REVIEW: Die Hard [1988]

“Make fists with your toes” It’s become such an action classic with numerous sequels, copycats, and homages and yet Die Hard as we know it almost never was—by choice. Novelist Roderick Thorp wrote Nothing Lasts Forever, his follow-up to The Detective, thirteen years after the original because he saw The Towering Inferno and dreamt up an idea of one man in a skyscraper hunted by terrorists. It starred his NYPD Detective Joe Leland, now aged and retired, visiting his daughter’s office building in Los Angeles on Christmas Eve where he…

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DESIGN: 2016 In Music

Tracklisting:Disc 11. “Stranger Things” • Kyle Dixon & Michael Stein • 01:08 • Stranger Things OST, Vol 1, Lakeshore Records2. “Can’t Let Go, Juno” • Kishi Bashi • 04:23 • Sonderlust, Joyful Noise Recordings3. “Bright Lights” • Gibbz • 03:15 • Oh My God EP, Gibbz4. “I Can’t Stand You Anymore” • Sleigh Bells • 04:02 • Jessica Rabbit, Torn Clean5. “Giant” • Banks & Steelz • 03:51 • Anything But Words, Warner Bros. Records Inc.6. “Feet Don’t Fail Me Now” • Foxes • 03:24 • All I Need, Sign of the…

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Online Film Critics Society Ballot 2016

Below is my December 31st ballot for the 20th annual Online Film Critics Society Awards honoring movies released domestically in the United States during the 2016 calendar year. Group winners are highlighted in red. Best Picture #1 Moonlight . #2 Manchester by the Sea #3 Arrival . #4 Jackie . #5 The Witch . #6 Hell or High Water #7 La La Land . #8 O.J.: Made in America #9 The Handmaiden . #10 Paterson . Best Animated Film #1 Kubo and the Two Strings #2 Moana . #3 Finding…

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REVIEW: فروشنده [Forushande] [The Salesman] [2016]

“For once it looks like we’re in luck” There’s this notion that tragedy won’t happen to us. It’s for people who don’t live their lives correctly—some karmic retribution paying for mistakes made along the way. We like to believe we’re different whether such a belief is deserved or not. So when something does occur, only a seething anger results. Anger at your hard work to stay moral and good proving to be for naught; anger about thoughts of revenge seeming impossible considering acting upon them would simply lower you onto…

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REVIEW: Passengers [2016]

“Excellent choice” **Spoilers included** You’re traveling on a spaceship towards a distant planet in hopes of restarting your life anew with endless possibilities. The journey takes 120 years, your body in stasis to arrive the same age that you left. Let’s say something happens around the thirty year mark to cause an unknown malfunction that inexplicably wakes you with no way of returning to slumber. This massive ship is at your disposal—well, the areas accessible by your wrist bracelet’s discerning permissions and a crowbar—but there’s no one with which to…

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REVIEW: Dr. Feelgood: Dealer or Healer? [2016]

“Choose the best face that describes how you feel” I’ve been lucky to have never used painkillers whether as a result of high pain tolerance or simply not having experienced enough to deem it necessary. I know people who have, though, and it is a Godsend at times whether opium-based or not. So I couldn’t blindly say Oxycontin and Dilaudid should be outlawed. Morphine has always seemed so commonplace that any prescription drug compared to it has brought along a stigma of “good” rather than “bad” for me despite heroin…

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Posterized Propaganda January 2017: The Top 10 Movie Posters of 2016

“Don’t Judge a Book by Its Cover” is a proverb whose simple existence proves the fact impressionable souls will do so without fail. This monthly column (with a special year-end retrospective today) focuses on the film industry’s willingness to capitalize on this truth, releasing one-sheets to serve as not representations of what audiences are to expect, but as propaganda to fill seats. Oftentimes they fail miserably. 2016 wasn’t just a great year for films — the posters advertising them were quite fantastic too. That’s not to say we weren’t inundated…

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REVIEW: 13th [2016]

“… blacks get hurt worse than whites.”– Lee Atwater While 13th—Ava DuVernay‘s documentary about the criminal justice system and mass incarceration being used to extend slavery via a loophole in the Thirteenth Amendment—is far from perfect, it is crucial to commence a conversation and relevant in a way John Oliver simply cannot equal thanks to the color of his skin. If you’ve watch “Last Week Tonight with John Oliver” during its run on HBO you’ve learned a cursory amount of what DuVernay’s extensive list of talking head educators, politicians, and…

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REVIEW: Neruda [2016]

“He’s the king of love” Pablo Neruda was a Chilean legend. He was a poet who won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1971, a diplomat holding multiple posts including that of Senator for the Communist Party, and ultimately so feared by President González Videla and President Augusto Pinochet that his death is rumored to have been murder hidden underneath a cancer diagnosis. It’s a diverse and implausible life that could just as easily have been fiction rather than the reality it was. He rallied together a country desperate to…

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REVIEW: Sing [2016]

“Don’t let fear stop you from doing the thing you love” After helming The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and Son of Rambow, it’s easy to forget writer/director Garth Jennings started his career as one half of music video masters Hammer & Tongs. Pair his knowledge of music with some great past examples of family-friendly aesthetics (Supergrass‘ “Pumping on Your Stereo” puppets, Blur‘s “Coffee & TV” stop-motion) and the notion he’d eventually gravitate towards a feature-length animated children’s film doesn’t seem far-fetched. In fact, the only thing about his third…

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REVIEW: Assassin’s Creed [2016]

“Not everyone deserves to live” The Knights Templar and their numerous myths about secret societies and grand political aspirations have rendered the organization primed for villainous roles in multiple forms of media. One example is Ubisoft’s videogame Assassin’s Creed wherein a violent war has waged for centuries between the Templars’ drive for world domination (peace via control) and the Assassins’ desire to stop them (peace via free will). The series sprinkles in real historical figures and does its best to make it seem as though it could all be true—besides…

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