by Kevin Muller
The simplistic story of a young girl finding fame, fortune, and independence, while losing her innocence, is as old as time itself. Even before movies visualized it, the story was told as a cautionary tale for the young. How do you sell it in a new way that hasn’t been done to death? Well, Nicolas Winding Refn has done it with his new movie “The Neon Demon” and it is one hell of a mind trip.
by Kevin Muller
Sequels can either go two ways, they are improvements over the original or extreme downgrades. The new “Turtles” movie falls somewhere in the middle. On the bright side, the sequel is much more relaxed and embraces its silliness, which in turn, makes it mindless fun. Unfortunately, on the flip side, it still has work to do and needs to learn how to prevent the silliness from turning into mind numbing stupidity because for a while it succeeds as pure entertainment.
by Kevin Muller
Parody is truly an art form. Mel Brooks, who did “Space Balls”, “History of the World: part 1,” and many others are that deemed classic, and David Zucker, who directed the hilarious “The Naked Gun” series, were masters of making the silly seem easy. Though it may appear that way, it is anything but simple. When it doesn’t work, it just fails horribly and isn’t even in the slightest bit funny or have any redeeming qualities. Over the last ten years, many parodies have been released and have been forgotten. Those specific movies fail to hit the balance correctly and just come off as plain idiotic, but not in a good way. How does the musical comedy group ‘The Lonely Island” do in this genre?
by Kevin Muller
You have to hand it to the “X-men” franchise. Not only is it still going strong, 16 years after the first film, but it was the jumping point for many of the comic book blockbusters we all admire today. Christopher Nolan, who directed ‘The Dark Knight Trilogy”, has stated that he was influenced by the way Bryan Singer, this film’s director, and the director of the 2000 original film, grounded everything from the look to the themes into reality. Singer followed it up with the equally worthy “X2” before departing and giving the reigns to Brett Ratner. The general consensus of Ratner’s film was that it was garbage so when Singer was announced to come back and helm 2014’s “X-men: Days of Future Past,” fans rejoiced. That film was a triumph both with fans and financially. The amazing thing that Singer achieved was erasing everything that happened in Ratner’s film and his own, to create a new time line through the element of time travel. This now gives him the ability to recast the roles that were made famous by other actors without anyone batting an eye.
by Kevin Muller
Joss Whedon, the geek savior of television and movies, hit it big with 2012’s ‘The Avengers.” It was a buildup of not only the super heroes, but the promise of what everyone was waiting for, a team movie that would fulfill so many dreams of the loyal fans of these characters. Whedon hit it out of the park giving us great acting and snappy dialogue to make the movie a massive success both critically and financially. We all anticipated the phase 2 Avengers movie that we had to wait three years to drop. Fast forward three years and three solo films later, and you would’ve thought that Whedon created a cinematic abortion with “Avengers: Age of Ultron.”
by Kevin Muller
Back in the early 2000’s, Dave Chappelle reigned supreme on Comedy Central with his sketch comedy show “Chappelle’s Show.” It was witty, hilarious, and incredibly smart. When he walked away from it, and the millions of dollars that Comedy Central supposedly threw at him to stay, the network was quick to find a comedian that could fill that void. The question was, could Comedy Central ever find someone even with half the talent that Chappelle possessed?
by Kevin Muller
In these days, CGI, or computer generated imagery, is so common that we actually yearn and gravitate towards old school practical effects. Spike Jonze adapted the famous children’s book “Where the Wild Things Are” using people in giant costumes to portray his monsters instead of fully rendering them with computer graphics and the original “The Lord of the Rings” trilogy, definitely not “The Hobbit” movies, used as little CGI as possible. Every so often, a movie comes along that pushes the bar further for what CGI is really capable of achieving. Jon Favreau’s “The Jungle Book” is that very movie. It is a visual masterpiece and a great retelling of the famous Disney cartoon.
by Kevin Muller
Colombia, the country loved by Mr. Pablo Escobar. His love for his country’s freedom and prosperity was the utmost importance to him. Even though life dealt him a rough card, he still believed in and wanted to protect in his motherland. How far did he go to achieve that goal? For Escobar, the sky was the limit. Continue reading
Cinephellas 