10 Scary Films to Watch this Halloween

Which Scary Movies Are You Watching This Halloween?

Watching a scary movie is a great way to get into the Halloween spirit.  Horror movies have a wide range of sub-genres for every taste.  Here are ten spooky movies in random order for your viewing consideration. Some picks are suitable for the squeamish while others movies are hands-over-eyes gruesome. If you need additional suggestions, below each pick is a list of similar movies you might like.

Battle Of The Movies: Iron Man (2008) vs Ant-Man (2015)

Which is Marvel Studio’s best solo origin movie? That’s a question worth discussing after Ant-Man became a refreshing summer blockbuster.

There’s certainly fan support for Captain America: The First Avenger, The Incredible Hulk and Thor. But to prevent an all out civil war, this post will focus on what many regard are the two top contenders for best solo debut movie.

Time to pick a side! It’s a battle of the movies between Iron Man (2008) versus Ant-Man (2015). After going head to head in several categories such as Story, Heroes and Villains we’ll turn the floor over to the people’s decision (that’s you!) for your all important vote.

Movie Roundup: What’s Your Favorite Jake Gyllenhaal Performance?

Movie Roundup is where I give quick impressions on a bunch of films. You might find a movie that catches your curiosity. Or maybe there’ll be a film to avoid, which means I watched a terrible movie so you wouldn’t have to! 🙂

I’m really liking Jake Gyllenhaal’s movie choices lately, especially over the last five years. Even though I generally like commercial movies, I’m glad he’s not doing stuff like the disaster flick The Day After Tomorrow or the video game based movie Prince of Persia anymore (I had little interest in watching those). In his more recent stuff, you can see he’s shifted to this whole other gear as an actor. What’s your favorite Jake Gyllenhaal performance or movie?

Sense8: The Wachowskis’ Netflix Series is Better Than Their Feature Films

 A Spoiler Free Look At Netflix’s Sense8 Season 1

“From the creators of the Matrix“, the promotional tagline to Netflix’s Sense8 series about 8 telepathically connected people around the world, is a double-edged sword. For those whose imagination was captured by the 1999 sci-fi classic, they might be curious enough to check out what the Wachowskis can do in a long form narrative. On the other hand, it’s been a while since the directing duo hit a creative peak and their most recent film, Jupiter Ascending, was critically panned.

Sense8 ranks as the Wachowksis’ strongest recent effort, not that 2008’s Speed Racer or 2012’s Cloud Atlas set a high bar. The Wachowskis and co-creator J. Michael Straczynski wisely ground the sci-fi premise in smaller, personal stories to start off the series. The sensates’ ability to mentally visit and share emotions, skills and knowledge with those they are psychically bonded with gets around the problem of disjointed storytelling which often plagued Heroes, another show about gifted individuals spread across the globe.  

How To Fix The Future of ‘Fantastic Four’ Franchise

The future of the Fantastic Four franchise is not bright. 20th Century Fox spent 120 million dollars to produce a reboot of Marvel’s longest running superhero team. Early estimates put the opening weekend box office at well below $40 million.

Director Josh Trank has spoken out against the studio meddling with his vision of Fantastic Four. As reported at comicbookmovies.com, Fox cut out 3 action set pieces days before filming, took over the third act from Trank and removed the director from the editing room.  

Currently, Fantastic Four (2015) is scoring 9% on Rotten Tomato’s critical consensus, the audience score is at 28%. I’ll reserve judgement on the movie until I’ve seen it myself.

Here are five options on how the studio can handle the Fantastic Four property. We’ll discuss the pros & cons and the probability of each option.

Community Links & News: What Have You’ve Been Watching Lately?

Ahh yes, the incredible summer weather makes for a perfect day to … stay inside and watch a movie! 😉 On the blogging front, summer is usually a slower time for me. This is where you come in. I’m on the look out for something new to get into. Is there a movie or television show that you’ve recently enjoyed or can’t stop thinking about? How is True Detective season 2 coming along? Do you have a favorite movie of the summer so far?

