Last weekend, dosage the surprise sequel to Cloverfield opened in theaters nationwide. After a few months of secrecy, 10 Cloverfield Lane opened with strong reviews and more than 24 million dollars at the box office. Although the movie has received a 90% positive rating on... <img src="http://www.johnhanlonreviews.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/10-Cloverfield-Lane-Reviews-270x315.jpg" type="image/jpeg"/>

The 2016 Super Bowl has officially ended with the Denver Broncos as NFL champions. It wasn’t just the game that kept viewers interested in the proceedings though. There was a surprisingly strong halftime show and a dozen or so strong commercials that really stood out. With... <img src="http://www.johnhanlonreviews.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/Lady-Gaga-270x346.jpg" type="image/jpeg"/>

“There was an attack…A big one, buy information pills ” Howard (John Goodman), a mysterious “savior” notes near the beginning of the new film, 10 Cloverfield Lane. He’s speaking to Michelle (Mary Elizabeth Winstead), a woman who... <img src="http://www.johnhanlonreviews.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/10-Cloverfield-Lane-Review-105x88.jpg" type="image/jpeg"/>

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HorrorMystery/SuspenseDramaSci-Fi/Fantasy We hope this review was both interesting and useful. Please share it with family and friends who would benefit from it as well.Movie ReviewDoomsday shelters are like vacations: It sure is nice to share them with someone. Howard's shelter is as cozy and comfortable as an apocalyptic abode can be—a last-resort resort, if you will. It's got a jukebox, board games and a fully functioning kitchen. Water runs from the faucets. The lights work. The air filtration system hums quietly in the background. Howard knew the day would come when his shelter would be the envy of the masses. A place where people would die—or kill—to live in. Now, he knows, that day is here. And while he can't say exactly what brought on the end of the world—whether a military attack, an alien invasion or a natural catastrophe—there's no question that it has come. The world outside these walls (his walls) is dead or dying. "As of Friday, kindness and generosity are antiquated customs." That's what he says. But he couldn't leave Michelle out on the road to die, could he? Of course not. When he saw her there, unconscious in her wrecked car, he had to pull her out and take her home—even with the Four Horsemen bearing down on him. And so he did. It's sad to him, then, that as he patiently explains to Michelle how he saved her life—how she owes him, literally, everything—she just sits on her mattress on the floor, staring at him as if he was the bad guy. Granted, her new bedroom is a little rough, what with its cinderblock walls and heavy metal door that locks from the outside. And, yes, she's chained to the wall. But that's only temporary, he tells her. For her own safety. "What are you going to do with me?" Michelle asks. "I'm going to keep you alive," Howard tells her. He throws her the key to her shackles and walks out, shutting and locking the heavy door behind him. And Michelle is left to wonder which poses the gravest danger: the world outside … or the world within.Positive ElementsMichelle and Howard have company in this doomsday shelter: Emmett, the young man who helped Howard build the thing. And over the days and weeks that follow, he and Michelle develop a strong friendship—one that eventually forces one of them to offer up the ultimate sacrifice. While Emmett seems like a pretty all-around good guy from the get-go, Michelle grows during the course of her confinement. Before she showed up in Howard's bunker, she tended to run away from problems; by the time 10 Cloverfield Lane wraps, she's able to stand up—both literally and metaphorically—to the dangers that surround her.Spiritual ContentEmmett speaks of seeing strange lights outside that, he believes, suggest the end of the world. "Like something you read about in the Bible," he said. And Howard insists that his elaborate bunker doesn't make him crazy. "Crazy is building your ark after the flood has already come," he says.Sexual ContentHoward often compares Michelle to his daughter, Megan. He talks about her all the time and seems to want Michelle to fill the void she left in his life. But with that in mind, Howard's interest in Michelle can feel … creepy. He says, "I'm not a pervert," but he clearly feels something for the young woman … and the nature of that attraction, though it's never explicitly stated, is a central source of tension here. He warns Emmett not to touch Michelle (even after she stumbles and would've fallen otherwise) and flies into a rage when Michelle flirts with the guy. And it's worth noting that when Michelle first wakes up in the bunker, she's wearing only underwear. And her white tank top shows her bra and cleavage. Some of that might make you question Howard's relationship with his real daughter—though when asked what became of her, Howard simply says that "her mother turned her against me" and the two moved elsewhere.Recommended ResourceA Chicken's Guide to Talking