Film Features

The relentless pursuit of video game movie adaptations, despite a proven track record that they don’t work for the most part, falls back on the famed definition of insanity, that being the repetition of behavior and expecting a different result. But at some point doesn’t there have to be a communal understanding these projects don’t work?

So while you wait for the Mummy backlash to blow over, why not take a trip down memory lane and witness how Tom Cruise became one of the greatest movie stars Hollywood has ever seen.

Sony announced this week that it will soon be making “Clean Versions” of its movies available to consumers at the same time that the original versions are. The panicked reactions to this new venture, however, are extremely short-sighted.

Universal is chock full of the successful partnerships and franchises so key to success in today’s marketplace that it’s continually vying for the top spot alongside current Hollywood powerhouse Disney. Could it dethrone the Mouse House this year? Not likely, but it’s still set up for a tremendous year nonetheless.

Wonder Woman was always going to be relevant and revolutionary — it’s the first female-led film in the current wave of superhero films and it’s helmed by a female director, after all. But media is never created or consumed in a vacuum and now, its relevance is singular and powerful.

It’s tough to imagine that Gal Gadot can break out and where her career will go now, for various reasons, including, quite simply, she is now tied forever to the role that is making her a star. For better or worse, she is Wonder Woman.

Similar to Paramount, Sony hasn’t had the easiest go of things lately and they need to find something major to turn the ship around. Spider-Man: Homecoming will be a good-sized win for the studio but while their film division — made up of Columbia Pictures, TriStar Pictures, and Screen Gems — isn’t going anywhere, it needs to become a more productive part of the company.

There are skeptics and cynics who will scoff at the whole turn of events around the Lupita Nyong’o and Rihanna movie and wonder where we went wrong. Pay them no mind. They will just end up on the outside looking in, like those poor suckers Rihanna and Lupita are about to scam out of their shorts.

Paramount, CEO Jim Gianopulos, and the team are currently facing a challenge to take a once great institution that has fallen on hard times and return it to its past glory. Perhaps the best way to do this will be to find the Next Big Thing, according to Neil Turitz.

In examining the newest Spec Book, Neil Turitz finds that for the second year in a row, there were more specs put on the market and, more importantly, more sold, than the year before. This means there are more opportunities for the writers themselves, and for the companies making the movies to bring fresh voices to their product.

From making this book series into a huge animated franchise to the biggest diva of the cast, director David Soren, creator Dav Pilkey (Turbo) and actors Kevin Hart, Ed Helms, and Thomas Middleditch gave us the scoop on the new animated feature.

The Studio Series turns to Fox this week to see how its success with the X-Men franchise, beginning in 2000 with Bryan Singer’s initial X-Men film, has allowed the studio to try its hand at other types of fare.

Contributor Neil Turitz takes a look at what has made Amy Schumer a success but whether or not she is ultimately the box office draw execs believed after the success of Trainwreck.

There was a time, not so long ago, when Warner Bros. was the model studio in town. They had great filmmakers making excellent movies that earned a lot of money and set box office records and produced some of the most beloved films and television shows ever created. Oh, how the people toiling under the iconic water tower long for those halcyon days of yore.

Neil Turitz brings back last year’s Studio Series for the summer of 2017 to look at the film industry, studios, indies, and any in between. And where better to launch the series than with the biggest and most successful studio in Hollywood? Disney.

The Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival took note of the social climate of whitewashing (see: Scarlett Johansson in Ghost in the Shell) and decided to set the 2002 drama Better Luck Tomorrow as the festival opener. The move not only sparked nostalgia for independent filmmaking but put a spotlight on the groundbreaking film that still resonates when it comes to diversity and inclusion in Hollywood.

Jonathan Demme died early Wednesday morning at the age of 73 and left behind an incredible legacy — not just with this films, but with his creativity, empathy, and social impact.

The Tracking Board learned some juicy details about the movie, the future of the Guardians and their place in the MCU, and Pratt’s opinion about being sexually objectified.

Since the inception of the Cinematic Universe, Marvel has been hiring character-driven directors to ensure that its films are lead by its characters and not its plot. This trend was continued as Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck signed on to co-direct Captain Marvel. Neil Turitz evaluates Marvel’s decision in contrast with previous ones along with comparing this hire to many of DC’s hires.

The summer is when fortunes are made and lost, careers are built and destroyed, and audiences escape from the heat in a movie theater for a couple hours. With that in mind, here are five movies this summer that have especially large question marks beside them.

Want updates on Black Panther? Thor: Ragnarok? Captain Marvel? Ant-Man and the Wasp? Spider-Man: Homecoming? Avengers: Infinity War? We’ve got you covered…

Things have certainly changed since George Lucas dropped the very first trailer for A New Hope. That being said, here is a definitive ranking of all the first trailers of every Star Wars movie from Episode I to Episode VIII — including Rogue One.

Why do studios insist on remaking films that were successful the first time? They most likely will not be as good as the original, which just leaves a bad taste in everyone’s mouth. Neil Turitz proposes that studios should try remaking films that that were great ideas but suffered from poor executions and give them the artisitc realization they deserved.

With New Zealand director Taika Waititi at the helm and heart, Thor: Ragnarok is shaping up to not only be the best Marvel movie of 2017, but one of the best Marvel movies ever, and finally giving the Norse god the due he’s deserved since Kenneth Branagh’s film.

Even with only having seen one film of The Fast and the Furious franchise, Neil Turitz has observed the power and legacy of these films and examines, from an outsider’s perspective, how and why they’ve done so well and what’s in their future.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences changed the rules to two major categories. Neil Turitz explains how these rule changes could greatly impact who gets nominated in the categories in the coming years.

With Aaron Sorkin entering talks with both Marvel and DC despite having admittedly never read a comic book, Neil Turitz gives his take on how he envisions a Sorkin-written superhero movie to look and whether he thinks the Oscar-winning writer could enhance the quality of these films.

It seems like every film today is one piece in the web of a massive franchise with expectations to turn into a full cinematic universe. Many it times it even seems like the films franchises are being greenlit before the first film is released. Neil Turitz takes a look at this phenomenon and asks why film is going in this direction.

Between the one-two punch of FX’s Legion and Disney’s juggernaut live-action Beauty and the Beast remake that just opened, British actor Dan Stevens is having a tremendous time of it. Look back on his career, however, and this sudden boom in both his career and the attention heaped onto him, is not much of a surprise.

Netflix has changed its star rating system to simply a thumbs up or thumbs down. Neil Turitz explains why this unfortunate change is the newest development in the suppression of the movie reviewer.