Friday, October 23, 2015

Goosebumps



Full disclosure - I am a former Goosebumps fanboy. As a kid, I used to drool over the latest Goosebumps book cover until I finally had an opportunity to get one from the book fair at my elementary school. I went so far as to write a fan letter to R.L. Stine, who sent back a very sweet form letter to all of his fans, with what I always hoped was his real signature at the bottom (though it was probably a stamp or something). It even inspired me to write my first novel back in fifth grade, brilliantly titled "The House That Threw Up"... though it was probably equally inspired by the Goosebumps parody series (that lasted all of two installments), Gooflumps. Yeah, that's really what it was called. Even those ridiculous books have a bit of nostalgia for me, but they were nothing compared to my love for the Goosebumps series. With all that in mind, I went into this film hoping for nothing but a fun time with a few childhood memories brought to life. And thankfully it more-or-less succeeded.

Friday, October 16, 2015

Rocky III



FlashBack Friday is upon us again! Sorry for the inconsistency, but I should still be able fit these all in before the release of Creed on Thanksgiving weekend. If the last review was a surprise due to my lack of exposure to the material, the opposite may be true with Rocky III. I watched this movie constantly as a kid, and could probably quote most of the lines from memory. Having said that, it has been around a decade since I'd last seen it, so the possibility of it not living up to my nostalgic memories was a bit of a concern going in. Luckily, there was also a lot of emotional depth that I didn't remember as well, so things actually evened out rather nicely. From here on, my prediction for this review is... SPOILERS! And also talking about what's good and bad... you know, normal review stuff.

Friday, October 2, 2015

Rocky II



Welcome back to FlashBack Friday where I'm covering all of the Rocky films leading up to the upcoming release of Creed! Last time was a glowing review of the original Rocky film, but I did mention that despite its iconic status I wasn't as familiar with it as a kid. Well, if I was unfamiliar with the first Rocky film before revisiting it a few years ago, it's been so long since seeing Rocky II that this might as well have been my first time. I had so few memories associated with this one that I really wasn't sure what to expect, but I knew from its reputation that it didn't quite live up to the first movie. With that, let's get into the plot of the film (and though it might go without saying, SPOILER ALERT from here on out!).