The Cinema Elite

Welcome to my MOVIE BLOG! Here, you can see my movie reviews, respond to polls and challenges, read my film analyses and essays, and many more!

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Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number (Mission Platinum #1)

Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number (Mission Platinum #1)

In this new series, I will detail the steps I took to achieve the Platinum Trophy for a certain game. To kick this off, we’ll look at Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number, which trophies I got in what order, how many playthroughs it took me, the level of challenge or grind, and what I would do differently. So, think “PSNProfiles Trophy Guide” but more of a discussion-themed blog than a…

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Dead Cells (Game Review)

Dead Cells (Game Review)

Dead Cells takes the progression of a Metroidvania and integrates it into this procedurally generated action Roguelike that has you slowly chipping away at its steep difficulty….Just kidding.

Dead Cells is a game that I’ve had my eyes on for quite a while now but haven’t picked it up because, typically, two things I don’t enjoy are procedurally-generated worlds and permadeath consequences…yet I…

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Best 4th Movie in a Series (Top 5 Friday)

Best 4th Movie in a Series (Top 5 Friday)

Look, I know this is a weird topic idea but the only film that’s coming out this weekend is Endgame and I’ve already done Top 5 Marvel, Superhero, Comicbook, etc lists so let’s change it up: the best fourth movie in a series. Since Avengers 4 is here, let’s take a look at what other memorable series had great fourth entries! (Note: Terminator Salvation does not appear in this list. I included it…

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Avengers: Endgame (Very Vague Movie Review)

Avengers: Endgame (Very Vague Movie Review)

Well, my dreams came true last night. After 11 years of nearly-daily Marvel speculation, discussion, reviewing, and day-dreaming, the final chapter of the Infinity Saga is here. Since I’m not a terrible person, this review will be 100% spoiler-free which is only bad for one reason: I can’t talk about anything. Because of that, any details of the movie that are required to discuss to explain my…

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The Story Of Your Life (Original Short Story)

The Story Of Your Life (Original Short Story)

Author’s Preface: 

The Story of Your Life is on it’s 9th draft; beginning as a Creative Writing project my sophomore year of college, this story was nothing more than me poking fun at the rules we learned from the textbook. “A story has to be this and it has to have that but you can never do these,” et cetera. Over the years, I’d add to the story a bit and recycle some other elements for…

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Love, Death, and Robots (Series Review)

Love, Death, and Robots (Series Review)

(Spoiler-Free) Netflix recently released a new show titled Love, Death & Robots that calls itself an anthology series but really is a collection of short films with similar styles, themes, and genres (like a snack-size Black Mirror); so yeah, anthology.. All 18 shorts deal with science-fiction themes in some way, whether they fall on the spectrum of “slightly sci-fi” or “extremely sci-fi,” and…

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Best Feel-Good Movies (Top 5 Friday)

Best Feel-Good Movies (Top 5 Friday)

This site has been fairly focused on the bombastic recently but this week, I thought we could slow things down a bit and look at the best feel-good movies. I have a list on Letterboxd simply titled Peliculas Sobre Personas to keep track of human-centric tales but I thought I’d go ahead and rank that list to create this week’s Top 5 Friday. Without further ado, here are some great Indie(-feeling)…

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Game Journalists & Game Difficulty (Essay)

Game Journalists & Game Difficulty (Essay)

  Early this morning, I watched a YouTube video by HypeBreak titled “Sekiro Is Too Hard For Game Journalists,” under which I commented the following: I think the main problem is that the qualification for being a game journalist is mostly the ability to write. Passion for the medium is important… but proof of skill is not? If editors looked at gameplay history, trophy/achievement lists, or…

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On Shazam's Under-Performance (Essay)

On Shazam’s Under-Performance (Essay)

