Movies

If you follow the Marvel Cinematic Universe closely enough, you'll see stories on the internet about some big shot director or another complaining about how MCU maestro Kevin Fiege takes away the director's freedom to tell the tale they wanted to tell. These directors typically are not and have never been attached to an MCU movie and probably are just whining because their features haven't come close to what a typical Marvel movie does at the box office. They also must not be watching Ryna Coogler's Black Panther films, because the first film, starring the late great Chadwick Boseman, was a revelation both in terms of the MCU and African American pop culture. WIthin days if not hours of the first film's release in 2018, video testimonials were popping up all over social media with folks offering up moving, deeply personal testimonials about the importance of having a relatable black superhero on the big screen at last.

Sleep is one of the essential mysteries of existence. Each evening our bodies are compelled to shut down; our mental capacity slows, our muscles paralyze, and we wander unfettered through the shadowy dreamscapes of our subconscious. It’s estimated that fully a third of our fleeting life is spent under Morpheus’s spell; quite simply, we don’t want sleep, we need it, as surely as food and water. A good night’s rest restores the immune, nervous, skeletal and muscular systems, just as it enhances our mood, memory, sexual function and cognitive ability. Yet there exist a host of disorders--insomnia, hypersomnia, narcolepsy and sleep apnea; somnambulism, bruxism and circadian rhythm maladies--that can destroy sleep with dire consequences.

Directed by Zach Cregger (in his solo directorial debut), Barbarian (2022) was released this September to rave critical reviews and became the sleeper hit of the after-summer movie, slump grossing over $42 million worldwide against a $4.5 million budget.

Recently released to HBO MAX for streaming, I finally got the chance to see what the hype was all about. Immediately, I was sucked into the opening plot: a young woman (Georgina Campbell) arrives at an Airbnb only to discover that the home was already rented out by another, a stranger named Keith (Bill Skarsgård). Having nowhere else to go, she stays at the rental property with him and strange things start to happen.

It’s now more than three years since Marvel released Avengers: Endgame, and in doing so, the MCU showed just how much potential they had at their fingertips as the climatic end to the Avengers series went on to become the second-highest grossing movie of all time.

Just over two months later, they brought an end to phase three of the Marvel series with Spider-Man: Far from Home, and there will have been many wondering what would happen next with the film series, given that key characters, and the actors that brought them so expertly to life, were saying farewell.

Robert Downey Jr. and Chris Evans waved goodbye to their exploits as Iron Man and Captain America, and producer Kevin Feige set in motion a plethora of new projects for both the big and small screen.

It's been said that, creatively speaking, there are no new ideas. To a certain extent the hypothesis is valid: every artistically inclined soul, whether they be a painter, sculptor, musician, writer or filmmaker, is only the sum of one's individual tastes in their given medium. Just as Plato was influenced by his mentor Socrates, so did Plato's philosophical musings mold his own student Aristotle; blues guitarist Muddy Waters impacted early rock gods Eric Clapton and The Rolling Stones, who in turn impressed future generations of musicians; even weird-lit icon H.P. Lovecraft, whose inspiration affected untold imaginative minds, was self-admittedly a product of boyhood admiration for Edgar Allan Poe and Lord Dunsany. In this theory of artistic evolution what appears to be innovation (the abstract art of Marcel Duchamp or Picasso, for instance), is merely an opposing reaction against previous established trends rather than any stylistic revolution.

The splatter subgenre's ascendancy in the early '80's represented a monumental shift in movie horror. Where once fear films relied on suggestion, atmosphere and carefully crafted Hitchcockian dread to propel their plots, newer motion pictures such as Dawn of the Dead, Friday the 13th, Cannibal Holocaust, Maniac, The Burning, The Evil Dead, Gates of Hell and A Nightmare on Elm Street eschewed innuendo in favor of explicitly visceral depictions of graphic sex and even more graphic violence. Rooted in Grand Guignol's lurid theatrical lynchings, the '60's low-budget camp-fests of gimmick kings Roger Corman, H.G. Lewis and William Castle and the exploitative shock tactics of underground '70's grindhouse cinema, this tsunami of celluloid usurpers worried parents, teachers and moral pundits the world over just as they enthralled a younger generation eager for the new movement's ostentatious freedoms.

Ahhhh, Halloween. Trick or treating and jack-o'-lanterns. Bloody spatter flicks at the local bijou and black cats crossing your path. That modern day inheritor of the Gaelic festival Samhain has evolved through the long centuries to rank second only to Christmas as the largest and most widely celebrated holiday in the United States, and for no small reason: according to the National Retail Federation, Americans spent a record $10.14 Billion in 2021 (an average per person of $102.74), on an ever-escalating array of spooky supplies--costumes, candy, cards, decorations, props, make-up, party favors, accessories--that have transformed the autumnal season into an economic juggernaut. It's a time that allows even the meekest among us get in touch with their inner ghoul, but what happens the following morning, when Dracula has retired to his coffin, all the apples have been bobbed and the sugar rush runs dry? What if your monster mash goes just a little too far?

Psychopomp [siko`pamp], n. (in Greek mythology): 1. a guide of souls to the place of the dead 2. the spiritual guide of a living person's soul

Of all the universal mysteries, none equals death. What occurs to each of us in that moment when our hearts cease to beat and our lungs no longer draw breath is the central enigma of life itself, the source of more rumination than any other subject and the crux of every religious ideology known to humankind. For in the cessation of life, the question remains: does it continue? Do our individual personalities--our loves, our hates, our passions--survive to transition to another realm of existence?

