Sean’s movie thoughts

The Stepfather is a suspense movie. Terry O’Quinm plays Jerry Blake, a real estate agent with a wife and daughter but he has a secret. He is obsessed with the idea of the perfect family and he marries into a family looking for the perfect family. However when his family fails him (as all real families must) he starts to look for a new family. The old family becomes something to dispose of and we will see him disposing of a family in the first scene. Terry O’Quinn is really good as Jerry. Jill Schoelen is good as his stepdaughter Stephanie who suspects there is something wrong and Shelley Hack is good as her mother. It is really scary when Jerry flips out when Stephanie is kissing her friend Paul (they nearly kissed earlier in the film).  The brother of one of Jerry’s previous victims is looking for him. He tries to get the local newspaper to reprint the story of one of Jerry’s previous killings and tries to get the cops to pursue Jerry. He is only partially successful. There was

As much as I like this movie, maybe it would have been better with a slightly longer running time. Or maybe it would have been nice to have another Superman animated movie before this one to explore Clark and Lois’ relationship. Their relationship feels a bit rushed. I like Batman as much as anyone, I think, but maybe more Superman animated movies would be nice. This is the first animated Superman solo film in six years. I liked the voice actress they chose for Cat Grant (Toks Olagundoye). She is also the voice for Mrs. Beakly on the new Ducktales. She was also on Castle and had voice roles in the animated Vizen special or short series. There are a few references or callbacks to Superman movies and comics. They were nice, I thought. They were not overdone.

What is Ving Rhames up to these days? I feel like I never see him out of the Mission Impossible movies. So it is nice to see him here. This time Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) and his team are trying to recover some stolen plutonium. A CIA agent named Walker (Henry Cavill) is assigned to the team and his orders are to get the plutonium no matter what. Isla Faust (Rebecca Ferguson) is back from the last movie and so is the villain. Some people have hidden motives. The story is mostly an excuse to go from amazing action or stunt sequence to another. There is an amazing fight in a bathroom. Jeremy Renner’s character from the last two movies is not back. Cruise is good as usual in the role and the knowledge that he is performing a lot of his own stunts adds to the  enjoyment of the film. I am not sure Rebecca Ferguson needed to return for this film, she did not have a lot to do. This might be my harshest comment about the movie. This movie is pretty good.

The Dark Tower movie is not good. I kind of enjoyed it but the movie being under two hours helps. (It probably shouldn't.) Idris Elba is good as Roland, the gunslinger, and it is nice to see Dennis Haysbert as Roland’s father. The sequences where Roland confronts the Man In Black (Mathew McConaughey) are fun. After that, the film makes no sense. Why is Roland immune to the Man In Black’s powers when no  one else seems to be? How are the children going to destroy the Dark Tower? Roland’s guns are said to be made out of Excalibur. Does that mean anything? This movie adapted or tried to adapt an eight book series by Stephen King. That probably explains a lot. Maybe if I read some of the books in the series I’d have a better understanding of some the questions above. I don’t regret seeing this in theaters or buying it on Blu-ray. Some of the bonus features are enjoyable. This is a not top tier Stephen King adapation or maybe not a mid tier one either. This might be bottom tier St

This is pretty good, even with the New 52 inspired character designs. Jerry O’Connell provides the voice of Superman/Clark Kent and Rebecca Romijin co-stars as Lois Lane. They are a real life married couple and they have a good chemistry. Other voice actors are good too including Rosario Dawson as Wonder Woman and Christopher Gorham as the Flash. I might have liked another actor as Green Lantern but Nathan Fillion is good. The mysterious alien Doomsday arrives on Earth and he is rage personified. The Justice League, minus Superman, tries to stop him but they fail. Superman comes to the battle and he stops Doomsday but the cost is his life. (This is a movie based off a series of comics from 1992 and 1993. There were some changes of course and one of the storytelling methods from the comics doesn’t translate to the screen.) The action is good. It is rated PG-13 for violence, which makes sense. It is nice to see Hawkman. The relationship with Clark and Lois is well handled. I enjoye

Back to School is a classic with Rodney Dangerfeild playing a rich man named Thornton Mellon, who goes back to college and reconnects with his son. It is his best movie. It is driven by a subplot about a professor who doesn’t think Thorton belongs in college and Thornton’s belief that the professor is naive. Life of the Party, which wisely does not use the classic song of the same name, is not as good as Back to School. (That is a sad song.) I could be biased, I really liked Rodney as a comedian and as an actor. I have seen the movie several times over the years, I could be overlooking its faults. Melissa McCarthy stars as a woman who goes back to college after a divorce. Her ex-husband seems in a rush to get married to another woman. McCarthy’s character  has some misadventures adjusting to life on campus, including dating a guy half her age and dealing with mean girls, but the plot isn’t as strong as Back to School. Also I feel like I know who Thornton Mellon was and I don’t fe

