Somebody at Disney knows kung-fu. Or, at least, somebody at Disney is tired of the way most action movies end, with protagonist and antagonist getting mad, making faces and fists, then uselessly and endlessly slugging it out until the script tells them who wins (or, as we joked at Man of Steel and Batman v Superman: “whoever shouts…
It’s no surprise that director David Yates floated the idea of doing a Doctor Who movie after finishing the last four Harry Potter films. A Doctor Who-ish tone is all over Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, as well as, of course, gobs of Harry Potter – not to mention the X-Men and, probably…
Trust Mel Gibson, that maestro of the sadomasochistic, to create a movie that is one part Norman Rockwell-esque love letter to 1940s rural America, one part military courtroom drama, and two parts a war-is-hell mugging that seems to be attempting to mash Hieronymus Bosch into the first twenty minutes of Saving Private Ryan. Despite his…
Having served as a consultant on the original Kung Fu Panda, I’ve been able to observe the rise and fall of DreamWorks SKG Animation from both sides. It’s done remarkably well, considering that it started with an ax to grind. Jeffrey Katzenberg (the “K” in SKG), having felt underappreciated during his time at Walt Disney…
I should have realized. I should have known. I should have guessed … what with me being the host of the San Diego Comic Con Superhero Kung Fu Extravaganza and all. But I am happy to say I didn’t, so I was delighted to discover that Doctor Strange, the newest comic book adventure from Marvel/Disney…
I like Jack Reacher. I liked him as a book series hero, created by Lee Childs. I liked him in his first movie, released in 2012, written and directed by Christopher McQuarrie. I liked it enough to forgive the casting of Tom Cruise, who looks nothing like the book Reacher, but acted very much like…
Way back in the 1950s, legendary director Alfred Hitchcock explained otherwise inexplicable sequences in his hit films Vertigo and North by Northwest by terming them “icebox” scenes – in that the illogic of them only “hits you after you’ve gone home and start pulling cold chicken out of the icebox.” An argument could be made…
Godzilla and I go way back. He/she/it was on the cover of my 1980 book The World of Fantasy Films. I also wrote about him/her/it extensively in my 1984 book S-F 2: The Great Science Fiction Films, and either moderated or served on panels about him/her/it at the San Diego Comic Con and The World…
As you may already know, I love animation, but even I have to admit that there are too many coming out right now — which can result is unworthy ones getting a shake, and worthy ones getting lost in the mix. Such is the case, I think, with Storks, whose uninspiring title and publicity campaign…
It seemed like a match made in movie heaven. Take a beloved series of magical, best-selling, books about weird ‘n’ wondrous kids and hand off the movie version to the master of the weird ‘n’ wonderful, Tim Burton. What could possibly wrong? Well, based on the evidence of the finished film, pretty much everything except…