Features
Cinephile goodness in the form of insightful editorials and entertaining, analytical features from the CinemaNerdz writers.
Trailer Trashin’: A Fantastic Fear of Everything Promises to Be Awesomely Bizarre
Hey, folks, it’s Tuesday. You know what that means. It’s time for your weekly installment of Trailer Trashin’! This week, I’m taking a look at the upcoming British dark comedy A Fantastic Fear of Everything. Premise: Jack (Simon Pegg) is a children’s book author trying to make the switch to writing crime novels. But his deep research into gruesome murders of the Victo...[Read More]
Trailer Trashin’: Total Recall Looks Slick But Soulless
In the debut edition of Trailer Trashin’ last week, I talked about my excitement for Rise of the Guardians, this week we’re looking at something completely different – the upcoming remake of the 1990 Paul Verhoeven/Arnold Schwarzenegger classic Total Recall. Premise: In the dystopian future of 2084, the countries of Euroamerica and New Shanghai vie for political power. Douglas Quaid (Colin F...[Read More]
Trailer Trashin’: Rise of the Guardians May Be Freaking Brilliant!
Hey, folks. We’re debuting a new feature here on CinemaNerdz called “Trailer Trashin’.” At least once a week, I’ll be taking a look at a hot new trailer and giving you my take on what looks good, what looks bad, and how excited I am for the upcoming movie in question. And to kick this feature off, I’m looking at the first trailer for the upcoming animated family...[Read More]
Looking Back at Giallo: A Primer
In 1963, Italian horror director Mario Bava made his last black and white film. The Girl Who Knew Too Much heralded the arrival of a film genre that would have a prominent place in cinema until the mid-1970s and is still popular today – giallo. A sub-genre of the mystery/thriller/crime story and a cross-over from horror, giallo had its roots in the American and English mystery novels of the early ...[Read More]
Ranking Ray Harryhausen’s Fantasy Films
I think you’d be hard-pressed to find a bigger fan of Ray Harryhausen than yours truly. As a kid, I was captivated by the characters and creatures he brought to life through stop-motion animation, and it helped to cement my lifelong love of both movies and the genres of science-fiction and fantasy. With Wrath of the Titans, the sequel to the 2010 remake of Harryhausen’s Clash of the Titans, hittin...[Read More]
Cinema Revisited: Exploring Mortality in The Fountain
Themes of life, death, disease, and immortality are all woven together in Darren Aronofsky’s The Fountain, a very ambitious film that delivers three separate story lines spanning a thousand years. One takes place 500 years ago, and follows Spanish Conquistador Tomas and his search for the tree of life. The next takes place in present day as we watch Doctor Tommy Creo (Hugh Jackman) look for a cure...[Read More]
Top 10 Film Performances by Professional Wrestlers
The inspiration for this list came from a few different sources. Somewhere between wondering what I could write about to further my geek cred and wondering how the recently announced remake of The Princess Bride would be able to top the iconic performance of Andre the Giant as Fezzik, the haze started to lift. What exactly are the top ten performances by professional wrestlers in film? Is creating...[Read More]
What a Five-Year-Old Thought of Beauty and the Beast 3D
Re-releasing a Disney movie to theatres, in theory, should be a fairly safe bet for attracting the attention of a princess-obsessed five year old, but I was still a little apprehensive about taking my daughter Charley to see the recent 3D re-release of Beauty and the Beast. Why? There are two reasons – first, even though my daughter has seen Beauty and the Beast on DVD and even met Belle at Disney...[Read More]
Cinema Revisited: Certified Copy and the Subjectivity of Art
Certified Copy is a very unique movie, it is confusing, but in a good way, and it’s a hard film to talk about since almost any information given could be considered a spoiler. Let me start off with what I can tell you without giving too much away. The film was written and directed by Iranian filmmaker Abbas Kiarostami, and stars Juliette Binoche and William Shimmel; it takes place in Florence Ital...[Read More]
Ten Reasons The Dark Knight Rises Will Be Better Than The Hobbit
By now, we’ve all seen the first official trailers for two of next year’s most anticipated movies, right? In one corner, you have Christopher Nolan putting the finishing touches on his interpretation of the world of Batman with The Dark Knight Rises, and in the other corner you have Peter Jackson returning to the world he knows and loves as he brings Bilbo’s journey to the silver screen with The H...[Read More]
The Many Faces of Ebenezer Scrooge: A History of A Christmas Carol on Film
Charles Dickens enjoyed great popularity in his lifetime, and that popularity hasn’t waned to this day. Despite an incredibly prolific assortment of characters and stories, which have been adapted to stage and screen over the years, perhaps the most iconic of them all (and certainly one of the most quotable) has proven to be Ebenezer Scrooge and A Christmas Carol. Though Dickens wrote other storie...[Read More]
My Ten Favorite Christmas Movies
Christmas is almost upon us, and with the holiday comes Christmas movies. We all have ones we like and ones we don’t. So in the spirit of the holiday, I want to share with all of you a list of my favorite Christmas films. Now, these may not be the most traditionally popular choices (though some may be just by chance), rather they’re the movies I think make Christmas a bit better, but you can proba...[Read More]