Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem
Despite their hue, not all TMNT films deserved to be greenlit.
Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird created The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles back in 1984. Now almost 40 years later, what started as a comic book has inspired seven movies, five television series, and countless amounts of merchandise. This week the four ninja tortoises return in a new animated incarnation, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem. Considering I’ve been a fan of the Turtles since six years old, this seems like the perfect time to put an official rating on four decades of movies. Some are gnarly, some tubular, and there’s always a whole lot of cowabunga.
Writers Note: This list doesn’t include the recent Netflix installment Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Movie, a TV-movie crossover Batman vs. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, or the live recording of the 1990 Coming Out of Their Shells stage show. That one you can catch on YouTube, although I don’t know why you would. Continue Reading →
Disenchanted
SimilarBack to the Future Part II (1989), Back to the Future Part III (1990), Edward Scissorhands (1990), Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2002), Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (2001), Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004), Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory (1971),
Watch afterBlack Panther: Wakanda Forever (2022),
StudioWalt Disney Pictures,
“Not great, not terrible.” Continue Reading →
MacGruber
SimilarArmageddon (1998), Bring It On (2000), Hellboy (2004), Mars Attacks! (1996), Night at the Museum (2006), Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest (2006),
In the age of streaming, any movie, short of maybe Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, can become a TV show. It doesn’t matter if your original film was a box office turkey, these channels just want “content” and any previously established brand name will do. Through this phenomenon comes MacGruber, a continuation of a Saturday Night Live character and the star of a 2010 movie that crashed and burned financially. But when Peacock desperately needed something, anything, to release over the holidays, MacGruber rose from the aches like a conceited phoenix. Continue Reading →
Licorice Pizza
SimilarLet the Right One In (2008),
Watch afterNightmare Alley (2021), The Power of the Dog (2021), West Side Story (2021),
StudioBron Studios, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer,
Paul Thomas Anderson set out to make a love story with Licorice Pizza, and ended up creating his most joyful flick to date. Seemingly lacking is the dark heart so many of his stories contain, whether it’s in the wildly toxic relationship between designer and muse in Phantom Thread or brutal depictions of loss and loneliness in Magnolia. Instead, Licorice Pizza has a lightness he hasn’t truly approached since Punch-Drunk Love. Continue Reading →
A Prairie Home Companion
A few days ago, Quentin Tarantino went on a podcast. The topic of final films came up with him stating he wanted to go out on a high note because, in his view, there had been too many cases of great filmmakers going out with substandard works. Now, this isn’t always the case, but there is a long list of directors who concluded their careers on less-than-stellar works. Continue Reading →
Bridesmaids
Come back to a simpler time. A time when people were left shocked and awestruck when a remarkable pop culture event occurred, one that dumbfounded many and helped inspire a cultural shift, one where viewpoints that had previously been derided and ignored were placed at the center of an increasing number of narratives. Continue Reading →
The Way Way Back
The much-memed movie star finds his footing again in a familiar but satisfying redemption story.
Unfairly relegated to memedom thanks to his disastrous press appearances (“Darkness, my old friend…”) and midlife crisis moments like getting a dragon tattoo that Ed Hardy would call too gaudy, Ben Affleck has nonetheless experienced a fascinating and emotional onscreen transformation over the last decade of his career.
Still undoubtedly a movie star in the classic sense, Affleck’s cocksure marquee attitude has now melted into a malleable melancholy. And while the rest of Affleck’s performances this decade have orbited around Gone Girl’s masterful lead role, his last few performances have been girded with a deadened soul, whether it be the jaded mercenary of Triple Frontier or the brick wall façade of his Batman performance - which always felt like it could smolder into rubble at any moment.
Gavin O’Connor’s throwback addiction film, The Way Back, then feels like an apotheosis of the actor’s new persona. Reuniting with Affleck after The Accountant (yes, the autistic assassin one), The Way Back is a familiar but satisfying take on the redemption story strengthened by the palpable pain of its onscreen protagonist. Continue Reading →