Here are some things I’ve been watching lately. Of these, I’d easily recommend the first two movies to just about anyone.

• Inside Out:  I skipped over Pixar’s last few movies but with all the positive reviews on Inside Out I wanted to check it out in the theatres. Glad to say I really enjoyed it! Pixar did a great job of pulling off the concept. My favorite emotion is Joy (Amy Poehler). I started out not caring much for Sadness (Phyllis Smith) but I liked how the script taught us to value her. Which Pixar movies do you think are unskippable?

10 Things I Like About “Say Anything”

This post is part of MovieRob’s Genre Grandeur – High School/Teen Romance Movies. Don’t forget to check out all the great posts in this feature.

John Cusack holding a boombox outside his girlfriend’s bedroom window. It’s an iconic cinematic moment that, if you’re like me, are familiar with even if you haven’t watched 1989’s “Say Anything“. It’s been referenced and parodied so much, it’s about time I check out what the fuss is all about. Funny thing is watching that scene in context played out differently than what I expected. I’ll talk about that down below.

Say Anything reminds me a little bit of the more recent teen movie “The Spectacular Now“. The characters and their relationship feel instantly genuine. You see, Lloyd (John Cusack) doesn’t have big plans after high school. The only thing on his mind is getting a date with Diane (Ione Skye), the brainy girl who’s totally out of his league.

While Diane is the envy of other girls, her highly focused mind-set keeps her sheltered from many typical high school experiences.  We can see how Lloyd and Diane influence each other in ways that they would have never experienced if they never met. Their romance is not overly sappy and the humor comes across naturally. And also like The Spectacular Now, the father figure plays a role in this coming of age story.

Without further ado, here are 10 random things I like about Say Anything. A heads up, some of these will contain spoilers. You may want to watch Say Anything first before reading further.

The Tale of the Princess Kaguya (2013) Movie Review

This post is part of MovieRob’s Genre Grandeur – Sci-fi/Fantasy Animated Movies (non Disney/Pixar). For all the great reviews in this feature, head on over to the wonderful MovieRob.

The Tale of the Princess Kaguya (2013)
Director: Isao Takahata
English Voice Cast: Chloë Grace Moretz, James Caan, Mary Steenburgen, Darren Criss

Director Isao Takahata may not be as well known outside of Japan as his fellow Studio Ghibli co-founder Hayao Miyazaki but he’s a masterful filmmaker in is his own right. Takahata’s first movie in 14 years is a wonderful animated fantasy drama that pulls on the heart strings.

The story is based on the oldest Japanese folklore The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter. In the beginning, an old man sees a glowing bamboo shoot in a forest. Now the bamboo is not empty or barren. The bamboo blossoms like a lotus flower revealing a tiny baby princess inside. The old man takes the princess back to his home and together with his wife raise the baby as if she were their own.

5 Reasons Why Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior Totally Rocks!

This post is part of MovieRob’s Genre Grandeur – Dystopian Movies. Be sure to check out all the reviews in this feature by heading over to MovieRob.

Before the days of smearing blue paint over his face and going commando in a kilt (hey, let’s not judge), Mel Gibson roamed the barren, post apocalyptic wasteland in a Ford Falcon.  Of course, this is a reference to Gibson’s breakout role in the Mad Max movies which launched the actor into stardom. Let’s put on the breaks for a minute and take a rear view mirror look at the most popular movie in the Mad Max franchise. Here’s why 1981’s Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior is totally awesome.

Question Of The Month: Make A Movie A TV Show

Oracle Of Film has a brand new Question Of The Month: What movie should be reworked into a TV show? This could be a film that struggled to fit all of its ideas into a two hour movie. Or perhaps a film that would have been better if the two characters had an entire series spent on developing them before the big pay-off at the end. Take a look at all the great answers from many movie bloggers, including my choice by clicking on the above link.

This is such a great topic I thought it would be fun to come up with some other possibilities I’d like to see: