So yes, time for another mega mini movie review entry. Maybe not as long as the last one. Or maybe longer! Anyway, if you're staying home this weekend, maybe watch something on this list. Or not.
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Beavis & Butt-head Do the Universe: Finally, the movie no one really wanted! Because Paramount+ needs content and they already have South Park churning out movies, why not get Beavis & Butt-head in on it too? The 1997 movie was really great but this follow-up 25 years later was pretty much meh. Basically through some convoluted methods they wind up in 2022 and...not really doing much of interest. Besides falling in love with Siri, being able to buy nachos with a stolen phone, and visiting a gender studies class, not a lot is done with them being in the present. You'd think Mike Judge, who was something of a rebel back in the early 90s when this show premiered, might have something to say through his characters about the current state of TV and the world, but not really. I guess the overall point was to get them into our time so they could do a reboot series. Not that anyone would really have cared if they'd just started up the new series without explaining why it was in present day; I mean it's Beavis and Butt-head not Marvel where you need a lot of continuity. (2/5) (Fun Fact: Other than a couple of lines for Mr. Vandreesan and the principal early on, the rest of the traditional secondary cast doesn't do much and they don't really check up on them in the present. Daria Morgendorffer was seen in the background early on, so I guess the movie takes place before she left town for her spinoff series.)
Lightyear: Speaking of movies no one really wanted, this! The card at the front explains that this was supposed to be the movie in the 90s that Andy watched before he got the Buzz Lightyear toy. I kinda wonder if they put that at the front to explain it because the movie doesn't have a framing device or anything like that. Really no attempt at all is made to establish that this is supposed to be a movie in a movie. And no real attempt is made to make it seem like a movie that could have existed in the mid-90s. Not to be an incel, but you wouldn't have an interracial lesbian couple as main characters in 1995ish. I mean this was when two women kissing on TV was a huge deal like Ellen and Roseanne. That aside, the movie itself is pretty fun and well-made like other Pixar stuff. The montage of Buzz testing ship-after-ship while time marches on is as similar and heartbreaking as the one at the start of Up. And makes me want to start humming "2525." Then it gets to the main point, where Buzz has to stop "Zurg," which was sort of a cliché twist. The main point is Buzz learning the value of teamwork, which is sort of ironic that he's voiced by Chris Evans and The Avengers was mostly a seminar on teamwork. Other characters are also given something to learn. Is it as good as Toy Story? Maybe. They're not really the same kind of thing. (3/5)
Prey: For some reason Disney chose to make this a Hulu exclusive instead of releasing it in theaters for a few weeks before putting it on streaming. It's too bad because this is a great-looking movie and in some ways better than the original. It focuses on a young Comanche woman who wants to be a hunter but is told to take more feminine jobs like gathering and healing. Then she finds the Predator that's landed on 18th Century Earth and from there it's kind of Predator meets The Revenant. It's a great action movie with wonderful visuals, effects, and better acting than the original. (4/5) (Fun Fact: The main character is played by Amber Midthunder, who was previously in FX's Legion. You have to wonder if this starred a white male if it would have been shunted straight to streaming.)
Samaritan: This was made by MGM, probably before Amazon bought them, but after that deal, they released it straight to Amazon Prime Video. Sly Stallone is an old man in rundown Granite City (aka Atlanta) who has superpowers but has hidden from the world for 25 years, until a kid figures out his deal. Meanwhile, a gang leader who worships the evil Nemesis and even steals the villain's mask and hammer from the police is creating havoc. It was OK though I figured out the big twist not long into the movie and then spent most of it wondering if I was right or if they'd psych me out by knowing I'd think that so they'd do it the other way. But, nope, I nailed it. So there. The finale is a lot of grunting and screaming and shooting and a few bad quips. Kind of old school 80s Stallone there. (2.5/5)
Secret Headquarters: I wasn't all that keen on watching this but eventually I did on Paramount+. It's kind of a retro 80s movie like Goonies or Explorers or Space Camp and so on where a group of kids uncover secrets and thwart evil adults. Instead of pirate ghosts or aliens it involves superheroes as a kid finds his dad's superhero lair. "The Guard" is basically like if the Green Lantern ring were a yellow ball that had given Hal Jordan Iron Man's suit. The kids immediately use the gadgets they find in the lair to cheat on a test and at baseball. But then most of the movie takes place in the lair as bad guys led by Michael Pena try to plunder its secrets. But of course our plucky kids, with the Guard's help, stop them. It's amusing but if you're an adult there's not much for you except awkward teen flirting and dad jokes about fanny packs. (2.5/5) (Fun Fact: Owen Wilson and Michael Pena have both played sorta sidekicks in the MCU. I guess this was a step up.)