Turkey With Your Kids About SexKevin LemanEven the bravest parents feel timid about discussing sex with their 8- to 14-year-olds! This resource offers reassuring, humorous, real-life anecdotes along with reliable information to help you with this challenging task.Buy NowViolent Content10 Cloverfield Lane is a mystery on a couple of different levels, and is a tense, harrowing movie with fleeting scenes of brief-but-visceral gore. While the grotesqueries we see do not technically push the PG-13 rating, they can feel worse than they look because of the movie's sometimes overwhelming intensity. [The rest of this section contains spoilers.] Michelle is knocked off the road by an unseen force, tumbling down the hillside in a jarring scene. She wakes up with an injured knee and a bloody wound on her head. She tries to stab Howard with the sharpened end of a crutch and breaks a bottle over his head. The glass cuts Howard's forehead pretty deeply, and Michelle must then stitch the guy up—an operation we see the beginning of. Howard grabs her hair and pushes her into a wall a couple of times. There are explosions. Someone is shot and killed. (We see blood on the doorframe behind the victim.) It's suggested that the body is then dissolved in a barrel of acid. That acid gets knocked over, burning the face and arms of someone terribly (and possibly contributing to death). Shelves are pushed over on top of someone. A woman pounds on the door of the shelter, her face mottled by some unknown toxin, begging to be let in. (They don't open up for her.) Dead pigs lie in their pens in the front yard, their flesh bloodied and deformed. Michelle talks about how she saw a father hit his daughter. (It reminds her of her own abusive upbringing.) There's talk of abductions and murders. And then there are the aliens. (See, I told you this section had spoilers in it!) There seem to be two extraterrestrial beasties, both very interested in devouring people and even things (like cars). They chase and threaten with their super-freaky mouths. One has a Molotov cocktail thrown down its gullet which gives it, you might say, an explosive attack of indigestion.Crude or Profane Language"Watch your language at the table," Howard scolds Emmett. And everyone seems to take those words to heart for much of the movie, even away from the table—with a few notable exceptions. There's one f-word, two s-words and one each of "b--ch," "d--n" and "h---." God's name is misused a handful of times, once with "d--n."Drug and Alcohol ContentWe see Michelle leave her husband, taking a bottle of liquor while leaving her wedding band behind. Howard drinks vodka he distilled himself, offering some to Michelle. After a sip, she discovers the concoction is disgusting and refuses any more. Emmett tells us that on the day he was supposed to leave for college, he purposefully got so drunk that he wouldn't wake up in time to catch the bus.Other Negative ElementsThe shelter's bathroom is a bit too public for Michelle's (and our) comfort. And Howard hovers close by the curtain-covered area when he forces the woman to use it.ConclusionFear is the common denominator that brought Howard, Michelle and Emmett together in the tiny doomsday bunker at 10 Cloverfield Lane. Fear drove Michelle out of her apartment and away from her husband. "We had a fight. Normal couples fight," the man tells her over the phone. But instead of dealing with the aftermath and trying to correct whatever was wrong, she fled. Emmett's fear didn't make him run. Instead he stood still because of it. A track star in high school, ironically, Emmett received a full scholarship to a nearby university. But the idea of college intimidated him, so he passed on the scholarship and never showed up. He's spent his whole life, he tells Michelle, within a 40-mile radius of home. And, of course, it was the fear of a worldwide cataclysm that inspired Howard to build the bunker in the first place. 10 Cloverfield Lane plays on our fears, too—the fear of the unknown, right along with the terror of what we know all too well. This is a horror movie, both intimate and sprawling in scope. And as a horror movie, it works. It works too well, perhaps. And in doing so it proves two important points: First, you don't need a lot of explicit content to make a grip-the-armrest-'til-your-knuckles-turn-white kind of movie. It pulls you in because of the way it feels more than what it shows. There's nothing inherently problematic about seeing a vat of acid or a scratched word on a window, after all. It's what these images suggest—what they threaten—that digs at us. Second, it reminds us that an entertainment's problematic content isn't always the easy-to-decipher litmus test we might like it to be. 10 Cloverfield Lane has less actual content than your average superhero movie. But while I know lots of parents who wouldn't blink at taking their 10 year olds to see an Iron Man movie, this is another psychological story entirely.Pro-social ContentObjectionable ContentSummary AdvisoryPlot SummaryChristian BeliefsOther Belief SystemsAuthority RolesProfanity/ViolenceKissing/Sex/HomosexualityDiscussion TopicsAdditional Comments/NotesEpisode Reviews]]>

