Written By: Dan Geer

Fellow students of Bill & Ted University, and the chemical, physical, and biological nature of love…

With 2020 being one of the most non–non-heinous years in the history of mankind, it has become totally clear that all time and reality as we know it has folded in on itself in a most egregious way. A way that only heroes from our past – the two great ones, Bill S. Preston Esquire and Ted Theodore Logan – can totally restore balance to in the present. They must finally fulfill their destiny to explore the meaning of meaning and bring us the song that will unite the world in harmony and save reality as we know it.

While the Wyld Stallyns may be most unwise in the ways of science or politics to bring an end to our modern real-world problems, returning writers Chris Matheson and Ed Solomon have once again managed to make us totally forget about all of that for 1.5 hours in this most outstanding sequel to their 1989 and 1991 hit films Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure and Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey. It’s almost as if all of our world’s odious issues totally disappeared in a most bodacious way when watching this stellar cinematic achievement of pure unadulterated nostalgia and escapism.

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Written by: Dan Geer

It would probably be an understatement to say that Star Wars: The Last Jedi has had an “interesting” ride since its theatrical release back in December 2017. On one side of the spectrum, it received rave reviews from both critics and fans alike, while on the other side garnered some of the most vicious reactions from viewers. As time progressed, negative reception to this film seemed to bring more and more people over to the Dark Side to the point where fan reception is now pretty much split right down the middle. Some people really hate this film. They hate it with the fiery passion of a thousand suns. Others think it is one of the best Star Wars films of all time, praising it for being bold and doing something new for a change. Both sides will fight to the death for their position.

Welcome to the wonderful world of Star Wars fandom.

While there are all sorts of complaints about the film – with everything from flying Leia, to the apparent necessity of the entire Canto Bight plot – the one thing that really seems to have set the haters over the edge more than anything else is its portrayal of Luke Skywalker. This, above all else, seems to be the thing that makes the film so unforgivable for these people.

But are their perceptions valid? Is Luke Skywalker really not portrayed “correctly” here? Let’s dive in and see if we can’t pick things apart a bit and perhaps put this whole thing into perspective…

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Written By: Dan Geer

Before I begin, let’s be sure to establish right off the bat that I am not trying to poo-poo on anyone’s Christmas film-watching traditions. This article is simply stating what constitutes a Christmas movie for me personally, although I do feel that what follows will end up holding true for many, many others.

For the longest time (although it seems social media has really blown up on this topic more recently), people have been debating over and over again what exactly makes a film an actual Christmas movie. Films like Die Hard and Lethal Weapon are always the first two that come up in conversation, mainly because they take place during Christmastime. They do indeed have the theme of Christmas interspersed throughout, even with a focus on “family” in there. There are of course other “Christmas” films that fall into this category as well, such as The Long Kiss Goodnight, Die Hard 2, Iron Man 3, Gremlins, to name a few. The list goes on and on.

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Written By: Dan Geer

Two years ago, showrunner Chris Carter brought back his hit TV series The X-Files for a limited run of six episodes that generated a somewhat mixed reaction from the fan base, and left X-Philes with a giant cliffhanger that left no choice but for there to be another season in order to resolve it. While it contained a decent season finale, it would have been a terrible way to end the series if the Fox network would have opted to never bring it back again.

Thankfully (after two years of waiting) Fox brought back the show for another season, this time granting a total of ten episodes to really allow The X-Files to breathe and stretch its legs. The fans saw it as an opportunity to perhaps resolve that Season 10 cliffhanger, tell better stories than the previous season, and bring closure to a series that we never quite felt we received after ten seasons and two feature films.

But closure was not exactly what Chris Carter had in mind…

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Written By: Dan Geer

Every year since 2015, we’ve been getting a new Star Wars film thanks to Disney, and there are no signs of the franchise slowing down. This year marks the return of beloved characters from The Force Awakens entering into what appears to be very dark territory in Star Wars: The Last Jedi – the next episode of the sequel trilogy.

