Mark McPherson's Blog, page 48

“Underwater” Review

About 1/3 of the way through Underwater, one character remarks that what happens next better not be some 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea shit. And it sort of is. And that’s okay. Underwater makes itself known quite early that it aims to be little more than an atmospheric and thrilling creature feature on the ocean floor. On that level of creating a tense and frightening experience, it gets the job done.

We’re introduced to Kristen Stewart as a scientist aboard a deep-sea drill with a cynical...

Top 10 Films of 2019

What a whirlwind of a year it’s been. We saw a legacy of Marvel movies and a trilogy of Star Wars draw to a close, even though we know they won’t be slowing down coming into 2020 as the Disney movie-money train is chugging hard. We saw Green Book win an Oscar for Best Picture and questioned if we were still living in reality. We had YouTubers make multiple videos about how Disney how lost their way with Captain Marvel and The Lion King, only for those films to each make a $1 billion. We even...

“Finding Santa: A Christmas Adventure” Review

After the success and iconography of Rankin Bass, there was a time when every television station wanted their own animate special for the Christmas season. Many of them meant well with fairly original concepts for a Christmas special but held back with animation that was cheap at best and horrifying at first (especially the early attempts at computer graphics for television). Finding Santa is rather unique because it seems to be the opposite; visually stunning animation lacking in a...

“Cats” Review

Halfway through Cats, my brain broke. I can’t recall if it was when Ian McKellen started hissing like a cat or when Judi Dench started rubbing her whiskers on other cats. I thought about picking my brain back up but then realized something; this is a musical called Cats with incoherent smearing of musical hallucinations that leaves little room for character or story. Do I really want to analyze the picture that closely? This is little more than a fever dream and I figured I might as well...

“Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker” Review

After half a decade of Star Wars madness, we come to the end of a new trilogy. Much like the previous third trilogy entries of the saga, The Rise of the Skywalker aims for a conclusion that is big and epic but also somewhat predictable, bundled with surprises and twists that feel strangely familiar and somewhat par for the course. The result is a film so frantic in its attempt to hit all the Star Wars beats and wrap up those lofty thematic elements that it kinda loses sight of the grander...

“Bombshell” Review

You don’t even have to look up the credits to know this film was by one of the co-writers of The Big Short. Within the first few minutes, we’re given a crash course on the Fox News beast that brewed the scandal of Roger Ailes. We meet a few people and get an idea of how the news network functions on provocation and titillation, how Ailes operates, how the news is generated, and where everyone works. Without a moment to take it all in, we’re thrust right into the scandalous environment of 2016...

“1917” Review

1917 may appear branded as a gimmick film, making headlines for essentially being one long shot through the battlefields of World War I. Indeed, it could certainly be considered the biggest downfall of the film, being that it relies more on its atmosphere than the melodramatics or biting banter war pictures. But for being little more, Sam Mendes has pulled off a striking picture of great intensity, beauty, contemplation, and grit. For being little more than a ride, it’s the best of the lot...

“Jumanji: The Next Level” Review

To warrant one more playthrough of Jumanji in its quirkier video game format, there has to be something more than just a reason to return. Something needs to be shaken up in the game. The characters need to have more of a reason to go an adventure than merely surviving a video game adventure. And there’s thankfully a big enough bounty of ideas to make The Next Level a sequel more fun than routine.

One aspect I adored was how the characters have grown since the previous film. The four...

The Last Jedi is Good, Actually

Early in the week of December 15th, 2017, I ventured into the theater for the preview screening of Star Wars: The Last Jedi. It was an exciting event as there were so many burning questions desired to be answered about the next entry in the new trilogy. The lights went down and for a few hours, I found myself dazzled by a space opera that dared to rattle the cage. There were surprises, betrayals, politics, epic battles, and plenty of gorgeous cinematography. Though I found the film a bit...

“Parasite” Review

While Bong Joon-ho’s filmography boasts much of the fantastic, most of them carry a scathing criticism of the class structure that damages futures and society. There’s no missing that commentary in Parasite, shoving it into our faces with uncomfortable catharsis. Blindsiding the audience as a dark comedy, this story takes one hell of a twist that shifts a poor family from being grateful for employment to disgusted with despair for a world that has wronged them. Where other films only...