Tag: Oscar Isaac

Autumn’s Not the Right Time for the Addams Family Sequel

The Addams Family 2 doesn’t key into what made the first film fun to watch.

The Addams Family 2 poster.pngBy Ed Sum
(The Vintage Tempest)

Spoiler Alert

The sequel to the animated 2019 Addams Family reboot will not click with everyone. It has the feel of not adhering to the style and satire Charles Addams crafted. Instead of focussing on the ooky, it’s more like a regular teen angst drama where Wednesday (Chloë Grace Moretz) is more of the star than ever. She believes she isn’t a genuine Addams. This has Gomez (Oscar Isaac) fearing she wants nothing to do with her kin anymore. He hatches a plan to take the entire family on a summer vacation!

As a result, this movie could’ve worked more for Summer than Fall. When considering this movie is one of many works with a rescheduled release date, it suffers from the dilemma of when it can be released in countries attempting to restart within a pandemic. I would’ve been okay for an even longer wait to maximize interest, and perhaps changing up the focus on who the stars are.

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Unanswered Questions (Still Exists) After The Rise of Skywalker

Image result for rise of skywalker posterBy Ed Sum
(The Vintage Tempest)

Mild Spoiler Alert!

This weekend, all eyes are on Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker. This chapter is a mystery because nobody but writers J.J. Abrams and Chris Terrio knows what this tagline really means. Delivering freedom across the galaxy against the tyrannical First Order now led by Kylo Ren (Adam Driver) requires more than the Resistance making the last stand. Anyone looking at the Wikipedia for a summary will get the movie spoiled big time. Don’t look.

Speculation included the rise of a new order of Force users or introducing a new individual who is either a lost Skywalker or a random individual just as powerful with this mystical art. The last film by Rian Johnson is special in that regard. It put the power to the everyman. Ray was a Nobody. Her heritage did not matter. The final frame showed a very young boy having the power too, and hope will always lie with a new generation.

Speculation on who Ray is the daughter of is rampant because part of the fandom wants closure. I had other expectations and am still left scratching my head because of a few oddball moments.

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Time to Get Kooky with The Addams Family

 

Image result for addams family movie posterBy Ed Sum
(The Vintage Tempest)

Every couple of years, some entertainment mogul wants to bring The Addams Family back to the public consciousness. They can’t be buried and It’s impossible to change their ways; they’re wonderfully spooky and kooky. As for whether that’s with recognized talents or voice-over gurus in the roles, Gomez (Oscar Isaac), Morticia (Charlize Theron), Pugsley (Finn Wolfhard) and Wednesday (Chloë Grace Moretz) are what they are. To bring to life the quintessential elements of what they are to a any kind of stage has artist Charles Addams grinning from the grave.

The Addams are an off kilter family with a love for the macabre. They live their lifestyle in all its supernatural glory which include staying in a haunted house that wants them out. It’s not expected to learn Wednesday will one day leave the flock. Years of isolation has her curious about the outside world and establish an identity of her own. As with any movie with a tween as its star, it’s time to explore.

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An X-Nerd’s Guide and Review of X-Men: Apocalypse

X-Men_Apocalypse_International_PosterBy Ed Sum (The Vintage Tempest)

* Spoiler alert!

When X-Men: Days of Future Past (DoFP) introduced a young En Sabah Nur building a pyramid in ancient Egypt after the movie credits, I was very excited for the next film. While I knew the film would not be set entirely in the past, the introduction of this character was all too brief in that past instance and only a few new details are revealed in X-Men: Apocalypse.

He’s the world’s first mutant who has a god complex and he wants to wipe out humanity to forge a new empire. In the comics, he’s out to create a new world order and he is a lot more patient about it. Many months passed in his quest to find his ideal knights. In the film, he’s rushing the end of days and whom he chooses to be the four horsemen are not necessarily those of the biblical version of the four horseman of the apocalypse. The title of which, Nur uses as his codename.

Angel (Ben Hardy) transformed into Archangel and he’s easily recognizable as the Horseman of Death. He’s the only character from the original X-Factor comic book arc when the villain made life tough for the team. Unlike the source, Angel lost his wings (those fragile bones were shattered) and Apocalypse offered to regenerate them at the cost of becoming a servant. Little is known about the character in the film. He’s a slave forced into cage sports. He looked very cool at the start, but once he became evil, the punk look does not suit him well.

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Star Wars The Force Awakens, A Fan Commentary and Review

The Force Awakens is a masterpiece of technical filmmaking and that’s about all it has going for it under this new Disney management.

star-wars-force-awakens-official-posterTo witness Star Wars: The Force Awakens in the same fervour as this franchise got exciting in the later parts of the original trilogy, Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, is exhilarating. The subtitle says more about the potential of where this latest instalment is going sounds like a return to form — in keeping the mystique that surrounds The Force — and from there I was sold! I wondered what can transpire in a property that is now managed by Disney. Are they doing it because the property is a cash cow or because Lucas is out of ideas? In what the new writing team developed brings a new hope to a franchise that’s now 38 years old.

As the narrative in the trailers have indicated, there’s something in those “eyes” of the old and new heroes who find themselves in this war. In traditional story-telling fashion, they are often regarded as a window to an individual’s soul. Quite often, writers use that angle to show how people can recognize family lines of individuals they have not met. Take, for example, the Harry Potter films where the hero is often told, “You have your mother’s eyes.”

Just who is Finn (John Boyega), Poe Dameron (Oscar Isaac), Rey (Daisy Ridley), Kylo Ren (Adam Driver)? They make up the cast in this latest film which is emphasizing the fact that a few of them may be related to one another, or to an individual from the past.
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