When one of your movie’s main stars is an animated rabbit, it makes sense, that the movie itself might hop the competition. Zootopia did just that this weekend. Disney’s latest animated adventure corralled an estimated $50 million, making the movie’s second weekend win a no-doubter. Zootopia has already grossed $142.6 million in North America in just 10 days, and it’s doing even better abroad: It’s earned more than $430 million worldwide. That’s a lot of carrots. Perhaps if newcomer 10 Cloverfield Lane featured a tortoise somewhere, it might’ve had a chance of beating the fleet-footed Zootopia. Alas, there was no room for pets of any kind in the movie’s creepy apocalyptic bunker, which doomed the Cloverfield spinoff to a second-place, $25.2 million finish. But the flick could hang around for a while, given its glowing secular reviews. Like the movie’s bunker, it was built for the long haul. Deadpool continues to make money hand over bloody fist, banking $10.8 million to hold third place for the second straight week. Or, at least, that’s what it looks like right now. London Has Fallen, with its $10.7 million weekend take, trails the snide superhero by just $100,000—a mere pittance in Hollywoodland. Meanwhile, Whiskey Tango Foxtrot collected $4.6 million to keep a trio of new movies outside the Top Five. The Perfect Match was the closest to breaking into the bunch, collecting $4.2 million in matching funds. The Young Messiah—the second major faith-based movie to come out this year—couldn’t match the strong performance of Risen and finished seventh with $3.4 million. And The Brothers Grimsby, Sacha Baron Cohen’s over-the-top gross-out comedy, was ironically a gross-earnings flop. It earned just $3.2 million to sulk into eighth place. Final figures update: 1. Zootopia, $51.3 million; 2. 10 Cloverfield Lane, $24.7 million; 3. Deadpool, $10.9 million; 4. London Has Fallen, $10.8 million; 5. Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, $4.7 million; 6. The Perfect Match, $4.3 million; 7. The Young Messiah, $3.3 million; 8. The Brothers Grimsby, $3.3 million. ]]>

Foxes live, on average, about five years. Wild rabbits—depending, of course, on the number of foxes in the neighborhood—typically live three. At this rate, it’s possible Zootopia might survive in theaters longer than both of its stars. OK, so Zootopia has a ways to go for that to happen. Still, you can’t quibble with its run. Disney’s latest animated feature hopped to the top of the weekend’s box office for the third straight week, bounding to an estimated $38 million. Yessir, Zootopia has been cinematic gold for the Mouse House—a 24-carrot success, if you will. This was not how the weekend was supposed to play out, not with The Divergent Series rolling out its third film, Allegiant, to the masses. After all, the franchise’s first two installments—2014’s Divergent and 2015’s Insurgent—made $54.6 million and $52.3 million in their respective debut weekends. And while perhaps a little drop could be anticipated, few expected Allegiant to make a mere $29.1 million in its first three days. And with the final film still set to wheeze into theaters next summer, it looks as though The Divergent Series may have a dystopian future in store for itself. News was better for the faith-based moviemakers of Miracles From Heaven. The Jennifer Garner-helmed Christian movie outperformed studio estimates, earning $15 million over the weekend. Add to that the cash it made on Wednesday and Thursday, and Miracles now sits at $18.6 million for its still-short run—not exactly a miraculous haul, perhaps, but already higher than its reported $13 million budget. Two holdovers closed out the weekend’s Top Five. 10 Cloverfield Lane locked itself into the fourth-place slot with $12.5 million, barring the doors from any would-be encroachers. And Deadpool has proved as durable as its titular character, earning another $8 million. Deadpool has now made (gulp) $340.9 million, making it the year’s biggest movie by far and cementing it as the superhero genre’s eighth-biggest moneymaker in history (not adjusted for inflation, of course). ‘Course, both Zootopia and Deadpool may get a little taste of kryptonite next weekend, when a couple of other superheroes come to town. Final figures update: 1. Zootopia, $37.2 million; 2. The Divergent Series: Allegiant, $29 million; 3. Miracles from Heaven, $14.8 million; 4. 10 Cloverfield Lane, $12.5 million; 5. Deadpool, $8 million. ]]>

