The Big Bang Theory is one of the most popular television sitcoms of the late 2000s and 2010s. Like similar modern shows such as How I Met Your Mother (2005-2014) and Modern Family (2009-present), it represents a shift in mainstream television portrayals of modern America, including its emphasis on pop culture references, scientific research, higher … Continue reading
In light of Michael Bay’s fifth (5th!) upcoming robot-sex movie, Transformers: The Last Knight (2017), I thought it appropriate to look back on Bay’s previous work on the franchise that has become synonymous with big, loud, brain-dead Hollywood blockbuster filmmaking, as well as obnoxious product placement and blatant, shameless international pandering. I have made my … Continue reading
I am not the biggest fan of AMC’s popular zombie-drama, The Walking Dead, but I wasn’t always a critic of it. When the show first aired in its abbreviated, six-episode debut season, I was one of its early converts, impressed by its production values, epic scope, and excited by the prospect of a long-running television … Continue reading
Amidst the cultural backlash, civil war, and whirlwind that was 2016, filmmaking soldiered on as usual, featuring a plethora of comic book-adaptations such as Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016), Captain America: Civil War (2016), X-Men: Apocalypse (2016), Doctor Strange (2016), and the sidestream rebuttal, Deadpool (2016). It was a good year if you … Continue reading
With the upcoming release of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (2016) upon us, I decided it was time to look back at the Harry Potter film megafranchise that birthed the modern Young Adult (YA) novel-adaptation craze, giving us everything from Twilight (2008-2012) to The Hunger Games (2012-2015) to Divergent (2014-present) to Maze Runner … Continue reading
The bigger the cinephile you become, the more specific and technical your filmmaking preferences and opinions grow. Movie-buffs become more nuanced in their evaluations of their favorite and least favorite films, picking out distinct filmmaking techniques that they notice, time and time again, which can either elevate a film’s material or drag it down into the … Continue reading
If you’re anything of a movie-buff, you’re aware that the past decade of filmmaking, and in particular the past ten years of film distribution, have been wrapped in a controversy so intriguing that it calls into question the very medium of movies themselves: The introduction and subsequent domination of HD digital video cameras to shoot motion … Continue reading
Some time in the early 2000s, my fellow small-town, Midwestern citizens got excited over another non-distinct, brainless summer action movie called The Fast and the Furious (2001). It starred then unknown actor Paul Walker and recent breakout “star” Vin Diesel, the latter of whom had previously broken onto the map from the low-budget sci-fi film, Pitch … Continue reading
This is a companion piece to my other director-centric article, my picks for the Top Five Overrated Filmmakers, in which I discussed movie-directors who get way more critical support and fan-credit than they deserve. Today I’ll tackle the opposite end of the spectrum: Directors who have proved their worth, have made good (in some cases, … Continue reading
A proud pastime of movie-lovers the world over is debating whose favorite filmmakers are better than others. It’s remarkably similar to how sports fans boast over their favorite sports franchises or players, or how music-buffs argue whose beloved artist is more “mainstream” or “selling out” or is more influential. Debates over favorite filmmakers, namely directors, are … Continue reading
