2024

Netflix

"Ingrid and Martha became close friends while working together at the same magazine. After years of being out of touch, they meet again in an extreme but strangely sweet situation."

A pleasant surprise to see John Turturro in it.

Not the most pleasant subject but it was not that bad.

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot Amazon Prime
Tina Fey. Directed by Glenn Ficarra, John Requa. 2016
A journalist recounts her wartime coverage in Afghanistan.

This was a Tina Fey production, which I suppose was her effort to be taken more seriously. Tina turns down the smirk and works to be sincere, but it's still "Liz Lemon" with fewer punchlines. The supporting cast makes up for it with Billy Bob Thornton, Martin Freeman, Margot Robbie among others doing the heavy lifting. For a war-zone memoir from 2016, I was surprised it wasn't more Political (and I appreciate that). "Whiskey Tango Foxtrot" mostly maintains a dark comic tone with lots of cynical banter and the occasional gut punch moment. Story-wise, it's all very familiar stuff, -you know that Tina's character will have an ill-advised affair with one of her co-workers, and that someone close will meet a tragic fate at the climax. Still, I enjoyed "Whiskey Tango Foxtrot" as an agreeable time-killer, even though it's more of a bowl of soup when you really wanted a sandwich.

For an AIP blaxploitation this isn't half bad. Stella Stevens was hot. Gonna try and watch the sequel tonight.

Never noticed this before. Is it just me, or do Stella Stevens and Stevie Nicks look a lot alike.

The scene where she dressed up as a Middle Eastern woman covered up and the guys cat whistling cracked me up.

2002

Starz

"A bodyguard (Christopher Lambert) discovers that the prominent businessman (Dennis Hopper) he has been assigned to protect murdered his parents many years earlier."

Maybe one of Diane Krueger's early roles and she did some nudity if that was the only redeeming thing about this movie and Dennis Hopper intentionally wearing a bad rug.

Maybe a good thing Lambert only had 3 lines of dialogue.

2009

Starz

"Terror strikes traveling newlyweds (Thomas Jane, Lauren German) when they try to help an injured man in the Nevada desert."

Ron Pearlman also shows up.

It wanted to be like a Twilight Zone episode but not really that good.

Bad Words Universal Blu-Ray
Jason Bateman. Directed by Jason Bateman. 2014
A spelling bee loser sets out to exact revenge by finding a loophole and attempting to win as an adult.

So, I have this pile of discs I bought over the years from Dollar Tree, back when everything was actually a dollar. I keep meaning to go through the stack, but I always get distracted.

"Bad Words" is a Comedy in the vein of "Bad Santa", where the goal is to be mean-spirited yet vaguely sentimental, and director Jason Bateman takes some real chances here. For the first half-hour or so Bateman's character "Trilby" is a genuinely unlikeable character. Trilby has a chip on his shoulder a mile wide and is cruelly dismissive of damned near everyone, always hurling the crudest of insults; I was surprised they didn't make him a drunk, too Eventually, he forms a somewhat antagonistic bond with awkward 10-year-old Chaitanya, a fellow competitor in a nationally broadcast Spelling Bee. Trilby eventually becomes more vulnerable as the film proceeds, and we find out what's driving him to make an ass out of himself. There is a good mix of laughs as well as some really uncomfortable material. The script has a little trouble finding an ending, but the conclusion ends up fairly satisfying.

JULES

Took a while to recognize the amazing Ben Kingsley. Much better alien contact film than ET or Resident Alien.

Blazing Saddles Warner Bros 4K
Cleavon Little. Directed by Mel Brooks. 1974
In order to ruin a western town and steal their land, a corrupt politician appoints a black sheriff, who promptly becomes his most formidable adversary.

I saw "Blazing Saddles" about six months after it opened. It was at a second run theater, playing with "The Train Robbers", a very traditional, -very clean, -John Wayne Western, and a bit of a snore. On the other hand, I was dumb-founded by "Blazing Saddles", -I mean, I laughed my ass off, -because I had never seen a Comedy like it before. Of course, it's the incredibly crude stuff that got my attention, but at other times it was very clever, and then there were the inside jokes and meta references that I felt were just in there for me. My father came to pick me up from the theater, -I didn't have a license at the time, - and I was reciting what I thought were the best jokes all the way home. My father could not have cared less. I get it now, but it disappointed me at the time. "Blazing Saddles" was shot in Technicolor, but I've never thought of it as a particularly colorful film, -at least until this disc, which is a really polished presentation.

That movie was not that bad but it got little promotion or probably 99% of the population never heard of it.

Showtime

2010

It started out what seemed like a college sex comedy and then it became this cult doomsday nonsense

Juno Temple naked and showing a guy how to do oral the only things that stand out as good.

2016

Starz

"After his father dies in a car crash, a man (Rory Culkin) returns home to care for his injured mother and slowly begins to question his own childhood memories."

Lin Shaye plays his mom and Natasha Lyonne appears in one scene.

I liked it but the ending was not really satisfying.

