Cinema Spotlight VI - Jon Favreau (Part 2): "Made"

Bobby Ricigliano and Ricky Slade

Thanks to Swingers, Jon Favreau nabbed more acting jobs in mainly supporting roles in movies (The Replacements & Deep Impact) and especially television; guest-starring in such programs like Friends, Disney's Hercules, Dilbert, The Sopranos, and Buzz Lightyear of Star Command. While the acting gig was fairly well, Favreau loved watching the director at work and learning a few tips like filming certain shots and working with actors; from his early his days on Rudy with David Anspaugh, his breakout role in Swingers with Doug Liman, to more recent work like The Wolf of Wall Street with Martin Scorsese. At the dawn of the new century, Favreau began working on another script that was reminiscent of his first screenplay with him and his old pal Vince Vaughn once again in the lead roles.

Double Review: Men in Black:International & The Dead Don't Die

Two summer movies feature a ragtag team fighting foes not of this world while a strange occurrence appears in the night sky. Thor & Valkyrie take on the scum of the universe while Peter Venkman and Kylo Ren are left to deal with the undead. Despite the exciting premise, both films failed to connect with audiences. Are both deserving of such scrutiny? 

The Secret Life of Pets 2: Same Tricks No Bone

Rooster (Harrison Ford) staring down at Max (Patton Oswalt).

Like its predecessor, The Secret Life of Pets 2 functions more as a series of shorts stitched together and forced to pass off as a feature-length film. They also feel like inferior Pixar movies with the first film bearing Toy Story's plot. The two main leads fight over the attention of their human owner, get lost in the scuffle and have to find their way back home. The sequel resembles The Good Dinosaur with a small and frighted animal learning to face his fears in the wild. But where the first Pets movie at least had a concise story connecting the characters from beginning to end, I can't say the same for Pets 2. 

The X-Men are Forced into a Final Stand in Dark Phoenix

Sophie Turner as Jean Gray/Phoenix. 

Set in 1992, nine years after the events of X-Men: Apocalypse, its another usual day for the X-Men; going on missions and saving the day. This time, going to outer space and saving astronauts from a solar flare tempest. Telekinetic Jean Grey (Sophie Turner) absorbs the flare and emerges unharmed, much to her team's surprise. "Did you hear what the kids are calling you? Phoenix." says her boyfriend Scott Summers/Cyclops (Tye Sheridan) in her moment of glory. The moment is quickly over when Jean starts to experience a psychic spasm that she can't control and runs away.

Godzilla vs Ghidorah: Dawn of Monsters

The Kings Face-off

The 1998 film from Roland Emmerich and the 2014 film from Gareth Edwards are the closest to having watched kaiju cinema. The former being a silly 90's action blockbuster while the latter goes The Dark Knight route on being a more gritty and serious. While the 2014 iteration is superior on a technical and critical level, I have a soft spot for the 98 version; admittedly for nostalgic reasons. While it found life again as an animated series, fans of the original were still non too pleased with Emmerich's vision and welcomed the second reboot from Edwards with open arms. It's success lead to Kong: Skull Island, taking place in the same universe but back in the seventies whereas Godzilla (2014) took place in present time. Thus the MonsterVerse was born.