By Chris Snellgrove | Published 16 seconds ago

Star Wars fans recently celebrated a milestone: the 20th anniversary of Knights of the Old Republic II. When the game first came out, it was criticized by fans and reviewers alike for being an incomplete story that couldn’t quite live up to the majesty of the first game. While it still stands in the shadow of its predecessor, KOTOR II is now celebrated by fans who have lovingly restored much of the cut content, and the game’s narrative influenced the Disney era of Star Wars in many ways, including the storytelling of The Acolyte.

The story of Knights Of The Old Republic II

what is Knights of the Old Republic II But approximately? In this game, you take on the role of a Jedi exile who has been cut off from the Force after committing a brutally decisive act in the war against the Mandalorians. Along the way, you’ll meet a shady mentor and a motley crew of supporting characters, and you’ll need all their help in the fight against two powerful new Sith Lords who dream of taking over everyone’s favorite galaxy far, far away.

That was back then Knights of the Old Republic II The protagonist upset some fans because they assumed players would pick up where the first game left off. In the first title – beware of spoilers if you’ve never played these games before! – You play an amnesiac character who is later revealed to be Darth Revan, a fearsome Sith Lord whose mind was wiped out by the Jedi and used as a weapon against his former apprentice Darth Malak. The reveal is arguably the best Star Wars plot twist since the reveal that Darth Vader was Luke Skywalker’s father, and it still hits harder than most franchise reveals before or since.

The change in protagonist was off-putting to some fans, while others were upset by it Knights of the Old Republic II Some of the most ambitious content has been shortened in order to be released in retail in time for the holiday season. Why is the game so much more popular today than before? For one thing, fans have been working hard to modify the game and restore much of its lost content. This helped fans better understand the game’s epic plot and its wide variety of morally cruel characters, and it also helped them enjoy the game in a whole new way.

Grayscale in Star Wars

Speaking of which, the moral ambiguity of characters like Kreia means this Knights of the Old Republic II adds much-needed depth to the Star Wars universe. This fictional galaxy has long been populated by characters who are cartoonishly good or evil, and while this added to the archetypal charm of the original trilogy, such one-dimensional heroes and villains were already worn out in the prequel trilogy and seemed completely played out of that Time when the sequel trilogy came out. Audience demand for more complex characters is a big reason for this Andor is so beloved and worth celebrating that KOTOR II gave us this level of complexity almost two decades ago Andor blew us all away.

Speaking of the Disney era of Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II had a surprisingly direct influence on the controversial series The Acolyte. Showrunner Leslye Headland previously confirmed that she was inspired by the character Kreia, and while she didn’t elaborate further, it’s fair to assume that Kreia influenced the design of Qimir, a villain who expresses her disdain for the Jedi and shares her skepticism about the way these space wizards define both the light and dark sides. Such open criticism of the on-screen Jedi seemed overdue, especially since we haven’t had much of it since KOTOR II came out first.

Everything fans want from modern Star Wars

Far too many people didn’t know it then, but in 2004 Knights of the Old Republic II gave us almost everything that the modern era of Star Wars lacks. We had original heroes who had nothing to do with the Skywalker clan, complex villains even more compelling than Darth Vader, and a story with more shades of gray than the inside of the Death Star. Add to that the gameplay is equally incredible and you have a title that remains one of the most refreshing Star Wars content ever created.

Knights of the Old Republic II isn’t a perfect game, but it does something modern Star Wars hardly ever does: take big risks and take big swings from start to finish. At a time when the franchise can do almost nothing other than try out familiar characters to evoke our nostalgia, this game tried something bold and new and was largely successful. It’s been 20 years now, but this title from a long, long time ago is still worth checking out for any fans who want to remember why they fell in love with the greatest sci-fi franchise in film history.

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By Jonathan Klotz | Updated 1 hour ago

From its inception, science fiction has been the domain of futurists, gifted creators who weave stories that are not about the world of today, but about the world of tomorrow. Star Trek’s influence on today’s technology is well-documented at this point, but what a ’90s novel imagined the future World Wide Web would be unknown to today’s internet users is unknown. Snow accidentby Neal Stephenson, popular internet slang used today, Facebook’s Metaverse, Xbox, Google Earth and even Wikipedia, making it one of the most important cyberpunk books of all time.

