Reel Film Chronicles – Page 17

Dark Phoenix

Sometimes a film is nearing release amid a turmoil of negative hype, and as it crests to a swelling of negative criticism in the final days the movie releases to a thud at the box office – exactly as expected. And sometimes, your curiosity still gets the best of you, and you have to watch the train wreck for yourself. As an avid enthusiast for so-called “bad” films, I couldn’t pass up an opportunity to watch the (presumably) last entry in Fox’s rocky X-Men franchise that began so innocently, and triumphantly nearly twenty years ago. The series was a owed a small debt as well; I’ve seen every entry in the theatre and I wouldn’t allow some nasty reviews to deter me from completing the saga: it was the least I could do for the franchise that ultimately opened the door for our modern superhero blockbuster films. It nearly bears repeating, that expectations into a film hold a lot of sway over opinions of the film (least for me). So in this case, my expectations are pretty low. Like, VERY…

Batman (1989)

The original Tim Burton Batman from 1989 lives in my head canon as one of my favourite films of all time; although I would be hesitant to say it was top ten or even top twenty material, it’s fair to say it’s on my list of most viewed movies. So when was the last time I actually sat down to watch this? I draw a complete blank, throw the dart, and it lands in the murky depths of the early 2000s. It was an afternoon in the summer of 2002′ after finishing for the day from a summer job, I found myself with a fresh paycheck and the entitlement to feed my movie collection. Batman and Batman Returns were my targets and pickups that day from one of the local media shops, and I would have gone home and watched at least the first one, with the second one perhaps following that weekend. A few short years later, Batman Begins would hit the scene, and those original films would take a back seat in viewing priority. With the latest release of…

Collector’s Corner: Prince of Darkness

John Carpenter. When you absolutely, positively have to scare every last bubble-gum chewer in the room, accept no substitute. Some people live with no regrets; regretting stuff is pretty much all I do. With regards to my video library, one of my current regrets is the lack of John Carpenter films, which I’ve started to remedy with my recent acquisition of Prince of Darkness, an integral entry in his self-described “Apocalypse Trilogy” alongside The Thing and In The Mouth of Madness. In this company, Prince of Darkness is the weakest entry, but it’s also a great entry. Any time you can get Donald Pleasence, Victor Wong, Dennis Dun, and Alice Cooper in the same film about an ultimate evil force trying to bring about the end of days, you can’t go wrong. Carpenter’s pantheon is the perfect complement to the films of David Cronenberg. Both filmmakers came out of the same school, focusing a great deal on horror and sci-fi, and both have a very economic form of storytelling. Some days I want to watch an epic Scorsese drama; other days I want to be kicked…

Horrors of Malformed Men

My fascination with Japanese culture has its roots firmly planted in my passion for video games and Godzilla; from the first moments in the mid-eighties when I saw the Nintendo system in action, and then held the rectangular controller in my hand, a curiosity and admiration planted itself within my mind. It wasn’t just the games themselves, but the origin of these works and how they came to be. My parents would spoil me on a monthly basis with a plethora of video game related magazines, and within those tomes, I would read about the latest title causing an uproar in Japan, while we had to wait for our North American release of said game later on. We had a hand-me-down black and white television with a Betamax player connected in the basement’s rec room while the colour set and VHS player were relegated to my parents living room domain. Maybe it was just availability, or an interest my father had, but we had amassed a collection of Betamax movies, both purchased and recorded off televisions, with a strong focus on…

Ghostbusters (2016)

For whatever reasons, call it fate, call it karma, call it creative bankruptcy, I believe everything happens for a reason. I believe that we were destined to get a Ghostbusters remake. It’s a real shame that the dialogue around the Ghostbusters remake released in 2016 was tainted by misogyny and general vitriol from armchair critics and trogloditic neckbeards that dwell in the deepest, dankest corners of the interwebs, because it was a genuinely mediocre summer blockbuster that in most other universes probably would have have been the start of a movie franchise. Or at least, some more marketable merchandise that would have helped grease the wheels for all those involved for a little longer. I remember being pretty sour on the general concept of a remake of the 1984 cult classic Ghostbusters. Admittedly, it has to do at least in part with the fact that this was a beloved film from my childhood. I grew up watching Ghostbusters and Ghostbusters II as well as the animated The Real Ghostbusters. To this day, I will still sometimes find myself randomly singing quietly to myself or in my head the Ghostbusters theme song, or the…