Blog Posts Movie Reviews The Perfect Match – Rated R: I hated this movie. It’s a fine example of why “Black movies” don’t get nominated for Oscars. Maybe the Twitter hashtag for the protests should have been #OscarsSoClassy instead of #OscarsSoWhite. This stupid, waste-of-time, lowlife movie is very ghetto, despite being dressed up as a film about rich, young Black professionals. I felt like it was almost an extended, slightly churched-up rap video. Make no mistake, most of the people in this movie may have expensive taste and the money to buy it, but their behavior and discussions are just gross. . . unless you think discussions about “squirting” are the stuff of which great movies are made in the Kardashian era. Um, TMI times a thousand. The movie is also racist. And that’s not to mention that there is some really bad casting here to go along with the awful “acting.” Terrence Jenkins a/k/a Terrence J, who is darker-skinned plays the brother of the much lighter-skinned Paula Patton (who is half White in real life). He also has a slightly pronounced Black accent, whereas she speaks English like a White chick. And, yet, we’re supposed to be convinced they are from the same set of parents. Not that I cared. This movie just isn’t that deep (not even close), so who cares? It’s garbage. You can’t expect better from a movie co-starring Jennifer Lopez’s concubine, Beau Casper Smart, and lowlife Arab Muslim illegal alien rapper French Montana a/k/a Karim Kharbouch. Jenkins plays an agent and public relations executive who represents companies, athletes, and rappers and puts together deals involving them. He and Smart (who is Hispanic and rides around work on a hoverboard) work for a sleazy White boss, “Marty” (Joe Pantoliano), who appears to be either Italian or Jewish. Regardless, the boss is the only White person in the movie, and, so, of course, is a schmuck. Aren’t all White people? The “story” (if you can call it that): Jenkins plays Charlie, a serial womanizer who doesn’t want to settle down. His best male friends, one of whom is married and the other of whom is about to be, bet Charlie that he can’t stick with just dating one woman exclusively until the upcoming wedding. He takes the bet and is soon “dating” (actually just having sex with) Eva (Cassie Ventura–previously one of the voices of Grand Theft Auto V), a woman he’s seen at work. The woman, who is incredibly sleazy and a total s**t, repeatedly asks him for booty calls, and he soon falls for her. But, then, Charlie discovers something about Eva (essentially that she’s as sleazy as he is) that causes him to start heavily drinking, making dumb moves at work, being rude to his friends, and neglecting every area of his life. I hated every single person in this horrible B-movie (with apologies to the letter “B”). And there’s nothing fun or relaxing about watching this insufferable, slow, filthy, racist bore. I literally felt brain cells die while sitting through this utter crap. Best for Gitmo torture material. Yuck. Just yuck. FOUR MARXES PLUS FOUR OBAMAS PLUS FOUR MICHELLE LAVAUGHN ROBINSON HUSSEIN OBAMA IDI AMIN DADAS PLUS TO ISIS BEHEADINGS ]]>

A review of the film Booksmart.

My column on the death of Heath Ledger, from today’s Post: He Stood Out From the Start January 23, 2008 — In the spring of 1999, at the height of the WB-network sensibility that was flooding multiplexes with date comedies for high-school girls, no one was expecting much from “10 Things I Hate About You.” But it was a clever adaptation of “The Taming of the Shrew” that made the most of two newcomers: Julia Stiles and 19-year-old Heath Ledger, who played her long-haired love interest. Ledger was mysterious, cool and witty. Like the early Johnny Depp, he stood out from the Clearasil crowd. He turned down offers to do more teen movies until he was rewarded in 2000 with the plum role of Mel Gibson’s son in “The Patriot.” Ledger proved that he could be the heart of a drama with action-movie shadings. The studios smelled the next blockbuster hero, and Ledger got the full treatment: the cover of Vanity Fair at age 21 and a star turn in the medieval adventure “A Knight’s Tale.” The film flopped, as did another costumer, “The Four Feathers,” the following year. Ledger was freed up to take on low-paid work for arty directors like Terry Gilliam (“The Brothers Grimm”), Catherine Hardwicke (“Lords of Dogtown”) and Marc Forster (“Monsters Ball”). The role of a shepherd who hesitates to acknowledge his homosexuality in “Brokeback Mountain” was exactly what he was looking for, and he gave the performance that made the film. Ledger was brilliant, craggy and conflicted. His inner torment poured out in a hoarse, broken rumble of a speaking voice in which his native Australian accent was undetectable. Worn down by his secret, the character seemed many years older than the actor, who earned what seemed likely to be the first of many Oscar nominations. Ledger continued to shun conventional roles to do, for instance, a harrowing film about heroin addiction (“Candy”) and a small part in the ensemble film about Bob Dylan (“I’m Not There”). Only the promise of working with one of today’s most revered directors, Christopher Nolan, could lure Ledger back to the blockbuster, as the Joker opposite Christian Bale’s Batman, in next summer’s “The Dark Knight.” Posters for the film, showing a hideously disfigured Ledger, are in movie lobbies from coast to coast, macabre reminders of a grim fact: It was his last completed movie.]]>

