Why Terminator: Genisys Is a Good Movie

Posted on July 14, 2015 by Robert Lockard, the Deja Reviewer

Last week I had to choose between seeing Jurassic World or Terminator: Genisys with some friends. First-world problems, I know.

I’ve never really cared for the Jurassic Park series. I saw the first film at age 11 and even then I was unimpressed by it. I had heard it was really scary and that it might be too intense for me, but I found it frankly dull. Over the years I’ve gained an appreciation for its technical achievements, but I still don’t think it’s that great. The two awful sequels it spawned didn’t help, either.

The Terminator series is another story. I grew up being infatuated with the first two films. They both live up to their hype and have an amazing combination of ideas, character development, action, and visual style. Terminator 2: Judgment Day is my favorite of the two. Sure, the next two sequels in the series were lackluster, but when I heard someone was doing a Terminator reboot, I was intrigued.

So I saw Terminator: Genisys, and I’m glad I did. I don’t understand why reviews have been so negative for this film. It tells a compelling story and it gave me pretty much everything I could want from a story about time travel and killer robots from the future.

There are some pretty major spoilers ahead, so please watch the movie before continuing. I would hate to give anything away for you because I really like all the twists and turns this movie offers. With that caveat, let’s find out why Terminator: Genisys is a good movie. Continue reading →

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5 TV Shows Named After Their Most Useless Character

Posted on July 8, 2015 by Robert Lockard, the Deja Reviewer

Irony can be hilarious. Most TV show titles are pretty straightforward: Seinfeld is about a guy named Jerry Seinfeld. The Simpsons is about the Simpson family. Doctor Who is about a Time Lord from another planet who travels through time in a living time machine and keeps dying and coming back to life with new physical and personality traits. What’s so hard to understand about that?

But sometimes TV shows have ironic titles to shake things up and throw off our expectations. We expect the main character that the show is named after to be strong and competent, but the five following TV shows are actually named after their most useless character. Continue reading →

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1996 Was the Year the Macho ’80s Action Hero Died

Posted on July 1, 2015 by Robert Lockard, the Deja Reviewer

I love ‘80s action movies. To me, they don’t get any better than Aliens, Die Hard, and RoboCop, among others from that decade. Just about everything starring Arnold Schwarzenegger or Sylvester Stallone during the ‘80s is pure gold.

The trend of big, muscular heroes who are impossible to kill continued from 1990 to 1995, with hits like Die Hard 2, Total Recall, Terminator 2: Judgment Day, Under Siege, Cliffhanger, True Lies, Bad Boys, and Die Hard with a Vengeance.

But then came 1996, and everything changed. The macho ‘80s action hero died that year, and we’re going to perform an autopsy and figure out what happened. We’ll mostly be talking about the actors who were the victims of this sudden downward spiral. So let’s see why 1996 was the year the ‘80s action hero died. Continue reading →

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Unidentified Flying Oddball – What Were They Thinking?

Posted on June 24, 2015 by Robert Lockard, the Deja Reviewer

I had planned on writing a Forgotten Film Gem article this week about a 1979 Disney film called Unidentified Flying Oddball. I hadn’t seen it in years, but I remembered enough good things about it that I figured it would be fun to revisit it with my wife, who had never seen it before.

Unfortunately, things didn’t go according to plan.

This is probably the longest 90-minute movie I’ve ever seen. It drags on and on. It’s a comedy without jokes, a romance without passion, and an epic without scope. In short, I have to ask: What were the filmmakers thinking?

Unidentified Flying Oddball is atrocious. It does have a couple of good aspects, so I will give credit where credit is due. But 99 percent of this film is utterly awful. Let’s see what went wrong with this Disney non-classic. Continue reading →

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Amadeus vs. The Fountainhead

Posted on June 16, 2015 by Robert Lockard, the Deja Reviewer

This isn’t a typical Movie Matchup. In fact, it’s not really a matchup of movies at all because even though The Fountainhead was made into a movie starring Gary Cooper in 1949, I’m just going to be talking about the novel.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart is a shameless womanizer, but he produces majestic music.Amadeus is one of those deliciously ironic cautionary tales of life imitating art. The film is all about mediocrity attempting to snuff out greatness. The director was well-known for making great films. While it went on to win a host of Oscars, its popularity has since faded and its director and stars have been relegated to relative obscurity ever since.

