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Thankfully, There’s Just One Dust Bunny Than Two in Bryan Fuller’s Directorial Debut

Bryan Fuller’s feature debut Dust Bunny pairs Mads Mikkelsen with a sharp young heroine and a very picky monster under the bed. It’s a stylised mix of dark fantasy and absurdist humour that doesn’t always land, but its strange, playful energy is hard to shake.

Dust Bunny Movie Poster Lionsgate
Coming to theatres Dec 12th

Most fans of Bryan Fuller’s work will name Hannibal or Pushing Daisies as his defining projects, but for me, his voice was forged back when he got full credit for scripts for Star Trek Voyager and Deep Space Nine. In Dust Bunny, his feature debut, he leans into an Art déco sensibility that flirts with Wes Anderson staging while brushing up against Tim Burton’s sense of humour. It’s an odd blend, but I’m enjoying the experiment. That’s because his ideas have always balanced a dark, moral edge with a certain playfulness.

As the title suggests, there’s a monster in the mix. Young Aurora (Sophie Sloan) believes it ate her foster parents. Alone for a few days, she’s not sure what to do. But once she musters the courage to ask for help, the only person she can turn to is Resident 5B (Mads Mikkelsen). He’s the perfect “freaky neighbour,” a type Mikkelsen slides into with alarming ease. Together, this unlikely duo might be the only hope the apartment has for stopping whatever’s lurking under the beds before it decides to snack on more tenants.

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The One Detail That Might Have Saved Borderlands from Being a Dud Is…

For the Sake of the Curious, Not Even Jack Black Can Save Borderlands from Mediocrity. What’s explored here is why I think it failed.

Lionsgate Films

Eli Roth should stick to making splatterpunk films than dabble with properties that he’s not likely to include his trademark scares with. The reason I like the Borderlands game is because of the archaeology. Those legends to explain why the tech exists are a lot more fascinating than the characters, and in this film, it’s lightly touched upon instead of gone nose deep!

Here, the idea concerns Vault Hunters in the search for artefacts from a forgotten civilization strewn around the world of Pandora. Any weapon they find can help “enrich” them in later missions. I liked the world building but didn’t feel I had to play through them all. The characters who populate this world are misfits. Some cry foul language, and there’s a bubblegum pop culture aesthetic which made the game come alive.

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When Fealty and John Wick 4 Are Like Best Buddies… not!

What we see in John Wick 4 is more than a revenge story when the lead has to meet old acquaintances, look for new allies, and challenge the High Table just to achieve freedom. The world is looking very sinister.

Lionsgate Pictures
Spoiler Alert

Just now many lives does Jardani Jovonovich (Keanu Reeves) have? By my count, he expended enough to say John Wick 4 is the tally on the times he should’ve died. But this man is tough. He can withstand punishment that would send a common man into a coma, and he must have the supernatural abilities of a spider to dodge getting hit.

Before embarking on this review and fan commentary, I wanted to revisit the previous films to remind myself about the world Wick was once part of. He was a hit-man. Throughout the films, we find out he wants to be free from The High Table. Past chapters reveal that they are a global criminal cabal who employs a special league of assassins for their in-fighting and assaults on humanity. Fans of the Batman comics can forget about the Court of Owls and Ra’s al Ghul’s empire; this version is worse and dates back to the time of antiquity. With ominous titles like The Harbinger (nicely played by Clancy Brown), Charon (Lance Reddick) and even Caine (Donnie Yen) making up a huge supporting cast, I wondered who can be added since the third film?

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The Comedy JEXI Gets a Green Band Trailer

JEXI

Release Date:
October 11, 2019

If a passing familiarity to American made Her or the Japanese Animation Video Girl Ai sounds familiar, Jexi is the film for you. CBS Films and Entertainment One in conjunction with Lionsgate will release this comedy in theaters on October 11, 2019.

When Phil (Adam Devine) is your typical awkward guy who needs help to make girlfriends, the last thing anyone needs is a virtual assistant who has a mind of her own. When he upgrades his phone, the latest model comes with an unexpected feature–Jexi (Rose Byrne) – an A.I. life coach and cheerleader. She offers more than Amazon’s Alexa or Apple’s Siri ever can, and sounds cuter too!

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My Little Pony: The Movie Delights and is All-Star

By Ed Sum (The Vintage Tempest)

The toy company Hasbro will most likely have a hit with their theatrical relaunch of the My Little Pony franchise. The simply named film My Little Pony the Movie debuts October 6th and it will have enough humour to appeal to young fans and old. Newcomers might be at a loss to understand what the hubbub is about; all anyone needs to know is that these talking animals are an embodiment of the best virtues of knighthood. But this club is not exclusive. The ponies do their best to teach to the world (and each other) how to be a better person. In this film, we meet Capper, a cat who can easily challenge Puss in Boots (DreamWorks) for the title of which animated feline to love and a team of parrot pirates who embody the true romance of sailing the seven seas. Well, in their case, it’s the skies over Equestria.

The story sees Princess Twilight Sparkle (Tara Strong) and her friends prepare for a festival. Moments before any fun can take place, a very familiar if not generically evil Storm King (Liev Schreiber) — I was reminded of how alike he is to The Emporer in LEGO Star Wars: The Freemaker Adventures — and his assistant Tempest Shadow (Emily Blunt) raid the kingdom. Sparkle’s sisters are captured and she barely escapes. and attempt to capture her too. This unicorn gone bad and the wolf-like conquerer teamed up because Shadow believed the king can restore her broken horn. Between all the various types of horses believed to roam this world, I think more unicorns types exist because they are inherently more magical than ponies and pegasi. This stems from their mythical origins. While the toy company may have never considered making this connection since the introduction of this product line in 1981, some newer and older fans may well wonder.

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Go No Power Rangers or Go See It? A Movie Review

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By Ed Sum (The Vintage Tempest)
* Minor spoiler alert

The Power Rangers movie has the potential to be better than its “original” product — a hodge-podge of American shot storyline mixed in with fighting footage from Toei’s Super Sentai series. Thankfully, as a product from a single producer with a think tank of creative minds, it’s not as much of a mixed product, but a well to do update of series still beloved by those who love tokusatsu (entertainment emphasizing special effects more than character drama).

This film offers all the right tones in the opening act which no doubt showed the producers are aware of Power/Rangers, the fan film. Praised for its darker story and lamented because it was not for kids (it is gory violent), I wondered how deep the back story would get. I enjoyed the opening moments since it hinted towards this bloodier direction. As a PG-13 rated film (there’s some bad words said and a LBGT character), I was a little dismayed but did wonder how long this movie will take to get past all the origins and team-building exercises to get to the big fight which marks the last act of every television episode.

But is this movie better than the dubbed parody Dynamen which premiered on Night Flight? While this other show introduced me to this world with its hilarious send-up and mix of 80’s music, hopefully the series I truly adored does not jade what I have to say. While I care little for this decade’s modern music, this movie released by Lionsgate is wildly entertaining. It is set to look at problems some youths face today. Mind you, I will not be drowning my sorrows at a Krispy Kreme, since none exists in my hometown and I ignored this laughingly blatant product placement.

When you get used to seeing a lot of Michael Bay style films over the years to which this film obviously draws its style from, there comes a time where switching the brain off during these type of movies is a must. You watch it for the eye candy and I must admit, those Zords (the mechs the Rangers pilot) look cool! The look of the bad guys is another story, which I’ll get into later.

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