Sean’s movie thoughts

The worst comedies I have seen in the last four years include Sisters The House Baywatch Zoolander 2 What, if anything, do these movies have in common besides me not liking them? Amy Poehler is in two of these movies, the House and Sisters. I wonder if I liked any project she was in besides Parks and Recreation. (Which I did really like.) I cannot think of any at the moment. I kind of liked her movie with Paul Rudd, They Came Together. Will Ferrell is in two of the films on the list but he is a costar in Zoolander 2 and maybe it might be fair to say that he has a fairly minor role in the film. He might be bad in Zoolander 2 but he is not in it enough to ruin the film. Zoolander 2 would be bad with or without him. He is part of the problem in the House though. Two of these movies, Zoolander 2 and Sisters, are almost 2 hours long. I remember some critic saying that at as bad as the House is at least it is not as long as Sisters, so he hated the House less. I am not agains...

This movie is set durring 1984 and features a 15 or 16 year old boy who is convinced that his neighbor is a serial killer. He and his friends investigate. This is a story I have seen before in one form or another. Switch serial killer with vampire and you have Fright Night. It is not bad exactly but I did not find it compelling. There is nothing wrong with the cast, no actor seemed to be over acting and no character was unbearable. (One character might have been hard to believe.)The storyline seems interesting at least on paper. I am not sure why the film didn’t work for me. I guess I have seen this before and done better. Also maybe after It and two seasons of Stranger Things, a group of teenage friends investigating weird events during the 1980s seems route. Maybe it would seemed fresher if it been set in the seventies. (Of course the title would need to be changed.) The posters might be better than the film.

I skipped films 3 and 4 and went to film 5 of this series. This the fifth film in the franchise and we have our fourth Scorpion King (Zach McGowan). None of the three Scorpion Kings that followed Dwayne Johnson look like Dwayne Johnson. (I guess we are not supposed to think about it. Two of the three are roughly his size.) In this one, villain has a sword, the Fang of Anubis,that makes him unstoppable and a grudge against the Scorpion King. The villain sends out minions to find the Scorpion King and bring in so the villain can kill him. The Scorpion King was living in disguise as a blacksmith. The Scorpion King is saved by a Nubian Princess/warrior and he is convinced to help her defeat the villain. Her father was the king of Nubia and he knew he he location of the book of Souls, the only thing that can destroy the Fang of Anubis. Apparently I was in the mood for this kind of action/adventure movie when I bought the box set. I thought McGowan was good in the part. If there is ano...

Valley Girl is a 1983 movie about a young couple from different social groups in LA that fall in love. Nicholas Cage stars as Randy and Deborah Forman stars as Julie. As the movie starts Julie is tired of her boyfriend Tommy. Randy and Julie meet at a party and start to date. (Randy and his friend Fred weren’t invited to the party.) Julie’s friends want her to get back together with Tommy. I guess some of them don’t know he is a jerk. At least one does even if she never tells the others. They think Randy’s so different. Julie gives in and dumps Randy and after a while Randy tries to win her back. This is a fun movie. Cage might be at his most appealing in this film. Deborah Forman was likeable as Julie (even if some of her valley slang was silly) and there are some nice scenes with her parents, who are ex-hippies. The supporting cast of Julie’s friends are good and I like Cameron Dye as Fred, Randy’s friend. The soundtrack is good. It includes “Melt with You” by Modern English, “...

This is fun and diverting. Randy Couture makes a good villain (he is not quite the actor that Dave Bautista is) and the hero of the movie was likeable. I could be feeling generous but I enjoyed this movie. This movie went straight to DVD, so it has a relatively small budget. This movie is a prequel to Dwayne Johnson’s movie the Scorpion King. It provides a history for the character Mathayus but it stars an actor who looks almost nothing like Dwayne Johnson (The original Mathayus). I guess we aren’t supposed to think about that. Sort of like we were not supposed to think about how unlikely it would be for Zac Efron to grow up to be Mathew Perry in the movie 17 Again. There is a quest to far off lands and even the underworld. There is a female warrior on hand to lend support and maybe be a love interest, and a British actor suppling narration to give the proceedings an epic feel. I liked some of the action scenes. Some of the effects aren’t good but this movie is almost ten years old...

Stu Bennett stars as a ex British special forces member looking into the death of a friend. Bennet fought Scott Adkins in Eliminators and he brings his presence to this film. He is big at 6’7”, he can fight convincingly on screen, and he takes no crap. This is not revolutionary. It is a good action movie, though. Gary Daniels is on hand as one of the villains, it is nice to see him again. He and Bennett have a good fight. Bennett was a wrestler before he became an actor. He is serviceable in the nonfighting parts but he probably won’t challenge Dwayne Johnson in a charm contest any time soon.This is his first starring role. I’d like to see him in another movie.

