Category: Reviews of Movies

Kiki’s Delivery Service: Directed by Hayao Miyazaki. With Minami Takayama, Rei Sakuma, Kappei Yamaguchi, Keiko Toda. Along with her black cat Jiji, Kiki settles in a seaside town and starts a high-flying delivery service. Here begins her magical encounter with independence and responsibility, making lifelong friends and finding her place in the world. This is the movie that actually got the ball rolling on my desire to watch all the Studio Ghibli films, as one of my coworkers had a stain glass mural in her window that features Jiji all over the place, which I thought was cute and whimsical...

Robot Carnival: Directed by Atsuko Fukushima, Hiroyuki Kitakubo, Hiroyuki Kitazume, Kôji Morimoto, Takashi Nakamura, Yasuomi Umetsu, Manabu Ôhashi, Hidetoshi Ômori, Katsuhiro Ôtomo. With Kôji Moritsugu, Yayoi Maki, Keiko Hanagata, Kumiko Takizawa. A collection of short stories, made by different animators with “robot” as the working title. This is on Amazon Prime and I fully have no idea how it ended up in front of me, but it was such a fantastic experience that I’m happy it was in my queue, or suggestion list or whatever the mess of Prime lists actually is. It’s a collection of short stories that range...

My Neighbor Totoro: Directed by Hayao Miyazaki. With Noriko Hidaka, Chika Sakamoto, Shigesato Itoi, Sumi Shimamoto. When two girls move to the country to be near their ailing mother, they have adventures with the wondrous forest spirits who live nearby. Decidedly lighter fair in comparison to Grave of the Fireflies or even Valley of the Wind, there’s still some extremely emotionally charged moments that really had my heart getting ready to break. I was luckily saved from that sad fate by a well timed catbus, for which I’m grateful that were introduced to earlier in the film, because as a...

Grave of the Fireflies: Directed by Isao Takahata. With Tsutomu Tatsumi, Ayano Shiraishi, Yoshiko Shinohara, Akemi Yamaguchi. A young boy and his little sister struggle to survive in Japan during World War II. I already knew what this movie was about, so when it came time to watch it on my journey to see all of Studio Ghibli, I hesitated for a moment. Was I ready for a beautiful, yet heavy film about the final days of World War 2? I thought I was, but I was honestly expecting it to be told through allegory, much like the first two...

Ash: Directed by Flying Lotus. With Eiza González, Aaron Paul, Iko Uwais, Kate Elliott. A woman wakes up on a distant planet and finds the crew of her space station viciously killed. Her investigation into what happened sets in motion a terrifying chain of events. There’s a few big names and familiar faces in “Ash” that I had limitedly high hopes for it, perhaps I trusted the trailer a bit too much, but the final product didn’t do it for me. The story has been done many times before where your POV character wakes up with no memory of what’s...

Castle in the Sky: Directed by Hayao Miyazaki. With Mayumi Tanaka, Keiko Yokozawa, Kotoe Hatsui, Minori Terada. Pazu’s life changes when he meets Sheeta, a girl whom pirates are chasing for her crystal amulet, which has the potential to locate Laputa, a legendary castle floating in the sky. My favorite quote from this movie: “All good pirates listen to their mom!” Another post apocalyptic tale from Studio Ghibli, this one is much more whimsical, but none the less captivating with a strong soundtrack, a story that really works well, and characters that feel as real as it gets. I’m sad...

Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind: Directed by Hayao Miyazaki. With Sumi Shimamoto, Mahito Tsujimura, Hisako Kyôda, Gorô Naya. Warrior and pacifist Princess Nausicaä desperately struggles to prevent two warring nations from destroying themselves and their dying planet. I’ve never watched a Studio Ghibli film before, at least not to my knowledge. One of my co-workers had an adorable stainglass thing with a cat on it and she said that it was from one of their films (Kiki’s Delivery Service iirc), and this company has been constantly on the periphery of many different genres that I love, but I...

The Electric State: Directed by Anthony Russo, Joe Russo. With Woody Norman, Millie Bobby Brown, Ann Russo, Greg Cromer. An orphaned teen hits the road with a mysterious robot to find her long-lost brother, teaming up with a smuggler and his wisecracking sidekick. The trailers for this looked amazing, but what we got was less than amazing and more bland Netflix straight to vhs than I was really hoping for. A few people have said that the film was made for kids and that might explain how mediocre and unchallenging the dialogue was, but that trailer made me feel this...

