Coming Soon to The Cinema King...

“It is one of the strangest tales ever told. It deals with the two great mysteries of creation: life and death. I think it will thrill you. It may shock you. It might even horrify you. So, if any of you feel that you do not care to subject your nerves to such a strain, now’s your chance to uh, well––we warned you…”

Tomorrow, we begin a marathon of reviews. Each day in March, The Cinema King will be looking at an early – if not the very first – cinematic universe. It’s not Star Wars or The Avengers, though its inhabitants are just as colorful. It’s not Alien or Predator, but you wouldn’t have those series without the dangers of… the Universal Classic Monsters. Stay tuned for thirty reviews in thirty-one days as we linger in the graveyards and haunt the mausoleums for… Monster March.

Excuses, excuses

Sorry, loyal readers - between dissertation revisions, binge-reading 2500 pages of The Walking Dead, and a misspent evening with Season 2 of Netflix's Daredevil, there just wasn't time for a movie this week.

But fear not - your regularly scheduled ironclad installment of "The Grand Marvel Rewatch" is coming right up this Wednesday with Iron Man 3, and you can expect full reviews of Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice and Daredevil: Season 2 in the very near future, plus other fun and fabulous features. If you haven't already, be sure to subscribe at right to receive those features in your inbox. Nuff said?

To review or not to review?

Hello, all - your regularly scheduled programming has been delayed, possibly for a week. Almost exclusively, The Cinema King has been a movie reviewer, but I've spent the past weekend binge-watching Daredevil, the latest entry in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

Nominally, it's a television show - a miniseries, to be precise - and that isn't really within the purview of The Cinema King.

Should it be? I am of two minds - and of two episodes yet to watch, as of the writing of this post.

It's a day of firsts here! First, acknowledgement of television; also first, your chance to vote below in a poll to determine the fate of next week's post.  Shall The Cinema King turn his eye Netflix-ward, or will April 20th bring another movie review?  You choose...

Should The Cinema King review Daredevil?

Yes

No

Poll Maker

Interstellar Review Delayed

We could give you a big physics lesson, but the simple truth is that our Interstellar review was affected by the gravitational pull of a black hole.  It exists, out there in the relative future, but for those of us living in the present, we won't be able to see the effects of the review until Monday.

But hey, Neil deGrasse Tyson liked the movie, so that's got to count for something.  But his review has spoilers in it, so you'll have to wait for The Cinema King to take on Nolan's latest.

300th Post! (Review Delayed)

Whoa.  That Gatsby throws a mean party.  Sorry, folks, we're still recovering from those lavish West Egg shindigs.  We'll be back tomorrow, same Gat-time, same Gat-channel, with a full review of Baz Luhrmann's The Great Gatsby.  See you then!

By the way, for those of you playing the home game, this is my 300th post here at The Cinema King!  Sorry it couldn't be something more interesting than a "see you tomorrow," but I assure you that I'm looking forward to the next 300 just as much!

Monday at the Movies - Service Interrupted

We interrupt your regularly-scheduled programming to bring you this special news bulletin.

Due to unforeseen circumstances that have nothing whatsoever to do with poor time management (why do you ask?  Who told you that, anyway?), The Cinema King regrets to inform you that this week's installation of "Monday at the Movies" has been delayed.

But fear not, loyal reader.  You'll only have to wait a scant twenty-four hours to get your Cinema King fix; this week, "Monday at the Movies" will come your way on Tuesday at the same Bat-time, same Bat-blog.  And when you join us tomorrow, we'll be bringing you a somewhat "timely" post which pregames for The Amazing Spider-Man (which, no, I haven't seen yet) by reviewing three films which share something in common with the reboot/prequel/requel swinging through theaters.

So stay tuned for tomorrow's "Monday Tuesday at the Movies"!

(PS - All kidding aside, we haven't been taken down by the DNS Changer malware that seems to be going around today.  We're sorry if you are, though.)

(PPS - If you got the joke about "timely," let me know and you'll get a fabulous prize.)