Let me start my tale of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.-inspired minor terror by saying I don’t blame any of the black students at Stadium High School for what happened on that day more than 20 years ago. It’s probably not what I would have done, but who knows? They had their reasons and were remarkably restrained, considering. I was taking a public speaking class at Stadium in Tacoma, Washington, later made famous as the set of the movie “Ten Things I Hate About You.” One of our regular assignments was delivering announcements over the building’s PA system: half day tomorrow, school pep rally Thursday night, etc. We also did history bits. It fell to me to mark King’s “I Have a Dream” speech by reading a small excerpt to the whole school. That got me all kinds of excited. “I Have a Dream” is a great speech, whatever your political leanings are. It is intelligent, vivid, and concise, clocking in at under 1,700 words. The speech is also daring. King used his whole bag of tricks to challenge everyone who would hear his poetical words at the National Mall on August 28, 1963, from Southern segregationists to Northern white liberals to would-be black militants. King preached that the American Founders had written a check to all Americans that had long since come due. He put the nation on notice that his great movement meant to cash it without delay. They would meet “police brutality” with “soul force,” and they would triumph. It Was So Inspiring I Had to Try And the words! Listen to how he describes the conflict: “seared in the flames of withering injustice”; “the tranquilizing drug of gradualism”; “the whirlwinds of revolt”; “the high plane of dignity and discipline”; “the jangling discord of our nation”; George Wallace’s lips were “dripping with the words of ‘interposition’ and ‘nullification.’” I reached down deep and found the bass to tell students about ‘my’ dream, ‘deeply rooted in the American dream.’ King even manages to turn American topography into something you want to hear more about: “the mighty mountains of New York”; “the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania”; “the curvaceous slopes of California.” The best way to do King’s speech justice, I naively thought, would be to deliver it in the voice of King himself. After a brief intro, I, a white boy from the Pacific Northwest with our almost accentless English, tried to sound like a well-spoken, booming black preacher from the South. My voice had barely changed at that point, but I reached down deep and found the bass to tell students about “my” dream, “deeply rooted in the American dream.” I quoted the most-quoted part of the speech, of course, where King hopes that “One day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood. … One day even in the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice. I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. I have a dream today!” In the allotted time, I tried to work in some of the preacher’s more blatantly religious language. How often do you get to tell all the students in a public school about a dream in which “every valley shall be exalted, and every hill and mountain shall be made low, and the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together”? I closed with “the words of the old negro spiritual: Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty we are free at last!” What Happened Next Shocked Me Next period, fishing for a compliment, I asked friend if he’d heard me on the intercom. His answer shocked me. The conversation went something like this: Friend: We all heard it. Me: How did it sound? Do you want to get your ass kicked? Friend: Do you want to get your ass kicked? Me: What? No. What are you talking about? Friend: You just read a Martin Luther King speech sounding like a black person. Me: I was going for more Southern than black, but so what? Friend: And you don’t see a problem with that? Me: No! That’s how King delivered it. Friend: But you’re white. Me: So? Friend: (Shakes head.) I’d watch your back. He had a point, it turned out. That day, African-American students at Stadium kept accidentally bumping into me in the hallways, including one nudging-up-against-a-locker incident. No punches were thrown and no threatening words were exchanged in any of this. Without my friend’s warning, I would have written it off as an unfortunate coincidence. Now that I was paying attention, the repeat collisions and several nasty looks worried me that something far worse was brewing after school. Let’s Get Outta Here That, in turn, created a moral dilemma and a PR nightmare. Fighting was one thing, yet fighting over the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr. seemed extra wrong and perverse. Imagine being known for having instigated The Great “I Have a Dream” Throwdown of 1993 when you were trying to celebrate, not mock, King and you may begin to see my problem. Fighting over the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr. seemed extra wrong. So I got out of there. I called home for a ride to avoid conflict at the bus stop and exited the building by a different route than usual, just to play it extra safe. “What’s going on?” Dad asked when he pulled up into the school turn-around. “Just drive!” I said, easing down in the seat as far as I could. The next school day was the real test. I showed up expecting the worst, but there were no collisions, no thrown elbows, and no locker presses from my fellow black students over the perceived insult. Maybe they worked it out of their systems with the previous day’s hilarious clumsiness, or maybe they thought about it and decided something about King’s message was worth not fighting over. I’ve always wondered which it was. ]]>

“You don’t have to pretend to like my kids, cheapest ” Cully (Chris Pratt)- a former high school bully- says early on in the new film, 10 Years. But it’s not the importance of ‘forgetting’ that plays a major role in the drama. It’s the... <img src="http://www.johnhanlonreviews.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/10-Years-Poster-105x88.jpg" type="image/jpeg"/>