Will Ferrell and Amy Poehler star as a married couple in this movie who don’t have the money to send their daughter to college. They were counting on her getting a scholarship from the town, so they need to find a way to pay when that scholarship vanishes. With the help of a friend they open an illegal casino in their home. This is bad. The idea seems like it could be funny but I didn’t laugh. Ferrell’s character cannot do math, that is a running joke that doesn’t work. (I think that came up three or four times.) Okay, I guess it is nice that Poehler isn’t a nag and is a partner in the zaniness. I am not sure the problem is. Did the movie jump too fast into outrageousness? Would a slower build to outrageousness be funnier? Maybe. Is there a term for a running joke that doesn’t work?

Someone once told me a bad comedy is worse than a bad action movie or a bad horror movie. I have thought about that from time to time. I was not sure if that was right but I have seen some pretty bad comedies in the last four years or so. It would be unfair to review Baywatch because I never finished it and might have watched less than half of it. So, this is a not a review.  It might be the worst movie I have seen in the last two years. I think This Is Forty was possibly the worst film I have seen in the last six years. The movie is smug or mean spirited or both. Johnson comes off as unlikeable at times,which is odd. (The only other movie where he comes across as this unlikeable is Faster but that was intentional.) Zac Efron comes across better than Johnson. Alexandria Daddario is likeable but she got sidelined a lot. This movie is worse than the Will Ferrell/Amy Poehler movie the House, which itself is pretty freaking bad. However I was able to watch most of the House, so B...

The new Bohemian Rhapsody movie about Freddie Mercury is apparently bad. Early reviews I have seen were pretty negative. The movie does feature the band’s music, so maybe some people will buy the soundtrack album. Venom made a lot of money. I enjoyed it but I am surprised by how much money it made. I guess there will be sequels. I could rewatch Halloween 5 but I am not sure if I will. I remember liking it. Maybe I will but I won’t rewatch Halloween 6. Maybe it is not as bad as I remember but it might be and I remember it being pretty bad. I don’t think it could be worse than I remember it. I wonder if Incredibles 2 will hold up on rewatch. I enjoyed it but I liked the first one a lot and maybe I expected too much from the sequel.

Midnight Run is an action comedy with Robert De Niro as a bounty hunter named Jack Walsh and Charles Grodin as the criminal named Jonathan Mardukas. People call Johnathan the Duke. Jack is offered $100000 to bring the Duke in. It sounds simple. It turns out not to be (otherwise it wouldn’t be a movie). I have not seen this in a few years, I guess it dropped off the cable channels. It holds up. Jack and Jonathan spend a lot of time on screen together and have a mostly combative relationship but it warms at times. Jonathan feels if he goes to jail, he will be killed. So he is trying to escape.  I thought the two lead actors worked well together. There is another bounty hunter in the movie named Marvin. Marvin might be effective at times but he is not too bright. At times he and Jack clash over potential bounties. Yahpet Kotto co-stars as an FBI agent chasing them and Dennis Farrina co-stars as the mobster who worried that his former accountant might turn state’s evidence. They ...

As film critic Witney Seibold once said, Rainbow Connection is a cheap shot. This has nothing to do with the Scorpion King but I just heard the song and it is cheating to use that song. The Scorpion King was Dwayne Johnson’s first starring role. It is not a bad movie but Johnson does not show his charm or at least not as much as he’d show in later movies. In this one, Johnson plays a warrior out to kill an evil warlord. The action bits are well staged. Roger Ebert liked it but he was a little harsh towards Kelly Hu. Maybe her performance seemed a little less natural than others in the cast but she was playing a sorceress. Perhaps she was going for otherworldly or mysterious but it did not work out. (Also to be fair, I have no idea what the director wanted her to do.) She later became a voice actress for some animated TV shows, so maybe she got better at acting. Johnson got better too. There are four more of these movies that went straight to video.

I still like Halloween 4 the Return of Michael Meyers. I know that it is popular to pretend all Halloween sequels,except the new one,are terrible. Some of them are, I guess. Danielle Harris stars as Jamie Lloyd, the niece of Michael Meyers. Her parents are dead but the movie doesn’t say how long they’ve been dead. When Michael learns of her existence, he escapes from the ambulance transporting him to a new location, which probably was nicer than the place he’d been kept for years. Doctor Loomis is pursuit and he has a limp and a cane. The burn makeup on his face is not great though. (I think it was altered after some of the film had been shot.)Donald Pleasence was irreplaceable as Loomis in this franchise. People try to tell Loomis that Michael is just a man but Loomis knows better. I am not saying this is as good as the original. That would be a lie. It has some strong points though and I thought the cast was pretty good. Danielle Harris carries this film on her back. Ellie Corn...

