Category: Reviews of Movies

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...

Loudermilk: Created by Peter Farrelly, Bobby Mort. With Ron Livingston, Will Sasso, Anja Savcic, Brian Regan. Sam Loudermilk is a recovering alcoholic and substance-abuse counselor with a bad attitude. Although he has his drinking under control, Loudermilk discovers that when your life is a mess, getting clean is the easy part. I watched the first three seasons on Netflix and while the humor can be somewhat rough around the edges and I have nearly no music enthusiasm like the Loudermilk character’s, I do have an appreciation for hating everything, partying too hard, and wanting to do better. The supporting cast...

Twisters: Directed by Lee Isaac Chung. With Daisy Edgar-Jones, Glen Powell, Anthony Ramos, Brandon Perea. Kate Carter, a retired tornado-chaser and meteorologist, is persuaded to return to Oklahoma to work with a new team and new technologies. Not as good as the first one, but definitely not a step down in quality or gumption. There’s no clear ties to the first movie, but if you look close enough you can see that the ghosts of the prior movie are all being referenced in some small way. Buy On Amazon!

Cruel Jaws: Directed by Bruno Mattei. With David Luther, George Barnes Jr., Scott Silveria, Kirsten Urso. A huge shark terrorizes a beach in Florida, and the locals try everything to kill it. This is a pretty terrible film and feels exactly like something I would make with buddies of mine, with all the terrible camera angles, terrible lines, terrible delivery, and utterly terrible special effects. It’s not a JAWS film, but boy howdy do they pay a lot of homages to the source franchises, bordering on theft. Buy On Amazon!

Jaws: The Revenge: Directed by Joseph Sargent. With Lorraine Gary, Lance Guest, Mario Van Peebles, Karen Young. Chief Brody’s widow believes that her family is deliberately being targeted by another shark in search of revenge. It’s Jaws 4, but you can call it “THE REVENGE”, because the original shark is back and it’s hungry for VENGENCE. I honestly feel this is a step up from the 3d movie that came before it. The original actress that played the wife in the first 2 movies is back and she (and her son) realize that they have a supernatural connection to the...

Jaws 3-D: Directed by Joe Alves. With Dennis Quaid, Bess Armstrong, Simon MacCorkindale, Louis Gossett Jr.. A giant thirty-five-foot shark becomes trapped in a SeaWorld theme park and it’s up to the sons of police chief Brody to rescue everyone. A very young Dennis quaid costars with an equally young Lea Thompson in this movie that was designed to trill in 3d, but in normal flatscreen-o-vision, is more of a b-rated made for tv movie that doesn’t have the emotional punch of the first two films. I’m honestly not even sure how SeaWorld approved having their name associated with this...

Twister: Directed by Jan de Bont. With Helen Hunt, Bill Paxton, Jami Gertz, Cary Elwes. Two storm chasers on the brink of divorce must work together to create an advanced weather alert system by putting themselves in the cross-hairs of extremely violent tornadoes. There’s a new twister movie out, so obviously we had to watch the first one to refresh our memory, though I think at this point my wife can recite the entire thing line by line from beginning to end. Buy On Amazon!

Jaws 2: Directed by Jeannot Szwarc. With Roy Scheider, Lorraine Gary, Murray Hamilton, Joseph Mascolo. Police chief Brody must protect the citizens of Amity after a second monstrous shark begins terrorizing the waters. Spielberg is out, but Roy Scheider is back as the chief of police who clearly has PTSD from events of first movie and is dealing with it the best way a guy in the late ’70’s can: shooting his gun at a seaweed patch in the middle of a crowded beach. The mayor is way too lackadaisical about the shark attacks and I honestly wish he would...

Jaws: Directed by Steven Spielberg. With Roy Scheider, Robert Shaw, Richard Dreyfuss, Lorraine Gary. When a massive killer shark unleashes chaos on a beach community off Long Island, it’s up to a local sheriff, a marine biologist, and an old seafarer to hunt the beast down. The pinnacle of Steven Spielberg’s short (at the time) directing career, has he done anything since then that’s as raw as this? Every year I pick a horror franchise to check out (or in this case sorta re-check) and this year, we’re watching JAWS, all four (five?) of them. The first one is the...

The Intern: Directed by Nancy Meyers. With Robert De Niro, Anne Hathaway, Rene Russo, Anders Holm. Seventy-year-old widower Ben Whittaker has discovered that retirement isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Seizing an opportunity to get back in the game, he becomes a senior intern at an online fashion site, founded and run by Jules Ostin. I’ve seen this before, but the tiktok algorithm thew a couple scenes from it my way and I wanted to check it out. It still holds up, but I’m still unhappy with the ending which didn’t involve asking the older intern to be a...

