I Still Believe in Heroes

Photo via Lionsgate Carlos Lopez Estrada makes his feature film debut with  Blindspotting , a timely drama starring Daveed Diggs and Rafael Casal. The film, which was co-written by Diggs and Casal, is perhaps one of the most important films that anyone can see given today’s social climate. The story follows Collin (Diggs) in the months following his release from prison. With three days remaining on his probation, all he has to do is stay out of trouble in order to be a free man. That proves to be easier said than done with his troublemaking best friend, Miles (Casal), hanging around him all the time. After witnessing a police officer fatally shooting an African-American man, Collin’s world gets flipped upside-down and he finds himself re-evaluating his relationship with Miles.             For a film that is 95 minutes long,  Blindspotting  has a lot of moving pieces, all of which are excellently develope...

Peyton Reed is back to direct  Ant-Man and the Wasp , the sequel to his 2015 surprise hit,  Ant-Man . The film takes place roughly two years after the events of  Captain America: Civil War , which saw Scott Lang (Paul Rudd) get arrested for helping Captain America during the airport battle in Germany. Lang, who has been under house arrest since  Civil War , now finds himself focusing on being a better father instead of being a superhero. When Hank (Michael Douglas) and Hope (Evangeline Lily) come to Scott with an urgent new mission, however, Scott must once again work outside the law and risk losing everything.  In a year that has already seen two heavy and dramatic films from the Marvel Cinematic Universe,  Ant-Man and the Wasp provides a much-needed breath of fresh air. One of the things I really appreciate about the  Ant-Man films is how small they are in scale. They are a reminder that not every superhero film needs to have serious global sta...

The great horror films are the ones that have something important to say. Yes, scares matter, but they need to amount to something. For a while, it seemed like horror films had nothing of importance to say. Scares seemed to be the ultimate goal and story was put in the backburner, and that led to a long stream of lackluster horror films. In recent years, however, we have seen genre re-defining films such as  The Conjuring , It Follows , A Quiet Place and  Get Out  restore some of the prestige that horror cinema once had.  Hereditary  is the latest film to accomplish this, and it is perhaps the most effective in doing so. Hereditary  is all about family. It’s about a family whose evil history comes back to haunt them and little by little begins to tear them apart. The film stars Toni Collette as Annie Graham, who at the beginning of the film finds herself speaking at her estranged mother’s funeral. Due to their strained relationship, Annie finds it h...

For the past ten years, the Marvel Cinematic Universe has been steadily building a world in which superheroes and supervillains could live in. In that time, audiences have seen these heroes put their lives on the line in order to save the world, over and over again. These heroes have grown and matured right before the eyes of audiences who have done the same. Fans of the MCU have invested countless hours watching and debating the events of every film within this cinematic universe. Now, a decade and 18 films later,  Avengers: Infinity War  is here to tie every single one of those films together. Directed by Joe and Anthony Russo,  Avengers: Infinity War  isn’t just a culmination of everything that Marvel has done, it is its most daring film to date. The MCU has gone beyond the physical world, having proven that these characters can travel across time, space and even different dimensions. This is the first time, however, where they attempt to bring all of that int...

             Imagine that you could take the concepts of  Final Destination and  It Follows , blend them together and then aim the end product at millennials. Make that film PG-13 and you basically get  Truth or Dare .  Truth or Dare is the latest film to come out of the Blumhouse production company, which is the same company behind last years horror mega-hit,  Get Out . While Blumhouse is responsible for giving audiences some of the very best horror films of the decade ( Get Out ,  Hush and  Sinister , among others), they have also put out films that are fun even if they aren’t very good.  Truth or Dare falls somewhere within the latter.              The film sees Lucy Hale as Olivia, a college student who embarks on the final Spring Break of her life as a student and takes a trip down to Mexico to celebrate. Joining her is her best friend,...

