Posts in 2020
MOVIE REVIEW: The Lovebirds

Here’s the rub though. For “hi-jinks ensue” to work and live up to its promise, you need strong and effective events to come before and after when that phrase is planted. Have a weak setup and the absurdity of hi-jinks after can feel like a jolting improvement or tail-spinning crash. Have a great setup and the hi-jinks that follow can either evolve or devolve the auspicious start. This “one wild night” romp of The Lovebirds has about half of each measure in that balance.

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MOVIE REVIEW: Scoob!

One of the classic catchphrases of the old Scooby Doo franchise is the vocalized signal, often from the eager mouth of their de facto leader Fred, of “looks like we’ve got another mystery on our hands.” The new CGI reboot Scoob! now on VOD platforms answers that rhetorical realization with both possible extremes. The movie doesn’t have one and the canyon-sized narrative hole because of it leaves us more perplexed than satisfied with a shoulder shrug and a chin rub of our own.

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MOVIE REVIEW: Capone

That name brings forth a gusher of overplayed stereotypes and caricatures. If you think you’re going to see the decadence of the historical figure’s prime, you’ve come to the wrong movie. If you think you’re going to see another Ben Gazzara or Bob De Niro galavanting as the king of his own court, you’ve come to the wrong movie. If anything, Josh Trank intentionally and subversively pushes back against the romanticized urban legend of “Scarface,” “Big Al,” “Big Boy,” “Snorky,” and “Public Enemy No. 1.”

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GUEST PROFILE: Mike Horvath

Meet Hungarian movie fan Mike Horvath. His hobby is transforming photos of himself into movie characters in Adobe Photoshop. He is also a musician, photo editor, and designer. Mike’s hobby started a couple of years ago while attending a sound engineering course. The interesting assignments of sound designing, dubbing, mixing, and more had studies intersect with movies while working as a trainee at a radio station. He began to like the themes of films and took on those characters roles himself as a way to learn and practice photo editing. The resulting tinkering of customization has lead to his fun work.

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GUEST EDITORIAL: 3 Tools to Help You Write a Great Movie Review

by Daniela McVicker

You’d be surprised, but writing a movie review can be a daunting task. Not only you will need to research the movie itself, but you will also have to study the story and the intention behind it. And if a movie is a screen adaptation of a book, you’d also need to analyze the similarities and differences between the two, and whether these differences significantly impacted the plot of the movie.

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GUEST COLUMN: Resources for Watching Hindi Movies Online Through Kodi

by Maria Jones

Kodi is a wonderful application through which you can not only view Hollywood movies and TV series but for the Bollywood movies enthusiasts, it is also possible to watch Hindi movies online now through Kodi. New, old, and all-time classic are available here. It is a fact that Bollywood movies have fans all across the globe as these movies feature a wide range of vibrant characters, action, melodic songs, colorful sceneries, and romance at best.

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MEDIA APPEARANCE: Guest on the "Kicking the Seat" podcast talking "Arkansas"

As I hope you have been following through this extended theater closure, Kicking the Seat’s Ian Simmons and I have found our share of streaming offerings to talk about. We move from his YouTube channel to his regular podcast platform to talk about the displace SXSW redneck crime entry Arkansas, the directorial debut of actor Clark Duke. Listen to us wax on about Vince Vaughn and The Flaming Lips for this indie available now on VOD platforms everywhere. Enjoy his show!

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MOVIE REVIEW: Arkansas

Let’s just say it. The subgenre of redneck crime films is a messy place. The “black hat” is almost always a crazy SOB engaged with a less crazy SOV “white hat.” Slickness is replaced by stains. Dazzle is replaced by dinge. Calling any of them “sagas” is too much credit and heft. Unless you’re the Coen brothers (and even if you’re them too), spicing up this slow-and-low movie barbecue takes some of that absent slickness and dazzle injected into either the filmmaking or storytelling departments, or both.

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MOVIE REVIEW: Working Man

Movies becoming timely is almost always an accident. They’re made months in advance and can never reliably predict the future they will enter when released. The right match of content and happenstance can elevate a film’s mystique, even that of a tiny little indie that normally wouldn’t carry much of one at all. The award-winning Working Man, filmed in and around Chicago last year, debuts on VOD services today to a sheltered public facing jobless claims that topped 30 million in two short quarantined months. The distinctive part about this movie is that it displays a sense of workplace fulfillment that would still work if that bellwether statistic was zero. Timeliness only makes it better.

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MOVIE REVIEW: All Day and a Night

Reaching those bold heights of bracing social commentary, it is fair and complimentary to call Joe Robert Cole’s movie more important than entertaining. Mark that goal as accomplished. The Black Panther co-writer uses not a drop of sugarcoating in his first directorial effort in nine years. The brutality against the hearts in All Day and a Night hurts more than harm subjected to any flesh. In that regard, it is also fair to question the place and mentality of this movie’s bravery during a current civil climate where negative racial examples do not need more perpetuation. That is an uphill battle without a welcoming core to embrace.

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GUEST COLUMN: 7 Best Romantic Comedies on Netflix

by Lillian O’Brien

Well, a romantic comedy is not a favorite genre for many people especially men, however, you can't deny that they are sweet and remind you how beautiful love is. I love watching romantic comedies because they always remind me how easy and wonderful life can be if we don't take things too seriously. The storylines of rom-coms are pretty similar still there are so many rom-coms come out every year and they do cuddle you when you watch them. Why I love watching them is because they create a cozy atmosphere and make you believe in a miracle...even if you are 30

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GUEST COLUMN: Prop or Not? 7 Continuity Mistakes in Films & TV

by Tom Simpkins

The minds behind television and film often have to juggle hundreds of decisions, both creative and technical, and so it shouldn’t come as a surprise that the odd mistake slips through the cracks here and there. These are often labelled continuity mistakes, cases where even if dozens of people give a scene the final thumbs up, any number of factors can cause even seemingly obvious errors to crop up.

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