Tinseltown Reviews

Well Avengers: Infinity War just released, celebrating the 10th anniversary of the franchise known as the Marvel Cinematic Universe (or as us nerds have come to know it, the MCU), and I can't watch it cause typical college student me got finals so instead I decided to partake in the movie blogger's time-honored tradition of making lists. Having marathoned all eighteen movies over the span of several months, I really got to see how several of these movies stood the test of time. Some were a lot better than I'd remembered, some a lot worse, and some were just as good the second (and sometimes third or fourth) time through. If you disagree with me, let me know cause I could discuss and debate movies until the end of time. 19. The Incredible Hulk (2008) The black sheep of the MCU, the much misaligned The Incredible Hulk stands out as the franchise's biggest misstep and the only downright BAD movie in the series. Much like Iron Fist in the Marvel-Netflix se...

There’s this scene at the end of episode 13 of Cowboy Bebop where a man is dying from wounds inflicted by another man whom he had once considered a friend, almost a brother, and knowing that he was likely to die within minutes, the man requests to be brought aboard his airship so that he could fly to Titan, a place where the two men had once fought alongside one another as soldiers—a place where their friendship, their camaraderie, their brotherhood felt real. And if he couldn’t make it to Titan, at least he’ll be on his way. That scene really got to me when I watched Cowboy Bebop for the first time, and even with the jaw-dropping animation of the episode, the wonderful characterization, the fantastic voice acting of the English dub (which I wholeheartedly recommend over the original Japanese, trust me on that), and the amazing music , it was that scene and the sense of pure melancholy and longing and desire to return to simpler times that really hit me on a deep and emotional level,...

A Quiet Place is a 2018 horror thriller directed by John Krasinski (of The Office US fame) who also plays the lead character. The movie also stars Emily Blunt, Millicent Simmonds, and Noah Jupe as a family living in a post-apocalyptic world dominated by monsters who hunt by detecting even the slightest sound. Mankind is mostly wiped out, and whatever specks of humanity remain must stay separate and small in order to hide from the monsters. This film follows the story of a single family as they struggle to stay alive in a world drenched in silence. We all know the premise: make a noise and you die, and yet actually experiencing the movie yourself is way more haunting and tense than you'd expect. Krasinski and the filmmakers had a stroke of genius with the concept of having to keep as quiet as possible, and boy did they milk that as much as they could. The entire movie is extremely quiet with characters rarely ever even speaking. Often times the most you'll hear in ...

Gook is a 2017 drama written and directed by Justin Chon, starring Justin Chon and David So (of DavidSoComedy on YouTube) as two Korean-American brothers running their late father's shoe store in 1992 L.A. The film follows the two with their unusual friendship with Kamilla, an 11 year-old black girl played by Simone Baker on the first day of the Los Angeles Rodney King riots. The movie sees the unlikely trio dealing with racial tensions, attacks, and robberies, all as they struggle to live their lives in a world that doesn't care. I went into this movie with mixed expectations. Being a fan of David So, I had heard a lot about and was somewhat following the movie's production, and it's extremely refreshing to see a movie that centers around regular Asian Americans living in everyday America. Not only that, but the context of Korean Americans living in the L.A. riots was a pretty unique concept and it could prove to be a surprisingly strong and emotional...