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Yeah. Just on the third one now. Whilst not crap, it just doesn’t gel as well as the other two.

It is nice to have Wesley Snipes back on screen, and Mel Gibson is….ok as the main villain. But it’s just sort of lacking the same oomph, particularly compared to the second movie.

But hey. All three are part of Stallone’s Late Career Hurrahs (the others being Escape Plan, Rambo late sequels and Rocky Balboa) which whilst hardly revolutionary, at least don’t pretend he’s not ageing nor invincible. Indeed particularly the Rambo ones really strip it back from the silliness of Rambo 3.

Oh yes, van Damme is great as the baddie in the second one.

End of Expendables 3.

The main problem? We’re given scant time to get to know the newbies. And so we….just don’t get to connect with them. As such, all their own scenes are largely forgettable.

But…highlights! There are highlights!

Indiana Solo piloting his chopper with the style and aplomb we’d expect. Arnie having a low-effort-required blast. Antonio Banderas being awkward but charming! Wesley Snipes being excellent.We even have a vague explanation for why the final battle site is well set up for all sorts of Got To Admit Pretty Cool Stunts - it’s the training area Mel Gibson uses.

Now that’s not a great nor even really persuasive reason, but I appreciate the effort.

Whilst the weakest of currently three films in a never truly brilliant franchise, it still hits the right beats for fans of 80’s and 90’s action film nonsense. Not as loudly or accurately as its preceding entries, but they are there.

Best of all? No Steven Seagal. I could go into details of why that pleases me and what a ridiculous joke that man is, but I’ll let Space Ice, a YouTuber who I recently discovered take that strain. Because frankly, they’re much funnier than I am (I know, not a tall order but shush) and just…..nail it.

Mild swearing involved.

Date Night
A Steven Carell and Tina Fey vehicle that is close, but never quite makes it to being worth a damn. It has some things to say, and the three stand-outs parts are:

1. Tina Fey explaining her sexy fantasy.

2. Marky Mark's character never wears a shirt. I've known fella's like that.

3. Robot dance pole-dance. Yeah, you read that right. It could have been better, but was an inspired idea.


Not Okay
A woman pretends she was at the scene of a French terror attack. She leans into the lie, and is eventually outed. This is supposed to be a comedy, but it is not funny. None of the characters are likable.

I'm Totally Fine
A consideration about grief and loss with some comedy moments, and low-budget, indie vibes all over it.

A entrepreneur's friend and partner dies just on the cusp of them signing a big deal. At a get-away, the friend returns, but it is an alien with the friends memories coming to test the abilities of humans. It is left ambiguous if this is a delusion or an actual alien.

Fine for what it is.

I really enjoyed Date Night. It resonated with where my life currently is with kids, house and career, etc

Its ridiculous fluff, but i found it to be thoroughly enjoyable.

I’d rank Date Night around Dinner For Schmucks in terms of entertainment value, being an enjoyable experience that left no real long term impression on me.

i've seen Date Night due to some weird reasons and under weird circumstances, I vaguely remember. Maybe in a hotel room. Anyway, it seemed fine. Wahlberg's character was funny.



Last night, instead of going to bed, I watched American Hustle for some reason. It's still a fun showcase of actors acting out funny characters with ups and downs. Bale is a league to his own, Amy Adams is really, really good, Bradley Cooper almost seems like the odd one out. Maybe BIG ACTING isn't his thing and instead he's about the little things? I never got the stuff around Jennifer Lawrence, but she gets to play a funny character, gets some good lines, but also an unnecessary sequence later on. Jeremy Renner is himself. Both his and Jennifer Lawrence's characters (her less so, but he definately) feel like they should be played by older actors. Anyway, it's still good fun. Afterwards I was surprised to read that that American Hustle got 10(!) oscar nominations. Didn't win a single one, but the number of nominations surprised me.

American Hustle is an odd film because it has this great big twist at the end that's meant to throw everything you've seen into question as a big "Ah-hah!" moment. Except... if you've ever watched Hustle (a truly excellent show), then that twist was old hat, and quite plain by that show's standards.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
American Hustle is an odd film because it has this great big twist at the end that's meant to throw everything you've seen into question as a big "Ah-hah!" moment. Except... if you've ever watched Hustle (a truly excellent show), then that twist was old hat, and quite plain by that show's standards.

