After my defense of Phase Four, we still find ourselves in the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s Post-Endgame world. And this will be my last Ranking The Franchise for the MCU for quite some time; Phase Six’s culmination is nowhere in sight in the near future yet! So enjoy this article while it lasts. After two straight [at least somewhat] extended phases, the MCU returned here to … Continue reading Ranking The Franchise: MCU Phase Five
Well, here it is: the dreaded “Post-Endgame” Marvel Cinematic Universe that we all hear so much about. With the, admittedly exemplary, third phase of the MCU in our rearview mirror, it’s time to look at just how the cinematic juggernaut shook out in its wake. And let’s be very real about two things here before we start: First, Phase Three, as we examined, was top-to-bottom … Continue reading Ranking The Franchise: MCU Phase Four
After reviewing the first two phases of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, you almost get the feeling someone behind the scenes messed up when it came to Phase Three. Phase One and Phase Two, as you may recall from my recent reviews of them, were each six movies long. So when we dive into Phase Three, we find out that it is… almost twice as big?! … Continue reading Ranking The Franchise: MCU Phase Three
With Phase One in the rear view mirror for the Marvel Cinematic Universe, success was already well in hand for the burgeoning juggernaut. After a stellar start in Iron Man, they may have had a few mid-level follow-ups, but The Avengers proved there was a voracious desire to see more from Marvel. So how would they fare with their next several offerings? It was time … Continue reading Ranking The Franchise: MCU Phase Two
I’m back on my franchise ranking horse! I do love taking a look back at an entire movie franchise I have watched every entry of and deciding how it goes from best to worst. It’s a great conversational piece, too, for the comments section. How would YOU rank them, et cetera, et cetera. One of the franchises I’ve had a strong desire to do for … Continue reading Ranking The Franchise: MCU Phase One
It’s rare, but every so often, I get a bug in me to watch the entirety of a franchise I’d never seen before. Last year, it was Mission: Impossible. This year I decided to watch the entire Final Destination series. I blame Amazon Prime, through which we have our HBO Max subscription. I was fishing around for something to watch, and Prime kept throwing FD … Continue reading Ranking The Franchise: Final Destination
Don’t tell anyone, but I’ve actually done this list before. I’m not even going to link to it because it was years and years ago, and a lot has changed since then. I’ve watched and re-watched a lot more movies. And new movies have come out, affecting some franchises’ positioning on the list… for better or worse. Also, the previous list had one glaring omission… … Continue reading Top Ten Favorite Movie Franchises
Having recently ranked the Mission: Impossible franchise after it [allegedly] wrapped up with The Final Reckoning, I got to thinking about what other franchises I could do a ranking of. In addition to Tom Cruise’s nearly 30 year action journey, I had previously done the Halloween, Friday The 13th, and Nightmare On Elm Street series from bottom to top. Which is little surprise, as horror … Continue reading Ranking The Franchise: Child’s Play/Chucky
Well, Tom Cruise’s franchise opus is finally–allegedly–over. With the release of Mission: Impossible: The Final Reckoning, a franchise that was almost thirty years old has come to a conclusion. Tom Cruise has put life and limb on the line with ridiculously unnecessary stunt after ridiculously unnecessary stunt to get our butts into the cinema, and it’s time for him to move on to his next … Continue reading Ranking The Franchise – Mission: Impossible
When last we met to discuss my favorite movies of the opening half-decade of the 2020’s, I mostly bemoaned the passage of time and how old we are all getting and how we keep onward towards our inevitable demise. Also, I mused that COVID-19 was, like, five years ago! Wild! It was really fun stuff. When not doing those things, though, I was counting down … Continue reading Top Ten Movies Of The Half-Decade, #10-1
The 2020’s are half-over! To most of us, that’s probably crazy, as it signals the inexorable onward march of time and our own eventual decay. I was born in 1980; I still view events from the early 2000’s as “probably, like, ten years ago”. So to figure that 2020–the dreaded year 2020, home of COVID-19!–was HALF A DECADE AGO is astounding. It was January 2020 … Continue reading Top Twenty Movies Of The Half-Decade, #20-11
And now we are onto the Big Ten. Not, like, the football thing. The big ten as far as movies I saw that were released in 2024! I have to admit: it wasn’t the strongest year for cinema. And as I was doing a top 30, some of the films I chose in the 21-30 range felt a bit like… “THIS makes my year end … Continue reading Top Thirty Movies Of 2024: #10-1
And we are back at it! As noted previously, I ended up watching 111 new release movies from the beginning on through the end of 2024. It was far more than I thought I was going to get completed, even late in the year when I was keeping track and felt so far off my pace of 113 in 2023. But I pushed through and … Continue reading Top Thirty Movies Of 2024: #20-11
As I cruised along 2024, watching as many movies as I could, I was never sure I would hit 100 total new releases watched on the year. I want to say that at some point in October, I was only up to 80 new releases, and it just seemed unlikely I was going to get through enough new films in the last two months–the months … Continue reading Top Thirty Movies Of 2024, #30-21
And we are back to finish what we started! When last we convened, I counted down the first half of my Top 20 movies I watched for the first time ever in 2024. That is a list 123 motion pictures long, and it didn’t count movies that came out in 2024… they are getting their own list later this month. But out of 123 flicks, … Continue reading Top 20 First Time Watches Of 2024 – #10-1
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