Stuff I Watched In September

I should probably repeat my rant back in August; it seems like there was some backsliding last month.  Maybe people think they're clever but it's pretty obvious some of you just scrolled to the end because those were the only ones mentioned.  It really defeats the purpose of all my work. 

Anyway...

7500:  This Amazon movie from 2019 was on Tubi and for no real reason I watched it.  Joseph Gordon-Leavitt is Tobias, a co-pilot on a plane that's going from Berlin to Paris.  One of the stewardesses is his girlfriend and they have a son together.  

Once the flight is airborne, some terrorists break into the cockpit with glass shivs.  Tobias and the captain manage to push them out of the cockpit except for one knocked unconscious.  But Tobias is cut on the arm and the captain is killed.  Tobias calls the tower who recommend going to Hanover.  On the way, the terrorists start threatening to kill hostages--including his girlfriend.

The problem with the movie is its claustrophobic setting.  It's the kind of movie that could basically have been a  play.  It takes place only in the cockpit while we only catch glimpses of the rest of the airplane through a tiny, black-and-white screen.  So when hostages die and the passengers fight back at Tobias' encouragement, we barely see anything at all.  That stuff might have been good to see to know what's going on with the rest of the plane. 

Still, Gordon-Leavitt does a good job in a role that basically calls for him to be on screen the whole time and to mix English with German.  There aren't any other recognizable names to me but there's a young guy playing one of the terrorists who also gets a lot of screen time and does pretty well.  If you don't have Amazon Prime now might be a good time to catch up on this and other titles Tubi has like All the Old Knives and The Tender Bar. (3/5) (Fun Fact:  7500 is the radio code for a hijacking.)

Bent:  This 2018 movie stars Karl Urban of Star Trek and The Boys as a cop named Dan Gallagher who along with his partner is making a drug deal to catch some bad guys.  At least that's how he thinks it's supposed to work.  But somehow the bad guys have gotten wind of it and kill Gallagher's partner while he's shot.  He's arrested and put in prison for corruption, finding out that his partner had been keeping money, some earmarked for him.

Three years later he's let out of prison and starts looking into things.  He uncovers a shadowy government organization with Sofia Vergara in it and they join forces--outside and in the bedroom.  Ultimately he has to get to the root of things with some gunplay and car chases and all that.  Besides Urban and Vergara, there's also Andy Garcia as a bookie who's a father figure to Gallagher.  Overall it was OK but could have used more of a budget for some better supporting actors and effects and stuff. (2.5/5) (Fun Fact:  One of those low budget things:  the prison Gallagher is put into is called only "State Prison.")

Kill the Irishman:  This 2011 movie is a "true story" set from 1960 to the late 70s about Danny Greene (Ray Stevenson) who starts as a low-level employee shoveling grain out of freighters on Cleveland's waterfront.  When one of his coworkers passes out from the heat, Greene takes on the Mafia-backed president of the union and eventually wins.  For the next few years, things are great for Greene as he expands his business and makes friends with local Mafia boss John Nardi (Vincent D'Onfrio) and even gets married and has kids.  But then the Feds bust him and he loses it all. He does a little jail time but not much by volunteering to be a snitch for the Feds.

When he gets out, he calls Nardi, who gets him a job as a debt collector for a Jewish loan shark played by Christopher Walken.  Of course this is the kind of debt collector who doesn't call you on the phone;  this is the kind that breaks your thumbs or kneecaps.  Along the way, Danny makes friends with a garbageman and he and Nardi come up with a plan to create a union for the garbagemen, which puts them at odds with the other Mafia in town and his garbageman friend.

But things really go sour when he asks Walken for some money to build an Irish-themed restaurant.  Walken sends a courier to New York to get the money only for the courier to use it on drugs instead.  Greene and Walken have a falling out, with a $25,000 price tag put on Greene's head.

There's more to it, a lot more.  The movie is almost 2 hours and drags a little here and there.  Besides the names I mentioned, there's Val Kilmer as a cop who grew up in the same neighborhood as Greene and...really doesn't do a lot.  You also have some other recognizable names/faces in Robert Davi, Vinnie Jones, and Paul Sorvino.  While Stevenson is better known for action roles like Punisher War Zone, Accident Man, and Ahsoka, he does a good job in a more dramatic role as a guy who wants to help his neighbors but probably goes about it the wrong way. (3/5)

Cash:  This was one of those weird things where I put this on my Tubi queue a long time ago and forgot about it.  So it disappeared for a while and then eventually I saw it again on Tubi and decided to watch it this time before it could get away.

This movie is from 2010, just before the careers of the two main stars (Sean Bean & Chris Hemsworth) exploded a year later with Game of Thrones & Thor.  Bean is a criminal with a twin brother (also Sean Bean) in a prison outside Chicago.  For some reason I didn't really pay attention to, he has a suitcase of cash totaling about $630,000.  Maybe he was going to use it to get his brother out?  Whatever.  Anyway, some cops chase his car and he throws the suitcase out, where it hits Hemsworth's old station wagon to bounce off to the side of the road.  Hemsworth gets curious and looks inside to see money.

When he gets home, he and his wife decide to do what most of us would do--shut up virtue signalers--and buy a new Range Rover, a new TV, and basically a houseful of new furniture.  About a third of it they give to one of their moms to hold onto, though I'm not sure they actually told her about it.  They quit their jobs and plan to buy into a chicken franchise.

Meanwhile, Bean has escaped the cops and goes to the DMV to look up cars recently bought with cash, figuring anyone who found the money would buy a new car.  It's a little too lucky of a guess; I mean for all he knew, whoever found it could have gone and bought tons of lottery tickets, gambled it at the track, or just spent it all at the nearest crack house.  But whatever.  He starts tracking the names down and on the third try--that they show anyway--he finds Hemsworth.

From there, Bean takes Hemsworth and his wife hostage to get his money back.  There's a surprising amount of math involved in this as he keeps adding up how much money there is and subtracting how much they're still short.  Basically he's not going to leave them until he has every cent back.  They trade the car back for much less than it cost, take out a refinancing loan at the bank, and get the money back from the mother.  Then Bean kicks it up a notch by having them rob convenience stores, gas stations, and even a bank.

Overall it's a decent movie, though not a great one.  Besides the two big names there's not a lot of depth to the cast, though the actress playing the wife was good at providing some spunk against Bean's bullying.  I didn't see much point to the twin thing, though I guess from a sort of cookie scene it could have set up a sequel, though it was pretty obvious a year later that wasn't going to happen.  It could have been about 20 minutes shorter to be a little tighter  But whatever. (3/5) (Fun Fact:  One of the car buyers Bean talks to is played by veteran character actor Mike Starr.  He was also a Mafia guy in Kill the Irishman.  His brother Beau was in Due South and Halloween 4.)

The Stepfather:  Another blog mentioned this thriller from 1987 and what intrigued me was when he mentioned it was co-written by Donald E Westlake, one of my favorite authors over the last few years, who wrote the Parker series under a pseudonym, the Dortmunder series, and dozens of other books.  Since it was "free" on Peacock, why not check it out?

The gist is that a man (Terry O'Quinn of Lost, The Cutting Edge, and Resident Alien) goes around suburban Seattle, marrying women and becoming part of the family until someone gets too close to the truth or just pisses him off.  Then he murders them and moves on.  This time his new family is a mom (Shelly Hack) and a 16-year-old daughter named Stephanie.  Stephanie doesn't really like him and is having trouble with the death of her real father, to the point she's been expelled from school for fighting.

Everything seems fine enough until Stephanie sees the guy raging in the basement during a party.  Then she starts to get worried about him, but she of course has no proof.  Meanwhile, some other guy is looking into Terry O'Quinn and getting closer and closer to finding him.

Overall it's taut and the main characters are drawn pretty well.  For something that could have been just cheap schlock, it's actually made pretty well.  Coming in at under 90 minutes, it would have been nice if they'd had the chance to stretch it a little to give a little more background to Terry O'Quinn's character.  Still, it works. (3.5/5) (Fun Facts:  The movie was directed by Nick Castle, who played the original "Shape," aka Michael Myers in Halloween.  Blu Mankuma of Transformers Beast Wars and Robocop the Series has a small role as a police lieutenant.)

One Last Heist:  Based (loosely, I'd assume) on a true story, this is about a heist in London's Hatton Gardens neighborhood that houses a bunch of jewelry stores.  A thief (Matthew Goode of Watchmen) gets out of prison and is recruited by a Hungarian mobster (Joely Richardson) to rob the vault under the jewelry stores.  She'll give him all the codes to get into the building; he basically has to figure out how to get into the vault.

Instead of recruiting young guys, he recruits some old geezers to do it "old school."  From there it's a fun little heist story as the thief has to not only figure out how to knock over the vault and carry it out, but also deal with the problems of the old people, like one has emphysema and another has other problems and one is just cranky.

Like I said, it's fun, sort of a low budget version of The Bank Job starring Jason Statham.  And it's not very long, so you don't have to sacrifice a whole afternoon or anything. (3.5/5) (Fun Fact:  This is one of those movies where the main character's name is never used, so in the credits they refer to him as XXX which is funny since there was that Vin Diesel series by that name.)

The Con is On:  I've mentioned before movies that have a good--or at least well-known--cast that for some reason go under the radar.  This one could have stayed under my radar.  

A couple in England (Uma Thurman and Tim Roth) are in trouble after stealing money from a "Russian" gangster Irina played by Asian actress Maggie Q (which is maybe supposed to be funny?) and using it all on poker and drugs.  They get enough money to fly to LA, where Thurman plans to steal a valuable ring from an actress (Alice Eve) whose husband (Crispin Glover) is a director up for an Oscar but secretly in love with his star (Sofia Vergara already mentioned in Bent).  Meanwhile Parker Posey is in love with Crispin Glover but he doesn't seem to notice or care no matter how many scenes she makes.  There's also Stephen Fry as a pervy priest with a pet Asian boy and a drug business on the side.

The whole thing becomes this sort of soap opera with some action as Irina and her goons show up.  Thurman gamely tries to make it work while Roth stumbles around most of the time. Fry does a good job being gross.  Eve, Parker, and Vergara act like they're in a Mexican telenovella for the most part.  Glover is strangely the most normal one of the bunch.  And Maggie Q doesn't even get to kick anyone.  It all becomes pretty tiresome and as far as "cons" go it is pretty lame. (2/5)

Mob Town:  In 1957 the small town of Appalacia, New York was briefly home to about 60 mobsters.  This inspired-by-a-true-story movie is about how a state trooper named Ed (David Arquette) manages to bust them.

The basic setup is that a gangster (Robert Davi already mentioned in Kill the Irishman as a gangster) has returned from exile in Italy and now wants to return to the seat of power.  He wants a meeting of all the big gangsters in some quiet, out-of-the-way place.  One of his lieutenants suggests Appalacia, where there's a small-time gangster named Joe Barbera running things.  Sergeant Ed has tried to get Barbera a few times but of course the gangster always finds a way to get out of it.

Ed starts to notice strange things as Barbera is buying up all the steak, fish, and pork chops for the big to-do.  Ed is also making time with a widow who has two kids.  The day finally comes, and Ed has a plan to trap all the gangsters.

It's not a bad movie but it's the type that needs a bigger budget for more and better actors, sets, and a slightly longer run time.  That would have made it feel a little closer to A-list than C-list. (3/5) (Spoiler:  The end has a card to say what happened after.  Of course none of the gangsters went to jail and most weren't even arrested.  But the long-term impact was it forced Hoover and the FBI to acknowledge the Mafia did exist and led to new laws like the RICO Act.  Ed went on to be on various committees in Washington trying to fix the organized crime problem while his son became a New York state trooper.)

Our Kind of Traitor:  Even if you didn't watch the opening credits, you could probably figure out this is based on a John le Carre novel.  It's a story of espionage but it's a lot slower than a James Bond movie.

In Morocco, an English professor named Perry (Ewan McGregor) and his wife Gail, a barrister (Naomie Harris), are on vacation.  One night they're in a bar when they meet a bunch of loud Russians.  Dima, the head of these (Stellan Sarsgaard), invites the couple back to his compound.  From there Perry and Dima form a friendship, largely built on straight-arrow Perry being impressed with Dima's war stories, gang tattoos, and so on while his wife is less impressed.  Dima has some valuable information that British Intelligence wants, but getting it out of the country and to Britain could be dangerous--to everyone.

