Published: 03 October 2019

Courtesy photoELLY GRIMM • Leader & Times

About a year ago, I wrote a review on here after my first time seeing the “It” film remake and this past weekend, after what seemed like an interminable wait, I made my way to the movie theater in town to see its sequel, “It: Chapter 2.” Having not seen the miniseries or read the book (which is on my to-do list in the future), I had little idea what to expect. 

The movie takes place 27 years after the events of the first movie and follows the grown up Loser’s Club (portrayed by  Jessica Chastain, James McAvoy, Bill Hader, Isaiah Mustafa, Jay Ryan, James Ransone, and Andy Bean) as they return to their hometown of Derry, Maine to put a stop once and for all to It a.k.a. Pennywise the Dancing Clown (Bill Skarsgård). 

One of the first things I have to give praise to is the casting for this movie, because they cast the adult Loser’s Club members PERFECTLY, particularly Hader as the grown-up (and still foul-mouthed) Ritchie Tozier. Hader’s performance is so good, I would almost believe he was legitimately the adult version of Finn Wolfhard, who plays the younger version of Ritchie. All the other actors were also very well chosen and I was very impressed with how well everyone was cast. Skarsgård turned in another great performance as Pennywise/It and I was glad we got to see some more of him in the movie compared to the first movie, which was one of the minor quibbles I had with it. I’d like to see him get (at the very least) a nomination for at least a Golden Globe, because he did too well in this role to not be recognized for it. 

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Published: 03 October 2019

“Frozen 2” is expected to be another big box office competitor for this year’s holiday movie season. The movie is set to release Nov. 22. Courtesy photoELLY GRIMM • Leader & Times

2019 so far has been a great year for movies with the releases of such blockbusters as “Avengers: Endgame” and “Toy Story 4.” With another spring and summer blockbuster season in the books, the movie industry is preparing for its fall and winter releases. 

“It went very well, it was a good spring/summer movie season for us. I know the industry overall is saying it's down from last year but for us, it was still a very good year,” Southgate Cinema 6 Owner Brian Mitchell said. “'Avengers: Endgame' broke a ton of box office records and some of the other big movies we had included 'John Wick Chapter 3: Parabellum,' 'Aladdin,' the Elton John biopic 'Rocketman,' 'Toy Story 4,' 'Annabelle' did really well and so did 'Spider-Man: Far From Home,' and 'The Lion King' – something that was really noticed this year was the dominance of Disney at the theaters. Then there were some other movies out that took people by surprise like 'Once Upon a Time in Hollywood' and 'Fast and Furious Presents: Hobbs and Shaw' and 'Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark,' all of those did really well for us. And then closing out the summer were 'Good Boys' and 'Angel Has Fallen.'”

Overall, Mitchell said, he and staff were very pleased with how the spring and summer movie releases ended up. 

“There's been a lot of talk about the first few months of 2019 not being as big as 2018, and of course not because 2018 had really big movies like 'Black Panther' and 'Avengers: Infinity War,' which we knew would set the bar for the rest of the year, so we knew this year probably wouldn't quite be on that same level, and there were a lot of other big movies we put out,” Mitchell said. “So even if this year does finish behind 2018, it's still going to be a really big year on record for us, so that doesn't bother us. We don't really focus on year-to-year because there are so many changes that happen and things like that. Overall we're very pleased with how this year's going so far and we know there will be a lot of other big movies. And like I mentioned earlier, there's been a lot of talk about the dominance of Disney, but they're not going to be releasing movies on this year's scale every year. It's been a good year so far and we're very pleased. 

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Published: 03 October 2019

Courtesy photoELLY GRIMM • Leader & Times

Late last week I was doing some planning for what would need to be done at the office for this week, and in the midst of that planning, something I was somewhat struggling with was what I would write about for this week here. But, as often happens, inspiration hit me shortly before I prepared to go to bed over this past weekend and with athletic seasons starting this week, I thought it would be fun to talk about some of my favorite sports-themed movies I’ve enjoyed throughout the years. 

As always, these are just my opinions, I am not trying to slight any movie or other work of art. So let’s play ball. 

Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story (2004)

I first saw this movie, which follows a misfit dodgeball team (led by Vince Vaughn) entering a Las Vegas dodgeball tournament so they can save their local gym from the onslaught of a corporate health fitness chain (led by Ben Stiller) at a pre-game party before a volleyball tournament when I was in high school. I initially didn’t have too high hopes for it (it honestly looked like it was just going to be full of “ball” jokes and not much else) but to my surprise, I ended up laughing through it all and legitimately enjoying it. There is some crude humor throughout, but the movie also manages to have some heart in it too as the players go on their own journeys throughout the movie. Overall, if you’re looking for something goofy, this would be a good one to check out. 

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