Category: Reviews of Movies

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 alien / 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...

Street-smart Nathan Drake is recruited by seasoned treasure hunter Victor “Sully” Sullivan to recover a fortune amassed by Ferdinand Magellan, and lost 500 years ago by the House of Moncada. I enjoyed this for what it was and while there are undeniably things that could have been done better, but this final product was pretty darn good. Buy On Amazon!

Morbius: Directed by Daniel Espinosa. With Jared Leto, Matt Smith, Adria Arjona, Jared Harris. Biochemist Michael Morbius tries to cure himself of a rare blood disease, but he inadvertently infects himself with a form of vampirism instead. I think I regret buying this for $8 on disk with digital code, then watching it. What an absolutely confusing mess of a film. Buy On Amazon!

Hancock is a superhero whose ill-considered behavior regularly causes damage in the millions. He changes when the person he saves helps him improve his public image. I’ve seen this one a few dozen times at this point but I don’t think I’ve ever seen it in 4k, which now I wish I didn’t. The 4k transfer is grainy and the HDR isn’t obvious in the least bit and honestly I think the blueray is the superior version. Buy On Amazon!

A coming of RAGE love story about a teenager and her crush, who happens to be a corpse. After a set of horrific circumstances bring him back to life, the two embark on a journey to find love, happiness – and a few missing body parts. Not as good as the trailer made me hope it would be, but still a good execution on a clever and familiar concept. Buy On Amazon!

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. Deadpool and Wolverine finely make their way to the MCU and they use every opportunity to remind audiences the safeties are off on the F-bomb and that it’s going to be used liberally. The story is straight up non-sense and cameos are egregious, but much like all of Reynold’s other project’s he understands the core of what audiences are looking for and I have nearly no notes. I’m happy to hear that...

Expedition Mars brings to life one of the greatest sagas of the Space Age, the epic adventures of Spirit and Opportunity, the rovers that saved NASA’s Mars program after a string of failures in the 1990’s. Another film that I watched while building my LEGO Mars rover, this one had all sorts of fun cliffhangers and emotional beats that I didn’t expect from a documentary about rovers on Mars. Buy On Amazon!

Through the eyes of two state-of-the-art rovers, and with NASA scientists at your side, you’ll see Mars in a way no one ever has before-direct from the surface of the amazing red planet. Much shorter than the other two films that I watched while building my LEGO Mars rover, this one had the distinct feel of a corporate grant making it possible by Lockheed Martin. It was originally released for Imax theaters and I’m sure it looked amazing. Sadly while I have a huge tv, it’s nowhere near the size of an Imax screen. Buy On Amazon!

NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory to follow the birth of the Perseverance rover, whose primary mission is to search for traces of life in an ancient river delta on Mars and collect samples for eventual return to Earth. Watched this while I was building the LEGO mars explorer, it’s a pretty neat LEGO set and this movie helped pass the time during the 4 hours it took me to build it. Buy On Amazon!

In a war-torn world of elemental powers, a young boy reawakens to undertake a dangerous mystic quest to fulfill his destiny as the Avatar, and bring peace to the world. I now own this on bluray, dvd, and vudu streaming, I’ve watched all those versions (and the original airing too!) and have enjoyed every moment of it. Buy On Amazon!

Based on the life of successful poet Charles Bukowski and his exploits in Hollywood during the 60s, 70s, and 80s. Of those films that goes no where and has no real aim with it’s story but is still an interesting experience none the less. Buy On Amazon!

A devoted daughter is attempting to figure out the cause of her father’s passing. A fairly low budget action film with some super unfortunate and noticiable computer generated gun play in the opening scenes, all along with budget saving sequences in which all the expensive action like cars crashing or explosions happening is done off camera. It’s not a bad film though and fills a very specific ‘vet returns home to set things right’ void that we currently have, but the genre deserves better and Jessica Alba deserves better. Buy On Amazon!

A woman named Sam finds herself trapped in New York City during the early stages of an invasion by alien creatures with ultra-sensitive hearing. While I enjoyed the film, I would have enjoyed it so much more if there wasn’t a cat going in and out of scenes all willy nilly. By the end of the film I was beginning to seriously stress over the future of the cat and how it was going to make it out of this apocalypse and every scene I had one question on my mind: Where’s the cat? Buy On Amazon!

The Robinson family was going into space to fight for a chance for humanity. Now they are fighting to live long enough to find a way home. An enjoyable family friendly space romp that I remember seeing in the theater and enjoying at the time. I want to say this was one of the last films I remember having a song in the credits that included snippets of dialog from the film. Also that song i still a banger. Buy On Amazon!

This Documentary will feature interviews of fans of Jim Hensons work, interspersed with footage from Jim Henson’s works, including Wilkins and Wontkins Commercials that were previously lost. A fantastic look at the much too short life of Jim Henson, as prepared by director extraordinaire Ron Howard. Of particular interest is Henson’s work outside of the Muppets and Sesame Street. There’s familiar projects like the Labyrinth and The Dark Crystal, but I really enjoyed his short works that were briefly highlighted. Buy On Amazon!

3h 21m | PG-13 I watched the cartoon, so why not watch the extended edition of the trilogy? It made for a good weekend! Buy On Amazon!

2h 59m | PG-13 I watched the cartoon, so why not watch the extended edition of the trilogy? It made for a good weekend! Buy On Amazon!

2h 58m | PG-13 I watched the cartoon, so why not watch the extended edition of the trilogy? It made for a good weekend! Buy On Amazon!

The story of Barney, an awkward middle-schooler and Ron, his new walking, talking, digitally-connected device. Ron’s malfunctions set against the backdrop of the social media age launch them on a journey to learn about true friendship. There was a rush of movies with similar feeling stories with Next Gen (2018), The Mitchells vs the Machines (April 2021), then this one in October of 2021. Out of the three this is the least interesting of the three, lacking the cool world of Next Gen or the emotional depth of Mitchells, It’s still an entertaining movie that tackles heavy topics, but I...

100 years of dreaming. 100 years of creating. 100 years of Stan Lee. I do love me some Stan Lee and this film is all about him!  It features less video of him and more audio and doesn’t really do justice to any of his more controversial aspects and completely skips over all his work that wasn’t Marvel related, but this is a lovely look at his life with Marvel. Buy On Amazon!

The Fellowship of the Ring embark on a journey to destroy the One Ring and end Sauron’s reign over Middle-earth. Watching this after watching Peter Jackson’s live action films is pretty interesting, they both pull from the same source material and both directors liked the same lines from the book or at least chose the same story beats to adapt. Something interesting about this animated version is that they used a pretty cool and novel method of using film of live action actors (and horses!), applied an effect to them, then overlayed the now slightly animated looking characters over an...

In a post-apocalyptic world, a warrior wandering through the desert comes upon a group of settlers who are being menaced by the leader of a murderous gang who’s after the water they control. This film is absolute nonsense but I loved every moment of it, from the sand creatures to the sword that’s more of a dagger than anything else, to the nun chuck battles against desert bandits. Buy On Amazon!