Incoming! - Full Reviews!

Greetings, loyal readers!  As you've come to expect, tomorrow should see the nineteenth installment of "Monday at the Movies."  But, with the advent of the summer blockbuster season, we'll be changing things up.  Some Mondays, you'll see a full review of a recent theatrical release; other Mondays, you'll get a full dose of "Monday at the Movies."  Either way, you'll still get a full dose of movie review goodness every Monday!

This all starts tomorrow.  Hopefully this makes Mondays more exciting - you never know what you're going to get (although most of the time you can probably guess).   I will drop a hint for tomorrow, though... you won't see any reviews assembled here.

Got it?  Oh, heck, I'll just let this gorgeous Alex Ross image fill you in:

See you tomorrow, loyal readers!

2012 -- A New Direction

No, not a review of Roland Emmerich's 2009 disaster-porn feature. Rather, a new direction for The Cinema King.

I realize I've been entirely remiss in my duties as monarch of this fair kingdom (Blogger tells me I haven't posted in nigh on a year). But rather than exchange some platitudes and excuses about my extended absence, I want to say that I'm revamping the format of this establishment and tweaking the way we do business, the better to edify you, cinematically speaking.

New look in hand, it's time to continue to evolve. Beginning tomorrow, in honor of the new year (and perhaps last, if the Mayans are to be believed), I'll be changing the way I review movies, providing a more timely and more sweeping scope of what's good, bad, and ugly in the world of celluloid. I hope this'll be a weekly or biweekly feature, but I hope it'll make the waits between reviews more bearable.

What is it, you ask? Ah, stay tuned. The ride begins tomorrow...

Depp Week Delayed

Ahoy, folks. Bad news on the docks. Due to unforseeable consequences - namely, being hijacked by pirates in search of bewitched treasure - Depp Week is being postponed until at least the weekend, if not Monday/Tuesday.

Keep a weathered eye on the horizon, mateys. Here there be Pirates of the Caribbean reviews soon as we be returnin' from Davy Jones's locker.

Back from Vacation

Hey, loyal readers - Cinema King here. A few eagle-eyed Web surfers have noticed an alarming dearth of new content over here. An explanation, it seems, is in order.

See, I've been in Florida for the past two weeks. I realize that last year I set up a few posts to upload while I was away, but things got a little more hectic this summer; between prepping for a move to an entirely different state and catching a Don Rickles show the night before my flight to Florida, I've been a little distracted.

Never fear, though. I'm making up for it this weekend with a few reviews that have been percolating for some time now. We're going to start things off by seguing from the Inception review with a peek at Christopher Nolan's mind-bending (as opposed to his other films, which fantastically mind-blowing) Memento from 2000; we'll also visit Denzel Washington and his Oscar-winning performance in Antoine Fuqua's 2001 flick Training Day. Then it's a celebration of one of the greatest living actors - Johnny Depp; we'll be touring his performances (listed in my viewing order) in 2007's Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, as directed by Tim Burton; 2003's Once Upon a Time in Mexico, directed by Robert Rodriguez; and 2005's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, also directed by Burton. The Depp-fest concludes with a look at what is perhaps Depp's most high-profile role - that of Captain Jack Sparrow in the 2003-2007 Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy, directed by Gore Verbinski. Finally, we'll wind down this weekend with a few laughs; I'm not sure whether I'll be seeing Dinner for Schmucks or The Other Guys - or both - so stay tuned.

Keep your home pages set to The Cinema King, because we're about to have some fun. Stay tuned, loyal readers.

Quicklist Added

Hey folks -

Cinema King here. Just a quick update to let you all know about an exciting new feature I've added. I'm calling it a Quicklist.

Many people have asked me, "Hey, have you ever reviewed Movie X or Film Y?" When memory serves, I can answer fairly quickly, but when not I invoke the "labels" function on Blogger that allows me to tag reviews by title. Unfortunately, though, this involves sifting through more than two hundred labels to find a title.

