TRAVIS BYRAM'S MOVIE REVIEWS

Even though this admits my guilt to my mind wandering a little, I realized that while watching Civil War this was the Marvel Cinematic Universe's thirteenth film. Besides Bond and probably those awful Transformers movies because audiences keep feeding Michael Bay's ego, how many franchises can say that? Additionally, how many can say that just about all of the films in their franchise have been well received? Most people cite the second Iron Man film as the worst, (and personally I think Iron Man 3 was a poorly executed film), but there isn't really a stinker in there. They're all fresh on Rotten Tomatoes, they all made obscene amounts of money...it's pretty impressive. Some have noted how the Marvel films are all fairly similar, at least in tone and the formula that follows a TV episode of thwarting the bad guy at the end of it. That's why they bring in directors to genre bend. Sometimes it works, when the Russo brothers (who directed this edition) make a 70s...

It seems like people are always facing off in Zack Snyder films. With 300 , it was the Spartans v. the Persians. With Watchmen it was a batch of old superheroes against the effects of time. With Man of Steel , he pitted Kal-El against the insanity of General Zod (though some could argue Michael Shannon didn't realize he was in a Superman movie and the cameras kept rolling). And with Batman v Superman , Snyder is dramatizing the ultimate battle: himself v. the source material v. the studios v. setting up a franchise v. fans' expectations v. making a coherent blockbuster (in March?!) that additionally serves as a sequel to Man of Steel v. establishing a new Batman. Oh and Wonder Woman's in it. And Lex Luthor. And Holly Hunter? Spoiler alert: I'm afraid Snyder lost this fight. I was initially very disappointed walking out of the film, thinking of the things they could have cut, other heroes they could've introduced (how many times do we have to see Lex Luthor onscree...

What a way to ring in the cinematic new year. Last year the box-office phenomenon was American Sniper , which became the biggest domestic movie of 2014 (did you know that?! I didn't know that!!), won an Oscar, caused loads of controversy and beat every single Marvel movie that came out that year in the U.S.: that's right, The Winter Soldier , Days of Future Past and Guardians of the Galaxy couldn't top Chris Kyle's biography. Well, as a little slice of revenge, here's a Marvel movie that's posed to not only beat American Sniper , but to beat Jesus himself. Here's Deadpool . That last comment wasn't irreverent sacrilege: Deadpool  is poised to dethrone The Passion of the Christ as the highest grossing R-rated movie of all time. Since 2004 that's made sense: naturally that film reaches an enormous built-in fan base. But a movie about sarcastic, antihero Deadpool, a relatively new comic book character (as opposed to say Batman and Superman, both 70-80...

Here we are folks! Just a couple of days away from this year's Academy Awards. In the past few years I've tried to tell myself there was drama between the big category (Best Picture) to hype myself up for the show...but deep down I've pretty much known every year what was going to win, and which of my other movies in that category it would trump. The King's Speech quietly swept away Social Network's Oscar. The Artist silently pranced with jazz hands away with the top prize, leaving The Descendants in the dust. Last year Birdman swooped in and clutched it right out of Boyhood's fingers. But this year: I have an idea...but I am genuinely unsure of how things are going to play out. The way I see it, there are three contenders. There's The Revenant ,  The Big Short and Spotlight . And then there's the race of Supporting Actress: will Oscar veteran Kate Winslet scoop up her second trophy, or will breakout newcomer Alicia Vikander steal it with her stellar sup...

After cleaning up handsomely at the Golden Globes, and getting a whopping twelve nominations at the Academy Awards (with Mad Max: Fury Road coming in a close second place!), the casual moviegoer is probably becoming very intrigued with seeing Alejandro G. Innáritu's The Revenant . On paper it's maybe not such an easy sell: a man is left for dead by a greedy trapper and he has to fight is way back to exact revenge. That's it: a fairly simple plot. So is it worth your dollar? Absolutely: if you don't mind a little blood. And by a little I mean one of the most violent movies I saw in the 2015 movie year, right behind The Hateful Eight but still well in front of Kingsman . It also has some shades of Angelina Jolie's Unbroken . If you hate Leonardo DiCaprio, see this movie, because you get to watch him suffer what regular people would break under: unendurable circumstances. When he's not almost mercy killed by his men he's getting buried alive. When he's no...

The Oscar nominations are coming right around the corner! After a surprising Golden Globes, where The Revenant had a near sweep of three of the night's biggest awards, really anything could happen! Interestingly enough, Revenant isn't even up for a Best Cast nomination at the SAGs. No movie since the SAG's inception in 1995 ( Braveheart ) has won without a  Best Cast ensemble. Then again, eccentric choices like The Birdcage and The Full Monty have won, so it's anyone's guess. My choices for Best Picture are equally eccentric: you have fantastical blockbusters like Fury Road and Martian  here, along with solid indies ( Carol and Brooklyn ) and movies with big stars and small-ish budgets ( Spotlight and The Big Short ). I lost my bananas last year when The Lego Movie  only got a sole nomination for "Everything is Awesome!!!" I won't be that surprised if Inside Out doesn't make it with the big dogs, but I will lose what is left of my faith in the Osca...

"I've never heard someone be called the N-word as much as I have in this movie." This is a quote from a friend of mine who saw The Hateful Eight , and boy is it accurate. Quentin Tarantino, along with, you know, changing the movie landscape and all that, is a fan of gratuitousness. His first two films ( Reservoir Dogs and Pulp  Fiction ) clock in, according to Wikipedia, at 534 f-words combine, and you can guess it's not "falafel." The first Kill Bill movie has Uma Thurman chopping off dozens of samurai limbs, and Django Unchained   had...everything. The lover of everything B-cinema loves to meld genres, tropes and character archetypes together to give you an X-rated smorgasbord for movie fans and casual watchers alike. It almost seems like a burden to have that much of a crammed imagination. I've yet to see Jackie Brown and his Grindhouse collaboration with Robert Rodriguez, but otherwise I'm happy to report I've seen Tarantino's entire d...