Hmm, I wonder what Jon Stewart will joke about on Oscar night? I think I can see it all too clearly…. (Applause) Hey! Whoa! Thanks. No really. You’re too nice. (Wild applause) Come on! You’re making me feel like the Jewish Barack Obama! (Tumultous applause and moderate whoo-hooing.) No, really. It’s great to be here again. For the first time in my life, I think I understand President Bush. You know? Because now I know exactly how it feels to win an entirely undeserved second term. (Wild applause, whistles.) Hey, there’s Amy Adams! I loved “Enchanted.” Didn’t you love it? (Applause). Only guy who didn’t love it? Bill Clinton. He walked out of it saying, “This whole thing is the second biggest fairy tale I’ve ever seen.” (Laughs) Lot of big movies coming out that you’ll be seeing honored at next year’s Oscars. Like, say, “10,000 B.C.” (Laughs). No, really. Great movie. It’s about John McCain’s high school years. (Laughs) No, but really.  There’s a movie coming out about Hillary Clinton’s campaign too. It’s called “Semi-Pro.” (Scattered laughs and boos.) Moving right along. Hey! There’s Michael Moore. How ya doin’. I hear Michael’s making a documentary about Mike Huckabee, by the way. It’s gonna be called “Hicko.” (scattered laughs, uncomfortable silence) What? What’d I say? The man’s a creationist! I mean, really, who could possibly think a guy who doesn’t believe in the theory of evolution could ever get anywhere near being elected president of the United–oh. (Big laughs. Shot of Al Gore in audience. Gore mouths the words “That’s not funny.” Applause.)]]>

May his daring at least get Disney’s closed minds to rerelease Song of the South.

It’s not every day you watch one of the worst movies you’ve ever seen.

“Titanic: The Legend Goes On” is a Spanish-Italian animated movie that puts a Cinderella story aboard the Titanic. Not only is everything about it bad, it’s also tasteless towards the historical tragedy in the way that it is completely unconcerned with the deaths happening during the sinking. It’s a complete mistake from start to finish.

What struck me most was just how much they wanted to cram in here. Let me list some of the things that are directly stolen from: James Cameron’s Titanic, Cinderella, Lady & the Tramp, 101 Dalmatians, Aristocats, Rescuers, Oliver & Conpany, An American Tale, Looney Tunes, the list goes on. And I don’t just mean there are references, I mean there are major characters that are basically copied and pasted from all these sources. Yes, there are a ton characters.

In contrast to mediocre Disney remakes, here are ten times the Magic Kingdom managed to reimagine rather than ruin their family entertainment classics.

Lifestyle class="pages"> https://pjmedia.com/lifestyle/2012/1/13/reimagining-fairy-tales-grimm-once-upon-a-time-and-their-modern-spin-on-fantasy/ ]]>

Watching “11/8/16” is like scanning Facebook over the past 12 months.

It isn’t pretty.

The documentary, available now via iTunes, select theaters and Netflix, is a revealing look at our

The post ’11/8/16′ Reveals Ugly Side of Hillary Clinton Voters appeared first on Hollywood in Toto.

Every film from Roger Ebert's "Great Movies" essays.

www.rogerebert.com/great-movies

• 12 Angry Men

  www.rogerebert.com/reviews/great-movie-12-angry-men-1957

• 2001: A Space Odyssey

  www.rogerebert.com/reviews/great-movie-2001-a-space-odyssey-1968

• 25th Hour

  www.rogerebert.com/reviews/25th-hour-2002

• 3 Women

  www.rogerebert.com/reviews/great-movie-3-women-1977

• 8½

  www.rogerebert.com/reviews/great-movie-8-12--eight-and-a-half-1963

• Ace in the Hole

  www.rogerebert.com/reviews/great-movie-ace-in-the-hole-1951

• Adaptation.

  www.rogerebert.com/reviews/great-movie-adaptation-2002

• The Adventures of Robin Hood

  www.rogerebert.com/reviews/great-movie-the-adventures-of-robin-hood-1938

• After Dark, My Sweet

  www.rogerebert.com/reviews/great-movie-after-dark-my-sweet-1990

• After Hours

  www.rogerebert.com/reviews/after-hours-1985-1

...plus 362 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

A quarter of a century later, The Shawshank Redemption retains its inspirational power.

Lifestyle var dataLayer = window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || []; dataLayer.push({ 'videoName': 'Honey, I Shrunk the Kids (1989) Classic Trailer - Rick Moranis Movie HD', 'videoType': 'Curated' }); 10. Honey, I Shrunk the KidsI suppose in one sense, Netflix serves the same purpose as Facebook: perpetual high school reunion and never-ending nostalgia fests, reminders of a time before adulthood and the weight of responsibilities.Nowadays when I go back and watch some film that was fun or memorable from childhood or adolescence I tend to see it more from the parents' perspective, relating to those characters, rather than the kids. I wonder how Honey, I Shrunk the Kids will hold up when rewatching it. Rather than experiencing it as a child wandering through the grass and inner-tubing in a cheerio, I'll consider it as the father searching for his lost children... class="pages"> https://pjmedia.com/lifestyle/2014/7/1/65-movies-shows-come-to-netflix-in-july-here-are-10-you-should-watch/ previous Page 1 of 10 next   ]]>

