TRAVIS BYRAM'S MOVIE REVIEWS

When I was young, and had no friends, and wrote comics as a kid ripping off Spider-Man, I always took a huge delight in figuring out who my villain would be that issue (issue meaning two pieces of looseleaf paper I stapled together and only I read). 90% of them would be plagiarized, but I still enjoyed adding the little quirks or potential powers from my villains who would be introduced with little backstory, then about a page of crudely-drawn action, then they would usually get killed. I guess I had a very black and white sense of justice in those days. But while my protagonists stayed fairly static, it was always a blast thinking up villains when I sat down to write and draw. Antagonists can be the most memorable part of your movie (take note, Marvel), but can a whole movie full of them come off as too bloated? David Ayer answers that question in Suicide Squad , a definitely flawed but firecracker time in the theaters. When you go to college you take a lot of personality tests, and...

Full disclosure before you read the review of the Kevin Spacey cat movie, which right there should tell you what I'm going to think about it: I went in to see this movie with a friend as a joke. There were six people total in the theater, including my friend and I, along with a mother and a daughter (preteen-ish) and an older married couple who got quite comfortable during the screening. Does awful comedy bring a marriage together? So, as will be explained later on in this review, I know full well that Spacey's riveting turn as Mr. Fuzzypants will not bring the actor his third Academy Award. But in a time where either Hilary Clinton or Donald Trump is going to lead our country for the next four years, sometimes it's okay just to sit back and realize you're about to enter a disaster, because laughing at that disaster takes some of its power away. Nine Lives  is a soulless, money-grabbing concept of a film that has no idea of who it's trying to entertain. But I'...

Over three years ago, when this blog was my biggest commitment (college will knock a lot of things over in it's savage quest to consume your time) I talked about how this film had the possibility of being a disaster. My biggest fear was that they would Materize the sequel by putting in a sidekick as the main star of the film. Many folks thought the rusty redneck truck was irritating on the first go round, but Dory the blue tang absolutely stole the show amidst Australian sharks, Californian surfer turtles and a crazed dentist. So where does  Dory  land along side Pixar's other sequels? Well let's just say it's more  Toy Story 2  than  Cars 2 . With a less obvious title than it's predecessor,  Finding Dory  finds Dory finding herself, where she came from, how she was raised, and her search for her parents. I guess  Finding   Mr. and Mrs. Dory  doesn't have the same ring to it. Marlin and Nemo pop up of course, this time in supporting ro...

One of the great tragedies of being in Britain at this time, which I'm sure you're all sick of hearing of, and even to my fellow Americans they must be tired of hearing of...is that Finding Dory comes out over a month later over here. I have to wait until returning to the States to see the sequel to one of Pixar's best! One of the upsides however, is I do get to see some films that look like they'll just be getting a theatrical release in the UK . One film I doubt is going to compete with Dory and the sure to be Oscar-winning Independence Day: Resurgence is Florence Foster Jenkins , a story about a woman whose life was destined to be portrayed on the silver screen. Having Meryl Streep fill the glittery sequins of your life is a pretty good consolation prize for Miss Jenkins, who could easily be considered the world's worst opera singer. I don't encourage you to look at the real Mrs. Jenkins' Wikipedia page until after you've seen the movie. If you thin...

As a lover and proponent of original filmmaking, I seem to have found myself in a bit of a hypocritical stance. This year alone I have seen four superhero films, a reboot of a Disney movie...and The Nice Guys . Let's stop now, and keep reading to see my review of the threequel to a rebooted franchise of the now eight-strong X-Men films. The movie starts (in a startlingly cinematic epic fashion I hadn't seen in an X-Men movie thus far) with an ancient Egyptian landscape, where the world's first mutant En Sabah Nur (Oscar Isaac) is worshipped by practically all of CGI Egypt. After betrayal by his men who see him as a false god, Grandaddy Mutant is trapped in the rubble of a pyramid, until 1983 rears its retro head, and some...culty people (??? it's never explained ???) are able to summon up from his slumber. En Sabah Nur (who's actually never called Apocalypse come to think of it) like Ultron and countless others before him is unsatisfied with machinery, weapons and...

The odd couple troupe is one of the oldest cinema can offer: but if it ain't broke, right? The joy of The Nice Guys , a good turnaround for acclaimed writer/director Shane Black, who we last saw helm Iron Man 3 , is seeing these two Oscar-nominated actors play the camera for laughs. You don't think belly laughs when you think of Russell Crowe. Ryan Gosling was in last year's Oscar-winning comedy The Big Short , and he was pretty funny it, and we know he has chops from his "SNL" appearance. But they're generally seen as dramatic actors, so the joy of seeing them drive around 1970's L.A. with a hallucinatory creature is pretty spectacular. The plot (for a mystery, anyway) is much pretty straightforward, with a few curves and backtracks to make it juicy. Healy, a "hit man," as I like to call him, because he pretty much just punches you in the face (Crowe) comes to private eye Holland March's (Gosling) door, breaks his arm and tells him to not ...

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...