Adam Selvidge's Website Blog
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!
Despite increasing restrictions on the freedoms of women on Earth, Valerie Black is spearheading the first all-female mission to a planet in the Goldilocks Zone, where conditions are just right for human habitation. It’s humanity’s last hope for survival, and Naomi, Valerie’s surrogate daughter and the ship’s botanist, has been waiting her whole life for an opportunity like this – to step out of Valerie’s shadow and really make a difference. But when things start going wrong on the ship, Naomi starts to suspect that someone on board is concealing a terrible secret – and realises time for life on...
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...
