Hayden McKee

While everyone remembers all of Disney’s classic animated movies, their live action films. 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea is an example of one of their best with its impressive special effects, and sense of journey and adventure based on the works of Jules Verne. The story follows a sailor, a professor and his assistant as their ship is destroyed by some bizarre submarine. They later find the submarine and get on board to meet the captain of the ship, Nemo.

Nemo is an interesting villain, because he has his reasons for wanting to destroy ships since he has seen them enslave hundreds of people and sees himself as an avenger for them. The movie itself is really fun, because of how much the characters explore and the different dangerous situations they run into. The sailor is played by Kirk Douglas and is so charismatic in the role. He’s the only character that can be relatable, which makes him kind of the point of view character to all the strange stuff going on.

Edgar Wright could be considered one of the best directors working in the industry today with unique editing and high attention to detail with comedy films like Shaun of the Dead, Scott Pilgrim vs the World, and Baby Driver. With this new movie, he is taking on a new genre with mystery and horror, which means he is now out the comfort zone of what he is good at. This movie did turn out to be a really well-made movie though. Just like with Malignant, which also came out this year, Last Night in Soho pays a lot of tribute to Italian horror with the bright neon lights, the strange score, and the over-the-top gore near the end of the movie.

This movie has gotten kind of a mixed reception, mostly because Edgar Wright strays away from his usual style of directing. It’s true that this does make the movie not nearly as entertaining as his other work, but I think that people are still overlooking a lot of the interesting filming techniques used in this. There are scenes where the main character has visions and is put into the shoes of someone from the past. They are able to show this by constantly swapping the actors when they go out of frame and also show both of them on screen by having one always shown through the reflection of the other.

The original Ghostbusters is one of the best comedies to come from the 1980s. It was such a creative idea that is elevated with clever and dry humor with an amazing cast. When the sequel came along, it was criticized for being too similar to the first one, which kind of showed that the first movie just worked as its own thing and did not have the potential to become a franchise. In 2016, they attempted to remake the original, but failed to capture the charm and wit of that movie.

Now with this new movie, they scrapped any plans that they had for sequels to the 2016 movie in favor of a third installment to the first two movies, but now with a younger and more diverse cast, while also bringing back a lot of the original cast. The movie does do a great job of setting up this new team and has that Spielberg-like storytelling, the problem comes from the movie being too derivative of the first movie. Just like with Ghostbusters II, the movie hits the exact same story beats as the original instead of doing its own thing. Although this one does come off as more of a tribute. The movie is still solid though, it has that dry humor and there are moments in the movie that try to be somewhat scary. Not to mention how there’s times where they use practical effects for the ghosts, which is always great to see. I don’t know if they’ll end up continuing the series after this, but I would love to see them actually go on to create new and interesting ideas.

Guillermo Del Toro has been one of the most visionary directors for a long time and has since become more recognized with movies like Hellboy, Pacific Rim, and the Shape of Water, but his best works come from two movies that cover the Spanish civil war; Pan’s Labyrinth and the Devil’s Backbone. Pan’s Labyrinth is what most people consider his best movie, but its sibling film is often really overlooked.

The movie begins with a boy being taken to an orphanage in the middle of the desert, where he has a really hard time with the other kids and even encounters the ghost of an orphan who had died there. Just like with Pan’s Labyrinth, the movie has a lot of conflicting thoughts between the world of fantasy and the horrors of war. Whenever the ghost known as Santi shows up on screen, it’s at first made to have a feeling a dread when he gets closer, but as the movie goes on, you start to learn more about him and find that he’s misunderstood and stuck this way, not being able to communicate with others. His appearance is pretty interesting; since he drowned, there’s always blood floating above his scar and water light reflections always being around him.

John Carpenter has several great movies throughout the 80s, such as the Thing, They Live and Big Trouble in Little China, but once the 90s came along, his films’ quality started to die down. That is with the exception of In the Mouth of Madness starring Sam Niell. It’s a story about how an insurance investigator is tasked to travel to Hobb’s End, New Hampshire in search for horror author, Sutter Cane (a character who is a mixture of Stephen King and HP Lovecraft). It is said to not actually exist, but after some investigating, he is able to find the way there. During his visit, he slowly loses his mind as Sutter Cane’s new novel begins to become reality.

The movie does cover how a fanbase can become cultish to an extreme extent by having the fans be consumed by the stories and become violent out in the public. Sam Niell’s character goes through this change throughout the movie after seeing horrifying and repetitive imagery that he cannot escape from. This is probably John Carpenter’s most visually interesting movie with so much abstract concepts and strange looking creatures. It also is elevated by Sam Niell’s performance, he is so convincing in this role as a snob who slowly becomes crazier until he comes to the point of acceptance.

I had been somewhat familiar with martial arts films for the past couple of years, mostly from franchises like the Raid and Ip Man. But I had never fully watched a Jackie Chan movie until I recently watched Drunken Master, which was his first movie to star in and was also what kicked off the kung-fu comedy sub genre. Police Story is a movie that’s actually directed by Jackie Chan himself and really shows off his impressive and authentic stunts that help tell a fast paced story and leave a lot of room for slap stick comedy. Jackie Chan certainly is intuitive when it comes to these action scenes, have every item in sight used as a weapon in a creative way. Jackie Chan has mentioned in the past about how he takes a lot of inspiration from Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton when it comes to his comedy scenes. The physical comedy is actually a great way to move the story forward in an entertaining way, and just like those previously mentioned filmmakers, Jackie Chan is a huge perfectionist, doing hundreds of takes and constantly putting his own life in danger for the stunts.

