This isn't for you. it's for me.
Venom: The Last Dance: Directed by Kelly Marcel. With Tom Hardy, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Juno Temple, Rhys Ifans. Eddie Brock and Venom must make a devastating decision as they’re pursued by a mysterious military man and alien monsters from Venom’s home world. Watched again with my wife. This was indeed a movie with a character named “Venom” in it. I have no memories of dancing though. Buy On Amazon!
Kraven the Hunter: Directed by J.C. Chandor. With Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Ariana DeBose, Fred Hechinger, Alessandro Nivola. Kraven’s complex relationship with his ruthless father, Nikolai Kravinoff, starts him down a path of vengeance with brutal consequences, motivating him to become not only the greatest hunter in the world, but also one of its most feared. This is a much better film than I was expecting and would have been even better if it had no connection whatsoever to the Spider-man universe, but alas, Kraven is a well known Spider-man villain that isn’t as interesting as he could be when the movie...
Sinners: Directed by Ryan Coogler. With Miles Caton, Saul Williams, Andrene Ward-Hammond, Jack O’Connell. Trying to leave their troubled lives behind, twin brothers return to their hometown to start again, only to discover that an even greater evil is waiting to welcome them back. I finally got around to watching this in an AMC, but sadly missed the Dolby Digital release. I actually tried to see it a few weeks ago, but it had already shifted from the DD theater to the 10 seater and I gave up on seeing it in a theater, but it’s been doing so well...
The 4:30 Movie: Directed by Kevin Smith. With Siena Agudong, Austin Zajur, Kate Micucci, Ming Chen. A group of teens in the 1980s spend the day theater-hopping. I don’t remember seeing a single advertisement for this being in theaters and only caught wind of it on the Amazon “new movies on 4k” page. It likely would not have been a great theater movie, but it was a perfectly fun coming of age movie about movie theaters and the shenanigans that movie fans used to get up to whilst hanging out at the movie theater. Buy On Amazon!
Running Point: Created by Ike Barinholtz, Mindy Kaling, Elaine Ko, David Stassen. With Kate Hudson, Drew Tarver, Scott MacArthur, Brenda Song. Isla Gordon, overlooked her whole life, is appointed President of the LA Waves basketball team, a family business. She aims to prove she was the right choice despite skepticism. A show to have on while we ate, “Running Point” was a better behind the scenes show than it was a basketball show, but it was entertaining enough that we were able to watch it in about a month’s worth of dinners. Kate Hudson is that one girl that I’ve...
The Pitt: Created by R. Scott Gemmill. With Noah Wyle, Tracy Ifeachor, Patrick Ball, Katherine LaNasa. The daily lives of healthcare professionals in a Pittsburgh hospital as they juggle personal crises, workplace politics, and the emotional toll of treating critically ill patients, revealing the resilience required in their noble calling. I’ve always thought that a 15 hour shift at a hospital was ridiculous, dangerous, and irresponsible, but it was a clever gimmick for this show to show an entire shift of a trauma center in Pittsburg. I have it on good authority that while this is a highly realistic series...
Harley Quinn: Created by Justin Halpern, Dean Lorey, Patrick Schumacker. With Kaley Cuoco, Lake Bell, Alan Tudyk, Ron Funches. The series focuses on a single Harley Quinn, who sets off to make it on her own in Gotham City. I’m not sure if the series is just bad now or if my tastes in comic book adaptations isn’t in line with the mainstream, but I’ve always thought that Brainiac storylines were goofy and barely acceptable for a Superman tale, but now I know they’re completely out of line with what I want from a Harley Quinn television series. The entire...
Starchaser: The Legend of Orin: Directed by Steven Hahn. With Joe Colligan, Carmen Argenziano, Noelle North, Anthony De Longis. Set on the subterranean Mine-World, a band of human worker are treated like slaves under the power of the evil overlord Zygon until one, Orin, unearths the hilt of a mythical sword that only he can master. Escaping the planet, he runs into the rogue smuggler Dagg and a pair of helpful droids and the princess, who all team up to return to the Mine-World with a plan to defeat Zygon and free Orin’s enslaved people. Starchaser: The Legend of Orin...
Porco Rosso: Directed by Hayao Miyazaki. With Shûichirô Moriyama, Tokiko Katô, Bunshi Katsura VI, Tsunehiko Kamijô. In 1930s Italy, a veteran World War I pilot is cursed to look like an anthropomorphic pig. I went into Porco Rosso with modest expectations, not entirely sure what to make of a film about a World War I fighter pilot who, as part of the story, is cursed to live in the body of a pig. What I found, though, was a surprisingly rich and layered experience—one that blended whimsical fantasy with poignant historical context, and mixed lighthearted action with a deeper emotional...
Kiki’s Delivery Service: Directed by Hayao Miyazaki. With Minami Takayama, Rei Sakuma, Kappei Yamaguchi, Keiko Toda. Along with her black cat Jiji, Kiki settles in a seaside town and starts a high-flying delivery service. Here begins her magical encounter with independence and responsibility, making lifelong friends and finding her place in the world. This is the movie that actually got the ball rolling on my desire to watch all the Studio Ghibli films, as one of my coworkers had a stain glass mural in her window that features Jiji all over the place, which I thought was cute and whimsical...
