Author: Heath Andrews

It’s hard to believe that its been 23 years since Sir Peter Jackson’s “The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring” hit theaters. Since then, it and its follow-ups “The Two Towers” and “The Return of the King” have become cultural touchstones. They’ve also seen expansions and remasters in the intervening decades that have turned the films into epics that are yearly viewing experiences for some families and households all over the world. If you act quickly enough though, you may get the chance to see these movies in 4K at a nearby theater this summer. Warner Bros.…

Sequels, sequels, sequels; if there’s one thing you can count on in today’s film industry, it’s sequels. The idea of being able to build off of a currently existing intellectual property is far more attractive to production studios as opposed to something new. Heck, there’s a new “28 Days Later” trilogy coming. But we did not have a follow-up to Aaron Sorkin’s 2010’s “The Social Network” on our film sequel bingo card, nor it being about the January 6th insurrection. In case the film wasn’t your cup of tea back in the day, “The Social Network” was about the development…

There’s a lot that’s been happening in the world lately, so much in fact that you may have missed out on a major cultural event in the land of television. On September 8th, 2023 American viewers were treated to the finale of Ash Ketchum’s journey to be a Pokémon Master. It was exactly 25 years to the day from when the “Pokémon” anime series premiered in the US and it closed out an era that so many of us grew up with. But the adventures in the world of “Pokémon” didn’t end there, because a new series, “Pokemon Horizons” was…

Well, it hasn’t quite been 28 years later since 2002, but it’s getting quite close. That was the year director Danny Boyle (“Trainspotting”) and writer Alex Garland (“Civil War”) brought us the quite British zombie film, “28 Days Later.” With surprisingly fast zombies, Cillian Murphy, Naomie Harris, and profitable box-office haul, the film would cement itself as one of the better zombie themed pieces of media. And it would do this eight years before “The Walking Dead” television series gave zombies a new life. Recently, a new project in the “28 Days Later” franchise has been rising from the grave,…

In 2024 we’re on the cusp of James Gunn trying to bring Superman back to the big screen. And while we’ve had sequels, revamps, and other iterations in the interim, there’s still something magical about that 1978 classic. Thanks to the direction of the late, great, director Richard Donner, the music of John Williams, and the screen presence of the gone but not forgotten Christopher Reeve, we had reason to believe that a man could fly. So much of that credit has to go to Reeve, as very few people could embody what made Superman and his alter-ego, Clark Kent,…

As we approach the second half of the 2020s, you may think to yourself, “Gee, there’s a lot less robots than I thought there would be by now.” For children of the 80s and 90s, this is especially glaring given all the films, books, tv shows, and video games that assured us our world would be filled with advanced humanoid robots by now. The closest we’ve become to that promised reality was in the form of Atlas, the acrobatic robot from Boston Dynamics. It’s been roughly a decade since Atlas appeared on the scene, and the little rapscallion is retiring…

They say that smell is the sense that is linked the closest with memory. Whether that’s true or not, there is no mistaking there are certain smells of summertime that do bring to mind vivid mental images. The aroma of sunscreen, cut grass, chlorine in a swimming pool, and of course, food. Cookouts are a big part of the summer dining experience, and Pepsi is drawing on that to bring some limited-time flavors to you very soon. According to Pepsi, when it comes to summer, it’s the time to grill. That’s why they’re breaking out two special flavors, Pepsi Lime…

In March, things were finally starting to take shape for a long-rumored project regarding “The Office.” The beloved NBC sitcom has continued to amass a dedicated fanbase since its finale in 2013. Thanks in no small part to its popularity on streaming platforms, so a reboot or spin-off seemed inevitable. Those rumors finally turned into something greater when showrunner and creator of the American version of the program, Greg Daniels, was working on something new in-universe. He recruited “Nathan For You” co-creator Michael Koman to develop whatever this new show would be. While it’s not a reboot or remake, this…

Over the last ten years, filmmaker M. Night Shyamalan has managed something of a career renaissance. After a string of terribly received films including “The Last Airbender” in 2010 and “After Earth” in 2013, he slowly started to turn things around. In 2024, Shyamalan is coming off of the one-two punch of the financially successful but critically mixed films of “Old” and “Knock at the Cabin.” Here comes the next shot of horror with the succinctly titled “Trap.” This will be the first original story from Shyamalan since 2019’s “Glass.” The films he’s made in the interim have been adaptations…

This summer will mark five years since Quentin Tarantino’s “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” was released. Since then, there have been a number of reports about what Tarantino’s next project will be. At one point there was some serious back and forth about him directing a “Star Trek” film, but when the dust settled, the focus seemed to be on a project titled, “The Movie Critic.” Well, if you had your hopes up for that, prepare to have them seriously let down. If there has been one consistent story related to Tarantino’s tenth film, it’s that it will be…