Lifestyle var dataLayer = window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || []; dataLayer.push({ 'videoName': 'Pineapple Express Trailer', 'videoType': 'Curated' }); Anyone who’s ever watched a Seth Rogen movie knows that great comedy can be long on laughs, short on plot. Try to recite the story of Pineapple Express from beginning to end in coherent English and you’ll see what I mean. But paper-thin plotting wasn’t invented in 2008. Ancient Greek comedies made about as much narrative sense as a James Brown interview. Add in 2500 years worth of cultural change, and you get scripts that read like a Japanese knock-off of a Will Ferrell film written by someone on ‘shrooms. Ranked from weirdly confusing to utterly incomprehensible, here are ten ancient plots that made more jokes than sense. var dataLayer = window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || []; dataLayer.push({ 'videoName': '1988: Is this James Brown's strangest interview ever?', 'videoType': 'Curated' }); class="pages"> https://pjmedia.com/lifestyle/2014/11/20/the-10-most-absurd-plots-from-ancient-comedy/ previous Page 1 of 11 next   ]]>

Everyone knows me by now as the resident movie expert, so it will come as a surprise to many of you to learn that just four years ago I was a total film philistine. Were it not for the devious Mr. Alan, Sophomore Honors English and Creative Writing teacher, who forcibly transferred me into his second-semester film class to work on a short screenplay I had written for a final, Tim's love affair with cinema would have remained unconsummated to this day.  In my second week at Georgetown, after the dust from New Student Orientation and the start of classes had settled, I decided to start taking advantage of our library's vast DVD reserves to start catching up on all the movies Mr. Alan and others had been insisting I see. I simultaneously started keeping a journal of every film I watched from that day out, and before long I was in the grips of mankind's primal cataloguing urge, searching out films both near and far, old and new to fill my lazy hours. My Georgetown education happened in a number of places, the classroom being only one of them. In honor of the 300 or so films I devoured throughout my collegiate years, I've picked out 50 pivotal films that will forever define my time here. Some of these movies are good, others atrocious; quality is not the primary criterion for selection so much as capacity for creating fond memories. I deliberately limited myself to movies I watched during the academic calendar year, so while vacation hits like Margaret, Mysteries of Lisbon, Rosetta, and Laurence Anyways (to name a few) made their own indelible marks on my impressionable psyche, this is not the space to speak of those. Part of what makes a moviegoing experience memorable for me is the company I share it with; as you'll see with most of these selections, it's the people you freak out with while leaving the theater who make the endeavor worthwhile.

The Fourth of July shouldn’t be about celebrating warfare or revolution, it should be about celebrating exceptional American freedom.