This past weekend, DC’s new superhero film Shazam! premiered at the box office with overwhelmingly positive reviews. As of this moment, this movie holds a 7.8/10 on IMDb, a 72/100 on MetaCritic, a 91% on Rotten Tomatoes, and a 3.7/5 on Letterboxd. That being said, it opened to $56.8 Million which was much lower than people expected. So, either the expectations we placed on the box office were…

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Shazam! (Movie Review)

In my review of Aquaman, I mentioned that if Shazam! is as good, then for the first time in at least a decade, a Marvel movie is sandwiched by two better DC movies. Consider history to have been made! Shazam! is wonderful in every way. DC has truly succeeded in letting its directors take full control over their movies. What I love most about this example is that I’ve followed David F. Sandberg’s…

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Best Superhero Movies 2015-2018 (Top 5 Friday)

Best Superhero Movies 2015-2018 (Top 5 Friday)

Shazam! his theaters this weekend and my review for it is currently available for you to check out. In this edition of Top 5 Friday, in honor of the aforementioned Shazam, we’ll be taking a look at the best superhero movies of the latter half of this decade. For argument’s sake, I’m going to keep this list to 2015-2018 because Hellboy comes out next week and Endgame comes out in 3 weeks so to…

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Dreaming Up: A Great 007 Game

Dreaming Up: A Great 007 Game

In this edition of Dreaming Up, the new series I just created when I typed it into the title, we’re going to look at 007 video games and how a great Bond game would look today. GoldenEye 007 is largely considered not only the best first person shooter of the

GoldenEye 007 (1997)

Nintendo 64 era, but also one of the best games of all time. I don’t agree with this, but it is a lot of fun. Rather,…

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Aquaman (Movie Review)

With a worldwide box office of over 1 Billion dollars, the purpose of a “review” today may seem lost. However, I think it’s important to still look at Aquaman because it means something for DC: a bright future. Following the extremely divisive Batman v Superman, Suicide Squad, and Justice League, this movie had every reason to be a disappointment and a box-office flop. Yet, we instead have a…

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Top 5 Horror Movies of 2015-2018 (Top 5 Friday)

Top 5 Horror Movies of 2015-2018 (Top 5 Friday)

In honor of Jordan Peele’s Us being released in theaters this week, I thought it would be a swell idea to go back and look at some of the other great scary movies of the latter half of this decade. To make this more difficult for me, I decided to rank them from least-amazing to most-amazing…and pick no two films that are alike. Without further ado: Horror movies.

5) Annabelle: Creation

If you…

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The Umbrella Academy (Adaptation Comparison) [Ongoing Review]

The Umbrella Academy (Adaptation Comparison) [Ongoing Review]

In this Adaptation Comparison revival, I’m going to be taking a look at the new Netflix show The Umbrella Academy, and the Dark Horse comic book series that inspired it. Specifically, I’m going to be reading The Umbrella Academy: Apocalypse Suite and The Umbrella Academy: Dallas before diving into the Netflix series and comparing the source material to the new adaptation. The main aspects I’ll be…

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Devil May Cry (Series Review) [Currently Ongoing]

Devil May Cry (Series Review) [Currently Ongoing]

Last summer, I took on the daunting task of playing every Far Cry game that there is (aside from Far Cry 4′s Valley of the Yeti DLC) and write Progress Reviews; I’d do a slight pre-review, then write down my thoughts at 1 hour, 5 hours (HowLongToBeat time divided by 3), 10 (previous, times 2), 15 (HowLongToBeat average time), 20 (5 hour increments over HLTB time), etc hours of gameplay until…

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You Were Never Really Here (Movie Review)

You Were Never Really Here (Movie Review)

If I had watched this movie in 2018, it would have been my favorite film of the year. There’s something about this Taken meets The Professional in the style of Drive revenge thriller that made it impossible for me to look away. Was it Lynne Ramsay’s incredible vision? Joaquin Phoenix’s relentless devotion? The charming lens in which we view this depressing tale; a lens that wants more than…

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