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...