Sean’s movie thoughts

 I liked Life After Fighting. This film is set in Australia. Actor Brent Foster directed and wrote this movie. He stars as a former professional fighter named Alex who now teaches martial arts. He gets involved with a student’s parent, probably not the wisest idea. She has a ex-husband, who seems like a bad guy. Two girls, one is the daughter of a woman who works for Alex, are kidnapped. The plotting is not great. Perhaps the movie is 30 minutes longer than it needs to be. There is one subplot the movie could have (and maybe should have) dropped .  Foster is likable in the lead role and the last thirty or forty minutes are amazing as Alex fights the villains as they invade his dojo.  The last 30 or 40 minutes are as almost as good as the last act of City of Violence. If you have never seen the City of Violence, you might not appreciate this comment but I really like the City of Violence. I am not familiar with Foster but if he gets to make another movie, I’d be really int...

Some recent movies did not open well. People started to say that movie theaters were dying. Movies are not cheap if you include popcorn and a drink. Maybe people are just being selective in movies they see in theaters. I saw a sat a few years back that the average American goes to four movies a year. Well maybe if that is still true, some movies are going to bomb. (I'd have to check the stat.) Reasons not to go to movie theater Cost including the drink and popcorn Behavior of other people in the theater There are a lot of combing attractions now, maybe it is just me but after the fifth coming attraction I want the movie to start Movies supposedly start at 1:30 pm but really start at closer to 1:50 pm or 1:55 pm Comfort of seeing movies at home Some of these movie theaters have 16 screens but at least three or four movies are on multiple screens, so the variety of films playing is less than you might expect Romantic comedies have largely moved to streaming in the last five or six ye...

 I think this movie might be trying to do too much. Maybe the classic Ghostbusters did not need to be here. Perhaps the torch was passed in the last movie.  Also maybe since this is the fifth or sixth movie I watched this week and I listened to a bunch of podcasts, I kind of forgot who a couple of the supporting characters were for a moment or so. Perhaps the film did not reintroduce the characters well. (Heh.) I think the Stay Puff Marshmallow men did not need to be in this movie. There were not in the movie a lot but if there is another one of these movies, they don’t need to be brought back. We already have the Minions, we don’t need c grade Minions. I did not hate this film. It is not as successful as some of the other movies I saw this week (in terms of what the movies were trying to do). Some reviews of this movie mentioned there were a lot of callbacks to the first movie. There were some but they didn’t bring the movie to a halt.  (Camoes from the original cast pla...

I liked The Fall Guy. It might been a bit long but not really long. The movie is not bombing but the budget might have been too high. It was nice to hear Phill Collins in a movie. (A few years back John Denver's songs were featured in a few movies.) I might have used another Taylor Swift song, that one seemed a bit too obvious a choice. Maybe Emily Blunt was not the best choice for leading lady, maybe Emma Stone would have worked better.  Orlando Bloom stars in a movie called Red Right Hand. He is good in it. It is a thriller by the director of Small Town Crime, which is either underrated or under known. This is a story of a man being drawn back into crime. (I think his brother-in-law owes money to some bad people.) I think I might re-watch this. Lights Out was good but maybe not worth seeing again. I don’t know if I have noticed how bad Jamie King’s wig was if someone had not mentioned it in a review. (Or perhaps that primed me to be aware of how bad the wig was.) I usually like F...

The new Three Musketeer films from France are really good. I believe these were filmed back to back. I only recognized Eva Green and Vincent Cassel among the cast. I liked the cast though.  Green is really good in these films. She plays Milady De Winter and the second of the two films is subtitled Milady.  I liked these films a great deal. I might re-watch them both before the end of the year. I am tempted to say these are the kind of films Hollywood doesn't make anymore, lavish productions of classic novels.    A young man comes to Paris to join the Musketeers and seek adventure. He finds it and he also finds romance and conspiracy.  Three older Musketeers provide guidance and friendship to the young man. Catholics and Protestants are fighting. The British might be plotting to help the Protestants. (This is a very broad plot overview.) I got a digital copy of the first one with English dialogue track but the second film had only the French Dialogue with English...

I am okay with movie franchises ending. Not every franchise is Godzilla or James Bond. Franchises can end and maybe that is a good thing. Rocky ended and it was a dead franchise before writer/director Ryan Coogler created Creed. I liked the first two Creed movies. Creed III didn't feature Rocky and if there is another Creed film, maybe that film won't feature Rocky. The Rocky series is over and that is okay. Creed came from Rocky and it was nice to Stallone as Rocky again (I did not think he'd ever play Rocky again). This leads to Ghostbusters Frozen Empire. I have not seen it yet. I probably will. Reviews aren't good overall and a lot of critics don't like how the franchise has changed. Some critics think the movie tried to do too much or it feels more like E.T. than Ghostbusters. I get it. I liked Ghostbusters Afterlife but it is not like the first two films tonally.  In 2024 there are new films in the franchises listed below Ghostbusters Bad Boys Aliens Kung Fu P...

Aaron Eckhart stars as a CIA agent, Steve Vail, who retired and is now a bricklayer. (Hence the title of the film.) He is called back to action when someone goes on a rampage killing journalists in Europe and framing the CIA. Nina Dobrev stars as a rookie agent who works with him. I liked it. The action scenes are good and I liked Eckhart and Dobrev in this. They don't become romantically involved but there is some respect developed. I liked that.  At one point the villain demands to be paid in Bitcoin to stop his rampage. In five or six years if Bitcoin dissolves that will date the film. I liked think this will be worth re-watching.