Wind River - 10/10
The Shape of Water - 8/10

 

Pacific Rim: Uprising 2/10 They really fucked up a potential good franchise. Why again didn't Del Toro do the sequel??

 

It was really boring. Welcome to the Shit Era. Napoleon's Dictionary is the point where it feels like they just stopped trying. They did one of these tv specials a year, and I guess that wasn't enough time for them to write good stories. There's one more kind of okay one coming, I forget the English title, but the one where Interpol decides F it, we're just going to assassinate Lupin.

But first you have 'From Russia With Love', which might even be worse than Napoleon's Dictionary. It's hard to remember because I never watched either of them a second time, they were so bad. But expect the same kind of uninspired animation and limp story.

 

Kingsman: The Golden Circle (2017) = 9/10
sequel to 2015's spy comedy The Secret Service, this 2nd installment sees Kingsman HQs around the world being destroyed by missile attacks c/o Poppy and the evil drug cartel Golden Circle. Eggsy and the remaining agents also discover an allied spy group in the US -- Statesman and they join forces to rescue Elton John in the middle of a Cambodian forest! looking forward to part 3!  

 

The Shape of Water. That's why.

 

Girls Trip - 8.5/10

After a seemingly endless string of sitting thru crap "comedies", FINALLY a movie that delivers on the laughs. All four leads are terrific, but it's Tiffany Haddish who steals every scene she's in and this is a true breakout role for her.

Movie's still not perfect though. Story's pretty cliché, and the runtime could've benefited from a few less set pieces (ie. that whole absinthe bit was unnecessary). But overall, this is where the sum is greater than its parts and everything comes together.

 

Pitch Perfect 3 - on first watch I would have said 7/10, maybe 8. After seeing it three times through I'm more in the 4-5/10 area.

My wife and I have watched the first two Pitch Perfects so many times we can basically recite them line for line/song for song without having them playing. The second one was tough at first, and got better on repeat viewings. It had the heart of the first film, and the characters stayed true to who they were, though it was a bit more mean spirited than the first. The third is having the opposite effect. The characterization is fine, and it is entertaining, but it doesn't have anywhere near the heart of the first two. The special features make it abundantly clear that they hired a new director and expected that directory to push the girl power aspect into the stratosphere, to the point where it actually negatively impacts the film. While there was a little of that in the first two, it was tempered with the guys' side of the story being just as trying/special for them.

Instead, here, we pretend that the guys never existed, and never really meant that much anyway. And rather than watch the Bellas go through what the older folks did in the first and second, we watch them completely separate out from the a capella world and realize that the real world sucks. Then we turn our focus onto Fat Amy being Fat Amy with all her Fat Amy-ness and the rest of the girls fade into the background until the end when suddenly all the lessons Becca learned in the first two films about being true to your friends is completely flipped on its head and she's supposed to ignore all that.

I mean, I like the ending well enough. Seeing the Bellas finally accept having instruments in the background was a cool way to end it, but the way they got there was really missing the emotional impact of the first two. And Dj Kahled needs to go away now. Don't care for him or his "I'm amazing" act.

The riff off was fun. Amy's dad was creepy and sinister in the ways only Lithgow can pull off while still being somewhat likable. And while I don't regret watching it, there's just something missing here that was present in the first two. Not the least of which being how little they did with the songs. In the first two you can listen to the original songs then hear what they did to them and there was marked improvements all around. Here, they're just belting out the same thing the original artist did other than a couple moments here or there with mashups and converting a hip-hop tune into a more sing-songy version.

Here's hoping they let the franchise go now and don't insist on following Halie Steinfeld's character through her college years just to keep the story rolling.

 

And he made the right decision.

 

Downsizing - 4/10

The story is actually really interesting but sadly the movie goes no where and half way through it basically ignores the one thing that makes it interesting.

 

Ready Player One- 7.5/10

 

The Disaster Artist

In regards to material with James Franco or Seth Rogen I can easily say I have zero interest.

