(UPDATED TILL 5 JULY 2020) Here's how the coronavirus aka COVID-19 has impacted Hollywood and the entertainment industry.
Since the news broke two weeks ago that Sony and Marvel Studios are parting ways, which has huge implications for the future of Spider-Man and his role in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, I'm dusting off this review of Spider-Man: Far from Home which I meant to post 2 months ago but never got around to polishing until now.
Buckle up, because this is going to be a long one. Like many Singaporeans last week, I watched Crazy Rich Asians to see how well Singapore comes off in the movie. I'll try to corral my many thoughts into a manageable puddle here, rather than an uncontrolled torrent of words.
This summer has been absolutely terrible for the movie industry in general -- the worst since 2006. Cinema chain stocks even suffered a huge decline because moviegoing attendance was so low. I'm sure they'll bounce back eventually, because people won't stop watching movies in cinemas, and huge movie hits like Star Wars: The Last Jedi and Thor: Ragnarok will bring in the crowds again; but for now, it looks like cinema stockholders won't be getting their dividends this year.
I was talking to my colleagues the other day, and the topic got around to how they would never walk out of a movie halfway, no matter how much they dislike it, because they felt that it was just so rude and disrespectful (to the filmmakers and their efforts in making the film, I suppose). And it reminded me of The Revenant. Because I absolutely hated it.
Stephen King's magnum opus, The Dark Tower, a long book series with a sprawling mythology and epic battle of good against evil, has finally been made into a movie. I've heard it being talked about for years as this practically unfilmable book series -- kind of like The Lord of the Rings -- that Hollywood has been trying so hard to adapt for at least the last decade, but hasn't been able to succeed until now.
I just finished this book called Dark Matter by Blake Crouch, and it is mind-blowing. I'll avoid spoilers, so you can enjoy it yourself, but basically, it's a story of a college physics professor who gets abducted one night, taken to an abandoned location and drugged. When he wakes up, he finds himself in a different world where he's a genius atomic physicist living a successful but career-oriented life, his wife never married him and his son was never born.
Disney held its D23 Expo this past weekend. For the uninitiated, it is their biennial fan event in Anaheim showcasing exclusive sneak peeks at what's happening in the entertainment brands under Disney, including star-studded presentations for their animation and live-action series and films, parks and resorts, and more.
I read an article in The Straits Times a few days ago, which talked about how local cinema attendance in the first three months of this year dropped 10.4 percent from the same period last year. A few reasons were attributed to it, including slowing economic growth affecting all industries, lack of good movies, and competing sources of entertainment such as Netflix.
Today is as good a day as any other to talk about La La Land, a movie that inspires mixed feelings in me. (Also known as the film which lost Best Picture to Moonlight in the most public Oscars flub ever.)
