Cinema Royale

Marvel unloaded the big guns at their San Diego Comic-Con panel in Hall over the weekend. Over the course of an hour and some change they dropped so much news and footage that it was tough to keep up! Phases 4, 5, AND 6! Avengers: The Kang Dynasty! Avengers: Secret Wars! Daredevil: Born Again! Black Panther: Wakanda Forever! It’s all too much for one Punch Drunk Critic to handle alone. I’m joined...

The Odinson has returned! Three years after it was first announced at Comic-Con, Thor: Love and Thunder is finally here. And this time, Chris Hemsworth isn’t the only Thor in town, as Natalie Portman’s Jane Foster wields the hammer, too. On this episode of Cinema Royale, I’m joined by my brotha from anotha mutha, Joblo.com‘s Chris Bumbray to talk about Thor’s latest adventure and why it might be t...

Slip on your blue suede shoes, check in to the Heartbreak Hotel, and join Cinema Royale for a review of Baz Luhrmann’s diamond-studded Elvis biopic! Of course, this being a Luhrmann joint, it ain’t no ordinary rock music biopic, more like a superhero origin story with Austin Butler as the heroic Presley and Tom Hanks as the evil Col. Tom Parker! Joining me to talk about the film is fellow Luhrmann...

Hello. Hi. It’s been a while. So the previous episode of Cinema Royale I mentioned that I was in the middle of a move. Well, now that move is complete and it’s time to play catch up! And who better to do that with than my Punch Drunk brother, John Nolan! We get in on the dino-action with Jurassic World Dominion, and ruminate on the fact that none of us can remember anything about it already. Is th...

We’ve had our breath taken away. We’re on the highway to the Danger Zone. We feel the need for speed!! On this episode of Cinema Royale, I’m joined by my good friend and Tom Cruise super fan Karen Peterson to talk, what else, Top Gun: Maverick! Does the long-awaited sequel have the goods to be a true ace? Or does it crash and burn, taking Cruise’s career with it? All of this and more, of course! Y...

Are you ready to enter…THE MULTIVERSE OF MADNESS?!?!?!? There’s only one thing on our minds this episode of Cinema Royale and that’s Marvel’s DOCTOR STRANGE IN THE MULTIVERSE OF MADNESS, an epic head-trip that promises to reshape our understanding of the MCU! But…does it? And what does Sam Raimi bring to the table in his big return to Marvel? Just how many cameos are we going to get? Does the MCU...

From a brutal Viking revenge thriller to a Michael Bay car chase through the streets of L.A., this week’s Cinema Royale is all action, all the time! On this week’s show, I’m joined by my homie Christopher Bumbray of Joblo.com to talk about Robert Eggers’ brutal tale of vengeance, The Northman, starring Alexander Skarsgard like you’ve never seen him before! Plus, we discuss Michael Bay’s high-octan...

It’s time to journey back to the Wizarding World! But will Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore be a worthy adventure after, let’s face it, a pretty terrible predecessor? Has the magic returned? Is Mads Mikkelsen here to stay as the villainous Grindelwald? And how big are these secrets, anyway? Joining me on the show this week is fellow Punch Drunk Critic, Cortland Jacoby, who like me hated...

After a two year wait, Sony’s Morbius finally opened in theaters and the response has not been great! Could this be a stake through the heart of Sony’s Spider-Man cinematic universe? Or will Jared Leto get a chance to return as the vampire antihero? Joining the show this week is my pal Chris Bumbray of Joblo.com, to talk about Morbius. Is it as bad as the reviews say? What does the future hold for...

The 94th Academy Awards are over, and you know what? It was one that we’ll never forget. There’s something to say about the history-making show, the winners who broke new ground, and, sadly, the slap heard around the world. It was Goddamn nuts! So let’s talk about it. Joining me on this episode of Cinema Royale is my good friend Karen Peterson, Awards Editor at We Live Entertainment, to break down...

It’s Super Bowl weekend for cinephiles! The 2022 Academy Awards are tonight, putting an end to another unusual awards season. Everything has been so altered by the pandemic that I don’t know if it’ll ever feel the same again. But no matter what, it’s always going to be fun trying to predict the winners, and the more unpredictable they are, the more fun it is. And this year is definitely one that I...

This was a very special episode of Cinema Royale for me, as my old friend Brandon Fibbs, one of the film critics I looked up to most early in my career, joins me to talk about Pixar’s latest, Turning Red, and to address some of the controversies surrounding it. We also talk the nostalgic sci-fi adventure The Adam Project, reuniting the can’t-miss duo of Ryan Reynolds and Free Guy director Shawn Le...

