Sean’s movie thoughts

 If in a low budget action movie an actor playing an executive assistant looks like he can carry a truck, his character will be a villain and be in a fight scene. This is the rule.  If a horror series seems like it has reached a natural ending point but the last film made money, there will be a prequel.  Halloween IV is the second best Halloween. Halloween Resurrection might be the second worst from what I have heard. (I think I have seen it years ago but I plan to watch or re-watch it soon.) Halloween Curse of Michael Myers might be the worst Halloween film. (Am I ignoring Halloween Season of the Witch? Possibly.) The Blob remake is underappreciated. I am not sure.  I am not sure why but Russell Crowe’s character calling Tom Cruise’s character young man makes me smile.

 Dave Baustia stars as a hitman who gets told he is going to die from an incurable disease. This is at the same time as he is starting a romance with a ballet dancer played by Sophia Boutella. He puts a hit on himself. He gets a call from the doctor and is told he is not dying. He cannot call off the hit. I liked it. It was nice to see Marko Zaror and Daniel Bernhardt in supporting roles. Bernhardt is underappreciated. Terry Crews is on hand as another assassin and I am thought he was good. The action scenes are good.  Ben Kingsley has a supporting role. It was nice to see him. In one scene, his wife is offscreen and asks if their visitor knows what time it is. “Yes dear, he owns a watch” was Kingsley’s reply and that made me smile. I know Kingsley was put in the movie to add a touch of class and well, it worked. There is not too much humor. (Yeah, I know. I still complain about too much humor or comic relief from time to time.)

I did not finish the new Salem’s Lot. I don’t blame the actors. I think the writer/director made some bad choices. I don’t like how the film started. I think it was the wrong choice. Also there should have more mystery.  The novel is large and has a large cast of characters. Maybe some of the choices were made to ensure the movie was less than 2 hours long. The previous two live action adaptations were both TV mini-series and in hindsight that makes sense. Going back to the idea of mystery, maybe the writer/director felt that since this is a 3rd adaptation of the story that people already know the story. I think that was the wrong approach. Or maybe the writer/director was given a runtime he had to meet and decided to cut some mystery from the film. I am not sure if I will go back to finish the movie or re-watch it. Stephen King saw this and really liked it. His posting about film might have saved it from being destroyed for tax reasons. I don’t get what he saw in this film that I did