Awesome Movies

Video cameras move in six basic ways: pan, tilt, roll, push (or pull), track and crane. They can be combined, performed at different speeds, and cut into each other. But each one is rich enough on its own. CineFix presents its picks for the best use of each basic movement.

“This is just a body. It’s not bad or good – that part’s up to you.” Christoph Waltz, Jennifer Connelly, and Mahershala Ali star in this live action adaptation of the cyberpunk manga Battle Angel Alita. It’s about a cyborg who is resurrected and becomes a bounty hunter.

A traumatized war veteran makes a living tracking down missing teenagers. Asked to rescue a senator’s daughter, he finds himself unraveling a conspiracy. Joaquin Phoenix stars in this brutal thriller hailed as the spiritual successor to Taxi Driver. Premieres 4/6/18.

“But oh, to be free… to be my own master.” ScreenPrism argues that Aladdin has a nice message about freedom. The heroes each have different kinds of freedom. In the end, they learn that to maximize their own freedom, they should help others be more free as well.

The Dark Knight is somehow transported to 15th century Japan. To his surprise, he finds medieval versions of some of his enemies and allies waiting for him. From Kill la Kill writer Kazuki Nakashima and Afro Samurai creator Takashi Okazaki comes Batman Samurai Ninja.

(PG-13: Language) We can hardly believe that the year is nearly over. So with that in mind, Sleepy Skunk is back with another glorious year-end roundup of all of the movie trailers he could get his hands on. In all, there are 231 individual movies – good, bad, and ugly.

Nearly all movies have smaller stories embedded around and within their main story. Lessons from the Screenplay uses the wonderful biopic Hidden Figures to show how subplots enhance the main plot when executed properly.

It’s been a while since CineFix made a list that riled up its fanbase. But here we go. The movie enthusiasts picked their five best film follow ups “of all time”, including direct sequels, reboots and spinoffs. Let’s just think of it as a conversation starter rather than a definitive list.

Etsy store NancysJars makes LED night lights out of old VHS tapes. You can customize the LEDs and the picture. The latter doesn’t have to be from a movie, but if it is the shop will do its best to use a tape of that movie to make the night light. It’s powered by AAA batteries.

(PG-13, Gore) A spy hunts the man behind sudden genocides in poor countries. An animated adaptation of Satoshi Ito’s novel, Genocidal Organ is as ominous, dense and action-packed as Metal Gear Solid. It’s no coincidence – Ito was Hideo Kojima’s friend.

Now You See It argues that awful movies entertain us beyond their obliviousness. He points out that the elements found in the Sharknados and The Rooms of the world – unrealistic acting, cheesy dialogue, outdated effects – are also used in good films.

It’s been over 13 years, but Bob Parr and his super-powered family are coming back to the big screen. From the looks of the teaser, it’s Baby Jack-Jack’s time to shine. And unless one of his powers is slowing time, it takes place shortly after the original. Premieres 6/15/18.

Even though they appear to be more prominent these days, movie remakes have actually been around since the days of black and white film. CineFix picks its top five remakes, from shot-for-shot takes to ones that are loosely inspired by obscure films.

In 1971, following The New York Times’ lead, the Washington Post published leaked documents about the secret expansion of the Vietnam War. Guess what the White House thought of that. Steven Spielberg’s The Post stars Meryl Streep, Tom Hanks and Bob Odenkirk.

Eleven-year-old Parvana and her family live in war-torn Kabul, Afghanistan. When her father is wrongfully arrested, Parvana decides to dress up as a boy to help provide for her family and find her dad, empowered by the stories that he told her. Premieres 11/7/17.

(PG-13, Gore) Streaming video is killing movie posters and covers. But Entertain the Elk argues that that shouldn’t be the case. He uses arresting VHS covers of horror movies to point out the ways that art and captions can convince viewers to give a film a shot.

(PG-13: Language) Margot Robbie takes on the role of a lifetime as Tonya Harding, the disgraced and disgraceful Olympic figure skater behind one of the biggest sports scandals of all time. Holy crap, Allison Janney is awesome.

Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Alien. The Silence of the Lambs. The Shining. Psycho. CineFix believes that those five are unassailable horror films. But they picked an alternative for each of those classics, so you’ll have something different to watch this Halloween.

Daniel Day-Lewis is retiring from acting. For his last film, he worked once again with director Paul Thomas Anderson. Phantom Thread is about a renowned dressmaker in 1950’s London. The master of his glamorous life, he meets his match in a strong-willed woman.

The computer animation scene has enough technology and talent that realism is no longer the ultimate goal. Animator Alan Warburton breaks down some of the ways that commercial, scientific and artistic animators have gone beyond expressing reality.

The horror. The waste. An adaptation of R.C. Sherriff’s classic play, Journey’s End tells the tale of a British infantry company in World War I, waiting four days in a dugout for what they knew was a suicide mission against German troops.

Movies Anywhere gathers your movies from Vudu, iTunes, Google Play, Amazon and Blu-ray download codes into one streaming app. The app is available on iOS, Android, Roku and Chromecast devices. It works with Disney, 20th Century Fox, Universal and Warner Bros. films.

(Gore) Did you know that Scream‘s original title was Scary Movie? And that the Ghostface mask was just some generic off-the-shelf mask that the movie made famous? How about the fact that Ghostface’s phone voice is also Mojo Jojo? All that and more in CineFix’s video.