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…
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…
In naming a movie WolfCop, you are pretty assuredly guaranteed an audience of at a certain kind of vintage VHS (or Laserdisc)-obsessed cinephile. For my own part, I understood as soon as I heard the title it was only a matter of time until I saw it. WolfCop lives up to its cinema dork-savvy title, but takes some…
Well, judging from the opening weekend box office records, statistically you have seen Avengers: Age of Ultron. Seriously, the only film opening better than the Avengers is The Avengers. The culmination of the four previous movies of Marvel’s “phase 2”, Age of Ultron is a 2 1/2 hour juggernaut of a superhero adventure, one which highlights the best and worse…
In the past two weeks, I’ve found myself feeling something I thought I’d never feel again: excitement for a new Star Wars movie. With the release of the newest trailer, I have been cruising at maximum Star Wars hype, a feeling I have a deep fear will be whisked away again. Obviously, this rekindling of unexpected emotions called…
Rooster Illusion 