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Twisters marks the return of the classic Hollywood blockbuster, a type of summer movie that hasn’t been seen in a couple decades thanks to the box-office domination of superhero movies and sci-fi action spectacles. This disaster film builds on the legacy of 1996’s Twister (starring the late Bill Paxton) by delivering a straightforward, action-packed story of humans vs. nature.

Release Date: 07/08/2024 Runtime: 122 minutes Director: Lee Isaac Chung Rotten Tomatoes: 76% Advertisement iMBD: 7.1/10 Where to Watch: In theaters

There are no giant creatures dueling it out, no existential threats to Earth, no evil villains to overcome… all this movie boasts is a great cast of characters and fun set-pieces. At a time when summer blockbusters are still dominated by bloated epics that have become so commonplace they provide nothing but a sense of mundanity, it’s refreshing to watch a story about a small group of people trying to save a couple of towns from natural disasters.

Twisters is tight, focused, and presents a realistic scenario that’s far easier to immerse yourself in. Its script succeeds where many others fail by clearly explaining character motivations, creating ideological clashes, and presenting challenges that are overcome with ingenuity and incremental improvement.

Unlike many legacy sequels, Twisters doesn’t rely heavily on its 1996 predecessor for references or Easter eggs. The characters are entirely new, and the film avoids mythologizing the original cast; while there is a nod to the tornado tracker from Twister, the story stands independently, with its own fresh narrative. Although it shares a similar structure with the original—following rival storm chasers and featuring familiar set pieces like twin tornadoes and a night-time hit—it carves out its own identity.

In essence, Twisters can be seen as a remake of the 1996 film, sharing the basic premise of weather researchers deploying a prototype in the path of tornadoes, facing increasingly severe storms escalating up the Fujita scale, ending with a climactic F5 tornado in the third act.

However, what distinguishes this film from the original is its new cast and stunning special effects that surpass the quaint CGI of 1996. While the original leaned towards horror, this sequel adopts a more realistic and lighthearted approach to storm chasing, allowing audiences to experience the thrill of destruction without resorting to cheap suspense.

For those craving a classic Hollywood flick offering a thrilling ride not seen since Tony Stark donned his Iron Man armor and changed the blockbuster landscape for decades, Twisters is a must-see at your local theater.

About our Admit One Author

Isaac Frankel is a freelance writer and content creator specializing in reviews and analysis of cinema, interactive media, and mythological storytelling. He was raised in Prescott, AZ, wrote his first non-fiction book in 2013 after graduating from Tribeca Flashpoint College with a degree in Game & Interactive Media Design, and currently produces content for the YouTube channel: Off Screen.

More of his work and current projects can be found at www.isaacafrankel.com.

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“Harold and the Purple Crayon,” the famed 1955 children’s picture book, is getting the three-dimensional treatment nearly 70 years after its release.

The picture book, written and illustrated by Crockett Johnson, follows Harold, a child who can create whatever he can imagine, so long as he draws it with his magic purple crayon. The film adaptation opens with a short animated sequence that gives life to the book’s famous illustrations. But how far can a children’s picture book stretch across an hour and a half-long movie? Not very.

After the film gets through the book’s story in about a minute, the narrator says that the book’s ending was not the close of Harold’s story. Cut to an animated adult Harold, all grown up but still in a onesie, with his purple sketched friends, Moose and Porcupine, as they venture around their two-dimensional existence and wonder what goes on in “the real world.”

After some brief exposition and short narration by Alfred Molina, Harold (Zachary Levi) draws a door labeled “Real World” and walks through it. He’s then miraculously spit out in Providence, Rhode Island, as a “real” person. Moose and Porcupine, played by Lil Rel Howery and Tanya Reynolds, respectively, follow through the magical door shortly after. Together, they embark on a mission to find the book’s narrator and author — the “old man,” as they call him — to ask him why he created them and their story.

What we get from there is something that feels like a hybrid of characters played by Amy Adams in “Enchanted” and Will Ferrell in “Elf”: an adult person who left their animated or fantasy world and is incredibly unfamiliar with reality. It’s an entertaining idea to see someone so naive navigating everyday life, but it feels rather derivative.

Much like her character in “Elf,” Zooey Deschanel plays Terry, a “real world” woman who is unenthused by our other-worldly protagonist’s antics for the better part of the movie. As the mother of the young and creative Mel (Benjamin Bottani), Terry hits Harold and Moose with her car, and eventually lets them stay at her house after some convincing from her son.