Star Wars Episode IX: The Rise of a New Trailer

For those of us with our fingers on the pulse (and not far from the pulse and straight up somewhere very uncomfortable (no, not the back of a Volkswagen)), news of a teaser trailer for the upcoming Star Wars film was not entirely unanticipated. This past week in Chicago, Star Wars Celebration was underway, an annual expo dedicated to all things Star Wars related. With the end of the Skywalker saga slated for release in December of this year, this is prime time for the release of updates, teasers, and various other miscellaneous info to start dropping for one of the most highly anticipated films of… let me check again… ah yes, ever. And drop the trailer for Episode IX has. And along with the trailer came the reveal of the name, which is (drum roll please) The Rise of Skywalker. Now, those who know me know I’m not prone to rash decisions, but my initial reaction is that this title sucks. Hard. I know I risk falling into that old cliche of “Nobody hates Star Wars like a Star Wars fan,” but I’m not suggesting that the film is…

Beginning

Hopefully your eyes don’t hurt too much after rolling them when you came upon my latest site because yes, it’s true: Ryebone has launched another site. If nothing else, it’s what I do. And you’re at the latest iteration. The Chronicles of Ryebone has been suffering for quite a while, which is probably a good indicator of my state of mind over the past few years: I simply could not write. It’s not for trying either; over at Letterboxd, I tried my hand at some short reviews, and even some longer ones, but nothing really felt good. There are numerous document files on my computer with half-written articles and my trash bin became full of my own failures. I kept asking myself two things: first, does anyone care? Second, why am I so bad? Does anyone care? They may not, but that’s never been the point. I’ve spent a lot of time reading and watching great essays and reviews on movies and other favourite pop culture, and I never felt like my voice could be heard in the environment. I’m…

Fantastic Beasts, Where to Find them and the (Unrelated) Crimes of Grindelwald

It’s entirely possible that I don’t really understand Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. Upon seeing the movie in theatres a few short years ago, I felt indifference. Sure, there were beasts. Yes, they appeared fantastic. But I didn’t really understand why we were focusing on them so much, in a film where the plot didn’t seem to necessarily revolve around them. Knowing that this was the first in an ambitious series of movies set in the Harry Potter Wizarding World, I could chalk up my confusion to a few things: This movie is an introduction We meet Newt and his friends, as well as enemies and locations and I would think, most importantly, we meet all these beasts. When we jump into Newt’s infinite bag of tricks, we’re seeing some pretty bewildering creatures doing their thing, and I have to assume that those creatures, with their abilities and quirks, will play into the plot either later in this movie (preferable) or perhaps later, already planned sequels. I haven’t read the books Are there even Fantastic Beasts books? A published screenplay, perhaps, but I tapped out of reading…

Thoroughbreds

“Heathers meets American Psycho” so, I guess it’s a good thing I’ve seen Psycho quite a few times over the years, and watched Heathers late last year during my project to consume the most popular films of the eighties. Honestly though, the tagline didn’t need to be said to push me there, as just a quick glimpse of the trailer, combined with the talent involved had me sold from the get go. But when did I watch that initial trailer? Yeah, it’s practically an afterthought: apparently the film had been sitting in post-production and doing the festival circuit for a while before receiving a wide release in March of 2018. Here we are, practically a year later and I have an opportunity to watch this film. Comparing it to Heathers, I suppose, is fair to the dark humour present. American Psycho, perharps because of the calculating and unfeeling nature of one of our protagonists (Amanda), played fantastically by Olivia Cooke. I first saw her turn out in the television series Bates Motel, and it’s been a pleasure to see her in consistently good projects…

Shin Godzilla

Immediately upon starting this film you have no choice but to notice how damn fast the dialogue and ensuing scenes are. As we cut through from scene to scene, and through dozens of characters I find myself nearly exhausted, especially since I simply can’t listen to the dialogue: I have to read everything. Later on I would see in the IMDb trivia that the movie could be described as a Aaron Sorkin written political with a healthy injection of monster for good measure. The end result is brilliant, and a refreshing take on the classic Japanese monster film that I’ve enjoyed through my life. If memory serves me right – in quite frankly it probably doesn’t – I found that most Godzilla films would focus around a few characters as they traverse the chaos of a giant monster attack – that monster being either Godzilla, or another beast, or a beast that needs to fight Godzilla. Shin Godzilla takes a different approach with an absolutely gigantic cast of characters, all depicting the various levels of government and decision making that must fall…