Sean’s movie thoughts

 Michael Jai White returns in Welcome to Sudden Death, a remake of Sudden Death. (I guess it could be a sequel.) It is almost nice to see Michael Jai White (his movie Undercover Brother 2 being an exception). This is good, not great.  Michael plays a security guard, who used to be a special forces soldier, who takes his kids to a basketball game.(The NBA is not featured, this movie has a league called the NBL. Why the NBA is not featured, I am not sure.) A gang has taken over the stadium. The fight scenes were good but I am not sure that any one really stood out over the others. Michael Eklund was good as the head of the villains. If I have one compliant, I think there was a bit too much comic relief.  This is on Netflix and it is worth checking out.

The Old Guard is a Netflix original movie about immortal warriors (I guess it could be considered similar to Highlander). It stars Charlize Theron. I had heard good things about it. I started to watch it. I did not finish it. I guess I lost interest after about 45 minutes or so. It is not awful but I did not care what would happen in the rest of the film. I was not interested in whatever sinister plans the drug company had. That seems a fair time to stop watching the film. Maybe I expected too much.  I am not sure why I did not connect with this movie (or get invested in it). It is not terrible and the acting was not the reason I did not connect with it(at least I don't think that was the reason). Maybe if there is a sequel, I might give the sequel a chance or maybe I will give this movie another chance.

 Tales from the Crypt Demon Knight is decent. I think I saw it once many years ago. I did not care for the intro and closing framing segments with the Crypt Keeper. They were not terrible but I think they could have been shorter.  The set up is fairly simple. Billy Zane (the Collector)is a demon and he has chased William Saddler's character (Brayker) to a run down hotel that used to be a church. Braker has something the Collector wants. The people in the hotel get caught up in the events. The Collector is a demon and he wants a key that will allow him to destroy reality.  Zane is really good in this. I think without him, this would not work. He is a fun villain. I liked William Saddler as the hero and I thought Jada Pinket was good in her role. Thomas Hayden Church played a jerk, he was good at it though. The demons looked good and the movie moves at a good pace. The situation is explained quickly too. This was good, maybe I will re-watch it next year. 

I tried the Ugly Truth.  I wanted to see if it is as bad as its reputation. I've seen an article that suggests that this is the worst romantic comedy ever . I gave up after about 24 minutes. I found both characters annoying or at least hard to like. I guess the movie could have gotten better but I won't know if it did. I really don't see me giving this movie another chance.  Maybe this is not as bad as its reputation but this the quickest I remember bailing on a romantic comedy in years. If I had gone to a movie theater and paid about $20-25 or so for a ticket, a popcorn, and a soda, I might have given this another twenty minutes or so to improve. I guess if I found the characters less annoying, I might have given it more time.  Is this worse than the Baywatch movie? Probably not. I am still surprised by how much I did not care for the Baywatch movie. Soon it will be time to retire the Baywatch movie as the current standard for bad movies. I think sometime next year, I will

 Tom Hardy is going to be the new James Bond according to some sources. It is still somewhat unofficial. Good for him. Hardy will be good. I guess Daniel Craig is really done (which is okay). I was not worried about who would be the next James Bond because I have liked all the James Bonds but George Lazenby, so I figured the producers would find someone good. I am tempted to watch some bad romantic comedies to see if they are as bad as their reputations suggest.  I was thinking of the Ugly Truth and How to Lose A Guy in 10 Days, both have bad reputations. The Ugly Truth has been called the worst romantic comedy ever. How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days is one of the romantic comedies that started critics wondering if they overrated Matthew McConaughey. If I do watch these films, I will say if they live down to their reputations. I could add Failure to Launch to this watching but maybe it might be best to go slowly.

Daisey Ridley herself revealed that the subject of Rey's parentage was changing during filming of Rise of Skywalker. That the writer and director went back and forth on the subject. I guess hearing that makes the way the film turn out less of a surprise. I think someone will write a book about this mini-era of Star Wars and it will be amazing. Maybe that will make up, in a small way, for the way the movies turned out. Filming of the Batman has shut down because Robert Pattinson caught covid. The Candyman remake has been pushed back to next year. The director says the film needs to be seen in theaters and that is why the movie was pushed back. (I guess it is good that she is proud of the film but films need to be seen, it doesn't matter where they are seen.) Wonder Woman 1984 has been pushed back to Christmas but it will probably be pushed back again. I re-watched I am Vengeance Retaliation recently and while it was nice to see Jean-Paul Lye,  the film could have used more of hi

I don’t know when I bought Doom Annihilation. I watched it recently. It was decent, maybe a bit more than decent. Soldiers came to a base on Phobos, a moon of Mars, to investigate after a  base there lost communication with Earth. There are monsters on the base and there is a gate that they are coming through. Now the soldiers just need to find a way to stay alive. There is a scientist among the soldiers and he has a past with a female soldier in the group. Maybe a bit more could have done with that. Maybe some of the soldiers needed a bit more of a backstory or maybe it might have better to show the backstory of the one of the soldiers instead of just relating it.  Maybe I was feeling generous but I liked it. I thought the monsters were good (I think most of them were men in suits) and I liked some of the soldiers and some of the other characters. Maybe I won’t ever re-watch this but I enjoyed it.  

 Jean Cluade Van Damme stars in this action thriller as a fire marshal coming off sort of professional disaster. He takes his two kids to a hockey game (a Stanley Cup finals game) but the vice president is taken hostage inside the owner's box. Powers Boothe stars as the head of the bad guys. Circumstances put Van Damme's character in an unexpected hero's role.   This is good but it might take a while longer to heat up than I remembered. I had not seen it in a while but with a remake coming out later this month, it seemed a good time to watch it. It might not be one of Van Damme's best. (One day I need to make a top five list for Van Damme's movies.) I think Final Score with Dave Bautista might be a little better. Maybe I like Bautista as a leading man better than Van Damme. 

Apparently Screen Rant has an article saying that James Cameron  can save the Terminator franchise. (I think the article says only James Cameron can save the Terminator franchise.) I don't read Screen Rant, so I am not going to link to the article. (I read fewer online film websites on a regular basis than I did a year ago. I am not sure why.) Should the Terminator franchise be saved though? That is an interesting question to me. The Terminator franchise has Six movies a spin-off TV series comics (including fights against Robocop, and the Transformers) novels video games That is not bad (Robocop vs Terminator is pretty good). Maybe the Terminator had its day in movie theaters and maybe new franchises can spring up. Maybe this franchise could still exist outside of movies. I enjoyed the last Terminator movie but it lost money and the one before that reportedly just broke even. Maybe the audience has spoken and it is not profitable to make Terminator movies unless you re