The Reel World

It’s October, so that means all the studios and streaming services are going to be unleashing some spooky new releases to please their viewers who are attempting to get into the Halloween spirit. This weekend Amazon Prime is releasing Totally Killer, a Blumhouse production that continues to ride the wave of 80s nostalgia with a time travel slasher film. The trailers looked fun and with Kiernan Shipka (The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina) in the lead, and I’m always in the mood for a new slasher with franchise potential. Does the film deliver the goods, or is this one dead on arrival? It’s time to strap in and travel back to 1987 and see what this is all about. In 1987 the town of North Vernon was terrorized by the “the Sweet 16 Killer” after he killed three high school girls, stabbing them sixteen times each. 35 years later, Pam (Julie Bowen) still hasn’t gotten over the murder of her three friends and has become very protective of her teenage daughter, Jamie (Kiernan Shipka).

The first Paw Patrol movie opened up in August of 2021 during the pandemic era where barely anyone wanted to go anywhere that wasn't a grocery store (because somehow that was safe).  It still managed to pull in forty million domestic and another hundred million internationally.  With the built in audience from the television series, a sequel was almost a no-brainer.  I remember taking my family to go see the first Paw Patrol (the theater was quite bare) and actually enjoying it quite a bit.  It certainly helped to bring all of the key elements from the television series and produce something that wasn't nauseating and over-the-top.  However, sequels of movies based on popular properties often go the wrong direction.  Let's see what the Mighty Pups have in store for us in their second outing.

“Then we have something in common. You aren’t going to heaven because you aren’t a good person, and I’m not going because I’m not a person.”

So, this film focuses on a interesting viewpoint: what if Skynet weren’t the bad guys? In this Gareth Edwards directed film, John David Washington plays a hardened ex-soldier, grieving the disappearance of his wife, who is recruited to hunt down and assassinate the Creator, an elusive architect responsible for creation of advanced artificial intelligence that humanity has been at war with since a nuclear attack years earlier. Sound familiar? As previously mentioned, while one can draw parallels between the early events of this film and the future that Sarah Connor tried to prevent for her son, in that story, artificial intelligence becoming sentient was the cause; in The Creator, AI appears to be on the losing side of the battle with humanity. Score one for humanity. As a result, they only have one refuge: Asia, or to be more precise, New Asia.

"Batman's a fascist!"

Let's address the elephant in the room, shall we? Hello there, big guy. How ya doing? There now let's continue. I have to tell you it was hard to get motivated to watch Blue Beetle. I didn't want to like it, and I wanted to try to watch it without letting myself get too involved in the whole thing. This had nothing to do with the character. I know little about him and have only read a few comics featuring the character, mostly the Ted Kord character along with his buddy Booster Gold. But none of this had anything to do with my reluctance on the part of the film. It's Warner Brothers/DC and James Gunn. All we've been hearing lately is how this new regime is going to change EVERYTHING. It all starts with the upcoming Superman film, and everything we see before then is merely filler, I guess. Yes, the Snyderverse had a ton of issues, and I'm frankly glad to see it go away. But the franchise had some solid moments and pretty strong characters and actors starting with Gal Gadot as a powerfully compelling Wonder Woman. Yeah, the second movie sucked, but that had nothing to do with the actress or the character.

Been waiting on this one for some time, ever since we were introduced to the character in the Justice League movie and it was announced that the film would cover the Flashpoint Paradox storyline, which is one of my favorite comic storylines. My enthusiasm was tempered a bit with the film being delayed and the actor’s subsequent troubles (for the purposes of staying on the topic at hand, that will be my only mention of that situation). However, it is finally here, and after viewing it I can say that it was well done and well received. It is also a bit bittersweet, as it signifies the conclusion of the DCEU as we know it. While I have complete confidence that the future of DC is safe in James Gunn’s hands, it is difficult to say farewell to the only thing that we’ve known since Cavill first donned the suit. Back on topic: in my opinion, while this adaptation does have some slight deviations from the source material, I can confidently say that the film does the source material justice (pun intended).

"Where the hell did you come from?”

When you consider just how many films have been made about Bram Stoker’s novel “Dracula”, I’m surprised it has taken this long to get a film like The Last Voyage of the Demeter. I’m not a huge fan of the novel, but the chapter that centers around Dracula’s voyage from Carpathia to London is a section that I always enjoyed. It’s a chapter told through journal entries from the captain of the ship and how the crew is killed one by one by a mysterious menace aboard the ship. In the movies that have come before, this moment of the film is usually mentioned as an afterthought or simply gets a couple minutes of screen time. So is this the fresh take on the beloved horror icon that cinema-goers have been waiting for, or is this just a lame attempt to revive the vampire genre?

"Of all the threats you've faced from your past and future, you've never faced anything like this."

In 2018 the Transformers franchise began something of a ... well ... transformation. Michael Bay stepped down as the franchise director while maintaining a producer role. The focus also shifted from the continuing story started with the first film and transitioned to the idea of standalone films set within the general continuity established from the beginning. The new focus also allowed the films to go to different times in the mythology. So Bumblebee became more than just a Transformers film. It was a rather charming 1980's period piece  and it was actually a better movie than some of the original run. That tradition is continued with Transformers: Rise of the Beasts. The film is rather loosely based on the Beasts Wars story from the early cartoons and takes us back, but a decade later than Bumblebee. Now we're in 1994, and a couple of your film favorites have returned for the next chapter in the Transformers legacy.

-“This mansion is unhinged. She needs all the help she can get. You wanna be a hero?”

-“Pass.”

-“Two thousand dollars.”

-“What's the address?”

I think Disney got it right this time. Or least they did from my perspective. Twenty years ago, they attempted to create a film adaptation from one of their popular attractions: The Haunted Mansion. Recruiting a top-level talent like Eddie Murphy, it appeared that it would be a success. However, the film was considered a critical failure, but a decent box office success. The 2003 adaptation was described as lifeless, as well as neither scary nor funny. Granted, in recent years the film has undergone a reassessment, joining the likes of Clue, The Monster Squad, and Hocus Pocus, similar dark-yet-broadly-comical films that were initially received poorly before finding an appreciative audience.

“Now, I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.” 

It is hard to ignore the hype around the film Oppenheimer. Any time a Christopher Nolan film has come out, it has become a pretty big deal for cinema fans, whether it was for his The Dark Knight trilogy, Interstellar, Inception, or Tenet, his films carry the same kind of respect alongside the names of Stanley Kubrick and James Cameron, and his films can be just as divisive. But the anticipation for the release of Oppenheimer feels like a different beast entirely. The release coming out the same day as Barbie has created such a stir on the internet that the term Barbenheimer has become a part of the zeitgeist of modern day. Then another aspect is how the film was literally shot on 70mm film, which is unheard of in today’s digital-hungry climate, and the film is being released in certain theaters on 70mm prints that reportedly weigh around 600lbs.

"It's called the Impossible Mission Force for a reason."

I imagine this is how it happened. It's January of 2019, and Tom Cruise has just popped into the bathroom to shave. He opens up that can of Barbasol just to make sure there isn't any dinosaur DNA left in the can, but as he takes off the cap, an authoritative voice begins to speak: “Good morning, Mr. Cruise. Your mission, should you decide to accept it, is to make a two part film of the Mission Impossible franchise. It won't be easy. That's why only the IMF team can be counted on to complete this task. There are agents out to stop you before you even get started. In China there is a virus code-name: Wuhan, and this virus will spread to pandemic levels just as you're starting to get your production crew together. Elements within our own government will take measures to shut you down.  Delays will cost an extra $100 million and necessitate crucial cast changes.