The Expendables III Review

To me, The Expendables has been a franchise that has never aimed too high, but still delivers decent installments every time. The premise is simple; get a bunch of 80's and 90's action stars together and have them blown shit up. You don't need to get more complicated than that. However, the series has been pretty unspectacular about its premise and usually puts its action icons in situations that aren't too ludicrous. The Expendables usually go to military operations and take down enemies with so much as a campy or cheesy wink to the camera, which is the best course of action for a movie series that's solely comprised of larger than life personas. In the third installment, The Expendables III manages to still be wholly unremarkable, but in an enjoyable way.

The Amazing Spider-Man 2 Review

Well, here it is. The big one. The one movie I have been dreading for a multitude of reasons. It's critically divisive to the point where people will argue over the quality of the movie at a drop of a hat. A movie that has so much expectation behind it that it will either be great or a massive failure. A movie that has comic book fans all fighting each other over how Peter Parker and Spider-Man should be interpreted in movies. So many factors are going into this review that this was the first time I had to do extensive research and thought pondering before I even saw the movie. I watched ALL of the Sam Raimi Spider-Man movies, and the first Amazing Spider-Man movie just to get ready for this. Strap yourselves in, cause it's going to be a bumpy ride.

Captain America: The Winter Soldier Review

I've had a strenuous relationship with the Marvel Cinematic Universe for quite some time. I've never seen any of the First Phase movies like Iron Man, Thor, or Captain America, so I went into The Avengers blind. I loved that movie and I still hail it as being one of the best definitions of an action blockbuster and it convinced me to follow the Phase Two movies when they were released. I saw Iron Man 3 and hated it. I hated it so much that I flat out skipped Thor: The Dark World just because the content didn't interest me in and I was too burned by Iron Man 3 to even care. But now we have Captain America: The Winter Soldier, a movie that redeems my faith in the Phase Two movies if not solely because of the world building in here.

Best Winter Anime of 2014

For those of you who are unaware, I like to watch anime in my spare time. While I do keep up with some TV shows (Hannibal FTW!), I mostly am relegated to watching shows online and streaming them. That being said, while I could stream shows like Game of Thrones and The Walking Dead, I'm much more inclined to watch anime. Anime is a weird beast in terms of television, since there are few shows that have legitimate seasons. Most likely, an anime would get only one season of 12-13 episodes and that would constitute its run. Some shows expand their run to twice that, and even fewer shows have multiple seasons and arcs. Anime is very condensed and each show will usually run for 3 months before ending. It's with that in mind that we take a look at the best and worst anime of this past winter that I have watched. Even if you don't watch anime and don't "get it", it's still fine to read it and see if anything would motivate you to taking a look at something that you normally wouldn't see. I've seen five anime this winter, and we're going to talk about them all!

One Piece: Romance Dawn Review

One Piece is a series that I'm sure most people have heard of, but aren't aware of how popular it really is. One Piece is a manga and anime series that, as of right now, has sold the highest number of manga volumes in existence and has been in publication since 1998. To say that One Piece is a monster of a franchise is a complete understatement. And yet, most Westerners have no idea what One Piece even is. I mean, it's popular, but not to the cataclysmic extent as it is in Japan. It's even worse for video games. Since the release of One Piece: Unlimited Adventure in 2008, the series has had barely any games released in North America. If a One Piece game was released, it was usually only a digital only release that wasn't well marketed. The same applies for One Piece: Romance Dawn, except for the fact that the game actually had a physical release in an insanely limited run. Only 16,800 physical copies of the game exist, so it has to be good if it's so rare, right?

Justice League: War Review

We live in an age where comic books have become a primary source for big summer blockbusters. Whether it’s Avengers, Man of Steel, or X-Men: Days of Future Past, we live in a world where if you’re based on a comic property, chances are you’re going to make an insane amount of money. What some people don’t know though is that while live action comic book movies are a huge hit almost 90% of the time, animated comic book movies… aren't that big of a hit. Barely anyone knows that they exist, and most people don’t particularly care about them unless you’re a die hard comic book fan. Enter Justice League: War, a movie that is trying to start a shared universe between all DC animated movies. I say try, because the result aren't really too promising.

The Legend of Zelda: Link Between World Review

As some of you are aware, I like this game. I really, really like this game. As a matter of fact, I gave it my number 5 spot on my best games of 2013 list (which you should totally still read). So that begs the question; why am I reviewing this game if I've already said that this is a good game? Well, to make a long story short, it's very rare to see the evolution of a franchise, and I have a strong feeling that more Zelda games are going to be similar to Link Between Worlds, and that's not a bad thing in the slightest.

The Top 10 Best Movies of 2013

And here it is. 2013's best movies. I've seen more movies than ever before this year, clocking in at a grand total of 32 movies. That's pretty much a movie every two weeks, and after going up and down with the quality of films this year, here are the ten best films of the year. It was actually fairly easy to pick my ten favorite movies, because there really only were ten great movies that came out. That's not to say they were bad movies by any means. It was actually really damned difficult to even rank these movies, because each of them was so damned good. There was a point where any movie really was in contention to be in my top 3 favorite movies, so it was painful at times to put a movie I really liked low on the list. As always, if you see a movie on this list that you like, great! If your favorite movie isn't on here, no need to despair. I probably just haven't seen the movie, or it belonged on a much less desirable list. So without further ado, here are my Top 10 Favorite Movies of 2013!

The Top 10 Worst Movies of 2013

2013 was a weird year for movies. Here you have a year that gave us countless movies that have had audiences split down the middle about whether they liked it or not. Man of Steel, Star Trek: Into Darkness, Iron Man 3, and a lot of other movies are just the tip of the iceberg. Hell, even The Wolf of Wall Street is leaving people split on whether they liked it or not. So when making a worst movies of 2013 list, not one list is going to be the same, which I find really interesting. Each list is its own beast and reflects on a person's tastes, and when you have a year with so many movies that have the potential to leave audiences disappointed, there's no limit as to what movies could be in the Top 10. Hell, I've seen lists where Man of Steel and American Hustle can be called "the worst movies of 2013". So the long and short of it is, my list is my own opinion. If you agree with some entries, more power to you. If not, that's perfectly fine. Enjoy the movies that you like, but understand why I would call it a bad movie. My only rule for being on this list is making it a movie that I've seen that was released this year.

47 Ronin Review

If there's one hobby of mine that not many people know about, it's that I have a soft spot for history. At it's core, history to me is just telling stories about events and people and the results of said events and people. It's just another form of telling stories and entertainment for me, which is why there are tons of movies that are based off of historical events. Some are more grounded with what actually happened historically speaking, while others tend to embellish some aspects about history to make a more entertaining movie. 47 Ronin is a Hollywood interpretation of a classic Japanese folktale, so with that alone, you should know exactly what to expect from "Hollywood's interpretation of Japanese history", for better or worse.

Carrie Review

Some movies, for better or worse, can be defined by one scene. One scene that will be burned into a person's memory until they die. School Days's ending. The Titanic sinking. The first time Jaws attacks. The shower scene from Psycho. Scenes that are so legendary that everyone knows them, even people that haven't scene the movie or TV show. 

I would argue that Carrie has a scene that everyone knows about and only cares about that scene; the prom. Just by saying "Carrie at the prom" should evoke images of slaughter and chaos. It's the one thing that makes the movie stand out and is THE reason you know what Carrie even is. Going into this remake, that's all I was expecting. A really savage and brutal action scene that justifies the entire movie. Seeing horrible people get brutally killed, and feeling like they deserved it. I got that in this movie. Unfortunately, I got nothing else from this movie.