Category Archives: Films

Avengers: Infinity War review

05 Saturday May 2018

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Thanos was right

by Thom Yee

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Avengers: Infinity War images courtesy of Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures

This world doesn’t make sense any more.  Californians are intentionally drinking untreated, unsterilized water they’re buying “off the grid” while people in Flint, Michigan still have too much lead in their taps.  A ridiculous, Immortan-Joe-esque ignoramous is the President of the United States.  Vaping is a thing.  And Thanos is a major figure in our popular culture.  Those four things might seem unrelated at first, but I’m pretty sure they all have megalomania and super-villainy at the heart of their origins.  But we’re mostly here to talk about that last one, Thanos, today, because, as of April 27, 2018, people — normal people all over the world — suddenly knew who Thanos is.  And the opportunity to talk about Thanos?  As if he was something or someone people might know about?  Someone people might actually care about?  That makes almost no sense!  That’s almost insane!
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Ready Player One review

07 Saturday Apr 2018

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I like DeLoreans

by Thom Yee

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Ready Player One images courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures

Nostalgia is a hell of a thing. Or maybe it isn’t, I don’t even know anymore. Haven’t people gotten pretty sick of nostalgia by now? Aren’t we in the midst of the great nostalgia backlash? Don’t people now despise their once treasured memories after all of this overexposure? Don’t you all hate remembering stuff now? Hasn’t the whole thing gotten to be ONE. SICK. JOKE? Well anyway… here’s everything nostalgic for you… together…!

There’s a promise inherent in revisiting the things you used to love but have, for whatever reason(s), left behind. It’s like putting on your favourite pair of jeans or pulling a warm blanket all the way over your head on a cold and stormy night. Something that’s familiar, something that’s so comforting that it becomes sort of a shield from the terrible world around you.

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Black Panther review

24 Saturday Feb 2018

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Am I woke now?  I think I’m woke now!

by Thom Yee

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Images courtesy of Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures

Something I hear a lot around this time of year is “Happy New Year!”  And not usually from Chinese people either, from people who, I think, feel a measure of personal progress when they say it to people who look like me.  “Happy New Year!” they say to us.  In the middle of February.  Weeks later than January 1st.  I’m not saying that I really mind when I hear it, I’m not trying to judge people when I hear them say it to me, almost any recognition and celebration of other cultures is a good thing, I’m just saying that when I hear Happy [Chinese] New Year, I can’t help but think to myself, “It’s not my New Year.”  Sometimes with several exclamation points at the end. Continue reading →

Star Wars: The Last Jedi review

20 Saturday Jan 2018

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What if we AREN’T here for a reason?

by Thom Yee

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Star Wars: The Last Jedi images courtesy of Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures

“BOBA Fett?”  “Boba FETT??”  “…What!?!”

I’m pretty sure that’s how it went the first time I’d ever heard the name Boba Fett coming from the mouth of a Star Wars fan.  What the hell is a “Boba Fett”? I thought to myself [probably].  I’d soon learn that he was a warrior, a bounty hunter, and, apparently, a real badass in the Star Wars canon.  He was a fan favourite and certainly seemed interesting, and he even had an unusual out-of-story origin as a character fans first met as a mail-away action figure and in the Star Wars Holiday Special, years before he would make any major impact on the movies themselves.  And then I found out he was just this guy.  And I wondered to myself, “Why the hell would anyone care about that guy?” Continue reading →

Justice League review

25 Saturday Nov 2017

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Meanwhile, in the universe formerly known as the DCEU

by Thom Yee

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Justice League images courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures

If you had told me back in 2007 — just one year after the disastrous X-Men:  The Last Stand stalled that franchise to the point of needing a soft reboot and just one year before Robert Downey Jr.’s debut as Iron Man would kick off Marvel’s own Cinematic Universe — that the next ten years in movies would be dominated by superheroes, I’d have thought you were joking.  And yet, here we are, a full ten years later and a full five years of reviewing them here at GOO Reviews (yesterday in fact marked our fifth anniversary), and superhero movies have gone from rarity to occasional hit to the driving force behind Hollywood’s biggest blockbusters.  It’s superhero movies that make most of the money in Hollywood these days, it’s superhero (and superhero-like) movies that executives want most to produce and fanboys want most to see, and it’s superhero movies that, as of 2017 with the release of Logan, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, Wonder Woman, Spider-Man:  Homecoming, Thor:  Ragnarok, and the subject of this review, are now coming out at a rate of at least six per year (and that’s not even counting tangential 2017 superhero releases like LEGO Batman or Power Rangers). Continue reading →

Thor: Ragnarok review

11 Saturday Nov 2017

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That was… a lot…

by Thom Yee

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Thor: Ragnarok images courtesy of Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures

If it feels like it’s been a while since we’ve talked about Thor here on GOO Reviews, you’re right, it has been a while, not since 2013 in fact when we published our review of Thor:  The Dark World.  And that’s actually a little weird because it’s not as if Marvel movies went away or became less popular in the four years since then, quite the opposite in fact.  It’s just that Thor’s only managed one other movie appearance since then, 2015’s Avengers:  Age of Ultron, a paltry number in comparison to his fellow Avengers, Captain America and Iron Man, with whom Thor ostensibly shares the title of that team’s “big three”.  In that same four-year timespan, as well as appearing in Age of Ultron, Captain America headlined two of the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s biggest and most eventful chapters in Captain Americas Winter Soldier and Civil War and Iron Man co-starred in and often even outshone the titular characters in Captain America:  Civil War and Spider-Man:  Homecoming.  That’s two more movies each for Cap and ol’ Shellhead to become even more the central figures of the MCU whereas Thor’s been mostly off world, doing gods know what in adventures that either had little to do with the MCU’s main, Earth-bound stories or that we had no real interest in (like [again] Thor:  The Dark World [just as an example]). Continue reading →

Blade Runner 2049 review

14 Saturday Oct 2017

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Do humans dream of organic sheep?  Don’t they just count them?

by Thom Yee

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Blade Runner 2049 images courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures

So let’s get one thing straight:  The original Blade Runner is a quality movie.

It’s an interesting movie, a distinct movie, and, more than either of those things, a revered movie.  There are some circles for which a Blade Runner sequel is like a dream even, the fruition of decades of speculation and the ultimate expression of the growth of the movie from a once misunderstood quandary to now a cultural icon.  It’s a visual spectacle with a haunting score and a chilling vision of where it looked like we were going.  In preparation for the release of Blade Runner 2049, I, finally and for the first time, watched the original Blade Runner (and read Grace’s now-classic review of course), only days before I would see its sequel.

I fell asleep twice trying to make it through. Continue reading →

Skin for Skin short review

03 Tuesday Oct 2017

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by Thom Yee

SKIN_FOR_SKIN_10025903_0So we’re at about the halfway mark of the Edmonton International Film Festival.  The 31st one in fact.  Exciting, isn’t it?  Or maybe not, I don’t know, apparently some of you out there don’t obsess over movies the way we do here at GOO Reviews.  Apparently some of you out there can’t find time to see more than five movies a year.  Apparently some of you don’t measure time based on what kind of Star Wars movie is coming out this year (i.e., this year’s The Last Jedi is a mainline saga film, so 2017 must be an odd-numbered year; last year’s Rogue One was an anthology side story, so 2016 must have been an even-numbered year).  Apparently some of you have a firmer grasp on life and reality (and basic maths) than that.  Fancy you! Continue reading →