RAMPAGE - On Like Donkey Kong

"So, the movie is about Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson and his gorilla friend -"
"Ok, I'm interested."
"But the gorilla gets exposed to Science Gas and grows big -"
"I'm sold."
"And then Johnson has to help his big gorilla friend fight two OTHER giant monsters -"
"Look, you're sweetening a deal you already closed, but keep going..."

Yeah, I liked it.

READY PLAYER ONE - Somewhat Buggy Beta

There are few filmmakers - hell, few artists - with such immediate cultural cache as Steven Spielberg. The man is single-handedly responsible for the matinee fever dreams of multiple generations of movie-goers as well as being able to put together Oscar-nominated films on the turn of a time. So the fact that he decided to be the one to adapt Ernest Cline's novel celebrating a whole bunch of the "stuff" that Spielberg was either involved with producing, or more directly responsible for, always seemed like. . . an odd choice.

How do you make a decent film out of a coming of age novel about celebrating your own stuff?

As it turns out, you make the movie all about how empty the pursuit of only "stuff" is in the long run.

BLACK PANTHER - Make it Reign

Immediately after getting out of Black Panther, my overriding thought was that this must have been what it felt like to see Richard Donner's Superman: The Movie on the big screen in 1978 and watch a filmmaker redefine a genre for an entire generation.

Since then, damn near all I can think about has been when I can next go back.

As the World Burned - The Films of 2017

Well, that year sucked. And we got a long fight ahead of us until it gets better, so.

. . . Let's talk about some fun movies, huh? And some bad ones. And some surprising ones. And - well, you know the drill by now.

THE SHAPE OF WATER - The Hearts of Monsters

Look, if you guys don't start going to see Guillermo del Toro's movies more often, he's eventually gonna run out of crazy people to finance them. And losing out on films like The Shape of Water would be a damn tragedy.

STAR WARS: THE LAST JEDI - Heir to the Empire

"This is not going to go the way you think."

Listen to ya boy. He's not wrong.

JUSTICE LEAGUE - You can't save this franchise alone

So. . . do you also like DC's superhero characters? Ok, good.

. . . Did you also like The Avengers?

Well, I've got some good news, and some bad news. . .