Sometimes even heroes resort to cheating to defeat their enemies. As long as it’s serving a good cause or at least it’s being used against someone even worse than the person doing it, cheating can actually appear noble. Let’s look at nine films that rely on cheating to make winners out of losers. Continue reading
I grew up in a city in Washington State that was five miles from pretty much everything. To get to a grocery store, library, restaurant, or mall, I had to travel quite a ways. As a result, it was a fun challenge to try to run or bike places. My community college was about 20 miles away, so that always felt like quite a commute. A couple of times, I was crazy enough to ride my bike there.
I thought of myself as fairly speedy, but I could never keep up with the cars going past me at 40 miles per hour. If you’ve ever been on a long bike ride with nothing but you and the open road ahead, there’s a certain movie scene I think you’ll love.
I’m sure most people would say that E.T. the Extra Terrestrial has the best cycling scene when Elliot flies in front of the moon or when he and his friends elude the police in the early morning light. And there are plenty of people who love the climax of Pee-wee’s Big Adventure and the “Raindrops Keep Fallin’ on My Head” scene from Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.
But for me there’s one scene that breaks away from the rest and wins by a mile, and that’s the truck-racing scene in Breaking Away. I like a lot of things about that film, but this is the only scene that really stuck with me. Continue reading
I’ve spoken at length about the brilliance of 1985’s Brewster’s Millions and what an insightful lesson it provides on the true value of money. Now I’ll balance that out by talking about the possible consequences of the events in that film. They might not be pretty.
Here’s a brief recap of the film. A nobody named Brewster stands to inherit $300 million from a long-lost relative on the condition that he first spend $30 million in 30 days and accumulate no assets in the process. He dumps millions of dollars into a political campaign telling New York City residents to vote for none of the above rather than electing a corrupt mayor. When he becomes the most popular mayoral candidate, he hastily drops out of the race. He then proceeds to spend the last of his $30 million just before the time limit expires, despite the best efforts of a law firm that wants him to fail. So the next morning he’ll wake up fabulously wealthy. Unfortunately, he’ll also likely wake up to a lot of problems. Continue reading
So far, major actors from three of the four Batman films that ran from 1989 to 1997 have appeared in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. And their MCU roles have been the exact inverse of their original ones, villains playing heroes and a hero playing a villain. Could we see the hero of the fourth Batman film play a baddie in an upcoming MCU film? Let’s see. Continue reading
Have you ever found the answer to a question you had never thought to ask, but which explains many other questions you’ve had? I had this experience when I watched a brilliant review of Pleasantville. I had never seen a film review like this one. It cuts right to the heart of the matter and answers a dark question that had been hiding just beyond my grasp: why was I taught to feel superior to previous generations?
Watch this 35-minute video if you’d like to see what I mean. Continue reading
A mysterious probe is on a direct course for Earth, and James T. Kirk is the only thing standing in its way. He has to find a way to respond to the probe and give it what it expects to find on Earth. Meanwhile, Spock struggles to rediscover his emotional side. Am I describing Star Trek: The Motion Picture or Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home?
I propose that Star Trek IV is simply Star Trek: The Motion Picture with jokes. Let’s go through all of their similarities to see if I can prove this theory correct. Continue reading
This article is not for the squeamish. The end of 2018 was not kind to me. I was bedridden for a week in September and then spent the final week of December suffering from a number of painful maladies. I don’t resent enduring hard times and excruciating experiences. They teach me to appreciate what I have when things are going well and to not take my health and happiness for granted.
Some pains are worse than others. Plenty of films portray characters going through heartache and physical pain because that’s the way to create drama and tension. But few beat their characters down with more pain than one could possibly imagine a single person enduring. I invite you to join me as I visit eight examples of ultimate suffering in film, though I’ll be surprised if anyone can stomach it all. Continue reading
I may have discovered why Bumblebee is the first Transformers movie to not only get a fresh Rotten Tomatoes rating, but be overwhelmingly popular with critics. It does everything that was proven to be wildly successful in 1999’s The Iron Giant. Let’s go through their similarities. Continue reading
1979’s The Black Hole does just about everything right. It’s chock-full of great actors giving compelling performances. It has plenty of memorable scenes and imagery. John Barry’s score is hauntingly beautiful throughout. It offers several iconic robot designs. And it has a fantastic mystery that is resolved in the most devastating way possible.
So why do I feel so hollow every time the end credits roll?
I want to love The Black Hole, but something prevents me from doing that. For this reason, I have to ask: is The Black Hole a good movie? Let’s go through its positive and negative qualities to get to the root of the film and discover the answer to this question. Continue reading
2018 was the year I made a lot of changes to the Deja Reviewer website. I added four new review sections, a move unheard of since I created the site in 2011. Up until 2018, I had only added one other new section, Pleasant Surprises, and that was back in 2012!
Feel free to check out the articles under these new categories. I’ll add more to them in the coming months and years because I still have a lot of fun insights to share. Continue reading
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