I Still Believe in Heroes

             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...

            We live in an era where remakes and sequels of beloved films are constantly coming out. Every once in a while, a classic or a highly popular film gets remade and it turns out so bad that people claim it “ruined the original”. One such case is Rob Zombie’s remake of John Carpenter’s 1978 horror classic, Halloween. The purpose of this article is twofold. As always, I want to encourage readers to watch a classic film. With this article, however, I also want to try and dispel this notion that bad remakes/sequels ruin the original film.              John Carpenter’s original is widely considered to be a masterpiece and one of the founders of the slasher sub-genre. The story is a relatively simple one. It starts off in Haddonfield, Illinois in 1963 on Halloween night where a 6-year-old Michael Myers kills his older sister shortly after she has finished having ...

                  Director Ava Duvernay is back, this time helming Disney’s live-action adaptation of Madeleine L’Engle’s book, A Wrinkle in Time .The famed director made history with this film when she became the first female African-American director to helm a live-action film with a budget of over $100 million and only the third female director overall to achieve that budget. The film boasts an impressive cast that includes Oprah Winfrey, Reese Witherspoon, Mindy Kaling, Chris Pine and is led by Storm Reid. The film starts off with a short scene in which a young Meg (Reid) is spending time with her dad, Dr. Alex Murry (Pine). The film then jumps ahead to the present day where the four-year anniversary of Dr. Murry’s mysterious disappearance approaches. The first act moves quickly and it hastily portrays Meg as an outkast struggling to understand why her father left her family. Her 6-year-old genius brother ...