I own this

First time I watched it since the pandemic.

It made up for the first two movies like Revenge of the Sith did for the prequels but not on the same level though it has some entertaining parts and it never hurts to hear John Williams and his score.

I did not care for it.

MGM+

I was into in for the first 20 minutes and then got bored especially when Michael Pena was out for most of the picture until the end.

2023

Peacock

"Married for 13 years, same-sex couple Gabriel and Nicky appear to have the perfect life together. However, when growing stress and anxiety leads to divorce, each man finds himself fighting for custody of their young son."

It must be free to all viewers since they did not run all the ads before the movie and every 5 minutes a ad break.

Black Sunday (The Mask of Satan) Kino Lorber Blu-Ray
Barbara Steele. Directed by Mario Bava. 1960
A Bavarian princess, burned at the stake with her lover for being a witch, comes to life after three hundred years to enact the curse of revenge on her remaining family members.

"Black Sunday" comes across like some pirate broadcast of an old Midnight Horror Show from back in the day, all black-and-white, with crushed shadows and blanched highlights, and every shot perfectly framed for maximum Spoooooooky-ness. I was late to Italian Horror, -as a kid I had no patience for dubbing, -but when I was eventually introduced to Mario Bava, I quickly became infatuated with his visual style and bought a lot of the discs
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Kino's version of "Black Sunday" is a European cut which is less censored than the version shown in America. It's more gooey than gory, though, adding fluids to an empty eye socket or a squelch when a nail pierces the skin. The film was post-dubbed by professional voice performers rather than the actors on the screen, and their readings are so melodramatic that "Black Sunday" almost comes across like a radio play being pantomimed. Cult favorite Barbara Steele makes a lasting impression, though the actress was so undisciplined that Bava never worked with her again. Call it "Black Sunday" or call it "Old-Fashioned", the film is a genre classic and should be appreciated like an old painting or a fine wine.

^That one's a masterpiece compared to the followup: Alien vs. Predator: Requiem.

Yeah thanks for watching every low budget straight to video movie and indie movies that I can avoid.

Jaws 2 Universal 4K
Roy Scheider. Directed by Jeannot Szwarc. 1978
Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water....

I guess it's that time of year when everybody watches "Jaws 2", though I really should have done it on the anniversary of the original. I didn't see "Jaws 2" in the theater because the reviews in general were pretty bad and the director was Jeannot Szwarc. I did have the Marvel Comics adaptation of the film. Marvel Comics Super Special #6 was drawn by Gene Colan and Tom Palmer. I was a huge fan of Colan from his "Daredevil" run beginning in The Sixties and he and Palmer were the primary art team for "Tomb of Dracula", one of my favorite ongoing series. "Jaws 2" was in a magazine format with painted colors that were much more dynamic than your average four-color comic. I probably still have it somewhere in the house. The 4K has the same bonus material that was on the long-ago laserdisc (it, too, is probably somewhere in the house). I bet this disc looks better than the print I would have seen in my local theater.

I saw this for the first time 11 years ago Then I thought: Mario Bava/Barbara Steele horror, not football. Generates some good suspense and creepy effects but I don't get the fuss over Barbara Steele. She's not good looking and not a good actress. B&W feels like a Universal classic horror.

On second viewing I had the sound off, which reinforced the 30s Universal vibe, castles and villagers with torches. It's not like it's hard to follow the story. Many interesting camera setups and wardrobe choices. Barbara Steele has the classic vampire look but after seeing Vampira, Elvira, and Vampyros Lesbos first, meh.

Dark Was The Night - Tubi

I kind of liked it.

The Old Guard - rewatched this last night since the sequel is coming out in a couple of days (Netflix).

Duel Universal 4K
Dennis Weaver. Directed by Steven Spielberg. 1971
While traveling through the California desert for a business appointment, David Mann passes a smoky tanker truck. A game of cat-and-mouse quickly escalates into a life-and-death battle between David and the unseen trucker, with their vehicles as weapons.

"Duel" certainly stood out at the time (1971) for being more cinematic when most TV-Movies were just longer TV episodes. I missed "Duel" on its first showing and just waited and waited for it to turn up again. It's a well-made exercise in Suspense and driving stunts but doesn't offer much in the way of depth. I've seen the film a few times and watching the featurette with Steven Spielberg talking about his career at the time, and how he shot the film was probably as entertaining for me as revisiting the film.

