The Mummy (2017) review

17 Saturday Jun 2017

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Shouldn’t somebody be saying “There’s a storm coming”?

by Thom Yee

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The Mummy (2017) images courtesy of Universal Pictures

The odds are you’re never going to talk to Tom Cruise.  I mean, that’s pretty obvious from the perspective of logic and reason and cosmological significance — the odds are you’re never going to talk to a lot of people, important or otherwise.  Even you and I are probably never going to meet or have a conversation (and you come here to read our reviews all the time, don’t you?). What I mean when I say you’re never going to talk to Tom Cruise is that you’re never going to get to know Tom Cruise.  You’re never really going to meet him.  Maybe you’ll be allowed to ask him a question if you’re lucky and get chosen out of a crowd at a press junket, maybe you’ll hear what seems like a personal anecdote about him from someone you know who works in Hollywood, but Tom Cruise, a world-famous actor, a franchise unto himself and an icon who’s likely to spend the rest of his life in the public eye and leave a body of movie work behind that will be watched, loved, and even studied for generations after?  That’s not someone you’ll ever have a personal conversation with or learn a lot about even if you do somehow find yourself in a position to say something to him. Continue reading →

Wonder Woman review

10 Saturday Jun 2017

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Everybody quiet down!  Women are talking!

by Thom Yee

wonder-woman-one

Wonder Woman images courtesy of Warners Bros. Pictures

“I respect women incredibly.  I have just amazing admiration and respect for women.  I have more respect for women than anybody would understand. I cherish women.  And I treat women with respect.  I have tremendous respect for women and the many roles they serve that are vital to the fabric of our society and our economy.  I respect women more than I respect men.  We know they believe in certain things that we don’t want to believe in.  I want to help women.  Nobody has more respect for women than I do — that I can tell you.  Nobody.  I have tremendous respect for women.  And women have respect for me.” ~ Donald J. Trump, current POTUS Continue reading →

June 2nd Weekend Predictions & Predilections

02 Friday Jun 2017

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Opening this Weekend

Wonder Woman

Captain Underpants:  The First Epic Movie

The Lovers

Strangers on the Earth

100 Short Stories

Trails in Motion Mountain Bike Film Festival

This Weekend’s Box Office Predictions

  1. Wonder Woman
  2. Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie
  3. Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales
  4. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2
  5. Baywatch

What You Should See

This weekend it’s Wonder Woman vs. Captain Underpants for the major new releases, and y’know what’s kind of sexist?  When I hear “Wonder Woman vs. Captain Underpants”, I naturally think of a woman fighting a man, but I don’t know anything about Captain Underpants.  I just naturally assumed with the title of “captain” (and that the name references having underpants on the outside of the costume) that Captain Underpants would be a man.  It just goes to show you how deeply ingrained and insidious some of our traditional attitudes really are.  Anyway, either’s a good choice, Wonder Woman or Captain Underpants, surprisingly so actually given one’s a DCEU movie and one I’ve never heard of until this past week, though I doubt I have to tell you which of these titles is for which type of moviegoer.  I guess I should say that seeing Wonder Woman is a little more important if you’re one of those people who associates movie choices with political action.  Also, it looks pretty kick ass.

As far as making recommendations for things you might not otherwise have seen goes, The Lovers, showing at the Princess, actually looks really good, and that’s the one I might prioritize since who knows how long it’ll be showing for.  For adults only though, and by that I mean introspective types with a wide range of relationship experiences.  Strangers on the Earth looks like another strong choice, as do the Canadian 100 Short Stories and Trails in Motion.  It’s a weirdly up week for all of the new releases actually.  You can’t really go wrong with anything.

The Great Wall review

27 Saturday May 2017

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Who did you think was going to headline the movie?  Andy Lau?

by Thom Yee

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The Great Wall images courtesy of Universal Pictures and China Film Group

I never planned to write a review of The Great Wall.

Actually, that’s not quite true, it looked interesting enough to pencil into our schedule after its first trailer dropped, at a time still months away from its eventual release and at a point that I didn’t have to pay it much attention, but as we drew closer and closer to its opening, outrage around the circumstances of the movie only seemed to grow.  Instead of just being a movie, The Great Wall became a lightning rod of appropriation among cultural critics and mediocrity among movie critics.  It’s especially on that latter point that it seemed unlikely we would ever be discussing it at any great length here at GOO Reviews.

But this May… Continue reading →