Yeah, the "twist" is rather uninteresting.



It really just is enjoyable as a showcase of these actors wearing period clothes and hair and do their thing very well.

Superman 3

It’s not good, but as a time capsule to the 80’s it’s kind of fun. Richard Pryor brings a lot of charm to the film, as does Reeves (especially as drunk Superman). Unfortunately it drags most of the way through to a climax without much action or spectacle.

I’m curious if they moved much of the movie to smallville with Lana Lang for budgetary reasons or to minimize Margot Kidder’s role. Also, the film disproves Man of Steel, Woman of Kleenex.

Blackstock Boneyard

Horror movie, about the vengeance of two black American farmers framed for murder on the centenary of their execution and seizure of their land.

This is a pretty decent horror flick - though the horror side is somewhat subdued. There are kills, and they are gory but it seems….dreamlike. I’m not sure if that’s a limitation of film making talent, or a deliberate stylistic choice. But our killers are pretty dispassionate, with a calm precision to their killing. It’s not quite working for me, but perhaps it’ll tickle another’s pickle.

The rest is all good though.

Why did they ha to wait a hundred years rather than get vengeance on those who ringed them? Is this supposed to be a reparations allegory or some other bad idea?

A couple of modern westerns

Old Henry

An old man and his son live in the hills, earning a living through farming and spending their time bickering about the youth's approaching manhood. The arrival of a near to death stranger with a satchel full of money, closely followed by a shifty trio wearing sheriff's badges, foreshadows a bloody showdown.

It's not an overly complex movie or challenging for the actors, but the atmosphere and build up make it a worthwhile waste of an evening.


The Old Way

It's Nic Cage playing a psychopath in a western! What more do you want?

A man with no emotions settles down to raise a family. When his past catches up with bloody consequences, he sets out with his remaining kin to exact vengeance.

It's strange to say that watching emotionless scenes between Nic and his young co-star were at times very moving. I very much enjoyed this.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
Why did they ha to wait a hundred years rather than get vengeance on those who ringed them? Is this supposed to be a reparations allegory or some other bad idea?

The land seized from them is up for sale, gathering the descendant of their aggressors back to the small town.

I had a pair of Dr appointments today with a considerable gap between.
Not enough time to go home/retun & nothing better to do in the area to kill time other than read a book.

So I went & saw the current Fast & Furious movie.
(It was the only thing playing that fit the time gap.)
That was a mistake. I should have just found someplace comfortable & read my book.

I wasnt expecting anything good (especially after the last one.).
But this one was actually WORSE! Just sequences of pointless crap, sprinkled with cameos, & topped off with stupid. All setting up a Fast X part II.

Reviews for the Flash are out in the wild and it seems to be decidedly average.

The reviews I’ve seen said it was good but not great, and that the early hype of “best superhero movie ever” did it no favors.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
The reviews I’ve seen said it was good but not great, and that the early hype of “best superhero movie ever” did it no favors.

To be fair it was never possible for it to be the "best superhero movie ever".
How can you tell? They had to put Keaton's Batman in it to get anyone to give a about it.

Having greatly enjoyed the Rocky series, including the latter day sequel Rocky Balboa, now giving Creed a spin.

What strikes me about these films is just how good they are. Given Stallone’s career when I was first of age was Dumb Action Films, to find the Rocky series is less about the fight, and more about the fighter and what shapes them, I was genuinely impressed.

Hopefully Creed will follow suit.

The Shape of Water

The best picture winner from a few years back.

I was honestly surprised it won best picture. It looks gorgeous, in a Tim Burton-esque way. The story is pretty "by-the-numbers" to me, even if it is dripping with Cold War subtexts and themes. However, the all sign language lead dialogue and the performance of the lead villain is pretty mesmerizing.

The Equalizer 2
Denzel rules. He owns this role. Plus, I would watch anything directed by Antoine Fuqua

That said, even though the Equalizer handles the main antagonists, that gets him no closer to the BBEGs that kicked off the whole sequence of events.

Honestly, if you like John Wick you should like these too. A bit less stylized though.

We watched the Sphere - 1998 last night.
Much better than I had expected. I can't recall having seen it before.