Moana 2: Directed by David G. Derrick Jr., Jason Hand, Dana Ledoux Miller. With Auli’i Cravalho, Dwayne Johnson, Hualalai Chung, Rose Matafeo. After receiving an unexpected call from her wayfinding ancestors, Moana must journey to the far seas of Oceania and into dangerous, long-lost waters for an adventure unlike anything she’s ever faced. While I enjoyed the film, it didn’t rise to the same level of appreciation as the first film, and felt like a much smaller adventure than what I think was intended. It’s still an exceptionally enjoyable adventure! Buy On Amazon!

Piece by Piece: Directed by Morgan Neville. With Pharrell Williams, Morgan Neville, Kendrick Lamar, Gwen Stefani. A vibrant journey through the life of Pharrell Williams, told through the lens of LEGO animation. A visual feast of a movie that I knew was going to be a biographical story, but my wife had no clue and I’m not sure how I would have liked to have had it. It’s a great film and the soundtrack is as rich as you can get, but as a well done biographical story, there’s no real action to it. I enjoyed it for what it...

Constantine: Directed by Francis Lawrence. With Keanu Reeves, Rachel Weisz, Shia LaBeouf, Djimon Hounsou. Detective Angela approaches Constantine, a demon hunter, to help her investigate her twin sister’s mysterious death. As he digs deeper, he realizes that demons are trying to enter the human world. Still a solid movie, there’s been constant talk of a possible sequel, and while I’ll watch it if it happens, I’m happy with this being a stand alone film. It’s not the most faithful adaptation in terms of character specifics, but it gets the fundamentals right, so the lack of blonde hair and british accent...

Warning Sign: Directed by Hal Barwood. With Sam Waterston, Kathleen Quinlan, Yaphet Kotto, Jeffrey DeMunn. A timid security guard, her ailing supervisor-mentor, her sheriff husband and an alcoholic former scientist team up to stop a viral outbreak in a rural biological weapons lab, while a government agent grapples with the political outcome. This is another tiktok influenced film, the scene I saw was the initial lockdown, and the ret of the film was just as good as the teaser scene suggested it would be. The crux of it is that there’s a bioweapons research company doing business under the guise...

The Gorge: Directed by Scott Derrickson. With Miles Teller, Anya Taylor-Joy, Sigourney Weaver, Sope Dirisu. Two highly-trained operatives become close after being sent to protect opposite sides of a mysterious gorge. When an evil emerges, they must work together to survive what lies within. While this is a much more serious film than I initially thought it was going to be, there’s still some of the stupid idiots doing stupid things in a situation that everyone involved should known better. The Gorge (the location in the movie) is a wonderfully novel concept with a great execution that I fully applaud....

This Is the Tom Green Documentary: Directed by Tom Green. With Tom Green, Mary Jane Green, Phil Giroux, Howard Wagman. Comedian Tom Green’s journey takes unexpected turns as he shifts from wild MTV stunts to confronting serious health challenges, ultimately finding peace away from Hollywood on his Canadian farm. Tom Green was ever present while I was in high school, but I never found myself enjoying his efforts, they seemed too intentionally random and felt inauthentic. There’s an entire genre of comedy based around that type of humor that I just don’t go for, but enough people do that it...

Earth Abides: Created by Todd Komarnicki. With Alexander Ludwig, Jessica Frances Dukes, Rodrigo Fernandez-Stoll, Elyse Levesque. After months of isolation, Isherwood “Ish” Williams, learns that most of the world has fallen to a mysterious illness. Yet, despite his instincts to further isolate, Ish leads the charge to develop a new civilization. I’ve seen a ton of post-apocalyptic stories in so many different variations, and not many of them are able to make me feel good about the story by the end of it, feeling hopeful and open to the idea that humanity will do better than it did before. Mind...

The Wild Robot: Directed by Chris Sanders. With Lupita Nyong’o, Pedro Pascal, Kit Connor, Bill Nighy. After a shipwreck, an intelligent robot called Roz is stranded on an uninhabited island. To survive the harsh environment, Roz bonds with the island’s animals and cares for an orphaned baby goose. As good as I was expecting, and I was expecting a good movie considering the stupid trailer made me cry stupid tears. They hit all the notes required to pull the strings of the heart and have all the plot elements to make it all a wonderful experience. It’s also pretty good...

