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We spout opinion, comment on the current zeitgeist and overanalyze pop culture and mainstream movies. Whether in the form of lists, survey questions or straight editorials, we hope to make thinking deeply about film a fun and stimulating activity for all.

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Anticipating Originality? A List of 100 Awaited Films Coming in 2012

  • By Christopher Campbell
  • |
  • January 3, 2012
Yesterday I posted a Conversation piece at Movies.com rounding up quotes from around the web on some of this year's most anticipated movies. I also shared some results I received through a poll I conducted on Twitter. The conclusion I've made about the coming year is that it promises a lot of great but unoriginal works, whether they're exciting new installments to a successful franchise or adaptations of popular novels.
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More: List, Buzz, Sequels, Sci-Fi, prequel, 3D

On DVD: "Rise of the Planet of the Apes," "Kung Fu Panda 2," "Fright Night" and More

  • By Christopher Campbell
  • |
  • December 13, 2011
Looking for something to rent this week? Here's what we had to say about the films out on DVD/Blu-ray today. Titles include "Rise of the Planet of the Apes," "Kung Fu Panda 2," "Fright Night," "Monica & David," "Worst in Show," and "The Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975."  
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More: Home Video, DVD and VOD, Rise of the Planet of the Apes, Remakes, Sequels, Sci-Fi, Documentary, Animation

On DVD: "Cowboys & Aliens"; "The Hangover Part II"; "Bobby Fischer Against the World"; "The Staircase"

  • By Christopher Campbell
  • |
  • December 6, 2011
Looking for something to rent this week? Here's what we had to say about the films out now on DVD/Blu-ray today: 
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More: Home Video, Documentary, Sci-Fi, Western, Sequels

Morning Pour: "J.Edgar" Oscar Parody, "Bill and Ted" and Herzog, "Bring It On": The Musical

  • By Christopher Campbell
  • |
  • November 9, 2011
Morning Pour is your daily stop for quick links, news commentary and trend-spotting. Here are your ten topics for November 9, 2011: 
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More: Morning Pour, Leonardo DiCaprio, Werner Herzog, Bill and Ted 3, Sequels, parody, manic pixie dream girl, Twilight Zone: The Movie, Joe Dante, Snow White, The Seventh Seal, Bring It On, movies turned musicals

10 Film Franchises That Need a Christmas Movie

  • By Christopher Campbell
  • |
  • November 1, 2011
Now that Halloween is over, we can start thinking about Christmas. The dominant holiday of only two-sevenths of the world's population (not counting the non-religious hangers on) is rearing its head early this year thanks to Friday's release of "A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas." This third installment of the stoner comedy franchise will hopefully be another riotous satire full of political incorrectness, and the series' typical play with race, creed, sexuality and politics ought to fit perfectly with the many themes, positive and negative, associated with the day when we commercially exploit celebrate the birth of Jesus.
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More: Remakes, Sequels, Comic Book Movies

"Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides" is Disney Fluff at Its Most Reflexive and Subversive

  • By Christopher Campbell
  • |
  • October 18, 2011
This review was originally published on May 20, 2011. It is being reposted for the home video release.
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More: Sequels

10 Halloween Costume Ideas Based on Recent Movies (2011 Edition)

  • By Christopher Campbell
  • |
  • October 13, 2011
Welcome to Spout's 4th annual list of Halloween costume ideas based on recent movies. The whole concept behind this favorite tradition of mine is to come up with original film-related costumes that nobody else is likely to think of. Because you don't want to be the third Thor at a party or an anonymous one of a slew of bridesmaids wandering the neighborhood. You want something unique.
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More: Sequels, Comic Book Movies

5 Reasons I'm Okay with a "Beetlejuice" Sequel

  • By Christopher Campbell
  • |
  • September 6, 2011
Coming out of left field today is the new possibility of a "Beetlejuice" sequel/reboot. You can read all about where this idea sprang from over at Deadline, which reports of a new development deal at Warner Bros for producers/writers David Katzenberg and Seth Grahame-Smith. The latter has worked with Tim Burton as screenwriter on "Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter" (adapted from his own novel) and the "Dark Shadows" movie, so they've got an in there. Not that the WB necessarily needs Burton's approval, I'm sure, but it would be a good idea to have him involved at least as a producer.
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More: Sequels

"A Bitter Taste of Freedom" is a Personal Portrait of a Late Friend and a Nation That's Lost Its Way

  • By Christopher Campbell
  • |
  • August 18, 2011
Forgive my usual instinct to compare new films with old, and docs with narratives, but going into Marina Goldovskaya's new documentary, "A Bitter Taste of Freedom," I couldn't help but think of Joel Schumacher's "Veronica Guerin." There have been other female journalists assassinated for their prying, I'm sure, but Guerin and Anna Politkovskaya, the Russian reporter at the center of "Bitter," are probably the most famous. In Schumacher's drama (and no, I haven't seen John Mackenzie's earlier, names-changed version, "When the Sky Falls"), Guerin is portrayed by Cate Blanchett as more pestering than penetrating, an obnoxiously forthcoming investigator who may not have deserved death but surely had to suspect it as an outcome to her prickly probe into the Irish underworld. In the doc, Politkovskaya is able to represent herself for the most part, through firsthand footage filmed over years by Goldovskaya, her former professor and longtime friend. She hardly seems reckless so much as she was undoubtedly a brave and amiable crusader (in the film she asserts she's a civilian rather than a journalist). In the wake of her murder, Vladimir Putin claimed her writing had no real influence, as if to reject notions the State did her in by identifying her as no Guerin-esque sort of nuisance.
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More: Sequels

"Final Destination 5" Puts the Gory in Allegory for a Look at Extreme Corporate Downsizing

  • By Christopher Campbell
  • |
  • August 12, 2011
There's not much to say on the quality of "Final Destination 5" other than it's the best-directed of the series since the second installment. And if you're a fan of the first two movies, even if not the subsequent two, you should enjoy the latest just as much. The kills are just as elaborate and tense as ever in their Rube Goldbergian fashion, but for some reason they're also more exaggerated in their implausibility. Skulls are completely squashed by objects not likely to have such impact, people crash through windows that one would expect to be stronger, a gymnast twists into a grim position that nobody even on screen accepts as making any sense. And it all begins with the usual opening stunt of epically deadly proportions, which as thrilling as it is watching Vancouver's Lions Gate Bridge crumble and whip about, it never seems believable in any way, shape or form.
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More: Sequels

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