Movies

February is that month where we tell those we love how much we love them. Sure, some do that on Valentine's Day, and that's important. But here at Critical Blast, we use the whole month to pass the word along to those who create the movies, shows, comics and books we all hold so dear.

After taking votes all through January from you, our readers, the votes have been tabulated and we begin our series of announcements with the BEST FILM OF 2017. And since this year, the category shares so much with the BEST ACTOR OF 2017, we're offering them to you here as a two-fer!

Hostiles, the new film by Scott Cooper, is not what the trailers I saw would lead you to believe. The clips make it look like it's an action-packed Tombstone-style romp. It is not. It's a thinking person's western, a parable about hate, xenophobia, and ultimately acceptance. It's about broken people just trying to survive. Hostiles (incidentally a terrible name for this film, as while there are indeed many hostiles in it, it’s not about them) is not an easy film to watch, but it's an emotional and gripping film that will have you dwelling on it for days afterward.

How is a movie that features a female director, and lead role, get snubbed by the very vocal Hollywood which recently crusaded for women's voices to be heard?

Just a few short days ago, women took to the streets all across America shouting claims of being treated unfairly. Just a few short weeks ago, the men and women who make up the Hollywood elite spoke to a national audience, during the Golden Globes, to praise women who have suffered abuse, just to make it in the industry.

It appears that the noise didn't equal results. How could it be that with all of the rabble rousing and table banging, the voices still weren't heard? Especially with an empowering movie such as WONDER WOMAN staring the committee down.

GEOSTORM is one of those films that released in theaters and then found its way onto Blu-ray quickly thereafter. Which is a shame, because despite that the trailers had it looking like another DAY AFTER TOMORROW or (shudder) ICETASTROPHE), GEOSTORM, helmed by veteran director and producer DEAN DEVLIN, has some really good special effects that deserved a big-screen viewing as well as some real nail-biting suspense that retains its tension throughout the film.

Jake Lawson (GERARD BUTLER) is a scientist who developed a satellite network that sends corrective pulses into the atmosphere where needed to stave off extreme events of climate change. Shortly after setting up the system, nicknamed DUTCH BOY, he was fired by his brother, Max (JIM STURGESS).

Adapt or die. It’s a maxim that means something different in Hollywood, where movies are adapted from television shows, books, comics, and even older movies.

But adapting a game to a film is an entirely different beast. A book or a television show has an accepted path. It can be shifted or seen from a different angle, but the audience knows what it’s getting going in. A game, by its very nature, is fluid, changing, never the same thing twice. So, when Hollywood goes to adapting a game into a film, they have both a blessing and a curse – a blessing, because they have such a wide array of choices, and a curse, because those choices can so easily lead writers away from producing something that carries the feel of the game.

Has anybody nicknamed Director DENIS VILLENEUVE "Blade Ruiner" yet? Can I be the first?

After having sat through BLADE RUNNER 2049, I'm at a loss to tell you what it was really about, other than that it was about three hours where I sat wondering what was going on. Was it supposed to confuse me? (In cells interlinked. Respond.) Was I supposed to feel depressed? (In cells interlinked.) Was anyone in the show actually a human being with actual emotions?

The often troubled Lindsey Lohan has thrown her cowl in the ring for consideration to play Barbara Gordon, aka BATGIRL.

Joss Whedon is set to direct the movie, announced months before the big shakeup at DC Films, which placed Walter Hamada as the new president. There's no guarantee that Hamada will continue with the project however, as we've seen many movies get cancelled or lose their directors.

Lindsey Lohan took to twitter last week asking her fans to "RT if I should star in the new BATGIRL movie and everyone tell (Joss Whedon)". After being in and out of re-hab, its nice to see that she feels stable enough to get back into Hollywood, but being a red-headed actress doesn't exactly give her an automatic look.

by David Jones
How to Make a Blockbuster on a Budget? by Moneypod.

I know a lot of people who find comfort in repetition. They drive to work the same way every morning. They eat the same thing for breakfast or lunch, or both. They go out for dinner and order the same thing at the same restaurant. Some people need that reliable stability in their lives. That is absolutely fine, I make no judgment here. For others, that’s a torturous existence. That’s like waking up every morning to Sonny and Cher’s “I Got You Babe,” going to work, getting soaked by a truck driving through a puddle along the curb, and thinking, “Really? Again? I swear this happens every time…” That’s how I’m beginning to feel myself. Repetition, déjà vu—but not quite a true “Groundhog Day” experience when I go to the movies to watch anew Liam Neeson action flick. There are some slight deviations from film to film. The Commuter, opening everywhere on January 12, 2018, is one such deviation, but by and large it’s exactly what you might suspect it is.

In the town of Derry, Maine, children disappear. And nobody cares. Well, except for the kids, of course. And only some of them.

From the looks of things, Derry is a small town. Small enough to get just about everywhere in it via bicycle. Plus, we get to see a map of it later in the film, confirming its size. So one would think that if a couple of kids disappeared there, it would be a thing. But the only ones who pay all that much attention to it are a small band of misfit kids who are on persistent defense against a truly sociopathic bully who doesn't just give them wedgies and take their lunch money, but also carves his initials into them with a knife -- and receives no legal punishment for it.

What do you do if you're a teenager whose father is an evil villain intent on conquering the ciy, and everybody knows it? And what if you also lived a secret life as a masked ninja, looked up to by everyone because you're constantly thwarting your father's plans?

That's the life of Lloyd Garmadon, aka the Green Ninja. He's one member of an elite teenage fighting force that uses their giant mechs to ward off Garmadon's invasions (that usually have some sort of shark-theme to them). With his friends Cole, Jay, Kai, Nya, and Zane (a robot who, for some reason, hides the fact that he's a robot), he fights the daily invasions that come across Ninjago bay from Garmadon's easily-visible volcanic island where he fires his failing generals -- literally.

