MOVIE REVIEW: ‘Joy’ is largely joyless, even with Jennifer Lawrence
What do you get when take a bunch of great Academy Award-winning actors and actresses and then add an Oscar-winning director behind the camera? Most times, you get an incredibly good film, right? Well, it turns out that isn’t always the case – “Joy” is proof of that. This is the latest film by David […]
MOVIE REVIEW: ‘The Big Short’ is long on great, funny performances
When you think about Wall Street investment bankers, what comes to mind? For me, it’s a bunch of soulless, greedy business people spending other people’s money to make themselves rich. “The Big Short” is a film that validates those notions. Adam McKay, otherwise known as the guy who directs all of Will Ferrell’s movies, is […]
MOVIE REVIEW: No Jedi mind trick – ‘Force Awakens’ IS the ‘Star Wars’ film you’re looking for
Just a few minutes into “Star Wars: The Force Awakens,” longtime fans of the franchise can sense something, a presence they’ve not felt since… seeing “Return of the Jedi.” Whether you loved the prequel movies or despised them, many can at least agree that they are quite different films from the original trilogy in both […]
MOVIE REVIEW: ‘Krampus’ delivers humor, special effects, and fun, but not scares
When I first heard about “Krampus,” I’ll admit that I couldn’t help but chuckle a bit. Something about the idea of an evil Santa Claus just sounded too ridiculous to be true. A holiday-themed horror movie is not a new concept, with the “Halloween” series and niche films like “Silent Night, Deadly Night,” but I’ve […]
NEPA NERD: Stop treating fake trends like #BoycottStarWarsVII like real news
You know that feeling when one of your Facebook friends shares a fake or completely inaccurate article, along with their very real reaction, and you question why you’re even friends with this gullible dope in the first place? As a journalist, that feeling is a million times worse, especially when those articles are written by […]
LIVING YOUR TRUTH: Remaking ‘Rocky Horror’ and what this means to the LGBT community
To start, I should say that “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” is somewhat… sacred to me. It’s a film that features ambiguous sexualities, gender bending, transvestism, and a really well-known dance routine that’s super simple to do (I mean, it’s just a jump to the left, and then a step to the right. Oh, but […]
NEPA NERD: Pharma CEO Martin Shkreli is a real-life supervillain
In fiction, it’s usually pretty easy to spot the villain. Even if he’s not wearing black or sneering behind a nasty scar across his face, he’s almost always found on the direct opposite side of the protagonist, the physical embodiment of whatever evil our hero is fighting against. At his most cliché, he’s arrogant, cunning, […]
VHS rises from the dead for Electric City Shocker Theater in Scranton
Cult classic films screen on VHS on Saturday, Oct. 17 at Ale Mary's
Flashback time: You’re a kid again. Friday night, you and your friends scour the video rental store racks for the creepiest, bloodiest, most I’m-way-too-young-to-be-watching-this horror flicks you can get your mitts on. Later, you and your buddies huddle around the TV set like cavemen around the first fire, gorging yourselves on junk food and lurid […]
Misericordia debuts documentary with only surviving Nuremberg prosecutor Benjamin B. Ferencz on Sept. 22
From a press release: The Departments of English and History and Government at Misericordia University in Dallas are presenting a newly produced documentary with the only surviving member of the prosecution team of the Trial of the Major War Criminals before the International Military Tribunal in Nuremberg, Germany on Tuesday, Sept. 22 to mark the […]
MOVIE REVIEW: ‘Ant-Man’ will grow on you if you give him a chance
Much like the character itself, “Ant-Man” has surprised almost everyone. For the second week in a row, it has topped the box office, even after another film aimed at family and geeky audiences, “Pixels,” opened this past weekend. That is partly due to the seemingly unstoppable Marvel Studios streak, of course, but positive reviews and […]
