Jackie (2017) - Movie Review

Okay, quick bit of context. Earlier in the year, I got picked up by a website called Screenhall; the guy who runs the site contacted me in the comments for one of my reviews and I started writing some reviews for them. However, it's only in the last couple weeks that I discovered something: Screenhall has kind of... vanished. Since those reviews make up part of the lists for 2017, and I don't really like the idea of just leaving all that work in the dust, I'm going to repost them here for your enjoyment. They're formatted a little differently than my usual writing, but it's still me writing them; you can decide for yourself if that's a good thing or not. So, yeah, time for some reposting, starting here with Jackie.

The Magnificent Seven (2016) - Movie Review

Even in the realms of cinematic remakes, this is a rather unique ouroborosian situation. While you are quickly Googling that word, I’ll get into why this is. Back when I looked at Slow West, I made brief mention of the relationship between Japanese and Western cinema and here is where we crash head-first into one of the first branches on that tree. Based on the Akira Kurosawa classic Seven Samurai, the original Magnificent Seven is a seminal staple of Old Hollywood and set in place an action blueprint of the rag-tag team of characters that come together to fight a great foe that would be copied verbatim for decades to follow. If you’ve ever watched A Bug’s Life, then you have a pretty good idea of the formula. With that in mind, and the fact that this is a reimagining of a remake of a definitive piece of cinema (all of which has sprouted its own niches and sub-genres in their wake), this could prove a tricky one. It is also, based solely on the trailer, one of the few films this year that I have genuinely been anxious to see for myself. Time to dig in and see how this holds up, considering this film has a lot that it needs to prove.