Stubs - Miracle on Main St.

Miracle on Main St. (1939) Starring Margo, Walter Abel, William Collier Sr., Lyle Talbot. Directed by Steve Sekely. Screenplay by Frederick Jackson. Produced by Jack H. Skirball. Run time: 78 minutes. Black and White. USA Christmas, Melodrama

Before there was Cher or Madonna, there was Margo. Born María Marguerita Guadalupe Teresa Estela Bolado Castilla y O'Donnell, in Mexico City, Margo began her career as a dancer, at age 9, working for her uncle Xavier Cugat and his band in performances at nightclubs in Mexico. While accompanying Cugat and his orchestra at the Waldorf Astoria in New York City, Margo was discovered by producer and director Ben Hecht and screenwriter Charles MacArthur, who cast the 17-year-old performer as the lead in their film Crime Without Passion. She would also have a memorable part in Frank Capra’s Lost Horizon (1937).

Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (PS3)

Back in high school, in the far-off era of the mid-2000s, I couldn’t escape discussion about Call of Duty (CoD) from fellow students, particularly the Modern Warfare trilogy (even one of my teachers played Modern Warfare 2 at the time). Despite this, however, I never really touched the games for one reason or another due to my differing tastes in games at the time. I have since played more FPS games, as you can see on this blog, but even then, I still never touched CoD and hadn’t intended to thanks to the series’ increasingly mixed reception. That would change, however, as I learned that the series had more than just the name going for it and actually left a major impact on FPS games and gaming as a whole. As such, I decided that for the fifteenth anniversary of this blog, I would finally do my due diligence and play the Modern Warfare trilogy, beginning with Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (CoD4) from 2007, developed by Infinity Ward. I didn’t know exactly what to expect going in, but I walked away finally understanding the game’s appeal and lasting influence.

Five Nights at Freddy's 2 (Film)

When the first Five Nights at Freddy’s (FNAF) film finally came out in 2023 and proved itself a runaway success, making back over ten times its $20 million budget, a sequel, Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 (FNAF2), based on the game of the same name, was inevitable. As a fan, I was hyped enough for the film that I attended the Hall H panel at San Diego Comic-Con, where the cast and crew discussed the experience working on the film and they had announced a Scream reunion with Matthew Lillard and Skeet Ulrich appearing in the same film once again (they also gave away pizza boxes lifted straight out of FNAF). As a reviewer, I recognized the flaws in FNAF, even more so on repeated viewings, though there were assurances that the production crew had listened to feedback and incorporated the criticisms into the sequel, which had a much smoother production. While FNAF2 did leave me curious about the future of the series, I can’t deny that it was overall a step down from the original.

Zootopia 2

Ever since seeing the original Zootopia in 2016, I’ve always felt that there was a lot of untapped storytelling potential for its setting. While this has come in the form of comics and children’s books, as well as the short-form Disney+ series Zootopia+, I’ve felt a lot more could be done with a longer story, as the premise seems to lend itself perfectly to an episodic TV series. While this does not appear to be happening, the next best thing came nearly 10 years later with the announcement of the sequel film Zootopia 2, though my expectations were tempered a bit by Disney’s recent sequel track record. It is then fortunate that the film not only surpassed these expectations, but actually managed to improve on the first in some ways.

Stubs - Larceny, Inc.

Larceny, Inc. (1942) starring Edward G. Robinson, Jane Wyman, Broderick Crawford, Jack Carson, Anthony Quinn, Edward Brophy. Directed by Lloyd Bacon. Screenplay by Everett Freeman, Edwin Gilbert. Based on the play The Night Before Christmas by Laura and S. J. Perelman (New York, 10 Apr 1941). Executive Producer: Hal B. Wallis. Run time: 95 minutes. Black and White. USA. Comedy, Drama, Christmas

Towards the end of his career at Warner Bros., Edward G. Robinson made movies that spoofed the hard-nosed gangster roles that had made him a star; comedies, like A Slight Case of Murder (1938) and Brother Orchid (1940). Both of these films were directed by Lloyd Bacon, so it is no surprise that Bacon would be chosen to direct Robinson’s final film at the studio, the comedy Larceny, Inc.

Sonic Heroes (Xbox)

Note: This review contains spoilers for Sonic Adventure 2 and Sonic Heroes.

Following the release of Sonic Adventure 2 (SA2), the previously unthinkable happened when Sega went third-party and started developing titles for non-Sega consoles and handhelds, including Sonic Advance, which officially ended the long-standing rivalry with Nintendo. When Sega showed interest in developing a multi-platform Sonic game, Sonic Team USA landed on a team-based concept to take advantage of the capabilities of newer hardware. Since the new title, Sonic Heroes (Heroes), would celebrate the series’ twelfth anniversary, they also decided that they would create a standalone experience closer to the Genesis games instead of a third Adventure entry, both due to the number of numbered sequels hitting the market and out of a desire for accessibility. The final game would launch in 2003 to mixed reception, but still sold very well and led to the development of 2005’s Shadow the Hedgehog.

Unlike some of the other Sonic games I’ve reviewed recently, I actually have more of a personal history with this one. When it first came out, it was one of the first Sonic console games I owned, so I played it obsessively, yet I couldn’t ever finish the game. At some point, I didn’t have my PS2 copy anymore, though an original Xbox that I bought still had a copy in the disc drive, so I ended up playing that copy for the purpose of this review (the disc had seen better days, but the data layer still looked fine). Fortunately, the disc held up well as I finally completed Heroes over twenty years later and concluded that it’s built around a neat idea with a tedious and frustrating execution.

Stubs - Armored Car Robbery

Armored Car Robbery (1950) Starring Charles McGraw, Adele Jergens, William Talman Directed by Richard Fleischer. Screenplay by Earl Felton, Gerald Drayson Adams. Produced by Herman Schlom. Run Time: 67 minutes. Black and White. USA Film Noir, Crime, Drama, Police, Heist

Many films that get categorized as film noirs fit into another group of titles called B pictures. Armored Car Robbery is such a film. An RKO Pictures production, Armored Car Robbery, according to film professor Bob Porfirio, possesses the "film noir visual style" of the many RKO crime and suspense films of the early 1950s, such as: high-contrast photography integrating studio and location shooting, expressionistic lighting, deep focus, and haunting music (by Roy Webb).