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The Hunger Games comes charging out of the gate with a daunting task: fill the chasm in the fangirl cinematic franchise machine created by the completion of the Harry Potter saga and the impending end to all things Twilight. The Hunger Games cycle ...

Have we reached a point where the term "young adult literature" has become pejorative? Have books like Twilight and its ilk promulgated a negative connotation? If Stephenie Meyer's scribblings represent an exhibition for the prosecution, perhaps Su...

Apologists will no doubt argue that bifurcating Suzanne Collins' final novel in The Hunger Games cycle, Mockingjay, is the right way to go. There's no doubt that stretching it over 4+ hours allows for a more complete adaptation, but movies are diff...

Another so-called YA (Young Adult) motion picture property has reached its cinematic conclusion. Billed as “the next big thing” 3 1/2 years ago with the release of the first Hunger Games movie, the series has lived up to its hype. The mov...

It has been eight years since director Francis Lawrence released Mockingjay Part 2, the second half of the bifurcated film that wrapped up Suzanne Collins’ Hunger Games trilogy. Although the fourth movie in that series was the weakest entry, Law...

Three Russians and three Americans living in harmony aboard the International Space Station (I.S.S.) – that’s the setup for Gabriela Cowperthwaite’s science fiction thriller, I.S.S. The film’s early scenes depict the day-to-day interaction...

If there's a complaint to be made about Insidious, it's that the film's second half is unable to live up to the impossibly high standards set by the first half. This isn't unusual when it comes to films that include a "reveal"; even Jaws lost a sha...

Insidious: Chapter 2 illustrates that, regardless of his past success in the horror movie field, James Wan is not infallible when it comes to the genre. The second installment of what is likely to become a franchise is disappointing precisely becau...

They say the third time's the charm.  Not with the Insidious series, it isn't.  Admittedly, installment #3 is an improvement over #2, but it fails to reach the highs of the chilling-but-uneven original. Instead of using the stinger ...

This is what horror has become in 2018: a jump-scare fest where things like suspense and slowly-building dread have been pushed to the side. Darkness passes for atmosphere and intensity is bypassed because it’s too strong for the all-importa...