Watching "Duel" in 2025, I was reminded of driving with my father when I was a kid. We weren't chased by trucks, of course, but I remember going to the gas station, the attendant asking if you wanted "Regular" or "Ethyl", and getting trading stamps at the register. The disc offers the Theatrical Version in 4K in the 1:85:1 ratio and the TV version in HD in the standard 1:33:1. ratio. The colors are a little more true on the TV Version, but it's also very flat. The 4K version has more vivid color, -sometimes a little too much color at times, -but it has a lot more heft.

2016

HBO

"Two teens develop a growing friendship in Brooklyn, N.Y., while the feud between their respective parents (Greg Kinnear, Jennifer Ehle) continues to escalate."

This was not that bad and I liked it.

2023

"Tony Schiena is Dallas, a one-man killing machine on a mysterious rampage. His attacks on biker gangs and meth labs anger the Vegas mob boss who's holding Dallas's girlfriend hostage. But who is Dallas working for?"

I only wanted to see it for Cuba Gooding Jr but he appears in only one scene.

2024

Netflix

"The Charles family grapples with family legacy and difficult decisions as they determine the fate of their heirloom piano, exploring deeper themes along the way."

I liked it and maybe if you liked Sinners check this out though more talky and dialogue driven than that movie probably since it was based on a August Wilson play.

Surprised Denzel Washington did not appear in this since his son. Malcom directed and his other son John David was the lead.

Earthquake Amazon Prime 4K
Charlton Heston. Directed by Mark Robson. 1974
Various interconnected people struggle to survive when a massive earthquake rips Los Angeles apart.

For me, getting to see "Earthquake" in the theater in 1974 was a big deal. While I loved, loved, loved the Sensurround experience, -where you actually shook in your chair with every quake, -I kind of knew the movie was a little schlocky. But it was Big Screen Schlocky! with "name" actors working on the same Universal backlots usually reserved for "McCloud" and "Columbo". The film might look like a TV show, but people were falling off buildings and being crushed in elevators with animated blood splattering the camera. Being a young man of a certain age, Victoria Principal really got my attention; I had never heard of her, but she was tarted up to look like an ethnic sexpot in a tight t-shirt and a huge black perm.

When the ground is shaking and Los Angeles is falling apart, "Earthquake" is still a lot of cheesy fun. It's the in-between scenes that occasionally drag. Charlton Heston and Ava Gardner topline, but their characters don't get much to do, and the supporting characters are more interesting. The film has a great cast of familiar faces if you watched a lot of old Television. The picture quality is superb, but it also points out the limitations of the effects and the chintzy-looking sets.

Jurassic World: Rebirth (2025)

Director Gareth Edwards' involvement had me interested but Writer David Koepp's script just won't let this film be a (fun) Dinosaur-Heist film.

Quite honestly, I haven't enjoyed any of David Koepp's scripts in 2025.

Outside of the initial encounter with the Mosasaurus, the film is oddly flat, as others have mentioned, retreading much of where the series has already been previously.

The biggest issue I have with the film is the inclusion of a group of thin characters (or plot devices) that eat up a surprising amount of the film's run-time, when I'd rather be spending more time with Scarlett Johansson, Mahershala Ali & Johnathan Bailey.

Jurassic World (2015)

Behind the original 1993 film and Jurassic Park 3 (2011), Director Colin Trevorrow's film is amongst my favorites in this franchise.

Much of that is due to the script, which finally shows a functioning theme park for most of its run-time, a setting I'd longed for throughout multiple films & iterations.

I Could Never Be Your Woman (2007) *** - Some really fun performances from people I like in a movie with some really weird choices. It's like they made Look Who's Talking (another Heckerling film) but the baby only talks four or five times and sometimes the other people in the scene hear them and sometimes the baby is talking to the audience.

2025

AMC+

"Riya wakes up on a mysterious planet to discover her crewmates have been slaughtered. When a man arrives to rescue her, an ordeal of psychological and physical terror ensues"

You would think with a name like Riya and the director Flying Lotus would cast a Indian acrtress as the lead?

Other than looking at Eiza Gonzalez it was a bore and a cure for insomnia thought it got freaky and disturbing at the end when the real horror came.

2015

Showtime

"Danny and Frank work as lifeguards for the summer and make plans to throw the wildest party of the season."

I wonder why this did not get a bigger release or in 2015 nobody knew or appreciated Colin Jost from SNL as a writer?

This was his attempt at a raunchy coming of age comedy filled with former SNL stars like Fred Armisen, Will Forte, Cecily Strong, Kate McKinnon, and Bobby Moynihan.