It would not be fair to review a movie that I stopped watched before it was even half over. So I won’t. The movie could get better. It could also get worse I guess. Maybe I was I more patient with movies a few years back. There are so many new movies coming out now (and older movies coming out on home video) it seems okay to give up on a movie if I lose interest. The Equalizer 2 opened well. I might catch up with it later but reviews suggest there is no need to hurry.  Maybe I won’t catch up with it. I don’t think it is right that James Gunn got fired from Guardians of the Galaxy 3 for old tweets even if some were in really bad taste. He already apologized for those years ago. Now people are trying to get him rehired. We will see how this develops. He was supposed to have a new project announced before this went down, so maybe he will be fine.

I re-watched Empire Records and the film is likable but it is not really good. There is a lot going on in the film, maybe too much. This movie is about a day at a record store that has an odd cast of characters working there. I never worked at a record store, so I am not saying the movie is unrealistic based on any life experience. Maybe it is. It seems to be a fairly eventful day at the record store including a celebrity appearance, a financial crisis/impending sale to a large chain, an employee shaving her head right before her work shift, and one co-worker convinced he is in love with another co-worker. Maybe one of these plots/subplots should have been dropped. This has a good cast Liv Tyler, Rene Zellweger, Anthony LaPagila, Ethan Embry, Robin Tuney, and some others. Maybe that helps the appeal of the film. It has a good soundtrack, which probably also helps the appeal. I don’t hate this movie but I might not want to re-watch it again.

I wanted to post something about re-watching Bowling for Columbine but I cannot figure out what I want to say, so I wrote this on the movie going experience. I like to go to the first non 3D showing of the day when I go to a movie. I don’t hate 3D but I don’t care for it.  Maybe I saw some subpar 3D movies a few years back but if there is a choice I choose 2D over 3D.  I don’t remember the last time I thought 3D added anything to the movie. I like the first showing of a movie. It is a little cheaper and there are often fewer people there. I like both of those things. Also I like the first showing of the day because if the movie is not good, I feel like I have a lot of the day left to do other things.  If the movie is good and something else is playing that I want to see, there is time to see another movie. (I once went to four movies in a weekend, a 2 day weekend.) I go to mostly the same two or three theaters. There are two theater chains where I live and I prefer one chain over

The Equalizer 2 opens this week and I realize that I had not even thought of rewatching the original film in about 2 years. I heard mixed things about the sequel but reports are that Denzil Washington’s performance was good. Maybe I will see it later. Mission Impossible Fallout comes out next week. Previews have been good. Early reviews have been good. I plan to see this one. Maybe I will watch either Mission Impossible Rogue Nation or Mission Impossible Ghost Protocol next weekend. Dwayne Johnson’s Skyscraper will need to make a lot of money internationally to avoid being a bomb. I did not see the film, maybe it is better than it looks. Is he in too many movies? Even if you don’t count Moana, Johnson has been in 8 movies since 2015.    

Uncle Drew is fun. It has a bunch of former NBA players in old age makeup and it stars current NBA Star Kyrie Irving as Uncle Drew, a playground legend from the seventies. The old age make up is not great.  Uncle Drew gathers his old team to play in a street ball tournament against teams young enough to be their grandchildren. Maybe I was feeling generous when I saw it but it was fun. It is goofy. The road trip aspect was fun. Lisa Leslie was on hand and that was nice. I am not sure how those shoes allowed Boots, who was in a wheelchair, to walk again but I guess I will go with it. I just enjoyed it. I might not want to watch it again anytime soon or at all but it was enjoyable.

I have not seen Halloween 6 in years, maybe it is not Paul Rudd’s worst movie. Maybe one of his other movies is worse. I remember Halloween 6 being pretty bad and I don’t remember any of Rudd’s other movies being that bad. Halloween 6 or Halloween the Curse of Michael Meyers came out in 1995. There was an alternate cut of the movie called the producer’s cut and it is supposed to be better in some ways than the original. If I have seen this cut, I don’t remember it. In the movie I remember, there is a confusing explanation for who kidnapped Michael at the end of Halloween 5 and for the source of Michael’s rage and enhanced physical endurance. Apparently this all involves Druids and a cult. Donald Pleasance died shortly after the filming of Halloween 6. It was his last film. He was good, even if the rest of the film mostly isn’t.

