Media Man

I'm a bit disappointed with how Disney has treated Star Wars  since they bought out Lucasfilm. Don't get me wrong, some of the comics are really good ( Princess Leia ) and I'm still excited/nervous for The Last Jedi , but in my opinion Disney have been cowards when it comes to the stuff in between the movies. They are slavishly devoted to only telling stories within the Age of the Empire, shaking in their boots to go anywhere near the prequels in case that might piss off the fanboys. However, we must remember that even though the prequels were, and still are, crappy, their existance was made tolerable by all the good things they spawned. We got Genndy Tartakovsky excellent Star Wars Clone Wars  in 2003 which lead to the pretty good Star Wars: The Clone Wars  a few years later. Prequel stuff shouldn't be thrown by the wayside just because it's of the prequels and with that in mind here are the top 5 Star Wars stories that I think should be cannon and by cannon I mean...

Room  is a 2015 drama/thriller written by Emma Donoghue, who also wrote the book the film was based on, and directed by Lenny Abrahamson. The film was touted as one of the best films of the year, snatching up an Oscar for Brie Larson and putting child actor Jacob Tremblay on the map. Story Jack (Jacob Tremblay) and his mother, who he only knows as Ma (Brie Larson), have been trapped inside a room for seven years. Jacob has grown up believing that "Room" is the only world there is and the outside just can't be reached, However, when they finally do escape (it's not a spoiler, the trailer gave it away) they struggle to reintegrate into the outside world. The entire first half of the movie takes place inside "Room", which I suppose is both a good thing and bad thing. On one hand, it creates the desire in the viewer to leave "Room" which is exactly what Ma and Jack are feeling. You can clearly see it's miserable for them there and you want the...

As a general rule of thumb, I'm against the idea of reboots because it just fuels Hollywood's weird of obsession with being uncreative. However, it's not like I can't see an appeal; seeing something that you really like reinterpreted in a different way is really fun and can even lead to better interpretations than the one you liked before. The new version of Voltron  on Netflix is pretty good and even though none of the reincarnations of the Transformers  franchise has been perfect (my personal favorite being the Japanese  Cybertron  run on TV), each one always had at least one new, cool thing that they could bring to the table and add to the mythos. I personally do have some things that I'd like to see rebooted, meaning made better by a reinterpretation, and even have some ideas of how they could work. The Lone Ranger After the disastrous Armie Hammer/Johnny Depp film you'd think it was time to lay this franchise down the bed for another 50 years. However, I...

Steve Jobs  is a 2015 bio-drama written by Aaron Sorkin and directed by Danny Boyle. Based on the biography written by Walter Isaacson, the film was nominated for two Oscars for Michael Fassbender as Jobs and Kate Winslet as Joanna Hoffman, Apple's chief marketing executive. Story The film's three acts are literally divided into three presentations Jobs gave during his lifetime; the launch of the Mac, the NEXT computer and the iMac in 1998. The film is a character study of who Steve Jobs was and why he acted the way he did. The character of Steve Jobs is what makes this film so interesting because it's fascinating to think that a guy this insane and energetic actually existed. It's also interesting to see him learn through the years and become a better man. The best way the film illustrates his changing nature is his relationship with his daughter. At first, he's stubborn in his belief that she's not actually his daughter, no matter how much evidence there ...

Ex Machina  is a 2015 science fiction film written/directed by Alex Garland, who previously wrote the screenplay for the excellent cult action film Dredd  and will be writing the upcoming film adaptation of the Halo video games. Though quickly forgotten by the public, the film garnered massive critical acclaim and was generally well received by those who went to see it. It received the award for best visual effects at the 2016 Oscars. Story Caleb (Domhnall Gleeson), a promising young programmer, is invited to the house of Nathan (Oscar Isaac), a reclusive billionaire who owns the company Caleb works at. He reveals to Caleb that he has developed and built an artificial intelligence robot named Ava (Alicia Vikander) and he wants Caleb to have conversations with her to see if she could pass for human. However, it soon becomes clear that something sinister is afoot at Nathan's mansion and tensions rise as secrets are revealed. The setup, while not very original, does a lot wi...

The Untouchables  is a 1987 crime drama written by David Mamet and directed by Brian De Palma. The film is based on the true account of the main character Elliot Ness, who gathered together a group to form a vigilante squad to fight Al Capone. Sean Connery won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor for his role in the film. Story In prohibition New York City, Elliot Ness (Kevin Costner) is fed up with being unable to catch Al Capone (Robert De Niro) inside the confines of the law. He calls upon Jim Malone (Sean Connery), a beat cop with a nasty edge, to help him gather a small group of me to fight Capone without limitations or rules. As they stop more and more of Capone's operations, things become more and more dangerous and Elliot is pushed to the edge. The setup and execution is a pretty standard mob movie fare, though with the added twist that it was based on true events. While this bit of trivia is interesting, it kind of took something out of the film for me. Whenever movies...

Apocalypse Now  is a 1979 war drama written/directed by Francis Ford Coppola and co-written by John Milius/Michael Herr. The movie was based on the short story Heart of Darkness  by Joseph Conrad, which also inspired the video game Spec Ops: The Line.  The film has become one of the seminal Vietnam War films and is considered one of the best movies of all time. Story In the middle of the Vietnam War Captain Benjamin Willard (Martin Sheen) is tasked with hunting down and killing a rogue Colonel (Marlon Brando) who has been launching vigilante strikes against the Vietcong with his army of savage natives. He makes his way down river to where the Colonel is hiding, accompanied by the crew, and is forced to face the horrors of war and the darkest corners of Man's heart. The themes of this film are just like every other Vietnam War movie and are pretty much explored in the same way: young, innocent soldiers having their lives stripped away by a war they wanted no part of, ...