The wait is finally over! Matt Reeves’ The Batman is here, Robert Pattinson is in the suit, and this episode of Cinema Royale is all about the Dark Knight! Some are already calling it the best Batman has EVER been on the big screen, and one of the best comic book movies ever made. But come on! Can that really be true? Joining the show this week is film critic, comic book artist, and DC Comics expe...

It only took, what, a decade and about a dozen different directors and two dozen different stars but Sony’s Uncharted is finally here! On this latest episode of Cinema Royale, Joey Magidson of Awards Radar joins in to talk the video game flick starring some dudes named Tom Holland and Mark Wahlberg. What have they ever done? Plus, Channing Tatum is a soldier who hits the road with an angry canine...

The 2022 Oscar nominations were this morning! Are you okay? There were some big surprises, a few “snubs” (we hate that term around here), and some that came out of nowhere. Or did they? One person would know who were the true frontrunners, the dark horses, and the never-had-a-chance contenders really were. Cinema Royale is joined by Karen Peterson, awards editor at WeLiveEntertainment.com, to brea...

Disasters on massively different scales in this episode of Cinema Royale! Travis Hopson (@punchycritic) is joined by Eddie Pasa (@EddiePasa) of DCFilmdom.com and Matt Razak @MatthewRazak) of Flixist.com and Escapist Magazine to talk about Roland Emmerich’s latest earth-shattering disaster flick, Moonfall, starring Patrick Wilson and Halle Berry! Can Emmerich possibly top himself at this point or d...

We are back from Park City! Okay, not really. This year’s Sundance Film Festival was virtual, just like last year, meaning the furthest anybody went was to the kitchen for more popcorn. That’s okay, though. There were still a lot of movies and nobody had to stand in line in the cold to see them. Special guest and fellow Punch Drunk Critic writer Cortland Jacoby gives her thoughts on her first Sund...

We’re game-planning and previewing the 2022 Sundance Film Festival on this episode of Cinema Royale! Chris Bumbray of Joblo.com and Danielle Solzman of Solzy at the Movies look ahead to the most anticipated films, talk about Sundances past, and what we’re missing out on by the festival going virtual for the second year in a row. You can subscribe to Cinema Royale wherever you get your podcasts, an...

On the latest Cinema Royale, Vulture critic Roxana Hadadi joins to give her thoughts on action flick THE 355 and how it fails all of its female cast including Jessica Chastain and Lupita Nyong’o. Plus, we talk about the latest masterfully complex drama Iranian filmmaker Asghar Farhadi, A HERO, and discuss where it ranks on the list of his many classics.

Marvel’s Eternals is the lowest-ranked movie on Rotten Tomatoes and the only MCU film to get a “Rotten” score. But is that really fair? Or is something else going on here? Is bias against Oscar-winning director Chloe Zhao a factor? Or did the film simply fail in its grand ambitions? On this episode, Travis is joined by film critic Cortland Jacoby and Samuel Leggett of TeamJVS to talk about Eternal...

On the latest episode of Cinema Royale, Tim Gordon of TheFilmGordon.com goes down the rabbit hole with us for, what else, The Matrix Resurrections! Is Neo still THE ONE? Does Bullet Time still matter? Was this sequel worth the wait or is it all just another nostalgia trap? Plus, you knew we couldn’t go without talking about Paul Thomas Anderson’s excellent coming-of-age film Licorice Pizza! Is thi...

Well, is it? On this episode of Cinema Royale, Travis Hopson is joined by Joblo.com‘s Chris Bumbray and film critic Cortland Jacoby to compare SPIDER-MAN: NO WAY HOME to the webhead’s other movies. Plus, reviews of Steven Spielberg’s WEST SIDE STORY, complete with shade towards Ansel Elgort, and we argue over Adam McKay’s star-studded DON’T LOOK UP!

How long has it been since the last episode of Cinema Royale? Pretty sure the last thing we talked about was No Time to Die. But now we’re back and playing catch up, talking everything from Dune to Ghostbusters: Afterlife! Plus, we discuss this awards season and why critics suck, an annual conversation to be fair, along with reviews of Bruised, House of Gucci, and Encanto!

The world is not enough, nor can one episode of Cinema Royale barely contain all that we have to say about the latest James Bond flick, No Time to Die! Is this the best of the Daniel Craig era of 007? Where does he rank in the pantheon of James Bonds? And where should the franchise go from here? Who is the next to suit up and make saving the world look good? All of this and more in a (mostly) 100%...

Symbiotes and gangsta rule in the latest episode of Cinema Royale! Of course, we have to talk Tom Hardy’s odd couple sequel Venom: Let There Be Carnage and that whopper of a post-credits! What does it all mean for the future of Marvel/Sony movies? Plus, we return to the good ol’ days of mob rule with The Sopranos spinoff The Many Saints of Newark! All this, and we had to talk about the season fina...