Jack Sparrow is taken, body and soul, to a place not of death, but punishment. The worst fate a person can bring upon himself. Stretching on forever. That?s what awaits at Davy Jones? locker. Theologians have long debated the existence and nature of Hell. Tia Darma’s words (meant to explain why she could bring back…
Asa Butterfield has been making films since he was nine years old, with big names and big themes like?Hugo,?Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children,?and?The Boy in the Striped Pajamas. Now, he returns to the setting of his sci-fi epic?Ender’s Game:?space. With a script from Allan Loeb (Collateral Damage), Butterfield plays Gardner Elliott, the first child…
Just days before Gal Gadot will hit the big screen, reprising Lynda Carter’s terrific role, Warner Bros. re-releases the commemorative edition of the animated feature film,?Wonder Woman. Originally released direct-to-DVD in 2009, and written by Gail Simone (based on legendary George Perez’s storyline “Gods and Mortals”), the story features the voice work of Keri Russell,…
The Curse of the Black Pearl began with a ditty created by?George Edward Bruns and?Francis Xavier Atencio for the Pirates of the Caribbean attraction at Disneyland. Dead Man’s Chest early on uses Robert Louis Stevenson’s “Dead Man’s Chest” from Treasure Island. Can you build good movies from ditties? I will leave that for the viewer…
There is an interesting exchange between Will Turner and Jack Sparrow as they are walking underwater, using a small boat to create an air pocket. As they approach the?Dauntless, Will quips, ?This is either madness or brilliance.? Jack replies, ?It?s remarkable how often those two traits coincide.? Pirates of the Caribbean, The Curse of the…
Janine “Smurf” Cody (Ellen Barkin) runs her family with an iron fist. She’s the mother and grandmother to a handful of young men who run her Southern California crime syndicate for her. Joshua “J” Cody (Finn Cole) is our audience viewpoint into the family, as he’s adopted by Smurf after Cody’s mother (and Smurf’s daughter)…
It is rare that a film can seem to be poetry, and that may be even more difficult when the film has no dialogue. Yet The Red Turtle manages to be just that.
I am a big proponent of Warner Bros Entertainment animated DC films. They do a way better job in storytelling and screenplay than any of the latest live-action films. The downside really is that as animated films, they aren?t all for the entire family. For instance, the Batman films are darker and bloodier and shouldn?t…
In the latest family fare from Jonathan Aibel and Glenn Berger (Trolls, Kung Fu Panda?trilogy,?Alvin and the Chipmunks 2?and?3), Lucas Till (MacGuyver) plays Tripp, a high school mechanic who discovers a subterranean creature he nicknames Creech, who drinks oil and lives in the hood of his truck. Displaced by the fracking operation run by Tenneson…
Based on Patrick Ness’ novel of the same name, and adapted by a Siobhan Dowd story idea,?A Monster Calls?is a live-action/animated/CGI masterpiece that shares the life and internal struggle of a tween named Conor O’Malley (Lewis MacDougall). Wrestling with his mother’s (Felicity Jones) battle with?a terminal illness, his overbearing grandmother (Sigourney Weaver),?his absentee father (Toby…
