Steven Spielberg’s Ready Player One represents
the ultimate fanboy wish-fulfillment dream. It’s a world here all of that obscure
accumulated knowledge they’ve (we) spent years collecting, collating, and
committing to memory actually means something, is actually important, and saves
the world and gets the girl. While it’s remarkably constructed, and contains
moments of true awe and Spielberg-ian wonder, the film alternates between
reasonable entertainment and obnoxious tedium.
Spring has officially sprung in Seattle, so what better way
to spend a (potentially) lovely weekend day than by sitting in the darkness of
a movie theater watching horror movies with a bunch of weirdos? Yes, it’s that
time of year again, time for the BoneBat Comedy of Horrors Film Festival. Year after year, it's definitely one of the most unique and entertaining film events in town.
Directed by Menahem Golan, half of the team behind the
venerable Cannon Films, the 1987, Sylvester Stallone-starring Over the
Top combines the high family drama of a child custody battle with…competitive
arm wrestling. And it’s glorious. Thanks, Menahem, you glorious madman! But it’s
also pretty much the only real movie that speaks to the arm wrestling
enthusiast. Until now. South Korea’s Kim Yong-wan is making his directorial
debut with Champion, and he’s enlisted Ma Dong-seok to star.
Check out the trailer and try to convince me this isn’t going to rule.
I legitimately enjoyed Deadpool, more
than I expected to. I wasn’t sure how it would translate, if they would go all
in on the filth and violence, but they did. And the result is a fun,
foul-mouthed superhero joint. Even so, I haven’t been able to work up one iota
of enthusiasm for Deadpool 2. And I should. David Leitch
directed John Wick, the best modern action movie, and
Atomic Blonde, which is solid. It has Josh Brolin, who I’ve
loved since Thrashin’; Zazie Beetz, who rules; Terry Crews; and
the kid from Hunt for the Wilderpeople. Regardless of how I
feel, the Merc with the Mouth is coming back, and there’s a new trailer, and it
does little to get my juices flowing.
It probably comes as no surprise I’m excited about a Scott
Adkins movie. In fact, The Debt Collector landed on my most anticipated movies list for 2018. But now we have a trailer, and it’s not only suitably
badass to fit in the cinematic martial artist’s resume, it takes him to places
he doesn’t usually go. Check it out below.
Since kicking off retirement, Steven Soderbergh has crafted
a hillbilly heist flick (Logan Lucky), helmed every episode
of a period medical drama (The Knick), created a weird
interactive movie/app thing (Mosaic), and produced a ton of
other projects. And just to prove he has more creative energy that the rest of
us combined, he found the time to use an iPhone to shoot the low-budget,
throwback horror thriller, Unsane.
David Robert Mitchell’s Under the Silver
Lake has the rare distinction of appearing on my most anticipated movies list in multiple years. The It Follows director’s, well,
follow up, has been on the way for what feels like forever. But it’s finally
for sure coming out this summer. To prove that point, A24 released a new
trailer for the indie neo-noir. Dude definitely has a thing for young blond
women in swimming pools.