For many years now, on Election Day my husband and I have hosted a party, inviting over friends of a similar political persuasion to watch the returns and either celebrate or commiserate, depending on the outcome. In 2012 we went down to defeat but did so in style with a Mitt Romney-themed party complete with our own original cocktail creation: the Mint Rumney. (I see others had the same idea, but with different ingredients. Our Mint Rumney called for mint, pineapple juice, rum, Midori, and cream.) On that fateful night four years ago, as we waited for the results to come in, we muted the TV, pulled out our hymnals, and sang with our guests, fellow Christians who along with us know better than to place our trust in earthly rulers. But this year, for the first time in a very long time, we will not have an election party. As voters who are deeply dissatisfied with both major-party candidates this election, there is little for us to feel hopeful or excited about. Trump or Clinton is going to win, and either way, when we wake up on November 9 we will still have grave concerns about where the country is headed. I mentally and emotionally checked out of this election several weeks ago, seeing little reason to continue adding stress to my days or to relationships with people I care about who have a different view. Why belabor things when we all know what we think? Que sera, sera. So in lieu of an election party, I am now thinking about what to do the evening of November 8 to get my mind off the proceedings. If you, too, are looking for an alternative to sitting glued to your television screen watching returns that promise to be depressing no matter which way they go, here are a few possibilities to consider that will not only provide a distraction but actually benefit and enrich your life for the better. 1. Have Some Friends Over and Sing Together Sadly, Americans don’t sing together anymore. Yet singing has historically been one of the most basic tools human beings have to build community and express their most deeply held hopes and fears. African-American slaves sang spirituals to help them endure their subjugation at the hands of their slaveholders. Churchgoers sing to give voice to their shared confession of faith. In many parts of the world, and even here in America, people still sing together at times of celebration and mourning. What better way to ponder, on Election Day, the things that really matter in life, than to sing? Whether you sing hymns, patriotic songs, popular or folk songs, or all of the above, singing together is a great way to remind yourself that life is about so much more than politics. It’s about loving one another, sharing good times and bad, and upholding the things we cherish and want to pass on to our children. If you aren’t musically inclined and don’t have a friend who can help lead the singing, pick up some CDs, break out the karaoke machine, or pull up some YouTube videos. You will be surprised at how good you feel after a shared time of singing with people you care about. 2. Read the Constitution Throw in the Declaration of Independence, some Federalist papers, and Patrick Henry’s Speech to the Virginia Convention for good measure. Or if you’re feeling sociable, invite some friends over and tell them to bring their favorite literary passage, either fiction or non-fiction, that reflects the noblest of America’s values and aspirations, and take turns reading to one another. For even more fun, dress up as the person whose work you have decided to share. After spending the evening bathed in the words of George Washington, James Madison, Phyllis Wheatley, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Alexis de Tocqueville, Frederick Douglass, Mark Twain, Robert Frost, and others, you will be reminded of what truly makes America great and inspired to continue clinging to it. 3. Make It Movie NIght Curl up with some popcorn and a classic American-themed movie. For more serious or earnest fare, go with “The Grapes of Wrath,” “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington,” “Glory,” “To Kill a Mockingbird,” or “12 Angry Men.” If you’re in the mood to be inspired, choose “Apollo 13,” “The Right Stuff,” “Miracle,” “Rocky,” or “Independence Day. For a Western, there’s “High Noon” or “Stagecoach,” and for something on the lighter side, “My Fellow Americans,” “Dave,” or “Being There.” And if you feel like some revolutionary singing and dancing, “1776”! 4. Have a Game Night Play American-themed games like Monopoly, Ticket to Ride, Hail to the Chief, Where in the USA Is Carmen Sandiego, or Trivial Pursuit: All-American. Or, if you’re feeling cynical and resigned to living in a banana republic, there’s always Junta. 5. Invite Your Neighbors Over for a Potluck Tell them ahead of time that the goal is to forget the election, so talk of politics is off-limits. Ask everyone to bring an American-themed dish, and spend some quality time getting to know better the people who probably understand a lot more about the challenges of life in your community than all those folks in Washington DC. 6. Restore Your Soul Head for a museum, a park, or a quiet country road and take a nice, long walk, preferably far, far away from the campaign signs, billboards, radio ads, and news reports. 7. Do Something Kind for Someone Visit an elderly neighbor and drop off something sweet to eat. Take a meal to someone who’s sick. Rake your next-door neighbor’s leaves. I don’t care if he has that candidate’s sign in his yard. Rake them anyway. 8. Teach Your Kids American Classics If you have children, spend some time teaching them things about their country that they may not be learning in school these days: the national anthem, the Pledge of Allegiance, and the Preamble to the Constitution. Read or watch some stories about important figures in America’s history: Christopher Columbus, John Smith and Pocahontas, Squanto and the Pilgrims, George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Sacajawea and Lewis and Clark, Harriet Tubman, Thomas Edison and the Wright brothers. Here are a few resources to consider. 9. Read Your Bible Any part of it will do, but here are a few passages to get you started: Exodus 20, 2 Chronicles 7, Matthew 22, John 19, Acts 5, Romans 8, Colossians 1, 1 Timothy 2, 1 Peter 2, and Psalms 25, 33, 46, 51, 71, 109, and 146. 10. Pray Pray for the unborn, for children, and for the sick, disabled, and elderly. Pray that those in authority over us would carry out their duties with wisdom and humility. Pray that as Americans we would seek what is best not only for ourselves but for each other. Pray for the defeat of those who wish to harm us. Pray for peace. The foregoing list, while written with Election Day in mind, is applicable to any day of the year. If your plan to ignore the returns fails and you succumb to temptation by turning on the tube, I encourage you to file these ideas away for future use. In that case, be prepared to activate Plan B: a well-stocked bar, Election Night drinking guide, jumbo box of tissue, and head-sized bucket of sand. ]]>

In some wars, the enemy is easier to identify. In Afghanistan, that doesn't apply.

‘12 Strong’ is a welcome change from the ‘We’re all to blame’ war movies that leftists in Hollywood crank out.

Showcasing the best of the U.S. military.

Star Rating: 3.5 Stars
Cast: Chris Hemsworth, Michael Shannon, Michael Peña
Release Date: Friday, January 19, 2018
MPAA Rating: R
Brought to you by www.michaelmedved.com

You may want to Google the story behind “12 Strong” before lining up to see it.

How could a small group of Green Berets strike a blow against the Taliban

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I was attending a Christmas party over the holidays and, in the course of conversation, made the following statement:

“I can’t watch very many war movies anymore.”

My sister in-law,

The post Decorated Soldier Picks the Best, and Worst, War Movies appeared first on Hollywood in Toto.