Like I said, this is much more of a slow burn than a Bond movie.  There's a lot more focus on the characters.  McGregor and Sarsgaard have decent chemistry and everyone else is up to the task.  If you like the more realistic type of spy thriller, then this is a good pick. (3/5) (Fun Fact:  McGregor and Sarsgaard were both recently in Star Wars series on Disney+, though not together.)

Rain Fall:  It would have been nice if someone had mentioned that about 75% of this would be in Japanese with subtitles.  Basically this is like a Japanese version of a Bourne movie.  Only instead of Jason Bourne, there's John Rain, who has about as much charisma as a rice cake.  He has possession of some memory stick that's important--I guess.

Like a Bourne movie there's a CIA command center with lots of screens to try to bring up CCTV footage and junk like that.  Instead of Chris Cooper, Brian Cox, etc you have Gary Oldman, who mostly screams at people to find Rain.  As Rain rampages through Tokyo, he meets some woman who the CIA is also after and tries to get her to safety.

I wasn't really into most of the Bourne movies or reading a lot of subtitles so this didn't do a lot for me.  There's a twist at the end that's kind of clever, so that's something at least.  Besides the subtitles, a more charismatic lead would really have helped. (2.5/5)

Johnny Skidmarks:  This is another movie that really wants to be a Coen Brothers movie.  But it doesn't quite rise to that level.  Still, it's not too far off the mark.

The eponymous Johnny Scardelli Skidmarks (Peter Gallagher) is a crime scene photographer who also moonlights by taking blackmail photos of his hooker girlfriend's johns.  He gives these photos to some other guys who shake down people. 

But then one day he goes to a crime scene only to find one of his blackmail crew is the victim.  And then his hooker girlfriend.  And then another guy.  It seems pretty obvious that Johnny is next.  Meanwhile he meets a woman named Alice (Coen Brothers favorite Frances McDormand) at the fast food restaurant run by his former brother-in-law Jerry (Jack Black).  Can he find who's after him before he needs a crime scene photographer to take pictures of him?

It's not really a bad movie and there's a decent cast that also includes John Lithgow as a cop.  It could have used a little more zaniness to match something like Fargo, but it's not bad.  There is some gross stuff so if you have a weak stomach you might need to turn away. (3/5)

Black Butterfly:  This is the kind of movie that's ruined by too many twists.  At the beginning, the story is about Paul (Antonio Banderas) who is a struggling, reclusive writer in Colorado.  Things are getting desperate enough that he's trying to sell his house out in the mountains via a rookie realtor (Piper Peekabo) but things aren't going well.

One day Paul is going into town when a truck is driving like a jerk, driving slow and not letting him pass.  He finally gets around the guy to go to a local diner.  The truck driver shows up there to pick a fight.  A drifter named Jack (John Rhys Myers) jumps in to defend Paul before leaving.  On his way home, Paul sees Jack walking and gives him a ride to his house.  

From there it becomes sort of like Misery as Jack takes over the house and basically takes Paul captive.  Jack claims to be trying to help Paul get his writing on track, but it soon spirals out of control.

Then there's the first twist that wasn't really bad.  It turns everything on its head.  If it had ended there it wouldn't have been too bad.

But then there's twist #2, which is the worst kind of twist.  SPOILER!  It's all a dream!  Paul dreamed the whole thing with Jack because his subconscious was telling him what to write or something.  Look, I've been writing for a while and I've NEVER had long, complicated, lucid dreams that tell me stories to write.  I rarely get any story ideas from my dreams; it usually happened when I was wide awake.  So to me the whole idea this could all have been a dream to solve his writer's block is just completely asinine.  Like I said, this is the worst kind of twist because it really just negates the whole story so why did I bother watching it?  It makes me feel like a chump. (2/5)

Adverse:  This was one of those annoying bait-and-switch deals.  The description calls it a "taut urban thriller" where a rideshare driver a short time out of prison finds out a gangster (Mickey Rourke) is leaning on the rideshare guy's sister.

Then the reality sets in.  It's a dull slog as the rideshare guy tries to get his sister off drugs and hanging out with bad people, loses his gig job, and does some driving for Rourke's goons.  By the time there's some gunplay and violence, I was too bored to care.  I guess when they said "taut urban thriller" I was thinking more car chases, gunplay, and fighting instead of a mopey PSA against drugs and peer pressure and shit. (1/5) (Fun Fact:  Sean Astin has a small part as the head of the local branch of the rideshare; he's in like two scenes so that definitely qualifies as cashing a paycheck.)

Rumble Through the Dark:  It's kind of like if Billy Bob Thornton in Sling Blade were a bare knuckle boxer.  Jack Boucher (Aaron Eckhart) is trying to get money to pay off the local gangster "Big Mama" and buy back his adopted mom's house from the bank.  He does some bare knuckle fights and then goes to a casino where he actually makes some money.  But some dude who works for Big Mama sees the money and so they go after him.

And mayhem ensues.  It's almost 2 hours long and I stopped really paying attention much after the first hour or so.  In the end he's got to fight some big dude for the money he needs.  Guess what happens?  Eckhart gives it his all but there's really no other talent that's comparable.  I wouldn't really recommend it. (2/5)

Hunting Ground:  This is a Tubi Original, which I suspect was just a cheap action movie that had trouble with distribution or had been sitting on the shelf and they just bought it for "original" content.  In the beginning there's some bad guy who steals money from a plane and jumps out, landing somewhere in Washington state before dying.

Nearby, it's the opening of hunting season and some guy finds the money and then some other guy with some goons starts chasing him.  The only actors you might have heard of are Danny Trejo as the sheriff who barely seems to do anything and Bruce Dern, the bad guy leader who only appears a couple of times through a tablet screen that was probably filmed in his house.  So it's a lot of unknowns and cheap effects and so on.  It didn't really hold my interest long after I finished my dinner.  The good guy should have had a kid--especially good if it's a sick kid--so we'd care more about him getting the money.  Just wanting not to be a lumberjack in a small town isn't really a great reason, especially when we don't know what else he might do. I'm just saying. (2/5)

Accelerate:  Pretty standard cheapo action movie.  A woman's son is kidnapped and apparently she's some kind of assassin or whatever and to get her son back, the kidnapper (Dolph Lundgren) wants her to drive around LA getting stuff.

It's basically a video game-style plot where she goes from one level to the next, fighting henchmen and bosses like former UFC fighter Chuck Liddell and Danny Trejo.  It gets pretty boring but I suppose it makes OK background noise. (1/5)

MI5: Greater Good:  I think the listing said this was based on a TV show.  If this were a TV show I wouldn't stream more episodes.  It's just a bland spy "Thriller" about a rogue agent and someone else who gets framed for it.

Basically MI5 fucks up the transfer of a terrorist named Qasim to the the CIA.  Qasim gets away and someone needs blamed so the blame is ready to fell on a higher-up in the agency, who disappears before anyone can arrest him.  An old protoge of his (Kit Harrington) is recruited to go after him.  Meanwhile Qasim is launching attacks on London.

There are some OK twists and turns, but it's not especially interesting. (2.5/5)

Confidence:  This 2003 movie stars Ed Burns (who's like the less charismatic Ben Affleck) as leader of a crew of con artists.  His right-hand man is Paul Giamatti and there's another guy who drives and stuff.  Their last job they stole some money from "the King," who's a big shot crime boss played by Dustin Hoffman.  To get the king off their backs, they have to take on another job trying to double-cash business checks in Belize.

Of course everything gets complicated because one of the King's guys named Lupus joins the team to watch them and also a woman (Rachel Weisz) joins too and and Ed Burns get a thing going.  It's pretty good for this sort of movie with some good twists that make you wonder if they'll get away with it.  It's just a little annoying how it gets skipping ahead to the supposed end that wants you think Ed Burns is dead. (3/5)

We Still Steal the Old Way:  This is about 3 old British guys who stage a bank robbery.  Only it's not "one last job" for them because they get caught.  But that's actually the real job so they can break someone out of the prison as his wife is dying.

The potential breakout gets harder when an old rival gets himself transferred to the prison.  He starts recruiting an army and lays the ground with the warden (or governor as they say there) to start making and selling drugs.  The bad guy pretty much has everyone on his side but the good guys have a plan of their own.  It's decent overall even if it doesn't have any familiar faces.  Not a heist movie so much as a prison movie. (3/5)

6 Ways to Die:  "John Doe" (Vinnie Jones) manipulates a bunch of other people to help destroy drug kingpin Sunny Garcia.  He offers them a lot of money in order to slowly destroy the drug lord.  This includes his wife betraying him.  There are a number of interesting twists as we wait to see how everything connects.  I think there's a twist at the end that was pretty silly but otherwise it's good if you like an action drama with a twisty plot.  I'd say more but it's kind of hard to avoid spoiling things. (3/5)

The Assignment:  The first problem is that this movie decides to be broken up nonlinearly.  The second is that the plot makes no sense.  Basically there's a hitman named Frank who kills a doctor's brother.  So the doctor (Sigourney Weaver) uses her skills to make the hitman a woman.

Now maybe you'd think with all the Eric Filler books I'd be down with that but it's pretty stupid.  I mean to do a full, flawless sex change would take a while.  So it's pretty implausible.  

Anyway the hit woman (Michelle Rodriguez) escapes and starts doing stuff while the doctor has been committed to a mental hospital, where she's telling the story to her doctor (Tony Shaloub).  And, you know, mayhem ensues or whatever.  I just wonder how much Tubi offered up to get Weaver, Shalhoub, and Rodriguez to do this crap.) (1/5)

Prom Night (1980):  I watched this for story research and no other reason.  It's not a very good movie.  They rope Jamie Lee Curtis into this but it's obvious she doesn't want to be there.  The rest of the characters are as thin as the paper the script was printed on.  The story itself is boring and predictable. 

In 1974, some young kids are in an old school and one girl dies.  Her twin brother doesn't.  So, hmmm, who's the killer years later?  Yeah, really hard to guess.  

Meanwhile there's a prom featuring a bunch of disco.  Actual disco.  Ugh.  Then the killer, wearing all black with a sparkly black ski mask, starts offing random losers.  I don't think Jamie Lee really gets naked or anything but there is a little sex.  Not enough to make it interesting.  No clever twists.  Just nothing really. (1/5)

Prom Night (2008):  This was about the time where the only big horror franchises running were Saw and Hostel movies.  Rob Zombie's Halloween had done pretty well so of course studios started trying to reinvigorate other old franchises like Nightmare on Elm Street and Friday the 13th.  Someone decided to pick up more obscure ones from the early 80s like April Fool's Day and Prom Night.

Saying this is better isn't hard.  It's basically a McDonald's cheeseburger vs something you find on the pavement.  It's bland and basic but it is edible.  It's not really that different than a late 90s horror movie, without the style of Scream.  The killer ends up pretty predictable too.  Years ago a girl's family was attacked by a stalkery teacher.  Years later her and her friends (mostly just a bunch of CW archetypes) are going to prom at a hotel.  And, hmm, the teacher escapes prison a couple days earlier.  Hmm.

But the plot is a bit more fun with more kills, more gore, and a little more sex.  The killer does a couple of clever things to escape the cop (Idris Elba) who was involved with the previous killings.  And no disco music!  That's always welcome.  If you want a metaphor for this movie, it's the kind of movie that uses a second-tier 2000s band like Rock Kills Kid for the end theme than a more popular band like Coldplay, Death Cab for Cutie, or the Shins. (3/5)

Ready or Not:  I think this was on Hulu for a while but I never got around to it.  And it was about to expire on Tubi.  So what the hell.  

A newlywed woman (Samara Weaving, NOT Margot Robbie as you'd think) and her husband are at the estate of his rich family.  The family has this weird tradition where a new member of the family has to play a sadistic game and be sacrificed by sunup or the family will all die.  Rich people, right?

The family includes a bunch of snobs, losers, and a creepy old lady.  They're probably not creepy and nutty enough to compete with The Addams Family or Knives Out or something.  They include Henry Czerny (Mission: Impossible 1, ?, and 7), Andie McDowell (Groundhog Day), and Adam Brody (Shazam).  At first the bride thinks it's all a joke but is soon disabused of that notion.

From there she has to avoid the family and shifting allegiances.  And also no one but maybe the butler is much good at using weapons.  Of course everything comes down to the last second.  It's fun but maybe not as much fun as it could be.  There's plenty of gore and gross stuff.  A little sex.  A few twists.  I'd say to watch it in Spooky Season if you can. (3/5)

Taffin:  This late 80s Irish movie stars Pierce Brosnan as the titular character.  Around his small Irish town he's kind of a fixer, collecting for people and helping a band get a van after they were sold a lemon the first time.  But then there's that favorite 80s plotline of a bunch of big city developers showing up to build a chemical plant.

