Author: tiki god

Unlikely Angel: Directed by Michael Switzer. With Dolly Parton, Roddy McDowall, Brian Kerwin, Allison Mack. Dolly Parton portrays a country-music performer who meets an untimely demise, but cannot enter heaven until she performs a good deed back on Earth: to reunite a workaholic widower with his children for Christmas. Allison Mack! So young, but still so familiar to me as a fan of Smallville, it was super weird to see her as a kid when I know what her future holds for her both as an actress and as a convicted conwoman and religious nutjob. Whew! That shock aside, this...

Memories: Directed by Katsuhiro Ôtomo, Kôji Morimoto, Tensai Okamura. With Tsutomu Isobe, Shôzô Îzuka, Kôichi Yamadera, Shigeru Chiba. Three separate science-fiction stories by three prominent Japanese animators. TikTok hit me with the bomber short from this anthology and it seemed interesting enough to watch and I really did not expect the other two shorts to be as emotionally intense as they were. There’s subtitles, but it’s worth your time if you enjoy watching spaceship horror, mysterious political allegories, or darkly humorous genocide stories. Buy On Amazon!

Love and Monsters: Directed by Michael Matthews. With Dylan O’Brien, Jessica Henwick, Michael Rooker, Dan Ewing. Seven years after he survived the monster apocalypse, lovably hapless Joel leaves his cozy underground bunker behind on a quest to reunite with his high school sweetheart. I bought the 4k version of this film a while ago when it was $5 and just got around to re-watching it. I remember liking it the first time I seent it, and I liked it again this time. I had also forgotten about the tear jerking scene with the robot, who knew that an AI could...

Red One: Directed by Jake Kasdan. With Dwayne Johnson, Chris Evans, Lucy Liu, J.K. Simmons. After Santa Claus is kidnapped, the North Pole’s Head of Security must team up with a notorious hacker in a globe-trotting, action-packed mission to save Christmas. I was expecting something much lighter than what this ended up being. It has some pretty familiar elements of the Santa / Krampus lore, tying them together with the thread of dozens of other winter myths. There’s a number of very famous people that are famous for being famous in other famous things, so if you want a nice...

Die Hard: Directed by John McTiernan. With Bruce Willis, Bonnie Bedelia, Reginald VelJohnson, Paul Gleason. A New York City police officer tries to save his estranged wife and several others taken hostage by terrorists during a Christmas party at the Nakatomi Plaza in Los Angeles. It’s a holiday movie. Not necessarily a Christmas movie, but it’s something that’s so loved for the holiday that it has to be watched. Right? Buy On Amazon!