Creed II is Satisfying But Disappointingly Not Very Surprising

Creed II is not as good as the first movie. That was inevitable because Creed is one of the best movies of the last few years, how could you possibly top it? Trying to follow up that motion picture was gonna be a difficult task for anybody and new director Steve Caple Jr. (taking over for the original Creed's director Ryan Coogler who is now off in Wakanda) does a commendable job expanding on the story of Creed from the first movie. Even without comparing this sequel to its predecessor though, one can't help but feel like some spark of originality is missing from Creed II. This movie knows how to pack a punch but you can always see the punch coming.

Creed Review

Why, of all sports, does boxing seem to pop up so frequently in cinema? Baseball, football and basketball are the far more popular sports in terms of TV viewers and presence in schools across America, yet, on silver screens everywhere, the primal sight of grown-ups in stripped down attire fighting each other has a far larger presence than any other sport. I have a hunch this is due to the simpler structure of boxing; it's not a team sport, so you only have to concentrate on one individual for an entire story, and the price they pay for participating in the sport of boxing are far more visually overt than the bruises one gets from, say, bowling.

The Expendables 3 Review

What can Sylvester Stallone do now? I'm not asking this as some mean or snarky remark, I'm honestly wondering, what can this guy do now? I'm sure he could so some excellent drama if he so desired, but he seems to content to just riff on his legacy in films like Grudge Match and Escape Plan. Both of those were terrible, and while The Expendables 3 is better than those, it's still a forgettable excursion that needed more of entertaining characters to keep its pitiful screenplay afloat.

So, I Was On Netflix: The Starving Games Review

If you see this poster, just run. Run far far away!!!

There are numerous directors whose works have passed me by. I've only just now dabbled in the films of Quentin Tarantino, while most of Paul Thomas Andersons filmography remains a mystery to me. Luckily, the works of Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer have also eluded me, with such critically beloved films as Date Movie and Meet The Spartans remaining just bad trailers to me. But for this column, I decided to suck it up and finally give one of their films, a Hunger Games parody entitled The Starving Games, a watch.