A founding text of cyberpunk

Snow accident follows Hiro, your standard cyberpunk hacker making ends meet as a delivery driver, and you can add Doordash and UberEats to the list of present-day technologies that exist in Stephenson’s story with a disturbing level of accuracy. After receiving the “Snow Crash” virus, which manifests itself as visible static in the Metaverse rather than the Facebook experiment, Stephenson actually named his virtual world of avatars the Metaverse in 1992. He is drawn into a journey that includes Sumeria, conspiracies, megacorporations and the power of language.

The novel is dense and Stephenson’s writing style can take some getting used to, but Snow accident is considered the defining cyberpunk novel for good reason. This is partly due to the language he uses, with terms like “metaverse” being common today, but he also popularized the use of “avatar” to describe a person’s character in the virtual world. These days we don’t believe in calling digital characters avatars, and the use of adaptable “smartwheels” envisioned a future full of smart technologies like a toaster.

In fact, most of the appeal of Snow accident lies in how Stephenson imagined the future as a capitalist hellscape. This is standard for the cyberpunk settings of various media that predate the novel Blade Runner And Shadow Run To Cyberpunk (the table game that was adapted as Cyberpunk 2077) and even the contemporary novels, Marvel’s comics of 2099. The difference, however, is how Stephenson accurately predicted the Internet of 2024, right down to putting a price on public information.

Imagining the future of today

The Central Intelligence Corporation (CIC), formed by the merger of the CIA and the Library of Congress, runs the Library, a private collection of information that people are paid to contribute, and in practice this is the widely used wiki- Style of most online databases today, from Wikipedia to Fandom. Another piece of CIC technology is “Earth,” a digital representation of the planet that Google engineers even cited as an influence on the development of Google Earth. Snow accident Although somewhat quaint today in a world with smartphones, Metaverse helped people imagine a connected 3D digital world, including the good and the bad, which ultimately led to this Second lifethe Metaverse and Xbox Live (Microsoft executive J. Allard considered the novel required reading.)

Neal Stephenson’s vision of the future has become so disturbingly accurate that he has embarked on a second career as a futurist, consulting with the same kind of megacorporations that in reality ruled the world Snow accident. However, not all of his technology has become real. We’re still waiting for portable railguns and the robot dogs, but Boston Dynamics seems to have the latter well in hand.

Snow accident may have conceived and shaped the modern internet, but perhaps because the novel relies so heavily on language, it has yet to be adapted by any studio. The first attempt to bring the novel to life occurred in 1996, but that attempt never progressed beyond pre-production. In 2017, Amazon wanted to turn it into a streaming series for Prime Video, but again, nothing came of it, and HBO’s most recent attempt was canceled in 2021.

Many have tried, but no one has adapted the story

Cyberpunk novels are similar to their retro-futuristic steampunk counterparts, which were named as a tongue-in-cheek response to their futuristic siblings, insofar as they are Snow accidentso incredibly imaginative and creative that it’s difficult for Hollywood to do them justice. Blade Runner is still one of the best in the genre, but even that is a cult classic rather than a blockbuster, making the Matrix franchise the most successful in the genre. Netflixs Altered carbon is a big-budget modern cyberpunk series based on a fantastic novel by Richard K. Morgan, but even that only lasted for one fantastic season before budget issues derailed the second season.

It’s over 30 years old, though Snow accident is still relevant today, perhaps even more so when you consider that you can order from a modern delivery man while streaming music to your phone and reading about a futuristic dystopia at the same time. The Sumerian subplot, while relevant to the story and something I found fascinating, may not be for everyone, but it’s still worth the time. Of course, the problem with reading Stephenson’s instant sci-fi classic is that you look around and realize that we’re living in this futuristic dystopia right now.

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By Chris Snellgrove | Published 1 second ago

Most people would think that Ryan Reynolds is a comedy expert, especially after the Hollywood comedian made us all laugh Deadpool and Wolverine. However, he was recently called back to Cancer and grief goes, and Reynolds would just talk about playing Deadpool. The Marvel Cinematic Universe actor responded with a post about how comedy is just as hard to perform as drama, but here’s the thing: Ryan Reynolds is completely wrong in his attempt to defend comedy.

