The Cinematic Schematic

Movies about popular toys have been all the rage, and 2023 is no exception. Earlier this year, we got The Super Mario Bros. Movie, just last week Transformers: Rise of the Beasts hit theaters, and later this summer Warner Bros. Discovery will release Barbie. It turns out this was the future millennials wanted. Behind each toy is a story, especially Barbie, the most popular doll in the world. You a...

Talk about body dysmorphia has recently picked up steam in the media. In reality, an overwhelming number of people in America are experiencing various conditions related to body weight, gender, and shape. Furthermore, The Dialogues in Clinical Neuroscience reports at least 1 in 5 people experience body dysmorphia in the United States. Many experts go as far as to call that estimate conservative. T...

In the history of film, there are only a handful of iconic movies about a good rodeo. Fewer still are stories about black cowboys. Outside of 2021's The Harder They Fall, you're hard-pressed to name many others from the last decade. Riding Legacy, a new documentary that debuted at least weekend's deadCenter Film Festival is a film determined to change that trend. In today’s deadCenter 2023 intervi...

The deadCenter Film Festival has a history of shining a light on films made in Oklahoma about Oklahoma, and this year is no exception. Last night’s closing film was the Sundance Film Festival darling, Fancy Dance, from Oklahoma-born director Erica Tremblay. The film tells the soulful story of Jax, a Native American woman living on the Seneca–Cayuga Nation Reservation, who serves as a stand-in moth...

Have you ever seen a movie that seemed like such a blunder that there's no way any sane studio executive would greenlight it? There are many examples: 1995's Waterworld, 2004's Catwoman, and most recently 2019's Cats, to name a few. These are all notable failures in the history of studio filmmaking, but none of them are as infamous or culturally significant as the Star Wars Holiday Special TV movi...

On June 24th, 2022, the Supreme Court overturned Roe v Wade in a controversial decision that would leave women in large parts of the country without certain rights to abortion healthcare. The historic ruling is considered a major setback by many people. However, it was just the beginning of a larger fight for the people committed to preserving the right to the abortion pill. According to their web...

This year's deadCenter Film Festival showcases a variety of homegrown talent. There are directors who tell stories about teen adventures, explore dark comedy, and document the roots of the state's history. One of the more intriguing entries on this year's schedule is the surrealist coming-of-age drama, The Awkward Stage, a movie about a pre-teen student in a decaying Harrah, Oklahoma school who fa...

The Cinematropolis's exclusive deadCenter 2023 coverage continues with a podcast interview featuring Planet Thunder Productions' new film, Hell Hath No Fury. First-time feature film director Zachary Burns, Jacob Leighton Burns, and stars Leah N.H. Philpott and Jacob Ryan Snovel join the show before the film's Oklahoma premiere. The post ‘Hell Hath No Fury’ Brings Dark Comedy to deadCenter – dCFF23...

The Cinematic Schematic kicks off The Cinematropolis's exclusive deadCenter 2023 Film Festival coverage with a look at Kyle Roberts's return to feature filmmaking, What Rhymes with Reason. Since The Posthuman Project was released in 2014, Reckless Abandonment Pictures has focused on stop-motion projects, collaborations with Nickelodeon, and short films like The Grave. After nine years, Roberts is...

The Cinematic Schematic is joined by comic book scholar, Joshua Unruh, and Geek Girl Features' Chelsea Ratterman to review Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse. Does it have the previous film's lightning in a bottle magic? The post Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse Review – The Cinematic Schematic appeared first on The Cinematropolis .

Buckle up, listeners. Today we are once again jump-starting our engines to see if The Fast and Furious franchise can possibly continue to live its life a quarter a mile at a time for the tenth time in Fast X. Hosts Caleb Masters and Laron Chapman's favorite guilty pleasure franchise featuring Vin Diesel and the Fast family is back, this time with 100% more Jason Mamoa than the previous entry. Afte...

Have you seen my keys, listener? In this episode of The Cinematic Schematic, we gather around the podcast table to unpack our experiences watching every worst-case scenario imaginable play out for nearly 3 hours straight in our review discussion of the feel-bad movie of the summer, Beau Is Afraid. Ari Aster made a frighteningly memorable splash in horror with 2018's Hereditary followed immediately...