The Nesting (1981) — Okay supernatural horror film with some decent moments, along with one over-the-top performance, does drag even though it's only 100-minutes. ***/***** (4K Ultra HD)

I watched this tonight on a DVD from The County Library (they didn't even bother to get the blu-ray). I saw the trailer for "Heart Eyes" and it looked like good gory fun with some inventive kills. However, the actual movie was a different matter. The first half, says the director in his commentary, was intended as an homage to the RomComs of Nora Ephron. However, Ephron’s films featured relatable characters and witty banter, which was sorely lacking here. There's nothing in "Heart Eyes' that feels like real life, rather it all feels inspired by watching Ryan Murphy "Dramas" and "American Horror Story".

2023

Hulu

"A high school senior from South Carolina gets her first glimpse of the wider world, picturesque cities and woods of the Eastern seaboard on a class trip to Washington, D.C."

Taliah Ryder was great in this though it is kind of odd movie

Simon Rex has really aquitted himself well with this and Red Rocket.

Shadow Force (2025)

Despite having two very likable actors in Kerry Washington and Omar Sy as well as the child actor, who plays their son. This was a super dull action movie. I actually dozed off for about 10-15 minutes.

I'm sure a lot of you never heard of this movie. It's gotten so little advertising. It felt like a direct to video movie.

If you're on the fence, I would pass on this. Save your money for Final Destination or Mission Impossible in two weeks.

Weekend in Taipei Ketchup DVD
Luke Evans. Directed by George Huang. 2024
Years ago, DEA agent John Lawlor fell in love with Joey, a Taipei-based transport driver working in the criminal underworld but was forced to flee due to tragic circumstances. Now, the duo reunites when Lawlor takes an off-the-books weekend mission to Taipei to bring down a billionaire drug kingpin Kwang... who just so happens to be Joey's new husband.

Back in 1994, George Huang directed "Swimming with Sharks" a motor-mouthed, mean-spirited Dramedy about a Hollywood producer taken hostage by his fed-up assistant. The film starred Frank Whalley and Kevin Spacey. It was a terrific, attention-getting film but George Huang didn't really generate much of a career, -at least not in IMDB terms. Now he's back with "Weekend in Taipei", which Huang co-wrote with producer Luc Besson. I'm left wondering what happened to Huang along the way.

As it's produced by Luc Besson, "Weekend in Taipei" is a slick-looking film, full of visual style, and this is a surprisingly good-looking DVD. The film leans into genre conventions and cliches, and the dialogue is nothing to write home about. Luke Evans is good as Lawlor, and Sun Kang is even better as Kwang, but Lun-Mei Gwei is underwhelming as Joey. She just doesn't have the necessary fire for a former getaway driver who is the woman who standing between two men. The film has a lot of flashbacks to fifteen years prior, and rather than fancy CGI fixes, "Taipei" de-ages its actors with chintzy wigs. All this aside, "Weekend in Taipei" is filled with car chases and gun carnage and is an entertaining little throwaway.

Liked it a lot. Was sent the Blu-ray but I already pre-ordered the 4K disc.


https://whysoblu.com/the-prosecutor-blu-ray-review/

Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas Dreamworks/Universal Blu-Ray
Brad Pitt, Catherine Zeta-Jones. Directed by Tim Johnson, Patrick Gilmore. 2003
The sailor of legend is framed by the goddess Eris for the theft of the Book of Peace and must travel to her realm at the end of the world to retrieve it and save the life of his childhood friend Prince Proteus.

I remember seeing "Sinbad" on the Friday it opened. It was the 7pm show on the 4th of July and there were only 5 people in the room, only two of which were children. That was unusual at the time and made the experience of seeing an animated film with an audience a lot more bearable.

"Sinbad" was one of a string of animated features like "Treasure Planet", "Titan AE", or "Atlantis: The Lost Continent" that seemed more aimed at Boys than Girls and didn't feature Princesses or Broadway numbers. They all pretty much died at the box office. "Sinbad" is a straight-forward Adventure Movie that feels inspired by old Swashbucklers and Ray Harryhausen films. Writer John Logan ("Gladiator") was pretty much going for Fun here, as the dialogue is light and breezy and very contemporary. You could say it's filled with cliches, but they're the kind of cliches I want to see in a film like this. The animation is a mix of traditional hand-drawn for the characters and CGI primarily for effects (like the ocean, ships etc.) The animation was good for its time, but obviously it's been surpassed by technical advancements over the years. Still, I think "Sinbad" holds up as good entertainment

Lifeforce - Arrow UHD

The Andromeda Strain - Arrow UHD

Haunted Hotel - Netflix

Nonnas - Netflix

Mission: Impossible Dead Reckoning Part One Paramount 4K
Tom Cruise. Directed by Christopher McQuarrie. 2023
Ethan Hunt and his IMF team embark on their most dangerous mission yet: To track down a terrifying new weapon that threatens all of humanity before it falls into the wrong hands.

You can tell "Dead Reckoning" is going to be long when the iconic title sequence comes 28 minutes into the film. McQ was definitely going for length and scale this time, and he lets most scenes run long, often built on escalating stunts and location work. Really the only part that dragged for me was a dialogue-heavy break after a team member leaves the story, though there's also a surprisingly long sequence where Ethan Hunt isn't involved in the main plot other than occasionally cutting to Cruise riding a motorcycle to his next destination. It was nice to see Esai Morales on the big screen again as the film's villain, and Pom Klementieff brings some fun energy to the role of Esai's hench(wo)man. I imagine "Final Reckoning" will be the final film in series, -it's definitely supposed to be the longest, -and I can only hope it's a worthy conclusion.

Drive-in double feature