The townspeople recruit Taffin to stop them.  There are dirty tricks by both sides before it's all over.  By then Taffin is a pariah.  Meanwhile the developers make a final attack on Taffin.  Strangely they never think to kidnap his girlfriend.

It's a decent movie considering there are no stars after Brosnan.  It's more fun at the start when he's using his skills to help people around town.  Once it gets to the main plot it becomes a little slow.  I guess this is what Brosnan had to do since he couldn't do the rebooted Bond movie that went to Timothy Dalton instead. (3/5)

Employee of the Month:  This isn't that comedy with Dane Cook, though it came out around the same time.  Anyway, Matt Dillon is David, a guy who has it all:  a fiancee (Christina Applegate), a house, a car, and a decent job.  But then his shithead boss fires him.  And his fiancee finds a stripper's underwear in his jacket pocket.  So he's out on his ass.  He buys a gun, some beer, and ice and heads up to a motel to commiserate with his friend (Steve Zahn).

That's basically the first 2/3 of the movie somehow.  I mean it just keeps creeping towards some kind of point.  We started the movie showing him riding the bus looking downtrodden and seemingly going to shoot up the bank.  To actually get there takes a frustratingly long time.  And then he finally does go to the bank but just beats up his boss.  Outside is a bank robbery!  Coincidence?

From there you have twists and twists on twists.  The problem is like with that other one I mentioned is it goes too far, until the twists make no sense.  The idea that he was using this thing at work so he could stage a robbery is a good twist but then having his fiancee and friend and a bunch of other people in on it too was a bit ridiculous.  I mean how did his flaky friend keep that secret for like two years?  And if David is such a stone cold killer why was he having a relationship with his fiancee and so devastated when she dumped him?  (Especially since she's a lesbian.)  And really, no one should need two years for what amounted to a pretty simple robbery.  One twist or maybe two is probably all you need most of the time.

All of the twists really bring things down; it definitely needed to end a little bit sooner.  (2.5/5) (Fun Facts:  All the loose ends--by which I mean the characters--are wrapped up in the end credit scenes--by which I mean they die one-by-one.  Dave Foley has a small role as a dentist who was someone involved with the plot.)

The Heavy:  Mitchell "Boots" Mason is freed from prison and tries to resume his old life of beating up people for money and so forth.  Then he's given an assignment to find some girl while his politician brother reveals he's dying.  There's also a cop (Vinnie Jones) with an old score to settle with Boots.

It has some twists but it's mostly pretty bland.  Boots, played by Gary Stretch, has no real charisma while Vinnie Jones and Christopher Lee are mostly wasted.  It's basically a "good enough" movie and not anything more. (2.5/5)

Blood and Wine:  I didn't pick this to watch; I had fallen asleep and Tubi just started it.  Seeing Jack Nicholson and Michael Caine, though, I decided to watch the rest.  From what I gather, Jack and his wife (Judith Davis of The Ref) had a wine shop that went under--in large part because of Jack's mistresses.  But he and Caine have a stolen necklace that should put Jack in the black.  

Except when Jack is packing, his wife tumbles onto the plane tickets indicating he's taking along his latest mistress--a young Cuban girl played by J-Lo.  They have a fight and it seems she kills Jack, so she grabs a bunch of stuff--including the necklace hidden in the suitcase--and takes off to find her son--Stephen Dorff.  They hit the road to go down to Key Largo while of course Jack isn't dead.  He and Michael Caine go off in pursuit of the necklace.

From there it's a series of successes and reversals for Jack as he and his son tangle over the necklace.  In the end, only one can survive.  In the oeuvre of Jack Nicholson it's probably pretty far down the list, but this is still a decent neo-noir thriller that's like a Carl Hiaasen novel without the charm.  But still pretty fun and a great cast for the mid-90s. (3/5) (Fun Fact:  When I watched Rescue Me (1991) on Rifftrax one time I said Stephen Dorff would have made a good Peter Parker and five years later with this movie that's still true.  But this was only a year or so from when he starred in Blade and some would say, started the MCU.)

Too Much of a Good Thing

 This month's Internet Writing Support Group was about a writing rule learned in school that messed you up.  This blog had an interesting answer:

I guess if there was something that messed me up, it was how supportive everyone was. Parents, teachers, classmates, everyone were always full of encouragement: You're a great writer! You should get your stories published! You could be an author!

Ha.

Ha.

Ha.

This answer reminded me of my own experience back in junior high.  In 7th grade I'd started writing stories first in English class and then on my own.  It probably started in notebooks but my school also had a whole lab of Apple IIe and IIGS computers with Magic Slate and Appleworks word processors.  Wow, the future is here!

Anyway, I wrote more in 8th grade and made the mistake of letting my teacher see it.  And she was all, "This is great!  You should get this published!"

I'm sure she was just trying to be supportive.  I mean, why not nurture the fat, shy kid with no friends' "gift" right?  Seems like a great idea.  And really doesn't cost her anything.

The problem is I was like 14 at the time and dumb and naive to take this seriously.  So I think, Hey, I should get this published!  And it should be totally easy, right?  I mean in TV and movies you just put your manuscript in a box or envelope, mail it to a publisher in New York, and you're on your way.

But like an old insurance ad said, "That's not how this works.  That's not how any of this works!"  In 1992 or so you can't just do that.  And, more importantly, my writing may be great for 8th grade in Midland, MI but it's dogshit compared to professionals who have been doing this for years or college graduates from the Iowa Writer's Workshop and so forth.  I'd have had a better chance taking on Mike Tyson for the heavyweight boxing title.

Rejections then were pretty much the same thing, only by snail mail if at all, but it probably stung worse back then.  I mean, my teacher said it was great, so why wouldn't they want to publish it?  But I'm stubborn and stupid so I think I might have actually tried a couple more times.

Anyway, the point is encouragement, no matter how well-meaning it is, can sometimes be a bad thing.  In cases like mine and the other blogger's, someone needed to dial it back a little and temper it with a little realism.  It'd be better to say, "This is great!  You have real potential!"  Or a little more backhand compliment, "This is great for a beginner!"  And then maybe provide the student with resources like books on writing, publishing, or just regular books to provide more perspective.  But that would require more effort than just a compliment, right?

Of course these days I might like more effusive praise than a 5-star "rating" on Amazon or Goodreads.  I'm just saying.

Back to the Future!

 One day I was watching some Rifftrax on streaming and it started showing these commercials about how "Kamala Harris let out some illegal alien who tried to kill me.  She doesn't care about white women!"  They kept referencing an LA Times article from about 15 years ago.  Since the commercial was made by "Make America Great Again," I thought maybe I should do a little research.

So I go to the LA Times.  Paywall.  I go to newspapers.com that promises they have millions of clips.  "Start Your Free Trial Today."  And then I just sighed and thought that in the old days you could just go to the library and use a microfiche reader to read old articles.  They probably would have had a national paper like the LA Times as well as local papers.  While it would have been bulkier and more time-consuming, it would have been pretty much free except however much you spent on gas--which in the 90s wouldn't be much.

Now that it's football season it kinda pisses me off that I can only get CBS and ABC on my TV with my digital antenna.  What was it, 20 years ago when the government strong-armed everyone into using these digital antennas for TV?  But they suck.  I mean maybe if you're in a rural environment or own your own place they can work better, but I live in an apartment that's surrounded by other buildings so the signal I get is shit; all I get are two channels in Lansing plus some PBS.

In the old days with regular antennas you just put a big antenna on the roof.  Sure it might blow off in a storm, but you'd be likely to get more stuff with it.  I mean when I was a kid we'd get stations from Flint, which is like 30-40 miles away.  So, really, it'd probably work better if my building just had a big antenna on the roof that everyone could tap into.  But then we couldn't get whatever benefit there is from digital!

The only alternatives suck pretty hard too.  The cable company charges $30 per month or more just for local channels.  Sling, Fubo, Hulu, etc want $40-$70 per month for packages that include local channels.  There's a local Fox app but that only shows you news, not actual shows; NBC probably has something similar.  With NBC at least I have Peacock so I can see some stuff but not everything on NBC is also on Peacock, which is kind of annoying.  ESPN is kind of the same thing.  I used to have Hulu/Disney/ESPN+ but the problem was that ESPN+ doesn't let you see the main ESPN stuff so I couldn't watch most Monday Night Football games--though last year I lucked out; thanks to the strikes they put some of the games on ABC--and the big college football games like the college playoff so I couldn't even watch the Michigan game.  But I could watch Ivy League football games and also volleyball, hockey, and lacrosse for a lot of teams.  Hooray!

And with all the streaming services it can be annoying when they move stuff around so on August 31st you might be able to watch a movie free on one service but September 1st it moves to another service you don't subscribe to.  Am I going to waste time signing up for a free trial or enrolling for a month--and hope I don't forget to cancel?  Probably not. 

On Fandango's app I used to have a bunch of movies I used digital codes for.  A lot of them were DC superhero movies like Man of Steel or BvS but I also had for instance a free copy of Stripes.  There was a menu on my Roku where I could find the stuff if I felt like watching it--which wasn't often.  One day I went to find it and the menu on the Roku was gone!  I went to Fandango's site, but nothing would come up there either.  I think when they took over Vudu they probably fucked things up so all the stuff I had with Fandango got vaporized.  I could probably contact their "help" but that would just take a while and accomplish nothing.

As I mentioned a while back with Amazon Music, they suddenly made it so unless you subscribed to Music Unlimited you were forced to listen in shuffle mode--even if it was something you already bought from their site on MP3.  Spotify is the same way except I don't think you can actually buy things on MP3.  Anyway, so if I wanted to listen to the stuff I own, I'd be better off using an old copy of Winamp on my PC or on an MP3 player.

Just to make things worse, some of these short-sighted companies are also destroying old stuff.  Paramount recently erased the entire archive of MTV News.  Maybe not a huge loss, but it shows how vulnerable online content is.

Anyway, the point being that thanks to corporate greed, stupidity, and short-sightedness it's getting to the point where you're better off going back to old analog ways to do things.  I've probably said this before, but if there's a movie/TV show, album, or book you really like, get a physical copy of it.  Then if it moves to some other streaming service or it gets erased you can still watch it when you want to.  Just make sure to have something that plays that format.  Maybe we should just bring back microfiche and analog antennas and stuff like that since the alternatives have become too expensive or just aren't that good.

And of course for all the writers, make sure you back up your stuff to somewhere other than "the Cloud" or OneDrive.  You never know when they'll decide to start charging some astronomical amount or want to use your material for "AI" training or just erase it because some dumbass pushes the wrong button or they get hacked or whatever.  I think I said before you should probably print out anything you really want to keep and then put it in a fireproof strongbox.  Or copy it onto clay or ceramic tablets--those seem to last a good long time.

It sucks to have to think this way but more and more I see the immediate future isn't going to be peace and light and happiness.  It's going to be shit thanks to greed and stupidity.  You might as well start preparing yourself now.  Sorry to end on a downer, but it is a downer subject.

August TV & Movies

 It's this again.  Like I said last month, try to do better on comments than "I haven't seen these."

Mayor of Kingstown, S3:  The third season seemed in jeopardy when star Jeremy Renner was in an accident with a snow plow.  But since he made a miraculous recovery, the show could return for another season.  The show is about Kingstown, MI, where the #1 industry is prisons and the #2 industry is selling drugs and other comforts to the prisoners.  Mike McClusky (Renner) is the "mayor" who tries to maintain the balance between the black Crips, the racist Aryans, and the Latinos.

At the end of season 2, Mike's mother was shot and season 3 begins with her funeral, where someone tries to kill Mike and his family with a car bomb.  Meanwhile, with the evil Milo out of the way, there's a new head of the Russian gang, who is also a friend of a prostitute/Mike's sometime girlfriend Iris.  And a former Aryan leader, who  was a mentor to Mike when he was in prison years ago, returns to Kingstown to take over the Aryan gang.  Bunny Washington, the head of the Crips, is meanwhile planning to expand his operations.

From there it's a lot of Mike bouncing around from one crisis to another as the various gangs are jockeying for position.  When all is said and done, the Russians are mostly wiped out and the Crips have taken some casualties and the Aryans have lost a lot of their leadership.  I'm not sure who's really going to come out on top.  Meanwhile, Mike's brother is arrested and Iris is possibly dead, but at least this time we can be pretty sure that Milo is finally dead.

