Movies

After seven years a widower, Shigeharu Aoyaama decides he will take his son's advice and look for a new wife. A colleague decides to help by setting up a situation -- an audition -- to allow Shigeharu to screen and judge potential candidates, and that is when Shigeharu notices Asami.

Everything about Asami seems intriguing, and Asami seems responsive to Shigeharu's advances. But the fairytale soon turns nightmarish, and keeps going off-course.

Click the video below to get our full review on this Takashi Miike film, from Arrow on Blu-ray.

While it's been the norm for actors in superhero films to rank highly in our annual "Best Of" Awards, as decided by the readers of CriticalBlast.com, this year's crop of nominees saw most of the costumed actors take a backseat to talent like RAMI MALEK (BOHEMIAN RHAPSODY) and CHRISTIAN BALE (VICE). And to be sure, we had some strong showings by TOM HARDY (VENOM) as well as JASON MOMOA and AMBER HEARD (AQUAMAN), proving our readers aren't tired of the superhero genre yet.

Every year, Critical Blast asks its readers to tell us what they believe are the best of the best in entertainment -- movies, television, books, and comics. Readers are presented with a list of potential nominees, with the ability to write-in their own favorites. The idea is, it's all fan-driven.

And this year, when we asked our readers to tell us what they felt the best movie of 2018 was, we had a number of responses. AQUAMAN, BLACK PANTHER, and AVENGERS: INFINITY WAR all put in strong showings.

But it was another superhero who beat them all out -- even if he needed an army of himself from across multiple parallel dimensions.

With a sizeable 28% of all votes, the Best Film of 2018, as decided by the readers of Critical Blast, goes to the Marvel Entertainment animated feature, SPIDER-MAN: INTO THE SPIDER-VERSE.

WESTLAKE VILLAGE, Calif.  (Feb. 18, 2019) — While Carol Danvers fights to save Earth from a galactic battle as Captain Marvel, Dole is celebrating other female superheroes for their battles waged a bit closer to home.

“Powering the Hero Within” (#DoleHero) is a 10-week empowered-living alliance between Dole and Marvel’s Captain Marvel inspired by Danvers’ dramatic transformation into the title character of the much-anticipated March 8 release. Taking its cue from Danvers, Dole is acknowledging influential women in food, health and wellness plus female-focused nonprofit groups working toward a healthier, more heroic world. 

When we met Wreck-It Ralph (JOHN C. REILLY), we entered a world of boomer nostalgia. The videogame culture of the 80s came back to all of us who had lived through it, and introduced it to a new generation who now enjoy playing the retro, 16-bit arcade classics as much as the modern high-definition games. Our personal game collection here has added a classic wood-grain Atari 2600 console as well as a Nintendo 64, and are getting regular play.

Lego toys--everybody loves ‘em, unless you step on one. Tiny plastic bricks embedded in your foot will send you from serene to swearing instantly. Did you ever once think, “You know, these fun little bits of plastic and the yellow, stiff-limbed action figures that often come with them would make for an absurdly funny and at times touching film nearly everyone, regardless of age, would enjoy. Why, it would be so popular, in fact, that it would spawn a full-fledged Hollywood franchise, spin-off movies, a TV show, and theme park rides?”

The Earth is having a critical energy crisis. It's only hope lies with the experiments on an orbiting space station, where an international group of astronauts tries to fire up a super collider. If they are successful, they will provide a limitless source of free energy.

Of course, they may also rip a whole in space time, interact with parallel realities, and unleash demons on the world -- but those are just the ravings of Internet conspiracist Mark Stambler (GOTHAM's DONAL LOGUE), a theory he calls "The Paradox."

After some unsuccessful attempts, the collider works -- and then overloads. And the Earth is gone, and common knowledge has gone with it.

GOOSEBUMPS 2: HAUNTED HALLOWEEN is a film that's quite obviously going to be enjoyed more by kids than by grown-ups. The horror comedy is based not on any single book of R.L. Stine's, but rather on the series as a whole, presenting them as actualities that Stine chronicles or, in this case, inadvertently creates.

The adventure begins when two friends, Sonny (JEREMY RAY TAYLOR) and Sam (CALEEL HARRIS) are hired to clean the junk out of an old abandoned house, and find a locked book in a trunk, as well as a familiar-looking ventriloquist dummy. Yes, it's Slappy, and he's looking to bond with the boys and become a brother to them. But he shows his true colors when he gets overprotective of Sonny's older sister, Sarah (MADISON ISEMAN), sending her jerk boyfriend tumbling from a tall ladder.

Migo (CHANNING TATUM) is a yeti, who lives in an advanced society of yetis on the top of a mountain. And Migo knows the laws: that the mountaintop was pooped out of a giant bird, that it rests on the back of giant animals, that the gong must be rung every morning to wake up the giant burning snail so it crawls across the sky.

These laws are written in stone -- literally -- and taught to all by the Stonekeeper (COMMON). And among those stones is the law: There is no such thing as a Smallfoot.

But as Migo trains with his father, Dorgle (DANNY DEVITO), to be the next ringer of the gong, he overshoots his target (the only way to ring the gong is to be slingshotted into it, head first) and ends up outside the city. There he spies a small aircraft crashing, and inside of it -- a Smallfoot! Or, as we would say, a human.

When nobody believes Migo saw what he saw, Migo is exiled from the city to think about what he's saying, and ends up falling off the mountain.

