guy but yet continues to string along this really nice Indian guy who just wants to take care of her.

And that was the thing that confused me the most was you had these characters seeing the supernatural, seeing things that in reality aren't there, and just kind of shrugging it off.

And here's the thing. If the Wachowskis just wanted to do a show about people dealing with their problems and having a sci fi element to it, I think that would have been okay. This should would have done okay just having these people go about their business and eventually call on one another in their struggles.

But then you've got this overarching plot line with Naveen Andrews and Terrence Mann.

I like both these actors. I loved Andrews in Lost. He's probably one of my favorite characters in the show.

Terrence Mann doesn't have much of a filmography but that's because he's more of a theater actor. He's been the Beast in Beauty and the Beast and he's been Javert in Les Miserable. If anything, he has a really great singing voice. And while that isn't really relevant to his performance in Sense8, it did make me interested in his contribution to the show.

Unfortunately, these two really take a back seat to a Korean lady getting her period and a Mexican actor feeling it. And I'm saying that that's not an interesting concept, but from the beginning I was promised some kind of big conspiracy that started with these two and even at the end of the first season you're still not totally sure what Terrence Mann's deal is or what else is to come. Instead I am shown an orgy scene with basically the whole cast. Not kidding, there's an orgy scene in this show. On a side note, that scene really came out of no where and it happened with a bunch of characters who hadn't really met one another yet. In reality, things should have been SUPER awkward after, like so much that these people would probably never want to sensate with one another again, and that happened in the 3rd of 4th episode so it would have made this series a lot shorter.

Did I hate Sense8? No. For a show with a lot of exposition and long winded speeches, I did have a couple of moments throughout the series where I was genuinely entertained.

With the exception of Wolfgang and Kala which I thought was just a really pointless relationship with no foundation whatsoever, I actually thought the relationships were pretty genuine. I'm not just talking about the sexual ones, there were a lot of genuine moments between the characters and you can see a connection starting to form between them in the first season. There are heterosexual relationships in this show but there are also homosexual relationships, and trans relationships, and I do have to agree with some of the reviews I've read where they do portray all types of relationships pretty equally. Lito, the Mexican actor who is gay has a female friend who he had been using as a girlfriend to hide his relationship with his boyfriend Hernando. Not only is his relationship with Hernando genuine, but the relationship he and Hernando develop with this woman when she figures out Lito is gay. Erendira Ibarra by the way is absolutely gorgeous. And that's another thing, maybe this is just a hollywood thing but everyone in this show is really gorgeous people. Some may criticize the Wachowskis for doing that, I personally think it's a trick of the trade and you really can't get too worked up about that.

The action is pretty good in the show. I was actually surprised how violent and gory this show actually is. If you're squeamish around blood or don't like a lot of violent action, you may want to skip Sense8. This does however create a little bit of a problem because you've got these characters who don't know how to fight and they find themselves in situations where they need to fight. And this actually happens a lot in the show. So because they're all connected, they can call upon the skills of one of the other sensates to help them out. Now the problem comes with the fact that Sun is very proficient with martial arts. Because of this, I felt multiple moments where I was just yelling at the screen saying, just call on the Korean lady! And this happens a lot! Sure, near the end they start showing some of the other skills from the other characters, but in all actuality, this probably could have been a show with the cop, the korean lady, and the hacker.

The other thing I will praise the show on is the cinematography. This show is very well shot. The Wachowskis are a lot of things, but I would never say they're bad at shooting a scene. That being said, the opening credits to this show are probably the worst opening credits I have ever seen. They do not tell you at all about the show, they're just random clips from different parts of the world. Sure it looks pretty and with the music you are looking for some kind of hidden meaning... but there is none. It's absolutely pointless. I honestly couldn't stand these opening credits. Just watch them and tell me how they're related to anything that happens in the show.


I am not going to continue watching Sense8. The main reason I wanted to check out the show was because it recently got cancelled. This caused a huge uproar from a fan base I didn't know existed. I knew a couple of people that posted on Facebook that they loved Sense8, but they were very few and far between. But the uproar when the show got cancelled was so big that Netflix decided to give the fans a two hour film conclusion to the show that may have been left on a cliffhanger at the end of season 2? Regardless, I wanted to binge watch the show and see what all the fuss was about and the truth is, it didn't hook me.

The main reason I made it through all 12 episodes was because I wanted to write something about this show and usually if I make it past the 3rd episode, I get a little irate if I don't know the conclusion to something. So that says something about the show.

But the main praises I've heard of this show is that it has a multicultural cast, it's very inclusive, and the message is powerful. In essence, everyone who loves this show loves it because it is social justice theater. It has transgender actors in it so it must be good right? It has a diverse cast so it must be good right? It portrays heterosexual and homosexual relationships equally so it must be good right? Wrong. The best parts of this show is when its genuine, not when it's trying to be grandiose or super meaningful.

There's a scene late in the season where Lito is talking about the first time he met his boyfriend and Nomi talks about an incident when she was a young boy in school. The scene takes place in two stories of the two remembering these particular experiences. Lito's story full of exposition and almost poetic descriptions of his experience, while Nomi's story is simple and pretty much to the point. While both are annoying in that they're monologues that freshmen in college are going to be doing in their acting classes for years, Lito's story really bored me while I actually felt the emotion and heart break in Nomi's story. One was genuine and one was not and it's very obvious in this show when something is being explained for the sake of having that philosophical higher meaning to it, and when actual storytelling is happening.

I'll give the credit to the Wachowskis for being able to pull it off some times, but the amount of times where they're just loving the smell of their own farts is just too much for me. And if you identify with this show, that's fine, to each his own. But I personally thought the show as pretentious and more focused on the fluff rather than the substance.

But that's what I thought of Sense8. What about you? Did you enjoy the show? Are you sad about it being cancelled? Am I missing out by not going and watching the 2nd season? Comment and Discuss below! You can also send me your thoughts on Twitter @cmhaugen24 as well as send me your requests for movies and TV shows I should review in the future. If you follow me on Twitter, you can get updates on future movie news and reviews coming out of this blog as well as occasional live tweets from movies and shows I'm watching.

I'll leave you with this. Totally different note, did you know that Rick and Morty Season 3 is starting up later this month!!! I'M SO PUMPED! Enjoy!