Category: Reviews of Movies

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!

A young girl named Asha wishes on a star and gets a more direct answer than she bargained for when a trouble-making star comes down from the sky to join her. I remember seeing the marketing and trailers for this and thinking it had no soul and I really had no reason to go see it, which is a shame because it turned out to be a pretty well done film with some really well done references to prior Disney works. Those references should have been a part of the marketing because this was released during the 100th anniversary celebration...

As the home planet of the Green Lantern Corps faces a battle with an ancient enemy, Hal Jordan prepares new recruit Arisia for the coming conflict by relating stories of the first Green Lantern and several of Hal’s comrades. A fun collection of Green Lantern legends as told by some pretty legendary Lanterns themselves with appearances from Kilowag, Sinestro, and even C’hp! The animation style is delightfully science fiction and the stories are all short enough to have a punch to them, but long enough to really get a sense of the situation. Buy On Amazon!

Follows Riley, in her teenage years, encountering new emotions. Pixar has long been able to provoke extreme emotional responses from me and Inside Out 2 continues that painfully delightful trend with an expansion of their concept of “what if feelings had feelings”, with a progression of our main character another year further into her more frustrating but formative teenage years. They stay away from the physical aspects of puberty (that “Turning Red” covered so well!) and stays in it’s emotional lane with the addition of some obvious but still interesting elements that result in a movie that I highly recommend...

A sweet blonde goes to the police looking for her missing husband. When it turns out her husband is both a murder victim and a bachelor – and that the blonde is suspect #1, tough cop Butch Saunders comes up with a scheme to crack the case. I think this may be one of the earliest films I’ve seen with a scrolling info dump at the beginning and this one is distinctly similar to the Law and Order series, which is fantastic to see. Also fantastic to see, Ms Glenda Farrell! She’s playing a background recurring character that steals all...

A Special-Ops commander leads his team into the Nigerian jungle in order to rescue a doctor who will only join them if they agree to save 70 refugees too. It’d been a while since I’ve watched this and while I remember liking it, it was so long ago that I wasn’t sure if it was the rose colored glasses or if I would still feel like it was a solid movie. Other than some Hollywood-funny casting decisions (Monica Bellucci as the wayward doctor requiring saving? ok!) this is still very much a solid film, with a solid and basic premise...

In the year 2154, the very wealthy live on a man-made space station while the rest of the population resides on a ruined Earth. A man takes on a mission that could bring equality to the polarized worlds. I did watch this when it first came out, but apparently I wasn’t doing movie logging at the time, but I do remember being distinctly let down by the final product, a feeling that I no longer feel. Buy On Amazon!

Blonde: Directed by Andrew Dominik. With Ana de Armas, Lily Fisher, Julianne Nicholson, Tygh Runyan. The story of American actress Marilyn Monroe, covering her love and professional lives. I love Ana de Armas and I loved Marilyn Monroe’s film work, but the two of them don’t work very well. Ana gives it her best, but this lurid tale of sex, death, and obsession is just too morbid for my tastes. Buy On Amazon!

Days of Wine and Roses: Directed by Blake Edwards. With Jack Lemmon, Lee Remick, Charles Bickford, Jack Klugman. An alcoholic marries a young woman and systematically addicts her to booze so that they can share his “passion” together. Released in 1962 this is another emotionally draining and realistic glimpse into the relationship between two people and the booze they mutually love and the struggles involved when only one of them sees a need to cut back or stop completely. There’s a few scenes that strike home in uncomfortable ways, the first of which was when the lead actor began slamming...

The Lost Weekend: Directed by Billy Wilder. With Ray Milland, Jane Wyman, Phillip Terry, Howard Da Silva. The desperate life of a chronic alcoholic is followed through a four-day drinking bout. Other than some period based phrases, this film could have been made yesterday and not in 1945 and there’s a surprising amount of content that I directly remember from my own experiences with booze. I never sunk to the level of self destruction this guy did, but when he’s out buying bourbon when he knows he shouldn’t and tells the store clerk “none of that barrel aged stuff for...

Inventing the Abbotts: Directed by Pat O’Connor. With Joaquin Phoenix, Billy Crudup, Will Patton, Kathy Baker. Two working class brothers court three wealthy and beautiful sisters in a small Illinois town. I had previously seen many of the key scenes due to the people participating in them but they were great to see again. I was pleased with how well done the story was, it’s been a fair bit of time since I’ve seen a solid coming of age story. I saw a glimmer of myself in the relationship between the two sons and even in the relationships among the...

Doom: Annihilation: Directed by Tony Giglio. With Amy Manson, Dominic Mafham, Luke Allen-Gale, James Weber Brown. A group of UAC Marines respond to a distress call from a top secret scientific base on Phobos, a moon around Mars, only to discover it’s been overrun by demons who seek to create Hell on Earth. I forgot that I had already seen this one and made it my choice from the ‘final’ selection of Universal rewards films and I fully regret that decision. It’s not a terrible film, but it’s not one that I was wanting to see again and there were...

Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga: Directed by George Miller. With Anya Taylor-Joy, Chris Hemsworth, Tom Burke, Alyla Browne. The origin story of renegade warrior Furiosa before her encounter and teamup with Mad Max. While this is a perfectly fine movie, I constantly had to ask myself why this movie needed to be made and why nearly everyone involved seemed to be winking at the camera asking “hey do you remember this person/place/thing from Fury Road?!? Here it is 20 years before you saw it in that movie! Isn’t that great?!”. There’s no major misteps, no majorly questionable decisions, but again...

