If by letdown you are referring to the ending I am guessing. I thought it was perfect - the film set out the dilemma; a devils choice.
How else would you have ended it?

IN WAVES AND WAR (Netflix)

An excellent companion/follow-up to Seal Team

2024

Paramount +/Showtime

"After a career-ending defeat, a former champion trains for redemption -- but as obsession takes hold and reality unravels, he may be spiraling into something far more terrifying."

if you think it is the typical underdog boxing movie it is not.

Bloom in one of his best performances and Turturro knocked it out of the park.

Maybe this is what happens with fighters before the big weigh in.

Orlando Bloom must have been wearing makeup and prosthetics since he looked completely different.

Also known as Saigon

1988

"Plainclothes military detectives Buck McGriff (Willem Dafoe) and Albaby Perkins (Gregory Hines) arrive in Saigon, Vietnam, in 1968 to investigate a prostitute's murder."

I watched it free on Youtube

It is not on Blu-ray or any of the cable channels or streamers.

Fred Ward was also in it.

2016

"A German couple lose their son in WWII, prompting them to become secretly anti-Nazi."

A story worth knowing about though not the best WWII film.

2009

"Children grow up avoiding a path after kids go missing near a creepy old man's house. Now high school seniors, they decide to find out what the shovel-wielding weirdo is hiding."

The only entertainment appeal was looking at Katrina Bowden

Whatever happened to her.

Dave Franco played a kind of dorky character.

Katrina Bowden is doing Hallmark movies and the occasional Soap.

I was let down that I watched the same story 3 times, and really didn't gain enough info from the subsequent POVs that I didn't gain the first time. The first part was good, and tense. But to see that repeated 2 more times, and then without resolution really fell flat, for me.

Why is there only 1 (okay, 2) intercept attempts? If this scenario (an ICBM attack) actually happened, is the whole defense a pair of interceptors?

Why does the decision to retaliate have to happen before they actually see if the missile was armed? Also, the detonation would likely have an identifiable signature, to help identify the culprit.

The lack of the actual result also made the Secretary of Defense suicide scene frustrating. I could see grief causing such despair that someone might make that choice, but at least wait to see if you have something to grieve.

The Shrouds Criterion Premieres DVD
Vincent Cassel. Directed by David Cronenberg. 2024
Karsh, an innovative businessman and grieving widower, builds a device to connect with the dead inside a burial shroud.

"The Shrouds" is a very personal film from 80-something David Cronenberg, who lost his wife to cancer back in 2017. It deals matter-of-factly with grief and the ravages of cancer, so much so that it can be uncomfortable to watch. Cronenberg is an Atheist and Spirituality is not part of the equation.

Vincent Cassel as grieving widower "Karsh Relikh" (it wouldn't be a Cronenberg film if the character didn't have a name that sounds like a cat coughing up a hairball) is very much modeled after the director, with his neatly coiffed gray hair and penchant for black-on-black outfits. He certainly flatters himself by making Karsh unassuming catnip for women of a certain age, allowing him to have affairs with Sandrine Holt and Diane Kruger. Being European the older actors all appear nude, and Cassel and Kruger have a vivid nude sex scene. Kruger also appears in the dual role of Karsh's late wife, scarred by her mastectomy and missing her amputated left forearm. Guy Pearce, thankfully, keeps his clothes on in a small but twitchy role; in fact, it's so small for a "name" actor that I was immediately suspicious of him.

The film is certainly off beat. Karsh has created a burial shroud that allows the user to watch the decay of a loved one in real time on a phone app. However, outside forces are trying to steal his technology and Karsh is trying to find out who's behind it. I wouldn't call it a Tech Thriller, as it's all very talky and low-key and the characters never real come across as actual human beings. Frankly, I gave up on the film half-way through and then came back to it later. "The Shrouds" was a bit more engaging the second time, but the final act was so convoluted that even in the last five minutes I wasn't sure what was really going on.

"Criterion Premieres" is apparently a new low-budget version of their usual releases. The only extra is a short but satisfactory interview with David Cronenberg about the film. Thankfully, it features a slightly lower list price.

Frankenstein (1931)
Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (1994)

up next: Frankenstein (2025)

TREMORS 2: Aftershocks

A worthy sequel and I hadn't watched this for a long time. O

Carnal Knowledge Criterion Blu-Ray
Jack Nicholson, Arthur Garfunkel. Directed by Mike Nichols. 1971
Tracing the sexual and emotional confusion of two men from their Amherst College days in the Fifties through the Kennedy Sixties...