Hooper was a 1978 movie staring Burt Reynolds as Sonny Hooper, the best stuntman in the industry. He is getting older and the injuries are starting to take their toll on him. His doctor tells Hooper that another injury to his back or neck could kill or cripple him. James Best costars as Hooper’s vest friend and confidant Cully. Sally Field costars as Hooper’s love interest, Gwen. (They might have been dating in real life around the time the movie was made.) Brian Keith plays her father, Jocko, who was once a great stuntman. Jan Michael Vincent stars as Ski, a young and upcoming stuntman. Ski wants to be the best. He and Hooper develop a friendship. Well maybe a friendship of sorts might be a better description. There is a dangerous car stunt that the director(Robert Klein) wants to use to end the movie. Hooper wants $50,000. The director and Hooper don’t get along. This was fun.There was a bar fight that got out of control and Gwen tried to continue to end her diner.  Later...

Attitudes change and some things are not as acceptable as they once were. Movies reflect the time they were made. Like the Arthur movies with Dudley Moore, he was a loveable drunk in the first one. In the second one made seven or eight years later, he gives up drinking which shows a change in how drinking was viewed. I don’t remember the last time I saw a lovable drunk in a movie. Also in a couple of movies from the 1980s, male heroes gave woman who didn’t drink or shouldn’t drink alcohol. Now that would be seen as creepy. Smoking is not seen as often in movies as it once was. It used to be considered glamorous. Maybe I am wrong and I am missing all the films where people smoke but I don’t see a lot of smoking in movies.

Halloween 2018 is well crafted. It contends, like Halloween H20 did, that most or all the sequels to the original did not happen. (I might still have DVDs of Halloween 4 and 5 though.) In this movie Laurie Strode has spent forty years preparing for Michael Myers to return. She is estranged from her daughter but might be on better terms with her granddaughter. After some journalists/podcasts try to interview Michael or at provoke him to say something, Michael escapes a transport bus to a new holding facility.(I am not sure what they expected him to say. He hadn’t spoken for about forty years.) He heads back to his hometown and he gets up to his old tricks. The movie is good enough I guess but some of the implications of the plot are creepy. I am not sure if the filmmakers meant this or not. The musical theme might have been updated and like the original film, it is not overtly gory. On average the Friday the 13th movies have more gore than the Halloween series. Andi Matichak is l...

Denzil Washington stars in this adaption of the novel by Walter Mosley. He plays Easy Rawlings and he is hired to find a woman. He has not done this type of work before but he needs the money. It sounds like easy money. It is after World War II in Los Angeles. It is not a bad movie but is not great. If you like a private eye movie, you might like this one. Washington is good as always and Don Cheadle has a supporting role. I enjoyed the narration by Washington. It is good but not compelling. Roger Ebert said he enjoyed it up to a point but didn’t feel very engaged by the plot. I might want to watch it again next year. I think it is worth seeing once. Mosley wrote at least five novels featuring Easy Rawlings but this was the only one made into a film. I guess it was not a big hit. It might be nice to see Washington return to the role.

I will not spoil the plot surprises in this posting. (Yes, this movie is ten years old but this movie has a few surprises that revealing might lessen your enjoyment of the film.) Trick r Treat is a Halloween based horror movie set in a small town. Several plots are happening and intersecting. These include A group of young women are looking for dates but there is something odd in the way they are talking about it Some teenagers are visiting an abandoned place where a horrorific event happened long ago A principal is up to sinister things A mysterious masked figure moves the night observing things  I thought this was interesting. There are some good performanaces especially from the young cast and I thought the movie was creepy without being overly gory. Some things are left to the imagination and there is some misdirection. I am not sure why this did not go to theaters. Brian Cox, Anna Paquin, and Dylan Baker star in this movie.

Gymkata is a silly movie. At one point the hero tells a villain to put his hardware back into his pants. (He was referring to knives.)This is not to suggest the movie is terrible. (It might be though.) This movie features a man combining karate and gymnastics into a new fighting style. You either go for this kind of nonsense or you don’t. It is fun. Some of the fight scenes are good. Richard Norton is on hand on as a villain. Kurt Thomas was an Olympian but as an actor, he is not great. (He did not have a long acting career after this.) I might have seen worse or less likable action heroes in my time. I did like his ability to do a backflip. Thomas plays Jonathan Cabot and he is recruited by US government to take part in a contest called the Game (the rules of which aren’t really explained) in a country called Parmistan and if he wins the US will get to deploy a statelite from Parmistan. The country has conviently located props for Jonathan to use his gymnastics skills while fighti...

