Will Martinez's Film & TV Blog

  It's certainly impressive what a phenomenon the Fast & Furious franchise has become. What started out as a simple, lower budget movie about street racers has quickly turned into one of the biggest franchises of all-time. I've always had a soft spot for these films since the first film that released in 2001, guilty pleasures or not, but Fast Five in 2011 clearly help reinvent the series and was such a breathe of fresh air. Since then, each new installment has continued to up the ante to insane heights, and for me at least the results have been consistently entertaining. Safe to say I was certainly excited for this new sequel, especially with fan favorite Justin Lin returning in the director's chair. The trailers promised what looked to be the most most ludicrous Fast & Furious film yet, and by no surprise that's exactly what it is. These films make most cartoons look grounded in reality in comparison, and if you're someone who can accept that all logic has ...

  I'm not like a die-hard musical fan by any means, but In The Heights has definitely been long on my radar. Freshly coming off the huge hit that his Hamilton film turned out to be last summer on Disney+, this adaptation comes with a producing credit from Lin-Manuel Miranda (who also created the famous stage play), but stepping into the director's chair is filmmaker Jon M. Chu (director of such films like the wonderful Crazy Rich Asians and a few of the Step Up films) who is certainly no stranger to the musical genre. Chu definitely seemed like an inspired choice to tackle this source material that is clearly beloved, so I was certainly very curious to see how he could bring this to life on the big screen, especially after hearing plenty of stellar early reviews within the last month when screenings for the film began. And now having finally gotten the chance to see this myself, it brings me so much joy to report that this is absolutely one of the most rousing and exciting musi...

  The Conjuring franchise has certainly been one of the better modern horror franchises. When the first film released all the way back in 2013 with director James Wan at the helm, it was a breathe of fresh air and still is amongst the finest mainstream horror films released in the past 10-15 years. It was genuinely terrifying, but also had characters you can care and fear for.  The sequel was also surprisingly great and certainly one of the better horror sequels out there. As for this new sequel though that is now released both in theaters and on HBO Max, I've been a bit more skeptical about it as it's the first Conjuring film not to be directed by Wan, and also the lack of marketing from Warner Brothers themselves gave me the sense that they must have not had a lot of confidence in this one. Much to my surprise though, while The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It can't stack up to the sheer terror of the previous two installments, there's enough solid scares and perfor...

  Cruella is the latest live action retelling of one of Disney's beloved animated classics. This one is obviously inspired by the creation of One Hundred and One Dalmatians as it follows the early career of that original film's notorious villain Cruella de Vil, this time played by the incredible Emma Stone. With this new retelling, I have been somewhat skeptical mainly just because Disney's track record with these live action remakes has been hit or miss to say the least, and as iconic of a villain she'll always be, I can't say I've ever been terribly interested in learning about Cruella's troubled backstory. However, Emma Stone certainly seemed like a very inspired choice for young Cruella, and I'm also a pretty big fan of director Craig Gillespie (of such excellent films such as I, Tonya and Lars and the Real Girl). Trailers have been very promising and early reviews were very encouraging as well. And now having seen it, I can safely say Cruella marks ...