By Bob Garver As a rule, movies based on video games are always terrible. There isn’t a single one that could be considered a critical darling. “Wreck-it Ralph” doesn’t count; it technically made up its derivative main characters. “The Angry Birds Movie” tries to buck this trend by being based on game with a non-traditional […]
Jodie Foster’s “Money Monster” could not unseat “Captain America: Civil War” at the top of the box office over the weekend. The Marvel superhero sequel took the top spot for the second straight week. “Civil War,” the third film in the franchise that includes 2011’s “Captain America: The First Avenger” and 2014’s “Captain America: The […]
By Bob Garver The highlight of “Captain America: Civil War” is a six-on-six superhero-on-superhero battle. For simplicity’s sake, we’ll call the sides Team Captain America and Team Iron Man. Team Captain America consists of Captain America (Chris Evans), The Winter Soldier (Sebastian Stan), Falcon (Anthony Mackie), Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner), Scarlet Witch (Elizabeth Olsen), and Ant-Man […]
By Bob Garver For weeks, I was dying to see “Keanu.” I’m a big fan of Keegan-Michael Key and Jordan Peele and their sketch show “Key & Peele.” My family loves those sketches where they play college football players with wacky names, and I personally am a huge fan of the sketch where they play […]
By Bob Garver When I see an unnecessary sequel, I’ll often wonder what the studio was thinking. I’m not talking about the huge franchises where any kind of new installment is basically a license to print money. I’m talking about unwanted sequels to movies that don’t have a fan base clamoring for more. Obviously I […]
By Bob Garver While Disney continues to put out new hits like “Zootopia,” it’s also working hard to update its old hits. The live-action version of “Cinderella” was one of the ten biggest movies of 2015. Even more impressive is that the new live-action version of “The Jungle Book” opened to over $100 million this […]
By Bob Garver “The Boss” is a movie that features a montage of a girl being dumped on an orphanage, Melissa McCarthy break-dancing, an extended mouth-spreader gag, awkward flirting and dating, that gag you’ve seen in the trailers where McCarthy gets launched into a wall by a sofa bed, a crude term for a female […]
By Bob Garver It’s hard to talk about without talking about how little demand there is for it in 2016. True, the 2002 original made an astounding $241 million, setting a record for independent films and for movies that never had a weekend at #1 at the box office. But that was 14 years ago, […]
By Bob Garver “Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice” is the most anticipated superhero crossover movie since “The Avengers.” Actually, it might be even more anticipated than “The Avengers.” Superman and Batman have starred in big-budget blockbusters since the 70’s and 80’s, respectively (and smaller-scale movie serials and TV shows long before that), but who […]
By Bob Garver Last year, the “Hunger Games” series went out with a relative whimper when “Mockingjay – Part 2” made $50 million less than any other film in the franchise with “only” $281 million. It appeared that the “Movies Based on a Series of Young Adult Novels About Teenagers in a Dystopian Future” fad […]