Captain America: Brave New World: Directed by Julius Onah. With Anthony Mackie, Harrison Ford, Danny Ramirez, Shira Haas. Sam Wilson, the new Captain America, finds himself in the middle of an international incident and must discover the motive behind a nefarious global plan. We’re not necessarily back to the amazing level of story and effort that the original Captain America movie had, but we’re no where near the lows of recent MCU movies. There’s still some unfortunate CGI in the third act and a few scenes that look like they were filmed in both The Volume and a bluescreen at...

Code 8: Part II: Directed by Jeff Chan. With Robbie Amell, Stephen Amell, Alex Mallari Jr., Sirena Gulamgaus. Follows a girl fighting to get justice for her brother who was slain by corrupt police officers. She enlists the help of an ex-con and his former partner to face off against a highly regarded and well-protected police sergeant. While the original movie didn’t blow me away, I was happily surprised by this sequel, it was much less frantic and much more paced. There’s a decent story this time around with tales of family redemption, financial consequences, politics, and bad cops involved...

Star Trek: Section 31: Directed by Olatunde Osunsanmi. With Michelle Yeoh, Omari Hardwick, Sam Richardson, Robert Kazinsky. In Star Trek: Section 31, Emperor Philippa Georgiou joins a secret division of Starfleet tasked with protecting the United Federation of Planets, and must face the sins of her past. I watched this over the weekend and it was exactly what I thought it was going to be: for better or worse, it’s a vehicle to highlight the fact that Academy Award Winner Michelle Yeoh was under contract to do more Star Trek content and they couldn’t figure out how to use her...

The Crow: Directed by Rupert Sanders. With Bill Skarsgård, FKA twigs, Danny Huston, Josette Simon. Soulmates Eric and Shelly are brutally murdered. Given a chance to save the love of his life, Eric must sacrifice himself and traverse the worlds of the living and the dead, seeking revenge. The blood soaked title card sequence is pretty cool, and the rest of the film is equally drenched in gallons of blood, there’s not a whole lot that I can point to as innovative or all that interesting. The franchise itself has done a ton of cool stuff, but has driven most...

The Right Stuff: Directed by Philip Kaufman. With Sam Shepard, Scott Glenn, Ed Harris, Dennis Quaid. The U.S. space program’s development from the breaking of the sound barrier to selection of the Mercury 7 astronauts, from a group of test pilots with a more seat-of-the-pants approach than the program’s more cautious engineers preferred. I swear that I’ve seen this in the past and I sought it out to watch whilst constructing space themed LEGOs, though that plastic plan fell apart due to completing the task during my last binge of LEGO meditations. I had no memory of the film though,...

Alien: Romulus: Directed by Fede Alvarez. With Cailee Spaeny, David Jonsson, Archie Renaux, Isabela Merced. While scavenging the deep ends of a derelict space station, a group of young space colonists come face to face with the most terrifying life form in the universe. Watch again with my wife, and she enjoyed it just fine. I enjoyed it just fine again. Buy On Amazon!

Lulu Belle: Directed by Leslie Fenton. With Dorothy Lamour, George Montgomery, Albert Dekker, Otto Kruger. Lulu Belle and George Davis marry despite opposition. Financial struggles lead Lulu to work at a club, causing George’s jealousy and imprisonment. Lulu becomes a Broadway star but chooses George over a wealthy suitor upon his release. Movie from 1948 starts with a show in which two people are shot and the rest of movie is told in flashback, with the exception of the final scene in which we discover it was the obvious person that shot them all along! Lulu Bell is played by...

Madame Web: Directed by S.J. Clarkson. With Dakota Johnson, Sydney Sweeney, Isabela Merced, Celeste O’Connor. Forced to confront her past, Cassandra Webb, a Manhattan paramedic that may have clairvoyant abilities, forms a relationship with three young women destined for powerful futures, if they can survive their threatening present. Watching this at home wasn’t a jarring as watching it in a theater. It feels much more at home on a smaller screen with distractions happening every 20 minutes and a wife asking questions every other scene about the scene that just happened. The story isn’t all that complicated, it has plenty...

