Chuck's Movie Breakdown

        Hey guys, Chuck here. Well, we've officially reached the end of 90's Throwback Month , and what better way to mark the end of a month dedicated to a decade that gave us some landmark films, cult hits, and some of the most well-known disaster films of all time than by ripping into what is, quite possibly, the biggest film disaster of all time. Ladies and gentlemen: Godzilla .           Released in the summer of 1998, this Roland Emmerich-directed waste of celluloid was marketed pretty cleverly, as they never showed the monster directly in any of the marketing, instead relying on audience imagination, with billboards saying "His head is as big as this sign" and bus signs that read "His foot is as long as this bus." Even the film's tagline, "Size Does Matter," made the movie sound cool. Unfortunately, the film we ended up getting, while something cool for kids back then to enjoy (myself...

          Hey guys, Chuck here. Well, as I said in my Twister review earlier this month, the 90's had a number of disaster films released to the big screen. So, today for 90's Throwback Month , I'm going to take a look at one of the more popular disaster films of the decade, which happens to be directed by none other than the one and only Michael Bay. This is Armageddon .          Released in 1998, the movie focuses on an asteroid the size of the state of Texas that is hurdling towards Earth, and will cause an extinction-level event when it hits the Earth's surface. After a massive meteor strike in New York, a group of NASA scientists led by Dan Truman (Played by Billy Bob Thornton) make a plan to land a team on the asteroid and drill a hole into it in order to use a nuclear warhead to split the asteroid in half. Truman seeks out the advice of Harry Stamper (played by Bruce W...

        Hey guys, Chuck here. Today for 90's Throwback Month , it's time to look at a film from the 90's that everyone loves, and is still remembered fondly to this day, and that film is 1994's The Mask starring Jim Carrey and directed by Chuck Russell.           Loosely based on the comic book series of the same name by Dark Horse Comics, The Mask follows mild-mannered banker Stanley Ipkiss, who after a humiliating night of getting a piece of crap car to drive while his own is still being repaired, being kept from entering the newest night club in Edge City, the Coco Bongo, despite his best friend and co-worker gaining entrance, and having the car he was lent literally fall to pieces, returns home after finding an ancient looking wooden mask in the river. After watching a VHS tape of cartoons, appropriately titled Screwball Classics, Stanley tries the mask on, only to be transformed into a gree...

        Hey guys, Chuck here. I can't believe that 90's Throwback Month is almost over. It seems like only yesterday that I was inspired to dedicate a huge part of February to reviewing 90's movies. So, with only four reviews left in 90's Throwback Month . let's take a look at some real 90's cheese with Demolition Man .         Released in 1993, this action cheese fest focuses on LAPD officer John Spartan (played by Sylvester Stallone) who is on an assignment in the inferno of Los Angeles, in an attempt to arrest psychotic criminal Simon Phoenix (played by Wesley Snipes). After arresting Phoenix, and being charged with negligence, as a bus full of Phoenix's hostages was found in the rubble of the destroyed building that Spartan pulled Phoenix out of, with all of the hostages dead, Spartan is put into cryonic preservation alongside Phoenix in LA's new cryo prison.   ...

       Hey guys, Chuck here. Okay, I know I'm about to break the first two rules, but you know what? This movie is pretty much one of the most celebrated 90's movies. So, throwing the first two rules aside, for 90's Throwback Month , let's talk about Fight Club .          The movie focuses on an unnamed narrator, who we'll call Jack for simplicity's sake. Jack works as a recall coordinator for a major car company. He also suffers from insomnia, and hasn't slept in weeks. After attending a life support meeting, befriending Bob Paulson, and letting himself cry, Jack finally gets some sleep. Continuing to attend various life support meetings, everything seems to be going well, until a woman who is also just attending the meetings for no reason at all arrives. This would be Marla Singer, an impoverished woman who might just be slightly insane. Jack finds himself unable to sleep once again as another faker, Marla, is at the meetings he attends. ...

          Hey guys, Chuck here. You know, I love the Looney Tunes. Although I grew up with stuff like Animaniacs and Tiny Toons , the Looney Tunes were still popular back then, and are still popular today. I also enjoy basketball. Although I'm more of a baseball guy (the Oakland A's to be exact), I still enjoy basketball. I'm sating all of this because today for 90's Throwback Month , we'll be looking at a 90's family film that combined basketball with the Looney Tunes: Space Jam . Released in 1996, Space Jam came about after the release of a series of popular Nike commercials for the Air Jordan sneaker line that starred Michael Jordan and Looney Tunes characters Bugs Bunny and Marvin the Martian. Due to the popularity of these commercials, Warner Bros. decided to produce a full-length feature headlined by Michael Jordan and Bugs Bunny. So, let's take a look  at that feature: Space Jam .         The movie opens up with a young Michae...

        Hey guys, Chuck here. Well, I just went to see the new movie Sonic the Hedgehog . Currently, here on Chuck's Movie Breakdown , we're right in the middle of 90's Throwback Month , and in my opinion, this does feel like an homage to 90's movies. And given that Sonic was a popular brand in the 90's, both as a video game and a series of TV cartoons, that makes sense. So, let's get into it.         The movie starts off with Sonic as a child being forced to escape from his world to ours when he and his caretaker are attacked by a troop of Echidnas (which fans of the game will recognize as being Knuckles' people. Sonic, with his bag of rings, spends the next several years in the town of Green Hills, Montana (a nice nod to the Green Hill Zone from the games), completely in secret. However, after causing an EMP burst by running around a baseball diamond, Sonic attracts the attention of the government, who ...