Like the previous seasons, this really makes little attempt at being realistic.  I just find it intriguing for all the various alliances and crooked deals and so forth.  There is of course plenty of violence and some gross stuff like a baby left in a dumpster with its dead mom--and a bunch of rats.  And later a bus full of young Russian girls coming into America from Canada (the border Trump and his ilk don't talk about) is pushed off a bridge and the girls all drowned.

It's definitely not a show for the faint of heart.  Or those who want a really coherent police drama where everything is wrapped up in 45 minutes.  There are still loose ends out there for a fourth season, though as my brother said, with this Paramount merger, who really knows what might survive, though being part of Taylor Sheridan's empire on the network, it has a better chance than some. (3/5)

Wind River:  I'd heard of this but hadn't streamed it.  Then another blog reviewed it and reminded me that maybe I should get around to watching it.  So I did on Freevee, though by now it might be somewhere else.  

The movie is directed by Taylor Sheridan and plays like other Western noir movies/TV shows of his, the most notable being Yellowstone that gave him his own empire on Paramount.  In Wyoming, a young Native American is found frozen in the snow by fish and game warden Cory (Jeremy Renner) so he calls for backup, which includes the local tribal PD and a young FBI agent (Elizabeth Olsen) who happened to be the closest agent to the scene.

They start looking around and asking questions of the girl's parents, her ne'er-do-well brother, and some of his drug dealing friends.  Eventually, though, all the questions lead to somewhere else close by.

Overall this wasn't a bad movie, especially if you're into Sheridan's oeuvre.  If you're not really into his modern day Western/noir vibe then you probably wouldn't like it as much.  Renner is OK as the lead, though as a different blog wondered, maybe someone else would have been better, though I'm not sure who.  One of the Chrises? (Hemsworth and Pine at the top of that list.)  Matthew McConaughey?  Denzel Washington?  Anyway, Olsen's character could have used some more background so we'd know more than she's from Ft. Lauderdale.  Maybe the bad guy(s) could have been revealed a little earlier so we'd get more catharsis when they get what's coming.  Or not. (3/5) (Fun Fact:  As noted above, Jeremy Renner stars in Mayor of Kingstown, which was created by Taylor Sheridan and Hugh Dillon, who has a small part near the end.  Maybe they hatched the idea for the show on the set or something.  And of course Renner and Olsen have both been part of the MCU, though Olsen is "dead" and Renner is basically retired.)

Monkey Man:  This is a movie that was probably done a disservice by the trailers showing Dev Patel in a black suit and beating the crap out of dudes.  That's the kind of thing that got everyone thinking this was an Indian John Wick, but it's not except in the broadest sense.

Bobby (Dev Patel, who also writes/directs/produces) is out for revenge after a corrupt cop brutally killed his mother when he was a child.  To do this he actually employs a lot of subtlety.  He infiltrates a rich madam's establishment, where he starts working with a short guy who does deliveries and stuff.  He also does cage fights while wearing a monkey mask, though he doesn't seem to win a lot.  He does get money to buy a gun that he practices shooting against a movie poster painted on some crappy building.  He meets a beautiful hooker and feeds a dog, but I don't think a lot happens with either.

His first attempt to get revenge goes badly, though, when he struggles to pull the trigger.  He's badly wounded but escapes the cops to end up in some haven for transgender people--I guess.  There's a training montage as Bobby prepares for Round 2.  But then there's a lot of politics and religious stuff and if you're not from India it probably won't make a lot of sense.

Only then does it get to the John Wick-looking parts that were probably featured prominently in the trailer.  Overall I didn't think it was a bad movie, just not great.  There are extraneous bits like the love interest and the dog.  I'm not sure why he bleaches the monkey mask near the end when he doesn't even seem to wear it--at least not long.  And again all the political and religious stuff didn't make a lot of sense.  In a movie like this, just showing the bad guys are bad is enough without a bunch of social background. (3/5) (Fun Facts:  While this is supposed to be all about India, the movie was actually filmed in Indonesia.  Sharlto Copley basically is the token white guy as the owner of the cage fighting ring.)

The Bikeriders:  This is based on a photo book about a biker gang in Chicagoland from 1965-1973.  Annnnd...not much else.  Other than another attempt to Keep Boomer Culture Relevant, there's really not much to this.  There's a tough, loudmouthed young woman who gets involved with a biker named Benny (Austin Butler) who has as much emotional depth as a sheet of paper.  There's the head of the gang named Johnny (Tom Hardy) who got the idea when he saw the much-better movie, The Wild One.

The closest to a story is really about how the gang called the Vandals changes over the years.  They start out racing the bikes and then mostly drink beer in the bar that's their clubhouse and sometimes in a park or something.  They really don't have much agenda.  But somehow it expands into Milwaukee and then other Midwest cities.  And over time there are new members who are a lot more aggressive and prone to troublemaking.

But really the movie can't seem to decide what story it wants to make the main one, so it kind of just does nothing and drifts along to the end.  It just would have been nice if the leads had had some chemistry better than Anakin and Padme in Episode II.  And it might have been nice if the movie had done more than show some old TV shows and mention Vietnam a few times to actually depict the tumultuous time period.

You can say it's well-filmed and most of the actors do their jobs capably to decently.  The problem isn't the technical parts, just the lack of a coherent, compelling story. (2.5/5) (Fun Facts:  Near the end, Norman Reedus shows up as a biker from California; he has(had?) a show on AMC or wherever about motorcycles.  The band Lucero does the end theme song written specifically for the movie; I have a few albums of theirs that are good if you like alt-country with more emphasis maybe on the alt.  The lead singer also did a whole album dedicated to the characters in Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian.)

There you go, one of my favorite tracks.

Henry's Crime:  This is one of those movies that slipped beneath my radar even though it has a good cast.  But then I saw it on Tubi and decided to watch it.  The basic plot is Henry (Keanu Reeves) is wrongly convicted of helping to rob a local Buffalo bank and when he gets out about 18 months later, he decides to rob it for real.

At the start, Henry is a toll worker who is shown working the graveyard shift when there are hardly any cars.  He's married to Deb (Julie Greer) who wants kids, though he's less enthused.  Then a high school acquaintance Eddie (Fisher Stevens) shows up with a sick friend.  Eddie tells Henry he needs someone to drive to softball and even though it's November and about 8am, Henry drives him to the bank, where Eddie claims he needs beer money from the ATM.  A security guard comes out of the coffee shop next door and stops Henry.  He's sent to jail, where his cellmate is Max (James Caan) who is a former "confidence man" who's really comfortable in prison.  And like I said, 18 months later, Henry gets out and decides that since he did the time, why not do the crime?  This in part comes to him when he sees an article posted on a bathroom wall about how there used to be a tunnel between the bank and a theater next door.

Henry goes to his house to find his wife has moved on with Eddie's sick friend.  So Henry gets an apartment or motel or something to begin his plotting.  While bumbling across the road, he's hit by Julia (Vera Farmiga) who is an actress stuck doing local commercials and plays like Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard being directed by Derek (Peter Stormare) in the theater.  With Max's encouragement, Henry steals a part in the show so his dressing room can be used as a base while they dig out the tunnel to get to the bank vault.

This is one of those dark comedies or dramadies or whatever you want to call it that's not really serious but not really too overtly funny.  Like how people talk about Tom Cruise just playing Tom Cruise, you can say that mostly Keanu just plays Keanu, a pretty mellow guy who mostly goes with the flow, except there's the one thing he decides he really wants (the bank) and he just sometimes by intent and sometimes by accident accumulates people to help him--like Julia.  The romance plot is pretty well done, including the end where the play starts taking on a life of its own.  Overall it's pretty fun as a little bit heist movie and a little bit light drama/comedy/romance of people wanting to get out of Buffalo--and who can blame them? (3.5/5) (Fun Fact:  You have Keanu as a toll booth worker and James Caan, who was famously murdered in a toll booth plaza.  I don't think the movie has any winks or nods to that though.)

Chaos Theory:  This dramedy from 2007 stars Ryan Reynolds, but any potential viewers should be cautioned this isn't Deadpool, Van Wilder, or Waiting Reynolds.  This is a little more subtle and mature than those.  But still not extremely serious or mature. 

For whatever reason there's a framing device where Frank Allen (Reynolds) tries to calm the fiance of his daughter before the wedding by telling him a story.  So then it skips back to the present of 2007 (I assume, because it taking place in like 1990 would make no sense) when Frank is an "efficiency expert" who has this whole thing built around lists.  He has a book he's doing a presentation on and at a reception afterwards he meets a woman (Sarah Chalke) who asks to use the bathroom in his hotel room.  He agrees, but when she inevitably comes out of the bathroom in only lingerie, he freaks out and runs away.

He starts driving home, only to get run off the road by a pregnant woman who is in labor.  He takes her to the hospital and stupidly puts his name on the forms when the pregnant woman ducks out.  The hospital later calls his wife (Emily Mortimer) who becomes suspicious and so Frank gets a test to prove the baby isn't his.  But in the process he gets some bad news involving his daughter.

The bad news plunges him into a mid-life crisis of sorts.  He buys a motorcycle, takes up smoking, gets into a fight (that he wins), and streaks at a hockey game (which isn't shown).  Instead of using lists to organize everything, now he's just letting chaos reign.  Meanwhile his wife wants him back, but can't convince him.

I liked this more than I thought I might.  While not typical Ryan Reynolds comedy, it was still funny in places and serious in places.  Things pretty much end Happily Ever After, but not so much so that the whole cast should gather to sing a happy, sappy song.  The way I thought of it was it's like they wrote this for Zach Braff but then he couldn't be in it so they cast Reynolds instead.  And by that I mean if you like Scrubs or Garden State then you'd probably like this.  And, hey, I do like those things!  (At least the first couple of seasons of Scrubs.)  So obviously I liked this. (4/5) (Fun Fact:  It's a little weird with the framing device because Reynolds is about my age so he was only around 30 when this was released and yet he has a twenty-something daughter in the framing device.  It's good they didn't do the whole movie like that or it would have been really weird.)

Gunless:  It's a Western (Canada) comedy.  After surviving an incompetent hanging, the Montana Kid (former Due South star Paul Gross) ends up in a small town in Canada.  It's pretty predictable then as at first he doesn't like the town and wants to leave, but he can't for a couple of days, so he starts getting to know the townspeople, especially an opinionated widow.  When some American bounty hunters show up looking for him, it's pretty obvious what the Montana Kid is going to do.  

But while it's predictable it's still fun for a low-budget Canadian movie.  More fun and shorter than A Million Ways to Die in the West, but obviously not as good as Blazing Saddles. (3.5/5) (Fun Facts:  Paul Gross's co-star in the 3rd season of Due South was Callum Keith Rennie, who plays the head of the bounty hunters after the Montana Kid.  Gross played a Mountie in Due South and a contingent of Mounties show up to beat him up in this.)

Heist (2000?):  Behind the generic title is a bevy of talent:  David Mamet writing/directing and Gene Hackman, Danny DeVito, Delroy Lindo, Sam Rockwell, and Ricky Jay starring.  Annnnd...meh.  It's not terrible but there are a lot better heist movies out there.  Plenty that have more clever schemes, more charismatic thieves, and definitely better romantic plots. 

At the beginning, Joe (Hackman) and his crew (Lindo, Jay, and Joe's much younger wife played by Rachel Pidgeon) poison some coffees for people working in a jewelry store and then plan to rob the place.  One woman doesn't drink her coffee and so Joe gets caught on camera without a mask.  They still get away with the loot, but Joe decides he's done.

His fence, DeVito of course, has One Last Job for him:  steal Nazi Swiss gold from a cargo plane in Massachusetts.  Joe doesn't want to do it, but he has no choice.  To help make sure it happens, DeVito sends along his nephew (Rockwell) to be part of the crew.  But of course he's a dumbass who has no idea what he's doing.  From there they plan the job and carry it out at the airport and then there are twists and turns involving the loot and who gets what.

Like I said, it's OK but Hollywood has made a ton of these so there are plenty of better ones you could watch:  Ocean's 11 (either), Thomas Crowne (either), The Italian Job (either), The Score starring Robert DeNiro and Edward Norton that came out near this same time, and more I can't think of right now.  You could even put the Die Hard movies or Ronin on the list as there are usually heists involved.  Mostly I think this needed some better character work for Hackman, Pidgeon, and Lindo especially so we knew more about them and what was going on.  Still, it's not bad overall. (3/5) (Fun Fact:  You have a real Legion of Doom in this with Hackman (Lex Luthor), DeVito (Penguin), and Rockwell (Justin Hammer).  Plus Lindo as the evil Mr. Rose in The Cider House Rules.  "I'm in the knife business!  You don't want to get into no knife business with me!")

