Author: Mark A. Lester

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2 Stars

Morbius (2022)

Approximately six hours prior to seeing Morbius, I (perhaps prophetically) had a dentist appointment to have a filling replaced.

If you know me, you know the dentist (despite how nice they are to me) are among my least favorite places to go. On the Brightside, there was a slight miscommunication, as I only had a cleaning done. The experience was rather paralleled in that to my going into seeing Morbius, knowing that word of mouth said it was not going to be good. Seeing Morbius is indeed like going to the dentist to get a cavity filled (or a root canal), only to find out it is something as minor as a cleaning: While it is not all that bad, it is not an experience you want to go back on.

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"Top Tens", and others Movies

The 94th Academy Awards: My take on the Good, the Bad, and…well, you know what moment.

In the words of Ron Burgundy, “That escalated quickly!”.

The 94th Academy Awards had more than its fair share of failures (one we will get to), but it is important to remember that it had some good moments as well. Great moments, in fact, that are worth remembering.

In no particular order…

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"Top Tens", and others Movies

The 94th Academy Awards: Who will win, who should win, and why you should not underestimate the Power of the (under) dog

This may be a bad analogy, but making my predictions this year has been akin to playing Candy Land, possibly the worst kids board game of all time. If the goal is to simply make the predictions at a reasonable time, I am still feeling stuck on that black dot space, or I keep drawing that stupid muffin guy or whatever that brings me back to the start.

Either way, after hours of personal research (including looking at multiple anonymous Oscar voter revelations) here are my predictions, as well as what I think should win. I was also on a podcast with an old High School friend as we discussed the nominations (thanks again Mike!). That was split into two episodes.

NOTE: Not all the predictions I made on the podcast are the same here. What I have typed out are my final predictions.

And, of course, I feel all the categories are important, and should be on TV. So we will start with the lesser known categories…

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4 Stars

Turning Red (2022)

What was particularly curious to me about Turning Red was not the subject matter of the film so much as when the film takes place.

Halfway thru, I finally discovered that the film’s director, Domee Shi (her full length feature debut), was born around the same time as the film’s protagonist. This makes the intimacy of Turning Red only more personal and profound.

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4 Stars

The Batman (2022)

We are coming up on nearly a full eight decades since the caped crusader first appeared on big screens (thanks in part to serials of the 1940s).

Since then, we have had a ton of contributions to the character over the years. From grappling hooks to gravely voices to batarangs to shark repellant to bat nipples, Batman is a character that is as full of depth as any fictional being out there. Adding the grammatical article making the newest installment The Batman just scratches the surface of what the new installment adds to the lore.

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2 1/2 Stars

Uncharted (2022)

The undisputed magic of the Uncharted video game series was that it was the closest thing one could do to feel like they were Indiana Jones (outside of the original Tomb Raider games or being Harrison Ford).

The individual plots of the games were not entirely as memorable to me as the gameplay. Like the Indy films, the physics behind the action was ludicrous, yet still seemed plausible at the same time. I can’t speak for many video games in the present day (I watch too many movies to have time to play them), but some games like Uncharted seem so well suited to the video game world that they are cinematic on their own terms, and don’t require a film adaptation.

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3 1/2 Stars

Scream (2022)

Being that I saw the original Scream around the ripe age of 11 or so (it was all the hype in fourth grade), it took me some time to understand the “meta” aspect of the film.

Eventually (after seeing Scream 2, the only sequel I would see until now), I would get the references in the original as I would have seen most of the movies the characters have talked about. Thankfully, one does not need to see any of the other sequels to understand the newest Scream film (technically, “Scream 5”).

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4 Stars Vintage

Any Given Sunday (1999)

Unless I had some sort of personal connection associated with a certain game, my interest in football has mostly been minimal at best. That said, Oliver Stone’s Any Given Sunday has still held a unique place in my heart as a movie of certain first’s.

I remember seeing it in the theater at the ripe age of 12 with my dad, older brother, and grandpa. It was the first movie I would see for many of the actors (most notably Al Pacino), the first Oliver Stone movie, and (most of all), my first R rated movie in the theater. Looking back at the experience, what I remember most (aside from my dad essentially pay money for me to see a grown up movie which included swearing and sexuality) was the mood of down right intensity.

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"Top Tens", and others Movies

The Top 20 of 2021

From The Little Things to The Tragedy of Macbeth (Denzel bookends), I rounded out my amount of movies seen at seventy.

Even with that amount of movies, there was a fair amount of films I did not get to in time (especially, sadly, Foreign Language films). These include The Last Duel, The Green Knight, The Card Counter, Drive my Car, The Worst Person in the World, Stillwater, and The Tender Bar.

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4 1/2 Stars Movies

Mass (2021)

We are getting to the point in our country where everyone will have either been a witness to a mass shooting or will know someone who has (or worse, known a victim).

If you don’t believe me, well you will, because I was at NIU on Valentine’s Day in 2008 when a shooter killed five students before taking his own life.

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