Pirates Of The Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales (2017) - Movie Review

Pirates Of The Caribbean is the classic tale of a studio wanting to make a film based one of their most successful theme park attractions that, through one of the single greatest casting decisions in the history of the medium, became one of Hollywood’s hottest properties… at first. It seems that, between the increasing goofiness of the stories being told combined with the increased budgetary requirements (The third and fourth installments in the franchise currently hold the top two spots for the most expensive films ever made), interest in the series is starting to wane. Hell, while I found quite a bit to like about Stranger Tides, it did give the impression that this is a franchise that is starting to beach itself.

 

So, with another spin of the director’s chair and a few returning faces in the cast, maybe this will rejuvenate the series back to its former glory. While I fiddle around with my Blogger settings to make a large enough font to put enough emphasis on the word “maybe”, let’s get started with today’s offering.

Gods Of Egypt (2016) - Movie Review

This marks a first time occasion here at Mahan’s Media, which is surprising considering how often I will go on the offensive when discussing certain topics. No, for the first time yet, I have a personal reason for why I’m looking at a particular film. I would like to draw my readers’ attention to a certain Facebook post made by the director, Alex Proyas; specifically, this one. Now, even though I have echoed similar sentiments as this in the past, that doesn’t really change how much butthurt is oozing from every character of that rant. I mean, wow; I haven’t seen a director react this badly to negative press in a while now and it is no less funny whenever it happens. So, yeah, since this film didn’t really give me many great expectations going just by the trailer, chances are I could end up being one of the many that Proyas chose to throw under the bus for not understanding his vision. Then again, the current critical consensus on Rotten Tomatoes for the film might be one of the most pretentious statements made in the history of the website, so I’m more than willing to buy into his argument. Nevertheless, in my continuing voyage to further separate potentially pigheaded creators from their work, time to get into today’s movie already.

Ruben Guthrie (2015) - Movie Review

I can pretty vividly remember the first time I tasted alcohol; it was at my grandmother’s house when I was about 6 or 7. My uncle was drinking beer and he asked if I wanted to try it. Being the curious kid that I was, I accepted and took a very small sip… and given how I wasn’t even at the stage of being able to eat tomato sauce without gagging, chances were good that I wasn’t going to like it. Cut to several years later and I consider myself to be a social drinker, and by that I mean I drink about as often as I socially interact with people. I rarely drink as a result. I have gotten sloshed before, but I try and keep it to a minimum mostly due to costs, wanting to avoid as many Foster's jokes as possible when talking with friends overseas (Seriously, I've lived here my whole life and I haven't seen one can of it for sale) and the fact that I lack social grace even when sober. Still, it’s hard to ignore that a substantial element of Australian culture is swimming in all things fermented and carbonated, something that’s existent in most nations. So, what happens when someone takes a step back and looks at just how alcohol affects our social climate? Well, you get today’s film.

Oculus (2014) - Movie Review

There are two film production companies that I have grown to be extremely cautious of: Summit Entertainment and WWE Studios. Summit, even without bringing Twilight into discussion, helped bring Alex Cross, Warm Bodies and Divergent among others to audiences; and WWE Studios focuses mainly on films starring wrestlers who aren’t Dwayne Johnson. Whenever I see their respective logos before a movie, I get a mild bit of cinematic PTSD and understandably so far as I’m concerned. However, expectations shouldn’t dictate a person’s opinion on a film entirely; hell, the last film Summit released was John Wick, which is a great movie. Do we get another tradition breaker here?