Predictably, shenanigans ensue as Harold lacks understanding of how to behave as the adult everyone sees him as (and wreaks havoc with his magic crayon). Levi is terribly earnest as Harold, making his hijinks more endearing.

Director Carlos Saldanha, an animation veteran who helmed the “Ice Age” franchise and the “Rio” movies, keeps the story moving with light humor and fun visuals sprinkled throughout. The imaginative animation over the live-action shots is the movie’s highlight, as Harold can still create anything with his purple crayon in the real world. With more colors and dimensions to play with now, he draws everything from a plane they fly over Rhode Island to Mel’s imaginary pet, which is some sort of dragon-lizard hybrid.

The plot, again, feels familiar when we meet the villain, librarian Gary, who wants to wield the powers of the crayon to feed his self-serving interests. Gary (Jemaine Clement) uses the crayon to make the fantasy world of his failing book come to life so he can get “revenge” on the publishers who turned it down. As far as conflict goes, it falls a little flat, but it does result in a sweet lesson of empathy; Gary says he just wanted to be in a place where he can fit in and Harold, using the crayon for good, creates that world for him.

While much of the movie may feel well-worn, I’d wager many copies of “Harold and the Purple Crayon” have seen better days. It’s the kind of children’s book that’s stayed on shelves through multiple generations. Even if the book’s story has been told and the movie’s format has been done before, a movie that reminds us to be imaginative — and that delivers some imaginative visuals to boot — can’t really get old.

“Harold and the Purple Crayon,” a Columbia Pictures release, is rated PG by the Motion Picture Association for mild action and thematic elements. Running time: 92 minutes. Two stars out of four.

How we watch television in 2024 has changed radically since this intrepid writer was a wee lad. Back when we were kids, with the internet and streaming a thing of rumour and something out of the 70s dystopian sci-fi film that would lead to the rise of machines and the demise of the human race (which might still happen, of course), we had to make sure we carved out the time to see the show we wanted because then it would disappear. No repeats, no catch-up, no YouTube. Consumption and consumerism have become different beasts in the decades since and, in their sophomore feature, Jane Schoenbrun dissects our relationships with the box with the big glow, just one of the many narratives flowing through this intoxicating new film.

1996: Owen (Justice Smith and Ian Foreman) is a young teenager in a Clinton-era America struggling to find his place in life, school, and his general surroundings, feeling conflicted about his relationships with other people, his mother, and his sexuality. At a teacher/parent conference-style evening, he meets Maddy (Brigette Lundy-Paine, stunning) who, to Owen, is a much more together person than himself, exuding cool aloof, and confident. Maddy confides that she likes girls, whereas Owen states he likes TV shows, and soon enough she recommends he watch her favourite television show, The Pink Opaque, which may help him through some tough times as it did her: part Buffy the Vampire Slayer, part David Lynch nightmare, the two lead characters may hold some answers for them, both in this world and in the world of the show.

For anyone coming into this one cold, make sure it stays that way but one way to prep yourself is to devour Schoenbrun’s debut feature We’re All Going To The World’s Fair. Released in 2022 at the height of the pandemic after its Sundance debut a year earlier, it showcased the writer/director’s unique prowess as a filmmaker and immediately put them on the map in a big way. A coming-of-age narrative is never the most challenging of genres to tap into but under their visual intensity and knack for the visceral and the challenging, it made the usual cliches feel new and fresh as it delved into internet culture, fan forums, and how we can get lost in new worlds that replace our own. With Glow, they set their sights on our consumption of television and our over-reliance on them for escapism and, by extension, being seen. 

The characters of the show-within-the-show may be fake but for Owen and Maddy they allow them to feel comfort, to feel seen, and to feel the love and affection their real world hasn’t provided: whether it’s part of a family dynamic or their own curiosities and sexuality, it allows them safety and guidance where those around them haven’t been able to. Indeed, it delves deep into our fascination as humans with the old gogglebox and how much we rely on it to service our everyday needs and affections, even if it means missing everything going on around us – heck, we even observe people in social experiments, people dancing on TikTok and watch other people watch the television in some bizarre Truman Show-esque nightmare that only gets more and more compelling. 

With panache, colour, and dense, intriguing texture, Schoenbrun’s exhilarating filmmaking is to be admired and applauded, taking us on original adventures through old pastures and making us look, think and feel everything very differently, even if a few notes don’t quite hit the heights of the rest of them. It will polarise audiences, for sure, but in a cinema landscape that is becoming increasingly more predictable, their voice is one to be shouted about through the flatscreens.