How should we walk into this film? What should we expect? We know that The Force Awakens echoed various beats from A New Hope (albeit while still delivering an incredible new story at the same time, despite what some may say). Will The Last Jedi do something similar with The Last Jedi and echo The Empire Strikes Back? Will all our questions be answered? Will characters do what we expect, or perhaps go down a path that we did not see coming, or do not want, for that matter? Will it finally be confirmed that Snoke is really Jar Jar Binks?

We all desire the film to succeed. It is almost impossible to not have expectations. But let’s just get a few pointers out of the way prior to walking into this film, before we totally ruin our perceptions of it walking out. We want to actually like the movie, don’t we? Read on…

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Written By: Dan Geer

For kids of the 1970s and early 80s, Star Wars was the big blockbuster movie experience, and rightly so. Nothing was bigger. For me personally, while I technically saw Return of the Jedi in the theater when I was three, I don’t really remember much from that day. I highly enjoyed the films growing up, and even had a few of the action figures, an R2-D2 toy toter, and the original three films on VHS. But I never truly experienced seeing the Star Wars films in the theater until the Special Editions were released in 1997.

It was really the first Batman from 1989 that was my first big blockbuster theatrical experience. Aside from Superman: The Movie (1978), the comic book genre had really disappeared into oblivion with the abysmal sequels in the 1980s. So when Tim Burton’s Batman came along, it was the biggest craze since the Pet Rock, and put comic book movies back on the map. As a kid, nothing was more cool than that film. NOTHING.

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Written By: Dan Geer

Just as a preface, this list will not include simple dramas, comedies or musicals, but will instead focus on films in the science fiction, fantasy, action and horror genres from the last 40 years.

Many movies go underappreciated for any number of reasons. Sometimes we have favorites that the majority (or very vocal minority) do not seem to appreciate but are actually quite good. Other times films are just not really great per se, but perhaps better than people give them credit for. After all, even an average film can be entertaining and fun on multiple levels.

Whatever the reason, there are many films that are simply underrated or misunderstood, or have even been forgotten that deserve more appreciation that they commonly receive, whether by critics or the general movie-going public. The following list represents Popcorn Monster’s top 10 most underappreciated genre films of the last 40 years (click on the titles for trailers)…

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Written By: Dan Geer

Let’s just get this out of the way before I proceed with this article, because I do not want to come off as being overly critical…

I loved the latest 6-episode season of The X-Files. I really enjoyed both the mythology as well as the standalone “monster of the week” episodes. It both reintroduced the mystery back into the mythology that we all thought we understood for over a decade since the original series ended back in 2002, and the standalone episodes gave us great stories we never had in previous seasons. Of course, Darin Morgan’s “Mulder and Scully Meet the Were-Monster” episode was probably the highlight of the season. Simply fantastic!

However, as tradition has it, Season 10 concluded on a cliffhanger like all previous seasons of The X-Files did. It left us with a ton of unanswered questions. The season was too short to really flesh it all out. It only makes sense that Season 11 now has a big responsibility to fulfill in answering, or at least clarifying how the “new” conspiracy ties in with the old.

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Written By: Dan Geer

Ever since the untimely and unfortunate passing of actress Carrie Fisher last December, fans of the Star Wars saga have wondered how this will affect the sequel trilogy and the role of General Leia for Star Wars: Episode IX (she already completed filming for Star Wars: The Last Jedi before she passed).

To be honest, fans are a bit worried. It’s probably not the most appropriate feeling to immediately have after the death of a human being, but it is understandable. The writers and director Colin Trevorrow really have a conundrum on their hands.

It really comes down to this for everyone: Should they write the character out of the story, or should they recast? This is quite a loaded question, but one that I think has a pretty clear answer.

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Written By: Dan Geer

It is no secret that director Roland Emmerich’s Independence Day: Resurgence just did not do nearly as well as expected at the box office. Even though it was the 20th anniversary of the first film when the sequel premiered last summer, not enough people went to go see it. It made only a fraction of what the first film did back in 1996, raking in around $103 million domestically and almost $390 worldwide. While the film did make its money back and then some, it definitely underperformed when comparing to the first film’s earnings, and was not received well critically. The sequel didn’t even take the top spot on its first weekend.

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