That's all changing. By visiting http://cinemaking465.blogspot.com/2001/01/review-quicklist.html or by clicking the "Quicklist" link at the right of your screen under "Quick Links," you'll be taken to an alphabetical list of all the reviews I've penned. From there, you'll be linked to each and every review posted on this blog. What's more, in the spirit of connectivity, I've also tried to go through posts and link to other relevant posts elsewhere on the blog.

All this in the interest of making this site as user-friendly as possible. It also helps keep me sane. Let me know if these features are helpful, distracting, or otherwise possessive of some element worth noting.

Happy viewing.

Trailer Park: Toy Story 3 (2010)

You know it's a good trailer when you get chills running up your arm even though there's barely anything substantive on the screen.

Hi, folks. The trailer we're looking at today is from a sequel that everyone's been waiting around for: Toy Story 3. It's easy to take for granted the significance of the Toy Story franchise and the Pixar geniuses behind it, but it's also saying something extremely important to note that this trailer feels like a breath of fresh air amid trailers for remakes and bad horror pictures. And in less than two minutes, it's even more noteworthy that nothing happens in this trailer.

That's the genius of this trailer. All we have to do is hear the bouncing melody of Randy Newman's new classic "You've Got A Friend in Me" and see the characters file past the screen with their voices ringing nostalgia in our ears (good to hear that most of the cast is back!), and most of us have already preordered our tickets for Toy Story 3. The folks at Pixar have done it again.

Though there's no plot detail here, what I've managed to unearth is that the film seems to be about Andy growing up and leaving Woody and Buzz behind. With all the cast back in tow, Michael Keaton joins on as Ken (yes, that Ken), and the film is making its big-screen debut in Disney Digital 3-D (trust me, that's worth the extra price of admission) on June 18, 2010.

[In preparation, stay tuned for a tour de review through the Pixar catalogue. Their two most recent ventures, WALL-E and Up, are already posted, so we'll be starting at the beginning, with 1995's Toy Story.]

Now Broadcasting in Astonishing Widescreen!

"There is nothing wrong with your television set. Do not attempt to adjust the picture. We are controlling transmission. ... We will control the horizontal. We will control the vertical."

Ever since we at The Cinema King imported all the Trailer Park posts into one cozy little home,
we noticed something curious had changed in the interim. YouTube was posting widescreen trailers, but our humble little abode wasn't cut out for the beauty of a widescreen, higher-def video. Back in the days when Trailer Park lived on its own, videos were still fairly compact and fit comfortably in the niche provided by the good folks at Blogger. Not so anymore.

Fortunately, after hours of poring over code and tips from other bloggers, we've adapted. We've spread our wings, and we're now broadcasting in astonishing widescreen with more content, more video, and more of the benign reign of The Cinema King. Now you can enjoy all your favorite Trailer Park reviews without compromising the horizontal integrity of the trailers - because, let's be real, all the good stuff happens on that side of the screen anyway.

"We repeat, there is nothing wrong with your television set. You are about to participate in a great adventure. You are about to experience the awe and mystery which reaches from the inner mind" of The Cinema King ...to you!

Introductions to Trailer Park

The spin-off you've been waiting for has finally come home to roost!

Here at The Cinema King, I have heretofore reviewed movies, finished products released to the general public. But there's another facet of the cinematic experience to which I haven't paid due attention - the art of the trailer. We see about four or five of these before a movie in the theaters (and on DVD, if [like me] you're not inclined to skip over them), and they reach us in a way that film doesn't. If these posts look familiar, it's because they once had their own blog, Trailer Park. Yet Trailer Park wasn't satisfying to me on a lot of levels, and with the new introduction of Labels/Tags to The Cinema King, there's now a perfect way to integrate the two concepts while still allowing you the reader to decide whether you want only "movie reviews" or if you're adventurous enough to click on the tag labeled "trailers."

Jim Gaffigan has the old joke that people always feel the need to comment on movie trailers, which are just glorified commercials. "Yet you would never do that for regular commercials. 'Yeah, I'm not gonna buy that cereal.'" Admittedly, it is preposterous to lean over to your moviegoing companion (or a total stranger) and openly opine about the commercial y'all have just seen.

