Blind Spot 2016: Announcing My Selections

Last year about this time, I ran across some of my fellow bloggers offering up their lofty lists of unseen great ones, which of course led me to Ryan McNeil at The Matinee and the genesis of the Blind Spot Series. Being new to the movie blog world, I jumped in all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, making a list myself. I made it through August, then the wheels fell off. Football season started. I started back to work (I'm a teacher.). And I just had to let go, knowing the commitment it takes to really dive into a well-regarded film and do it justice. 

I'm trying again. My Mama didn't raise no quitter. 

Speaks Reviews - The Hunger Games: Mockingjay, Part 2

Two Much is Not Enough

★★ 1/2 out of ★★★★

A Speaks Movie Review

About this time two years ago, I walked out of my screening of Catching Fire, the second installment of The Hunger Games franchise, literally on fire. I had seen a sequel that was better than the original, by far. A movie so good it could stand alone as a sci-fi action masterpiece. I stand by that.

Then, last year about this time, I left Mockingjay, Part 1 fully unsatisfied. I had gotten a pretty much scene-by-scene adaptation of barely half of a book that I only sort of liked to begin with. In the days of movie studios splitting apart and dragging out and rebooting and remaking entertainment for cash, we, the audience, find ourselves repeatedly dragged into mediocre movies that don't have to be mediocre. 

They don't have to be mediocre because Catching Fire isn't.

In Movie Lines: November 1 - November 21

Movies I've Watched

(OR, How I watched a bunch of huge franchise movies and nearly nothing else)

November 1st - November 21st, 2015

Thursday Movie Picks: Movies about Making Music

I'm back. 

I hate to say it, but I just had to put down the Thursday Movie Picks for a few weeks. The Halloween themes just didn't happen for me. It's just not my holiday, not my conversation. 

I wanted to come back last week, but I chose to do my own post on spy movies, the most nostalgia-inducing spy movies, the spy movies I felt most timely, that being the James Bond Movies.  

So, it's Thursday, the leaves have fallen here in East Tennessee, and I'm back again (and from here on out) for a bit more of Wandering through the Shelves' Thursday Movie Picks. This week, it's Movies about Making Music. 

Speaks Reviews: Spectre

In with the Old

★★★ 1/2 out of ★★★★

A Speaks Movie Review

I'm appalled at some of the lukewarm reviews of the newest James Bond film, the 24th overall, Daniel Craig's fourth, and director Sam Mendes' second, Spectre. I mean, what do you people want? Here is a Bond film of the most classic form, easily the most classic Bond film featuring Daniel Craig. What do these movies have to do? What do they have to be?

10 Essential James Bond Movies

I think it's a combination of songs and Dad. Yes. That is what brought me to James Bond.

Of the many songs that stand out in the farthest reaches of my memory, two are Bond title tunes: Shirley Bassey's rendition of "Goldfinger" and Paul McCartney and Wings" "Live and Let Die." Fitting that those two would feature the most prominent. These are the ones my Dad suggested above any other when I started my James Bond quest so many years ago. Though, the my first Bond was Pierce Brosnan in Goldeneye. I watched it with Dad.