The original Halloween came out in 1978. It was directed by John Carpenter, who also composed the theme music. It stared Jamie Lee Curtis in her first major role. (John Carpenter liked the fact that her mother Janet Leigh stared in Pyscho.) The story is simple, a six year boy named Michael Meyers kills his older sister on Halloween night. He is locked up in an asylum but fifteen years later he breaks out and heads home to Haddonfeild, Illinois. He kills people and also visits his old home. The impact of Halloween is hard to overstate. Made on a low budget it was a massive hit. There have been several sequels and a remake (which got a sequel) and its success inspired the Friday the 13th series. It led to Jamie Lee Curtis making other horror films like Prom Night and Terror Train. It is interesting to rewatch this, I think it has been at least six years since I’ve watched it. I noticed how unhinged Dr. Loomis, played by Donald Pleasance, seems in this first film but that only is ap...

The Goosebumps sequel is not bad. Maybe the original is a bit better. However I thought this sequel was pretty good.  It has a 42% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Slappy the evil dummy returns after he is released from unpublished (and unfinished) RL Stine novel. He causes trouble but he wants a family. The trouble he causes are revenge for things that happened to the family he wanted to join. He also brings things like Halloween decorations to life and he also causes some people in costumes to become what they are dressed as. This is not as good as the first movie. It might need more Jack Black. As I said, I thought this was a fun movie. Maybe I am feeling generous. http://www.joblo.com/horror-movies/news/goosebumps-2-haunted-halloween-movie-review-669 I think this review of  the film is fair.

I reserve the option to cover made for TV movies on this blog. The 1972 TV movie holds up. It stared Darren McGavin as reporter Carl Kolchak. There is a string of unusual murders in Los Vegas. Kolchak starts to believe there is a vampire on the loose in Los Vegas. McGavin is really good as Kolchak. It might not be his best known role, that might be his role as the father in A Christmas story. McGavin also played Mike Hammer on TV. McGavin provides narration, which I liked. The action scenes are well staged. The creepy sequences work and the supporting performances are good. The music score is good too but not overpowering. This is worth seeing if you haven’t seen it and worth re-watching if you have. Next week, I will re-watch the sequel to this movie, the Night Strangler.

Maybe being slightly late to theaters is working for me. Last two or three movies I arrived a little late and missed a few coming attractions. I like coming attractions but there are too many. More than five is too many. Roger Ebert was right about Switching Channels, a 1980s remake of His Girl Friday with Burt Reynolds, Kathleen Turner, and Christopher Reeves. It is not terrible but each star made better movies and this is not a classic. Apparently some old James Cameron movies are not available to stream or buy digitally. Also there are not new physical copies for some of his movies either. Cameron’s deal with the studios means that he has to approve new transfers but he is too busy with his Avatar plans to do anything else. (That is the rumor at least.) I don’t do a bottom ten films of the year list. I go to a fair amount of movies but I skip a lot of movies that I don’t think will interest me. I tend to like the movies I go to see. So I don’t see all the major releases.

I decided to see Venom. I did not feel interested in A Star is Born today. (I don’t know exactly but I might check up with a Star is Born later.) Venom is not bad, it is not great. It is nice to see Michelle Williams on screen and I like Tom Hardy. Upgrade might be a lot better. That is a subject for another time. I guess Venom can work without a connection to Spider-man. I enjoyed it and don’t regret seeing it at theaters but within a few weeks I will just remember that I liked. This is not a strong endorsement and I admit that. However if anyone tells this movie is as bad as Catwoman, I think that person might not have seen Catwoman in a while. (I haven’t.) The plot such as it is, has Eddie Brock working as a reporter investigating an organization called the Life Foundation. He gets fired but he was right, there were sinister things happening at the Life Foundation and he gets bonded with an alien symbiot. Together they are Venom.

Olivier Gruner stars as a French graduate student in America who helps a family dealing with a Latino street gang.  Gruner is also a kickboxer. The college is not identified but it could be USC or UCLA. I liked this movie. Gruner is a likeable hero. Yes, he probably got into movies because of Jean-Claude Van Damme’s success. The movie lacks a opponent worthy of Gruner’s skills but there are a lot of opponents to beat down.  While none of the individual fights are great, they are fun. Maybe the Latino gang is a bit stereotypical. Okay, it is sterotypical. Also at one point Gruner is called a frog and he calls that person a raghead. (It was the nineties.) This was Gruner’s first movie. It is probably not his best. If you are a fan, you might want to see it again. I might explore the Blu-Ray special features later.