The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent: Directed by Tom Gormican. With Nicolas Cage, Pedro Pascal, Tiffany Haddish, Sharon Horgan. In this action-packed comedy, Nicolas Cage plays Nick Cage, channeling his iconic characters as he’s caught between a superfan (Pedro Pascal) and a CIA agent (Tiffany Haddish). Nicolas Cage as Nick Cage is about as meta as you can get without tongue kissing yourself while drinking with yourself at the bar that you brought yourself to. The de-aged scenes in this film just blew my mind, and if you’re as big of a fan as I am, you’ll find certain scenes...

Gidget Goes to Rome: Directed by Paul Wendkos. With James Darren, Cindy Carol, Jessie Royce Landis, Cesare Danova. Gidget, in Rome for a holiday, misinterprets attention she receives from a famous journalist. Discovering he is “chaperoning” her at Dad’s request she resumes interest in her boyfriend. Based upon characters created by Frederick Kohner. A perfectly fine Gidget movie, that was perfectly entertaining, but I believe this is the end of the road on my Gidget journey. I also checked out the first episode of the television series with Sally Field and it was perfectly fine too. Buy On Amazon!

The World According to Garp: Directed by George Roy Hill. With Robin Williams, Mary Beth Hurt, Glenn Close, John Lithgow. A struggling young writer finds his life and work dominated by his unfaithful wife and his radical feminist mother, whose best-selling manifesto turns her into a cultural icon. Robin’s second movie, and it’s not funny. It doesn’t seek out humor, don’t need jokes, and it’s a great look at a few different types of feminism, but man, how did Robin Williams go from “Popeye” to “Garp” then “The Survivors”? Seeing that it’s based on a book make sense, as this...

Senior Year: Directed by Alex Hardcastle. With Rebel Wilson, Angourie Rice, Mary Holland, Molly Brown. A cheerleading stunt gone wrong landed her in a 20-year coma. Now she’s 37, newly awake and ready to live out her high school dream: becoming prom queen. This is the first role that I’ve seen Rebel Wilson in since she lost all that weight (80 pounds!) and you’ll be happy to know that her brand of humor still hits exactly the way it did before, so if you liked her before, you’ll still like her. It’s just a bit weird that now she’s playing...

Bachelor in Paradise: Directed by Jack Arnold. With Bob Hope, Lana Turner, Janis Paige, Jim Hutton. A bachelor author of sleazy books moves to a family-oriented subdivision where he becomes an unofficial relationship advisor to unhappy local housewives, to the dismay of their respective husbands who suspect him of sexual misconduct. To be honest, I’m not much of a Bob Hope fan, but this movie convinced me that I should be more open to his work. “Bachelor in Paradise” is a another great recommendation from that “California Tiki” book that I finished last month, I think it’s the last on...

The Survivors: Directed by Michael Ritchie. With Walter Matthau, Robin Williams, Jerry Reed, James Wainwright. Having both lost their jobs, two strangers become unlikely friends after a run in with a would be robber, who is actually a hitman with a grudge against the two. It’s the “Odd Couple” but with lots and lots of paramilitary action and gun. So many guns. But you have to ask, if you have all those guns, did you bring the right bullets for them? It’s a relatively funny movie, but not the best work from either Matthau or Robin Williams, but if you...

Next: Directed by Lee Tamahori. With Nicolas Cage, Julianne Moore, Jessica Biel, Thomas Kretschmann. A Las Vegas magician who can see into the future is pursued by FBI agents seeking to use his abilities to prevent a nuclear terrorist attack. Someone mentioned that they considered ‘Next’ as an unofficial super power sequel to Jumper, and I remember feeling mixed feelings about how they resolved the storyline, but figured I’d give it a try again. I’m still not exactly happy with the ending, but I think it’s about as good of one that you could get with the concept. The gimmicky...

Jumper: Directed by Doug Liman. With Hayden Christensen, Jamie Bell, Rachel Bilson, Diane Lane. A teenager with teleportation abilities suddenly finds himself in the middle of an ancient war between those like him and their sworn annihilators. Hayden Christensen is back in the news because of his return as Darth Vader in the recently wrapped up “Obi-Wan Kenobi” Disney+ show, so I figured I’d give Jumper another watch. It’s among my favorite movies with Hayden and is based on a book series that I’ve thoroughly enjoyed, even if the last one came out back in 2014. The premise is pretty...

The Dunwich Horror: Directed by Daniel Haller. With Sandra Dee, Dean Stockwell, Ed Begley, Lloyd Bochner. Wilbur Whateley travels to the Arkham Miskatonic University to borrow the legendary Necronomicon. But, little does anyone know, Whateley isn’t quite human… I sought this out and found it on Kanopy because of the Gidget (1969) movie starring Sandra Dee, which was about a sweet and innocent teenager that was just growing into womanhood and discovering what she wanted in life. From there I found myself exploring Sandra Dee’s career on IMDB and saw that one of her final movie was an adaptation of...