With the recent bomb of Solo: A Star Wars Story and the divisive nature of The Last Jedi, InReview takes a look at where Disney could’ve brought Star Wars, taking a look at the Star Wars Expanded Universe arc “Legacy of the Force,” while providing a broad overview of the Star Wars brand after Return of the Jedi. Continue reading Video Column: Where Star Wars COULD’VE gone
The Curse of Strahd is and has always been one of the most iconic Dungeons and Dragons tabletop campaigns. A thick, rich, immersive story with endless possibilities, good for those who enjoy heavy roleplaying, and also good for those who enjoy heavy amounts of intricate combat.
Strangely, the popular MMORPG Neverwinter didn’t have anything Barovian in their game… Until recently. Module 14 was built around the DnD titan finally bringing Strahd Von Zarovich’s realm to gaming consoles and PCs. For PCs, they had a while to enjoy it until it was released to console systems on August 28th. Continue reading “Neverwinter’s newest idea: Bringing Barovia to gaming”
InReview takes on its very first video column! Continue reading Video Column: Breaking down the Nike Colin Kaepernick ad campaign backlash
Nintendo fans everywhere rejoiced as Nintendo big wig Masahiro Sakurai graced the audience with his presence in last week’s Smash Direct. The hardworking director of the soon-to-be monstrous hit “Smash Ultimate” planned the Direct out three days ahead of time, and the hype that went into the momentous event wasn’t just well justified: it was blown out of the water, completely. New characters, new modes, even modifications to modes of old and, of course, a few cliffbreakers, highlighted the mega direct.
Let’s recap and review: Continue reading “Nintendo’s Smash Direct: The ‘Ultimate’ trailer video”
Sometimes life gives you a movie that has so many interesting moving parts that you just have to write 2,000 to 3,000 words about it. Sometimes life gives you some perfectly-acceptable films that, while they leave room for fleshed out opinions on thm, there just isn’t a lot to talk about it. This week in film did that very thing to me, henchforth this first installment of InReview Briefs. Today’s lineup comprises of “The Equalizer 2” and Disney’s “Christopher Robin.”
So let’s just jump into it. Continue reading “Reviews in brief: The Equalizer 2 and Christopher Robin”
Here we go again.
When I first saw that subtitle for the new “Mamma Mia!” film, I read it with some contempt. Memories of Pierce Brosnan and pre-“Into The Woods” Meryl Streep singing plagued my memories, and I couldn’t sleep. I put “Mamma Mia!” 2 on my most anticipated summer movies list only because I thought that certainly there was no way it could be good. It was a sequel to a movie based on a musical that butchered the “musical” part by forcing tone-deaf celebrities to sing, only saved by its fantastical cinematography and ABBA soundtrack. It’s a film that I’ve never been able to finish, though to be fair, I’ve never been given the first film a proper shot. Jukebox musical romantic comedies aren’t exactly my cup of tea, but I’m a firm believer that with effort, any good genre film can be enjoyed based on the codes and conventions of its native genre, the trick is just picking up on them and adjusting your expectations accordingly.
So for the second film, I was actually able to get into it. Continue reading “Mamma Mia! 2 is a goofy, fun time”
“Man of Steel” disappointed. “Batman v. Superman” bombed in a spectacular fashion. “Suicide Squad” bombed. “Wonder Woman” was genuinely good. And “Justice League” was just ok.
And now we have “Aquaman.” Oh, Aquaman. “My man!” as Jason Momoa’s bafoonish testosterone-induced version of the character would say.
But you’re not my man. You’re no one’s man. You’re Jason Momoa playing an overcompensation of a traditionally mild-mannered joke of a character, stuck in between Zack Snyder’s dark and gloomy ugly-CGI “Man of Steel” Universe, and Joss Whedon’s over-corrected “Justice League” Universe. Momoa’s portrayal of the character is one of identity crisis, and the only sample of his character we saw was in a poorly-written by-the-numbers movie that didn’t know what it wanted to be. I hate to say it, but Momoa’s impact as Aquaman was as noticeable as any of the disposable “Suicide Squad” characters, and I would have you know that I mean that in the nicest way possible (“Suicide Squad” is a guilty pleasure of mine); that’s to say, he didn’t offend, like the god-awful Jared Leto Joker we got in that film, but he didn’t make an impact, either. Continue reading “Aquaman will probably dissapoint”
In the world of online gaming apps, there are a lot of failures. Games that had potential but didn’t get their due diligence. Every now and then you have a successful game which falls flat, usually due to the higher-ups’ poor decision making in some regard. You have your “Clash of Clans” types that have a five year bask in prominence, but for every one of those, there’re 1,000 which fall flat on their faces right out of the gates. Continue reading “Hosted Games: A titan in its field that’s stumbled, but hasn’t fallen”
I held off giving a hot take on this issue while it was still trending because that often leads to me putting out a crappy, half-formed opinion on the matter. Now, when it is certain that almost no one will read this because the public has since moved on to the next big things in entertainment news (“Mamma Mia” 2 and “Team Titans Go! To the Movies” are good?!), I’m willing to throw my small voice into the matter. Continue reading “James Gunn and the difficult case of evil artists”
I live in Berkshire County, Mass., not that you would know that given the content of this website. It’s a quiet, quaint little corner of Massachusetts where quite frankly not a lot happens, at least when you consider all the attractions over the border into New York or in the Eastern part of the state, so I was surprised when I typed in “Berkshire County Movie” in Google and a real movie popped up, created by a real filmmaker that made rounds in film festivals in 2014 and 2015. Continue reading “The Berkshire County movie you never knew about”