Even Hollywood understands that there is just something special about the performance art known as “the musical.” There have been hit musical films almost as long as there have been films, period: The Wizard of Oz, Mary Poppins, Singin’ In The Rain, and most of Elvis Presley’s films involved a fair amount of singing, even if some might not regard them as musicals in the purest sense of the word. Grease was a big hit when I was young, as was The Jazz Singer. Moulin Rouge, Chicago, Hairspray, Les Misérables, La-La Land and others have garnered box office success and award nominations in recent years. This year is no exception as Australian heartthrob Hugh Jackman retires his Wolverine claws and dons a bright red coat with long tails and a dashing top hat for the role of P.T. Barnum in The Greatest Showman.

Everyone has their own list. As soon as a new Star Wars movie is released, its success is immediately measured by where it ranks among the others that came before it.

And to say STAR WARS: THE LAST JEDI is as divisive as BATMAN V SUPERMAN: DAWN OF JUSTICE, would be a slight understatement. Not even Mustafar is as fiery as the passion of most Star Wars fans. And when they begin debating the merits of Rian Johnson's entry, much like a Jedi or a Sith, they choose a side and refuse to be tempted by the other.

While Rotten Tomatoes receives a fair amount of criticism from fans, one thing is true: it aggregates the average score of critics and fans alike. So taking that into consideration, let's do the math and find out how the critics rank the Star Wars saga with rating in parathesis:

J.J. Abrams and Rian Johnson, please report to the Carbonite freezing chamber. You two have done the impossible. You've made me long for Jar Jar Binks. Heesa wooda being betta dan de bombad Bantha poodoo that is The Last Jedi. This is your only warning: there are a ton of spoilers ahead. 

In a world where balance exists between the dark and light sides of the force, forshadowing casts a gray cloud over everything.

What does it all mean?

Hell if I know. THE LAST JEDI will be deconstructed until the next installment is released. This much I know for sure. The internet will be littered with articles that dissect the most miniscule moments. Have questions been answered? Yes. Do we have more questions now that we've seen it? Absolutely.

Rian Johnson delivers a movie that is both action packed, humorous, and full of depth. While some of the comedy is more over-the-top than we're used to for a Star Wars movie, it still meshes well and doesn't distract from the story that's being told around it.

Guillermo del Toro makes moves that no one else in Hollywood would ever even conceive of, and that should be considered high praise. The big blockbusters generally follow a pretty routine formula. Most films so. Very seldom does a director write and execute his own script with the clarity of vision and abundant originality of his latest film, The Shape of Water. It’s a love story, a monster movie, and a unique look at a creature that doesn’t belong in this world…and minor spoiler alert—only one of these three descriptions applies to the “monster.”

St. Louis -- Michelle Reeves

(This review contains material that may be considered by some as spoiler.)

STAR WARS: THE FORCE AWAKENS was slow, as it introduced new characters, and ended with Rey facing the missing Luke Skywalker, thus building into STAR WARS: THE LAST JEDI.

Without really knowing what to expect from TLJ, I went in with an open mind.  After a lengthy period of time, Rey finally convinces Luke Skywalker to assist the Resistance, after he initially refuses. He also reluctantly starts teaching Rey to be a Jedi. 

The film excellently portrayed the struggle between good and evil within us.  Rey converses with Kylo Ren, trying to learn about who he really is.  Using the Force, she sees and feels the conflict within Kylo--the same conflict we all face individually between right and wrong, good and evil, restraint and temptation. 

From Entertainment Weekly:

This Phoenix has risen… again. On Nov. 2, 2018, Dark Phoenix will arrive in theaters and finally deliver the storyline X-Men fans have wanted for years. Simon Kinberg previously attempted to tell the iconic Jean Grey tale — about the telepath’s battle with demons in her own mind — with his screenplay for 2006’s X-Men: The Last Stand, but studio pressure squeezed her story into a reductive subplot. Kinberg, making his directorial debut, felt in his gut that this was the story that he needed to tell once Bryan Singer, who directed the previous two sequels, stepped aside. “[The film] was so clear in my head, emotionally and visually, that it would have killed me to hand this to somebody else to direct,” Kinberg says.

A cabin. A handful of characters. An engaging conversation.

A pretty good way to spend an evening -- but would you believe that such a simple, prosaic and unchanging scene could make for a compelling film? That's the case with Director Richard Schenkman's vision of Jerome Bixby's THE MAN FROM EARTH.

CSI: MIAMI's DAVID LEE SMITH plays Dr. John Oldman, a college professor who is giving up tenure after ten years teaching to move on. He's ditched the goodbye party thrown by his friends, so they bring it to him, at his remote cabin, and press him for the reasons why he is leaving. And that's when these academics--leaders in their field--are given a story and a hypothesis that challenges everything they believe in: that John Oldman is a Cro-Magnon man who, for reasons he himself doesn't understand, has never died.

Hollywood has long had a fascination with movies about casinos, gambling and those where characters play bingo. There are almost endless examples of where gambling makes an appearance, but the ones below feature casino pastimes as being central to the plot and the action. If you haven’t seen some of these, be sure to check them out.

Casino Royale (2006) - Daniel Craig makes his debut as James Bond in this film which has been billed one of the top-grossing films in the series. In this scene, we see Agent 007 playing a hand of high stakes poker against Le Chiffre played by Mads Mikkelsen. The gambling scenes are well played and the tension coming off the big screen is downright palpable!