Ryan Reynolds goes on defense

In the original X post, @drivcmycar alluded to the film We live in timeby contrasting how Andrew Garfield told Variety how he portrayed the heartbreaking struggle of a man whose wife decides to forego cancer treatment and how the other actor simply talked about playing Deadpool. This prompted Ryan Reynolds to post a lengthy response “in defense of comedy,” claiming that it’s just as difficult as drama, but we don’t realize it because “comedy is made to look and feel effortless.” , but not drama. However, when it comes to the incredibly successful prankster, we have to disagree. Good dramatic acting has always been and always will be more difficult than good comedic acting.

Ryan Reynolds’ basic thesis here is that dramas are designed to make us “see that it’s hard,” and that comedies require just as much work, but we don’t notice it because they look easy and effortless when done right become. However, you can see how wrong he is just by thinking about your own life. For example, you’ve almost certainly made people laugh with a good joke every now and then, but how often have you brought people to tears with displays of raw emotion?

Obviously Ryan Reynolds is a funny guy. With the Deadpool films he proved that comedy and superhero cinema go together like peanut butter and jelly. But as Deadpool, he doesn’t even have to show his face most of the time, and at the beginning and end of his funniest scenes he just combines a few vulgar jokes with body language. Even if we limit ourselves to the world of Marvel films, it is clear that his Deadpool performance does not really match Anthony Hopkins’ pathos as Odin, Willem Dafoe’s mania as the Green Goblin or Robert Downey Jr.’s complete transformation into Iron Man compare is.

Tough dramatic competition

When we leave the realm of superhero cinema, Ryan Reynolds’ defense of comedy becomes even more ridiculous. Does anyone think it’s harder to tell a funny joke behind a funnier mask than it was for Daniel-Day Lewis to portray Abraham Lincoln or for Jamie Foxx to portray Ray Charles? Is it harder to joke about Chimichangas than it was for Denzel Washington to appear in it? Training day or for Tom Hanks as an appearance Forrest Gump?

What’s notable is that these actors all won Best Actor, which brings me to my final point: How often does someone win the Oscar for Best Actor for a funny role, let alone a superhero role? The closest we’ve come in recent years to an Oscar was Joaquin Phoenix’s win jokerand he ironically earned this award by showing off his dramatic skills rather than just telling jokes. His performance in this film is proof that great actors can be both funny and dramatic, and Ryan Reynolds should note that Phoenix’s dramatic moments were obviously far more intense (“maximum effort,” if you will) than his deliberately bad stand-up comedy routines.

This is not intended as a criticism of Ryan Reynolds himself. He is a comedy legend and Deadpool and Wolverine remains one of the best films we’ve seen in years. But making an audience laugh is the easiest form of acting, especially when you have a team of production experts and Hollywood’s largest studio to help land every punch line. And until he does like Jim Carrey and shows us that he has true depth and range as an actor, he will remain a clown who simply dreams of being something more.

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By Chris Snellgrove | Published 1 day ago

While Buffy the Vampire Slayer There have been many shocking deaths, but none as emotionally devastating as the murder of Willow’s friend Tara near the end of season six. This death motivated Willow to become the big bad. It also rubbed salt into the wounds of fans reeling from a season that saw our titular character deal with everything from being kidnapped from heaven to nearly being raped by her vampire enemy, Spike. As it turns out, showrunner Joss Whedon actually wanted to resurrect the fan-favorite character in Season 7, but avoided doing so because actress Amber Benson didn’t want it to happen.

How Buffy would bring Tara back

If you need a little Buffy As a reminder, Tara died at the hands of Warren, a murderous nerd who didn’t even aim at her when he fired a gun at Buffy’s house. She died and could not be revived, prompting her friend Willow (who had become more or less addicted to channeling dark magic) to transform into a black-eyed villain who skinned Warren alive. She later put the world in danger before being held back from the brink by childhood friend Xander.

Buffy Fans were upset by Tara’s death because it was senseless and because she was an LGBTQ+ icon. While Benson later confirmed that Whedon did not mean to offend the gay community, she also confirmed that she had rejected his offer to reprise her character. So how did the showrunner plan to revive the character who otherwise couldn’t be magically brought back to life? In short, there was an aborted Season 7 storyline where Buffy was given the chance to fulfill her every wish, and after carefully weighing her options, she would bring Tara back to make Willow happy.

