The Blu Spot

Ernest Cline’s “Ready Player One” seemed like an idea that was destined to be popular right from the time of its publication. The pop culture-filled novel earned a plethora of positive reviews and even became a New York Times bestseller, pretty much making it a foregone conclusion that we would one day see a film adaptation on the big screen, and indeed it’s no surprise to learn that said film rights were nabbed by Warner Bros. a full year before the book was even published.

The Film: It was only a month ago that I wrote about Takashi Miike’s latest incredible film, the thrilling samurai epic “Blade of the Immortal,” which earned a place on my top ten films list of last year. In that review, I also mentioned several of his early films that got him to this point, including the chilling “Audition” and another amazing samurai flick entitled “13 Assassins.” However, the early work that he is perhaps best known for is the utterly bizarre “Ichi the Kil

The Film: In the history of modern sports, it seems like there have always been scandals. From “fixing” games to gambling to doping to biting off an ear, it feels like these events just go hand in hand. However, out of all of these scandals, one has always stood out as one of the strangest, most talked-about occurrences in all of sports. The event in question is, of course, the infamous attack on figure skater Nancy Kerrigan by Shane Stant on January 6th, 1994, in which he at

The Film: “Justice League.” It’s the movie that many DC Comics superfans have been waiting for for years now, the film that will finally unite several of their favorite superheroes to do battle against an evil being that threatens all life on Earth. Indeed, it has been a long time coming, though as to what to expect when we finally got here was another matter. After all, as I’ve mentioned before, the DCEU has been having an awful lot of trouble establishing their universe tha

The Film: The Marvel Cinematic Universe is well-known for having some insanely entertaining franchises under its belt, including “Guardians of the Galaxy” (still their best series of films to date) and “Captain America” (which has provided some of the most action-packed films in the entire collection). However, there have also been some series that have somewhat fallen on the wayside, one of which has been the “Thor” films. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed both previous films we

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has just finished handing out the 90th Annual Academy Awards, ending in a rather surprising finish. Guillermo del Toro's romantic fairy tale "The Shape of Water" has claimed Best Picture, along with Best Director (Del Toro), Best Production Design, and Best Original Score. Christopher Nolan's "Dunkirk" was not far behind with three wins: Best Film Editing, Best Sound Editing, and Best Sound Mixing. The victory for "The Shape of

The Film: When it comes to Disney’s pantheon of classic animated films, you have the standard group of masterpieces that are mentioned quite often, a class of film that includes “The Lion King,” “Sleeping Beauty,” “Beauty and the Beast,” and several more. Then there’s a slightly lesser category for those animated works that audiences remember fondly and are still rather enjoyable, but don’t quite stack up to the major players that Disney has delivered over the decades. This w