I remember first seeing "Carnal Knowledge" in a local Second Run Theater years after it was first released. It was a Sunday afternoon, and I was the only person in the room. Worse, it was an old "two projector" system, and every other reel, -about every twenty minutes, -the film would be out of focus for a while. While much of "Carnal Knowledge" was a blur, one thing was clear, -this was a bitter, nasty picture.

"Carnal Knowledge" was a landmark film for its time, noted for its frank talk about Sex. It's all "Talk", however, as the film never really shows any action (which was kind of disappointing when I first saw it). You could say it's one of the first films to focus on "Toxic Masculinity", but that's not entirely true, -Neither Men nor Women are shown in a positive light. Ever.
Jules Pfeiffer's script focuses on the things Men say to other Men about Sex and relationships, the braying bullshit and the subtle manipulations. It's also about what Men and Women say to each other behind closed doors, and what they say to get behind closed doors. It's all very cynical and it's all very recognizable, but we only are shown this one side of every character, and we only see them at their worst. The film is a dispiriting watch.

The film has a small, terrific cast, though its Jack Nicholson who steals every he's in (which is almost all of them). This is the lean, mean Jack from the "On His Way to Super-stardom" phase of his career. This was also a film that a slightly faded Ann-Margaret fought to be in, and it rightfully re-ignited her career. She comes the closest to creating a sympathetic character and it's sad to watch her decline. The one bothersome thing for me is that the actors are noticeably too old for their parts for most of the film and little is done to disguise it

The Criterion disc has good picture quality and some nice featurettes, including commentary from Writer/Director Neil LaBute, who has written a couple of films that hold their own in the Male Toxicity game, including "In the Company of Men" and "Your Friends and Neighbors".

I want a muthafucking 4K UHD in a steelbook, muthafucking now!

Elle twice!

Last night I watched Crack in the World 1965, directed by Andrew Marton, starring Dana Andrews, Janette Scott, Kieron Moore, and Alexander Knox.

Plot: A dying scientist pushes forward his project to tap through to the Earth's magma layer, with results that threaten to destroy the Earth as we know it.
I am a big fan of Kieron Moore (loved him in The Day of the Triffids also with Janette Scott). I really didn't like Dana Andrews in this. I thought he wasn't as effective as he could have been.
Always enjoy watching the movie though, a lot of action and thrills for its time, kind of set the benchmark for disaster movies to follow.. Wish they would remake this one.














I caught this shot during a transition, kind of cool with Janette superimposed. I have five more shots if anyone wants to see them.

1978. Brian De Palma's follow up to Carrie. Another telekinesis move, The Medusa Touch, was released at the exact same time. TV ads for both were running simultaneously and what happens in which became confused in my head. I finally saw them a year later when they showed up on HBO. Twilight Time's BD of The Fury is the one and only BD that I've ever missed out on. It sold out before I could get one. I do have the DVD but watched this off TCM for the HD. If the BD used the same master as what TCM showed, I'm not missing out on anything.

Follows the book very well and so well done. For a movie that that been done to death (pun, sorry!) This maybe in my all time top 5.

Frankenstein Netflix
Oscar Isaac, Jacob Elordi. Directed by Guillermo Del Toro. 2025
Victor Frankenstein, an egotistical scientist, experiments in creating new life which results in dangerous consequences.

Honestly, I'm not entirely sure where I fall with this new adaptation of "Frankenstein". I'll really have to watch it again. Visually, the production design is quite stunning, and I would have liked to have seen it on the big screen.

Story-wise the film feels more like Del Toro's impression of Mary Shelly's novel and his favorite elements rather than a somewhat faithful adaptation. It jumps from place-to-place and highlight-to-highlight with little practical sense of how we got there; one moment we're in a European castle, the next we're on an Arctic ship (perhaps years later, perhaps not). There's a lot of "in-between stuff" that just gets a hand-wave.

I was most reminded of "Frankenstein: The True Story", a Tv-Movie from The Seventies with Michael Sarrazin. Of course, that film conjured up a wonderful Comic Book Villain in Dr. Polidori (played by James Mason). It also had a subversive sub-text that I didn't realize until Shout's more recent Collector's Edition of the film. Del Toro also gives a shout-out in the end credits to the late great Comics artist Berni Wrightson (a "Frankenstein" devotee who helmed his own illustrated adaptation). This version also brought to mind Gary Friedrich and Mike Ploog's version for Marvel Comics in The Seventies.

