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Hops and Box Office Flops: ‘FIGHT CLUB – I am Jack’s Podcast’
Fight Club hasn’t aged well. And that’s putting it mildly. It wasn’t that David Fincher and company didn’t have something to say. Certainly, they did. It’s more that the message is muddled and often lost amidst the overpowering stardom of Brad Pitt. You cast a movie star, you get a virtuoso performance. That’s generally not an issue, but when the character is meant to represent the reprehensible, a conundrum ensues. Pitt’s Tyler Durden is a false prophet; we’re not supposed to think he’s cool; and his ramblings—though hovering around actual facts—are not meant to inspire. Most viewers are aware of this, but for some, that meaning was lost. Thus, the dangerous…
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OFFICIAL: Slice of Film Joins WOBAM Entertainment!
WOBAM’s been through many phases of existence, and Katie Rentschler has been there through most of them. Having served as Deputy Editor and web designer for our site, she stepped away in 2019 to pursue other ventures like Full Circle Cinema, Geek Ultimate Alliance, Revenge of the Fans, and her own blog, Slicer Scribbles. Obviously we’ve stayed in touch, and what’s been exciting is watching Katie grow in these creative ventures. With WOBAM also experiencing a new and exciting phase of growth, the opportunity presented itself for us to work together again and offer a home for Katie’s podcast, Slice of Film. Part of the Geek Ultimate Alliance podcasting network,…
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Hops and Box Office Flops: ‘PACIFIC RIM – A Jaeger Bomb’
Pacific Rim is Guillermo del Toro’s homage to the Kaiju movies that fascinated him in his youth. To that end, it is a lovingly crafted and often beautiful film that delivers on the promise of its premise. What is the conceit? Well, in short, Jaegers—giant Earth-protecting mechs—fight invading Kaiju who emerge from a rift within the Pacific Ocean. And for all the movie’s foibles—the plot has many—it does nail it’s most defining element. The fights, in fact, are so visually dazzling that it makes the laborious human moments with wooden Raleigh Becket (Charlie Hunnam) all the more painful. Speaking of those foibles, the humans—not just poor Raleigh—encompass a host of them.…
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Hops and Box Office Flops: GHOST RIDER SPIRIT OF VENGEANCE – Ride Angry
Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance, which is a sequel to the 2007 original, is so insane it almost works. Nicolas Cage, the Rider or Johnny Blaze, goes full Cage. It’s equal parts glorious and dumbfounding. That is the movie in a nutshell. For everything that works—such as the Rider possessing humongous construction equipment—there are far too many other elements that do not. From the dude from Empire Records overacting literally every piece of dialogue to Idris Elba’s mindbogglingly bad French accent, there are just far too many palm face moments. That said, it is better than the first—despite what the reviews (18% on Rotten Tomatoes with 114 reviews) and the…
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Hops and Box Office Flops: GREEN LANTERN – Shallow Hal Jordan
Green Lantern is a mess—an expensive one, at that. Its horrid CGI suit tells all the tales one needs to know about how misguided the project was. And it was a misfire that had serious ramifications. In 2011, Green Lantern was meant to serve as the kickoff to a new DC movie universe. That notion was immediately squashed. On a budget over $200 million, it grossed just $219.9 million worldwide. Worse, critics (26% on Rotten Tomatoes with 246 reviews) and audiences (45%) reviled it. There would be no sequel, and there certainly would not be an integrated universe with Ryan Reynold’s Hal Jordan at its center. When you watch it, none of the numbers…
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Hops and Box Office Flops: BALLISTIC ECKS VS SEVER – Moaning Techno and Explosions
Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever is bad. Like truly awful. Its plot is convoluted; its action is often nonsensical and unimaginative; and it does little to capitalize on its star power. Antonio Banderas literally has nothing to do. This guy was El Mariachi in Desperado, for Pete’s sake. Let him do more than smoke cigarettes and drink. Anyway, there is a boat load of slow motion, if you’re into that. Most of it is wholly unnecessary, but it’s there; and it probably adds 10 minutes to the runtime—a portion of your life you will never get back. There’s also a lot of sulking and staring. There’s an abundance of Ray Park in a…
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Hops and Box Office Flops: TOP SECRET! – We Know a Little German
Top Secret! was the team of Jim Abrahams, David Zucker, and Jerry Zucker’s follow up to their incredibly successful Airplane! It, like its predecessor, is an indescribably goofy movie—full of off the wall gags, jokes, and non-sequiturs. If you have seen Airplane!, you will understand what kind of humor it is. These guys were the kings of this style of comedy, and Top Secret! certainly lives up to that pedigree. It also introduced moviegoers to Val Kilmer. This was his big screen debut, and it’s clear why he went on to become a household name. Where this movie suffers is a lack of clear narrative focus and a truly defined world. It is set in immediate…
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Hops and Box Office Flops: IF LOOKS COULD KILL – Grieco: Far from Home
If Looks Could Kill is a piece of vintage 90s cinema. It takes a young star—presumably on the rise—and tasks them with elevating a sub-par film. It’s a challenge many budding leading men have been burdened with. Richard Grieco—most famously Dennis Booker from the 21 Jump Street TV show and its spin-off Booker—is not quite up to the task. His big screen woes mirror that of his small screen ones. Like Booker, audiences did not flock to If Looks Could Kill. His suave appearance and brash attitude were not accompanied by the requisite charm. Grossing just $7.8 million on a budget as high as $12 million, it served as evidence that Grieco may not be the next big…
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Hops and Box Office Flops: THE LONG KISS GOODNIGHT – This Movie is Pain
The Long Kiss Goodnight is obnoxious, loud, and dumb. In other words, most action movies of the 80s and 90s. It’s also hopelessly convoluted and botches its central premise—that of an amnesic suburban housewife who has forgotten that she used to be an assassin. Starring Geena Davis—in her second collaboration with former husband Renny Harlin—as Samantha Caine (the innocent)/Charly Baltimore (the no-so-innocent), The Long Kiss Goodnight just isn’t equal to the sum of its parts. The supporting cast is great—boasting Samuel L. Jackson, Brian Cox, Craig Bierko, and David Morse, amongst others—and it was written by Shane Black, the literal master of this conceit (i.e. the mismatched action duo). Even with those elements, it…
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THE FANBOY: “DC United Under One Vision? WandaVision Lays Exciting Groundwork for Marvel, Maguire and Leto Return, and More From Zack Snyder’s Justice League!”
This week’s episode of The Fanboy Podcast begins with an examination of quotes from HBO Max’s Chief Content Officer Casey Bloys on the interconnectivity of the DC universe, going forward. He paints a picture of an Arrowverse, Snyderverse, Titansverse, and Films universe that all work together in a logical way, and MFR reacts. Things then shift into thoughts on Marvel’s WandaVision, where things have finally kicked into a gear where MFR had to delve in and see what all the hype was about. What he found was the promising start of the next chapter in the Marvel saga. He also touches on the rumor that Tobey Maguire has officially signed on…
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