Sean’s movie thoughts

If you cannot figure out how to make Superman relevant, that is not a problem with the character. Warner Brothers is apparently having a hard time figuring out what to do with Superman. Oh well, I guess I am not surprised. Man of Steel is not terrible but it missed the point of the character. It is less than a month until Star Wars the Rise of Skywalker. I hope it is good. I have no idea if it will be good. I hope it is shorter than the Last Jedi. It felt really long. Then apparently there will be an announcement about the next Star Wars movie in January. Charlie’s Angels bombed. Terminator Dark Fate bombed. Doctor Sleep also bombed. The last month was not good for some studios.

I am not sure why Charlie's Angels bombed. I have heard it is good and the previews looked decent but it bombed. I am not sure why. I was not up for a movie last weekend, so I did not go. Maybe people just were not interested in this film. Maybe nobody wanted a new Charlie's Angels movie. Maybe people just thought this was not a franchise to revisit. Or maybe people felt like it was something they could wait to see on cable. Frozen 2 opens this weekend, maybe some people were waiting for that. Taking a family of four or five to a movie does add up. Terminator Dark Fate bombed and so did Doctor Sleep. I kind of understand why Terminator Dark Fate bombed. Maybe Doctor Fate would have done better if it came out before Halloween.

Doctor Sleep is pretty good. This is the movie based off the Stephen King novel that is a sequel to the Shining. It is a sequel to the movie of the Shining, which King hates. (There are some differences between the novel and the movie.) Danny Torance still has the shining, the psychic ability, and he has moved to a small town.  He is in rough shape from what happened to him as a child. He is not the only one with this power in his little town and there is a group of people who kill people to steal their psychic ability or their souls (the movie could have been clearer about this) and they are coming for a teenage girl in the town. Danny decides to help her. It is good. The only complaint I have is it uses a lot of spooky music. It felt a bit too much at times but otherwise the film is pretty good. (I don’t know if this is a quirk of the director or just a trend in horror movies.) The performances are good. It is a long movie but it moves at a good pace. The situation is interes...

It seems odd to say Eddie Murphy is making a comeback but he has had a lower profile in the last few years. He had a few flops but what star hasn't?  His new film Dolemite is My Name is on Netflix. It is about actor Rudy Ray Moore who made Dolemite in the 1970s. I am not sure how true to life it is but I liked the film. This movie is good. It features a largely African-American cast and I did not recognize Wesley Snipes at first. (It was good to see him though.) Murphy is good and so are the other cast members. Chris Rock has a small part. it is interesting to see the process of making Dolemite and the process of promoting it. I usually like movies about making movies. It is good.

Terminator Dark Fate might come across better or have more impact if Terminator Genesis had not come out. It is fun to see an old man Terminator but we just saw that in Genesis. Otherwise this is a good movie but not great. I am not going to go in plot details. I think the performances are fine, even if some actors don’t get a lot of chances to show some personality. The film feels a bit like Terminator 2 in at least broad story points. Reports are this film cost between 180 and 196 million dollars. Maybe Arnold Schwarzenegger and James Cameron got nice paychecks but that total still seems a bit high. I thought special effects were getting cheaper. It was nice to see Linda Hamilton back, in a move possibly inspired by Halloween 2018. Mackenzie Davis is good as Grace, the soldier from the future but she needed more character moments. The box office is not good and this might kill the franchise. We will see. I guess marketing can’t really tell that a film won’t do well at the box...

Red Heat is a movie from 1988 with James Belushi and Arnold Schwarzenegger as two mismatched cops working together. Schwarzenegger is from the Soviet Union and Belushi is working in Chicago when Arnold comes to town to get a criminal from his country. The director was Walter Hill. I like James Belushi. I think he is likable in this one. He and Schwarzenegger make a nice team. Schwarzenegger is a by the book cop and Belushi is not but the Soviet police might allow things that the Chicago cops don’t. I don’t think they ever worked together again. This is a bit like 48 Hours, which Hill also directed. The action is good. The villain is creepy. The supporting cast includes Lawrence Fishbourne, so it was nice to see him. Roger Ebert gave this film  3 stars. That seems fair. I have the new 4K Blu-ray.