Two beautiful people in a beautiful setting confess the beauty they see in each other, before creating something beautiful between them. There’s a lot of beauty in this scene, a scene that could happen in any number of films, but here it takes place in an entry in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU). Its presence…
The initial success of Brannon Braga and Adam Simon’s series “Salem” (2015-2017) and the staggering impact of Robert Eggers’ “The Witch” seems to have made American Puritans into high fashion for horror entertainment. Director Martin Koolhoven and producer Els Vandevorst had, for several years before the releases of the aforementioned titles, been producing their own…
Once upon a time, back in the Light Ages of Hollywood genre filmmaking (aka the 80s), the ancient fantasy picture was a thing of popular beauty. They weren’t all classics, but the memorable likes of “Conan the Barbarian,” “The Beastmaster,” “Willow,” “The Princess Bride,” “Legend,” “The Neverending Story,” “Dragonslayer,” “The Last Unicorn,” and “The Dark…
There is a sub-genre of the war film that focuses on those away from combat. These films do not display the horrors of warfare or the camaraderie of men under fire, but instead the dramas of those left behind or serving their country behind the lines. Such a film is Testament of Youth, based on…
Built as either a shot to attain a loftier reputation or as penance for afflicting four goddamned “Shrek” movies upon the populace (perhaps both), Dreamworks Animation’s How to Train Your Dragon 2 finds the red-headed stepchild studio attempting to go full Pixar and widen the emotional scope of what has been, to date, probably their…
Paul W.S. Anderson might just be the very avatar of filmmaking mediocrity. Starting with the legendarily bad “Mortal Kombat” adaptation and working his way up a bit from there, he’s made a living off churning out genre films not awful enough to be memorable, but just bad in enough noticeable, glaring ways to make for…
The full theatrical trailer for DreamWorks Animation’s How to Train Your Dragon 2 has arrived and with it comes more dragon goodness. With the dragons fully integrated into his village, Hiccup now travels the lands in search of new adventures with his feisty dragon Toothless. From appearances it looks like they find two (although time…
