Review: THE HATEFUL EIGHT (2015)

NOTE: This review made possible in part by donations to The onlinemoviesmaniahd Patreon. If you want to see more like it, please consider becoming a Patron.Being a fan of Quentin Tarantino (or, really, even just being a critic inclined to award one of his films an asterisk-free positive review) has of late been a frustrating exercise in repeating the phrase: "Yes, but he actually pulls it off!" In the two decades since PULP FICTION, the onetime insurgent has firmly established himself as the Id of contemporary American cinema, and as such tends to operate within atte
Read more »

Urban Jungle

So Disney comes in just under the wire to finally tell us what ZOOTOPIA is actually all about, after about a year of low-key (for Disney) marketing mainly focused on anthropomorphic animal visual puns. The result:So. The basic premise for the main character is already pretty interesting from a thematic standpoint. The animals-as-people trope has pretty much always worked best when it's making points about human behavior/society/etc by associating personality types and social-structures with (broadly-held assumptions about) animal behavior - i.e. putting any kind of identifiable human un
Read more »

PITCH ME, MR. B: THE SEQUEL (RESULTS!)

You voted, so the next round of "PITCH ME, MR. B" pieces (hypothetical pitches for plausible movie reboots/revivals/etc) will play out in the following four-part order:1. FANTASTIC FOUR(Hypothetical Marvel Cinematic Universe re-introduction)2. STREET FIGHTER(Based on the game series from Capcom)3. UNIVERSAL MONSTERS("Roadmap" pitch for multi-film/year series)4. GREMLINS 3(Real-time sequel, set 25 years in continuity after GREMLINS 2)This means that the potential 5th option, a (new/unconnected) remake of NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET) will have to wait for another day - or, y'know, if anyone from W
Read more »

REALLY THAT GOOD: A CHRISTMAS STOY

Happy Holidays!If you enjoy this production, please consider becoming a contributor to The onlinemoviesmaniahd Patreon.(NOTE: Watch while you can - the usual bogus copyright-claim is currently in dispute. Wasn't YouTube supposed to start helping users with annoyances like this?)
Read more »

Announcement: PITCH ME, MR. B - THE SEQUEL

Hey! Fans of this blog will likely recall this recently concluded bit of business, whereby we had ourselves some fun at the expense of reboot-happy Hollywood and held a little poll of various psuedo-dormant pop-culture franchises I figured I could (or had already) easily/amusingly brainstorm a "modern" pitch-treatment for. The last poll wound up with pieces for CAPTAIN PLANET, MEGA-MAN, X-MEN (a "joining the official MCU" version) and CARE BEARS.Long story short, since it's the end of the year and I could always use the distraction and the writing exercise, we're going to do another one - bu
Read more »

IN BOB WE TRUST: "onlinemoviesmaniahd's Top Ten of 2015 - Part I"

Part II will be up in two weeks, as per normal schedule of release. Meanwhile, did you also take in the most-recent GAME OVERTHINKER?
Read more »

Review: STAR WARS - EPISODE VII: THE FORCE AWAKENS (Updated: Now With VIDEO!)

NOTE: This review is possible in part through contributions to The onlinemoviesmaniahd Patreon. If you enjoy it and want to see more, please consider becoming a patron.It's fine. Relax.SPOILERS (not big or important ones, but story details and allusions) FOLLOW: CONTINUE AT YOUR OWN RISK.The weirdest moment in my evolution from movie fan to professional film critic (SHUT UP it is too a real job!) was when I realized that I had been both totally wrong and totally right about the STAR WARS prequels (SHUT UP *again!* - that era is now as over as it�s gonna get you got your way you can afford on
Read more »

"Well Played."

NOTE: Film coverage like this made possible in part through donations to The onlinemoviesmaniahd Patreon.I'm a confirmed "hater" of the JJ Abrams STAR TREK reboots so far. Bent over backwards trying to like the first one so as not to be judged as a change-averse reactionary, openly and utterly hated INTO DARKNESS on every conceivable level (mostly because it was bad on every conceivable level) and have pretty-much written the series off. And yet, the trailer for STAR TREK BEYOND just dropped and... I kind of like it? A lot?...and I seem to be in the minority on that.I won't say tha
Read more »

ID4: RESURGENCE Trailer Debuts

Give Fox a certain level of credit for not promoting this over a year in advance. They've got a near-gauranteed gargantuan blockbuster on their hands just based on the title and hitting the Millennial Nostalgia market at what's probably going to be its peak (don't forget: JURASSIC WORLD just got done becoming the biggest hit ever) - regardless of how you feel about INDEPENDENCE DAY (I've made my position pretty clear) there's an audience to whom it's a generational touchstone who will turn out in force for this - so they can afford to not bury the planet in advertising before now:I
Read more »

"X-MEN: APOCALYPSE" First Trailer

So... yeah, they pretty much say right upfront that Apocalypse is, in fact, God - as in "the God." That's something you probably wouldn't have seen in a mainstream superhero movie a decade ago.Beyond that? Looks okay. The lack of more than a handful of people in any given scene kind of undercuts the "epic" feel (scale, along with action, simply isn't Singer's forte) and it looks like Jennifer Lawrence is going to have to keep seeking out roles where "palpable lack of engagement" is the only appropriate trait to express; but it looks the least Bryan Singer-ish of anything in the franchise apa
Read more »

TV RECAP: Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D Season 3 - Episode 10: "Ma'veth" (Midseason Finale)

...sigh.Firstly, the reason there wasn't a recap for last week was because, while yes I was in fact busy with other work, when I did finally sit down to try and knock one out... nothing came. Apart from the big opening shocker (Ward kills [spoiler]) and the cliffhanger (Coulson jumps into the portal after Ward, Fitz and the HYDRA team) "Closure" was just a whole lot of running around and place-setting for this finale without a lot of meat on it's bones.Which makes it all the more frustrating that there's ultimately not that much to "Ma'veth," either. If I weren't being an MCU completist abou
Read more »

Pitch Me, Mr. B: "CARE BEARS"

Well, then. We've finally reached the end point of this little experiment. With CAPTAIN PLANET, MEGA MAN (now to be a real thing, for better or worse) and X-MEN now written-up and accounted for, it now falls to me (at the behest of my readership) to try and find something interesting to do with a bunch of characters mainly created to appear on greeting cards: Alright. So, after deep-diving into the CARE BEARS mythology (and yes, apparently there is such a thing) I decided that this experiment was going to work best with a narrow focus on the earliest incarnations of the property. For fa
Read more »

Shane Black is a GOD

Welcome to the top of my 2016 must-see list, THE NICE GUYS.
Read more »

Batman V Superman V The Element of Surprise

...Wow.So. Were you hoping to be able to wait until you actually saw BATMAN V SUPERMAN: DAWN OF JUSTICE to find out things like when/how Wonder Woman would be revealed, whether or not there'd be a major DC villain showing up besides Lex Luthor or, y'know, maybe the entire plot-structure of the movie from start to finish?Well, too bad - Warner Bros is evidently so anxious to make sure that this thing does AVENGERS (or, now, JURASSIC WORLD) numbers, they've basically decided to go the CAST AWAY "McTrailer" route with the advertising: "Here's the ENTIRE movie, folks! Zero questio
Read more »