Patient Zero: Directed by Stefan Ruzowitzky. With Matt Smith, Natalie Dormer, John Bradley, Clive Standen. After an unprecedented global pandemic turns the majority of humankind into violent “Infected,” a man gifted with the ability to speak the Infected’s new language leads the last survivors on a hunt for Patient Zero and a cure. There are some seriously good ideas here, but they’re hidden behind the low production quality and odd framing devices used throughout the film. It also doesn’t hurt for great actors with Stanley Tucci being a great actor in a weird role that’s completely out of the norm...

Arthur Fleck is institutionalized at Arkham, awaiting trial for his crimes as Joker. While struggling with his dual identity, Arthur not only stumbles upon true love, but also finds the music that’s always been inside him. I’ve made no secret that I wasn’t a fan of the first film in this duology, but Joker: Folie à Deux is a bold and daring cinematic experience, blending multiple genres into a unique narrative that constantly surprised me. The film offers a rich variety of elements, from courtroom drama to intense asylum scenes, musical sequences, and an intriguing love story. Each shift in...

Growing up in post-World War II era Arizona, young Sammy Fabelman aspires to become a filmmaker as he reaches adolescence, but soon discovers a shattering family secret and explores how the power of films can help him see the truth. I did not expect to see Seth Rogan in a serious role like he did here, even if it was for only a dozen scenes or so. Other than that though, I don’t have much to say about the movie, it was neither overly impressive, nor underwhelming, it’s just another middle of the road film from Speilberg that seems in...

A C.I.A. operative on the edge of retirement discovers a family secret and is called back into the field for one last job. Not as good as I was hoping for, but not as bas as it could have been, this is more of a goofy take on the spy genre, with overly goofy call backs to some of Arnold’s prior works and unfortunately doesn’t stand on it’s on well enough for me to recommond. Season 2 is coming soon and I’ll be skipping it! Buy On Amazon!

Set in the 1930s, an honest, good-hearted man is forced to turn to a life of crime to finance his neurotic mother’s sky-rocketing medical bills. This is a fun goofy movie that has constant homages to the great gangster films of the past. It came up during a discussion with a Star Trek author a couple weeks ago when they referenced the hilarious game of telephone that happens while the main character is in prison. Worth your time if you liked those old gangster films. Buy On Amazon!

An ex-Marine grapples his way through a web of small-town corruption when an attempt to post bail for his cousin escalates into a violent standoff with the local police chief. We’ve seen this type of story a thousand times before and the only real question is if this is a good version of it. It is! There’s never a single moment that I doubted the movie was serious or had needlessly bad CGI. Never once did I get the feeling the characters were doing dumb things just because they were big ol’ dummies doing dumb stuff. In fact, there was...

Spaceman: Directed by Johan Renck. With Adam Sandler, Carey Mulligan, Paul Dano, Kunal Nayyar. Half a year into his solo mission on the edge of the solar system, an astronaut concerned with the state of his life back on Earth is helped by an ancient creature he discovers in the bowels of his ship. Every now and then actors that are known for one genre step out of that genre and do something more series and/or different than what everyone knows them for. Sandler does this pretty frequently, he’s known for being a hilarious comedian with a huge following, but...

On another planet in the distant past, a Gelfling embarks on a quest to find the missing shard of a magical crystal, and to restore order to his world. I found the 4k disk for pretty cheap and I’m happy to have checked it out, the transfer is amazing and there’s some really cool tricks that are slightly more obvious in 4k but are still just as impressive when you catch them. My favorite this time around was the long shot over a verdant valley and you can see the wind moving the trees, but it’s a trick! They just...

Return to a world of two realities: one, everyday life; the other, what lies behind it. To find out if his reality is a construct, to truly know himself, Mr. Anderson will have to choose to follow the white rabbit once more. Watched again with my wife and while this is a pretty entertaining flick, I stand by my previous assessment that there’s too many memberberries and not enough forward plot movement. Buy On Amazon!

A family man is drafted to fight in a future war where the fate of humanity relies on his ability to confront the past. I watched it again! It’s still a great film with a cool concept and alien design. My wife was with me this time and she said she enjoyed it too, yay for marital bliss! Buy On Amazon!

  2022: A future war has raged for decades between the few human survivors and an endless army of machines. 1997: The AI known as Skynet gained self-awareness and began its war against humanity. As a thought experiment among fans, this would be a neat discussion. As an officially released piece of media that’s an official expansion of the lore, this is a steaming pile of terminator scrap that completely changes the in-universe science. I’m perfectly fine with the new AI concepts that are introduced, the time loops are pretty well explained, but just the same, there’s an introduction to...

