Archive for the ‘Movie Review’ Category

That Zod-Damned Man of Steel…

Posted: November 18, 2015 by patricksponaugle in Comics, Movie Review, Opinion
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In case you’re behind in your viewing of movies featuring the Last Son of Krypton, this post will contain some spoilers. If spoilers are your kryptonite, get behind a lead wall now! (Or don’t read…)

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Zod: Spoiler Vision… ACTIVATE!
Superman: Don’t look, Zod! Great Scott, don’t loooooook!!!!!

The movie I’m going to talk about has been out for ages, so the speed (and timeliness) of my reviews clearly aren’t faster than a speeding bullet. But since next year will be featuring a new Superman movie (Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice) it’s not really a bad time to talk about that Zod-murdering Superman.

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Road Warrior’ing on the Fury Road.

Posted: September 15, 2015 by patricksponaugle in Movie Review, Opinion
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RoadWarriorCool

Recently, my wife and I managed to see Mad Max: Fury Road in the theaters. I saw it during its summer release, and by the time I’d talked my wife into wanting to give it a try, it was no longer being shown.

But once it became available through digitial release, it inexplicably reappeared at a high-end theater near us. Date Night! But this is all unnecessary detail.

If you’ve wandered here looking for a review of this latest installment of the Mad Max franchise, I am going to recap it below (after some rambly preamble.)

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Are Fantastic Four Movies Doomed?

Posted: August 30, 2015 by patricksponaugle in Movie Review, Opinion
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Earlier today, my wife, daughter, and I went and saw Fantastic Four (or FANT4STIC if you go with the title on the movie poster, literally.) I was surprised that it wasn’t as horrible as I’d been told. With a Rotten Tomatoes score of 9% among critics and 21% among movie-goers, I expected something painfully bad, and it was just kind of okay.

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Star Trek vs. Star Trek

Posted: December 29, 2014 by patricksponaugle in Movie Review, Opinion
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With the recent announcement of Justin Lin as director of the third Star Trek movie in the JJ Abrams reboot series, I’ve noticed a resurgence of dissatisfaction among some Star Trek fans with the reboot series in general.

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I don’t think that their complaints are particularly invalid (maybe some of their complaints) but a recent image that’s been circulating had me metaphorically shaking my head.

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Pug Film Fest 2014 – Eagles and Ashes

Posted: October 20, 2014 by patricksponaugle in Martial Arts, Movie Review
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A few weeks ago I had some extra free time, so I decided it was time to for the annual Pug Film Fest, where I present to my pug Chi Chi movies that I really like.

ChiChi

Chi Chi Loves Action Movies. Perhaps a Bit Too Much

Last year, Chi Chi the pug and her friend Pippin the Chihuahua-Corgi were the audience for 1972’s Enter the Dragon, featuring John Saxon, Jim Kelly, and the great Bruce Lee.

I even wrote up the experience (in hopefully an amusing fashion):

This year, I decided to continue the Hong Kong Action Movie theme with a double bill: 1993’s Eagle Shooting Heroes and 1994’s Ashes of Time (more specificaly, Ashes of Time Redux, a new cut of the film.) I’d recently picked them up on DVD and had been looking for an excuse to watch them back-to-back.

Chi Chi the pug and our new puggle, Peanut, were happy to view them with me, kicking off Pug Film Fest 2014.

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Guardians of the Galaxy – A Gamer’s Perspective

Posted: August 11, 2014 by patricksponaugle in Gaming, Movie Review, Opinion
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This post will be revealing plot elements from the latest Marvel Studio’s theatrical release, Guardians of the Galaxy.

If you are here for a review, the movie is great, go see it. My daughter didn’t want to, she grudgingly went, and then demanded to see it again.

Guardians_of_the_galaxy

Roll for Initiative!

I’ve been known to read a comic book or two, in my time, but I’ll admit to not being up to speed on the sequential fiction magazines that the movie Guardians of the Galaxy was based on. But the trailer made me want to see the movie, even if I didn’t know who the characters were.*

But even though this story was very new to me, I had a strong sense of familiarity while watching, in part due to the recognizable and nostalgia-inducing soundtrack, but mostly because this story was pretty much what I had wanted out of every Dungeons & Dragons campaign I’d ever played in.

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Best Godzilla Movie Ever

Posted: June 6, 2014 by patricksponaugle in Movie Review, Opinion
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I promise there will be no spoilers for the Gareth Edwards’ movie Godzilla, out in theaters.

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No Spoilers!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Tuesday, my daughter and I caught a showing of Godzilla, directed by Gareth Edwards.

My girl surprised me by wanting to see the movie, and I’m certainly not going to let the opportunity to see a Sci Fi genre flick pass by. Afterwards, I asked her if I should write a blog post about it.

Me: Hey, should I write a blog post on the movie?

Her: Sure.

Me: What should my angle be?

Her: Just talk about the plot, but no spoilers.

I guess I could do that… but I’m not going to. I think I’m still trying to sort out my opinion on the movie, and I think if I start talking too much about it, it’ll just end up being me bashing on Roland Emmerich’s Godzilla movie (and then defending it like this.)

Instead I’ll talk about the greatest Godzilla movie ever made (as adjudicated by Pat Sponaugle, self-appointed expert on Kaiju movies) 1991’s excellent Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah.

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The Amazing Spider-Man Movie Broke My Daughter

Posted: May 8, 2014 by patricksponaugle in Comics, Movie Review, Writing
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Over the weekend, I went to see the new Spider-Man movie (the second one featuring Andrew Garfield as Peter Parker.)

My daughter, who hadn’t seen the first one, really wanted to see ASM2 because of the rumored X-Men: Days of Future Past tease in the movie’s end credits. (My not-yet-quite-a-teen daughter is a big Jennifer Lawrence fan.)

Keeping my fanboy glee hidden, I agreed.

“If you *really* want to see it, I guess I’ll go see this ‘Spidery Man‘ movie.”

Spoilery thoughts below. Seriously, if you haven’t seen the movie, don’t read my post.

The-Amazing-Spider-Man-2-Movie-2014-Poster

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History Will Call Us Wives

Posted: December 17, 2013 by patricksponaugle in Book Review, Movie Review, Opinion
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Recently at work, I was bringing in my really old board game, Dune (from Avalon Hill.) My office is a pretty cool place to work, and at lunch we occasionally get a game of something going. Since we’ve played some games in the past that required more than a few lunches to complete (Game of Thrones, Small World) I thought Dune might be a good addition to lunchtime strategic competitions.

One of the interns from the cubicle pod near ours saw me carrying the box, and asked if I knew that they’d made a movie called Dune. I did know that. Oh, I had that knowledge.

dune-worm

Back in 1984, I was very excited to see David Lynch’s adaptation of one of my favorite science fiction books. I roped my dad into coming along, since I’d convinced him to read Dune during a summer vacation trip. He had agreed that the book was great.

After we saw the movie, we agreed that unlike the book, the movie was not.

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The World’s End Hasn’t Ended (my review, I mean)

Posted: September 2, 2013 by patricksponaugle in Movie Review
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Well, this will be less of a review than a continuation of my discussing the movie. In a rambly fashion.

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Recently I posted a review of the Simon Pegg, Nick Frost, Edgar Wright movie The World’s End. As I recall, I liked it and said all you people should go see it.

The End.

Oh! But I had more!

I wanted to bring up a few points about the movie that struck me, and that’s what I’m going to do. This will be spoilery, so be warned. It won’t be too long.

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