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GOO Reviews

~ An Edmonton-based movie blog

GOO Reviews

Monthly Archives: May 2014

Simul-Review: X-Men: Days of Future Past

31 Saturday May 2014

Posted by Thom Yee in Films, Simul-Review

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Tags

Action, comics, Marvel, superhero, X-Men

by Thom Yee and Grace Crawford

What Thom Thought 

It was worth it just for Iceman.

Images courtesy of 20th Century Fox

Images courtesy of 20th Century Fox

Let’s be honest with each other, you and I. For once in our lives.

Now when it really matters. If only this one time.

If only about the X-Men.

There’s never been a truly good X-Men movie. I’m not just zeroing in on The Last Stand or the Wolverine movies. While they all vary in quality, none of them are very good. First Class comes close, but it’s still a little off.

As one of the few people in the world who grew up with but never grew out of reading comicbooks, I’ve come into superhero movies already familiar with most of the groundwork being laid, and already aware of the continuities being established and messed with. And as GOO Reviews’ resident comicbook historian/nerd, I’ve thought about superhero movies a lot more than any one person probably should at any point in their lives.

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Godzilla (2014)

24 Saturday May 2014

Posted by Thom Yee in Films

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Tags

Action, Godzilla, Horror, kaiju, Monsters, MonsterVerse, Sci-Fi

by Thom Yee

Images courtesy of Warner Brothers Pictures and Toho

Images courtesy of Warner Brothers Pictures and Toho

If you have even a passing interest in Godzilla (and I assume you must considering what you’ve done to arrive here in the middle of this sentence), over the last few weeks you’ve probably been seeing and hearing a little bit more about the character and series than you normally do. This year marks sixty years since the release of the very first Godzilla, the debut of the iconic Japanese monster and the first steps of an icon that would go on to star in more than thirty movie that broke free of their homeland and gave birth to an entire genre of… grown men dressing up in rubber monster suits and trampling all over obviously fake cities as allegories for nuclear terror and mankind’s contempt for nature (is contempt the right word?).

And what better way could there be to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the venerable series and symbol of Japan than with an all-new 2014 movie produced in America, with a British director, filmed in Canada, and set for release more than two months later in its homeland than most of the rest of the world (that’s right, Godzilla opens on July 25th in Japan)?

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GR Dailies: Game of Thrones – Mockingbird

22 Thursday May 2014

Posted by ghcrawford in Television

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by Grace Crawford

game of thrones poster

All Game of Thrones images courtesy of HBO.

4×07: “Mockingbird”

So this was an interesting episode that I’ve been looking forward to for a while. Again, it was sort of a filler episode in some ways, but it sets up the next episode, “The Mountain and the Viper,” which I think will be absolutely insane.

Let’s go in order of things I liked, starting with the things I didn’t. Up north at the Wall, Jon Snow is sulking because nobody’s listening to him about the wilding attack and Castle Black’s defences. He has this good idea to fill their big tunnel to the north with rocks and ice, effectively blocking it against the wildlings. But as per usual, Ser Alliser Thorne starts making fun of him.

Obviously the master builder thinks this is a pretty decent idea, even if it means their main supply channel is blocked, but even though he’s a grown-ass man with opinions of his own, he won’t speak up against Thorne. I’m getting pretty tired of Thorne and his attitude, so I’m gonna be glad when they finally get around to electing a new Lord Commander.

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The Terminator (1984)

19 Monday May 2014

Posted by ghcrawford in Films

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by Grace Crawford

All images courtesy of Hemdale Film Corporation, Pacific Western Productions, and Orion Pictures.

All images courtesy of Hemdale Film Corporation, Pacific Western Productions, and Orion Pictures.

I’ve found that it can be difficult to separate personal feelings from movies when I’m reviewing them. For reasons I won’t go into, I have a bit of a soft spot for The Terminator. So that’s always going to flavour the way I view the movie and the story it communicates.

The Terminator begins with a naked Arnold Schwarzenegger appearing in a flash of light before beating up a group of punks and stealing their clothes. Shortly after this, another naked guy appears in his own flash of light and has a much harder time getting his own set of clothing. These strange gentlemen both proceed to phone booths, open up the phonebook (haven’t they heard of just Googling someone?), and search for the same person: one of three women named Sarah Connor.