I liked the Ant-man and the Wasp movie but maybe it was too jokey. The whole “there is no such thing as truth serum” was close to being over done. I don’t think the movie needed to be overly grim but it could be a bit more serious. Thor Ragnarok was too jokey too and it undercut the dramatic moments at times and on re-watch it was really noticeable. This movie doesn’t do that as much. Overall this is a good movie. I liked the fight scenes, the main villain was interesting, and Evangeline Lily was more likable as Hope Van Dyne. I think her character was made more likeable in the script for this movie and the movie belongs to her as much as it does to Paul Rudd. If there is a third movie in the franchise, I’d like it to be less jokey.

The Hobbit trilogy should have been better. Or maybe the Hobbit could been have 2 films and those two films could have been better than the triology was. This is a trilogy based on one book, and that book was not a long book. I might overuse the word odd, so I will say that the series is a bit of a mixed bag. I liked all the movies but they all seem a little long. I think the first Hobbit movie was maybe 4 or 5 minutes too long. The other movies are also pretty long too. At times during the trilogy Bilbo gets lost and it is his story (or at least it should be his story). I know that part of the point might be that he is overwhelmed by the experience. Martin Freedman is good as Bilbo. I am probably going to watch the Harry Potter movies again in the next year or so. I don’t think I will re-watch the Hobbit trilogy. I might re-watch the first one. I did like the second movie but maybe some parts could been cut down. Then maybe the third movie could have been incorporated into the

I liked Tag up to a point. It is pretty enjoyable until the third act. Maybe if the third act had been better or avoided a plot point, it would have been a lot better. (I am not going to spoil the plot point.) This is a movie about a bunch of men who play a month long game of tag each year. These guys are played by actors that could not have childhood friends in real life. (I think the audience is supposed to ignore that.) Jeremy Renner plays Jerry who seems to have almost supernatural abilities at times. These scenes were fun. Jerry has never been tagged and plans to quit playing after this year. This is inspired by a true story. I am not familiar with the real story, so I don’t know how much truth remains on screen.  I am saying inspired instead of based on because this movie seems pretty removed from real life at times and also there were ten friends in the story but the movie features five. The cast is good. You have Jake Johnson, Hannibal Buress, Jon Hamm, Isla Fisher, and E

I am not sure about the Venom movie. Previews have been decent and Tom Hardy is usually good. If Venom is not fighting Spider-man, why the heck would I care? I guess if the story and performances are good, I will care. Venom did move beyond his role as Spider-man’s enemy in the comics. However, these are not the comics. I see Venom first and foremost as a foe for Spider-man. I have no interest in a Joker movie without Batman but the studio reportedly thinks people do and is a planning one. We will see but Venom’s origin involves Spider-man and also Eddie Brock’s previous history with Spider-man. I am not sure who Venom is without a relationship to Spider-man.  I could be overthinking this.

Paul Rudd’s worst movie remains Halloween 6. Paul Rudd returns as ex-con Scott Lang aka Ant-man. He has been under house arrest since Captain America: Civil War. In the meantime Hank Pym and Hope Van Dyne have been trying to get into the Quantum realm to rescue Janet Van Dyne (Hank’s wife and Hope’s mother). A villain called Ghost wants Pym’s technology for her own purposes.  Scott teams up with Hank and Hope again after Scott has a dream about Janet. Also there is a black market technology after Hank’s technology (he wants to steal it and sell it). I liked the movie. The acting was good and it would be nice to see Hope in an Avengers movie and interact with some other characters. It was nice to see Lawrence Fishbourne in a supporting role as Bill Foster (he was Black Goliath later Giant-man in the comics). The fights are fun. It was good but maybe a bit too jokey. Otherwise I liked the film.

Captain Kronos-Vampire Hunter is an interesting film. It is about a former soldier (played by Horst Jansen) in England who travels the country killing vampires. He has a friend named Grost, who provides information. Caroline Munro is on hand in a supporting role. This was a Hammer film. (Hammer was a British film company that specialized in horror movies. Hammer made a comeback with the Woman in Black.) The vampire in this film doesn’t drain blood. The vampire drains youth or life essence. That is different and the vampire is not killed in one of the expected ways. There is a good scene where Kronos and Grost try to kill the vampire. There also some sword fights and I enjoy a good sword fight in a movie. The movie was not a success and did not start a new series. Years later there was a novelization of the movie and a comic book series inspired by the film, so it was not forgotten. It is worth seeing if you haven’t seen it. It is not top tier Hammer.

