The Zachtastic Movie Blog

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! This post is exclusively meant to be viewed in a video format, for it was written with YouTube in mind. For a brief summary of my thoughts on both Frozen 2 and Klaus , though, I’ll give you one: Frozen 2 is mediocre, and Klaus is a very special work of art that shouldn’t be ignored. Enjoy your holiday, and thanks for watching!

A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood was directed by Marielle Heller, which is her first major studio production after directing the indie features The Diary of a Teenage Girl and Can You Ever Forgive Me . It is also the second film after Won’t You Be My Neighbor ? to focus on TV legend Fred Rogers. Writers credited for the screenplay are Noah Harpster and Micah Fitzerman-Blue. Tom Hanks stars as Fred Rogers, while Matthew Rhys, Susan Kelechi Watson, and Chris Cooper play pivotal roles. The film also features Fred’s widow Joanne in a brief cameo. Here’s my brief synopsis of the film: In 1998, investigative journalist Lloyd Vogel is assigned to profile Fred Rogers for the latest issue of Esquire magazine. As Lloyd meets with Fred on multiple occasions, he learns lessons that prove to be more pivotal to his personal growth than he ever could have expected. Based on a real-life friendship between journalist Tom Junod and Fred Rogers. The link above will take you to the Yo...

Once again, I’ve found myself in a position where there are lots of movies to cover, but so little time to do so. At no time is this more apparent for a film hobbyist than with film festivals. With that, I had my very first film festival experience over the past couple of weeks! It was a great pleasure to support the local arts community here in the East Valley by coming to screenings hosted by Harkins Shea 14 in North Scottsdale. The 19th Scottsdale International Film Festival hosted plenty of movies there that interested me. For the sake of time and money, though, I only saw four movies at the festival. Those include Waves (Trey Edward Shults), The Truth (Hirokazu Kore-eda), Knives Out (Rian Johnson), and The Report (Scott Z. Burns). All of these films were screened ahead of their Arizona releases. With that, I’m very excited to share my thoughts on these films. My hope is that the advance attention I give to them will help the right audiences discover rewarding new e...

Terminator: Dark Fate was directed by Tim Miller, whose only previous feature credit has been Deadpool back in 2016. More notably, this marks the first time franchise creator James Cameron has been actively involved since 1991. Writers credited for the screenplay include Cameron himself, in addition to Billy Ray, David S. Goyer, and others. Despite being the sixth installment in the franchise, Dark Fate has been declared by James Cameron as the only official sequel to Terminator 2: Judgment Day . Because of this, Rise of the Machines , Salvation , Genisys and The Sarah Connor Chronicles are now considered to be existing in “alternate timelines.” Linda Hamilton and Arnold Schwarzenegger reprise their respective roles for the film, whereas newcomers to the series consist of Mackenzie Davis, Natalia Reyes, and Gabriel Luna. The film’s page on IMDB lists this as the official synopsis: “Sarah Connor and a hybrid cyborg human must protect a young girl from a newly ...

As much as I would love to do videos on every movie I see, I don’t have the time, energy, or subscriber base to make that possible. Therefore, sometimes I have to make the sad sacrifice of lumping up multiple reviews together. That being said, some of my most-anticipated movies of the entire year all released in one weekend here in the Phoenix Valley – Jojo Rabbit , The Lighthouse , and Parasite . They are all ones I would have loved to talk about with individual videos, but there are unfortunately so many things I’d like to talk about this month that I would have been overwhelmed. But, I digress – you didn’t come to hear me apologize. You’re here to get my opinions on some movies (I hope). With that then, I’m very excited to share my thoughts on the three movies I mentioned. They all deserve audiences so I hope I can help lead you to a potential new favorite. Jojo Rabbit I think it’s wonderful that New Zealand has finally found someone other than Peter Jackson to...