Blog Archives
Wonder Woman 1984
Wonder Woman 1984 2020
Even though not a whole lot of films came out last year, this was the biggest one that I overlooked. The reception was very mixed, with some people enjoying the new take on Wonder Woman, but many people weren’t very fond of this movie which is a very different version of Wonder Woman as her first movie. And this is despite having practically the same creative team behind both movies. Instead of taking place in World War I, it’s taking place in the 1980’s and all the kitsch and nostalgia associated with it. The tone is much lighter and there is a stronger undertone of magical reality than what was present in the first film. And even though I watched it several days ago, I’m still not entirely sure how I feel about the film as a whole. I generally enjoyed many parts of it, but I severely questioned several decisions throughout the film.
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The Suicide Squad
The Suicide Squad 2021
It still feels kind of good to be going back to theaters despite the returning dread for the unusually large group of unvaccinated masses that may force the rest of us back into some form of lockdown or at least a return to mask wearing. But besides all of that I did make it to my local theater rather than spending the $15 or however much it is to get a month of HBO Max and watch this film at home like so many people out there decided to do. I did quite enjoy the experience and I even shelled out the extra cash to see this on an IMAX screen though I was slightly underwhelmed as well as slightly nauseated from the opening scene. The picture was very clear and sharp, but I didn’t feel that much of a difference between a regular digital projection, and at least this specific IMAX screen. It’s also unclear as to how well the movie is doing in terms of popularity as most of the critical reviews as well as most personal reviews from people I know have been extremely positive, but the actual box office numbers are quite low. It’s likely largely a factor of the HBO Max availability at no extra charge with small contributions from the Covid resurgence and the poor reception and unclear differentiation from the previous Suicide Squad film. But all of that doesn’t really matter in the grand scheme of things, what really matters is that I had a grand time watching this film and am ready to discuss it in full, including the large number of gruesome deaths that take place. So if you’d rather be surprised by who lives and who dies, read no further. The rest of you, enjoy.
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It’s Time to Rewind: Season 1 week 5
Groundhog Day After Day After Day week 5
Time is just flying by, unlike the time within Groundhog Day which goes extraordinarily slow as Phil is still getting slapped over and over again on a repeated February 2nd. I also wanted to mention that now that I am more active again here on the site, I have re-adjusted our Patreon page where you can directly support this site and gain access to early episodes of this podcast, early access to occasional non-review posts, and you can help choose what movies I review on this site and what movies and TV series I cover in future seasons of It’s Time to Rewind. And if we make our monthly goal of $25 a month, I will do a monthly bonus podcast of either a bonus Filmwhys episode, or a bonus It’s Time to Rewind which will be Patreon exclusive for a full month before releasing to everyone else. As for this week’s It’s Time to Rewind episodes, we’ve got a full week of Phil being slapped. The entire week barely covers 3 seconds worth of screen time, but I assure you that it’s a fun time.
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The New Mutants
The New Mutants 2020
Of all of the superhero movies of the past few years, this one was probably talked about more than it was actually watched whenever it eventually came out. It had a hugely trouble production as the studio seemingly didn’t have a lot of faith in it compared to Fox’s other mainline projects Deadpool 2 and Dark Phoenix so it got pushed back, they did some reshoots, Disney bought Fox so it got pushed further, the pandemic happened so it got pushed back even further, they wanted more reshoots but too much time had passed for their younger cast. And the articles around the project are confusing, as some say that the director wanted more horror, yet the first round of reshoots were supposedly to add more horror. And yet what the movie really could have used was, you guessed it, more horror. In the end, it didn’t fail at the levels of something like Fant4stic, but this was clearly a result of studio meddling that left us with a B- movie when there is the skeleton of an A movie.
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My Hero Academia: Heroes Rising
My Hero Academia: Heroes Rising 2020
Despite enjoying the first My Hero Academia movie Two Heroes a couple years ago, I still never got around to watching any of the series. Instead, I’ve been slowly making my way through Hunter X Hunter and Eden on Netflix. I’d still like to catch it at some point in time but who knows when I’ll ever actually get around to it. I was a little bit more familiar with some of the main cast, but there were still plenty of them that I either didn’t recognize or didn’t remember. And while the movie doesn’t waste too much time on exposition, there’s enough there if you’re coming into this movie fresh like me. And this film had a much better flow and a more comprehensible storyline than the previous film so it was an enjoyable ride from start to finish rather than just having a high point at the end.
