Adam Selvidge's Website Blog
Creature: Directed by William Malone. With Stan Ivar, Wendy Schaal, Lyman Ward, Robert Jaffe. After a member of a geological research team who was sent to Saturn’s largest moon: Titan crashes their spacecraft into a space station, another team is sent to Titan to investigate, not knowing the terror that awaits them. A rather pedestrian film with bad framing, a mediocre sound track, poorly done special effects, and “one take” feeling acting. That is, right up until the characters in the film directly reference 1951’s “The Thing From Another World”, which John Carpenter made an extremely well received sequel to...
The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes: Directed by Robert Butler. With Kurt Russell, Cesar Romero, Joe Flynn, William Schallert. At Medfield College, an accident with a donated computer gives Dexter Riley the ability to remember any knowledge learned instantly and perfectly. Featuring an extremely young still charismatic Kurt Russell, this is an early version of the same concept of the “Chuck” television series, only this one from 1969 makes slightly more sense, as it’s not the data itself that gets transferred to the main character, but the ability to store, then process information itself. Ok, so in reality when you grab...
Wyvern: Directed by Steven R. Monroe. With Nick Chinlund, Erin Karpluk, Barry Corbin, Elaine Miles. They Find a Live Wyvern in small town Alaska. Set in Alaska, or at least an abandoned movie lot with plenty of Alaskan vacation footage, the film is both a low budget dragon fight and an entertainingly competent made for TV Wyvern experience. I was pleasantly surprised by the quality of the CGI, though the budget shines through when you notice that the CGI Wyvern doesn’t actually physically interact with anything and nearly all of it’s close up set pieces are static shots without much...
Death on the Nile: Directed by Kenneth Branagh. With Michael Rouse, Alaa Safi, Orlando Seale, Charlie Anson. While on vacation on the Nile, Hercule Poirot must investigate the murder of a young heiress. The trailer had me interested, back when I first saw in in the before times, and the cast sealed the deal when I saw exactly who was in it and the types of characters they were playing. I wasn’t familiar with the story before watching it, and while the basic blocks of a murder mystery are there, the pieces are all used in ways that seemed novel...
X-Ray: Directed by Boaz Davidson. With Barbi Benton, Charles Lucia, Jon Van Ness, John Warner Williams. While receiving a routine check-up, a woman finds herself stranded on the hospital’s eighth floor, while someone dressed as a doctor is intent on her never leaving, even if it means killing any staff member who comes into contact with her. A story about a woman with absolutely no agency at all in her life, she’s getting a checkup because her work is making her, she goes to floor 8 because she’s told to, she’s admitted against her will, not told what exactly she’s...
Transformers: Age of Extinction: Directed by Michael Bay. With Mark Wahlberg, Stanley Tucci, Kelsey Grammer, Nicola Peltz. When humanity allies with a bounty hunter in pursuit of Optimus Prime, the Autobots turn to a mechanic and his family for help. The fourth of the films, this one is likely the longest, if only because they filmed an entire film’s worth of material in Hong Kong. It’s actually somewhat more enjoyable than the previous film, nearly completely toning down cheeseball dialogue and plot elements, but there were a few times that I distinctly felt like the CGI wasn’t up to snuff,...
Solo: A Star Wars Story: Directed by Ron Howard. With Alden Ehrenreich, Joonas Suotamo, Woody Harrelson, Emilia Clarke. Board the Millennium Falcon and journey to a galaxy far, far away in an epic action-adventure that will set the course of one of the Star Wars saga’s most unlikely heroes. Watched this after the other two star wars films I watched this week, it’s still a good film that doesn’t exactly stick the landing, but it definitely doesn’t miss the mark by very much. Buy On Amazon!
Celeste & Jesse Forever: Directed by Lee Toland Krieger. With Rashida Jones, Andy Samberg, Ari Graynor, Eric Christian Olsen. A divorcing couple tries to maintain their friendship while they both pursue other people. Gut wrenching and emotional and hilarious and about as real as you can get with the subject matter. Rashida Jones and Andy Samberg are both hilarious people, and they’re both hilarious in this film, but it’s the kind of funny that’s more realistic and sad at the end of the day, instead of the campy goofy humor that they’re known for. Well, Andy at least, Rashida has...
Star Trek: Discovery: Created by Bryan Fuller, Alex Kurtzman. With Sonequa Martin-Green, Doug Jones, Anthony Rapp, Emily Coutts. Ten years before Kirk, Spock, and the Enterprise, the USS Discovery discovers new worlds and lifeforms as one Starfleet officer learns to understand all things alien. Season four is done and I’m pretty sure I’m done with the series, at least in a “gotta watch it as it comes out” sense. It’s not necessarily a bad series on the whole, but I’m not a fan of the story telling method, nor the special effects decisions that they’ve made, nor the universe that...
I hung up some blinds in my bed room, obviously I had to be supervised. I went to a wedding that took place at a softball field. we waited about an hour, then the ceremony took about 4 minutes to complete, then we went to a reception at a place that I had no idea even existed. It was fun! This is the vacuum I own, it needs a new brush thing as well as a new locking mechanism to keep it upright. The parts are only about $35 total, but we’re getting dangerously close to just replacing it. Goldy...