Amber Benson had a trust issue

On paper, BuffyThe audience would have been overjoyed to see the return of Tara. So why did this never happen? According to Amber Benson’s interview in the book In Every Generation There’s a Slayer Born: How Buffy Risked Our HeartsOne reason was her own career: the return to Buffy Even just for a short time would have kept her from directing the 2003 TV miniseries Ghosts of Albion: Legacy. What’s more interesting is that she also didn’t want to come back because she didn’t trust how Joss Whedon would handle her return.

In the same interview in which she confirmed this Buffy The showrunner never “intended to harm the LGBTQ+ community,” the Tara actor said. “I didn’t really trust what would happen to the character.” She claims that she spoke to other actors whose characters were revived by Whedon, and that they told her, “Yeah, I came back… and then he just did whatever he wanted.” More specifically, Benson said that these unnamed actors confided in her, “Even if he told me “If he knew he wouldn’t kill me that way, he killed me that way.”

Because of these problems, the beloved Buffy Star “just didn’t have a lot of confidence in the situation” and declined to return as Tara. Elsewhere in the interview, she also mentioned that she had previously “had some issues with someone on the show” and that “it had kind of come to a head as I was getting ready to leave.” She never named names, but it sounds like it seems like she’s afraid of the drama from both the showrunner and at least one of the series’ main cast members.

For Buffy Fans, these revelations add a crunchy complexity to Tara’s problematic death… Despite all the blame Joss Whedon received for killing her, he seemed very keen to bring her back and only avoided doing so because Amber Benson refused to return. But despite their thoughts on Whedon’s motivations, there are still suspicions that he only wanted to bring the character back to silence the loudest critics of Tara’s death. Unfortunately for Whedon, fan resentment is a bit like vampires: they refuse to die and always come back.

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By Jonathan Klotz | Published 1 hour ago

Ask people of a certain generation to name famous Christmas movies. Most of them mention the 1964 stop-motion classic Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer or Santa Claus is coming to town. Still, while These were made famous by airing annually (and yes, before streaming we waited to see a show once a year), there is another stop-motion Christmas special that isn’t as famous but is still a classic. A claymation Christmas partyanother stop-motion TV special full of musical numbers, most notably “The California Raisins,” which first aired in 1987 and became a favorite of a younger generation.

A claymation musical

Created by talented animator Will Vinton, A claymation Christmas party begins with the dinosaur hosts Rex and Herb and the introduction of the running joke in which the two argue about how to pronounce “wassailing.” They then introduce various musical numbers, including anthropomorphic bells playing “Carol of the Bells,” a pair of walruses skating to “Angels We Have Heard On High,” and then the two crowd favorites “We Three Kings” performing the classic Song mix with R&B Camels, then “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” performed by the California Raisins.

The outlandish stop-motion performances are offset by “O Christmas Tree,” in which the camera flows into various ornaments to show celebrations around the world, and “Joy to the World,” which is not stop-motion but one is a series of beautiful, moving paintings. Every sequence is someone’s favorite, and the banter between Rex and Herb that accompanies each segment pays off in the end. However, it is clear that A claymation Christmas party is greater than the sum of its parts.

From marketing campaign to Christmas classic

The California Raisins were a marketing stunt for Sun-Maid and exploded into pop culture with a cover of “I Heard it Through the Grape-Vine,” but there was something about them that resonated with people and became Raisins merchandise, albums etc. led several television specials. Will Vinton, the creator of the Raisins, later also created the M&Ms mascots The Noid and The pajamasamong dozens of others. Released a year after the Raisins’ debut A claymation Christmas party earned Vinton one of his many Primetime Emmy Awards for animation, a category he dominated over the following decade.

The big attraction A claymation Christmas party were the California Raisins, and even though they were designed by an advertising agency for mass appeal, they fit right in with the other stop-motion creatures. Their segment was always my favorite as a kid, but now I can’t pick a favorite because each of them has something great about them, even “Joy to the World,” which was my least favorite as a kid because that’s not it the case was Have some claymation.

A claymation Christmas party was released on DVD back in 2003 and is the most recent release of the TV special in a physical format to date. As for streaming, the special no longer exists, and even YouTube uploads are regularly deleted. It’s a shame that the special, one of the best examples of ’80s stop motion, has been lost in the media like so many Muppets projects because it deserves to be seen every Christmas.

