For our Film at 11 podcast this week, I made my 11-year-old son watch the 1980 Flash Gordon for the first time, and he seems to have come away totally baffled by the movie. I think I may have broken his brain a little with this one. To be fair to Thomas, I may not… Read More Film at 11 Podcast: Episode 10 | Flash Gordon (1980)
The Film at 11 podcast is back with its original co-host, my 11-year-old son Joseph. This week, I introduce him to Edward Scissorhands, the movie that may serve as a statement piece to define director Tim Burton’s entire career. Joseph tells me he doesn’t typically like movies with too much drama, and this one sure… Read More Film at 11 Podcast: Episode 3 | Edward Scissorhands (1990)
This week, we launch a new feature here at The Video File blog. For the past couple months, I’ve been quietly working on a video podcast called Film at 11, in which I’ve convinced my sons to watch famous movies they’ve never seen before and discuss them with me, offering their reviews from an 11-year-old… Read More Introducing “Film at 11,” A New Movie Podcast from The Video File: Episode 1 | Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988)
Faced with steadily declining box office returns for their last few live-action Transformers movies, Hasbro and Paramount felt that the best course of action would be to return the franchise to its roots with an animated prequel. Sadly, despite mostly positive reviews from critics and word-of-mouth from those who bothered to go see it, the… Read More Truly More Than Meets the Eye | Transformers One (2024) 4K Ultra HD
Universes and movie franchises collide in Deadpool & Wolverine, the blockbuster crossover that functions simultaneously as: 1) a trilogy-capping sequel to the popular Deadpool series, 2) the official merger of the X-Men (and some other less-loved stragglers) into the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and 3) the point where Disney gives up pretending that any of this… Read More Wolverineing Is Hard | Deadpool & Wolverine (2024) 4K Ultra HD
The French Cinéma du look movement of the 1980s and ’90s crashes headfirst into the Hollywood action blockbuster in director Luc Besson’s très cool assassin thriller La Femme Nikita. Criticized at the time for prioritizing style over substance, Besson’s film was nonetheless very popular, has proven quite influential, and remains a thrilling piece of pop… Read More She Has Potential | La Femme Nikita (1990) 4K Ultra HD
As the world celebrated Denis Villeneuve’s Dune: Part One as if it were the greatest science fiction masterpiece in the entirety of cinema history back in 2021, I was among the rare outliers who didn’t care for the movie. I found it a bore, and yes, I’m one of those weirdoes who prefers the David… Read More May Thy Knife Chip and Shatter | Dune: Part Two (2024) 4K Ultra HD
If not quite as satisfying (to old-school Generation 1 fans like myself, at least) as the 2018 Bumblebee prequel movie, Transformers: Rise of the Beasts works well enough in broad terms to prove that the franchise remains better off without Michael Bay at the helm. Sadly, the film continued the series’ downward trajectory at the… Read More Going Primal | Transformers: Rise of the Beasts (2023) 4K Ultra HD
Nostalgia is a trap that Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny both comments upon and falls victim to. The fifth entry in the venerable franchise arrives fifteen years after the last one, which was itself already nineteen years after everybody already assumed that the Indiana Jones Trilogy had satisfactorily concluded. Coming so late, the… Read More Yesterday Belongs to Us | Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (2023) 4K Ultra HD
After Transformers: Dark of the Moon hit a franchise high for box office, Michael Bay announced that he’d be leaving the series on a high note to go make smaller, personal films. He did exactly one of those (2013’s Pain & Gain, which underperformed) before crawling right back to the safe haven of the robots… Read More I’m All About Bad Ideas | Transformers: Age of Extinction (2014) 3D Blu-ray
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