The 355: This movie came out in theaters in January...and I didn't watch it. Then it was behind the paywall on Peacock for a while...and I didn't watch it. Finally it was on Prime Video...and I did watch it! It's an OK movie. Like Charlie's Angels meets a Bourne movie. Jessica Chastain is a CIA agent whose mission to get a computer device that can fuck up all electronics in an area gets derailed and her partner (Sebastian Stan or Bucky of the MCU) is seemingly killed. She winds up teaming with a German agent (Diane Kruger), a former agent for Great Britain (Lupita Nyong'o), a Colombian psychologist (Penelope Cruz), and a Chinese agent (Bingbing Fan). There's a bit of effort made to actually giving them some characterization as they try to track down the device. It's not a bad movie, but not a great one either. Kind of glaring in this day and age they didn't really try to set up a sequel in the credits. (2.5/5) (Fun Facts: The title apparently refers to a female spy for George Washington. Why was she called "the 355?" No idea. The movie was co-written and directed by Simon Kinberg, who also directed Dark Phoenix, which co-starred Jessica Chastain. Opinion: I like Jessica Chastain but she's one of those actors who just seems to have a shitty eye for picking scripts. Or maybe these are the best a woman can get in Hollywood?)
Writer's Block: A struggling author is offered a chance by a famous older writer to go to his ranch and work on the famous author's latest book. And by "work on" I mean pretty much write the whole thing. Basically the old guy has been using small-time writers to write his books for a while. When the younger writer gets wise to the scheme it takes a Most Dangerous Game turn. Though there are no big stars or anything it's pretty good for a while but maybe takes a few too many twists and turns so it starts to sag. Still, since it was free on Tubi it wasn't that bad. (2.5/5) (Fun Fact: The old writer struggling to write a book on his remote ranch reminded me of the pilot episode of Mike Tyson Mysteries, where the mystery team went to Cormac McCarthy's ranch to help him with a book. That predates this movie, so maybe the writers of the movie saw that?)
Gringo: This Amazon movie from 2018 is about an African guy who goes to work as a middle-manager for a Chicago company. One of his biggest jobs is going down to Mexico to check up on things down there. Learning his job is about to be cut and his wife (Thandiwe Newton) is having an affair, the guy decides to fake a kidnapping to get the company to pay him. Except the company doesn't have a kidnapping insurance policy anymore, so to save money, the CEO (Joel Edgerton) sends his brother (Sharlto Copley) down to Mexico to extract the guy. There are a lot of twists and double-crosses and things like that. If you like those early Guy Ritchie movies like Snatch or Revolver then you'd like this because it's the same blend of violence and dark humor. (3/5) (Fun Facts: For some reason Charlize Theron plays a bitchy, slutty executive; it just seems like she could have done something better. Nash Edgerton directed this so you have Australians starring in and directing a movie about an American company employing an African guy to go to Mexico. It's a small world after all.)
Galveston: This is one-part road trip movie and another part a crime movie. Ben Foster (the apex version of The Orville's Scott Grimes) is a thug who thinks he's dying of lung cancer because he stupidly didn't let the doctor finish talking to him about his condition. His boss (Beau Bridges) sends him on a mission to rough up someone else, except like the 1989 Batman movie, it's a trap! The boss has been fucking Ben Foster's girl and so wants him out of the way, except he escapes and saves a prostitute and they go to her hometown in Texas to pick up her "sister" and then end up in Galveston to hang out at a dumpy motel and try to start over. But when Ben Foster decides to shake down his boss for one last big score, things take a turn. Then another turn. It drags in a couple of parts but overall is a decent movie considering it probably didn't have a Marvel-type budget. It's another one I watched on Tubi so I didn't have to pay anything for it. (3/5) ( Fun Fact: the movie was shot in Georgia with Savannah as Galveston.)
Death in Texas: a guy who looks like Peter Sarsgaard on steroids gets let out of prison and finds out his mom (Lara Flynn Boyle) is dying of liver failure and needs a transplant but she's far down on the list. If he gets $160,000 he might be able to buy one in Mexico so he starts ripping off local drug dealers led by Bruce Dern. Stephen Lang plays a nurse who falls in love with the mom. It was just pretty dull and I stopped caring pretty quickly. (2/5) (Fun Fact: The movie was shot in New Mexico, not Texas.)
