TheMovieman

Jonah Hex (2010) — Actually not terrible though some of the editing and directorial choices, especially in the finale, were questionable. I did like Josh Brolin in the lead even if his prosthetics weren't always the best but the action and pyrotechnics were decent enough and John Malkovich as usual makes for a vicious bad guy while Megan Fox was... Megan Fox, at least looked great. Also, pretty stacked cast including Michael Fassbender, Will Arnett, Michael Shannon, Wes Bentley, Lance Reddick and Jeffrey Dean Morgan in an uncredited role. I did wish it leaned more into the weird elements as we only get a few moments. IDK, while not great it's nowhere near the bottom of the heap of comic book movies. ***/***** (Blu-ray)

DWilson

Double Indemnity Criterion 4k
Fred MacMurray, Barbara Stanwyck. Directed by Billy Wilder. 1944
Los Angeles insurance representative lets an alluring housewife seduce him into a scheme of insurance fraud and murder.

It's a very solid presentation from Criterion, though much darker than I anticipated, - I expected more gradations of black, -but that could be the source material, or it might be my display. Overall, though, its very good.
"Double Indemnity" is so "Film Noir" that it seems like a pastiche, an homage to the form, but instead this is one of those films that influenced so many others. James Kasdan took the form and made the implied sexuality explicit and came up with the terrific "Body Heat", which began a wave of dark, sexually driven Noir films that would continue on through the '90s.

Like everybody else, I grew up with Fred MacMurray as a "TV Dad" and he seems out of place at first. But I think he's terrific here, firing off the rat-a-tat dialogue with a wicked smile. Fred only played a few villains, I recall, -"The Apartment' and "The Caine Mutiny" come to mind, -but he had a way with shit-heels. It's also a great role for Edward G Robinson, who's sort of MacMurray's "betrayed wife" in the film.

William Fuld

Bicycle Thieves

JeffTheAlpaca

Hulu

The latest from Catherine Hardwicke.

A terminally ill prisoner (Brian Cox) gets to spend his final few weeks under house arrest with his estranged daughter (Kate Beckinsale) and her 12-year-old son.

At first I thought it was a crime drama or suspense movie but more of family drama.



Beckinsale joins that list of Hollywood actresses who ruined their looks with plastic surgery

JeffTheAlpaca

Starz

"Set in an isolated mountain village in 19th century Macedonia, You Won't Be Alone follows a young girl who is kidnapped and then transformed into a witch by an ancient spirit."

If you are looking for a indie horror movie filmed in Serbia with subtitles

JeffTheAlpaca

I found the girl character annoying

I confuse Asa Butterfield with Kodi Smit-McPhee all the time.

JeffTheAlpaca

Prime

"A reformed hunter and a female sheriff get caught in a deadly game of cat and mouse when they set out to track a killer who may have kidnapped his daughter five years earlier."

I like the cast but the movie was boring

JeffTheAlpaca

HBO

"An amateur sleuth steals a machine that can extract, record and play the memories of another person, and uses the device to try and solve the mysterious death of the man who invented it."

I was into in maybe for the first 20 minutes and then lost interest

JeffTheAlpaca

Showtime

"When a border ambush goes wrong, a retired Irish paramilitary witnesses the fatal shooting of his pregnant wife by an SAS officer. After outwitting the SAS, now presumed dead, he escapes, taking his revenge to the dark streets of 1970's London."

This was not bad and I found it entertaing

I wished Felicity Jones had more scenes.

Mike86

Good Burger 2- over the top and ridiculous. I’m an old school fan of Kenan and Kel though so I had to watch it.

Very much felt like it was still nineties Nickelodeon in a lot of ways and was in line with the sketches from All That and the original movie. Not a good movie necessarily but for nostalgia it’s worth a watch.

JANK

Spygame (1994)

DWilson

Muzzle RLJ Entertainment DVD
Aaron Eckhart. Directed by John Stalberg Jr. 2023
Follows LAPD K-9 officer Jake Rosser who has just witnessed the shocking murder of his dedicated partner by a mysterious assailant. He soon takes on a new canine partner who carries as much baggage as he does.

The first two-thirds of the movie is a solid, credible Cop drama in the David Ayer mold ("End of Watch"), and then it takes a turn in the "Bad Boys" direction, setting up a big bad and a vast conspiracy that's incredibly dog-specific. Aaron Eckhart is excellent, though.

gerrythedon

DWilson

The Driver Studio Canal 4K
Ryan O'Neal. Directed by Walter Hill. 1978
In Los Angeles, a mysterious getaway driver becomes the latest assignment for a tenacious detective.

