The Zachtastic Movie Blog

Walt Disney Animation Studios hit somewhat of a snag in the early 2000s. While The Emperor’s New Groove was a very good film, most of what followed after was mediocre to say the least. And then, Disney struck gold with Tangled in 2010, and ever since then they have been successful in between Winnie the Pooh and Wreck-It Ralph - the studio is going through another renaissance period, if you will. And now in 2013, they are looking to replicate that success and prove that they still can pull off great films with Frozen . Being a long overdue adaptation of Hans Christian Andersen’s The Snow Queen , can this be yet another worthy entry in the Disney canon? In the kingdom of Arendelle, there were two sister princesses: the younger was named Anna, and the older was Elsa. Elsa possessed the ability to create snow, ice and freezing temperatures at will, and one day while playing she hurts Anna with this magic. As a result, their parents force her into hiding and control her pow...

Lionsgate and Summit Entertainment made a gamble last year when they decided to produce Suzanne Collins’ novel The Hunger Games into a Hollywood blockbuster. While it certainly was not the greatest film released in 2012, it was a great financial success. Now that it has made its suitable mark on popular culture, the book-to-film franchise is making another attempt at impressing its audience and raking in millions of dollars with an adaptation of the novel’s sequel: Catching Fire . With a new director and writing team of two Academy Award winners, can this sequel prove that The Hunger Games franchise deserves to stay? Some time has passed since Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence) and Peeta Mallark (Josh Hutcherson) have won the 74th Hunger Games. On the day they are scheduled to begin their victory tour across the totalitarian nation of Panem, President Snow (Donald Sutherland) visits Katniss and informs her that their victory has inspired some of the other 12 districts o...

I had considered making a more direct tie-in to The Hunger Games since Catching Fire is coming out this weekend, but then I thought it over and decided to do something different. Why not talk about my top 10 favorite video games to play with friends? In other words, the following games are in my opinion the ones that have the best multiplayer available (at least out of all the games I have played). This of course ties in with the fact that the brutal competition in The Hunger Games is organized for the sake of mass entertainment much like video game multiplayer, while in this case the games don’t actually involve real violence. Feel free to check out the honorable mentions , games #10-6 and #5-2 . But now, the moment you have all been waiting for has arrived… here is #1!! #1 - Halo 4 This probably won’t be that big of a shocker to my friends. I am an enormous fan of the Halo franchise, and I will be the first to say that all of the games’ multiplayer modes have...

I had considered making a more direct tie-in to The Hunger Games since Catching Fire is coming out this weekend, but then I thought it over and decided to do something different. Why not talk about my top 10 favorite video games to play with friends? In other words, the following games are in my opinion the ones that have the best multiplayer available (at least out of all the games I have played). This of course ties in with the fact that the brutal competition in The Hunger Games is organized for the sake of mass entertainment much like video game multiplayer, while in this case the games don’t actually involve real violence. Feel free to check out the honorable mentions and games #10-6 , and tomorrow I will reveal #1. Without further ado, here are choices #5-2! And just so you’re aware, I am only allowing one game per franchise . #5 - Red Dead Redemption (Xbox 360 version) Essentially Grand Theft Auto set in the Wild West, Red Dead Redemption is already a da...

I had considered making a more direct tie-in to The Hunger Games since Catching Fire is coming out this weekend, but then I thought it over and decided to do something different. Why not talk about my top 10 favorite video games to play with friends? In other words, the following games are in my opinion the ones that have the best multiplayer available (at least out of all the games I have played). This of course ties in with the fact that the brutal competition in The Hunger Games is organized for the sake of mass entertainment much like video game multiplayer, while in this case the games don’t actually involve real violence. I have already written about the honorable mentions , and then I will present #5-2 tomorrow and #1 on Thursday. Without further ado, here are choices #10-6! And just so you’re aware, I am only allowing one game per franchise . #10 - StarCraft II I am not really partial to StarCraft ’s online mode, because most people I try to play against rus...