A Family Affair: Directed by Richard LaGravenese. With Nicole Kidman, Zac Efron, Joey King, Kathy Bates. A surprising romance kicks off comic consequences for a young woman, her mother, and her movie-star boss as they face the complications of love, sex, and identity. This was the late night movie that I settled on to close out our lazy snow day and it turned out to be much more than I was expecting from everyone involved. The story is much more nuanced, the characters much more believable, and the situations all less sitcom / soap opera than Netflix is known for....

The Day After Tomorrow: Directed by Roland Emmerich. With Dennis Quaid, Jake Gyllenhaal, Emmy Rossum, Dash Mihok. Jack Hall, paleoclimatologist, must make a daring trek from Washington, D.C. to New York City to reach his son, trapped in the cross-hairs of a sudden international storm which plunges the planet into a new Ice Age. This was the first movie we watched after the apocalyptic snow storm here in Florida, we received well over 2 inches of snow! It promptly sorta melted, then turned into ice and now it’s unsafe to drive on and we have icicles. Buy On Amazon!

Star Trek Beyond: Directed by Justin Lin. With Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Karl Urban, Zoe Saldana. The crew of the USS Enterprise explores the furthest reaches of uncharted space, where they encounter a new ruthless enemy, who puts them, and everything the Federation stands for, to the test. I watched this on January 20th, 2025 because there was nothing better to watch on TV. I still love this film and am sad that there hasn’t been a Trek movie since. Buy On Amazon!

Star Trek Into Darkness: Directed by J.J. Abrams. With Leonard Nimoy, Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Zoe Saldana. After the crew of the Enterprise find an unstoppable force of terror from within their own organization, Captain Kirk leads a manhunt to a war-zone world to capture a one-man weapon of mass destruction. I watched this on January 20th, 2025 because there was nothing better to watch on TV. It’s still a well made but goofy movie that I have many issues with. Buy On Amazon!

Star Trek: Directed by J.J. Abrams. With Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Leonard Nimoy, Eric Bana. The brash James T. Kirk tries to live up to his father’s legacy with Mr. Spock keeping him in check as a vengeful Romulan from the future creates black holes to destroy the Federation one planet at a time. I watched this on January 20th, 2025 because there was nothing better to watch on TV. Buy On Amazon!

Uncovered: Directed by Jim McBride. With Kate Beckinsale, John Wood, Sinéad Cusack, Paudge Behan. A woman finds a hidden message in a restored painting questioning a knight’s death. When her friend is murdered investigating it, a chess game’s moves in the painting link to killings from the past that she must solve. I sought out the film because of the nudity, which was 10/10, loved every moment of it, but found a movie with a captivating storyline with surprising depth and intensity. Well worth your time if you’d like to see Kate Beckinsale in a European setting doing things as...

Jack Reacher: Directed by Christopher McQuarrie. With Tom Cruise, Rosamund Pike, Richard Jenkins, David Oyelowo. Jack Reacher, a homicide investigator, digs deeper into a case involving a trained military sniper responsible for a mass shooting. It’s crazy to me that it’s been over 14 years since this movie was made and it’s still just as enjoyable as it was the day I first saw it. Mind you, there’s a much better version of Reacher out now, but the concept and writing here are pretty darn good. The experience of getting the movie onto my tv screen wasn’t as enjoyable, something...

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!

A Nonsense Christmas with Sabrina Carpenter: Directed by Sam Wrench. With Sabrina Carpenter, Cara Delevingne, Sean Astin, Nico Hiraga. Pop icon Sabrina Carpenter jingles all the bells in her first ever variety music special. Bobble headed Sabrina Carpenter has her own Christmas special and it’s full of oddly placed and oddly timed sexual innuendos that nearly universally fail to land. She one of those stars that I just fundamentally don’t understand the appeal, so if you’re a fan, I mean no disrespect but there’s not much that I appreciate about her performances, wigs, weird makeup, or nearly any of the...

Galaxy Quest: Directed by Dean Parisot. With Tim Allen, Sigourney Weaver, Alan Rickman, Tony Shalhoub. The alumni cast of a space opera television series have to play their roles as the real thing when an alien race needs their help. However, they also have to defend both Earth and the alien race from a reptilian warlord. Out now on 4k disk, this movie still holds up as one of the best good natured parodies of Star Trek that has ever come out. There’s been constant talk of a television series in the works, but it still hasn’t happened. I’m mostly...