We Own the Night: Directed by James Gray. With Joaquin Phoenix, Eva Mendes, Danny Hoch, Alex Veadov. A New York City nightclub manager tries to save his brother and father from Russian Mafia hitmen. I watched this due to some gratuitous scenes with Eva Mendes that were floating around the cybersphere and while those scenes were great they really had no bearing at all on the rest of the movie and in hindsight really stick out as being out of place in a grungy look at a family of cops that have a member that’s too friendly with the wrong...

Atlas: Directed by Brad Peyton. With Jennifer Lopez, Simu Liu, Sterling K. Brown, Gregory James Cohan. In a bleak-sounding future, an A.I. soldier has determined that the only way to end war is to end humanity. I spent nearly a decade as a data analyst and not even once was I ever offered a mech suit, but other than that curious part of the plot, this is a pretty solid mech suit movie with a barely there plot driven largely by using familiar concepts of terrorist robots that want to protect humanity from itself by killing all of humanity, much...

I Saw the TV Glow: Directed by Jane Schoenbrun. With Justice Smith, Brigette Lundy-Paine, Ian Foreman, Helena Howard. Two teenagers bond over their love of a supernatural TV show, but it is mysteriously cancelled. A confusing and frankly confused movie that feels like a rare misstep by the powerhouse A24, the story builds to a climax that never happens and it’s only in the third act that I realized that both the main characters were extremely unreliable narrators and that nothing that’s given in the plot can actually be trusted. What’s the story that they’re trying to tell here, is...

Mad Max: Fury Road: Directed by George Miller. With Tom Hardy, Charlize Theron, Nicholas Hoult, Hugh Keays-Byrne. In a post-apocalyptic wasteland, a woman rebels against a tyrannical ruler in search for her homeland with the aid of a group of female prisoners, a psychotic worshiper and a drifter named Max. Watched again because there’s a prequel coming out this weekend that tells Furiosa’s origins and wanted to refresh my memory of this utterly fantastic film. Buy On Amazon!

Star Wars: Episode VII – The Force Awakens: Directed by J.J. Abrams. With Harrison Ford, Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher, Adam Driver. As a new threat to the galaxy rises, Rey, a desert scavenger, and Finn, an ex-stormtrooper, must join Han Solo and Chewbacca to search for the one hope of restoring peace. I watched this again because I finally own it on 4k disk thanks to the Disney rewards program. My feelings on it have continued to soften in light of how poorly the following two films ended up being, and I’m constantly wondering what would have been the result...

Countdown: Directed by Justin Dec. With Elizabeth Lail, Jordan Calloway, Talitha Eliana Bateman, Peter Facinelli. When a nurse downloads an app that claims to predict the moment a person will die, it tells her she only has three days to live. With the clock ticking and a figure haunting her, she must find a way to save her life before time runs out. Other than some bad continuity with the shower curtain in one of the opening scenes, this is a pretty solid horror show that melds spiritual concepts with modern technology and our dependency on apps. Which are of...

Blue Jean: Directed by Georgia Oakley. With Rosy McEwen, Kerrie Hayes, Lucy Halliday, Lydia Page. In 1988, a closeted teacher is pushed to the brink when a new student threatens to expose her sexuality. A beautiful story of some unpretty things happening to a set of wonderful people. It’s the first movie from Georgia Oakley and judging from this one movie she’s going to have one hell of a career ahead of her. Buy On Amazon!

Alice, Darling: Directed by Mary Nighy. With Anna Kendrick, Kaniehtiio Horn, Charlie Carrick, Wunmi Mosaku. A young woman trapped in an abusive relationship becomes the unwitting participant in an intervention staged by her two closest friends. The movie didn’t really do it for me, but I think it has less to do with performances or anything to do with the final product but more to do with not knowing anyone like the Alice character that would allow themselves to either be treated like she is or internalize that treatment in such a self destructive way. It’s well acted and well...

Boulevard: Directed by Dito Montiel. With Robin Williams, Kathy Baker, Roberto Aguire, Giles Matthey. A devoted husband in a marriage of convenience is forced to confront his secret life. One of Robin’s last films and it’s one of his most emotionally charged and interesting films in a career of emotionally charged and interesting movies. I have a couple quibbles about extremely minor things, like how the husband makes the terrible choice to start to trust his new friend in ways that I wouldn’t trust my best friends, but considering the emotional situation he was in, it does make a twisted...

Bolero: Directed by John Derek. With Bo Derek, George Kennedy, Andrea Occhipinti, Ana Obregón. Set in the 1920s, a young woman sets out to lose her virginity. Her mission leads her to a Moroccan sheikh and a Spanish bullfighter. I watched a documentary (or two!) about the Cannon Group and this movie came up as something that should have worked well for them financially but didn’t end up doing as well as they had hoped. My interest was peaked because I’m familiar with Bo Derek’s work from this time period and knew that she was both a great actor and...

Mars Express: Directed by Jérémie Périn. With Léa Drucker, Mathieu Amalric, Daniel Njo Lobé, Marie Bouvet. Set in the 23rd century on Mars, the plot follows the investigation on a murder case carried out by the couple formed by private investigator Aline Ruby and her android companion Carlos Rivera. I didn’t see a single trailer for this movie in the wild and only caught it when I went to see a movie I wouldn’t have otherwise seen, but the theater had power and I had time. The first 90% of this movie is fantastic, with a lived in world that...

Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes: Directed by Wes Ball. With Freya Allan, Kevin Durand, Dichen Lachman, William H. Macy. Many years after the reign of Caesar, a young ape goes on a journey that will lead him to question everything he’s been taught about the past and make choices that will define a future for apes and humans alike. Another great entry in the modern reimagining of the Planet of the Apes franchise, with plenty of new stuff to keep old fans interested, plenty of references and call backs to the original films, and absolutely no requirement whatsoever...