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Film and Television Reviews
Here at FlickDirect, our goal is to provide up-to-date reviews on theatrical, home entertainment, and television series. Check out the scoop on upcoming films or programming, and even our take on the classics.
 
(Marco Chacon) 05/11/2009 7:23 PM EDT Star Trek's promise has always been that it would show us a “for-real Utopian future” where the best voices of mankind have triumphed. Star Trek’s fans, sometimes reaching religious levels of zeal, have gazed into its holographic crystal ball looking for the fundamental truths of its vision. There was some actual visio... Read More |
 
(Marco Chacon) 05/04/2009 2:39 PM EDT Wolverine takes the most popular character from the three successful X-Men movies, and explores his origins before the first movie began; wherein we saw him amnesiac and doing unsanctioned prize fights in a Canadian bar. Wolverine, in case you don't know, is the guy with the metal claws that come out of his knuckles, unbreakable bones, and th... Read More |
(Marco Chacon) 04/27/2009 7:34 PM EDT "Message movies" (like Stop Loss or Lions for Lambs) have a particular formula. They set up the victim for badness, but they must be sufficiently likable and innocent to be outrageous. They must educate the viewer with both expository historical data and the specific in-your-face incident of the movie. They must end poor... Read More |
(Marco Chacon) 04/27/2009 12:36 PM EDT I am on the lookout for the Rocky of Mixed-Martial Arts fighting. The "boxing story" is already its own genre -- perhaps more popular in earlier eras. Robert E. Howard wrote boxing stories before moving to Conan; but today I think MMA is on the rise and, perhaps, will replace boxing as the combat sport of choice. In the ... Read More |
 
(Nathan M Rose) 04/19/2009 9:14 PM EDT A budding action star, Jason Statham, stared as Chev Chelios in a low budget film entitled Crank in 2006. Set in a surreal world that basically was a cinematic version of the Grand Theft Auto video game series, Chev (Statham) had one hour to get a lethal Chinese poison cocktail out of his system before he died.While quirky and extremely... Read More |
(Marco Chacon) 04/14/2009 8:05 PM EDT The idea to simply give the fourth movie the same name as the first was either brilliant or idiotic, and as it broke all previous records for car/movie openings and April openings -- I am going to have to go with brilliant! The franchise was never exactly brain-food, but had managed to deliver high-octane racing action overlayed with a ... Read More |
(Jim Hill) 04/12/2009 9:02 PM EDT In the not-exactly-grand tradition of "Munsters Go Home" and "McHale's Navy Joins the Air Force," here comes "Hannah Montana: The Movie."My apologies if the lede of today's article makes it sound as if I'm taking a cheap shot. That's honestly not my intention here. I bring up the motion picture versions of "... Read More |
(Marco Chacon) 04/06/2009 9:51 AM EDT Animated movies are assembled out of some basic component parts. There are the adult-demographic jokes -- designed to play to the parents; there are the sidekicks, colorful, usually without any arc, and designed for humor value; there is the "set back" in the 3rd act (as reliable as the boy-loses girl false-dawn element of romantic ... Read More |
 
(Marco Chacon) 04/01/2009 9:28 PM EDT There are a few common ways to handle prophecy in fiction. The first is the Greek tragedy way: the prophecy comes true, even if your knowledge of it makes it come true. It does not lie, and it is not misinterpreted (this is the Oedipus configuration of prophecy). The second is that the prophecy may come true, but you can stop it o... Read More |
(Nathan M Rose) 03/15/2009 6:41 PM EDT For decades, the Disney name has been synonymous with family entertainment. But in recent years, this usually meant younger female audiences that shied away from the young boy audience. However, this is all about to change as Walt Disney Pictures brings their re-imagining of the 1970's classic, Escape to Witch Mountain, to the sil... Read More |