As someone who was there at the beginning of that fateful summer of 1977, I’ve ridden the highs and the lows of the Star Wars saga over the years. During that time, there have been, shall we say, some truths I’ve clung to that depended greatly on my own point of view. I’ve reevaluated these films…
Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker ends more than a franchise. It ends an era. Yes, we have The Mandalorian, and I love Baby Yoda (okay, The Child) with my entire heart, but this is bigger. A New Hope is my first conscious movie memory. Star Wars has literally changed my entire life and charted the course of…
In the run-up to the release of Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker and the end of the Skywalker Saga, we will be taking a look back at all of the Saga films and re-evaluating them and their legacy as a whole. Star Wars: Episode VII The Force Awakens The Star Wars series has long…
In the run-up to the release of Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker and the end of the Skywalker Saga, we will be taking a look back at all of the Saga films and re-evaluating them and their legacy as a whole. Star Wars: Episode III Revenge of the Sith In the look back on…
In the run-up to the release of Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker and the end of the Skywalker Saga, we will be taking a look back at all of the Saga films and re-evaluating them and their legacy as a whole. Star Wars: Episode II Attack of the Clones The transition film from the…
In the run-up to the release of Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker and the end of the Skywalker Saga, we will be taking a look back at all of the Saga films and re-evaluating them and their legacy as a whole. Star Wars: Episode I The Phantom Menace Here’s where things get weird. As much…
In the run-up to the release of Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker and the end of the Skywalker Saga, we will be taking a look back at all of the Saga films and re-evaluating them and their legacy as a whole. Star Wars: Episode VI The Return of the Jedi Now that we’ve dispensed…
In the run-up to the release of Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker and the end of the Skywalker Saga, we will be taking a look back at all of the Saga films and re-evaluating them and their legacy as a whole. Star Wars: Episode IV A New Hope Or just Star Wars. Or A…
Vital Thrills recently attended the Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker press conference. Attending were moderator Ava DuVernay, director J.J. Abrams, screenwriter Chris Terrio, Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy, as well as Daisy Ridley, Oscar Isaac, John Boyega, Adam Driver, Keri Russell, Kelly Marie Tran, Naomi Ackie, Joonas Suotamo, Anthony Daniels, Billy Dee Williams and Richard…
As a war film, 1917 doesn’t have much in the way of new ideas to offer — and maybe there aren’t any for the genre now — but it’s so elegantly crafted it takes the breath away. The story is simple: a pair of infantrymen have been given a message to deliver across nine treacherous…
Sequels need to look forward. They almost never do; it’s very difficult to conceptualize an interesting new character in the first place, and doing so out of the blue means tying them in concretely to the story of the introduction, which usually also has a concrete end. Their lives may go on, but the most…
Vital Thrills recently attended the Frozen 2 press conference and got new details about the anticipated Walt Disney Animation Studios sequel. Attending were directors Chris Buck and Jennifer Lee, as well as Frozen 2 cast members Idina Menzel, Kristen Bell, Jonathan Groff, Evan Rachel Wood, and Josh Gad, as well as composers Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez. Kristen Bell, who…
As frequently funny as it is frequently messy, the newest iteration of the Charlie’s Angels franchise has all the ingredients for success but never gets them together. A strong supporting cast, a solid vision for the film, and top-tier department heads should and occasionally do create a zippy action comedy with just enough more on…
To use a baseball metaphor, the idea of Tom Hanks playing Fred Rogers is a lot like a 70-mile-per-hour fastball pitched right across the plate to someone like Hank Aaron or Mickey Mantle – you just know that little white stitcher is long gone. Who else but Hanks to play Fred Rogers? You could cast…
In the trailer for Ford v Ferrari, Carroll Shelby (Matt Damon) takes Henry Ford Jr. (Tracy Letts) on something of a test ride in the new race car that has been built to attempt to beat Ferrari at the 24 Hours of Le Mans race in France. Shelby drives very fast, making hairpin turns, the race…
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…
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…