Beyond the Rhetoric

Madagascar 3: Europe’s Most Wanted (2012) I suppose you could say that this third official entry in the Madagascar franchise is exactly what I expected it to be. At its heart, this is a children’s movie with a relatively simple plot, eschewing some of the more adult-oriented in-jokes that we found in movies like Shrek. [...]

Wreck It Ralph (2012) After seeing the trailer for this movie a few months ago, featuring the “Bad Guys Anonymous” support group pictured above, I knew I was hooked. It had similar geeky video game references as what we saw in Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, except these references are licensed and used with permission. [...]

The Cabin in the Woods (2011) There are some horror movies out there that take themselves quite seriously, but The Cabin in the Woods is not one of them. While it doesn’t go quite as far in its self-parody as a franchise like Scary Movie, it is purposefully “campy” (bad pun intended) in its approach [...]

“The 3 types of terror: The Gross-out: the sight of a severed head tumbling down a flight of stairs, it’s when the lights go out and something green and slimy splatters against your arm. The Horror: the unnatural, spiders the size of bears, the dead waking up and walking around, it’s when the lights go [...]

9 (2009) Maybe it’s because they used Coheed and Cambria in the trailer. Maybe it’s because the main characters in the movie look a little too much like Sackboy from the Little Big Planet video game. Whatever the case, I knew that I had to watch the movie 9. It just seemed like such an [...]