I could have done with less scenes looking at Mike O' Brien with his porn stache, speedo, and sandals.

Cursed (2005, Dir. Wes Craven) – Soooo…what exactly went wrong here? EVERYTHING went wrong here. From some inexplicably awful direction from Craven, to a piss-poor script from the prolific Kevin Williamson (I kinda wonder if this was an old script he had kicking around in his desk, and the studio was just like, “A werewolf script from the writer of Scream, and we can maybe also get the director of Scream?! Sign me up!”), to some truly awful acting from Christina Ricci, Jesse Eisenberg (he’s noticeably awful here), Joshua Jackson (starts off fine, him going cuckoo didn’t work for me), Portia de Rossi (thankfully only in a couple scenes as a psychic), and Milo Ventimiglia (who’s played the same douchey role countless times). Judy Greer was one of the few that worked for me. She threw herself into the ridiculous role and embraced the crazy (I thought she approached the role with the same sort of reckless abandon that Parker Posey often does for her roles). And Nick Offerman has a very small, surprisingly good cameo as a Sheriff’s Deputy. He doesn’t really add anything to the film, but he also shows early on the presence he had (before he really hit it big).

A werewolf tale from the Williamson/Craven pairing sounds like a winner. Every day of the week. But not here. It’s tame by genre standards, not even meriting an R-rating (it’s PG-13 all the way). The CGI is atrocious. Even in its own time it would’ve stuck out like a sore thumb. It also stumbles its way through a gay subplot that really doesn’t work (it’s not offensively bad but I thought it came close). It doesn’t abide by any sort of rules when it comes to the werewolves either. How exactly or when do they transform? When do they start feeling the effects of silver? When do they get cravings? How do they sate these cravings aside from murder? It doesn’t even attempt to construct its own internal sense of logic so that, at least according to its own filmic universe, things at least appear to make sense…in that universe…Instead it’s all over the map…It’s just a bad, bad, bad movie. Super disappointing given the pedigree of the filmmakers…

The endless trailers have gotten me in the mood for some dino mayhem so I watched this last night. Hadn't seen it since it was new and had forgotten 90% of it. The best thing about this entry is that once the shit starts it doesn't let up. The movie flies by with no lulls, non-stop death and destruction. The teasing of the bio-engineered "monster" doesn't pan out. When you finally see it, it's a letdown. Proven out when the T Rex finally shoes up. Now this is one bad ass motherfucker. You can bio-engineer until the cows come home, you can't match the real deal that mother nature creates.
Major flaw, as with all these films is the kids. Just once, let the dinosaurs get them, bite their heads off, rip them to pieces with their fucking guts flying everywhere. The audience would stand up and cheer.

2020

Expiring soon from Hulu

"In 1971, photographer W. Eugene Smith travels to Minamata, Japan, a coastal city ravaged by mercury poisoning. Ushered by an impassioned translator and encouraged by local villagers, Smith's powerful images expose decades of gross negligence."

Maybe he is a pariah now but Depp can still bring it when he wants to.

Maybe it is a little slow but a story everybody should know about or be aware of.

WALL*E Disney 4K
Directed by Andrew Stanton. 2008
In the distant future, a small waste-collecting robot inadvertently embarks on a space journey that will ultimately decide the fate of mankind.

Back in 2008, every Pixar film seemed like an event (I'd get over that later), and while I appreciated "Wall*E", it didn't stick with me the way "Up" or the "Toy Story" films did. "Wall*E" is a terrific character, and I find him more endearing now than I did back then. The first half of the film is Wall*E exploring the abandoned Earth, collecting his trash and treasures and going about his day. Wall*E's life is illustrated with a series of small self-contained gags (Wall*E interacting with a cockroach, playing an old video tape) instead of an explicit story. Eventually he encounters EVE, an AI lifeform seeking signs of life on the planet. Being an animated film, Wall*E forms a crush on EVE and tries to get to know her. Hokey as it is, I love all that stuff. It's very early Woody Allen without the inappropriate horniness.

The second half of the film becomes more of a standard Science Fiction Action Film. It's still a Comedy, but it's more about Plot Complications and Breathless Escapes and less about character. Don't get me wrong, the film is wonderfully animated and features amazing work from legendary Sound Designer Ben Burtt ("Star Wars", "Raiders of the Lost Ark"). Burtt is credited as the "Voice" of "Wall*E" and there's a wonderful featurette on his contributions. Overall, "Wall*E" is a good film, very clever and inventive, but I was genuinely touched by the first half of the film, while the second half was a bit routine.