Death & Texas: I watched this on the Movie House app mostly because of the title being so similar to that other movie. This 2003-ish fake documentary is about an inmate on death row who gets the unbelievable chance to play in the "Mega Bowl," which I guess is supposed to be like the Super Bowl, when a team loses their top receiver. Despite the guy hasn't played football in nearly 10 years since he killed a convenience store clerk. The movie stars Charles Durning as the guy's lawyer and includes Andy Richter, Corbin Bernsen, and Billy Ray Cyrus despite that it clearly did not have much of a budget. The low budget also makes for a weak payoff in "the big game" because obviously they couldn't afford to rent a big stadium with a bunch of extras and all that. Between that and the almost ridiculously implausible scenario, it's not nearly as good as it could have been. Also, how do you play football barefoot? If anyone steps on your foot with their cleats, you would be seriously injured. (2.5/5) (Fun Fact: This movie was mostly shot in California, not Texas.)
Sugar Mountain: This movie I saw on Tubi is from 2016. After two brothers lose their boat, they hatch a scheme to defraud the public by having the older brother go missing for 10 days on the eponymous mountain in Alaska. After he is miraculously "rescued," they'll sell the story for big bucks to TV networks and such. To up the ante, the younger brother also plants clues to cast suspicion on himself. What could possibly go wrong? Well, the older brother gets lost on the mountain for real, threatening to unravel the whole scheme. There are twists and turns then and so it was all pretty entertaining. Cary Elwes plays the local police chief with some sordid secrets and Jason Momoa plays a local drunk tough guy; this was before he had done much more than that one cameo as Aquaman in BvS and of course his stint on Game of Thrones. (3/5) (Fun Fact: The movie was shot in...Alaska! Can you believe a movie was shot where it's actually supposed to take place?)
Disturbing the Peace: a former Texas Ranger is a United States marshal in the small town of Horse Cave, Kentucky. Apparently the United States marshals are working as local cops now? Anyway, some bikers show up to take over the town but of course it's really to rob an armored car that comes into town after a stop at a casino helpfully called "Casino." It's mostly so cheap and generic that it's pretty lame. I'm sure Guy Pearce was thinking every single day that he should go back to Australia. How do you go from LA Confidential, The Hurt Locker, and Iron Man 3 to this? (2/5) (Not Fun Fact: Besides that the "United States Marshal" office says "Horse Cave Police" out front, there's also a "state trooper" car that very clearly says "Sheriff" on the side. Was anyone at all in charge of continuity?)
The Inside: This short film on the Movie House app is a take on the haunted house trope. A woman and her son movie into an old Georgian-style house and then there's a creepy neighbor and noises at night. Since it's only about 25 minutes it wraps up pretty quick with the promise of a potential sequel. It really wasn't bad and professional quality; it just needs to be longer. (3/5)
Witness: I had never watched this 80s movie starring Harrison Ford, but it's referenced a few times in MST3K and Rifftrax, so when it was on Pluto TV On Demand, I watched it one night. It's OK, though I'm not sure how accurate the Amish parts are. I always thought he went to live with the Amish to protect the kid, but really it's to protect himself and the kid. The scene referenced in MST3K and Rifftrax is near the end, when Ford and his former boss are shouting incoherently at each other during a standoff. (3/5) (Fun Fact: According to legends, Ford met George Lucas by doing some carpentry for him and that wound up launching his acting career. In this movie he gets to demonstrate some of his carpentry skills while with the Amish.)
Corrective Measures: Apparently Bruce Willis isn't quite done yet. This Tubi original from this year is about a prison for superpowered people. Michael Rooker is the head of the prison, the Overseer, who really carries most of the load. Willis is a powerful telepath who's like an evil Professor X who's plotting an escape. There's a guy called Payback who's basically the Punisher, some guy whose power is empathy who gets a lot of screen time despite doing nothing, a couple employees vying to replace the Overseer when he retires, and a dude with electrical powers played by Tom Cavanaugh of The Flash. There are also news breaks to make you think of Robocop. It's all pretty corny and fairly low budget, though not embarrassingly low budget like a Rifftrax movie. (2.5/5) (Fun Fact: If you ever read The Superior Spider-Man then you might know how Willis escapes. But you didn't and you won't watch this, so too bad.)
