If it’s not broken, don’t fix it. Or alter it in any way? This is generally the studio approach to creative decision-making, and from a purely commercial standpoint, it makes sense. So much effort is spent finding something which works the first time, why take risks with reinvention? Sure it impacts longevity, but weighed against …
Movies
If you were ever a kid, and we assume you were, you probably know about Dr. Dolittle, the man who could talk to animals. Hugh Lofting’s tales are almost a century old, and you might have even seen the 1967 Rex Harrison film. This time around, Robert Downey Jr. takes on the role in a …
January tends to be a dumping ground for movies. Everyone’s wrapped up in awards talk, and studios are busy pushing their films for Oscar consideration. Sometimes, as a critic, I wonder if studios can walk and chew gum at the same time, much less release a big-budget action film in January while trying to navigate …
Waaaayyyy back in what we call the Golden Age of Hollywood, it wouldn’t be unusual for studios to only release 50 or 60 films and maybe only a few more than 100 worldwide. Now, that number is generally surpassed by the end of the first quarter of each year. With that giant upswing in content …
Deep in the Marianas Trench, a group of subsea workers are drilling into the Earth’s crust 7 miles underwater. However, catastrophe strikes when some unknown force destroys their facility. A small group of survivors is all that remains of the crew. Stranded with no hope of rescue, they come up with a desperate plan. They must make …
Hopefully, you read the first part of our 2020 Oscar nominations predictions, so you already know they will be announced on the morning of Monday, January 13. The Cut-off for Academy members to submit ballots was yesterday, Tuesday, January 7, so we should already be in the tabulation part of the Oscar process. But let’s …
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences will announce the 2020 Oscar nominations on the morning of Monday, January 13, and it should be an exciting year with so many great movies of different sizes and varieties. Sure, there have been some mega-blockbusters and a few smaller mini-blockbusters, but there have also been a …
Little Women has been both a marvel and a frustration since it was written. An immortal story of young women growing to adulthood shorn of cliché and romanticism and replacing it with simple humanism and the feel of a moment captured in time. It’s so powerful that it’s as compelling today as it was 150 …
Spies in Disguise opens in theaters on Christmas Day, and VitalThrills.com recently got a chance to attend a roundtable discussion with directors Troy Quane and Nick Bruno, as well as star Masi Oka (Heroes). We learned all about how this is a love letter to spy movies, the worst thing Oka’s character, Kimura, has ever …
In the run-up to the release of Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker and the end of the Skywalker Saga, we took a look back at all of the Saga films and re-evaluated them and their legacy as a whole. You can start at the beginning with A New Hope by clicking here. Star Wars: …