May the Fourth: Celebration, Insincere, or Somewhere In Between? Seeing "scruffy looking nerf herder" on a DoT traffic sign on May the Fourth made me realize how much things The Oscars Fail to Inspire Despite Plenty of Creativity I’ve been sitting here all week trying to motivate myself to create another Slacker’s Guide to the Oscars. I’ve, obviously, Barbie Can Be Anything, Even A Firestarter Barbie is supposed to be a firefighter, not the arsonist lighting the inferno. But, here we are. Barbie really can Fortune and Glory Hinders Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny The long-awaited final chapter of Indiana Jones' Adventures has hit the big screen. And the haters are out in force. 3 Ways The Movie Industry Won't Raise Audience Attendance The movie industry has a problem - how to get audiences into theaters. It's not a new problem. This battle Women Talking And Everything, Everywhere All At Once Float To Top of The List With a title like Women Talking, you'd assume that more people would be talking about this film. But we all Elvis, The Fabelmans Oscar Bait But Left In Tacklebox Both Elvis and The Fabelmans might have been Oscar darlings in award seasons past. Yet, in 2023 they are both Top Gun: Maverick Lands Big At Box Office, Streaming But Pitters Out At The Finish I had no interest in seeing Top Gun: Maverick even before its nomination. I watched the first one, but it All Quiet On The Western Front Takes Aim At Oscar Gold All Quiet On The Western Front doesn't have an easy path to victory, which is rather poetic. There are plenty Triangle of Sadness Makes You Laugh and Cringe Triangle of Sadness is one of the least talked about of the Best Picture contenders. At least, I haven't seen Banshees of Inisheirn Muddled Messages Banshees of Inisherin is another contender with quite a lot of buzz around it. If I had better planning, I Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio Exceeds Fairy Tale Expectations I didn't go into watching Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio with great expectations. I hadn't even seen a preview before Adam Tár Fails To Stick Landing When Cate Blanchett is involved in a movie, awards buzz always seems to follow, so I wasn't surprised that Tar Oscars 2023: Marcel The Shell With Shoes On An adorable talking shell with shoes? Count me in. Marcel The Shell With Shoes On was the nominee in the Avatar: The Way of Water Sinks, Not Swims At three hours and twelve minutes, Avatar: The Way of Water doesn't make it easy to continue the journey of Oscars 2023: Turning Red Turning Red churned up quite the controversy when it hit the big screen. An animated movie alluding to periods? How Doctor Strange's Wanda Problem Anyone else feel like we need a WandaVision season two? Or a movie to explain how the Wanda we saw 3 Steps To Get Into Board Games When You Don't Have All Night Time is a precious commodity these days. How can you play a game unless you have a whole evening? There's PAX East: The Game Is On Again With my PAX East ticket dangling from the kitchen chalkboard, it is now starting to sink in that a convention CODA There's a reason why I call this series "The Slacker's Guide to the Oscars." As the minutes tick by, it's On to King Richard and Belfast Having no expectations or knowing little about the movie you're going to see might not seem advantageous, but sometimes it Dune vs. West Side Story: A Battle of Remakes It's rare to see one reboot in the Best Picture race, let alone two. Or four. For a cherry on Licorice Pizza They say don't judge a book by its cover, but I maybe should have in the case of Licorice Pizza. Don't Look Up Nightmare Alley It might seem like an unlikely coupling of movies or a joke from Lewis Carrol with no punchline - Why Power of the Ricardos Just the other night during movie club, the question "what movie surprised you" was posed. At the time, we weren't We Need to Talk About Encanto For whatever reason, I didn't really have feelings about Disney's Encanto before I sat down to watch it. Now, I'm Ghostbusters Afterlife Knows How to Call an Audience Everything old is new again. Ghostbusters is no exception. I don't know about you, but the quality, or lack thereof, A Flash of Lightning Lane There has been a lot of buzz and complaining around Disney's removal of the Fast Pass system in lieu of Black Widow I don't need to tell any of you that we've waited a long time for Black Widow's origin story. And So Many Lokis, So Little Time? Of all of the Disney+ shows they announced, Loki was the one I was looking forward to the most. For We Helped The Oscars Flop And This Is Why We Were Powerless Boring. Anticlimactic. Missed opportunities. And probably a dozen other downer descriptions have come across my news feed regarding The Oscars. 'Soul’ vs. ‘Onward’: Who’s Top Dog For the Oscars Contention? In this year's Oscar race, Pixar has not one but two horses chasing the top honors in the Animated Feature 1 2 3 … 8 Next »