A Family Man:  This movie probably wants to be serious drama but rises only a little above a Hallmark movie by the end.  The opening premise is pretty interesting:  Dane Jensen (Gerard Butler) is an upper-class douche in Chicago who works at a recruiting farm, mostly for engineers.  He calls around and wheels and deals so his team can bring in the contract.  His boss Ed (Willem Dafoe, cashing a paycheck so he'd have time for weirder stuff like The Lighthouse and Poor Things) is going to retire and so whichever team leader has more money by the end of the year will get his job.

Dane puts in so much time at work that he barely has time for his hot wife (Gretchen Mol) or his three kids.  He does make time to berate his oldest son Ryan about his weight and take him running, during which Ryan almost passes out.  Later we see Ryan has a mysterious bruise on his leg.  Can you see the problem here?  Not long after Halloween, Ryan is diagnosed with leukemia and checked into a children's hospital.  So now Dane is finding it hard to balance still doing his work and spending time with Ryan.

There are some good moments then as Dane takes his son to some of the architectural landmarks of Chicago.  We can see he's becoming a little more human, though he's still trying to compete for the big job.

The problem is at the end everything works out too neatly, too Happily Ever After.  (Spoilers!)  Dane loses the big job because he gives away a contract he's long been working on; Lou, the engineer he's been stringing along (Alfred Molina cashing a paycheck), is 59 and so no one really wants him until Dane offers to eat the usual fee if the company hires him.  For that he gets fired, but Ed tears up the usual non-compete contract so Dane can start his own business in his basement or something; he gets his first client when Lou calls and says his new company needs some engineers.  And guess what happens with Ryan's leukemia?  Of course it goes into remission.  Now let's all sing a happy, sappy song!

It's not that I wanted the kid to die, but the movie really didn't need to go so overwhelmingly happy.  Dane has been a pretty big asshole for a while, but because he helped one guy he gets off without any real consequences?  That's bullshit.

Anyway, it's a well-made movie technically and you've got a decent cast, so I suppose there are worse ways to spend about 2 hours. (2.5/5) (Fun Fact: Dafoe and Molina were both Maguire-era Spider-Man villains who would reunite about 5 years later in Spider-Man No Way Home.)

Central Intelligence:  Another team-up between Dwayne Johnson and Kevin Hart.  I haven't looked up how many times they've been together but there's at least four with this, the Jumanji movies, and the Superpets movie.  Anyway, this time around 20 years ago, Johnson was a fat nerd and Hart a top athlete, class president, and Most Likely to Succeed.  When Johnson is dragged naked into the gym during a pep rally, Hart shows kindness by giving him a jacket to cover himself.

Then 20 years later of course things have changed.  Hart is stuck in a dead-end forensic accounting job, the days of glory long gone.  Then he gets a Facebook request from "Bob Stone" and approves it and is soon invited to have drinks that night.  That's when Hart finds out "Bob Stone" is the naked kid from high school.  Only now while he's kinda weird, he can also kick a lot of ass.

Eventually it gets to the point that Johnson is in the CIA but is on the run from agents who think he's a bad guy called "The Black Badger."  He wants Hart to help decipher a computer code that will let him find the real Badger.

I try not to get too mad at movies that deliver what they promise.  That's what this does.  You have Johnson being goofy but also beating people up and you have Hart shouting and doing his whole less-angry Chris Rock thing.  If you want more than that, then you picked the wrong movie.  So, yeah, you can easily say, "It is what it is."  Because that's the best way to describe it.  There are some funny parts and some violence and car chases and stuff.  I was just surprised they didn't use the class reunion as the setting for the final act, but that does come into play for "Bob Stone" to get a little payback. (2.5/5) (Fun Fact:  Besides Johnson and Hart there are appearances by Jason Bateman, Melissa McCarthy, and Aaron Paul.)

Quicksand:  Another of those I hadn't heard of despite a couple of big stars in it.  Michael Keaton is a banker who gets a warning of a big, suspicion transaction at a movie company in Nice, France.  He goes to France only to get framed for shooting the local police chief.  Then it's kind of a discount The Fugitive as he goes on the run.  He teams up with a female executive at the movie company and an aging actor (Michael Caine) to take on the bad guys.

Overall it's not a bad movie.  It's not a great movie either.  While it's exciting and I can't really complain about the film quality or anything, I think my biggest complaint is Keaton's character is pretty good at taking care of himself for a banker.  I mean almost right away he's dodging evil henchmen, corrupt cops, and soldiers.  It's not very believable unless he was in the military or something, which the movie doesn't say.  Anyway, that aside it's still a decent thriller. (3/5) (Fun Fact:  Keaton was in the first two Batman movies as the titular hero while Caine was in the Nolan movies as Alfred.  So you have a Batman and Alfred, just not from the same versions of the franchise.)

Wild Target:  This is a British action-comedy from about 2010.  Bill Nighy is an assassin named Victor whose parents were also both assassins; he's now the same age his father was when he died.  His mother lives in a rest home with a scrapbook of his kills.

His life is all neat and orderly until he meets Emily Blunt, a young woman who just sold a fake Rembrandt for nearly a million pounds.  The buyer employs Victor to kill her, but he doesn't find the right opportunity right away and basically decides he doesn't want to kill her.  In a parking lot they're both ambushed by a couple of bad guys; a loser named Tony (Rupert Grint) inadvertently helps them.  

Victor and the two younger people go on the run, which he soon finds pretty annoying.  Emily Blunt is pretty reckless while Tony is clueless about everything except shooting, where he has a natural talent Victor starts to nurture.  The guy who bought the fake painting then hires another assassin (Martin Freeman) to track down the trio.  Which of course will lead to some mayhem.

There are some fun parts, some deadpan British humor, and of course some action parts, but it started to lag a little for me.  It was that point where I went in the kitchen to putter around for a few minutes.  So it's another of those things where maybe I hadn't heard of it despite the cast because it just wasn't that great.  Though not bad. (3/5)

Damaged:  It's not one with a bunch of recognizable stars, but it does star Samuel L Jackson as a Chicago detective investigating a series of murders of young women who are hacked up, their torsos taken and other parts arranged like crosses.  When someone is killed in a similar fashion in Scotland, he goes there to investigate.  He's teamed with a Scottish investigator whose son died a year ago, which really doesn't have much to do with the plot but is a distraction. 

From there it's pretty standard as you have some red herrings, a couple of chases, and a little gun play.  Then there's a twist that sort of makes sense.  Overall it's all right--"aggressively OK" as another blogger once said.  If you like mysteries you could do better--and worse. (2.5/5) 

The Doorman:  The basic premise is:  what if Die Hard took place in the apartment building from Only Murders in the Building?  Only it's not nearly as good as that might be.

Ali Gorski (Ruby Rose) is a former Army soldier who barely survived an attack on a diplomatic convoy in Romania.  (Don't waste time wondering who the people in the convoy were or what they were doing or who killed them, because none of it comes back later.)  She's back in New York with PTSD and a presumably honorable discharge.  She needs a job so her uncle gets her a job at the old Carrington building as a doorman.  She soon finds out that her brother-in-law (Rupert Evans) is living in the building with his two kids.  It's not fleshed out really well but they were apparently an item until he wound up marrying Ali's sister instead.

Easter weekend most of the building will be empty for renovations and stuff--sure, why not?  Except for one inhabited by an old handicapped guy and his wife.  The head doorman and a bunch of goons go to their place.  Their boss is The Professional himself, Jean Reno.  He wants some paintings the old guy stole when he was in Germany a while back.  They're supposedly hidden in the walls, but there's one problem:  it's the wrong apartment!  The old people moved after he had a stroke and guess whose apartment they used to live in?  Yup, the one Ali's family and her are in.

When the bad guys break in there, then it starts the Die Hard stuff with Ali and sometimes her teenage nephew sneaking around the building to take out bad guys.  It doesn't have the wit of Die Hard or Only Murders, but there's plenty of action and while it's fairly predictable, it's not a bad way to waste a little more than 90 minutes. (3/5) (Fun Fact:  Reno is basically in the Bruce Willis role and this was 2020 when Willis was still active, but I tend to think he didn't want to go to Bucharest to film.  Maybe then Reno is Europe's Bruce Willis now?)

Batman The Caped Crusader, Ep 1:  The first episode of this new Amazon Prime series was free on Freevee, so I watched it.  The idea is it's kind of like Batman the Animated Series in the early 90s only it takes place about when comic book Batman started in 1939-1940.

The plot is pretty simple:  a female Penguin is taking down some of the mob rackets from her base on a yacht called the Iceberg Club.  Bruce Wayne investigates during a party on the yacht and Batman takes down the Penguin and her dumb sons.  But Bruce then sees the problem in that by taking down the Penguin, other mobsters will eat up her territory. (Fun Fact:  I talked about this in the Scarlet Knight books in that one of the things Emma fears is that if she takes down the evil gangster Don Vendetta--who is a woman, so take that retro Batman--her lieutenants will fight over her turf and other elements might move in.)

I really like BTAS, especially the earlier episodes, but this didn't do a lot for me.  Like a lot of the "Elseworld" comics it felt kinda uncreative.  I mean in a lot of those it felt like the writer/artist just pitched it like, "OK, it's Batman but it's in like the 1920s!  [Or 1910s or Middle Ages or whenever.]"  It is basically just Batman set in the late 30s/early 40s like the original comics.  What is it that I'm supposed to get excited about?  His lock pick?  His Batcave with a glass board and file cabinets?  I guess you can say it's more realistic--in some ways.  To me it just felt like I'd pretty much seen everything before.

Of course it was just a first episode so maybe if I can ever watch the rest it'll get better. (2.5/5) (Facts:  Besides Penguin the episode also introduces Harvey Dent, so I suppose at some point he'll have to become Two-Face.  Oooh, original.  More original is Barbara Gordon as a defense lawyer; she and her father the commissioner are both black, so take that haters--sigh.  When does the review bombing begin? sigh.  What would have been cool is if she was a librarian and up in a tower of the building she has a perch to monitor activities in the city and pass messages between her and a network of spies that are then relayed to the cops and/or Batman--and maybe a couple of those spies could be a young Tim Drake and/or Jason Todd.  Basically it'd be like a 1939-1940 version of Oracle, you know?)

Batman (1949):  Speaking of retro Batman, this is the 1949 15-part serial that was shown in theaters.  I've seen episode 3 quite a few times on Rifftrax, but one day I saw it on the Roku Channel and decided to start watching.  And it is...crap.  I mean, you pretty much expect that from the low, low budget.  The Batsuit looks like something a mom might make from one of those patterns sold in stores--especially the ridiculous ears.  Robin is an adult with a black cape, probably because "yellow" looks crappy in black-and-white.

And which of Batman's many notorious foes is he fighting?  The Joker?  Penguin?  Two-Face?  Catwoman?  Exactly NONE of those!  Instead his enemy is "the Wizard," a dude in a black hood and cape who has glowing eyes.  With a bunch of bulky equipment he can make cars and other stuff go off course.  Yay?  His henchmen are all guys in suits and fedoras--including Floyd the Barber from Andy Griffith!  Bruce Wayne's girlfriend Vicki Vale is around to get captured or let her dumbass brother go free after he's captured for helping the Wizard.  There's also Alfred (who's not a badass) and Commissioner Gordon (who's not black) and some radio broadcaster who keeps obviously tipping the Wizard off in his broadcasts, but no one really seems to do much about it.

It's 15 parts, each about 20 minutes, which if my math is right means the whole thing is about 5 hours long, or equivalent to about 2 of the Nolan movies.  If you were a kid going to the theater every Saturday to watch, it was probably fine, but streaming it all at once gets to be really repetitive and boring.  It needed another villain or two, some character work for Batman and/or Robin, and some higher stakes.  I mean the whole big deal was the Wizard's machine could...make stuff go spinny.  And somehow it could be converted to stable energy, which is bad for...reasons.  Why does any of it matter?!

Maybe you'd want to check it out just for the historical value or something, but after a couple of episodes you'd probably be checking out. (2/5) (Fun Fact: All the people who bitched about the back of Robin's cape being black in TV and comics in the 90s should have watched this.  Suck it, haters, it was already part of the "source material."  I'm just saying.)