Walter Hill's second film, and a prime example of his lean-and-mean style. It's a good Crime film, with some terrific stunt-driving, but in my opinion, it could have been a great Crime film if it had been cast differently. Ryan O'Neal ("The Driver") is too much of a blank slate (though I understand that's exactly why Stanley Kubrick cast him as "Barry Lyndon"). Bruce Dern ("The Cop"), on the other hand, brings a lot of smarmy personality to flesh out his role.

The 4K is decent but not exceptional, though it improves on the blu-ray. It also features a 2022 interview with Walter Hill about the film, and it definitely cleared out some of my preconceptions.

andicus

Safe in Hell

I was a bit underwhelmed with this one.

JeffTheAlpaca

Sounds like a interesting movie and probably would have overlooked since Ryan O' Neil was the lead.

JANK

Reptile (Netflix)

Riveting and very good. Benito was fascinating.

JeffTheAlpaca

I own this

Kind of a obscure movie to get a 4k release when there are still movies you can't get on Blu-ray.

I forgot Laurence Fishbourne and Peter Boyle were in this.

JeffTheAlpaca

Hulu

The latest from Paul Schrader

Narvel Roth (Joel Edgerton) is the meticulous horticulturist of Gracewood Gardens, a beautiful estate owned by wealthy dowager Mrs. Haverhill. Haunted by his past, Roth finds solace in ritualistic journaling and the fine details of gardening, which he describes as "a belief in the future".

Dom't worry there is a crime element in the movie which you expect from Schrader

Maybe the critics did not like it but I liked it and Edgerton can do no wrong with me.

DWilson

It Lives Inside Neon DVD
Megan Suri. Directed by Bishal Dutta. 2023
An Indian-American teenager struggling with her cultural identity has a falling out with her former best friend and, in the process, unwittingly releases a demonic entity that grows stronger by feeding on her loneliness.

This is a bare-bones disc that could do with some fleshing out, in terms of bonus features. The director seems to have incorporated a lot of his own experiences and observations into the script and it all feels very personal. It's an intense film and a promising debut for the director. Story-wise I'd seen it before, but rarely with this cultural specificity. Visually, I was reminded of "It Follows", and that director (and this one, too, I'd bet) were influenced by John Carpenter.

JeffTheAlpaca

Hulu

You will not miss anything if you skip this

Jonathan Rhys Meyers equals crap

Maybe these are the type of movies Baldwin will be relegated too after the murder?

gerrythedon

DWilson

Thanksgiving
Patrick Dempsey. Directed by Eli Roth. 2023
One year after a "Black Friday" tragedy, a masked man goes on killing spree in a small town.

"Thanksgiving" began as a trailer by Eli Roth within the 2007 film "Grindhouse" and was a straight-faced spoof of Drive-In Exploitation fodder of The Seventies. I wish this version had been tighter and grittier like those older films. Instead, it's more like the more recent "Scream" films, with an hour-forty-seven "Scooby Doo" mystery with a lot of characters both pleasant and nasty and a killer to be eventually unmasked. However, unlike the "Scream" films, "Thanksgiving" features explicit gore and while I'm not bothered (far from it) I'm surprised it was able to get an "R" rating as it stands. Perhaps it's because it's all very tongue-in-cheek. It's not quite the film I was hoping for, but it's gruesomely good-natured and entertaining.

DWilson

The Split TCM
Jim Brown. Directed by Gordon Flemyng. 1968
A criminal assembles a team to rob the LA Coliseum during a big game.

An excellent crime film that deserves to be on blu-ray. Adapted from a "Parker" novel by Donald Westlake (aka "Richard Stark"). Other "Parker" adaptations include "Point Blank" (and its remake "Payback" with Mel Gibson) and "The Outfit" (which also deserves a blu-ray). The late Darwyn Cooke, -a terrific Comics Writer/Artist, -produced five excellent graphic novels adapting "Parker" stories.

TheMovieman

The Equalizer 3 (2023) — Another solid entry in this franchise. Nothing fantastic and not as good as the first, but still entertaining thanks to the great Denzel Washington. Also nice seeing the reunion with Dakota Fanning and cool twist about her character at the end. The only downside is it doesn't have the visual pazazz compared with the first film and is kind of routine in its direction by Antoine Fuqua who is normally a solid director. ***½/***** (Blu-ray)

And as a side, not sure the last time I've seen a franchise so consistent at the box office with all three movies making ~$180 million worldwide and ~$35 million on opening weekends domestically.