            It’s no secret that 2017 was an outstanding year for horror and genre films, a year which culminated in Academy awards for genre films Get Out and The Shape of Water . A Quiet Place looks to keep that momentum going as it is the first truly great horror film of 2018. Packed with as much terror as it is with emotion, this innovative tension-filled film is a stunning addition to the horror genre.             John Krasinski returns to the director’s chair for A Quiet Place , a film in which he also stars, co-wrote and executive produced. Joining Krasinski’s character, Lee, is Emily Blunt as Evelyn, Noah Jupe as Marcus, Millicent Simmonds as Regan and Cade Woodward as Beau. They make up a family living in a world that has been overtaken by ruthless monsters who are extremely sensitive to sound. In order to survive, the Abbott family is forced to live in complete s...

             In May of 2017, Universal Pictures announced that the Tom Cruise led The Mummy reboot would be the beginning of its own cinematic universe known as the Dark Universe. This cinematic universe would see Johnny Depp as the Invisible Man, Russell Crowe as Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde, Javier Bardem as Frankenstein’s monster and Angelina Jolie was long rumored to join as the monster’s bride. Those of us who love the Universal classic monster films were thrilled by this announcement. To bring such incredible talent to our beloved monster films was a sign of great things, because why would they sign on if the material was anything less than amazing? Two weeks after this announcement, The Mummy was released and it became apparent almost immediately that this new film was both the beginning and the end for the Dark Universe. 2017’s The Mummy reboot is the latest attempt to bring back the classic Universal monsters, but not the only one. In 2014, Lu...

There aren’t very many directors who have had quite the career that Steven Spielberg has. The man who directed the very first blockbuster in  Jaws , is the same man who has put together some of our most beloved films such as the E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial , Jurassic Park , Close Encounters of the Third Kind , and the Indiana Jones series. It’s the same man that, aside from giving us these wonderfully imaginative films, has also given us hard-hitting dramas such as Schindler’s List , Lincoln and Bridge of Spies . His career has spanned 50 years, and the 71-year-old director shows no signs of slowing down. With his latest film, Ready Player One , Spielberg once again delivers an awe-inspiring film that captures the wonders of the imagination. It stars Tye Sheridan as Wade Watts/Parzival, Olivia Cooke as Samantha Cook/Art3mis, Ben Mendelsohn as the villainous Sorrento and Mark Rylance as OASIS creator James Halliday. The film takes place in 2045 Columbus, Ohio. In this futuristi...

It has been five years since Guillermo del Toro’s original hit theaters, but Pacific Rim is finally back. Pacific Rim: Uprising is directed by Steven S. DeKnight, the man behind Marvel’s Daredevil series, and stars John Boyega as Jake Pentecost. Joining Boyega are fellow newcomers Scott Eastwood as Nate Lambert and Cailee Spaeny as Amara Namani. Burn Gorman, Charlie Day and Rinko Kikuchi return to reprise their roles from the original film. If you’ve never seen the original, don’t worry, Pacific Rim: Uprising does a well-enough job at filling the audience in on the events leading up to this film. Uprising picks up 10 years after the events of the original and it sets up a world that is still rebuilding after the devastating events from the war against the Kaiju. The film wastes no time in introducing the troublemaking Jake, son of fallen hero Stacker Pentecost. After running into trouble with the law, Jake is forced to train a new generation of Jaeger pilots in order...

Director and producer Greg Berlanti returns to the director’s chair for the first time since his 2010 film, Life as We Know It , to direct the new teen rom-com, Love, Simon . It is a historic film as it marks the first time a major studio has backed a teen rom-com with a gay character as the lead. It is a film that is far from perfect, but it is an incredible first step towards being more inclusive. The film stars Nick Robinson and features a great cast that includes Josh Duhamel, Jennifer Garner, Katherine Langford, Jorge Lendeborg Jr. and Keiynan Lonsdale.             Love, Simon opens up with Simon doing a quick voiceover on a montage that details how normal his life is aside from having one “huge-ass secret”. During this montage, we are introduced to all of the key characters in the film. He has a loving family, a tight group of friends and seems to do well in school. Despite all of this, Simon always seems to be at a s...