A stuntman, fresh off an almost career-ending accident, has to track down a missing movie star, solve a conspiracy and try to win back the love of his life while still doing his day job. What could possibly go right? The marketing I saw for this really missed the mark for me, from what I remember they were highlighting the romance and goofy capers that he got up in in pursuit of love, which is fine, but didn’t really make me want to see the movie in theaters, something that I wish I had been able to do now. j...

In the near future, a ‘Grand Lottery’ has been newly established in California – the catch: kill the winner before sundown to legally claim their multi-billion dollar jackpot. It’s hard for me to believe that the same director did the hilarious “Bridesmaids”, then went on to stink up the place with “Ghostbusters (2016)”, and returned to absolutely killing it with Jackpot. The cinematography, the acting, the scrip, the action, and the soundtrack all line up to make a film that I think would have done pretty well in theaters. This isn’t a theatrical release though and only viewable on Amazon...

Hit Man: Directed by Richard Linklater. With Glen Powell, Adria Arjona, Austin Amelio, Retta. A professor moonlighting as a hit man of sorts for his city police department, descends into dangerous, dubious territory when he finds himself attracted to a woman who enlists his services. A very funny and fantastic movie with a True Story that I’m not entirely sure is true at all, but after all, what is truth really? Glen Powell and Adria Arjona knock it out of the park, though I mistook Adria for Eiza Gonzalez for the entire film. Buy On Amazon!

Mike, a down-to earth construction worker, is thrust into the world of super spies and secret agents when his high school sweetheart, Roxanne, recruits him on a high-stakes U.S. intelligence mission. The end result is a little less serious than I thought they were originally going for, but I think at the end of the day I still enjoyed the journey exploring the first steps of a Union CIA spy hitman / construction worker. Buy On Amazon!

A crew of oceanic researchers working for a deep sea drilling company try to get to safety after a mysterious earthquake devastates their deepwater research and drilling facility located at the bottom of the Mariana Trench. This one caught my eye again because first off, it’s a great film with some pivots that completely caught me off guard the first time I saw it in theaters and second, I just watched The Abyss and apparently I’m a fan of underwater science fiction dramas? Buy On Amazon!

1h 37m | PG-13 Bought it in a 4k steelbook and now it’s sitting proudly on a shelf, never to be watched again. It’s a pretty nice steelbook though! Buy On Amazon!

A civilian diving team is enlisted to search for a lost nuclear submarine and faces danger while encountering an alien aquatic species. It’s been a while since I’ve seen this and while it’s still an enjoyable film, knowing what I know about both the behind the scenes stuff with this movie and the science behind how deep they’re going, it’s hard to suspend my disbelief. If you’re able to turn off that part of your brain though, boy howdy this is a fun movie. Buy On Amazon!

Venom: Directed by Ruben Fleischer. With Tom Hardy, Michelle Williams, Riz Ahmed, Scott Haze. A failed reporter is bonded to an alien entity, one of many symbiotes who have invaded Earth. But the being takes a liking to Earth and decides to protect it. I own the steelbook of the 4k movie now! It was just a couple bucks, so why not. The movie itself is still goofy, but I think I’m getting over the fact that they’ve changed the character so much for these films and have accepted him for what he is now. Buy On Amazon!

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. They somehow managed to fit 3 different Alien flicks in this one movie’s 2 hour run time. The pacing is damn near perfect, the scary stuff is scary as hell, and the alient / human / android drama plays fantastically. There was only one point that I doubted where they were going (it was something that also happened in Resurrection) but the direction they went in was appropriately horrifying and worked...

Borderlands: Directed by Eli Roth. With Cate Blanchett, Kevin Hart, Edgar Ramírez, Jamie Lee Curtis. Based on the best-selling videogame, this all-star action-adventure follows a ragtag team of misfits on a mission to save a missing girl who holds the key to unimaginable power. The internet seems to think that this is the worst movie in the world, but it doesn’t rise to the terrible results of other video game adaptations and has it’s own share of great moments, but at the end of the day it’s not terrible, not great, just mediocre. I think my complaint with it would...

Anyone But You: Directed by Will Gluck. With Sydney Sweeney, Glen Powell, Mia Artemis, Nat Buchanan. After an amazing first date, Bea and Ben’s fiery attraction turns ice-cold–until they find themselves unexpectedly reunited at a wedding in Australia. So they do what any two mature adults would do: pretend to be a couple. It’s on Netflix and as you may imagine, it’s a good film! I still do love Sydney Sweeney in nearly everything she’s been in and I’m starting to really appreciate Glen Powell, he’s been pretty rock solid in all the stuff I’ve seen him in. I originally...