Podcast
-
Star Wars Visions Review – Anime is Exactly What The Galaxy Needed
Star Wars and anime are something that should be a perfect blend, right? Join Mike Kenobi and The Mad Doc Isak as they discuss the 9 different takes on this major force of a franchise. Stream Star Wars Visions on Disney+.
-
My Hero Academia Season 5 Review – Deku and Shigaraki Level-Up
It’s time for another My Hero Academia post. This time for the season recap review due to the series 5th season final. On top of our general thoughts, we go through our hopes and dreams for the upcoming 6th season. My Hero Academia season 5 is streaming on FUNimation, Hulu, and Crunchyroll.
-
Hops and Box Office Flops: ‘SIDE OUT’
Sponsored by MetLife Side Out—which stars C. Thomas Howell and Peter Horton as Monroe Clark and Zack Barnes—is the quintessential beach volleyball movie. There is a distinct lack of competition in that field, but regardless, it is a 1990s filmmaking delight. The central conceit of Side Out is that Clark, an aspiring lawyer, comes to California to intern for his uncle Max—an unscrupulous attorney who’s always out for money. This fortuitously leads him to Barnes, an aging and disgraced former “King of the Beach.” From there, it’s magic. All of it. From the Kenny Loggins needle drop, to the ultra 90s aesthetic, to the incredible montages, Side Out is so bad it actually transcends its…
-
Hops and Box Office Flops: ‘THE PROGRAM’
Place at the Table The Program is a highly embellished glimpse at the perils of big time collegiate football. The prioritization of wins over the actual molding of young minds is at its center, but so is football’s innate ability to form lasting bonds. The men who take the field put their bodies on the line for each other. It’s a brotherhood. It nails both of those aspects. The shadiness of the folks in charge is omnipresent; and the central cast of characters is relatable. Their foibles, as cliché as they may be, are distinctly human. You’ve got the young upstart running back Darnell Jefferson (Omar Epps), whose education entering college…
-
Hops and Box Office Flops: ‘LAST MAN STANDING’
No, Not the Tim Allen Show Last Man Standing is the American reimagining of Akira Kurosawa’s Yojimbo (1961), though it wasn’t the first reinterpretation. The Spaghetti Western A Fist Full of Dollars (1964) had tread this ground before—a man with no name caught up in the exacerbating violence of warring gangs. Unlike the Italian-produced film, Last Man Standing was given Kurosawa’s blessing. Unfortunately, it can’t replicate either of its predecessors results. Directed by Walter Hill, it’s a movie that struggles mightily to present a coherent story. Sure, it revolves around Irish and Italian mobsters vying for bootlegging dominance in a remote Texas town, but what happens around that is often nonsensical. That is no fault of the…
-
Hops and Box Office Flops: ‘HUDSON HAWK’
Scat Burglar Hudson Hawk is as bold a movie as an A-list star could possibly choose to make. And that’s a compliment. Bruce Willis, most famous for playing gruff cop John McClane, stars as cat burglar Eddie Hawkins—the titular Hudson Hawk. He’s tasked with stealing artifacts crafted by Leonardo da Vinci that are capable of turning lead into gold. On the surface, that sounds like a fairly standard action-centric plot. What it actually entails is anything but. Hudson Hawk boasts a deluge of slapstick tomfoolery; dynamic duets between Willis and Danny Aielo, who plays his partner Tommy Five-Tone; a secret com device crafted out of a crucifix; and a gaggle of candy-themed thugs—one…
-
Hops and Box Office Flops: ‘COP OUT’
Bruce is Too Old for This S**t Cop Out is a humorless retread of the buddy cop trope. Directed by Kevin Smith, though not written by him, it lacks the key ingredient to this tried and true formula—charismatic leads. Bruce Willis, as Jimmy, sleepwalks through the entire film. Tracy Morgan, as his partner Paul, tries dutifully to carry his lifeless husk across the finish line. But, alas, he cannot. No amount of improv or overacting can inject life into the flat script. More than likely, Willis’ on-set tantrums and open disdain for Smith’s direction played a role in Cop Out‘s failures. He just didn’t commit to the material, which forced Morgan to…
-
Hops and Box Office Flops: ‘THE SUICIDE SQUAD’
Passion Fruit Starfish James Gunn’s The Suicide Squad, which is a pseudo-sequel to 2016’s film, is an unapologetic, Troma-inspired, super heroic gore fest. And it is glorious! This is Gunn’s superhero magnum opus. He dives deep into DC’s bag of obscure characters to assemble a ragtag group of expendable heathens. Make no mistake, many of these oddballs are here to die. And they do so in a series of grotesque ways. This is a hard R, folks. Unlike Birds of Prey or Zack Snyder’s Justice League, which could’ve curbed their foul language to earn a PG-13, The Suicide Squadbasks in the magnificence of its unfettered violence. Bullets are sprayed, a man is murdered with his…
-
Hops and Box Office Flops: ‘A GOOD DAY TO DIE HARD’
A Good Day to Davai Die Hard is arguably the greatest action movie ever made. A Good Day to Die Hard, on the other hand, is a soulless husk that’s related to the prior entries in name only. Certainly, the character of John McClane, Bruce Willis, became progressively more absurd with each sequel. He’d gone from isolated cop, surviving on instinct and guile, to literally a super human battling a fighter jet on a highway. In A Good Day to Die Hard, that trend continues. Worse, though, there’s just no story or a compelling villain to balance it out. The plot of this movie makes no sense—not even a semblance of it. It’s so…
-
Hops and Box Office Flops: ‘F9: THE FAST SAGA’
Space Cars! F9: The Fast Saga—as utterly absurd as it is—is the natural progression of a series that’s always running on overdrive. Dominic Toretto, Vin Diesel, and co. were destined for this film’s convoluted, bloated, and baffling narrative. Now, those may sound like knocks against it, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. I just don’t care how illogical the plots of these films have become. They are just too much damn fun. Dom has a secret spy brother? Sure. Why they hell not?! Magnets! How do they work? Doesn’t matter. Just bask in the awesomeness of the high octane action! Han, who was killed twice technically in cannon, returns out…