Fortress: Another cheap Bruce Willis movie from 2021. It's sort of a low-budget, low-energy take on the Red movies he starred in as like those he's an ex-CIA operative. He's living in a remote retirement home for former spies or something with a sort of panic room called "the fortress." Then his son, who's making some crypto exchange or something, comes to visit to get him to sign a loan. This inadvertently leads a hit team there, but like the Die Hard movies it's really a robbery. 2000s heartthrob Chad Michael Murray is the bad guy who chews a bit too much of the cheap scenery. The end is kind of stupid as Willis shoots him in the chest and it's revealed the bad guy was wearing a bulletproof vest. Why wouldn't a professional like Willis shoot him in the head? To set up the sequel, I suppose. (2/5)
Fortress: Snipers Eye: Like most cheap, rushed sequels, this comes off as even lamer than the lame original movie. Basically the bad guys who inexplicably survived the first one come back to the "fortress" and pretty easily capture the good guys who were in the process of taking everything apart. This sets up a lot of shots of hot girls tied to chairs. And Bruce Willis tied to a chair if that's more your thing. There's really no need for this to exist and it really adds nothing. It does kill about 90 minutes of your life. (1/5) (Fun Fact: There are exactly zero snipers in this movie.)
Gasoline Alley: This is not an adaptation of the comic strip that existed at some point and I only know of because it's referenced in a couple of Rifftrax movies. This is about a guy (Devon Sawa, who was the bad guy in Disturbing the Peace) who runs the eponymous tattoo shop and meets a hooker in a bar. He gives her a lighter but when she winds up dead hours later, he becomes a suspect for cops played by Bruce Willis and Luke Wilson; the latter carrying most of the load and was probably wondering every day how his brother is in Loki and that recent movie with J-Lo while he's in this low rent garbage. There are some attempts at twists and turns, none of which are very interesting. (2/5) (Fun Fact: This is supposed to be in LA but at one point a sign says something like "Corwin, GA Police Department" and a bar has a bunch of pennants for Georgia teams because of course this was filmed in Georgia with a few location shots of LA.)
A Day to Die: Since this stars Bruce Willis, Frank Grillo, and Kevin Dillon you might think it would at least be a serviceable action movie, right? Nope. It's an incoherent mess where Dillon's wife is taken and he has to get $2M by midnight so he recruits Grillo, his brother, and a couple other dudes to rip off some drug dealers. Meanwhile Bruce Willis is I guess an evil police chief, though he looks more like a hotel concierge. The way I summarized it is a lot more coherent than the movie itself. I started losing interest pretty quickly, long before the nonsensical final act. (1/5) (Fun Fact: This cheap, shitty movie was too cheap and shitty for Georgia, so they filmed it in Mississippi.)
First Person Shooter: Another Tubi original that was made in Canada from things like a screen that says "chequebook." A software developer (discount Glenn Howerton is how I thought of him) has a company trying to get a big game out for XMas. He's a huge douchebag who rips ideas off from his senile father, cheats on his girlfriend, and is just generally a prick. So you kind of root for the creep infiltrating the company and scheming to destroy him. They show who it is pretty much from the start so there's no real mystery to it. Like The Departed, the guy really should have suspected his most recent employee when everything starts going wrong. It's an OK thriller but not really great. I saw the twist at the end before it happened. (2.5/5)
Gamestop: Power to the Players: The mania about investing in Gamestop was kind of like a more modern version of The Big Short. A bunch of random people all decided that Gamestop was really undervalued as all the big investment companies thought it was the next Blockbuster. Eventually a lot of these randos got together on the Internet and bought and held Gamestop stock. When some guy who started one of those online pet supply companies bought a big stake in the company that helped to really get the ball rolling. Eventually the word got out and a lot more people started buying in while big investors still had short options. And for all I know this shit is still going on. If you were one of those who bought in early and held for a while you might have made a ton of money. Probably not so much now. Ironically while all this Gamestop mania was going on the one nearest to me closed. It was kind of interesting, but maybe could have used Aaron Sorkin or Adam McKay to punch it up a little. (2.5/5)
Fat Planet: I watched this on the Movie House app. When I put it on, I thought Earth would be the Fat Planet, but it's a really low-budget movie that's kind of like Santa Claus Conquers the Martians, only instead of kidnapping Santa, a bunch of fat aliens kidnap a fitness instructor and his girlfriend to teach the aliens how to exercise and diet. So, um, they have advanced technology to cross the galaxy and beam people up but don't know what jumping jacks are? Um...sure. This stars no one of note and generally looks worse than most used car dealer commercials. (1/5) (Fun Fact: The soundtrack is provided by Jon Mikl Thor, the star of terrible 80s movies like Zombie Nightmare and Rock n Roll Nightmare, aka Edge of Hell.)
