Category: Movies Watched

Sparks: Directed by Todd Burrows, Christopher Folino. With Chase Williamson, Ashley Bell, Clancy Brown, Jake Busey. A masked vigilante who discovers the dark side to heroism. Going after the nation’s most notorious super criminal leaves Sparks’ life and reputation in ruins. Clancy Brown AND Clint Howard? They’re not stars of the film, but it’s still weird to see such big names in such a low budget effort. It’s low budget only in the financial aspect though, as the actual story and substance of the movie is pretty good. Buy On Amazon!

This Changes Everything: Directed by Tom Donahue. With Reese Witherspoon, Mira Nair, Shonda Rhimes, Tracee Ellis Ross. An investigative look and analysis of gender disparity in Hollywood, featuring accounts from well-known actors, executives and artists in the Industry. A great documentary about ladies in films, or the serious lack of them. Not just in front of the cameras, but behind them as well. We’ve made some fantastic changes in the last 20 years, but it’s still not been enough, so I look forward to the massive changes that will hopefully happen soon with the pipelines that are being created by...

F9: The Fast Saga: Directed by Justin Lin. With Vin Diesel, Michelle Rodriguez, Jordana Brewster, Tyrese Gibson. Dom and the crew must take on an international terrorist who turns out to be Dom and Mia’s estranged brother. Charlize Theron is back and her hair is killing me, it’s terrible and I don’t like it. She reminds me of the three stooges! There’s more family, family from before, family from now, future family, family that’s actually dead but we pretend they’re still alive, family to be, and family in space, all due to yet another impossibly silly mcguffin that really doesn’t...

Jungle Cruise: Directed by Jaume Collet-Serra. With Dwayne Johnson, Emily Blunt, Edgar Ramírez, Jack Whitehall. Based on Disneyland’s theme park ride where a small riverboat takes a group of travelers through a jungle filled with dangerous animals and reptiles but with a supernatural element. A very weird choice in opening music, but other than that, this is a rather good adventure movie, just about on par with The Mummy. Buy On Amazon!

Jolt: Directed by Tanya Wexler. With Kate Beckinsale, Jai Courtney, Stanley Tucci, Bobby Cannavale. A bouncer with a slightly murderous anger-management problem that she controls with the help of an electrode-lined vest she uses to shock herself back to normalcy whenever she gets homicidal. After the first guy she’s ever fallen for is murdered, she goes on a revenge-fueled rampage to find the killer while the cops pursue her as their chief suspect. From the trailers you’d think this was like the movie with Jason Statham (Crank?), but the basic idea is much cooler and makes more sense, and I...

Space Jam: A New Legacy: Directed by Malcolm D. Lee. With LeBron James, Don Cheadle, Cedric Joe, Khris Davis. A rogue artificial intelligence kidnaps the son of famed basketball player LeBron James, who then has to work with Bugs Bunny to win a basketball game. The movie opens with Lebron James’s career highlights, which are pretty cool to see, as I have no been following his career very much, but from the moment the guy steps on screen to the moment he leaves, I can’t help but dislike him and everything he stands for in this movie. Someone had the...

The Ice Road: Directed by Jonathan Hensleigh. With Liam Neeson, Marcus Thomas, Laurence Fishburne, Amber Midthunder. After a remote diamond mine collapses in far northern Canada, a ‘big-rig’ ice road driver must lead an impossible rescue mission over a frozen ocean to save the trapped miners. Extremely rough cgi and cinematography, this feels like a made for tv movie that would be better at home on Hallmark or Lifetime. Buy On Amazon!

This Is Pop: With Jack Casady, Ludwig Göransson, Hozier, Alex James. Uncover the real stories behind your favorite pop songs as this docuseries charts the impact of the festival scene, Auto-Tune, boy bands and more. Stars off with modern pop music and gets….distantly related to that by the final episode. I could see the argument for including so much political stuff, but that’s not really what I came for. Buy On Amazon!

The Expendables 3: Directed by Patrick Hughes. With Sylvester Stallone, Jason Statham, Harrison Ford, Arnold Schwarzenegger. Barney augments his team with new blood for a personal battle: to take down Conrad Stonebanks, the Expendables co-founder and notorious arms trader who is hell bent on wiping out Barney and every single one of his associates. Unbelievably, Mel Gibson is the bad guy, who ends up shooting one of the most lovable characters, and Bruce Willis is out, but Harrison Ford is IN as the shadowy agent from the Agency, giving orders to the Expendables and giving them interesting missions to go...

The Expendables 2: Directed by Simon West. With Sylvester Stallone, Jason Statham, Jet Li, Dolph Lundgren. Mr. Church reunites the Expendables for what should be an easy paycheck, but when one of their men is murdered on the job, their quest for revenge puts them deep in enemy territory and up against an unexpected threat. This is the type of movie where the opening scene arrives with explosions that have no relation to the weapons that are doing the shooting or what’s being shot, but all those big booms sure look cool! We’re back with more unmistakable and irredeemable bad...