Adam Selvidge's Website Blog
Uncle Buck: Directed by John Hughes. With John Candy, Jean Louisa Kelly, Gaby Hoffmann, Macaulay Culkin. Bachelor and all-round slob Buck babysits his brother’s rebellious teenage daughter and her cute younger brother and sister. If I’d seen this in the past, it long enough ago that I never logged it and more importantly, I had no memory of it. Was scrolling through films tonight and my wife made a comment about how she hadn’t seen that in ages, so that was tonight’s movie. I had the impression that the titular “Uncle Buck” was more of a screw up than he...
Jakob’s Wife: Directed by Travis Stevens. With Barbara Crampton, Larry Fessenden, Bonnie Aarons, Nyisha Bell. Anne, married to a small-town Minister, feels her life has been shrinking over the past 30 years. Encountering “The Master” brings her a new sense of power and an appetite to live bolder. However, the change comes with a heavy body count. A fun and campy horror film with a somewhat unique twist of also being a relationship drama. It’s a medium level budget film with medium level special effects and acting, but there’s some real heart in the film that any fan of the...
Thir13en Ghosts: Directed by Steve Beck. With Tony Shalhoub, Embeth Davidtz, Matthew Lillard, Shannon Elizabeth. When Cyrus Kriticos, a very rich collector of unique things, dies, he leaves his house, fortune, and his prized collection of ghosts. There’s 12 ghosts! No wait, 13! What a twist! This is an overly campy horror film from 2001 that I missed the first time around, but my wife sure didn’t, it was on her list of spooky films to watch, and to be honest it was a fun film that had some pretty neat ideas about how the afterlife works and some pretty...
Ms. Marvel: Created by Bisha K. Ali. With Iman Vellani, Matt Lintz, Zenobia Shroff, Yasmeen Fletcher. Kamala is a superhero fan with an imagination, particularly when it comes to Captain Marvel; Kamala feels like she doesn’t fit in at school and sometimes even at home, that is until she gets superpowers like the heroes she’s looked up to. Ms. Marvel starts off slow enough and that first episode felt like it was going to be another one of those D+ shows that meanders just a bit too much or never really figures itself out, but by the third episode I...
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds: Created by Akiva Goldsman, Alex Kurtzman, Jenny Lumet, Gene Roddenberry. With Anson Mount, Rebecca Romijn, Ethan Peck, Christina Chong. A prequel to Star Trek: The Original Series, the show will follow the crew of the USS Enterprise under Captain Christopher Pike. Finally, a Star Trek series that I can get into, and boy howdy did I get into it. It took them over 6 seasons of Disco and Picard, but there’s finally a Trek for me! Anson Mount knocks it out of the park as Christopher Pike and the entire supporting cast, down to the...
I had a dream that stuck with me all day long, so figured it was strong enough to get written about: ================================================== An old old (overweight) coworker walking into my house, nude with a gun. My wife and I look at each other, the naked lady starts raving about something, walks outside. I go get my own gun, which is somehow now a 22, I proceed to empty it and try to reload it, but I’m fumbling with the rounds and they’re getting jammed up. I finally get it figured out, look out window she’s now standing outside my house...
The Taurus Reach: a remote interstellar expanse that holds a very old and potentially cataclysmic secret, the truth of which is feared by the Tholians, coveted by the Klingons, and dubiously guarded by the Federation. Second book in the Vanguard series and things are moving much more quickly now, with Klingons Romulans, and Tholians all making major moves that result in the complete destructions of planets and entire solar systems. There’s great story being set up here and I’m happy to take the ride. This book does remind me that i need to get the “before you read this” thing...
Conan the Barbarian: Directed by John Milius. With Arnold Schwarzenegger, James Earl Jones, Max von Sydow, Sandahl Bergman. A young boy, Conan, becomes a slave after his parents are killed and tribe destroyed by a savage warlord and sorcerer, Thulsa Doom. When he grows up he becomes a fearless, invincible fighter. Set free, he plots revenge against Thulsa Doom. My wife and I have been playing “Conan: Exiles” for a couple weeks now, so I figured I’d give the movie a rewatch and boy howdy did the devs of that game really get the setting right. The movie’s version of...
Waterworld: Directed by Kevin Reynolds. With Kevin Costner, Chaim Jeraffi, Rick Aviles, R.D. Call. In a future where the polar ice-caps have melted and Earth is almost entirely submerged, a mutated mariner fights starvation and outlaw “smokers,” and reluctantly helps a woman and a young girl try to find dry land. I got it for free from Universal, so of course I watched it. It’s supposed to be in 4k/hdr, but there was nothing about what I watched that made me say “golly this sure is 4k and hdr”, so maybe don’t buy it on the basis of that aspect...
Thor: Love and Thunder: Directed by Taika Waititi. With Chris Hemsworth, Natalie Portman, Christian Bale, Tessa Thompson. Thor enlists the help of Valkyrie, Korg and ex-girlfriend Jane Foster to fight Gorr the God Butcher, who intends to make the gods extinct. The redemption of Thor in the MCU has been utterly mind blowing to me, and this movie continues the trend of Phase 4’s ability to have a movie without a bad guy that’s little more than a mustache twirling bad guy that’s bad for badness’s sake. It doesn’t hurt that Christian Bale steals nearly ever scene he’s in, has...
