Sean’s movie thoughts

I watched the New One-Armed Swordsman. It is good. The star David Chiang also made the Wandering Swordsman and Have Sword Will Travel. (I might to re-watch one this year.)They might have been more fun than this one. In this one a new One-armed Swordsman emerges and fights to avenge a friend. Later I will watch Return of the One-armed Swordsman. There are rumors that more Star Wars movies will be announced at Star Wars celebration in May. I thought the franchise had transitioned to streaming TV. Oh well, it could be fun to see what is announced and to see online reaction. I  wonder would have happened if the directors of Solo weren’t fired and then almost 70 percent of the film wasn’t reshoot. Would that Obi-wan show had been a movie instead? Some of the Trancers sequels are streaming. I am not sure if I would want to buy any of these sequels but it is nice to know they are available. 

 I got the recent Trancers 4K Blu-Blu-ray. It was fun to re-watch. This is a 1985 low budget movie from writer\director Charles Band. There are five sequels and I have seen most of them. A cop named Jack Deth (it is pronounced as Death) comes from the 23rd century to prevent a criminal from that time murdering people whose descendants became important people.  People's minds\personalities are sent back but not their bodies. However objects can be sent back. (I forget the time travel rules of films.) The villain is named Whistler and he has some kind of psychic control over the weak-willed. He turns them into trancers. Trancers seem normal but turn into rampaging killers.  This had Helen Hunt before Mad About You, so that is kind of interesting. She is really likeable as the girl caught up in a strange situation. I don't know if she looks back at these films fondly or not(she is in some of the sequels).   It is fun, I liked Tim Thomerson as Deth. (He might be the...

Dragonslayer is a movie from 1981. A dragon is terrorizing a small kingdom but the king has made a deal with the dragon that sacrifices young women in a lottery system. Some people in the kingdom don't think this is right so they look for a wizard to kill the dragon. Things happen and the sorcerer's apprentice takes up the quest. I bought the new Blu-ray and I thought the film holds up. For a movie from 1981, I thought the special effects were good. That is a good looking dragon. (Maybe there are movies from the last ten years where the effects have dated more.)  I thought the acting was good, I really liked Ralph Richardson as the sorcerer.  I liked Peter MacNicol as the apprentice. I thought the human villains were pretty good. I think it was worth seeing again. 

 Marko Zaror is an action star from Chile. His films from Chile include Redeemer, and Fist of the Condor (his most recent solo movie). He has been in some American movies like Undisputed 3:Redemption and Savage Dog as a villain against Scott Adkins. Marko has a role in John Wick Chapter 4. (I don't know how big a role.) As much as I like Undisputed 3, the new John Wick movie will possibly be Marko's breakthrough role in America.  Fist of the Condor will be released on Blu-ray and DVD in America. I am not an expert on Chilean cinema but this seems a bit unusual.

If you think the new Shazam movie will be good, go see it. If you think it won't be good, don't go see it. Enjoy the movie for what it is. If you aren't going because you worry there won't be a sequel, I guess that is your choice but why miss out on a good movie? In a few years you might lose interest in superhero movies. I still haven't seen the Batman. I don't know why. I guess I will get to it someday.  I saw Teen Wolf the movie. It is okay. I don't think I would buy it on physical media if it ever comes out on physical media. Maybe if this leads to a spin-off series, it will come to physical media. One of the Amrican Pie Presents (direct to video spin-offs) seems to have popped up on Netflix. It is not the first one though and none of the main American Pie movies are on Netflix at this time.

John Wick Chapter 4 opens soon. (There is no subtitle this time. I guess the writers could not think of one they liked.) I wonder if the movie will be a launching pad for Marko Zaror and Scott Adkins. Marko is from Chile and has made a few appearances in American films. (He was in Undisputed 3, which everyone has seen or should see.) Scott is the current direct to video action king.   I still think there are plot holes in some of the John Wick movies you could drive a truck through. I think some of the lore makes no sense. Are there enough people hiring high class assassins to support this infrastructure? Or are there enough high class assassins working to support a special hotel chain? Most early reviews so far are positive but there have been a few negative reviews.  I will be curious to see how the reviews come in and if a lot of people go opening weekend.

 A movie I saw in 2021 (and I thought I reviewed for this blog) is gone apparently. I got confused and reviewed the movie (or at least talked about it) on my podcast but not my blog.  (Oh well.)  It is not on any streaming service, at least not according to the two searches I did. It apparently can’t be digitally rented or bought. It is not on physical media, maybe it never was, and now the film appears to be just gone. It was a film from 2016. Maybe it was not a classic film but that film is less than 10 years old and it is just gone. (I guess there could be an illegal copy on You Tube but maybe there isn’t.) I am not mentioning the name of the film. This is not as much about the specific film as much as my shock  on how fleeting streaming is. This film came out at a film festival in 2016, was reviewed by the Hollywood Reporter, and now just seems to be gone. The 1998 horror movie Pumpkinhead, for example, is streaming on some sites  and available for digital r...