1990s

Review – Captain Marvel (2019)

/ cinephellas / Leave a comment

by Kevin Muller

There is a destructive force coming to the MCU, Marvel Cinematic Universe, and it has to power to destroy everything in its path. No, I’m not talking about Thanos, but the star of this film, Brie Larson. For those of you who don’t know, Larson hasn’t been the easiest person to deal with during the filming and promotion of this film. As the lead in a MCU film, she is using it as a platform to deal with women’s rights and other injustices she wants to talk about. Her foot has already been in her mouth a few times, including her saying that the new super hero film wasn’t made for white men, who are the majority of the critic reviewing population. On top of that, she apparently isn’t meshing well with the other Avengers, which could cause a problem. See, most of these original heroes will start to fade out, with the new ones, like Captain Marvel, stepping up to take the lead for the coming years. It doesn’t look good when your main star has created such controversy before the movie was released. Outside of the controversy, the main reason people want to see this is to get information about the person who will fix what Thanos did at the end of Infinity War.   At the end of that film, Nick Fury was seen contacting her, before disintegrating into nothing, along with half of the world’s population. So, how is this origin story that tells us about the savior to this epic saga?

Continue reading →

Review – Captain Marvel (2019)

/ cinephellas / Leave a comment

Logan Myerz reviews the 21st entry in the MCU and the highly controversial film, Captain Marvel.

#CaptainMarvel #MCU #MarvelStudios #MovieReview

“Carol Danvers becomes one of the universe’s most powerful heroes when Earth is caught in the middle of a galactic war between two alien races.”

Review – Bottle Rocket (1996)

/ cinephellas / Leave a comment

by Armando Vanegas

Sometimes, I get bored reviewing new movies so for some reason, I wanted to go through all the Wes Anderson movies in chronological order in the meantime. It’s just something that gives me a challenge to do and maybe there will be unexpected feelings and unique thoughts I never saw coming. So, without further delay, let’s begin with his 1996 debut, Bottle Rocket. I remember this being a movie that got a lot of play on Comedy Central back in the day and it was always the kind of movie that I never felt compelled to watch when it’s on. Honestly, I was never impressed with the bits I’d seen, but there were always interesting sequences that made the rest of the movie worth it. So, in subsequent years, I would watch bits and pieces because there was sometimes nothing to watch on cable. When I last watched this movie, I rated this movie rather highly back when I was more of a snob when it came to movies. But as anyone who has read my Phantom Thread review, I’ve decided to just to watch movies as their own individual self, judge them as their own thing no matter who’s involved in terms of the directors, the writers, or the actors. Watching this again was interesting. As a movie directed by someone who would be later become one of the most idiosyncratic and quirky filmmakers of our time, younger middle school me who watched this on cable was right. Outside of a few well directed sequences, it’s fine.

Continue reading →

Review- Twin Peaks: The Return (2017)

/ cinephellas / Leave a comment

 

by Armando Vanegas

Shows that come back from a long hiatus can be tricky because you don’t know how it will be perceived and it’s hard to know if it will have the same impact that it did with viewers from years ago. The other thing to consider is that people change and as a result, feelings and sensibilities change. This seems to be a big part of what co-creators David Lynch and Mark Frost were aware of coming into this new season of Twin Peaks, also known as Twin Peaks: The Return, as it seems to have a somewhat different feel from the original series. Whereas the old show contained lots of intentional soap opera satirical aesthetics, these new episodes have a more experimental and esoteric feel that is more fitting on its new premium cable home, Showtime. As usual with any David Lynch project, you’re not going to be given simple answers and satisfying conclusions. As long as you’re okay with that going in, you’re bound get something out of this. It’s not exactly a fun watch, but it gives you something to chew on even if it can be hard to wrap your head around at times thanks to the trademark surrealism on display.

Continue reading →

Review – Twin Peaks (Seasons 1 + 2)

/ cinephellas / Leave a comment

by Armando Vanegas

Twin Peaks had to be interesting to see back in 1990. It was at a time when TV largely stayed in their lanes and never threatened to disturb the status quo. But that’s what happens when you get David Lynch, then of Blue Velvet and Wild at Heart, have the audacity to condescend to TV and bring his weird brand of black lodges and dancing little people in small red rooms with striped floors. For a few years now, I’ve been attempting to experience this show and see what makes it special. After all the hype, I heard about the latest revival by Showtime from last summer, I wanted to review the first two seasons and share some thoughts as someone who was completely new to it and was totally out of the loop as this show was way before my time. I also wanted to give it a chance as it’s considered a pioneer of Peak TV and David Lynch has made things that I’ve liked in the past, so I wanted to see what his vision would look like if it was contained in a network TV show.

Continue reading →

Review – Everything Sucks! (2018)

/ cinephellas / Leave a comment

By Armando Vanegas

I don’t usually review TV shows, but I wanted to try something different and Netflix’s Everything Sucks! was something that really stuck with me, so much that I was inspired to write about it and hopefully those of you who read this might want to give it a shot. Everything Sucks!, in a lot of ways, is the show that the trailer sells you with its very 90’s aesthetic, due to the fact that it’s set in 1996. It’s evident in the first two episodes, which are also its weakest. However, they do a good job setting up for the tone, the characters, and the story. But once it figures itself out, it becomes quite an engaging and charming show. The show is about a group of high school kids in Boring, Oregon and how they’re dealing with growing up.

Continue reading →

Review – Patti Cake$ (2017)

/ cinephellas / Leave a comment

Precious’ Meets ‘Hustle & Flow’ in ‘Patti Cake$

by Nile Fortner

Patti Cake$ is a heartwarming story about a young woman from New Jersey named Patricia Dombrowski, who has dreams of achieving stardom and success as a rapper. Patricia, aka Killer P, aka Patti Cake$, wants to follow in the same footsteps of her favorite rapper. In order to achieve this goal, Patti receives help from her friend, a mysterious Goth musician, and her supportive grandmother.

Continue reading →