Under the benevolent leadership of the League of Peoples, there is no war, little crime, and life is sacred…unless you’re an Explorer. The ugly, the flawed, the misfit, the deformed, they are the unwanted, flung to the farthest corners of the galaxy to investigate hostile planets and strange, vicious creatures. Out there, there are a thousand different–and terrible–ways to die. Festina Ramos belongs to the well-trained, always-dwindling ranks of ECMs (Expendable Crew Members). Now she and her partner, Yarrun Derigha, have been ordered to escort the unstable Admiral Chee to Melaquin–the feared “Planet of No Return”– which has swallowed up...
Zone 414: Directed by Andrew Baird. With Guy Pearce, Matilda Anna Ingrid Lutz, Jonathan Aris, Colin Salmon. Set in the near future, private detective David Carmichael is hired by Marlon Veidt, an eccentric businessman, to track down his missing daughter. David teams up with Jane, a highly advanced A.I. to solve the mystery. There’s clear and obvious cinematic aspirations here that the movie is reaching for, and while I applaud it for what it’s able to do, I don’t think it actually reaches the goal that they set for themselves. Maybe the script needed some more work, or maybe it...
Halloween Kills: Directed by David Gordon Green. With Jamie Lee Curtis, Judy Greer, Andi Matichak, James Jude Courtney. The saga of Michael Myers and Laurie Strode continues in the next thrilling chapter of the Halloween series. Picking up immediately after 2018’s “Halloween”, we find Laurie Strode being transported from her death trap of a house to have emergency surgery for the stabbings she received during Michael’s assault on her fortress of death. Passing her on the way to her house? Fire trucks and first responders! The inevitable happens and there’s a ton of dead firefighters left behind as Michael is...
Vacation Friends: Directed by Clay Tarver. With Lil Rel Howery, Yvonne Orji, John Cena, Meredith Hagner. A couple meets up with another couple while on vacation in Mexico, but their friendship takes an awkward turn when they get back home. We’ve all see this story before and we’ll see it again 1,000 times, a stuffy couple falls in with a wild couple and shenanigans ensue and everyone learned to be better people by the end of the film. In this case, the casting is damn near perfect as the chemistry among the four leads is noticeable and the comedic delivery...
Lucky Boy: Directed by Norman Taurog, Charles C. Wilson. With George Jessel, Gwen Lee, Richard Tucker, Gayne Whitman. A young Jewish man works in his father’s jewelry business, but he doesn’t like it at all–he wants to be an entertainer, something he knows that his father would never approve of. He comes up with a scheme to put on his own show in a theater and show his father that he can be a success, but things don’t work out quite as well as he planned. I found a copy of this on a dvd store’s website, making the (incorrect)...
Don’t Say a Word: Directed by Gary Fleder. With Michael Douglas, Sean Bean, Brittany Murphy, Skye McCole Bartusiak. When the daughter of a psychiatrist is kidnapped, he’s horrified to discover that the abductors’ demand is that he break through to a post traumatic stress disorder suffering young woman who knows a secret… After watching the quasi documentary about her death, we decided it would be time to watch some of her films and this one was free on Tubi. It’s a well made psychological thriller, the type that Michael Douglas apparently enjoyed making for a large portion of his career....
Injustice: Directed by Matt Peters. With Justin Hartley, Anson Mount, Laura Bailey, Zach Callison. On an alternate Earth, the Joker tricks Superman into killing Lois Lane, which causes a rampage in the hero. Superman decides to take control of Earth, Batman and his allies will have to attempt to stop him. I’m pretty sure this is based on something other than the video game, maybe the comic book series? I haven’t had the opportunity to read that yet, so all my knowledge comes from just the first video game. This movie isn’t much like that game, but it’s still a...
Hellraiser: Hellworld: Directed by Rick Bota. With Stelian Urian, Katheryn Winnick, Anna Tolputt, Khary Payton. Gamers playing a MMORPG based on the “Hellraiser” films find their lives endangered after being invited to a rave, the host of which intends to show them the truth behind the Cenobite mythos. Another straight to VHS / DVD special that actually turned out to be a pretty ok horror / slasher film and somewhat ok addition to the Hellraiser franchise. Most surprising to me was seeing a very young Henry Cavil as one of group that’s destined to die. There’s some pretty lame attempts...
What Happened, Brittany Murphy?: With Paige Westbrook, Alex Hodgins, Kathy Najimy, Lisa Rieffel. Presents an in-depth, intimate character portrait exploring the life and career and mysterious circumstances surrounding the tragic death of 90’s actress and rising star, Brittany Murphy. This was less than what I hoped it would be, with all sorts of finger pointing and positing with youtubers that are pushing hoaxes and conspiracy theories. It’s only two episodes long, but it took the majority of their time to even point out that her husband had a previous relationship that nearly ended the same way. There’s a lot of...
I had a buddy back in college that had a name of AswIooRsh for “air swoosh” and I was enjoying the resurgence of tiki culture at the time, so I did the same thing for tiki god. it looks silly with the caps up and down though, but if I were to do that, it’d be TgIoKdI. This was way before ThE rAnDoM cApS meant anything at all, but now that it does mean something, I’m happy I never did the caps thing.