The Muppet Christmas Carol: Directed by Brian Henson. With Michael Caine, Dave Goelz, Steve Whitmire, Jerry Nelson. Scrooge, an old miser who dislikes Christmas, is visited by spirits who foretell his future and share secrets from his past and present, which helps change his view on life It’s an annual tradition now and still holds up. I’m happy to have seen this yet again and wish to see it again next year. Buy On Amazon!

Deadpool & Wolverine: Directed by Shawn Levy. With Ryan Reynolds, Hugh Jackman, Emma Corrin, Matthew Macfadyen. Deadpool is offered a place in the Marvel Cinematic Universe by the Time Variance Authority, but instead recruits a variant of Wolverine to save his universe from extinction. Watched it again with the wife and she enjoyed the experience. An experience that I also enjoyed for the third time! Buy On Amazon!

The Garfield Movie: Directed by Mark Dindal. With Chris Pratt, Samuel L. Jackson, Hannah Waddingham, Ving Rhames. After Garfield’s unexpected reunion with his long-lost father, ragged alley cat Vic, he and his canine friend Odie are forced from their perfectly pampered lives to join Vic on a risky heist. A family fun film filled with furry friends that will forever endear themselves in your heart. And more superstar voice acting than you can shake a stick at! I’m only kidding a little bit, there’s way too many famous faces in this animated movie, but they all do a pretty ok...

Breathe: Directed by Stefon Bristol. With Jennifer Hudson, Milla Jovovich, Quvenzhané Wallis, Sam Worthington. An East Flatbush mother and daughter, barely surviving in an oxygen-less world, must band together to protect each other when intruders arrive claiming to know their missing father. Not as good as it could have been, but not as bad as I feared from the trailers. There’s some uneven performances by everyone involved, but they get the story to where it needs to be and it’s great to see a post-apocalyptic story that doesn’t end with even more dead people. Well I mean, some people die...

Transformers One: Directed by Josh Cooley. With Chris Hemsworth, Brian Tyree Henry, Scarlett Johansson, Keegan-Michael Key. The untold origin story of Optimus Prime and Megatron, better known as sworn enemies, but who once were friends bonded like brothers who changed the fate of Cybertron forever. I had absolutely zero hope that this was going to be good, who’s been asking for a remake of the prequel origin stories that we’ve already been over a thousand times in nearly a dozen films, and hundreds of comics and tv episodes? It turned out to be an exceptionally great story with some pretty...

Deadpool & Wolverine: Directed by Shawn Levy. With Ryan Reynolds, Hugh Jackman, Emma Corrin, Matthew Macfadyen. Deadpool is offered a place in the Marvel Cinematic Universe by the Time Variance Authority, but instead recruits a variant of Wolverine to save his universe from extinction. I now have the steelbook and this is still a hilarious movie that takes the well beaten to death concept of the multiverse and makes it a fun look at the end of an entire universe both in the movies and in the real world with the death of Fox’s mutant universe. Buy On Amazon!

Chasing Chasing Amy: Directed by Sav Rodgers. With Joey Lauren Adams, Andrew Ahn, Trish Bendix, Robert Hawk. A documentary that examines the complex legacy of Kevin Smith’s Chasing Amy (1997) on LGBTQ+ people and its life-saving impact on director Sav Rodgers. What starts out as a typical documentary about a movie that I know pretty well turned into a much deeper and empathetic look at why this specific movie meant so much to a specific person. There’s many more interviews with people that were actually there for the making of the film with some real emotional moments with people that...

Wishmaster: Directed by Robert Kurtzman. With Angus Scrimm, Ari Barak, Jake McKinnon, Greg Funk. A demonic djinn attempts to grant its owner three wishes, which will allow him to summon his brethren to Earth. I’m not sure what I was actually expecting, but this franchise gets off to a good start with a story that isn’t terrible and special effects that are fairly practical and not overly reliant on CGI. IT was fun to see Robert Englund in a non-Freddy role and he did a fantastic job at it. Buy On Amazon!

Venom: The Last Dance: Directed by Kelly Marcel. With Tom Hardy, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Juno Temple, Rhys Ifans. Eddie and Venom, on the run, face pursuit from both worlds. As circumstances tighten, they’re compelled to make a heart-wrenching choice that could mark the end of their symbiotic partnership. The good news is that if you enjoyed the first two films (and many people did!) then this is more of the same great content that you loved the first two times you saw it. There’s nothing new here though and if you’re like me (and a vocal minority on the internet) you’ll...