Chalk it up to rock bottom expectations, but “It” blew me away when it arrived in theaters mainly because it exceeded my expectations and proved to be a stellar film all around. Andres Muschetti already killed it with his adaptation of his short “Mama,” but he brings his same sensibility in another coming of age tale where pure evil meets innocence. “It” is a masterstroke of a reboot, a movie that pays tribute to the original novel and re-invents every aspect from the ground up for a new audience without dumbing down the material.
Category Archives: Movie Reviews
Surge of Power: Revenge of the Sequel (2016)
In his return to the screen, super hero Surge leaves Big City for a visit to Las Vegas where he’ll find adventure, love, and celinedionium. While trying to save the city and possibly the world, he also attempts to help a friend and figure out more about life.
Artifact (2018)
What is the difference between a religious artifact and an action figure? In some ways, they share many attributes: people blanket them with levels of importance, sometimes attributing them with levels of power and significance that speak more about the observers of these objects than about the objects themselves.
Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping (2016)
For the most part, “Popstar” is a funny and often raucous satire of the pop star life and modern music business. A mix of “This is Spinal Tap” and “Zoolander,” Andy Samberg creates an engaging enough character to where we want to see where he ends up in the finale. The problem with the film is it completely loses steam in the final half hour, leading up to the big performance. The writers spend a good portion of time anxiously trying to keep the momentum from the first hour.
Rockin’ with the Chipmunks (1994)
I vividly remember watching “Rockin’ with the Chipmunks”back in the very early nineties where I recall loving the scenes of Alvin dancing along with Michael Jackson to “Beat It” and “Smooth Criminal.” Mostly a cash grab for the fans, “Rockin with the Chipmunks” is a brief history of the novelty group, spliced in with comedy skits and the members singing vintage rock and roll in their modern animation. The animation for the most part is dicey and fuzzy at best, allowing for a hazy series of music videos, but back then if you were a Chipmunks fanatic, you didn’t care.
Go, Johnny, Go! (1959) (DVD)
The only reason to watch “Go, Johnny, Go!” is if you want to see some of the best rock and roll artists of all time do their thing on the big screen. Other than that, “Go, Johnny, Go!” is the story of the boring, milquetoast Johnny Melody, a bright eyed, blond white boy who rose from the slums as an orphan to become a rock and roll singer. It’s surprising that a movie featuring Ritchie Valens, and Chuck Berry would only focus on the most uninteresting individual, as when the movie stops to spread its paper thin premise with performances, it ironically becomes worth sitting through.
Revolution (1968)
There isn’t much of a love or respect for the hippy culture in “Revolution” which is consistently referred to as the beatnik culture with a lot of derision on the tone of various interviewers. While the idea of free love and peace from war still continues on in this documentary, “Revolution” focuses on the folks that are merely just kind of parasitic and miss the point as a whole. One of the big images that sum up the entire message of the film is the title “Revolution” sprawled across the screen while angelic and thick headed hippy Today Malone lies in a field fast asleep and high on whatever she’d taken the night before. “Revolution” is kind of a mixed message of a film, based around psychedelic imagery and large interludes of great hippy rock music.