The moment when it becomes completely clear that the universe surrounding the tortuous week-long Wimbledon showdown between tennis players Aaron Williams (Andy Samberg) and Charles Poole (Kit Harington) is every bit as ridiculous as the tennis match itself is during a part in which Williams stands on trial in a Swedish court and the court…
By the time a dismayed Agent Susan Cooper walks out of a hotel room dressed in a disguise that can only be accurately described as “tragically cat lady”– her second such disguise– it becomes abundantly clear that Spy is not primarily a parody of spy movies. Well, okay, it is. There are plenty of jokes to be had…
Around these parts, I tend to write a lot about video game documentaries when the fancy strikes*. This is because while we have yet to see a truly excellent movie based on a video game (though I haven’t given up hope), recent years have given us a slew of documentaries that capture excellent snapshots of…
10 years ago this week, Batman Begins was released in theaters in the US, leaving no small impact on the movie industry, the filmgoing public, and on a 13 year old kid in the Philadelphia suburbs. I could write pages on the movies’ cultural impact; how the one-two punch of Batman Begins and Casino Royale altered the ways studios…
There is something undeniably appealing about 80s pop culture. Putting aside, for a moment, the complicated sociopolitical landscape of the 1980s, it is a decade that has been embraced purely on the level its cultural output. It’s easy to understand why: so much of it is the epitome of awesome, or at least of awesome…
I was sold on Tomorrowland from the start. Something about the combination of “Brad Bird” and “big budget sci-fi project” sets me into a frothy, nerdy glee. Surely, this would be big, star-reaching sci-fi. Unfortunately, Tomorrowland felt less like that film and much more like an infomercial for it. The plot: After being released from a prison cell…
As Mad Men ended this week, taking with it TV’s best examination of the shifting climate of post-war America, it made sense as resident Rooster Illusion superhero guy to re-examine DC’s own take on the mid-century American condition in Justice League: The New Frontier. The plot: As Cold War tensions escalate following World War II, a McCarthy-led initiative…
Rooster Illusion 