But The Disaster Artist is an exception to that, in fact I really loved them in this movie.

I think the key to this movie was making sure we didn't laugh at or make a fool of the character of Tommy Wiseau but instead laugh with him and join in with what drives him. I like how they present the character and even his ugly side without making a judgment on him.

A well done production overall and I can imagine it's a strange phenomenon to cover a movie that is funny because it's regarded as bad and make a movie out of that which is genuinely funny, heartfelt and kind of sweet.

 

Watch the commentary if you want a real laugh. The Franco brothers, Tommy and his bud, and it sorta turns into a free-for-all because Tommy can't hold the conversation thread.

I really enjoy the Disaster Artist, but I also really enjoy the Room, and have for . . . well, about as long as it's been around. Tommy's a force of nature, and nobody knows where his motivation or his money come from. Doesn't matter. Between this and the Ed Wood (Johnny Dep) movie, there's truly some spectacular documentaries that have been made about some truly terrible but horribly fun to watch movies.

 

My Little Pony: The Movie:
I had to get this out of the system with the new season in and stuff. The new animation took some time to get used to, but it is nice to look at. Celebrity voice actors are okay for the most part, but I loved Liev Schreiber's performance as the Storm King with Uzo Adoba as Queen Novo. The plot didn't give something new in comparison to what the series had given us in seasonal openers and finales. Storm King wasn't as powerful as Tirek or Discord, the ponies acted stupid in more than one occasion, not to mention all the princesses were massively downgraded in power for the sake of plot you can't ignore it.

7/10

 

Pacific Rim Uprising: 8/10

Giant robots. Giant monsters. Giant robots punching giant monsters.

 

Death Wish 3

So I was re watching Death Wish 3 and it left me with an impression and a few thoughts to describe it. The action movie of action movies. The sequel of sequels. One of the greatest shoot out scenes ever filmed.

Charles Bronson returns as the world's most dangerous pensioner, Paul Kersey. He's out to show the gangs who's in charge one bullet at a time and occasionally firing a rocket launcher inside an apartment building when the going gets tough enough. That's badass.

Makes Rambo look like Sesame Street. He fights in the street alongside the cops supporting him. When cops were cops and not glorified social workers.

 

Foo Fighters: Back & Forth - 10/10

I've always been a huge fan of the Foo's music, however I know practically nothing about the band itself save for the common knowledge "Dave Grohl use to be the drummer for Nirvana".
An incredibly fascinating and entertaining look at the band's highs and lows from the beginning, and their revolving band members' until settling on the current lineup we see today.

Honest question: in the current era (ie. past 20-25 years) is there a better rock band than the Foo Fighters? Who could possibly take the title from them?
U2 - nope. They've fallen off for quite some time now
Red Hot Chilli Peppers - have gone completely stale, never evolving from that same old tired sound
Coldplay - great musicians, but their pretension makes me gag. Plus when you need to lean on the Chainsmokers you know you're in trouble
Nickleba<takes a moment to punch self in the face>
Green Day, Radiohead, Linkin Park...I respect all their work but they all ultimately come up short

 

Foo Fighters are some of the most talented people making some of the most bland and safe music ever. I have a lot of respect for them as musicians, but Dave's had more than his fair share of pretentious moments. Despite that, I get a kick out of listening to him tell stories and be interviewed. Just keep the music away from me.

I'd personally take Cold Play over Foo Fighters anyway, and then they did this:

Win.

 

The Mask of Zorro - 7/10 - I haven’t seen this movie in close to two decades, and I forgot how good it was, 7/10. I also forgot how smoking-hot Catherine Zeta-Jones was back then, 10/10...

 

Wonder 8/10 - solid family movie

IT (2017)- 7/10- good but not as great as expected.

Blank Panter 8/10- solid movie

 

Ready Player One - 7.3/10

A tad too long and the scenes outside of OASIS were not very compelling. Action sequences were awesome though, so much fun. Also does this count as the first theatrical appearance of Jason Todd? lol