But that's exactly what I'm going to do here.

I'll try to embed the trailer on here via our friends at YouTube, but if not I'll just link to the Apple Trailers site or something similar. See you at the movies.

Now with 100% more accessibility!

Greetings, loyal readers!

Those of you eagle-eyed surfers of the net may have noticed a slight overhaul going on last night here on The Cinema King. It all started with the 2009 season including MPAA ratings and explications; that's when I knew things might be changing around here.

But what we've added here ought to revolutionize the way you read The Cinema King. For a long time, Blogger has offered a feature called "Labels" (also known as "tags") that allows me to say briefly what each post includes. This feature had been heretofore ignored; most of my reviews are one-shot deals, with only a few select features getting the multiple post treatment (The Dark Knight... and that's about it).

Yet watching the Dirty Harry films, I realized a new potential for this feature. Labels/tags could easily enable readers to jump to similar reviews, be they similar with respect to genre, actor, franchise, rating, or decade.

Now you can do just that, loyal reader. In the sidebar on the right-hand side of the site, if you scroll down you'll encounter (in this order) "Welcome!", "About Me," "Blog Archive," and now "Labels." Hopefully this new feature will allow for greater interactivity, accessibility, and overall ease and enjoyment. You can now quickly jump to films within the decade, within the genre, with similar MPAA ratings, with similar actors or crew members, or just simply find movie titles alphabetically rather than in the order in which they were reviewed. You can also sort by "movie reviews" only or look at all the "announcements," "links," and "videos" posted here.

If there's a label you'd like to see on this site, let me know! I relish the comments you loyal readers feed me. Happy viewing!

I'm Back!

Back by popular demand, The Cinema King (that's me!) will be resuming the Sisyphean mantle of movie reviews ASAP, on the double! Get ready for a whole new slate of recaps, reviews, refreshers, and commentary!

For 2009, I'll be continuing the same popular format as 2008 saw, although I'm adding a little something to the end: a movie poster image as well as a brief parental advisory notice (in the hopes of elucidating reviews like "PG-13 for thematic material"). This should in no way impact your overall enjoyment of the site, but I welcome your commentary.

Also, be on the lookout for more blogging beyond movie reviews themselves - I've got one stewing about the nature of a good vs. a bad review, as well as a revisiting of the "Great vs. To-My-Liking" debate. So please adjust your cell phones for no light and no sound, remember you have free refills on your pop and popcorn, and enjoy the show!

Introductions

Introductions, it seems, are in order. I'm The Cinema King, so that's what you call me. That or His Kingness... Kinger... or El Kingerino, if, you know, you're not into the whole brevity thing... (That reference, to the Coen Brothers' masterpiece The Big Lebowski, will be the first of many ephemeral and at times incomprehensible allusions to master works of the silver screen. Brownie points if you can identify them all... they're like Pokemon in that regard.)

Having read a lot of philosophy lately, I find myself asking the following question perhaps more often than is healthy: what's the point? What's the telos (or end) to which this action is being done? So I ask it about this endeavor, and I'm sure you're asking it too... what's the point of opening up a blog?

I guess it’s because I need something to do. Maybe it’s boredom, maybe it’s a writer within, longing to escape Bruce Banner-style. Only instead of growing green and gargantuan, words start flowing out. The creative outlet of choice? The movie review. To my memory, I’ve been informally reviewing movies for as long as I’ve been alive, telling friends, “Oh, you should see this movie” or “Definitely skip this one – it’s a dud.” I’ve been published a few times reviewing movies, but it’s time to make this official.

I don’t have a set schedule of posting in mind just yet. I’m not the Perez Hilton type to post several times a day, but I could be induced to do so if I see a ton of good movies all in one go, or if I suddenly feel the creative juices a-churnin’. Basically, my plan is to call ’em as I see ’em, with detours where appropriate.

All right, Mr. DeMille, I'm ready for my close-up.