Nearly 30 years after the release of Jan de Bont’s natural disaster thriller and meteoric box office hit Twister, the winds of its legacy blow once more. Swept up in the industry’s recent trend of mining intellectual property from nearly every existing franchise over the last century, Twisters emerges as a largely cynical attempt to reignite box office flames in the natural disaster genre stratosphere. Though its tracking to do some major numbers across international territories looking for an all-ages summer hit, one is left with the sinking feeling that with all the assembled talent and massive budget, we could just do so much better than this. Bolstered by the emerging talent of rising stars in the form of director Lee Isaac Chung (Best Picture nominee Minari) and current Hollywood it-guy Glenn Powell, Twisters isn’t a disaster, but it won’t blow you away either. Read More
Tender ‘MINARI’ Tells a Specific Story of Family Struggle With Universal Appeal
The pull of the American Dream lies at the heart of Lee Isaac Chung’s Minari, a story about a Korean immigrant family seeking out their chunk of economic ascension on Arkansas farmland. Steven Yeun (The Walking Dead) is Jacob Yi, an uncompromising patriarch dedicated to leaving his illustrious career of chicken sexing behind (more on this later) to grow crops from back home for the ever-increasing Korean-American population. Read More