Cosmic Sin:  A cheap, dumb knockoff of HALO starring Bruce Willis and Frank Grillo.  It spends the first five minutes giving us the history of "The Alliance" to tell us it's the 26th Century--and yet while there are quantum gates and spaceships and colonies and laser guns, everyone still drives regular cars on roads.  That's how cheap it is.  It's the kind of thing where I just sort of lost interest in it. (1/5) (Fact:  Writer/Director Edward Drake has also done a bunch of other cheap action movies with Bruce Willis including the three "Detective Knight" movies; I'm not sure what he's going to do now with Willis retired.)

Some Wholesome Content

On Bluesky I follow an account called "Discontinued Foods" that's pretty neat because it shows a lot of old food products and fast food items from as far back as the 60s to the near-present.  Some of the stuff I remember and some of it either I was too young or I just never tried it.

One day he posted one of those translucent pebbly cups you'd get at restaurants back in the day and it began a discussion of old-school family restaurants you might remember from back in the 60s-80s before chains took over everything.  The kind of place your family might go to when they're feeling fancier than just going to McDonald's after church or some group event.

In Michigan we still sorta have places like that with "Coney Islands" that are maybe more like diners but a lot of the attributes are the same.  Maybe there are a few Big Boys or Ram's Horns that were more like that only they were technically chains.

(And this is where someone pops up saying, "I don't remember anything like that."  And I have some un-wholesome ideas of where you can stuff a useless comment like that.)

I copied as much as I could onto this slide, but Bluesky kinda sucks at threading so I missed a few.  My main suggestion was at the register you should have off-brand fun-size peppermint patties (like the York ones) for 5-25 cents and of course individually-wrapped toothpicks to get anything out of your teeth or just to suck the fake minty flavor off of.

Anyway, maybe you remember a place like that and have some suggestions for it.  I think it'd be kind of neat to actually build a place like that; it'd be a lot more real than those fake 50s diners and such.

And did you know you can buy those cups on Amazon?  Probably other places too.

Christmas Crossovers You Never Expected--Or Probably Wanted

 I had a couple of ideas for bizarre crossovers involving a couple of Christmas movies and a couple of regular movies.

First, one day at work there was a check with the name "Gower" and I remember the Rifftrax line mention "Mr. Gower wouldn't have poisoned that kid."  (Which is false in the real universe as young George Bailey stopped him.)  And then I had this weird idea.

So basically you'd start with It's A Wonderful Life and keep it the same until World War II.  George is turned down for the war because of his damaged ear from saving his brother or whatever.  So now we get to the crossover where George volunteers to be part of a German scientist's super-soldier experiment so he can get into the war and help his brother and all that stuff.  But of course while the experiment works, there are rogue Germans who kill the scientist and destroy equipment.  George tracks down the bad guys but they die before they can talk.

Image by Wombo AI

Now it becomes Captain America: The First Avenger!  George says goodbye to his family and then goes to sell bonds for a little while.  Then he gets into the war and fights the Red Skull and Nazis.  The only difference is instead of Bucky you have his brother (who probably doesn't die or become a Winter Soldier) and there's no romance with Peggy Carter since he's married.

Eventually George runs the plane into the ocean and disappears before waking up in 2011--on Christmas Day!  It's been almost 70 years so Mary is dead but some of his kids are alive and he has grandkids and great-grandkids.  While it's weird getting to know them, it does help him to acclimate to the future.  And he has Captain America stuff to do yet as well.

Yes, this is the Christmas movie you didn't know you needed!

This next one is thanks to this blog entry about a weird Japanese King Kong movie where he fights a robot Kong called Mechani-Kong.  The movie was partially animated by Rankin-Bass, who are most famous for animating the classic 1964 TV special Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.

So naturally, I thought:  why not combine them?  King Kong and Rudolph Save Christmas! (Or whatever.)

It's getting close to Christmas at the North Pole and the Abominable Snow Creature is feeling lonely because there are no other huge beasts and it's hard for him to play with the smaller critters.  Rudolph decides to take off and search around the Island of Misfit Toys and such for someone the Abominable's size.  

Eventually Rudolph finds an iceberg and sees a large gorilla frozen inside.  Using his nose, he thaws the ice enough that the gorilla awakens and busts out.  It's King Kong!  But of course he's not happy to be free from the ice.  He starts stomping around and throwing shit and makes his way to Christmas Town.  Not even the Abominable--or Santa--seem capable of stopping him!  

Then Kong pulls a roof off and grabs the big Christmas tree inside and is mesmerized by it.  Rudolph explains what the tree is and what Christmas is and Kong starts to settle down as he thinks of his home on Skull Island.  There's probably a song here as everyone gets in the Christmas spirit.

Kong starts to help repair the damage and get things ready for Christmas Eve.  He of course is too big to go with the sleigh.  Once Rudolph, Santa, and the rest get back, it's decided that Santa will help Kong go back to Skull Island.  And at least for a little while the Abominable will go with him since there are lots of big critters there like dinosaurs and whatever.

Everyone says goodbye to Kong and there's another song as he leaves--until next Christmas.  And that's how King Kong and Rudolph Save Christmas--From Themselves, Really.

Maybe I'd tweak that story, but it mostly works to me.

One I posted on Facebook a while back combined Die Hard and Home Alone 2.  Basically it's like Die Hard only Kevin gets on the wrong flight to LA and somehow ends up at the party.  He and John McClane then use goofy traps and plenty of bullets to stop the bad guys.

If I have more weird ideas for Christmas crossovers, I'll share them.  Maybe you have one?

Godzilla Minus One is the Greatest Prequel Ever

I had wanted to see Godzilla Minus One from the start, but I don't go to theaters and when I had a Vudu gift card for $5 it wasn't available for rent--then the Movie House app ran out of gift cards for anything.  The movie ended up on Netflix, which I don't have.

Last Sunday I finally just said "fuck it" and rented it for $6 from Amazon--I don't have a Prime subscription anymore but I guess I can still rent and buy stuff.  Anyway, pretty much every blogger/social media person in my feeds said it was good.  And they were not wrong.

The movie starts in 1945 near the end of the war. Koichi Shikishima (Ryunosuke Kamiki) is a kamikaze pilot, but he can't bring himself to go through with it, so he ditches on Odo Island, which is a tiny place to fix damaged kamikaze planes so they could go blow themselves up.  The crew examine the plane to find it has no damage, which is pretty awkward.

That night, a bunch of dead fish from deep in the ocean pop up.  And then...Godzilla!  At this point Godzilla is not really big.  He's kind of like a T-Rex in the Jurassic movies only with spines on his back.  He rampages around, killing most of the people on Odo Island.  One mechanic wants Shikishima to use the gun on his plane, but again he chickens out and is knocked unconscious.

He wakes up later and there's a boat to take him and others back to Japan.  The mechanic gives him some photos from the other mechanics so Shikishima can remember who he failed.

Shikishima goes to Tokyo, which has mostly been turned to rubble by American bombs.  He meets a young woman, who hands a baby off to him as she runs from cops.  Shikishima holds on to the baby and when the woman returns, she questions why he didn't leave the kid.  They go off to a damaged house where the woman introduces herself as Noriko and the baby as Akiko.  What becomes clear soon is that Akiko is not Noriko's baby, just an orphan she found.  They find an older woman who helps them feed the baby.

The movie jumps into 1946 with Shikishima and Noriko still together with the kid.  Shikishima gets a government job working on a wooden boat being used as a minesweeper.  The idea is two wooden boats drag a blade to cut the mines loose and then someone uses a gun to blow them up.  Shikishima gets that job when his military training proves to make him a better shot than the sailors and enigmatic Mr. Noda.  (The boats have to be made of wood because the mines are magnetic and would attach to a metal boat and blow it up.)

Meanwhile, a nuclear bomb is tested on Bikini Atoll and the implication is this causes Godzilla to mutate.

Noriko gets an office job in Ginsa and with the money she and Shikishima are pulling in, they can fix up the house and start thinking about the future--but not so much about marriage.  That's just another thing Shikishima is chicken about.

And then of course Godzilla returns!  This Godzilla is more like the one fans are used to with the taller build, but not maybe as tall and the plates maybe not as big and without the fire breathing yet.  The Japanese defense force has little left to throw at him while the Americans won't help because any buildup of ships, planes, etc could be seen as an aggressive action by the Soviet Union.

The two wooden minesweepers are recruited for a mission to stall Godzilla with their guns and some of the unexploded mines until a battle cruiser can show up.  This of course does not go well.  The other minesweeper is turned to splinter while Shikishim's boat is able to drop a couple of mines that don't do much good--until one rolls into Godzilla's mouth.  Shikishima shoots it with the machine gun and the mine blows up a chunk of Godzilla's face--but it quickly starts to heal. (Fun Fact:  that part of Godzilla's face is discolored the rest of the movie.)  The battle cruiser shows up to do some damage, though mostly it just pisses Godzilla off.  He starts ripping it apart, but after taking another couple of shots goes underwater to use his ultimate weapon, which we don't get to see yet.  Then he swims away.

Some time later, Godzilla shows up again.  After Godzilla breaking through the puny defenses to Ginsa, he can basically do whatever he wants, which is mostly to smash buildings with his claws and tail.  Shikishima and Noriko try to flee, but then Godzilla evolves his most devastating power:  the nuclear breath!  His spikes turn blue and he starts spewing nuclear fire all over.  In the devastation Noriko disappears and Shikishima is knocked out.  Godzilla has left for whatever reason and Noriko is seemingly dead.

Shikishima mopes around until he's recruited for a mission to destroy Godzilla once and for all.  With Japan's defense force in such sorry shape, a ragtag group of former military personnel get some old destroyers and retrofit them with cranes and special launchers for a weapon designed by Mr. Noda and some other scientists.  Shikishima gets a prototype fighter that's in pretty bad shape so he has to recruit an old enemy in the mechanic from Odo Island.

To kind of turn things full-circle, Shikishima has the mechanic plant bombs in the plane so if the plan fails, he can try to fly into Godzilla's mouth and set off the bombs to kill him.  So before he rejected being a kamikaze pilot but now he's embracing it for the good of his friends and family.

Really the whole thing here is kind of like the original Star Wars where the motley crew of the Rebellion launches a fairly crazy attack on the Death Star to destroy it.  And like that things don't go so well at first, but maybe the tide will turn.

The entire movie is in Japanese with subtitles, but it didn't matter a whole lot to me.  I think what really made this better than other prequels is that it's basically made as a stand-alone movie.  The changing design of Godzilla is supposed to tie into the 1954 movie and later ones, but mostly this tells its own story that focuses primarily on Shikishima finding the courage to do what's right and also his relationship with Noriko and their sorta adopted daughter.

Some of the supporting characters are a little goofy, like the other sailors on the minesweeping boat, but Mr. Noda is pretty awesome as the not-quite-mad scientist.  Unlike most Godzilla movies from 1954 to today, the human story isn't just there to eat up screen time and maybe introduce some plot point; it's actually interesting enough to hold the viewer's attention.  Probably because the characters have an actual emotional journey, so they do more than point and shout, "Oh no, it's Godzilla!"  There are actually dramatic stakes involved in a way none of the other movies really achieves.

But for fans of the King of the Monsters, there's still plenty of Godzilla wrecking shit.  He eats people, he body slams ships, he smashes buildings to rubble, and of course he eventually uses the flame breath--which comes with the iconic roar.  In a way he has his own journey too, becoming more and more powerful as humans create more and more powerful nuclear weapons.  This isn't really said, but if you think about it, this was a period where we went from the A-bomb to the H-bomb and nuclear weapons were spreading to the Soviet Union and other countries.

Anyway, I thought it was an amazing movie.  It's not perfect, but hands-down it's the best prequel ever.  It's definitely worth a stream or rental and then a purchase.  I watched the regular color version, but the black-and-white version is also available.

RAWR!!!!

July Movies & TV

Sometimes I feel like I should write a How To guide on how to respond to these entries.  Simply put, this isn't Match Game.  We're not doing a game show where you compare how many things you saw to what I wrote about.  If you want to make an empty comment like "I haven't seen these" then just write "Thanks for sharing" and move on.  Or don't say anything at all.

The better way to look at it is to read and consider whether you might want to watch a movie or if it sounds like crap.  Or maybe you heard of a movie but didn't get around to it and now maybe you will.

