There are good films, there are bad films, and there are the worst films — the cinematic equivalents of a five-talent ballplayer who never gets out of the minors. They sound good on paper but just never live up to their potential. Last Christmas is one of those films that should be so much better …
Movies
Martin Scorsese is no stranger to the gangster genre. While his oeuvre stretches across almost the entire breadth of 20th-century American cinema (no Western on there… yet), it’s no accident that he is primarily associated with his forays into crime film. They are the touchstones around which his career has been built and — fairly …
If the Terminator films have taught us anything, it’s that freezing an object makes it brittle and easily broken, and putting it back together again requires a lot of molten steel to come pouring out of the smelter you’ve just driven a tanker truck into. At least one of those observations is pertinent to Terminator: …
Mike Flanagan’s Doctor Sleep joins a rapidly rising tidal wave of Stephen King adaptations Hollywood has been releasing in recent years. While the direct sequel to both The Shining novel and movie opens and expands upon the lore within the story’s universe, it does take the film a while to pick up steam. I swear, …
What makes Maleficent: Mistress of Evil so boring? Is it the ramshackle plot that flits from character to character, building up a giant climax without stakes or interest? Is it the strangeness of grafting large action pieces and violent character death onto children’s story characters? Is it the focus on world-building and mythology over character …
Unlike the Twinkie (supposedly), zombie movies don’t seem to have an expiration date. And so we get Zombieland: Double Tap, a 10-years-later sequel to 2009’s Zombieland that, at first blush, doesn’t seem to be a movie we necessarily needed or wanted. Ruben Fleischer’s original film was an enjoyable comedy with some fun, gnarly zombie kills and …
Avengers: Damage Control is a brand new virtual reality experience from Marvel Studios and ILMxLAB. We recently had a chance to check out a press preview day. The experience is coming to select locations at The VOID starting October 18 for a limited time. Tickets for the four-week event are available now at TheVoid.com. If …
Another important aspect of Sam Mendes’ 1917, besides the amazing camerawork to make it all a single shot, is the two soldiers that the story follows. The two 1917 soldiers include Schofield, played by George MacKay, and Blake, played by Dean-Charles Chapman. MacKay is the better-known of the two actors, having co-starred with Viggo Mortensen in …
For all the questions about the nature of humanity inherent in the premise, no one has yet made a good movie about cloning. From The 6th Day to Never Let Me Go to even Parts: The Clonus Horror or Duncan Jones’ superior Moon, everyone who comes into contact with the subject seems to prefer it …
Last week, Vital Thrills attended a special New York Comic Con panel held by Universal Pictures to preview Sam Mendes’ upcoming World War I film 1917, which will be released on Christmas Day. Mendes was joined on the panel by co-writer Krysty Wilson-Cairns, producer Pippa Harris, cinematographer Roger Deakins and two of the primary cast: George …