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By Drew Dietsch | Updated 1 hour ago

I have great hope for James Gunns Superman and the upcoming DC Universe, or the DCU as it is officially branded. I called The Suicide Squad“the best DC movies in decades,” and I stand by that (my review). Now, after Creature Commands I want more animated superhero stories and am more than ready for whatever James Gunn has to offer the original superhero. But there is one thing that worries me a little, and it goes back to Superman’s origins on the planet Krypton.

Superman’s parents

I’m reading right now Absolute SupermanPart of DC’s new Absolute comic series, offering some radically new interpretations of iconic heroes. In the first issue, it is revealed that Superman’s parents are farmers in a Kryptonian society with a strong and brutal caste system. Typically, Superman’s parents are portrayed as scientists in a utopian world. In Absolute SupermanThey are lower class workers who realize that the ruling class is leading to the destruction of the planet.

This is a fantastic and fresh idea that sheds light on the origin of Superman. It gives us a reason to actually see Kal-El’s parents and spend time with them and their story. And if James Gunn has a creative and new vision for Jor-El and Lara’s life, I’m all for seeing how that affects his vision for Superman.

But I think if James Gunn is inspired by the inspiration I think he is Superman has to show us as little of Karl-Ed’s biological parents as possible. In fact, I would be fine if I didn’t see her at all.

The origins are now myths

James Gunn has been very vocal about the comic series All-Star Superman This is one of his sources of inspiration for this interpretation of the Man of Steel. In this comic, writer Grant Morrison and artist Frank Quitely summarize the origin of Superman in one page, four panels, and eight words. Morrison reduces everything to its purely mythical elements. It’s one of the greatest pages in the history of comics and superheroes.

I get the impression that James Gunn feels similarly about the origins of the original superhero. At least I hope so. Just as we no longer have to watch Bruce Wayne’s parents get shot, the beginning of Clark Kent’s life has arrived at a level of pop culture mythology that seems as pervasive as knowing that Santa Claus lives at the North Pole. It is understandable that both Richard Donners Superman and Zack Snyder’s Man of Steel felt they needed to establish their versions of Superman’s parents (mainly Jor-El in these films) more. But Gunn could be making a bigger statement by downplaying this part of Superman’s story.

Superman is the ultimate immigrant story, and while I don’t want to see his Kryptonian heritage jettisoned with his escape pod, focusing on Superman’s love seems to be the best story to tell with the character on the big screen and connection to the earth. Even this one image of Superman and his pet Krypto seems to focus on this way of thinking. Yes, Krypto is a part of his alien past and I can’t wait to see how this relationship between Clark and his dog develops. But the framing of this photo places her in a context that highlights Earth’s beauty and importance to Superman.

The less time we spend on Superman’s parents and the influence of Krypton’s history on his story, the better James Gunn’s story is Superman will be. Whatever happens, I can’t wait to see this new movie, even if it means spending more time on the planet that’s exploding.

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By Chris Snellgrove | Published 14 seconds ago

While the first Shazam While the film proved to be a success, the failure of the sequel was effectively the beginning of the end for lead actor Zachary Levi’s career. He apparently came out as an anti-vaxxer at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, and according to one of his colleagues, these beliefs have recently brought him to a whole new low. Levi and Laura Benanti both starred in the Broadway play She loves meand she recently called him out for suggesting that her co-star Gavin Creel’s cancer death was actually due to his vaccination.

Zachary Levi’s co-star walks off

Creel was diagnosed in July and died on September 30, and Zachary Levi subsequently hosted a pro-Trump Instagram Live. In doing so, he brought up Creel’s death and bizarrely said, “If these COVID vaccinations weren’t forced on the American public, theaters wouldn’t be pushed and taken advantage of,” before pausing and then blaming “the people at the top.” To most people, it sounded like he was implying that Creel’s cancer was caused by the vaccine, which upset co-star Laura Benanti: “That (Levi) is using (Creel’s) memory – a person he’s not with was friends – to use his memory for his political purposes.” Agenda… I thought, “F– you forever,” she said.

