Adam Selvidge's Website Blog
Agatha All Along: Created by Jac Schaeffer. With Kathryn Hahn, Joe Locke, Sasheer Zamata, Ali Ahn. A spell-bound Agatha Harkness regains freedom thanks to a teen’s help. Intrigued by his plea, she embarks on the Witches’ Road trials to reclaim her powers and discover the teen’s motivations. I finished this back when it originally aired and set aside the review for a few weeks to try to sort my feelings, and I think I’ve come down to the fact that I just didn’t like how they (didn’t) end it with an ending that was more of a non-ending vague start...
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...
Three Eras. Three Mysteries. One Ancient Enemy? 2024: Almost forty years ago, marine biologist Gillian Taylor stormed away from her dream job at Sausalito’s Cetacean Institute—and was never seen or heard from again. Now a new true crime podcast has reopened that cold case, but investigator Melinda Silver has no idea that her search for the truth about Gillian’s disappearance will ultimately stretch across time and space—and attract the attention of a ruthless obsessive with his own secret agenda. 2268:The U.S.S. Enterprise’s five-year mission is interrupted when Captain James T. Kirk and his crew set out to recover an abducted...
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!