Image by Capital Dudes from Pixabay 

In the Marvel Cinematic Universe, there may not be a more polarizing sub-franchise than the Thor films. Director Kenneth Branagh did a good job with the first film, but played it mostly safe and straightforward, leaving the levity to a few sight gags where Thor (Chris Hemsworth) is shown as a stranger in a strange land. That was probably the correct approach for the early days of the MCU. Thor: The Dark World, attempted to be darker in tone under the direction of Alan Taylor, who was better known for his work in television. It didn't quite succeed and I found the overuse of Stellan Skarsgård as Erik Selvig and Kat Dennings as Darcy Lewis watered down the threat of the Dark Elves--who themselves weren't the most menacing of foes--with comic relief that never resonated with me. 

Each year dozens of encounters with upright canids are reported in North America. Many reports recount a creature that is aggressive, ghastly and disturbing. While many theorize that the dogman is some sort of unidentified species of animal, many believe they were confronted by something else. Something more. A being that bent the very boundaries of reality itself and had stepped into our world from beyond…

photo by Jason Leung on Unsplash

Evolving from the carnival fun houses, wax museums and gory Grand Guignol theater of times past, the first recorded haunted house intended to separate fun-loving All Hallow's Eve ghouls from their hard-earned pocket change was the Orton and Spooner Ghost House, which opened in 1915 in Liphook, England, and served as the inspirational template for the explosion of such attractions during the first half of the 20th century. With an estimated 2,000 Halloween-oriented establishments catering annually to over twelve million thrill-seeking customers in the United States alone, those quaint early seasonal sites have diversified into a myriad of more complex spooktacular destinations, from the commercialized screamparks, haunted hayrides, cornfield mazes and Christian-run 'Hell Houses' to the interactive yard attractions favored by eclectic suburban neighbors, the popularity of purpose-built haunted attractions is undeniable.

Jurassic World: Dominion is the sixth installment of the beloved dinosaur action-adventure franchise that has cost $714 million – including this film – to make and has earned over $5 billion dollars to date before this one opens in the U.S. market. It's safe to say that's an excellent return on investment. But more important to most moviegoers than the bottom line of any film’s final financials is the joy we all get from seeing these giant long extinct dinosaurs thrash and rampage wherever they wish on the biggest theater movie screens in town. Seeing these monstrous lizards instantly refills the viewer with our childhood love of these terrible beasts that we all seemed to share in our collective youth. I know I certainly would have liked to have been a paleontologist, long before I could even spell that word.

The webs of fate are oftentimes long, strange and intricate. What links the past to the present, the living to the dead, can be found in the thinnest and most inexplicable of threads. So it is with the connection between tragic cult horror film actor Rondo Hatton (1894-1946), whose unusual appearance earned him monstrous appeal in noir-era Hollywood, and the late Bob Burns (1944-2004), whose influential and iconic art direction on such movies as The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, The Hills Have Eyes, The Howling and Re-Animator was only one facet of his eccentric and obsessive personality.

There aren’t many horse racing movies that ever made the big screen, and there are several reasons for that. First of all, even though horse racing is one of the oldest sports in the world, it is still not as popular as other sports like soccer or basketball.

However, with the rise in popularity of horse racing, many movie-making companies and directors are looking to highlight some of the greatest stories from the sport’s rich tradition.

With that said, some horse racing movies managed to sneak through the radar and became very popular. One of which is Seabiscuit where the actor Tobey Maguire plays the main role. This movie is inspired by a true story, which you can read about here together with 10 interesting facts about Seabiscuit.

If it ain't broke, don't fix it. That's the takeaway from Top Gun: Maverick, the sequel to 1986's Top Gun, directed by the late Tony Scott and starring 80s heartthrob action star Tom Cruise. It was the highest grossing film of the year, despite mixed reviews from the critics.

The Marvel Cinematic Universe can get pretty confusing even for die-hard fans. With the release of Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, Marvel Studios is returning to the parallel world which was teased by last year’s popular film Spider-Man: No Way Home. The universe can get overwhelming, so much so that, a lot of the studio’s films, following and including, Avengers: Endgame have been based on the Multiverse and how it works.

Doctor Strange will be the latest Marvel movie following countless of successes, including the latest Spider-Man: No Way Home. Marvel and its characters have seeped into various industries including the movie world and the game world with various video games involving a number of characters and slot games from Playtech offering some of the best online slots to casinos all over the world.

Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness is the 28th film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Benedict Cumberbatch returns as Dr. Stephen Strange, the Master of the Mystic Arts. Continuing directly from the events of Spider-Man: No Way Home, Strange faces monstrous threats like Gargantos (Shuma-Gorath in the comics, named changed due to copyright reasons) alongside his friend and colleague Wong, (Benedict Wong), the Sorcerer Supreme. But since Spider-man wouldn't shut up during Strange's spell of forgetfulness, the Multiverse is slowly coming apart at the seams. To fix the damage, Strange recruits new allies, including Wanda Maximoff/Scarlet Witch (Elizabeth Olsen) and America Chavez (Xochitl Gomez), a teleporter from a different dimension. Wanda soons succumbs to the influence of the Darkhold, a tomb of evil magic that corrupts anyone who reads it.

Watching movies is considered the most favored recreation since the world of entertainment started in the 19th century. It had evolved since the innovation of photography started the moving still image was introduced and later on the motion picture was introduced to give movement to people and animals.

Film production is the procedure of making a movie that involves a storyline, the idea, screenwriting, production, shooting, sound recording, post-production, screening then finally the film release. It introduces different genres according to the viewer’s choice, the latest trend, or the rating system.