Colin McMahon's Blog, page 3

Why Creature from the Black Lagoon has become more Horrifying with Time

As part of my recent pandemic-inspired monster movie binge, I turned to Universals Creature from the Black Lagoon trilogy, released between 1954 and 1956. The three movies, all of which feature the titular creature, vary in quality. To get the review portion out of the way right here, the casual viewer is better off sticking with the first one: A film that is beautifully shot, has a spectacular soundtrack, and boasts underwater effects that are still impressive today.

Watching the movies,...

How Voice Separates Children of Blood and Bone from Avatar: The Last Airbender

Picture a world where certain people are gifted with mastery of the elements. It is a land that lived in relative harmony until an ambitious king seized power by launching an unexpected attack. Our protagonist is a young adult, one of the last of her kind a people being driven to extinction in these turbulent times. She teams up with her brother and a third friend to try and restore balance but she must do so before the solstice. Also, she is being hunted by the son of said evil king, but ...

Ranking Universal’s Classic Invisible Man Series

Well, here is my first truly COVID-19 empowered post. Like many of you, I have been shut up in my home these past several weeks. Recently, the wife and I decided to do a date night in watching 2020s The Invisible Man (its pretty good, more on that later). I was so taken by the new remake that I decided to watch the original 1933 film as well.

After thatwellI decided to watch the Universals entire series of Invisible Man filmswhich I have, since I got this gem last year around Halloween when...

Missing GoT Politics? Try…The Dark Crystal?

Hey remember Game of Thronesthat was a thing. If the success of Netflixs The Witcher has shown anything, its that audiences still have a craving for more adult fantasy with moral ambiguity and political intrigue. That said, while I enjoyed the first season of Geralts journey into legend, it felt more likewell, like this:

Not that theres anything wrong with being the next Xena. Definitely nothing wrong there. Much to my surprise, however, I found another Netflix offering did a much better job...

How to Write Depression

A lot of good shows have ended this year well, The Good Place and Bojack Horseman ended this year, and I want to focus on the latter. Bojack Horseman really impressed the heck out of me. Over its six seasons, it grew from a zany, crass, Archer-ish animated comedy to a deep, dark, touching piece of art. The show became a reflection on consequence and power abuse, and it also painted an incredibly realistic portrait of depression.

Depression can be difficult to write about and many people get...

Why Bernie Sanders?

Okay, I promise to get back to the writing-centric articles soon. Cross my heart. That said, it’s 2020 and the race for the presidency feels like it’s been going on for four years already (partly because President Trump never stopped holding rallies). It’s exhausting – I get it. Heck, I’m more political than the average person and I’m annoyed by how much political news there’s been…and its overall lackluster quality.

So, if you would allow me to climb up on my soap box. I want to tell you...

My Top 10 Films of 2019

Well, another year, a bunch more movies. Once again I have failed to see some of the most talked about films of 2019. Films like 1917, The Irishman, and The Farewell are not included on this list – not because they’re not good, I simply haven’t gotten around to viewing them yet. I hope to correct this soon, but I also want to get this out around Oscar time. After all, they get to have opinions without seeing every movie that came out last year so I can do the same.

In total, I saw 51 films...

Let’s Talk about Star Wars: Dual of the Fates

Okay, last Star Wars post for a bit – I promise. In part because the series finale of The Good Place just aired and man, I can’t wait to talk about that more! So, with all the discussion on The Rise of Skywalker going around – it’s only natural that part of the dialogue included speculation, speculation on what could have been.

For those who do not know, J.J. Abrams was not originally supposed to direct the ninth and final Star Wars film. Colin Trevorrow was initially hired to helm the film,...

What I Learned Creating the South Shore Writing Initiative

I figured I’d take a break from talking about Star Wars (there’s still at least one post coming on Dual of the Fates) to talk about something much more personal. Four years ago, I was missing writing in a big way. I should clarify – I missed my writing community. In college, I had been surrounded by other writers (read: geeks, nerds, fellow deviants). We’d go out, talk character design, plot structure, world building – it was great. But this community existed in Montreal, and I – through a...

No, the Majority of Star Wars “Fans” did not Hate the Last Jedi

A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, a movie called The Last Jedi came out and a lot of people saw it. While there were a multitude of reactions to the film, everyone agreed it was just a movie and that there were far more important things going on in the world…

Well, if they didn’t, then they certainly didn’t push a bunch of false narratives – during and after the film’s release…

Ah.

So, here we are. For the record, the latter part of that first paragraph is very true: There are much,...