Adam Selvidge's Website Blog
They Cloned Tyrone: Directed by Juel Taylor. With John Boyega, Jamie Foxx, Teyonah Parris, Kiefer Sutherland. A series of eerie events thrusts an unlikely trio onto the trail of a nefarious government conspiracy in this pulpy mystery caper. There’s a good story here shoved under a Tarantino level of racial vulgarities and stereotypes, both of which can be easily dismissed as the creative team using them to make a point, and if you’re able to do that than you’ll enjoy a perfectly fine film. There’s some pretty interesting story elements at play here, none of which are unique but are...
The Martian: Directed by Ridley Scott. With Matt Damon, Jessica Chastain, Kristen Wiig, Jeff Daniels. An astronaut becomes stranded on Mars after his team assume him dead, and must rely on his ingenuity to find a way to signal to Earth that he is alive and can survive until a potential rescue. I watched something that referenced Mars or had a scene on Mars and for the life of me I cannot remember what series it was, but it gave me the push to rewatch one of the most optimistic Mars movies ever filmed. It’s still a great experience and...
Truth of the Divine The second book in Lindsay Ellis’s well written series of books about cyborg robots that show up on Earth and have some pretty emotional experiences with the humans they bond with. The story drifts around for several of the middle chapters with a character going through some pretty intense psychiatric issues and I found that I really just wanted the story to do more than it ended up doing in this book, but it sets itself up for at least one more entry in the series. I’m hopeful that Sterling will keep the series going, but...
Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken: Directed by Kirk DeMicco, Faryn Pearl. With Jane Fonda, Lana Condor, Toni Collette, Colman Domingo. A shy adolescent learns that she comes from a fabled royal family of legendary sea krakens and that her destiny lies in the depths of the waters, which is bigger than she could have ever imagined. I’m pretty sure I’m not remotely in the target audience for this coming of age adventure, but I still felt like this was a fun movie. My wife felt there was a couple things that completely took her out of the film, the primary one...
Lego Marvel Avengers: Code Red: Directed by Ken Cunningham. With Laura Bailey, Haley Joel Osment, Will Friedle, James Mathis III. The Avengers meet a dangerous new foe quite unlike anything they’ve ever encountered before. A lower quality animation than I was expecting for a Marvel LEGO movie, but about what I would expect for a direct to dvd adventure that would have limited to no advertising. There’s some really funny jokes here (a nice MC Hammer / Mjoirnir joke is my favorite) and the entire “code red” thing ends up being pretty silly but fun. Buy On Amazon!
Gen V: Created by Evan Goldberg, Eric Kripke, Craig Rosenberg. With Jaz Sinclair, Chance Perdomo, Lizze Broadway, Maddie Phillips. From the world of “The Boys” comes “Gen V,” which explores the first generation of superheroes to know that their super powers are from Compound V. These heroes put their physical and moral boundaries to the test competing for the school’s top ranking. If there was any doubt that they were going to be able to keep up the quality from the transition from “The Boys” to “Gen V”, let me assure you, this is among the best content in that...
Clerks II: Directed by Kevin Smith. With Brian O’Halloran, Jeff Anderson, Jason Mewes, Kevin Smith. A calamity at Dante and Randal’s shops sends them looking for new horizons – but they ultimately settle at the fast food empire Mooby’s. Another film by Kevin Smith that’s still as hilarious as the day I watched it, but still feel like there’s some topics here that just generally wouldn’t be approached because of how nuclear the pure racism or bigotry from the some of the characters land and we generally don’t even joke about the type of these that are joked about here....
Ms. Marvel: Created by Bisha K. Ali. With Iman Vellani, Matt Lintz, Zenobia Shroff, Yasmeen Fletcher. Kamala, a superhero fan with an imagination–particularly when it comes to Captain Marvel–feels like she doesn’t fit in at school and sometimes even at home, that is until she gets superpowers like the heroes she admires. Doing a quick rewatch to remind me how much I loved the character, the actor, and just about everything about this show. i think I like it even more this second time around and I really liked it the first time. Now it’s on to Secret Wars, maybe...
Babylon 5: The Road Home: Directed by Matt Peters. With Bruce Boxleitner, Claudia Christian, Peter Jurasik, Bill Mumy. John Sheridan finds himself transported through multiple timelines and alternate realities in a quest to find his way back home. After I finished the TV series, I checked out the latest movie, choosing to skip all the other ‘made for tv movies’ and luckily “The Road Home” picks up just moments after the final episode of the original tv series, so the story flows extremely well with the order that I watched it in. It does continue some of the more silly...
Expend4bles: Directed by Scott Waugh. With Jason Statham, 50 Cent, Megan Fox, Dolph Lundgren. Armed with every weapon they can get their hands on, the Expendables are the world’s last line of defense and the team that gets called when all other options are off the table. Much worse than I was expecting, and I’m sure you know that no one was expecting much from this franchise of goofball comedians that formed a merc squad to be the “expendables” that can take care of big issues with little responsibility. Believe me when I say this was shot nearly completely on...
