Sean’s movie thoughts

To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before, a Netflix movie, is based on a novel by Jenny Han. Lana Condor stars as Laura Jean, a girl who wrote letters to her crushes but never intended to send them. One day the letters get out. Then she starts a fake relationship with Peter, one of her crushes. Lana Condor is really good in this movie. It would be nice to see her play this character again (Han wrote two other sequels to the novel this movie is based on). Noah Centineo plays Peter and he is good too. Israel Broussard has a supporting role and Laura’s father is played by John Corbett. Maybe the plot is predictable but aren’t all romantic comedies kind of predictable? Also the plot moves at a good pace and the characters are likable. It is nice to see a romantic comedy again after Set It Up. Maybe Netflix will be the home of the genre.  Maybe Han’s other novels might come to Netflix.

BlacKKKlansman was good. Adam Driver and John David Washington were good. Supporting cast was good too. I heard this was inspired by true events and a book about those events published in 2014. It is a little creepy at times. It is set in the 1970s. Peppermint opens in a few weeks. This time a woman is out for revenge after her family was murdered. (I guess this is fair.) Jennifer Garner stars. It might be terrible but maybe it won’t be terrible. People did not flock to The Happytime Murders. I am not too surprised. It looks pretty bad.

I thought the Wedding Ringer would go the whole movie without make a short joke about Kevin Hart. It didn’t. It did go over half the movie without making a short joke. In this movie Kevin Hart plays a man who pretends to someone’s best friend/best man. Apparently there are enough men getting married who don’t have a friend who can be their best man to make this job work. (I doubt anyone in real life has such a job.) Josh Gad plays the man getting married who needs a best man and seven groomsmen. Gad and Hart are fun together. There is a nice dance sequence with them. Hart is more likable here than I have seen him in a lot of movies. He shouts a bit less often than he does in other movies. This is not great but it is likable. There is a touch football game scene/sequence that could have been removed without harming the film. Kaley Cucco stars as the bride to be and her character is not likable at all. I am not saying she was bad, she was not. There is a side character who is pre...

I like Action Point. It is a movie about a man running a wild amusement park in the 1970s and dealing with his estranged daughter. Someone wants to buy the park and there is a competing park nearby. It stars Johnny Knoxville of Jackass fame. The actress playing his daughter is good, she might pop up in other things.  Knoxville is in old man makeup for some scenes, not great makeup, telling the story to his granddaughter. I am not sure why this movie needs the segments of Knoxville in old man makeup but the scenes with his granddaughter are kind of sweet. Also I guess the movie would be too short without them. I should not give the movie too much credit for being under 2 hours but I like a short movie occasionally. There is also some nice music on the soundtrack. I like some of the stunts and Knoxville is pretty likeable in this movie.

This movie is about a trial of a gun maker after one of their guns is used in a mass shooting. (The gun was bought legally and then quickly resold illegally. This seemed to happen a lot.) A jury consultant is taking to help the defense and stack the jury in the defense’s favor. Someone sends a note to the lawyers and the jury consultant  saying that they can swing the jury for a price. John Cusack and Rachel Weisz co-star as the couple manipulating the jury. He is on the inside, she is on the outside. Cusack is likeable as always. Gene Hackman is good as the jury consultant and Dustin  Hoffman is good as the plaintiff’s lawyer. This is a good movie but it is not realistic. The jury consultant has people working for him doing illegal things. Also the defense lawyer almost seems to work for the jury consultant.

Warlock came out in 1991. It was completed in 1989. The special effects are dated now (and might not have been great at the time either) but the movie still holds up. Julian Sands stars as the Warlock and he wants to collect the pieces of the grand grimorie and destroy the world. He is really good in this role. Richard E. Grant stars as the witch hunter Redferne who comes out of the past to fight the Warlock. Lea Thompson stars as Kassandra a modern woman who gets mixed up in this. This feels a bit like a supernatural Terminator. The three main actors are all good. There are a few funny moments where Redferne encounters 20th century things. There was an unexpected comment about the Tampa Bay Buccaneers that made me laugh. I remember liking the first sequel but I have not seen it in a long time. I might have seen the second sequel but I don’t remember it.

The Marvel Cinematic Universe Thor is not the Thor I grew up reading about in Marvel comics. In some ways they are the same character but there are differences. MCU Thor is more jokey and less regal than the comic book Thor. This is okay and it is similar to how the Batman from the 1980s comics is different than the Batman from the current comics or current movies. I am not sure about the new Predator movie. I guess it could be good but I am not expecting too much. Maybe it will be a surprise. I never saw Predators or if I did it made no impact on me, so maybe it is time again to see the Predator on the big screen. Joel Mchale is in the naughty puppet movie, the Happytime Murders. It looks bad or desperate or both. (Maybe both.) Maybe it is not as bad as it looks. Maybe I will wake up tomorrow being able to sing like Josh Groban and draw like John Romita jr. I wish McHale had a better movie career, he is a talented guy. Oh well, he will probably be back on tv soon.