The Foxy Film Fan

Man of Steel (2013) Zack Snyder, The first film I saw of yours was 300 , and I feel as though I'm stating the obvious when I say it was decent; of course it was, it was the film which launched a thousand memes, and the visual style which accompanied it was unlike anything ever attempted before. It certainly wasn't one of my favorite movies, but I enjoyed it enough to consider it warranting a second or third viewing. Next, I saw Watchmen . I now understand that my opinion is exceedingly unpopular among the majority of film and comic book fans, but I absolutely adored Watchmen . For years it was my favorite movie based off of a comic book (since then Guardians of the Galaxy  has taken that space in my heart), I adored the darkness of it, the stunning gritty visuals (back when being gritty and dark was actually an original concept and hadn't been used in absolutely every other superhero movie ever), the choice of music, and the way that it so beautifully translated a ...

Suicide Squad (2016) Immediately after the release of Suicide Squad  reviews poured in, each one dragging the movie through the mud with reports of how absolutely terrible it was from beginning to end, of how Jared Leto's performance of the Joker was the worst performance of the Joker in the history of Batman, and of how the film was a confusing and jumbled mess. Perhaps it is for this reason that my hopes were low enough to the ground for me to be pleasantly surprised after my first viewing of the infamous dreaded Suicide Squad . Suicide Squad almost immediately gained notoriety when press photos of Jared Leto as the Joker sporting terrible tattoos (such as "damaged" scrawled across his forehead as if he's the protagonist of an angsty sixteen year old girl's fanfiction) and a grill, and with people both dreading and eager to see his performance if only for the hope that it would fall into the "so bad it's good" category of filmmaking, the ma...

Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome (1985) Prior to watching Mad Max  I always assumed the series was just another 80's action franchise lost in the sea of muscular action heroes backed by blaring synthesizers and massive explosions. Instead, I was proven wrong and found myself absolutely enthralled with this series of fantastic and bizarre films unlike any other action series I've ever seen. The first of the series is a slow burn, setting the stage for the apocalyptic wasteland which occupies the rest of the following films, but the slow and dragging pace of the first film is the equivalent to a rollercoaster ramping upwards before plummeting down into absolute insanity. The beauty of the Mad Max  series is the fact that there are no rules, only absolute madness, much like the madness which plagues the protagonist. Rather than being an outright hero or expert killer, Max is used as the story's vehicle to help the audience travel through the wasteland of post-apocalyptic Au...

The Take (2016) The Take  is an action movie which was nearly titled Bastille Day , but I'm glad it wasn't because that would have been a very difficult title to turn into a pun about how terrible this film was. While I wish I could say it started with promise, that was hardly the case. This film opens with the classic white text in the bottom left-hand corner of the screen describing the current location of the film; in this case, it's Paris (which raises the question: why not simply show a shot of the Eiffel tower and allow your audience to connect the dots?). The plot is confusing, I'll admit, but I will try to explain it to you as simply as possible. Idris Elba plays a rude and sarcastic cop who seems to be stuck in the whole "good cop, bad cop" routine, but is yet to find a good cop in order to round him out a bit more. He's completely unlikable throughout the majority of the movie, and the film makes no effort at providing any depth or backg...

Oldboy (2003) This Sunday I will be attending a screening of my favorite director's newest film, The Handmaiden . Bearing that in mind, I decided to revisit one of his earlier works. Oldboy is one of the three films in a trilogy which Park Chan-wook has referred to as the 'vengeance trilogy'; three unrelated tales of revenge which may be viewed in any order. It is the second in the series, bookended by Sympathy for Mr. Vengance  and Lady Vengeance , but because it is the first Park Chan-wook film I watched and also the strongest example of his stylized directing, I feel the need to review this as a sort of introduction to his unique style of filmmaking. The plot of Oldboy  is simple; Oh Dae-Su is a man who was imprisoned for fifteen years without explanation, then suddenly set free. Now, he's angry and looking for the men who imprisoned him, hoping for answers and to avenge the wife and daughter he lost while he was locked away. With a very western sounding so...

Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016) The action genre is perhaps the most popular genre of film. The addition of CGI to modern cinema brought along endless possibilities for fantastic stories, it brought unimaginable levels of creative freedom and provided directors and screenwriters the ability to take characters to far off lands and into other universes to face off against horrifying monsters beyond our wildest dreams. Unfortunately, none of this is what filmmakers have been giving us for the past several years. Instead, we have received an endless supply of remakes. Sit back and think of the last action movie you saw which wasn't based on something else. The last action movie which wasn't inspired by a novel, a reinterpretation of an older movie, based off of a toy, or some bizarre sequel which also serves as a prequel to a film which has long since been forgotten. It's practically impossible. Even fantastic recent releases in the action genre aren...