The first Ice Age still holds up. It is probably not on the level of Toy Story but I think it is about as good as Finding Nemo or at least fairly close to being that good. Ray Romano provides the voice of Manfred aka Manny the Mammoth. As other animals are heading South at the beginning of the movie, he is heading North. He encounters Sid the Sloth(voice of John Leguizamo) and they find a human baby who has been separated from his tribe. They decide to take the baby back to his tribe and along the way the saber tooth tiger Diego (voice of Dennis Leary) joins them but he has ulterior motives. It is fun to see this mismatched trio travel together with the baby. There are is a touching moment in the cave that explains why Manny doesn’t have a family. There is not a moment to match this in any of the sequels. I am glad that I re-watched this.

Netflix’s original movies are all over the place. Adam Sandler has Netflix movies, some are actually not awful according to rumors. The Set Up is a romantic comedy about two assistants who set up their bosses and fall in love. The bosses are Lucy Liu (who I used to not like as an actress) and Taye Diggs. The assistants are Glen Powell and Zoey Deutch. It is not ground breaking. It features classic songs on the soundtrack (considering the main characters are in their early or late twenties some of those songs are surprisingly old). It is set in New York. It features a disposable girlfriend. (These are all features of romantic comedies.) Sometimes a formula movie well done is rewarding and I think this is one of those times. I saw Powell first in Everybody Wants Some and he is really good here. Lucy Liu and Taye Diggs are good too. Zoey Duetch is charming here. I think I first saw her in Vampire Academy. I wonder if this movie would have done well in theaters.

Valiant Comics is partnering with a studio to bring some of their characters to the big screen. The first one up is their super-soldier Bloodshot.(Valiant is not a huge publisher but they have some good comics.) Bloodshot, for those unfamiliar with the character, has chalk white skin and nanites in his blood. His powers include increased strength and healing abilities. In some ways his power levels might be close to Captain America's or Wolverine's. Vin Diesel is going to play Bloodshot. I am not sure he's the best choice but maybe it could work. No offense but sometimes his level of stardom surprises me. Other actors are being hired including Toby Kebbel. (He was Doom in the recent Fantastic Four.) I think the release date is not set but it might be coming out in simmer 2019; Of course if this movie is successful, other Valiant characters will make their way to movie theaters.

I have seen all five Mission Impossible movies but I have not seen any of the first three in at least a decade. I don’t think they pop up on cable on a semi-regular basis like the Star Wars movies do (for example.) At the end of the month, the sixth film in the franchise opens and I am not sure if I should go back and watch the first three films in the series. The first one I remember being decent. The second one has become interesting to think about because actor Dougray Scott was supposed to play Wolverine in the first X-men movie but he got hurt on a stunt while making Mission Impossible and Hugh Jackman became Wolverine. How different would things have been if Scott hadn’t been injured is fun to think about but impossible to know. I don’t remember much about the third film. The fourth and fifth films in the series are really good. I liked the fourth one and I thought the fifth one was even better. The upcoming film, Mission Impossible Fallout, looks like it will be really good.

My thoughts on Jurassic World Fallen Kingdom were a bit harsh at times but I don’t regret them. It is not an awful movie but maybe watching Pacific Rim Uprising, Rampage, and Jurassic World Fallen Kingdom in a two week period might have been a bad idea. Maybe I should have spaced the films out better. There has been 1 classic movie in the Jurassic series, and that is the first one. It still holds up, I re-watched it a few years back. Maybe one Jurassic movie would have been enough.  There is going to be a third Jurassic World movie. (They teased it at end of the current movie .) The dinosaurs will be out and about and killing people. That could be fun. I might be okay if Chris Pratt or Bryce Dallas Howard doesn’t return for the third movie. I don’t hate either character but I might like to see the actors in other movies. I did not hate Jurassic World Fallen Kingdom but if this makes my list of top ten movies seen in theaters this year, I’d be surprised.  (And disappointed.)

Popcorn is a fun horror movie. It is from 1991 and is about a film society at a small college putting on a horror film festival. They find a strange film.  A dangerous person connected to the strange film is stalking the festival and one of the film students. The films within the film are also fun. (There are three films within the film and they are in black and white.) Jill Schoelen stars as Maggie the film student who is stalked by the killer. She also has to contend with her boyfriend Mark. He is not a bad guy but they might be having problems. Mark is not a lucky man. The cast is good, even if a few members don’t get much screen time, and the makeup effects are good. It is not particularly bloody or gorey but it is creepy at times. This is not a classic but it is fun.