Crit. Hit: 2019

Monday, December 23, 2019

"Star Wars: Episode IX - The Rise of Skywalker" review

Well, at least "The Avengers" had a strong finale this year.

Lightning Round: The Spectrum of Artistic Worth

I feel like I left my living room to go to a theater in the mirror universe.

Lightning Round: Thanksgiving Family Bonding

Kids and adults can have a reason to hit the cinemas this coming holiday week.

"Knives Out" review

Glad Star Wars fans ain't stopping him from doing what he does best.

"Jojo Rabbit" review

"Jojo Rabbit" is inarguably the most audacious film that I have seen of 2019.

"Terminator: Dark Fate" review

I know why some will cry to see this franchise go, though it is something I will never do.

Lightning Round: Boooooooo!!!!

As in spooky, not bad. Quite the opposite actually.

"Parasite" review

A nice reminder that we can either die in the gutter or succeed hard enough to become dumb.

"Jay and Silent Bob Reboot" review

25 years of Snoogins. What's changed?

Lightning Round: Autumn Lands

Seasons are changing. Hopefully the film quality does with it.

"Joker" review

The rhetoric around this movie is going to make more incels than the film itself.

"It: Chapter Two" review

Don't know how Pennywise expects something with this much bloat to float.

Lightning Round: Average Endings to a Savage Summer time

This August ain't exactly blowing Oscar season out of the water but it's better than June and July.

"Once Upon a Time in Hollywood" review

The compelling tale of an actor's self worth...and some other stuff.

"The Lion King" review

The path unwinding in the Circle of Life leads to Disney's wallet. Spoilers.

Too Many Spider-Men: Ranking Spider-Man Cinema from Best to Worst (Part 2)

Which 4 movies stand out from the "Spider-Man" clan?

Too Many Spider-Men: Ranking Spider-Man Cinema from Best to Worst (Part 1)

Who crawls to the top of the pile?

"Sound! Euphonium - Our Promise: A Brand New Day" review

The beauty of band geek drama.

"Spider-Man: Far From Home" review

It's not quite "Into the Spider-Verse" but it'll do just fine.

Lightning Round: Demonic Toys

The toy stories you don't wanna take the kids to.

"Toy Story 4" review

Take a wild guess which toy story is worth seeing.

"Men in Black: International"

Recognizable only as deja vu and dismissed just as quickly; their words, not mine.

Lightning Round: Legacy and Complications

One of these is still standing better than they ever did. Hint: It's not the "X-Men" movie.

Lightning Round: The Victims of Memorial Day

Because nothing says faith like getting thrown out against a Disney tentpole release.

"Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019)" review

You don't need nature to point out the folly of man in this movie.

"Aladdin (2019)" review

Get used to the remakes folks. They're not going away anytime soon.

"John Wick: Chaper 3: Parabellum" review

It's a cinematic ballet of death.

Wading through murky waters: A Crit Hit Update

I've spent the last year putting forth a genuine effort to be more transparent about the nature of my writing's progress, the state of my well being, and the middle ground that I must walk to maintain the two.

In order to dedicate to that transparency, I've had to spend the last few months asking some fairly hard questions to myself about how to progress with both my life and my craft and while I'm far from having all of the answers, I can't stay silent about the state of the blog forever, especially as Summer movie season is beginning to kick into full gear.

First things first: reviews will never stop coming. I don't know if I'll always hit my target deadlines for them but they are going to continue landing as long as I have sensory receptors with which to consume art.

Secondly; regarding the current status of my works in progress, they're current status, beyond seeing release this year, is up in the air.

I've rewritten my editorial piece on "The Last Jedi" almost 3 times and just don't like how it's coming out and my finale for ""Younger and Wiser" has evolved into something more experimental.

Much of this is stemming from the general sense of dissatisfaction that I currently have with the blog. Similarly to Crapshoot, I started many of these writing projects as a means of exposing myself to more and more content and how that content represents the trends of audiences receiving it as well as the potential thinking behind the entertainment industry as to what they produce and try to sell.

The notion was nice for a time, back when I was first trying to stretch my legs as a professional reviewer; watch more, learn more, broaden your horizons and develop your filter in the process.

Having said that, its been almost 5 years since I've relaunched the blog, 7 years since I producing regularly scheduled content for different publications, and nearly 8 since I started the blog all together.

While I'm far from being the most knowledgeable expert on anything, I am very far from the novice that I started out as and making better content means holding myself to a higher standard and adapting to my own changes as well as those of the world around me.

Because of all of this, Crit Hit has been in a bit of an identity crisis, as I've struggled to churn out content I have mixed feelings over that doesn't wholly represent me, my talent, or a style I want to particularly adhere to anymore.

That's going to change.

Crit Hit has been in desperate of an overhaul for a while now but I'm happy to make that necessary change a reality, no matter how much work it takes in an effort to balance my passions with my life beyond writing as well as mental health issues I've alluded to previously.

For this reason, the usual variety of content I try to keep prominent upon the site, such as the aforementioned editorials and writing series', has to take a back seat while I work to get a proper plan into place. This is why content I've struggled to push out for months has been so substantially delayed and was partially why I've been reluctant to announce anything new. The difficulties of this task were nothing to scoff at in and of themselves but were recently compounded with outside developments.

I recently made the decision to leave my previous day job; a difficult and emotional decision that I had been grappling with for at least a year up to this point.

While I'm set to start a new career this week in a far more promising position, leaving my status quo on less than ideal terms to uproot and tackle something very different from what I've known my entire professional life has left me emotionally ping-ponging for the last few weeks pretty harshly.

I have a lot of pieces of my life that I need to put back together this summer and because of that and the blog's substantially ill-defined state of being, I can't promise much outside of the usual weekly movie reviews and the possible offbeat entry that may or may not suggest the stylings of future content.

That said, I have no desire to ever stop. A lot of change will be coming and as always, I appreciate my readership for sticking with me through it all.