Varsity Blues

Who would have known in retrospect that 1999 would produce two fairly notable football movies that in some interesting ways have stood the test of time? Any Given Sunday closed the end of 1999, that Oliver Stone flick being extremely prescient and forward thinking with the issues it brought to the forefront. Opening 1999 was […]

Premature (2019)

You know what they say about love, it comes when a person least expects it. Seventeen-year-old Ayanna (Zora Howard) seemingly has things figured out. She’s graduated high school and is off to college in the fall to chase her dreams of being a writer. In the interim, she just wants to hang out with her […]

Irresistible (2020)

On both ends of the political spectrum, dummies will always exist. Is Democratic strategist Gary Zimmer (Steve Carell) one of those dummies? He certainly feels as such, being one of the people in charge of Hilary Clinton’s failed 2016 Presidential campaign run. Zimmer identifies the biggest takeaway as a failure on the Dems part to […]

The Surrogate (2020)

The thing about a vessel? They receive and take in everything. For New York City based Jess (Jasmine Batchelor), she’s self-described as such, being The Surrogate mother for her best friend, Josh (Chris Perfetti) and his husband, Aaron (Sullivan Jones). She wants to do this, and with a contract in hand drawn up with compassion […]

Long Gone Summer

1998. The year sees Michael Jordan make his second retirement after a second three-peat. Britney Spears makes her debut with “Hit Me Baby One More Time.” Titanic becomes the first film to break one billion at the box office. And yet, it wouldn’t be overly hyperbolic to suggest that summer of ’98, if not a […]

Be Water

“Who am I?” “What am I going to be?” “How am I going to express myself?” These are questions Bruce Lee asked himself as he matriculated from Hong Kong to Seattle as a high school teen. In some extents, Lee had—or at least came—from it all, world experiences, cracks at showbiz at an early age […]

What to Watch: Enter the Dragon

One of the biggest “What ifs?” in cinema history is if the legendary Bruce Lee didn’t pass away at the young age of 33. What more could he have done? Of course, the cliched answer is “We’ll never know.” Knowing how Hollywood works, Enter the Dragon was probably going to be the beginning of a […]

Opinion Ed: The State of the World

(Photo taken from radio.wosu.org) I don’t anticipate rambling word after word in this space. I’ve had my opportunity to vent with loved ones during this chaotic time. So why write, even briefly, about it? It’s cathartic I suppose, and I’ve typically been better with a pen or a keyboard than verbally when it comes to […]

What to Watch: Mortal Kombat (1995)

It’s a Mortal Kombat world, and we’re all just living in it. With the heavy life behind last year’s still trucking Mortal Kombat 11 in newly released DLC (Aftermath), animated movie (Scorpion’s Revenge) and a tentatively scheduled March 2021 reboot, the franchise of MK will never be killed. It would be easy to forget we […]

The High Note (2020)

Who are you doing it for once there are no more surprises? Surprises rarely happen anymore for Maggie (Dakota Johnson), a personal assistant for some odd years to one of the greatest singers and entertainers of all time, Grace Davis (Tracee Ellis Ross). Maggie does everything, whether that be getting Grace’s car, her dry cleaning, […]