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On the Death of a Community and #FiveSeasonsAndNoMovie

15 Thursday May 2014

Posted by Thom Yee in Editorials

≈ 1 Comment

by Thom Yee

Community cancelled

All images courtesy of Sony Pictures Television and New York Media LLC.

Look, I don’t have a crystal ball, I don’t have any precognitive abilities, and even though my sense of pattern recognition is roughly the equal of most Asians, I can’t directly tell you what the future holds. All I know is that last Friday, May 9th, NBC did the unthinkable and cancelled Community after its fifth season. #darkesttimeline said star Joel McHale, accompanied by similarly morose, but appreciative lamentations by many members of the cast, and series creator Dan Harmon’s words, “Twitter isn’t big enough to hold my condolences and more importantly my gratitude to the best fans, cast and crew in TV history. Excelsior.” (Bear in mind that these statements were all from Twitter and not necessarily meant for full-scale grammatical analysis).

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GR Dailies: Game of Thrones – The Laws of Gods and Men

14 Wednesday May 2014

Posted by ghcrawford in Television

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by Grace Crawford

game of thrones poster

All Game of Thrones images courtesy of HBO.

4×06: “The Laws of Gods and Men”

So this episode was about a few different things, but let’s be realistic here: nobody cares about anything that’s not Tyrion’s trial. That being said, I have a certain responsibility to tell you what happened, so I’m gonna do that before I get all up in the trial’s business.

Let’s start with Daenerys, because she’s my favourite. She’s holding court, listening to over 200 people airing out their grievances and asking for stuff, when a shepherd comes in. Apparently her biggest dragon, Drogon, decided that this shepherd’s flock was lunch, flambéed the lot of them, and ate them. And because Dany is a wise and kind leader, she pays the shepherd three times the value of his sheep.

Then comes Hizdahr zo Loraq, a young Meereenese nobleman whose father was crucified as justice for the slaves who met the same end. He asks permission to bury his father’s bones. And after some deliberation, Dany agrees, even though the slaves who the slavemasters killed had no such consideration.

But here’s the interesting thing: as a reader (spoilers ahead), I know that Hizdahr has a larger role to play in Dany’s story. This is going to become a slippery slope that results in enormous changes for everyone, not to mention a fair amount of carnage before it’s all through. And it all started here, with a single act of familial loyalty and a corresponding act of compassion. But I’ll circle back around to that.

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The Amazing Spider-Man 2

10 Saturday May 2014

Posted by Thom Yee in Films

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Tags

Spider-Man

by Thom Yee

Images courtesy of Columbia Pictures

Images courtesy of Columbia Pictures and Marvel Comics

“I hate Spider-Man.”

That might be a popular sentiment in a place like the (no-doubt continually shrinking) Daily Bugle offices and from its often-tyrannical editor-in-chief, but I actually heard that from the owner of Edmonton’s biggest and most popular comicbook store. “If [he] wasn’t so whiny all the time, I’d probably enjoy him,” he finishes telling me.

Anyway.

It’s always been my contention, given what we know and can reasonably assume about society, that Spider-Man has the best overall powerset for the real world. Flight’s always been a popular choice, speaking to our fundamental need for freedom, but it’s also a power you’d have to be really careful with. Just like Pa Kent contends in last year’s Man of Steel, if people found out there are people with powers, that there are people who can fly, it would change everything. And I wouldn’t really want to do that. Continue reading →

GR Dailies: Game of Thrones – First of His Name

05 Monday May 2014

Posted by ghcrawford in Television

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by Grace Crawford

game of thrones poster

All Game of Thrones images courtesy of HBO.

4×05: “First of His Name”

So when I was first watching this episode, I thought it was about resignation. Then I thought it was about the decisions that people make. And then I figured, maybe it’s not anything that complicated. Maybe it’s just some really good action setting the stage for the events of the rest of the season. And that’s the theory I’m gonna go with when I break it down for you.

Daenerys receives word that her cities, the ones she freed from slavery, are back under the thumbs of slavers. This causes a crisis of confidence, because how can the people of Westeros trust her to be their queen when she can’t even hold onto Slavers’ Bay? So Dany decides to stay in the Bay and rule as queen there. And I think that’s pretty big of her, given how much she’s lost in the course of her young life. She’s placing the needs of her people above her own needs, and that’s one of the qualities that’ll make her an awesome queen of the Seven Kingdoms, assuming she ever gets that far.

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