The mall scene in this movie is the highlight, because of how they travel through different stores, which give the action scenes so much variety when it comes to the stunts. The biggest stunt is when Jackie Chan slides down an electric pole and falling into a canopy. He actual suffered from severe burns from his hands and other injuries from the fall. The movie even does two instant replays to show off how big of a stunt it was. Some people might find the comedy in Jackie Chan’s films to be too silly, but there is so much effort and insane stunt work that it is an impressive feat, and also has so much charm and entertainment value to it.

I had never read the book this movie is based on nor seen the adaptation from 80s, but I still really enjoyed this movie. It is made by the same director as Blade Runner 2049, which was already an amazing looking and well crafted science fiction movie, so he was already the perfect choice for this. Seeing this movie in the IMAX was an amazing experience for how big the scope of this movie is. There are so many monumental set pieces that are put to scale when put next to the characters in the movie, which made the experience even more immersive. Every shot of this movie looked absolutely beautiful along with an amazing cast and a great score that makes it all feel so much more grand.

The trailers may have made this look like an action movie similar to a lot of the other blockbuster movies to come out recently, but this is a film that really takes its time to build up on the world and make sure you are able to take in every moment and visual. The action is still there and it is definitely some of the most amazing moments in the movie, but only take up a small percentage of the runtime, so don’t go into this movie expecting all that. This is only the first part of a two-part series, making this a really good setup story, but the problem is that the studio has yet to confirm if there will be a second part. If they decide to never make a second part, it could make everything this movie set up feel worthless.

Two movies that I really like share the same story, but are still able to stand out from each other and represent the specific decade they came out in. The original Blob from 1958 was made during a time where science fiction movies were coming out non stop. Most of these movies were made very cheap and have been considered B-movies, but there were a great number of exceptions to this such as the Day the Earth Stood Still, Forbidden Planet, the Incredible Shrinking Man and many others. The Blob is one that many people group into the cheap B-movie category, but I think that this movie has a lot more going for it. The movie has a cast of entertaining and charismatic characters, which makes the movie fun to watch even when the monster isn’t on screen. There are several scenes that are comedic and they all work well, and this all fits with the cheesy storyline and special effects. The effects for the blob… is literally just a blob that is used on miniatures. Sure, it does not look convincing, but for a movie like this, I wouldn’t want it any other way.

The remake from 1988 is a worthy update to the original story. The effects are some of the best practical effects I’ve ever seen, fitting right by other great special effect remakes of the same decade such as the Thing and the Fly. Several techniques are used to film the blob, including it interacting with the actors, miniatures, stop motion, and forced perspective. This might be better than the original movie and has much more appeal to general audiences, but I will admit that I don’t find the characters as entertaining as the 50’s version. There is even a twist added on to the story that makes it even better.

Halloween is one of the most confused franchises to me. The original film is a masterpiece of a slasher movie that works perfectly fine as a standalone movie, but after being such a profitable movie, of course it had to have sequels. The second movie was a decent follow up and conclusion to the Michael Myers character, so the studio’s original plan was to for an anthology route by making every new entry follow a new story that still takes place on Halloween. Halloween 3, while having a concept too over the top, it was still an underrated gem with some interesting ideas and a great score. Of course the lack of Michael Myers made audience immediately reject it, so the dropped the anthology concept and instead continued the Michael Myers story. There are too many sequels to go over, but the idea overall is that the series would go downhill very far with several reboots and alternate timelines.

This is what brings us to this new series of films that ignore every Halloween movie, except for the original. The last movie from 2018 was a solid 40 year later follow up, but was also the beginning of a new trilogy. This new movie, Halloween Kills is kind of a rough link between the beginning and end of this trilogy. Taking place directly after the last movie, on the same night, Michael Myers is shown to have survived the ending of the previous one and continues to kill as many people as possible. There are plenty of gruesome kills throughout and it is overall a good looking movie, but for the story itself, there are many plot points that feel like they go nowhere.

The movie constantly cuts back to new footage of Michael’s attacks on Halloween night in 1978, but even though so much time is spent with these scenes, there ends up not being a worthy pay off to it. Scenes like this are what make the movie not feel like it stands out on its own and just feels like filler in preparation for the last movie. It’s more disappointing seeing that Jamie Lee Curtis have hardly any screen time in this, because she was easily the best character in the previous movie. Another thing is in the 1978 and 2018 movies, it is implied that Michael is invincible after surviving gunshots, but is always left uncertain. In this one though, they went full on supernatural by showing him be unharmed to nearly everything and even explaining that he becomes stronger the more he kills. Even after all these aspects I don’t like, I’m still interested in how they’re going to cap off everything in the final film.

The 007 James Bond franchise has been around for over 50 years with 25 movies. With the recent Daniel Craig movies, the series had been given new life. Casino Royale is what I think is the best of all the James Bond movies. It had the most well constructed story and action scenes, along with the best opening sequence and theme. Quantum of Solace was kind of a mixed bag, Skyfall was a great follow up, and then Spectre tried to tie everything together, but I don’t think it did a great job at doing it and was overall a mess.

The new movie, No Time to Die was a great conclusion to the Daniel Craig films. The story is a standard Bond plot, but it was able to wrap up every character’s arc and deliver on some of the best action scenes in the longest Bond movie without it feeling too dragged out. I do not know where they plan to take this series after this, whether they hire a new James Bond or focus on a new character, but I would be fine with this being the last film in the whole franchise. I know it would be strange to stop it since it has been around for almost 60 years and makes so much box office revenue, but after 25 movies, I’d be perfectly fine with it ending here.