1980s Fantasy Film Festival #10: “Brazil” (1985)
Aug05

1980s Fantasy Film Festival #10: “Brazil” (1985)

[Note: The following review contains SPOILERS for Time Bandits.] And now, we begin the next sequence of our 1980s Fantasy Film Festival All 1980s Fantasy Film Festival Posts Next Friday: The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (1988) Full Upcoming...

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Power in a Union: “Pride” (2014)
Oct24

Power in a Union: “Pride” (2014)

I usually only write about genre on this site, but every now and then, a work of art comes along that affects me so deeply, I can’t bring myself to ignore it here just because it doesn’t fit under a prescribed category. Such is the case with the recent British film, Pride, which I saw in a small indie cinema just over a week ago in New York, and which touched me so deeply and entertained me so much that I proceeded to see...

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Awfully Big Adventures: “Hook” (1991)
Sep03

Awfully Big Adventures: “Hook” (1991)

First off, an explanation: For the past few months, I have been running a 1980s Fantasy Film Festival at the site, posting a review of one classic or not-so-classic from the era every Friday. You may have noticed that that series has stopped running the past few weeks, and the reason is simple–literally moments before I was supposed to be writing my review of Terry Gilliam’s Brazil, Robin Williams died, an event that hit...

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Hooked on a Feeling: “Guardians of the Galaxy” (2014)
Aug06

Hooked on a Feeling: “Guardians of the Galaxy” (2014)

How far the Marvel Cinematic Universe has come since Iron Man, the company’s first, extremely successful attempt to turn a lesser-known superhero into a hit film in 2008! Back then, although they did a phenomenal job, one of the primary concerns of the enterprise seemed to be to stress dramatic “legitimacy,” so to speak, balancing superheroics with a mostly naturalistic atmosphere that was both literally and...

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1980s Fantasy Film Festival #9: “Time Bandits” (1981)
Aug01

1980s Fantasy Film Festival #9: “Time Bandits” (1981)

[Note: The following review contains SPOILERS for Time Bandits.] And now, we begin the next sequence of our 1980s Fantasy Film Festival by rewatching the classic thematic trilogy of fantasy films directed by the mindshatteringly ingenious Terry Gilliam, beginning with the first, Time Bandits (with Brazil and The Adventures of Baron Munchausen over the next two weeks). Previously known as the American from Monty Python, Gilliam is one...

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1980s Fantasy Film Festival #8: “Young Sherlock Holmes” (1985)
Jul25

1980s Fantasy Film Festival #8: “Young Sherlock Holmes” (1985)

This week, the “Legends and Mythology” portion of our 1980s Fantasy Film Festival concludes with Chris Columbus’ Young Sherlock Holmes, a film that may not fit perfectly into the festival, given that almost all of its most fantastical elements actually occur as the result of drug-induced hallucinations. However, it features some nifty steampunk gadgetry, along with some deliberately heightened elements such as an...

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