            Hey guys, Chuck here. Well, he we are. Today, we'll be looking at the movie that pretty much inspired me to make the month of February 90's Throwback Month this year. A movie that, in my opinion, is the ultimate 90's Throwback movie. That movie is the 1997 comic book movie Spawn.             Based on the comics by Todd McFarlane, this 1997 action flick was directed by Mark A. Z. Dippé. The movie starts with Black Ops agent Al Simmons, who kills a high profile target with a missile, and then returns to his boss, Jason Wynn, to say he's done. Wynn rebuffs this and sends Al on another assignment. However, this assignment is a trap, and Wynn is there, along with Jessica Priest, and the two of them kill Simmons by burning him to death. This ultimately sends Simmons' soul to Hell, where he makes a deal to lead Malebolgia's army in exchange for Malebolgia ...

             Hey guys, Chuck here, and welcome back to 90's Throwback Month. For today's review, we'll be taking  a look at a sci-fi movie that, while sneered by critics at the time, has gotten quite a following over the years. That film is the 1997 Paul Verhoeven classic  Starship Troopers .          Throughout the film are a series of news clips that satirize military/government propaganda, and we see that humanity is in an intergalactic conflict with the Arachnids of the desolate planet Klendathu. After a sequence showing a number of soldiers being killed by the Arachnids, we flash back to a year earlier, where we meet high schooler Johnny Rico, who lives in the city of Buenos Aires, Argentina, and is about to graduate along with his girlfriend, Carmen Ibanez, and his best friend, Carl Jenkins. After graduation, all three enlist into military service. You see...

        Hey guys, Chuck here, and welcome back to 90's Throwback Month . Let's face it, movies based on video games tend to, well, suck. Super Mario Bros, Double Dragon, Wing Commander , the list goes on. However, among the movies based on video games to actually be successful, the most memorable one of them is the 1995 film, Mortal Kombat .          Directed by Paul W. S. Anderson, who at the time was credited as just Paul Anderson, Mortal Kombat focuses on three individuals brought together to fight against the forces of Outworld in an ancient tournament called Mortal Kombat. The reason for this is due to the Elder Gods making a decree that before they can invade the realm of Earth, the forces of Outworld must defeat fighters from Earth in ten straight victories in Mortal Kombat. By the time the movie starts, Outworld has won nine times so far. The three Earthrealm fighters are Liu Kang, who enters the ...

        Hey guys, Chuck here. Well, last night was the 92nd annual Academy Awards ceremony. That's Right, the Oscars were last night. Unfortunately, due to attending a comic book convention earlier tat day, I didn't return home in time to watch the beginning of the ceremony. However, I did watch the remainder of the show and well, here are my thoughts on the Oscars.        Now, I should point out that Joker , which led the nomination count with eleven nominations, took home two Oscars last night, Best Original Score for Hildur Guðnadóttir, and Best Actor for Joaquin Phoenix. Laura Dern took home Best Supporting Actress for Marriage Story , Brad Pitt took home Best Supporting Actor for Once Upon a Time in Hollywood , and Renee Zellweger took home Best Actress for Judy . Pixar's Toy Story 4 took home Best Animated Feature, and the song "(I'm Gonna) Love Me Again" from Rocketman took home Best Original Song. Sam Mendes' l...

        Hey guys, Chuck here. Well, I just got back from watching the latest entry of the DC Extended Universe, Birds of Prey . Now, I am aware that the full title of the movie is Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn) , but for the sake of timing, I'm just going to call it Birds of Prey .          Set some time after the events of the 2016 film, Suicide Squad , Birds of Prey picks up with Harley Quinn having broken up with the Joker, After dealing with depression of their break-up, Harley does something completely crazy, and now has a target on her head, as now she is no longer protected by being the Jokers' girlfriend. It is here that we meet Roman Sionis/Black Mask, a Gotham City mobster, who is after a priceless diamond with the bank information to access a fortune engraved upon it. Unfortunately, the diamond is swiped by a teenage girl named Cassandra Cain, and now Harley, a...

           Hey guys, Chuck here, and welcome back to 90's Throwback Month . Today, we'll be taking a look at one of the many disaster movies that were really popular back in the 1990's: Twister .           The movie starts off in Oklahoma in the year 1969, with a family escaping to their storm cellar for protection from an oncoming tornado, when the father, while trying to hold the cellar door shut, is grabbed by the tornado and flown to his death. Years later. and we meet  Bill Harding, played by Bill Paxton, who is off to collect the divorce papers from his estranged wife Jo (the little girl we saw at the beginning of the movie, played by Helen Hunt), so that he can be free to marry his new fiancée Melissa, played by Jami Gertz. It's here that we meet Jo's crew, the Storm Chasers, and their newest instrument in studying tornadoes, DOROTHY, which was Bill's design. After gett...

         Hey guys, Chuck here, and welcome to 90's Throwback Month . Throughout the month, we'll be looking at a selection of movies from the 1990's. And while we'll be looking at a few gems throughout the month, this will mostly be a cornucopia of 90's cheese fest movies. So, let's kick off 90's Throwback Month with a film that not only was the definition of 90's cinema, but changed action movies going into the 2000's. Let's take a look at The Matrix .           Released in the year 1999, the film focuses on a faction of humans who are able to perform incredible feats, and are on the run from green-suited Agents, who are able to perform similar feats, but are limited by the world they inhabit. It turns out that both parties are looking for a man named Neo, played by Keanu Reeves, who is met by one of the human Resistance fighters, Trinity, played by Carrie-Anne Moss. Trinity tell him that she knows ...