I'm sure sometimes I've done the lazy way too and I should do better.  We should all do better.

Now it begins!

In July Walmart offered Walmart+ for half price, which as I say is basically the same price as the included Paramount+ on its own, making the Walmart stuff just gravy.  So I got to catch up on the Paramount+ stuff I'd missed since the start of November.

Star Trek Discovery, S5:  This was the final season of the show and it was...OK.  The plot structure is mostly like one of those old GI Joe miniseries in the 80s in that the Federation has to find pieces of a device left by a group of scientists in the 24th Century.  (Or The da Vinci Code if you prefer.)  It unlocks a way to find the technology of "The Progenitors" who were an ancient race revealed in an old TNG episode to have seeded life throughout the universe.  It was basically a device for the writers to explain why most of the alien races all had the same humanoid look, though of course in real life it's just to save money on makeup.

Anyway, racing them are two former couriers named Moll and La'ak.  Moll looks like Shin Hati in Ahsoka for some reason; hey, makeup and wardrobe departments, there are other looks for young white women besides shaggy platinum blonde hair and lots of black eye makeup.  La'ak is a Breen without the helmet and armor.  And Moll is the daughter of Book's mentor.

After a couple of episodes, Saru leaves the ship to be an ambassador--what happened to his home planet and that kid who caused the Burn?  Isn't that why he left the first time?--so Burnham chooses a new first officer named Commander Rayner.  Rayner was Captain of a ship called the Antares but while trying to apprehend Moll and La'ak he went too far so they took away his command.  He's a really brusk, no-nonsense kind of commander, which rubs the touchy-feely crew of the Discovery wrong.

So they have to track down clues on some planet and Trill and stuff.  Moll and La'ak get captured by the Breen and so then they get involved.  Eventually everything leads to some black holes and lots of mayhem happens.  But don't worry, no one has to sacrifice her/him/themself for the good of the universe.  Only one of the bad guys dies.  Discovery gets to go on its merry way.

Most of it wasn't really that bad.  I really liked Rayner even if I missed Saru.  I know they had to minimize his time on the show as Doug Jones, like Peter Mayhew, was getting too old for this shit.  But like with Chewie couldn't they have replaced him in costume with a younger actor?  And maybe have Jones just dub the voice?  I guess as compensation they brought Tilly back pretty much full-time.  But Detmer and Owo make only a couple of appearances before getting written out entirely.

For the final season they don't exactly pull out all the stops.  There are no cameos from the original Trek shows or any of the other ones on P+.  There are two episodes in the middle of the season--one where Burnham and Rayner are bouncing through time and another where Burnham and Book find the alternate universe Enterprise in a sort of wormhole--where they could have had some cameos.  But we don't get an appearance by Lorca, Pike, Spock, Sarek, or Michelle Yeoh in either of her characters; we do get an appearance by Airiam, the cyborg officer who died in season 2, so, yay?

The chase for the Progenitors is interesting enough to keep things lively.  Like I was saying, the end is a little nauseating for how happy it gets.  It would have been fine if after Saru's wedding they beamed up to the ship to go on a new adventure.  But no, we get a nearly 15-minute epilogue about 40 years later with Admiral Burnham and Book living on some obscure planet when their son, who's a captain, of course, shows up to take Burnham for one final mission for Discovery to do...something.  It wasn't even like LOTR with all its goodbyes; it's of course just focusing on Burnham because who cares about anyone else, right?

Overall while it's good Discovery set the table for better shows like Lower Decks and Strange New Worlds, the shifts in tone and the 900 year jump made it hard to really connect to it.  And as I've said before it didn't do a great job building up the secondary characters.  I never really liked it as much as DS9 or TNG.  Still, it was mostly made well and the cast isn't bad. (3/5) (Fun Facts:  Rayner is played by Callum Keith Rennie who I'll forever know as "Fake Ray" from the 3rd/4th seasons of Due South but he's also been in sci-fi series like Battlestar Galactica and Man in the High Castle.  It's kind of funny that in the final episode Tig Notaro gets a "With" credit but then only appears in the background of one scene; it's sort of how Michael Douglas, Michelle Pfeiffer, and Samuel L Jackson just show up at the end of Endgame but get prominent credits anyway.)

HALO, S2:  I probably should have watched season 1 again because it sort of throws you in there and it's like, "Wait, who's that?  Who's that?"  I remembered the gist of the season that Master Chief finds an alien artifact and a human raised by enemy Covenant aliens gets another and they found the "Halo," a metallic ring in space.  The Chief had an AI called "Cortana" put into his brain and to save everyone he let Cortana have full control.

The season starts a month or two later when John wakes up to find Cortana has been removed.  He's put back on duty, but it's supposed to be "safe;" just watch over some troops evacuating civilians from the colony of Sanctuary.  But things go south and the Master Chief finds a Latina soldier named Perez.  He rescues her from some Covenant troops who have taken over a communications relay but then when it seems like the aliens are going to kill them, they suddenly leave.

From there there's a lot more intrigue than video game fans would probably like.  About half the season John, the Master Chief, doesn't even have his armor.  He's imprisoned on the capital world of Reach, where he tries to warn them that Sanctuary was just a dress rehearsal and the next attack is on Reach.  Soon enough, this comes to pass and John and others have to fight their way off the planet.

From there they go to a mining colony to lick their wounds before heading to Onyx, which is basically the new capital now.  John plans to get revenge, but then finds out the humans are launching a suicide attack on the Covenant that will destroy both sides and maybe the Halo too.  He launches into space to save the day and get to the Halo.  Meanwhile, a Resident Evil-type virus has been unleashed on Onyx.

That's leaving plenty of stuff out.  Like I said, if you just want frenetic video game battles--which are expensive to film--there aren't that many.  There are a few other subplots that again would help if you know who everyone is.  

I binged it over two days so I liked it well enough.  It's not great but there's enough action and intrigue to keep a more casual viewer like me entertained.  And I suppose purists would again be pissed that Master Chief doesn't have his armor much when in the game he's known for having it on all the time.  This does give Pablo Schreiber a chance to act a little more than just fight.  Natasha McElhorne returns as a less-mad scientist in the second episode.  Her former husband, an admiral, appears in a couple of episodes and their daughter shows up for the last couple of episodes to help unleash the killer virus.  Gee, thanks!

The effects are decent for a streaming TV show--and probably better than Quantumania.  If you liked the first season then there's no reason you shouldn't like the second season as it continues the plot, though of course not everything is resolved. Sadly, though, Paramount canceled the show, so unless someone else picks it up, there likely won't be a third season to resolve things.  (3.5/5) (Fun Facts:  As John and Perez are evacuating Reach, they shelter briefly in an antiques shop that has an old XBox on one shelf; the HALO video game series was of course made exclusively for XBox.  I hadn't looked Schreiber up on IMDB before but I found out he's Liev Schreiber's half-brother.  I was also thinking it's too bad he's not in that Gladiator 2 movie because at nearly 6' 5" and pretty buff he'd be good for maybe not the main gladiator but one of the other ones.)

HALO:  Fall of Reach: This 2015 animated movie uses creepy uncanny valley CGI for the people.  While it's called "Fall of Reach" it really has nothing to do with that.  It's mostly the origin of John the Master Chief.  Ironically for "fans" who whine about sticking to the source material, much of this--taken from a novel of the same name--was used in the Paramount+ show.

Dr. Catherine Halsey (who looks more like Cortana than Natasha McElhorne) recruits a bunch of six-year-olds, replacing them with self-destructing clones.  She and her military minions kidnap about a hundred kids and start training them to be soldiers.  Along the way a lot of the kids die.  John-117 soon becomes a leader and standout of the group.  Over the years that follow, they undergo dangerous missions.

More dangerous is when they're "augmented" with surgeries.  About 36% of the recruits don't survive, but the rest are able to get really sweet armor to help them be much stronger and faster than regular people.  At the same time, the Covenant aliens start showing up.

If you enjoy child abuse in lame CGI then this is great!  It basically takes the core concept of Ender's Game only instead of controlling fleets they become augmented soldiers.  It wasn't really great, but interesting to see how it compared to the TV show (2/5)

Lawmen:  Bass Reeves:  I caught the first two episodes on CBS last winter during the strikes and liked them well enough that I wanted to watch the rest. Bass (David Oyelowo) is a slave in Texas who fights in the Civil War--for the Confederacy though not really by choice.  Eventually he goes back to his master's ranch where he has a woman and a couple of kids.  One night Bass beats up his master and escapes.  Then he heads north, where a woman and her son take him in and he starts a new life until a former Confederate soldier named Esau (Barry Pepper) shoots the kid.

Bass moves into Arkansas and eventually his woman and kids join him and they can be married officially.  Bass is trying to scratch out a living as a farmer but it's not going so well.  Then one day he meets US Marshal Sherrill (Dennis Quaid) who offers Bass money if he goes along to catch some criminals as a "posse man."  Bass agrees and while he doesn't get along with the racist Sherrill they do the job.  And soon Bass is promoted to a Deputy US Marshal by Judge Parker (Donald Sutherland) which allows Bass to buy a new piano for his wife and no longer worry about farming.

The next episode skips a couple years ahead where Bass is taking people in for money.  He has his own "posse man" to help.  One of the guys they catch is Billy Crow, a Native American who's a small-time crook.  After a couple more years, Billy becomes Bass's posse man and falls in love with a hooker.  Meanwhile Bass survives some dangerous missions and makes plenty of money.  His wife keeps things together on the homefront while their oldest child Sally is falling in love with a boy named Arthur.

Slowly the major story point comes together as word spreads of black people disappearing.  Bass hears of someone called "Mr. Sundown" and finds out Esau is now a Texas Ranger.  When Bass turns over a live prisoner to Esau, the prisoner is reported as dead.

The penultimate episode is a little disappointing as Bass is charged with murder for shooting his wagon driver/cook after he let a prisoner go.  We really don't see much of the trial or process of finding evidence or witness testimony or anything.  The episode is also only about 30 minutes, which was maybe so they could make the finale a little longer.

In the finale, Bass, Sherrill, and Billy Crow confront "Mr. Sundown" while Bass's wife is visited by the wife of their old master.  The white woman naively assumes she can just waltz in there and re-enslave Bass's family because of a law passed back in Texas.  Bass's wife rightly slaps her and throws her out but realizes she needs to get more activist or else she and her family could end up in chains again. (Sound familiar in this election cycle?)

Overall things end pretty well.  I'm not a huge fan of Westerns but I liked this.  Dealing with a black Marshal brings up issues that haven't gotten a lot of play since Cleavon Little in Blazing Saddles.  Of course it's not really a "fun" show; Bass is pretty dour but then he really has a right to be. (3.5/5) (Sad Fact:  Since Donald Sutherland died recently I'm not sure what would happen if they do another season.  They could always recast Judge Parker or get a new judge or just write around anywhere a judge might be needed.)

Joe Pickett, S1:  This is I guess a Paramount Network series based on a book series that I might own some of but haven't read.  The eponymous Joe is a Wyoming Game Warden who gets a new post in the seemingly sleepy town of Saddlestring.  Soon Joe runs afoul of a local thug named Ote who takes his gun when Joe threatens to take his hunting license for shooting out of season.  Joe wrestles the gun away but a few days later Ote turns up dead on his woodpile.

More pieces are added to the puzzle including a black survivalist who burned off his fingerprints and raises falcons; a former game warden played by David Alan Grier who is kind of the one who gets everything started; a current game warden with big political hopes; a rich family called the Scarletts who of course are the real power in town; and weasels!  Joe's pregnant wife Marybeth helps him to investigate while also looking after their two daughters and butting into the lives of the thug from the beginning's wife and daughter.

It's kind of slow-building over the first 6 episodes or so but once most of the pieces are in place it begins to move faster.  There was one thing I really didn't like that mars attempts at a happy ending.  In the end I don't think all the bad guys (notably the Scarletts) get what's coming to them.  It's not as well-made (some of the animals look like they were made with bad CGI) or star-studded as Bass Reeves but it's still a good show if you like that kind of thing. (3/5)

Joe Pickett, S2:  Apparently the show moved to Paramount+ for season 2.  It starts about a year later.  The husband of a woman Marybeth is doing estate planning for has disappeared and so she asks Joe to go up to "Bermuda Mountain" to look.  Joe runs afoul of the "Grim Brothers," twins from the UP of Michigan who have become weird survivalists.  They kill Joe's horse and shoot him in the leg with an arrow.  He barely gets away.  But in the process the headless body of the guy Joe was looking for is found.