The performances are all quite good, and being a Del Toro film, it's no surprise that Jacob Elordi's "Creature" is far more human and sympathetic than Oscar Isaac's "Victor", who really is presented as the monster in this version. My only real quibble is with giving The Creature super-strength (enough that he can partially lift a fully-manned ship) and a "Wolverine"-like healing ability that is never quite explained (it just seems like a convenience to allow more carnage). The costumes and the sets are so impressive that I can easily forgive the creative liberties and shortcuts Del Toro takes here. I mean Hammer's "Curse of Frankenstein" is a terrific film, but it looks like a simple stage-play compared to this. It's definitely Guillermo Del Toro's best film in years.

Netflix also includes a 45-minute "Making Of" as a stand-alone feature.

Let Us Prey (2014) - low budget horror flick about a small town Scottish police station where all hell breaks loose one night and a mysterious man seems to be at the center of it all.

Troll Netflix
Ine Marie Wilmann. Directed by Roar Uthaug. 2022. English Dubbed or Norwegian with Sub-Titles
A ragtag group of people who must come together to stop an ancient troll that was awakened in a Norwegian mountain and prevent it from wreaking havoc.

With "Troll 2" coming to Netflix at the beginning of December, I thought I'd revisit the original from three years back. "Troll" is a very slick, very Commercial "Giant Monster Movie", a little more like Roland Emmerich's light-hearted "Godzilla" than Japan's grim "Godzilla Minus One". It even features an American-style "Girl Boss" in the lead. She has three archetypical Males in supporting roles, -her crazy Father, a nerdy Government Agent, and a studly soldier (for some mild flirting). We even get a countdown to dropping bombs on Oslo to save the rest of Norway. I'm not sure if the giant troll is a CGI creation or a man-in-suit or some combination of both, but it looks terrific. "Troll" is not very original, but I don't think that was the point. It is, however, a lot of fun.

Predator: Badlands Disney/20th Century Studios
Elle Fanning, Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi. Directed by Dan Trachtenberg. 2025
A young Predator outcast from his clan finds an unlikely ally on his journey in search of the ultimate adversary.

Honestly, I enjoyed "Predator: Badlands" more than I expected to. I didn't much care for the alien's new look in the trailers but seeing "Dek" in action I quickly grew accustomed to it. The biggest obstacle for me was "Thia", the "synth" played by Elle Fanning. Dan Trachtenberg has her constantly yapping and providing comic relief for the first third of the film and she really got on my nerves. Once she's allowed to take a breath and become a more grounded character I began to enjoy the film. In fact, the last third of the film (none of which is in any of the Theatrical trailers) worked better for me as an Action/Adventure than the whole of this year's "Fantastic Four" or "Superman" films.

I've read the criticisms of "Badlands" and some say that it "Disney-fies" the "Predator" franchise, and they are not entirely wrong. Giving grumpy "Dek" a chirpy female sidekick and a big-eyed pet certainly takes the film in that direction. However, nothing changes the fact that while the first "Predator" film was terrific, the films that followed were only marginally effective and Shane Black's "The Predator" was a franchise-killing disaster. Trachtenberg has at least tried to revise and broaden the franchise with "Prey", the terrific "Killer of Killers" and "Badlands". My only complaint is that they felt it necessary to add a post credit "cliffhanger" for a sequel we'll probably never get. "Predator: Badlands" is more "Riddick" than "Predator" and I'm OK with that.

Sadly, I guess that means I might have to buy another Disney over-priced steelbook.

Sometime very recently I watched The Time Machine 2002 directed by Simon Wells, H.G. Wells' Great Grandson. Starring Guy Pearce, Jeremy Irons, Mark Addy, Phyllida Law, and Sienna Guillory.

Plot: Hoping to alter the events of the past, a 19th century inventor instead travels 800,000 years into the future, where he finds humankind divided into two warring races.
I know that this isn't a highly thought of movie, but still, I love it. oh well. There are aspects of the movie that I like better than the original. But you can't beat Yvette Mimieux or George Pal's magic.
I like Guy Pierce better in the role than Rod Taylor (so shoot me). And I adore Jeremy Irons so he wins. I love both movies for different reasons.

My first and only order from Shout was for the CHUCKY 8 Movie 4k set. Was $90.00 plus tax.

first time owning any of them

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