Interestingly, Benanti disagrees with those who think this conservative virtue signaling is “career suicide” simply because “Christian, faith-based television and film is huge.” She believes Zachary Levi is “going to be a big star in this field” and “make more money than he ever has before,” a possibility that makes her “disgusting.” Only time will tell how much Levi’s increasingly vocal politics will help his career, but blaming a co-star’s cancer death on a COVID vaccine is a new low for a star that I honestly didn’t think would happen could sink much lower.

The Rise and Fall of Zachary Levi

The breakthrough for this DC star was the television series feedand he also voiced Flynn Rider in the hugely successful Disney film Confused. All of this led to him being cast in the role of the title character Shazam!After grossing $367.8 million on a budget of $90 million to $100 million, this film seemed poised to become a Hollywood megastar. However, Shazam 2 was a huge flop, grossing only $134.1 million on a budget of $110-125 million, and the star’s reaction to the film’s failure revealed a sad and downright desperate aspect of his personality that might otherwise have been would have remained hidden.

After Shazam 2 bombed, Zachary Levi posted a series of meltdown videos on Instagram in which he appeared to hold back tears and blamed Dwayne Johnson for killing a post-credits cameo tied to the superhero sequel Black Adam. This complaint is particularly bizarre because while Johnson’s selfish decision seems very petty, there’s no way the addition of a tepid post-credits sequence with relatively nameless characters like Hawkman and Cyclone would have changed anything Shazam 2 turned into a monster hit. It was even sadder to see Levi end one of his videos by asking fans to consider watching his sequel instead John Wick 4.

Zachary Levi’s first big film after that Shazam 2 Was Harold and the purple crayonand it was also a bomb, as it only grossed $32 million on a $40 million budget. This second big-budget failure seemingly spelled the end of the actor’s chance at becoming a major movie star, and many have speculated whether the star’s downfall began with his early 2023 post on X in which he agreed with a user that the COVID Vaccine maker Pfizer “is a real danger to the world” about two months ago Shazam 2 premiered. By suggesting that co-star Gavin Creel somehow developed cancer from the vaccine, the star proves he has learned nothing from previous failures.

Tragically perfect cast

Once upon a time, I would have felt a little compassion for Zachary Levi. Because who wouldn’t be sad if their most ambitious career dreams were destroyed? That changed last year when the star appeared on the Storyteller with Andrew Erwin podcast and admitted that he hated seeing projects delayed due to COVID because “when the pandemic came, I had no money and no income” and he had to rely on friends because money was “very tight.”

Somehow I can’t help but think that if I had been paid millions of dollars for lucrative acting jobs and licensing deals, I wouldn’t suddenly be broke if my source of income temporarily stopped because producers were trying to save lives. And even if I were completely broke, I wouldn’t put everything into a politics of resentment that leads me to politicize the tragic death of my co-star in an apparent attempt to win over the people who believe that vaccines cause cancer cause.

However, based on his antics, I have to admit that Zachary Levi was perfect for the role of Shazam. After all, who else in Hollywood could so perfectly embody what it’s like to have a child’s mind in an adult’s body?

Source: People

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By Jonathan Klotz | Updated 1 hour ago

Christmas movies can be sweet, cheerful, colorful and overly cheerful, making them a feel-good movie to watch with the family every year. Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer, Frosty the snowman, Eleven, The Santa ClausAnd A Christmas story are all classics, but for some reason you can find them nowadays The Polar ExpressRobert Zemeckis’ motion-capture box office disappointment is considered a modern classic. How anyone could look deep into the soulless eyes of Tom Hanks as a conductor and think, “That’s the spirit of Christmas” is beyond me, because this movie led straight to the uncanny valley, and the plot must have lost its ticket, there she is nowhere to be seen.

Straight into the uncanny valley

Published in 2004, The Polar Express was filmed in motion capture, the same style Zemeckis would later use Beowulf And A Christmas storyespecially to capture the painterly quality of the famous children’s book. Thanks to the talents of Chris Van Allsburg, the book exudes warmth and wonder within its pages, but it is very short and lacks the content for a feature film. I would argue that the feature film lacks the content for a feature film because even when you talk to people who like this film, they only ever talk about the train sequence itself and leave out the back half of the film where children go through it Eleven run command center.