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It’s Time to Rewind: Season 1 week 3
Groundhog Day After Day After Day week 3
We made it through another week of shows. In the three episodes this week, we’ve got one returning guest and one new guest as we dive into days 6 through 8 of Groundhog Day. And if you haven’t yet, be sure to come on over and join the Facebook Group It’s Time to Rewind: A Time Loop Group and discuss the episodes as they come out, share memes, and discuss new and old time loop movies or TV shows. But for now, let’s get to this week’s episodes.
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Flora & Ulysses
Flora & Ulysses 2021
I’ve been keeping my streaming subscriptions down by only subscribing to two of them and rotating them every few months. It’s been a while since we’ve had Disney+, I let it lapse right before the Mandalorian season 2 finale. So now with three whole MCU series to catch up with, I figured it was a good time to get it back and catch up with everything. And meanwhile, they also released two different kid-friendly superhero movies on there. Look for my review of the Secret Society of Second Born Royals within the next couple weeks. But I thought this one sounded a little more tolerable so I gave it a shot. I knew going into it that it was mostly a movie about a family coming together and just a little bit about a superhero squirrel. It actually made me laugh pretty hard several times, but at the same time it was full of family movie cliches that felt pretty tired. Once again, since this is a relatively current movie, there are spoilers ahead, though as I mentioned, most of them are pretty obvious.
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I’m back once again with another superhero podcast review. I’m still digging into the various Movies by Minutes community and while I’m not specifically going directly after all of the various ones that cover superhero movies and franchises, I went to this one for a couple reasons. One was that the host’s other project was Groundhog Minute which I binged through in preparation of the first season of It’s Time to Rewind, and the other was that it was focused on a single movie rather than an entire franchise. There are still a few others that I will likely eventually cover here. And if you’re new to this podcast review series I go through the basics of the podcast from a superhero movie perspective and I offer my final rating where I either subscribe, unsubscribe, or listen to selected episodes. And if you do a podcast or know of a podcast that might be good for a review here, be sure to let me know in the comments.
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Black Widow
Black Widow 2021
First off I just have to start out with holy crap it’s good to be back in a movie theater. Granted things are very different than they were when I saw Birds of Prey which I’m pretty sure was the last movie that I saw in theaters. We just survived a pandemic, at least everyone who has decided to get vaccinated has survived a pandemic but I won’t go further down that discussion right now. I’m living in the Atlanta suburbs after spending the previous six years in the Chicago suburbs, and this is the first Marvel movie to come out since Spider-Man: Far From Home back in the summer of 2019. So yeah, things are quite a bit different. But kicking off the theater going with the latest MCU movie felt like falling back into old patterns. It was definitely enjoyable with great action beats and enjoyable humor, but the climax felt rather uninspired and I just wish they could have done something a little bit different than falling right back into the MCU formula that I often like to think doesn’t really exist. And as this is the latest MCU movie, if you haven’t seen it yet from here on out there may be spoilers so be warned.
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The Old Guard
The Old Guard 2020
This has been on my “to watch next” list for a very long time even though it did completely pass me by when it came out last year. While I did read that this was a popular movie when it was released on Netflix, I never really got a feel for how well people enjoyed it and it never really hit my radar. But when I did finally watch the trailer, I was very interested. I have generally enjoyed everything that Charlize Theron has done even when she’s been in some not great movies. Despite Aeon Flux being awful and Snow White and the Huntsman not being that great, Theron was great in them and Atomic Blonde was one of my favorite comic book movies of the year it came out. There are definitely a few flaws throughout this movie, but overall I quite enjoyed it and I’m glad that a sequel is in the works to start filming early next year. And while this movie is over a year old, it’s still relatively new so here’s your spoiler warning.
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Flights, Tights, and Movie Nights 