Author: tiki god

Top Gun: Maverick: Directed by Joseph Kosinski. With Tom Cruise, Val Kilmer, Miles Teller, Jennifer Connelly. After more than thirty years of service as one of the Navy’s top aviators, Pete Mitchell is where he belongs, pushing the envelope as a courageous test pilot and dodging the advancement in rank that would ground him. The most shocking part of this film isn’t that Tom Cruise came back for it, nor that it’s doing exceptionally well, but that the story is a heartfelt look into the life of a guy that knows were he belongs and does everything he can do...

I Am Curious (Blue): Directed by Vilgot Sjöman. With Maj Hultén, Vilgot Sjöman, Lena Nyman, Börje Ahlstedt. Told in a quasi-documentary style, this companion piece to Jag är nyfiken – en film i gult (1967) deals with topics such as class society, religion, sex, contraceptives, and the Swedish prison Kumla. Still a controversial film to anyone that would care about it, this is the other side of the coin to the “I Am Curious: Yellow” version of the film, which I’m somewhat uncomfortable calling “versions” because they’re completely different and are unique and separate films. They’re more like companion pieces...

Firestarter: Directed by Keith Thomas. With Zac Efron, Ryan Kiera Armstrong, Sydney Lemmon, Michael Greyeyes. A young girl tries to understand how she mysteriously gained the power to set things on fire with her mind. I’ve still not seen the original film with Drew Barrymore, and I had only just barely been made aware of the basics of the story, so I was somewhat shocked to learn this is straight up a super hero film with pyrokinetics, telepathy, and telekensis. It’s a perfectly watchable film and I had a good time watching it, but there’s something flat about the film...

Top Gun: Directed by Tony Scott. With Tom Cruise, Kelly McGillis, Val Kilmer, Anthony Edwards. As students at the United States Navy’s elite fighter weapons school compete to be best in the class, one daring young pilot learns a few things from a civilian instructor that are not taught in the classroom. I watched this again because it was included on Paramount Plus and I was about to go see it’s sequel in a few hours. It still holds up as one of Tom Cruises finest roles. It’s pure American propaganda, but I’m ok with that. Buy On Amazon!

Mainstream: Directed by Gia Coppola. With Maya Hawke, Andrew Garfield, Kalena Yiaueki, Nat Wolff. In this cautionary tale, three people struggle to preserve their identities as they form an eccentric love triangle within the fast-moving internet age. Not everyone can be famous, and most of the people that become famous had little personal input on what happened to their fame after they became famous. Some people don’t want to be famous at all, yet are famous because the world doesn’t care about your feelings, the world just wants to be entertained, maybe even a little shocked at what you’re doing....

Directed by Rob Lindsay. No Responders Left Behind is a feature documentary following 9/11 responder & activist John Feal who, along with comedian Jon Stewart and FDNY hero Ray Pfeifer, fought the U.S. Congress to ensure that thousands of terminally ill 9/11 First Responders got the health care This was released back in 2021, but I just now found a stream of it, and I promise you, I’ve been looking! It’s every bit as emotionally frustrating as I expected it to be, with the same obvious players making life difficult for everyone around them, using morally corrupt reasoning to cause...

Habit: Directed by Janell Shirtcliff. With Bella Thorne, Andreja Pejic, Gavin Rossdale, Libby Mintz. A street-smart party girl gets mixed up in a violent drug deal and finds a possible way out by masquerading as a nun. It took me about 3 tries, but I finally got through the film. There’s a few famous people present, but I think they forgot to polish the story before filming. There’s definitely a story to be told here, but it’s one that you have to get to despite the uneven acting and unnatural lighting in nearly every scene. Buy On Amazon!

The Northman: Directed by Robert Eggers. With Alexander Skarsgård, Nicole Kidman, Claes Bang, Ethan Hawke. From visionary director Robert Eggers comes The Northman, an action-filled epic that follows a young Viking prince on his quest to avenge his father’s murder. I love Alexander Skarsgard, but this movie went too heavy into the deep catalog of northern mythology for me to enjoy the film. It’s definitely got a fantastic story and the acting is pretty damn good too, just didn’t do it for me personally. Buy On Amazon!

The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit: Directed by Nunnally Johnson. With Gregory Peck, Jennifer Jones, Fredric March, Marisa Pavan. An ex-soldier faces ethical questions as he tries to earn enough to support his wife and children well. This is one of the most serious and mature film that I’ve seen from the 1950’s, and it’s about the effects of PTSD on soldiers from the second world war that wrapped up about a decade previously, and how they were dealing with the fact that the country had developed a national amnesia to the fact that a large part of their...