Ayn Rand’s novel The Fountainhead was her first major commercial success. It, too, is about people who try to bring down a gifted individual. Rand had written several shorter novels before writing this ambitious book. One reason why The Fountainhead isn’t better known is because it was overshadowed by Rand’s next novel, Atlas Shrugged.

I admit it’s painful for me to watch Amadeus because it focuses so much on the suffering of a truly great man, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, at the hands of a treacherous leech. It was also painful for me to read The Fountainhead. I had enjoyed Atlas Shrugged immensely, so I was eager to read its predecessor. I was surprised to find myself having similar feelings to what I experienced as I watched Amadeus. The both have a wonderfully conflicting sense of tragedy and triumph. It took me a while to put the pieces together and figure out that these works of art have a lot in common.

I’ve composed a piece showing how the film Amadeus and the novel The Fountainhead are constructed in similar ways. Let’s begin. Continue reading →

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10 Ways American Sniper Missed the Mark

Posted on June 10, 2015 by Robert Lockard, the Deja Reviewer

I wanted to love American Sniper. I finally saw it for the first time a few days ago, and I was excited. This is an R-rated movie that attracted bigger audiences in the U.S. than any other blockbuster in 2014. I had to see what it was all about and how it had become such a huge success.

Unfortunately, I was pretty underwhelmed by American Sniper. I don’t think it’s bad, but it didn’t have anything particularly special to propel it above all the other films I enjoyed from last year.

Here are 10 aspects of the film that really missed the mark, in my opinion, and kept it from being the great movie I had hoped it would be: Continue reading →

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Pleasant Surprises: Penelope

Posted on June 3, 2015 by Robert Lockard, the Deja Reviewer

Christina Ricci gives her usual effortlessly awesome performance as the titular Penelope.Penelope is a whimsical little film about a girl who spends the first 25 years of her life with a pig snout for a nose. I thought it was bizarre the first time I saw it. But then I gave it another try and I was surprised at how much I enjoyed it after getting over what initially put me off about it. And then I saw it a third time and I discovered a wonderful new layer that made the whole thing even more beautiful.

So let’s uncover everything I love about the surprisingly meaningful romantic comedy Penelope. And at the end I’ll reveal the wonderful message that is hiding in plain sight in this film. Continue reading →

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10 Things I Love About 10 Things I Hate About You

Posted on May 26, 2015 by Robert Lockard, the Deja Reviewer

I’m not really a fan of most romantic comedies,

But sometimes a film in this genre truly does please.

Like 1999’s 10 Things I Hate About You,

An adaptation of Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew.

 

For some reason, this film is a delight to watch every time,

And I’m going to do my best to make every line rhyme

As I highlight its great moments and joyfully go through

10 things I love about 10 Things I Hate About You. Continue reading →

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The Beautiful Story Structure of How to Train Your Dragon

Posted on May 20, 2015 by Robert Lockard, the Deja Reviewer

I love How to Train Your Dragon. You might have figured that out based on my favorable comparison of it to James Cameron’s Avatar and my list of 10 cool details you may have missed in it.

It turns out that How to Train Your Dragon is an even deeper film than I originally thought. Its message of Vikings and dragons coming together to live in peace and harmony is complemented by the very way its story is told.

How to Train Your Dragon is another example of Cinematic Chiasmus. Chiasmus is a story structure that has existed for thousands of years. In it, the first half of a story is repeated in reverse order in the second half so that the whole story begins and ends in the same way.

It’s a breathtaking sight to behold, so let’s get right to it and witness the beautiful story structure of How to Train Your Dragon. Continue reading →

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Most Comedic Actors Have a 10-Year Window of Greatness

Posted on May 13, 2015 by Robert Lockard, the Deja Reviewer

Nothing lasts forever. Case in point, comedic actors. Even the ones who reach superstar status and enjoy years of success eventually slip into mediocrity. The interesting thing is the pattern they follow. I’ve noticed that usually these kinds of actors have about a 10-year window, give or take a couple years, to really make a lasting impact.

After their decade is up, they usually fall fast. There are numerous examples, and I limited myself to 10 for this list. I’m sure there are plenty of others. So let’s witness the rise and fall of these comedic actors in about 10 short years. Continue reading →

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