In this special edition of The Cinematic Schematic, The Cinematropolis co-founders Jacob and Zachary Burns join host and co-founder Caleb Masters to spotlight the most exciting work happening in horror with the executive producer of Skinamarink, Jonathan Barkan. Meet Jonathan Barkan: Horror Cinema Enthusiast, Writer, Film Acquirer and Distributor, and (most recently)Filmmaker Currently serving as...

he Cinematic Schematic is back to pit vampires against some of the most gnarly demons in cinema as we re-open the Book of the Dead, the Necronomicon, in our double feature review of Renfield and Evil Dead Rise. Rejoining us to discuss each uniquely hellish experience is the deadCenter Film Festival Features Programmer, Sunrise Tippeconnie, and Static Media's Jo Light. We start the show with a quic...

In today's episode of The Cinematic Schematic, we’re breaking out the D20 dice and classic controllers for another double-feature review of Dungeons & Dragons vs The Super Mario Bros. Movie. It's time to power up because this conversation is for the gamers. Firstly, we kick things off with a mini-review of Air, Ben Affleck's latest film about a different kind of game--basketball. Or rather, the st...

In today's episode of The Cinematic Schematic, we're entering the world of assassins living underneath the high table with Keanu Reeves in our review of John Wick Chapter 4. From our John Wick: Chapter 3 - Parabellum review, Alexandra Bohannon, a former co-host of Sound Trek, rejoins Caleb Masters and Laron Chapman to weigh in on John Wick's latest vengeful globetrotting rampage. This week, we bre...

Remember listeners, when you're lost in the darkness without a good video game film or TV adaptation...Look for the light! Believe in the Fireflies and join us for this special one-off podcast discussion reviewing HBO's The Last of Us season 1. In today’s bonus crossover episode with The Cast Beyond the Wall we are joined by a panel of guests including our own The Cinematic Schematic podcast hosts...

Don’t pick up the phone, our dear listener. In this episode of The Cinematic Schematic, we’re reviewing Scream VI, the sequel to last year’s Scream franchise revival, Scream(2022), made and released just fourteen months later. Can the directing duo of Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett AKA “Radio Silence” create lightning in a bottle twice? Before diving into Ghostface’s latest stab at the fr...

It's time to lace up your gloves and bust out the bear-repellant! In this week's episode of The Cinematic Schematic podcast we're pitting two recent box office hits against each other in a Cocaine Bear vs Creed III showdown. Standing in the left corner, we have a movie featuring the most memable movie title since Snakes on a Plane. And in the other corner, we have the third entry in an unexpectedl...

And the award for greatest 2023 Oscar predictions podcast featuring an Oklahoma filmmaker and an Oklahoma film critic podcaster goes to… …you guessed it, listeners! It’s time to roll out the red carpet and polish the little golden men because, on today’s special episode of The Cinematic Schematic, we’ll continue our annual award season tradition by placing bets on our 2023 Oscar predictions. Hosts...

The Cinematic Schematic is back from a short hiatus to do a winter 2023 film review round-up covering this season's biggest movies. The conversation starts with a discussion over M. Night Shyamalan's latest film, Knock at the Cabin before we take a look at the unexpected conclusion to the Magic Mike "Trilogy," Magic Mike's Last Dance. We then conclude the show with our thoughts on Ant-Man and the...

The Cinematic Schematic returns for our first episode of 2023 to dive into the most haunting TikTok dance we’ve seen yet with our review of M3GAN. We kick things off by responding to listener feedback and responses to our top 5 films of 2022. We then speculate what the highest-grossing movie at the box office in 2023 will be before jumping into our spoiler-free review of M3GAN. AI has been a fear...

In this episode of The Cinematic Schematic, hosts Caleb Masters, Laron Chapman, Cinematropolis contributor Daniel Bokemper, and the GoodTrash Genrecast's Dalton Stuart, sit down to name their top 5 movies of 2022. The special episode starts with the group catching up on a few of the films watched during the “awards season sprint" of November and December before kicking off the year-end award round...

After thirteen years it’s time to dust off the 3D glasses and reignite our hunt for unobtainium because in this episode of The Cinematic Schematic we’re reviewing the long-awaited sequel to the highest-grossing movie of all time, Avatar: The Way of Water. The world of filmgoing has changed considerably since James Cameron followed up his smash hit Titanic (1997) with another box office monster, Av...

Thirteen years ago, James Cameron, the acclaimed director of Titanic, Terminator 1 & 2, The Abyss, and Aliens, released his most ambitious passion project yet – Avatar(2009), a film featuring the fictional alien race named “Na’vi,” set on their home planet of Pandora. Starring relative no-name turned “it” guy, Sam Worthington alongside Zoe Saldana, Sigourney Weaver, Michelle Rodriguez, Stephen Lan...