I saw Tubi had a few Nic Cage movies I hadn't seen, so I watched them:
The Humanity Bureau: In the not-so-distant future, America is fucked up and the "Humanity Bureau" decides if people should be allowed to remain where they are or shipped off to "New Eden." Nic Cage works for the bureau until they ask him to meet a woman and her 12-year-old son. Then he helps to smuggle them to Canada. There's a kind of 70s twist about "New Eden" you can probably already figure out. (But it's not the Soylent Green twist.) If this had been made with more money it probably could have been better, but as it was it seemed kind of cheap, like something that should be on the Rifftrax app. (2/5) (Fun Fact: Nic Cage's car of the future is...a 1970s El Camino. My Name is Earl would be proud.)
Between Worlds: Nic Cage is a trucker whose wife and kid died a few years ago. Then he meets a woman getting choked out in a convenience store bathroom and intervenes. Except she wasn't being murdered; she has this weird ability when she's choked to leave her body. She was trying to find her daughter who was in a coma. So Nic chokes her again and the daughter wakes up--but it's not the daughter...it's his wife! It just gets weirder and creepier from there. (2/5) (Fun Fact: At one point during sex he's reading a book that I'm pretty sure says it's authored by Nicolas Cage. That would be weird.)
Zandalee: This 1990-ish movie set in New Orleans is about the eponymous Zandalee and her two suitors: her husband (Judge Reinhold) a former poet and his best friend (Nic Cage with mullet and stupid goatee), a painter. Since her husband hasn't really pleased her sexually in a while, Zandalee and Nic have a torrid affair with plenty of nudity. It's a little long and Nic's character basically rapes Zandalee a couple of times, which is a little cringey. (2.5/5) (Fun Facts: Joe Pantoliano plays Zandalee's cross-dressing friend, Steve Buscemi plays a convict cleaning the streets who imparts words of wisdom, and Marissa Tomei has a small supporting role as Nic Cage's ex. The latter and Nic Cage both won Oscars in the 90s--though not for this. Comparing Nic's sexual technique in this and the previous entry, he really hasn't changed it up much in almost 30 years.)
USS Indianapolis: Men of Courage: In 1945, the USS Indianapolis was first given a secret mission to deliver an atomic bomb to an island near Japan. On the way back, it was torpedoed by a Japanese sub and sank. Nic Cage is Captain McVay, who survived the initial attack and along with his crew spends days on rafts, waiting for help while many who couldn't get into rafts are eaten by sharks. After the rescue, McVay is scapegoated despite that he probably didn't do anything wrong. This is the kind of "real" movie where the characters all feel like archetypes and not real people; a documentary would probably be much better. Also having a real director instead of Mario van Peebles. (2.5/5)
(So now I have seen all the movies on my potential A to Z Challenge list. I just need to figure out a Q, X, and Y. Since I've seen so many Bruce Willis movies I looked him up on IMDB but it's the same thing where there's not really those obscure letters like Q, X, Y, and Z.)
Rage: I'm 99% sure I already watched this but I couldn't remember and trying to find it on Blogger would be a huge pain. (One word titles suck.) Anyway, Nic is a former mobster whose daughter is murdered. So he and some of his old mob buddies basically start a war to find who did it. Ultimately he finds out it was something pretty stupid. Maybe because I'm pretty sure I already saw it, it didn't really hold my interest that much. (2/5) (Fun Fact: The core plot is largely like Guy Ritchie's Wrath of Man from last year.)
Next Friday I will deal with the TV series I watched including Strange New Worlds, The Orville, The Boys Season 3, and Only Murders in the Building.
2 comments:
Wasn't there another film called Fortress that starred Christopher Lambert?
Still surprised they didn't put Prey in theaters. Sooner than August though, as that's a bit of a dumping ground.
Seems like a lot of average movies right now. I'll just go for the next episode of the Lord of the Rings series tonight.
The only movie out of these that I saw was Dr. Strange in the Multiverse of Madness: I really liked the first Dr. Strange movie, despite his arrogance and bad attitude. This second movie was okay, but I don't like the multi-universe concept. It tends to make for a convoluted plot where almost anything goes. I'd like to watch Prey, seeing as that's your highest rated movie.
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