Soon Joe and Marybeth figure out that guys who were part of an annual hunting trip are being killed one-by-one.  At the same time a Native American man is looking for his daughter who has disappeared. The tribal authorities can't investigate because she didn't go missing on the reservation, but the sheriff's office won't investigate either because she lived on the rez, leaving her father and Marybeth to try to find her.

It's not as slow in building up as the first season and the end isn't quite as cruel.  There are numerous red herrings, twists, and turns before everything shakes out.  Again it mostly seems like the wealthy Scarletts get to skate while others are dead or hospitalized.  The one real loose end is David Alan Grier is let out of prison to help Joe with the case, but in about two hours escapes custody and...is never seen again.  Could Paramount not afford to bring him back for another episode to let us know where he went?

If you watch the first season and like it, then this is a good continuation of it.  I definitely wouldn't start here, though. (3/5) (Fun Fact:  In the first season when they brought up the title card they would have deer horns or some other animal on either side of Joe's name.  But in the second season they just use antlers.  I guess that was too expensive?) 

IF:  I really had no plan of watching this but it was "free" to stream so why the hell not?  Well, because it sucks and I have no idea who it was made for.  Like how a lot of comedies will push the best jokes in the trailers, this pushed the cutesy imaginary friends (IFs) in the trailer, making it seem like a kids movie.  Buuuuut, it's during the opening montage like Up that we find out the main little girl's mom died of cancer(?) and not long after we find out her dad is in the hospital for surgery.  That's just what kids want to see, right?

The girl named Bea moves to her grandma's apartment and starts to see IFs, who are being cared for by Calvin (Ryan Reynolds) because he can actually see them.  Then it starts to get into the stuff shown in the trailers where Bea and Calvin go through the IFs to make profiles.  They parade them to one kid in the hospital, who can't see any of them.

So then they decide to just give up on that and start uniting the IFs with their old kids who are adults now, starting with Bea's grandma.  And they do some more of that, which is supposed to be heartwarming, but why would you want to be reunited with your old imaginary friend?  Wasn't that the whole point of Drop Dead Fred like 30 years ago?  Then there's sort of a Sixth Sense twist and some other stuff and I just didn't find any of it funny or heartwarming or anything.  It's a serious misuse of Ryan Reynolds along with the voices of Louis Gossett Jr, Steve Carrell, Jon Stewart, George Clooney, Matt Damon, Awkwafina, Amy Schumer, and plenty more!  John Krasinski should probably just stick to making horror movies. (2/5) (Fun Facts:  Brad Pitt is listed as the "voice" for an IF named Keith--who is never actually shown, which is similar to Deadpool 2 where Brad Pitt played an invisible character in the one scene he's visible as he's electrocuted.  The most heartwarming moment is at the very, very end in the tribute to Gossett, Jr. who died in March.)

Knuckles:  Paramount's Sonic the Hedgehog movies were surprisingly decent all-ages entertainment--especially surprising after those pictures of "Ugly Sonic" first appeared.  In the second movie, Knuckles is a strong, fierce warrior who starts out trying to destroy Sonic until he, Sonic, and Tails join forces against Robotnik.

This six-episode series picks up a little while later.  While Sonic and Tails are enjoying their new home in Green Hills, Knuckles is restless, looking for a quest worthy of his warrior skills. After he inadvertently attacks a construction crew and destroys parts of the house and car, Knuckles is grounded.  Eventually he goes out and finds Wade Whipple (Adam Pally) who is a deputy from the previous movies.  Wade is beaten in a bowling tournament by a little girl and dropped from his team.  Knuckles offers to help him get to the tournament in Reno and win.

Meanwhile two agents of something called GUN in London are plotting to capture Knuckles and sell him to "the Buyer" who has plans for Knuckles' power.  The GUN agents run into Knuckles and Wade and capture Knuckles, but Wade's bumbling rescue attempt somehow manages to work.  Then they're on the run until the final showdown in Reno.

Overall it's a fun series though far from perfect.  There's really too much bowling and not enough development of "the Buyer" and what his goals are after he gets Knuckles' power or why he really wants it in the first place.  There's also not really enough Knuckles in Knuckles, but I suppose the CGI and Idris Elba are expensive.  Still, if you liked the movies it's an enjoyable 3-hour-ish addition to the Sonic universe. (3/5)

(Fun Facts:  In the first episode, Sonic, Tails, and James Marsden's wife--in the movies--all appear with accurate voices, though Marsden himself does not appear.  Knuckles' old master is voiced by Christopher Lloyd.  In a strange rock opera to teach Wade to be a warrior, his singing voice is dubbed by Michael Bolton.  Stockard Channing plays Wade's Jewish mother and Cary Elwes plays his estranged father, who many years ago left him at a TJ Maxx.  The two "ESPN 8" bowling announcers are played by Paul Scheer and Rob Huebel, who were both on FXX's The League, though only Scheer was a regular.)

Mission: Impossible: Dead Reckoning:  A fun fact is that I actually enjoyed the very first movie the most because it actually had some spycraft instead of just crazy chases on motorcycles and stuff.  And then with Ghost Protocol it became all about the insane stunts Tom Cruise would do.  Really that's mostly why people bothered watching to see on the big screen what sort of nutty thing he'd put his body through.

The problem with this seventh movie is it tries to do a lot of spycraft stuff and work in a current message about AI (actual, not ChatGPT) and there's not even a crazy stunt until the last act and it's not even that crazy.  And a fight on a train?  You did that in the first movie!  (Maybe others--I honestly don't remember.)  So most of the movie ends up pretty dull and I can see why people didn't really line up for it.

The basic story is that a Russian sub has the AI known as "the Entity" aboard when it sinks itself.  Months later, everyone is looking for two keys that form kind of a cross and can somehow control or destroy the AI.  Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) is dispatched to find a woman who has one of the keys.  But things go sideways because of the AI messing things up.  Later they go to Italy and such and there's another brunette (Hayley Atwell) who's sort of a Catwoman type in that she's a thief trying to get out of the business and whatever.  And there's a blonde Asian woman named Paris(?) who is a bad guy and another blonde who's sort of an Emilia Clarke type who has a criminal empire or something and there's not much reason to care about any of it.

I think I mentioned with the last movie I have no idea about the women in movies 2-7.  They're basically all generic brunettes (sometimes blondes) who are sometimes good and sometimes bad.  And one was Ethan's wife.  Did she die or something?  Nobody seems to mention her.  I guess Hayley Atwell will be in the next movie as part of the IMF for whatever reason.

As I said there are a lot of attempts at spycraft with fake IDs, fake faces, and so on.  There's a sorta goofy car chase where Cruise and Atwell are handcuffed together in Rome and have to drive to escape the blonde Asian in a big Hummer or whatever.  That's about the only time when the movie tries to have fun.  Otherwise it's pretty dull.  You can see why they downplayed a sequel though it still says, "End of Part One." (2/5)

Lying and Stealing:  I didn't expect a whole lot from this movie since it apparently didn't even have money to get some washed-up A-lister like Bruce Willis, Mel Gibson, or John Travolta.  Maybe that's a good thing as they didn't have to come up with some token part for someone cashing a paycheck.

The overall story is maybe not that original.  A young thief named Ivan (Theo James) steals valuable statues, paintings, etc at the behest of a guy named Dmitri to try to pay off gambling debts his father racked up before dying.  Just a couple more jobs and he'll be out.

During a job in a rich guy's house, he runs into Elyse, who is an actress forced to do crappy movies because she rejected a sleazy producer.  Ivan steals a statue, but before he can leave a little girl sees him.  The next day Ivan has to pick up his brother Tom, who is bipolar and was in a halfway house until they got tired of him trading drugs with prostitutes.

Ivan runs into Elyse again during his next job and he uses her to help steal a painting.  Then he helps her to get out from under the producer.  Meanwhile an FBI agent (Isaiah Whitlock, Jr. of Cedar Rapids and other movies) uses a tip from the little girl to track Ivan down.  The agent wants Ivan to deliver Dmitri to him so he can get a big promotion.

The third act slows a little as everything comes to a head.  Ivan, Elyse, and Tom basically form a smaller Leverage team to get Dmitri.  Overall it's a fun movie if you like heist-type movies.  It could have been better with some better actors but it was decent with what it had.  And the production values are good too. There's probably never going to be a sequel (this is from 2018) but like Leverage there could have been plenty more adventures for this crew.  (3/5)

Last Looks:  This is another attempt at a quirky neo-noir story like Inherent Vice and so forth.  Charlie Hunnam is a former LAPD detective who has retired to the mountains, where he lives in a trailer with only 100 possessions.  But then a former lover (Deadpool's girlfriend, Monica Baccarin) shows up and wants him to help with a big case.  A TV star named Alistair Price (Mel Gibson) supposedly killed his wife but Monica Baccarin isn't sure.  Hunnam says no and his ex drives away and like Deadpool 2 it seems she's killed before the opening credits even roll.

What finally gets Hunnam into the investigation is a couple of thugs barging into his trailer and beating him up.  He meets with a sleazy TV exec (Rupert Friend), Price, and the kindergarten teacher of Price's kid.  There's also a thug named Don Q with an Inuit henchman and a cop named Big Jim Cuppy (Clancy Brown) who want Hunnam to butt out.

There are some twists and turns and a lot of Hunnam getting beat up.  It's not a bad movie, but I started to zone out a little.  There is a sort of happy ending that could set up a sequel, though I doubt it will. (2.5/5)

Inside Man:  Not the superior Spike Lee movie starring Denzel Washington and Jodie Foster.  This is a 2023 movie that really wishes it could be Goodfellas.  But it doesn't have Scorsese directing and De Niro. Peschi, Leotta, and so on starring.  Still, I've said before that a good copy of a movie can still be entertaining.

In the early 80s, an NYPD detective (Emile Hirsch) finds his wife with someone else and nearly beats the guy to death.  His gun is taken and he's put on administrative duty.  Frustrated, he gets drunk in a bar, where he saves a mob-connected drug dealer from being killed.  The drug dealer becomes his in to a mob operation running out of the Gemini Tavern.  With the tepid support of his captain, he's given an apartment for a base and a partner who helps to gather evidence as he infiltrates the club.

Soon he becomes "Bobby Bones" and is stealing cars and eventually even murdering guys for the mob.  Meanwhile there's also a bartender at the club (Lucy Hale) who becomes sort of his fuck buddy.  There's not really the cliche where he becomes so close to one or more of them that he finds it hard to give them up to the cops.  I don't think he ever would have had a hard time with that.  

Mostly it wasn't bad, but like Lying & Stealing it could have used some better actors.  The production values are good and Hirsch does a good job as the hotheaded Bobby who still wants to do his duty and win back his wife, though whether he deserves her and she deserves him (I mean, she cheated on him first) is something I guess left for people to decide for themselves.  I will say that compared to Goodfellas (or other Scorcese epics) at least this isn't much over 90 minutes. (3/5) ( Fun Fact:  At the end it goes through what happened to a lot of the guys in the movie.  Spoiler:  most of them died shortly after, though two at the time of the movie were still in prison.  They don't tell us what happened to Bobby and his wife, which is kinda lame.)

The Crash:  At only about 84 minutes this movie is short--but feels much longer.  There's a pretty good cast led by Frank Grillo as a finance guy named Guy Clifton who basically tried to take over the market, which led to him getting indicted.  His marriage to Minnie Driver is on the rocks while their daughter Creason has an unspecified cancer.

And then the government led by a guy named del Banco ("from the bank" if my Spanish is correct and played by Christopher MacDonald, so you have a pretty good idea who the villain of the piece is) find out someone is going to hack the stock markets and shut them down.  So they recruit Guy to use his particular set of skills to stop them.  He recruits his team, which includes John Leguizamo in a wheelchair and a guy named Ben who's banging Guy's daughter.

From there you have some drama and hooking up cords and hitting keys and stuff that's not all that interesting.  Given the runtime it really could have used a firefight and/or car chase at the end.  Someone grabbing Guy to try to convince him to stop.  That kinda thing to keep viewers from falling asleep because there still isn't really a good way to make computer stuff interesting in a movie. The end is pretty lame with Guy pretty much fucking up the whole world's financial system.  Yay?  So no action, none of the fun of a heist movie, and a downer ending.  This definitely could have stayed off my radar. (2/5) (Fun Fact:  This takes place in an alternate universe where Hillary is president; I'm not sure why they chose to mix real people with fake people.)