Venom directed by Ruben Fleischer and staring Tom Hardy is the first in what Sony hopes to be the first film in a Spider-man film series sans Spider-man. And well, it’s not bad but not good. It’s just kind of…there.
Analysis and Review: Gargoyles Awakening Part 3
Previously on Gargoyles…I forgot to mention that the second episode is the first time we see the proper opening to the show including its theme song. It’s composed by Carl Johnson and played over clips of the previous episodes, as well as a few that we haven’t seen yet. It’s entirely instrumental and has a very dark, Gothic yet magnificently triumphant at the same I can see why Carl Johnson earned an Emmy nomination for his work on the show.
The show opens proper with Detective Maza speaking with Owen about the light show, falling debris and explosions which Owens spins as an exploding generator. Elisa however points out that an exploding generator doesn’t sound anything like automatic weapon fire, so with the prospect of her returning with a warrant Owen takes her up to survey the scene and meet with Xanatos.
Elisa Maza: What exactly did happen here Mr. Xanatos? And please, don’t try to tell me it was an exploding generator.
Xanatos: Owen was a little confused. That’s for the press. The truth is that my men repelled an invasion by a rival corporation trying to steal some of our new technology.
Elisa Maza: “Repelled an invasion”? You’re a private citizen, Xanatos. Not a country.
Xanatos: Detective, l am the owner of a multinational corporation, which is bigger than many countries you could name.
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Analysis and Review: Gargoyles Awakening Part 2
When last we left our heroes, the castle they were sworn to protect was sacked, the people inside taken prisoner, their clan killed in their sleep and the one human who didn’t treat them like garbage betrayed them. Also there was a segment involving New York in the 1990’s.
I swear this episode helps connect the two.
The episode starts off where the first one left off, with Goliath cursing the heavens.
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Analysis and Review: Gargoyles Awakening Part 1
It’s interesting to look back and see the things that impacted our childhood. Sometimes we grow up and grow out of them, sometimes we look back at them through the lens of nostalgia and we find the flaws we missed as children. And sometimes we look back and find the things that helped shaped our tastes and interests into adulthood even if we weren’t able to recognize them at an early age.
Such was the case for me and Gargoyles, an animated series that first premiered in 1994. It’s eclecticism when it came to storytelling heavily shaped my interests as an adult, giving me a broad viewpoint on fiction. When it came to fictional topics, nothing was off limits, this show had everything a growing boy needed. Sword and sorcery, science fiction, crime noir, comedy, Shakespearean tragedy (heavy on the Shakespeare), world mythology, fencing, fighting, torture, revenge, giants, monsters, the works.
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NEW IN REVIEW: Peppermint
Welcome to a little segment I like to call New In Review, where I give a short summary on new or new-ish movies (basically if it’s still in theaters it qualifies) and give my thoughts on them.
To start things off I’ll be talking about the action-revenge flick Peppermint, which despite its minty fresh title is a good and proper stinker. Jennifer Garner stars as Riley North, unassuming mother and wife turned vindictive vigilante after her husband and daughter are killed. Now I don’t know about you, but when I think of action heroines I immediately think of Jennifer Gardner.
The story goes that Gardner’s husband, played by Chris Johnson, is offered by a friend to rob a local drug lord to help with their financial problems. He turns him down but I guess the “rumor” that he was going to be a part of it is enough him, Jennifer Garner and their daughter to be shot in a drive by.
After the killers get off on the flimsiest of reasons, Jennifer disappears for five years and comes back a hard-fighin’, gun-tottin’, badass who’s killed the gunmen, the corrupt DA and the corrupt judge and now has her sights set on the drug lord. Meanwhile she’s followed by a pair of detectives played by John Gallager Jr. and John Ortiz whose dialogue consists mostly of cop cliches.
So let me see if I’ve got this right, it’s a revenge flick and skips the revenge part?
What? Seriously? You know revenge films aren’t hard to do. One person wrongs another person, usually through attacking close friends and relatives, so that person takes systematic revenge on the other person. That way we the audience can experience the catharsis alongside the character as they right the wrongs experienced.
The problem is that with a time skip set so early in the film we get no proper development and little explanation on how a mousy housewife is transformed into a murderous vigilante.
How did she get a hold of military grade weapons? How did she learn to fight? How did she learn about the inner workings of the drug cartel just by watching them? How did she even learn that the judge was corrupt?
Don’t bother asking these questions, the film either gives throwaway lines, glosses over or just straight up ignores these things just to get to the next action piece.
Which isn’t to say they’re not good. Jennifer Garner definitely shows off some good action work, sadly the same can’t be said for her acting as she goes around with a kind of crazed murderous look on her face most of the time. Whether gunning down criminals, harassing citizens or seeing visions of her daughter (not her husband though, guess he wasn’t that important).
So does it service as a revenge film? Yes but barely, it just feels so sloppily done. This movie wants to start as Death Wish 1, skip all the important stuff and just go straight to the bonkers finale of Death Wish 3.
Skip this and just watch those instead.
But that’s just my opinion.
Introductions Are In Order I Believe
Hello lovely people of the Interweb!
My name (or at least my nom de plume here) is Matt the Media Hunter. Your average Millennial with a love of fiction in all it’s forms, an overactive brain and way too much time on my hands. And as the description implies I’m looking for quality in all the odd places.
Now what does that mean? Well it’s simple, it means I’m going to sift through film, television, books and the like to find the exceptional or possibly unexceptional since I know folks love to hear critics rip apart the really bad stuff. Go through the old, the new, the mainstream and the obscure to try and find the reasons why we love the things we love and hate the things we hate. Possibly find flecks of gold in piles of crap and something secretly terrible in works of art.
Now I know what you’re thinking, aren’t I just following the trend of other more popular review blogs and hoping to crib off of their success?
Well to be perfectly honest. Yes.
But hey, what is the internet but a place to exchange ideas and share opinions, no matter how ludicrous or ill-informed?
So come along with me, as we tackle the media both domestic and foreign and experience the adventure of a lifetime!
And while we’re doing that, I’ll try to figure out how this blog-thing works.
Matt the Media Hunter 