old king clancy

Review – Widows (2018)

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by Old King Clancy

Given Steve McQueen’s (no not that one) previous works being far more dramatic affairs touching on protests, sex addiction, and slavery, having him helm a heist movie sounds strange on paper. Even more so when you realize the heist film is an adaptation of a British TV Series from the 80’s and co-written by Gone Girl’s Gillian Flynn. But as fans of both Flynn and McQueen’s works and a solid cast backing them up, Widows looked to be a thrilling change of pace.

What we got was a thrilling change of pace, but still carrying McQueen’s dramatic flair.

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Review – Apostle (2018) **31 Days of Horror**

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by Old King Clancy

Having been kicked in the head, twice, by both of his Raid films, I was looking forward to Gareth Evans full-length Horror film Apostle. Even more so having seen how he handled the genre in V/H/S/2 and gave the world Safe Haven, easily one of the best 20 minutes of horror put to screen. Surprisingly, Apostle turned out to be a much slower burn than I was expecting, but it proves that Evans has more to him than just hard-boiled action.

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Review – Happy Death Day (2017) **31 Days of Horror*

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by Old King Clancy

Ever since Groundhog Day, time-loop movies have had to deal with the comparison and indeed when it was advertised, Happy Death Day looked like Groundhog Day: Slasher Style, and while that did turn out to be true, it also got some good reviews calling it an entertaining horror/comedy. With the sequel getting an official release date a few days ago, I decided to kick off this year’s October viewings with this flick and see if it was as fun as advertised.

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Review – Slice (2018)

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by Old King Clancy

Movies like Slice are part of a genre that I’m now trade-marking as “Kitchen Sink Movies,” films like Detention and Freaks Of Nature that take wildly outlandish concepts, throw the kitchen sink at the screen, and pray to god that it’s entertaining because it’s sure as hell not gonna make any sense. It’s a difficult genre to pull off since you run the risk of going too far and blurring out any attempt at story, or you don’t go far enough and your wild concept just feels flimsy and unfocused. In the case of Slice, it unfortunately suffers from the latter issue.

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Review – Hereditary (2018)

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by Old King Clancy

I’ve mentioned before that every year there seems to be one breakout horror film that critics rave about. Over the last five years, we’ve had The Babadook, It Follows, The Witch, Get Out, and now with Hereditary standing out as 2018’s  landmark horror movie. Another connection between the films is that I’ve ended up loving them all and Hereditary is one of the best to date.

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Review – Deadpool 2 (2018)

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by Old King Clancy

WARNING – I will have to discuss a pretty big spoiler that occurs in the first act, I would try to avoid it, but it factors into the film quite heavily. It’s within the first 10-15 minutes, so it’s not too big but here’s the warning anyway.

Looking back at the history of the first Deadpool and how long it took to actually get made I forgave it for some of its shortcomings, namely in that while it was a good comedy, it lacked a strong story to make it good film overall. As such it doesn’t hold up as well on revisits, but is still a funny movie, by comparison Deadpool 2 has a much stronger narrative as well a much more impressive action set-pieces. Ironically, it’s the jokes that come up short. Maybe now living in a world where films like Logan and Infinity War have changed the comic-book movie landscape, the immaturity of Deadpool doesn’t sit as well with me, or maybe I’m just a pretentious ass who can’t have any fun.

Let’s find out.

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Review – Avengers: Infinity War (2018)

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by Old King Clancy

10 years ago, Marvel Studios released Iron Man. It was a funny, action-packed romp with a charismatic lead and in any other time would’ve come and gone and possibly been looked back on as a better than expected comic-book movie. But in 2008, Marvel gave us a promise, a post credit scene that nearly everyone missed talking about “The Avengers Initiative,” and with those three words, The MCU was born. 10 years and 19 films later, it has stood out as one of the biggest, possibly even the most successful franchises of all-time and while it hasn’t been perfect all the way, the highs easily outweigh the lows.

And Infinity War might just be the crowning jewel in Marvel’s crown. Continue reading →