My Own Little World

I was going to write this review a few days earlier than I did. I saw Spider-Man: Homecoming  last Tuesday, and afterwards I left the theater feeling slightly underwhelmed. I knew what I had just seen was good, but I was most definitely not wowed by what I saw. To be honest, I am not the biggest fan of Spider-Man in the first place, and I have never thoroughly enjoyed a film starring the character. It has nothing to do with cinematic quality but entirely with tone. The Raimi trilogy often felt too campy, while the Andrew Garfield films felt like they veered too much into conventional comic book film territory. Homecoming  definitely felt more in my wheelhouse than any prior Spider-Man film, but I still didn't love it. Two days later, I was watching the trailers prior to Dunkirk , Christopher Nolan's latest film (which I'll have a review of very soon), and suddenly something clicked. Spider-Man: Homecoming  is actually really, really, really good.  This might be...

There's something to be said for the art of the twist ending. A really good plot twist towards the end of a film, no matter the genre, can make repeat viewings incredibly insightful and very rewarding which in my mind makes a film more valuable. I personally love plot twists in the course of watching a film for the first time and how they often make me look for the trail of breadcrumbs filmmakers leave throughout their work. One of the films most renowned for its twist in modern times is M. Night Shyamalan's The Sixth Sense . When this came out in 1999, everybody ate it up (at least from what the box office numbers show). It catapulted Shyamalan to the front page of filmmaking, and for good reason. This is a really well-constructed supernaturally-driven drama with some horror elements. Here's the secret to this film, though, and why the twist works so well: The Sixth Sense  has a really keen understanding of what it is as a film. It realizes that its content does ...

I'm going to say this once, and I want you to know that I really, really, really mean it. Arrested Development  is the best sitcom I've ever seen. This show has three perfect seasons, one lesser but still really solid season in its Netflix revival, and an absolutely riotous sense of humor. Its casting is perfect, its writing is top-notch, and its performances are dedicated and stellar all around. A lot of that stems from the show's biggest advantage: its humor. There's so many inside jokes that Arrested Development continually makes throughout its four season run (and will undoubtedly continue during its fifth season next year) that I almost can't explain why the humor works so well. It just does. It’s infused with a sense of irreverence and absurdity that, quite thankfully, matches the characters and the situation in which they find themselves. It is those two things that I find make Arrested Development work so well. These characters are actually quite...

DC Comics' attempt at a cinematic universe hasn't been the best so far. Every one of the three films they've released has had narrative problems that range from fairly noticeable to downright awful. Only one of them has actually established any kind of concrete tone for the franchise. None of them, from my perspective at least, are films I would consider buying based on quality alone. When you're putting as much money behind movies as Warner Bros. is behind these new DC Comics films, that's never a good thing. That being said, they're still figuring things out, so I decided to give them another chance by seeing their newest release Wonder Woman . And you know what? I'm incredibly glad I did.  This is a really solid comic book film and an incredibly enjoyable thing to experience in a theater. Wonder Woman  has all the components of a good film and simply puts them loosely over a comic book aesthetic and branding, and that makes it work better than c...

Over the past several years, I've really grown to love Hillsong United. Their 2013 and 2015 releases, Zion  and Empires , respectively, have made me regain hope for the worship music industry, proving that mainstream worship music can actually be well-written and musically conscious. That being said, I was really looking forward to whatever they did next and was surprised when they announced Wonder  less than a month ago for release this weekend. The title track was so ridiculously infectious that, despite some slightly vague lyrics, I couldn't help but put it on repeat as I waited for the other tracks to be released. I don't know if it was my wild anticipation or my high expectations, but Wonder  actually lacks a little bit of enchantment now that I've listened to it in its entirety a couple of times. United has done a great job over the past couple of years of carefully cultivating a specific sound for each of their releases, with Zion  being extremely energe...

One of the things I've discovered over my time binge-watching is that I love unique shows, especially when it comes to sitcoms. Yes, there's something nice about sitting back with something familiar and typical, but on the other hand things with originality can be much more refreshing than the typical fare. Enter 30 Rock . For those of you who haven't seen any of it, 30 Rock  was a game-changer at the time it was first released in 2006. There wasn't another show with its unique brand of comedy (no thanks to writer, creator, and star Tina Fey) or its unique style. To this day, the only show that comes close is Fey's other creation Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt  (which I've already talked about twice). This uniqueness of style is primarily due to two things: the show's single-camera setup and smash cuts. The camera setup distinguishes it from most more conventional sitcoms that run in the vein of Cheers , Seinfeld , Friends , and the like. Instead of havin...

The first two seasons of Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt  were a great way to spend a couple of weeks.  I loved them  because of their relentless quirkiness and optimism, and I was so looking forward to the third season. Regardless of whether it would make the show better or not, I knew I would wildly enjoy the time I would spend with these characters and their comedy. Once again, the show swept me off my feet. The third season of Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt  is the best season from the show yet (by a slim margin, mind you), and I think it's mostly due to how it doesn't let up on the gas at all throughout its thirteen episodes. There's so many things that contribute to this, from the brand of comedy that Tina Fey pushes so hard on all her shows to the cast's chemistry and performances to the simplicity and innocence of Kimmy's character. (Some of these things could be copied and pasted from my review of the first two seasons, so I'm just going to touch on what cha...