I'd say the perceived poor quality of Menace did negatively effect the Star Wars "brand name". But the "failure" of ATTACK OF THE CLONES had nothing to do with ATTACK OF THE CLONES itself being a piece of crap? Undoubtedly, but there is precedent for a crummy sequel poisoning th...

On a side note, it is kind of odd to hear the British leads in this movie. Are they from a planet in the Star Wars galaxy where the English accent is prevalent? lol Hey, even Carrie Fisher was adopting a vaguely British accent in some scenes of the original ("I recognized your foul stench when...

The thing you have to remember about the fanboys -- for all the bitching and endless moaning about the prequels online, all three of them made a freaking FORTUNE. As bad as ATTACK OF THE CLONES was, did it impact REVENGE OF THE SITH in any negative way financially? Not at all. Well, Phantom Menace ...

The marketing and merchandising for Phantom Menace was every bit as numbing and assaultive...and Disney has to work twice as hard this time because they're trying to entice aging geeks who felt really burnt by the Prequels (warranted or not) back to the Star Wars fold. They're hoping that sheer forc...

They may as well have called this Avengers 2.0, considering how many recurring heroes they've stuffed into it.

PG-13 rating something of a minor surprise. http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-vision/star-wars-force-awakens-officially-843881 I'm not at all surprised...the PG rating means something completely different to today's audiences than it did in the 70's and 80's, where cursing, violence, and even b...

Grabbed the following...

AUDREY ROSE (1977)
U TURN (1997)
THE WORLD OF HENRY ORIENT (1964)
HOUSE OF BAMBOO (1955)

Wish I hadn't already grabbed Under Fire for full price last year.

In time, what's going to happen is that most of these people jazzed to see a Star Wars movie EVERY SINGLE YEAR FOR THE REST OF THEIR LIVES will see an increasingly marginalized Star Wars as there's going to be no singular point of view going forward. Maybe if Disney had the balls to finally move th...

I'm also confused by Abrams' comments about Super 8 and the Trek movies he inflicted. He was also the producer of those movies. At any time, he could have stepped back and said "Guys, these stories aren't worked out yet. Let's take some time and figure out what story we're telling before we st...

- The 33 (2015): 7.5/10 Moving dramatization of the trapped Chilean miner story from 2010 is well-performed by a strangely multicultural but effective cast (Lou Diamond Philips? Gabriel Byrne? Juliete Binoche?) and earns its lump-in-the-throat climax, and juicing it all along is -- *SIGH* -- James H...

And how the hell is this supposed to tie in with that delayed Neil Blomkamp sequel to Aliens that was supposed to ignore the events of Aliens 3 and Ressurection? Is the Blomkamp movie the third part of this now-called "Trilogy"? I wonder if anyone has asked that question yet. I wouldn't w...

Has ANY movie franchise had such a bizarre evolution as the Alien films? Four "official" movies...each released an average of six years apart (and each with a different director and wildly different tone and style). Two Alien vs. Predator spin-offs. A prequel-that-sorta-wasn't-a-prequel. A...

IV isn't burdened with tying up as many loose end as III was. After dumping Saavik off on Vulcan, IV is full speed ahead in its own storyline (except for clearing up the rest of the III issues at the very very end), and you needn't have seen the previous films to enjoy it. That was the whole point ...

The X-Men movies are a great example of what differentiates modern-day franchise filmmaking to that of yesteryear...back in the day, there'd be a specific "sound" that represented a film franchise. Even if there were multiple composers, they'd usually retain whatever primary theme the comp...

Watched it again today (Best Buy has a surprisingly substantive "exclusive" bonus disc, BTW...it adds a full NINETY MINUTES of documentaries! :shock: ), and Genisys is fun, fun, fun. Don't know WHAT the hell everybody else was grousing about. Check out Drew McWeeney's ridicuous "D&quo...