Once upon a time, the Saw franchise was cinematically synonymous with Halloween weekend. For seven consecutive years, from 2004 through 2010, a new Saw film thrilled and terrorized horror lovers around the world with its combination of intricate and inventive traps, psychologically complex characters, and massive mythology. Within my own circles, I frequently referred to the property... Continue Reading →
Original US release date: June 26, 1981 Production budget: $14,000,000 Worldwide gross: $31,206,251 After the huge success of 1979's The Muppet Movie (for which I have already done a #ThrowbackThursday, which can be found here), a theatrical follow-up of some sort was virtually inevitable. The fun thing about the Muppets property is that the characters and their... Continue Reading →
Tomas Alfredson's The Snowman is the first film featured in my Ten Fourth-Quarter 2017 Films to be Excited About! column to be released, alongside A24's The Killing of a Sacred Deer, which hits limited release, this weekend, as well. I've actually been more excited for the latter - especially after seeing that the reviews for The Snowman were far... Continue Reading →
Original US release date: December 22, 1989 Production budget: $14,000,000 Worldwide gross: $161,001,698 For the second week in a row, #ThrowbackThursday features a Tom Cruise film. That's not by design (though I can tell you that more are on the way, at some point) and, unlike last week's featured movie, I had never seen Born on... Continue Reading →
Once again, family commitments kept me from catching this one over opening weekend, but I went out of my way on a Monday to try my best to stay current with as many new releases as I can manage. From the first trailer for Happy Death Day, I thought this Groundhog Day-meets-Final Destination-meets-Scream concept looked fun... Continue Reading →
Original US release date: June 21, 2002 Production budget: $102,000,000 Worldwide gross: $358,372,926 I actually wasn't excited about the release of Steven Spielberg's Minority Report in the summer of 2002. I liked Spielberg. I liked Cruise. But the trailer didn't appeal to me. And, even worse, it felt like I was forced to watch said trailer... Continue Reading →
I'm a pretty big tennis fan. I'm also a fairly new tennis fan. I became interested in the sport during the 2012 Summer Olympics. I turned it on for background noise as I did chores around the house, but it kept grabbing my attention. I couldn't help but notice how the players' bodies and minds... Continue Reading →
I'm not any sort of lifelong Blade Runner fan. I saw the original film for the first time about five years ago. I also haven't seen it since. I liked it fine. I just like many other films much more. For me, the most appealing aspect of Blade Runner 2049 is director Denis Villeneuve, who knocked everybody's... Continue Reading →
Original US release date: March 6, 1998 Production budget: $15,000,000 Worldwide gross: $17,451,873 Okay, I'll admit it: this is my first time seeing this movie. Honestly, it just never appealed to me. I was under the impression that the film was a litany of drug humor, which is something that has never struck a chord... Continue Reading →
I like Tom Cruise, but I wasn't particularly excited to see American Made. Heist films featuring characters knee-deep in the drug trade are increasingly more and more common and rarely distinguish themselves from each other with enough regularity or creativity to warrant their production. I was busy with family over the weekend and couldn't get out... Continue Reading →
The Movie March! 