The Polar Express is about Hero Boy, a little boy (motion capture provided by Josh Hutcherson) who loses faith in Christmas when the train stops in front of his house, and he continues on his journey after being urged by the conductor, played by Tom Hanks to the North Pole. Hanks, as a conductor, doesn’t play a role large enough for this type of film and for the emotion expressed in his performance. The conductor comes across as a stern father and isn’t the film’s villain, but he’s also not the type of cheerful leader you’d expect on a train full of children heading to the North Pole.

There is an action scene along the way that was designed for this The Polar Express When the film goes off the tracks and over an ice-covered lake, it’s the only moment in the film that feels like it really has something at stake or momentum. Nothing happens outside of this moment. Sure, it ends with a sweet bell-ringing moment (which contradicts the novel’s original meaning), but that moment isn’t worth the trip there due to the off-putting CGI, lack of plot, etc., finally the annoying kids.

A classic by default

I know The Polar Express is intended for children, but in the 20 years since the film’s release, studios seem to have finally realized that children in films can be fully realized characters that transcend the old style of portrayalng a single stereotype, such as know-it-all, lonely, hero and girl; These are the main children of the film. If Zemeckis had any guts, he would have given Billy the Lonely Boy the first Christmas present instead of Hero Boy. But instead of subverting expectations, we’re left with irritating dialogue, bizarre facial expressions and poor decisions that obviously serve to give the film something to show off on screen.

And yet the film is considered a classic precisely because it is intended for children after they have grown up and look back with nostalgia on the early 1980s. This is the same generation that decided the Star Wars prequels were great, but I can’t judge them too harshly like I thought Three ninjas was cinema at its finest, and I loved it A Claymation Christmas special. In 2004, there were no large-screen, children’s-rated Christmas films released in major theaters The Polar Express by default as a generation’s favorite.

As children we have terrible taste, and again I admit that I love it Three ninjaswhy no one talks about it The Polar Express other than “I love this movie.” There will be no discussion of scenes, great moments, iconic lines, or classic characters, but people will still enjoy talking about the movie. That’s because they saw the movie as kids and can still hear the bell today, and not because it’s a good movie or even just a good movie, it’s a movie and when you’re a kid , that’s good enough.

The Polar Express keeps streaming Disney+And Maxin case you need a reminder that this is the movie where nothing happens.

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By Chris Snellgrove | Published 2 days ago

For film lovers, there’s nothing quite like the sublime joy of discovering that a film you’ve never seen actually lives up to the hype. I recently experienced this while watching Baby driverEdgar Wright’s hyperkinetic action heist film, on Netflix. It was the only one of Wright’s films that I hadn’t seen, and I was overjoyed to find that it was more than everything I expected from this visionary director.

What’s so great about Baby Driver?

To decide whether you want to stream Baby driver On Netflix, you need to know the premise. The title refers to a young man who calls himself Baby and serves as an expert getaway driver for an Atlanta crime boss and his rotating clique of motley criminals. Baby’s gimmick involves him listening to iPods while performing insane car maneuvers, but when a job goes wrong after the young man falls in love, perhaps it’s time for this baby-faced criminal to face the music.

A reason why many want to take a look Baby driver On Netflix, it should be mentioned that the film is full of big names: Baby, for example, is played by Ansel Elgort, who is best known for playing the male lead in the romantic youth film The fault of our stars. Other big names include Kevin Spacey, Jon Hamm, Jamie Foxx and Jon Bernthal, all of whom shine in this Edgar Wright film.

Speaking of Wright, I wasn’t quite sure how Scott Pilgrim The director’s kinetic and stylish style of filmmaking would translate into a film full of car chases. I watched once Baby driver On Netflix, I was pleased to find that everything was perfectly translated, and watching Baby do his insane driving maneuvers was just as rewarding as watching Scott Pilgrim triumph over Ramona Flowers’ evil ex-girlfriends. This revelation was all the more rewarding in comparison Baby driver To Last night in Sohoa Wright film whose style and content were often hidden beneath a heavy-handed message.

A popular action crime thriller

I’m not the only one who felt this way: During Last night in Soho has a respectable 75 percent critical rating on Rotten Tomatoes, Baby driver has a significantly healthier 92 percent. Critics generally praised Wright’s killer combination of action, style and music, and this fast-paced film still ends up being much more than the sum of these excellent parts. It was also a major box office hit, grossing $226.9 million on a budget of just $34 million.