Another year has come and gone. 2018 is officially in the rear-view mirror, and we've gone hurtling into 2019 like the Sweet Meteor o' Death.

But before we get too deep into the New Year, we've reached that point where we reflect on all that happened in the previous year that was good and notable, and cast our votes as to what was the best of the best ("of the best, sir!")

So here we go again! It's time to pick the Critical Blast Best of the Year for Movies, Television, Actors, Books, and Comics -- and, of course, to pick our CRITICAL BLAST BOMBSHELL OF THE YEAR! So use the handy form below to pick from this year's nominees -- or suggest one that you think is deserving that we missed (so long as the work happened during 2018). Voting is open through the end of January, and on February 1 we'll start tabulating the results and announcing the winners!

So long, 2018! You gave us some great entertainment!

What’s the first thing that comes to mind when you hear the name, “Aquaman?” The 1970s Super Friends cartoon, where the superhero of the seven seas was voiced by Norman Alden? The Mego action figure that had to sometimes stand in for your sister’s Ken doll when the real Ken was MIA but Barbie just couldn’t take another ladies night? Maybe all you know of the character is that he’s in the lyrics to “One Week” by the Barenaked Ladies. Thanks to Warner Brothers and DC Comics, that’s all about to change in a big way.

According to The Numbers, a website that tracks financials and rankings for movies, with a production budget of $90 million Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse may turn out to be a financial bust.

Full disclaimer: I haven't seen the animated Spider-flick at the time of this article. I'm sure it's very good. As a matter of fact, I want to see it and plan on going while it's still in theaters. That being said, it may not last much longer as this weekend marks the official opening of both Aquaman AND Bumblebee. 

Spider-Man may not have enough legs to make it's budget back from ticket sales.

With ardent narration, Jennifer Lawrence pleads with listeners with patronizing charm to stop destroying planet Earth with your stupid antics. Okay, that was harsh and unwarranted, but such sentiments are subtly sprinkled like glitter from a Christmas card throughout this IMAX documentary, “A Beautiful Planet.” In this follow-up to her “Hubble 3D” (which featured voiceover work by Leonardo DiCaprio), Toni Myers writes, directs, produces and edits another 45-minute spectacle of large-scale natural beauty and innocuous propaganda.

Marvel superheroes are beloved around the world, but perhaps none is more beloved than Spider-Man. The character is far more intricate and interesting than most, coming from humble begins to experience personal tragedy that drives bookish Peter Parker to become one of the best superheroes his world—or any other—has ever seen. Sony’s new animated feature, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, is remarkable not only for its technical prowess and excellent acting but for exploring the nuances of the hero archetype in ways both subtle and profound.

The Milgram family is full of tensions, both open and repressed. Son Nick (SAM GITTINS) hasn't been home for years, and gives no explanation as to why. He returns for Christmas, unannounced, and brings with him his girfriend, Annji (NEERJA NAIK), into an environment that's openly racist. His sister, Kate (HOLLY WESTON) is a stereotypical airheadh and two weeks out from delivering a baby, and her husband Scott (KRIS SADDLER) is a clueless sheep with muscles. Mom and Dad are poles apart from each other, with Bet (ABIGAIL CRUTTENDEN) trying to put on a cheery holiday face and ignore the stress, while Tony (GRANT MASTERS) is a follower of rules because they are laid down by those who know better.

The biggest challenge I face as a critic is telling you, my wonderful readers, about films I truly enjoy. When a film is terrible, I have no shortage of material. When a film is just so-so, I can explain the good and the bad in equal parts. However, when a film knocks my socks off I don't really want to tell you anything about it. I want to transform into my 10 year-old self and say, "Ohmigod you have to see this! It's so hilarious! There's this one part that had me laughing so hard but I can't tell you about it because it would ruin your fun so why are you still here holy crap go see it and then we'll talk!" And that, my friends, is how I feel about Ralph Breaks The Internet. 

For those two or three of you who haven’t seen the trailer yet for the live-action Detective Pikachu film, may we present to you:

So yeah, not only did they actually go through with it but what has already been shown in this one trailer has already blown away people's expectations entirely. This does make us wonder though, what other difficult to adapt games and anime might be suited to live-action film or television to be released somewhere down the line?

I don't get it. Any of it. Clearly, J.K. Rowling's latest film franchise is beyond me. That bothers me a bit because I greatly enjoyed the Harry Potter films, except for the Deathly Hallows Part One, or as I call it, "The one where the puberty-angsty teen wizards go camping and whine at each other for almost three hours." Hey, at least I understood what they were doing and why, I just thought it was terribly boring. 

The popularity of anime cannot and should not be underestimated. Over the years it has become hugely popular and inclusive in the sense that there’s anime that will suit everyone’s taste. The genre has provided the inspiration for a number of gaming developers, including leading casino and bingo brand mFortune, who actually create their very own games. There are many anime-based games on the market, which have been a hit with players, but what about anime games which have gone on to be successful movies too? Well, we’ve devised a list of some of the best below.

Pokemon

Mid 1970s music critics ridiculed Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody” when it was released as the first single from their A Night at the Opera album in 1975. Fans, on the other hand, pushed the song to number one in the United Kingdom. Bryan Singer’s latest film, also entitled “Bohemian Rhapsody,” likewise received less-than-stellar praise by current movie critics, so if history repeats itself Queen fans will likely push the film to number one when it opens November 2, 2018.