Whether we like it or not, summer is right around the corner, and Mill Creek Entertainment is helping movie lover ring in the season with a marathon of ten great beach and summer movies. Well, great is a broad term, as most of these movies are goofy eighties nonsense and action schlock you can enjoy with some beers and nachos. At fifteen hours, this collection is compiled in to three DVD’s and packs in some new titles along with Mill Creek’s more prominent comedy titles.
Category Archives: Movie Reviews
Violet (2017)
A teen witnesses a murder and must come to terms with what he saw. Through his interactions with friends and family, he attempts to but can’t seem to find the way.
Violet was written and directed by Bas Devos, for whom this is a first feature according to IMDB. This film is interesting in terms of how it develops around the lead that saw the murder. It’s a simple story with strong emotional impact in terms of a teen dealing with grief, survivor guilt, and other hard feelings to handle at such at any age, especially as a teen. The film explores this with mostly following the lead’s daily life and what he sees while trying to work through this. The story has good, interesting elements but what really shine are the lead, its actor, and the visuals.
Batman & Bill (2017)
For a long time, debates have raged in the art world about what can be considered creating a property and who can be credited as a true creator of a creative property. For decades, Stan Lee and Steve Ditko were feuding over who were the rightful mind behind Spider-Man, as Lee insisted Spider-Man was his idea, while Ditko insisted he conceptualized Spider-Man, thus making him the creator. What “Batman & Bill” seeks to do is boldly putting an end to the debate that’s been raging in the comic book medium for almost a century. Directors Don Argott and Sheena M. Joyce simultaneously tells the tragic and often heartbreaking story of Bill Finger, the long uncredited creator of Batman, and how a man named Bob Kane stole everything Finger ever had from the credit, and the massive profits, right down to the very essence of his self-respect.
Hardware Wars (1978)
With only one movie under its belt in the series, and little resources, Ernie Fosselius’s “Hardware Wars” is a solid fan film for “Star Wars” and the first ever made. Fosselius doesn’t try to make a movie so much as a mock movie trailer that runs down the events of the first film with humorous results. It’s filled with literally nothing but satire about the original movie, even skirting copyrights by altering everything enough to avoid legal trouble.
Spaceballs (1987)
It makes me laugh quite a lot that modern Hollywood are planning to spoof “Star Wars” when Mel Brooks pretty much supplied the definitive “Star Wars” spoof thirty years ago. You can argue maybe there’s more to offer, but no, Mel Brooks did it first and best. He mocked the characters, he mocked the plot holes, and he even mocked the rampant consumerism that George Lucas partook in when “Star Wars” became a cash cow. “Spaceballs” involves the evil President Skroob kidnaps Vespa during an arranged marriage, in an effort to steal planet Druidia’s fresh air. The evil Lord Dark Helmet is assigned to complete the task of sucking Druidia’s air, and hires Lonestarr and his pal “Barft” (The mog, a half man and half dog) to find Princess Vespa when she escapes the arranged marriage.
Star Wars: Hoshino (2016)
This is the story of Ko Hoshino, a skilled blind Jedi Master who learned the hard way that patience and wisdom can mean life or death when you’re training to battle the dark side. Stephen Vitale’s fan film “Hoshino” is a visually fantastic tale about the coming of age of a brilliant Jedi warrior, and writer Eric Carrasco delivers a tale that’s steeped in simplicity like classic “Star Wars.” Jedi master Ho Koshino is learning to build her own light saber and thinks back to her tragic origins. Continue reading
Outer Rim – (A Star Wars Fanfilm For The Rest of the Empire) (2017)
We don’t often think about every character standing outside of the big stories in major fantasy or science fiction, because we assume it’s just not interesting. Director Thomas R. Wood delivers a short but very unique tale of two working joes that are spending their days just doing their job. They are in the middle of the desert and unbeknownst to them there is a massive war taking place around them.