Baby driver was a huge hit on Netflix, proving that it resonates with audiences just as much today as it did when it was first released in 2017. Ironically, the film shines all the brighter when compared to many of the exclusive action films produced on the streaming platform. Honestly, after snoozing through big-budget Netflix shlock festivals Red notice or the Rebel Moon films, Wright’s groundbreaking action work feels like a breath of fresh air (with just a hint of gasoline, of course).

You will find Baby driver Just as exciting as I am if you want to stream it on Netflix or just turn it off to watch Scott Pilgrim for the millionth time? You won’t know until you take this ambitious action epic for a test drive. Be warned, however, that you’ll probably be tempted to search for vintage iPods on eBay long before the credits roll.

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By Chris Snellgrove | Published 6 seconds ago

Star Trek is a dialogue-heavy franchise that has become an integral part of our shared pop culture, and even non-fans are prone to saying things like “He’s dead, Jim” or “Beam me up.” However, one veteran Trek writer believes an overlooked conversation in a largely forgotten episode could be one of the series’ greatest moments. According to prolific writer JM Dillard, a brief conversation between Commander Sisko and Dr. Bashir in Deep Space Nine The episode “The Forsaken” made television history by subverting the racist portrayals of film characters that were common in the 90s.

The conversation

The conversation begins when Bashir visits Sisko’s office to discuss the doctor’s job of escorting troublesome alien ambassadors around the station. In Star Trek – Where no one has been beforeDillard admits that “there’s nothing unusual about this conversation” because “it’s the kind that happens every day in offices around the world.” However, “the difference is that when a black man is in a typical television drama If you talk to a Middle Eastern man, he will almost certainly be talking about drugs, crime, terrorism or violence – and will most likely be portrayed as uneducated, heavily accented, immoral or anti-social – but never on Star Trek.”

To younger fans who were born afterward Deep Space Nine came out, Dillard’s claim may seem a bit exaggerated, but it’s worth remembering that this show was intentionally focused on issues of race from the start. Avery Brooks’ Sisko was the first black lead in a Trek series and remained until the premiere of The Only Star. discovery. Later DS9 episodes dealt very directly with race and racism, including “Far Beyond the Stars”, an episode that revealed that the entire series could be an invention of Benny Russell, a science fiction author who lived in America in 1953 faced extreme (and very ugly) racism.

Such storytelling may seem exaggerated now, but this Deep Space Nine Writers felt it was necessary because Dillard was right: far too many black characters in the ’80s and ’90s were portrayed as dangerous thugs rather than righteous heroes. Brooks, for example, was sympathetically presented in his breakthrough role in Spenser for rentbut his character of Hawk was still a largely ruthless killer who often seemed written more as a racist caricature than a character.

Whether Hawk was a symbolic or groundbreaking character is certainly up for debate, but Brooks himself later noted that his portrayal led many white fans to believe that he was really a gun-toting guy whom the producers recruited “on a street corner somewhere.” He said that some of these fans “speak to me in a vernacular that’s supposed to look like a black language?” Hollywood wasn’t much better than these fans: while DS9 was still on, he starred The big hita big-budget film in which he portrayed (what else?) a violent crime boss.

From the beginning, Deep Space Nine The focus is on the race with its human characters and its aliens. For example, the story of the Cardassians using Bajorans as slave labor on the titular space station is clearly reminiscent of America’s turbulent racial history. And Brooks was never afraid to step in and talk to the writers if he thought they might inadvertently play into racist stereotypes. This is most evident in the series finale: Brooks insisted that Sisko tell his pregnant wife Kasidy Yates that he would return one day because he was uncomfortable with the story about a black man abandoning his wife to raise their child alone was.

However, as Dillard notes, the real magic of Deep Space Nine is that it can tell stories about race, but they don’t always play a big role in the whole. Even at its most preachy, the series never feels like it’s lecturing us to an ’80s-style “very special episode.” Instead, DS9 presents characters of all races with dignity and professionalism, showing us that a better future is about more than just replicators and warp drives. It’s also about leaving our old blockages and prejudices behind us and striving for a better future for everyone, regardless of skin color.

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