Based on a report paid for by the US government a team is assembled to solve a first contact mystery deep under the ocean.
From there it is a little like event horizon, just a little bit but not too much.

 warhead01 wrote:
We watched the Sphere - 1998 last night.
Much better than I had expected. I can't recall having seen it before.

Based on a report paid for by the US government a team is assembled to solve a first contact mystery deep under the ocean.
From there it is a little like event horizon, just a little bit but not too much.

Like most of the Michael Crichton stuff that does not involve Dinosaurs, come for the interesting concept that stimulates your brain, stay for the most asinine denouement imaginable

I enjoyed some of the dialog quite a bit especially that the paper was crap and admitting it to the government constituted fraud. I enjoyed the cast over all.

Tsagualsa wrote:

 warhead01 wrote:
We watched the Sphere - 1998 last night.
Much better than I had expected. I can't recall having seen it before.

Based on a report paid for by the US government a team is assembled to solve a first contact mystery deep under the ocean.
From there it is a little like event horizon, just a little bit but not too much.

Like most of the Michael Crichton stuff that does not involve Dinosaurs, come for the interesting concept that stimulates your brain, stay for the most asinine denouement imaginable

Indeed. This might have been the book that made me stop reading Crichton.

However, even Jurassic Park (the book) had a Crichton-style ending.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:

Tsagualsa wrote:

 warhead01 wrote:
We watched the Sphere - 1998 last night.
Much better than I had expected. I can't recall having seen it before.

Based on a report paid for by the US government a team is assembled to solve a first contact mystery deep under the ocean.
From there it is a little like event horizon, just a little bit but not too much.

Like most of the Michael Crichton stuff that does not involve Dinosaurs, come for the interesting concept that stimulates your brain, stay for the most asinine denouement imaginable

Indeed. This might have been the book that made me stop reading Crichton.

However, even Jurassic Park (the book) had a Crichton-style ending.

For me it was Timeline That one got a very bad movie too, iirc.

Creed

This is how you do it. This is how you update beloved movies. You don’t remake. You don’t reimagine. You make a latter day continuation.

Same overarching themes but with a modern day lens applied, with strong ties to the original.

Like the Rocky films, this is about the boxer and their spirit, not the boxing.

Absolutely magnificent.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Creed

This is how you do it. This is how you update beloved movies. You don’t remake. You don’t reimagine. You make a latter day continuation.

Same overarching themes but with a modern day lens applied, with strong ties to the original.

Like the Rocky films, this is about the boxer and their spirit, not the boxing.

Absolutely magnificent.

Tony "Little Duke" Evers, (played by Wood Harris) has some great lines in the Creed series.

I still gotta check out the 3rd one. I liked the second one, but I felt they missed some opportunities for something truly classic.

It’s the third one popping up on Amazon Prime which got me watching.

Currently on Creed II. And I’m loving Creed and Rocky’s relationship. It’s warm, and genuine.

And let’s face it, it’s the relationships between the characters which make the Rocky films work - especially compared to OTT impersonators, such as the various Van Damme movies. Don’t get me wrong I enjoy those, but they just don’t hold a candle to Rocky.

I also like how they’re not overly glamorous movies. Yes we see our titular characters rise in wealth and fame, but it’s never that easy for them.

Everything about the films is just…good. Ok maybe not Rocky V.

Preparing to see the new Flash movie, we’re catching our son up in some films:

Batman (89)

It’s good. We all know it’s good. It’s a classic.

I hadn’t taken the time before to appreciate how well-realized Gotham city is in this film.


Man of Steel

I generally enjoy this more as an alien invasion film than a Superman film. It’s got a lot of good stuff in it yet feels dour and joyless.

My son said the final battle was “like a thousand 9/11’s” and asked if we could watch a fun Superman movie afterwards. We only had one of those left, so as a palate cleanser:


Superman IV: The Quest for Peace

It’s bad. We all know it’s bad. But it’s so fun.
It takes so long to get to the action, but never drags due to the cheesy TV-writing (business banter! Hammy villains! Clark and Superman on a double date!). And Nuclear Man. I love Nuclear Man. You gotta love that swimsuit-tabard, that coif and glam nails, his constant scream-mugging and his silly powers. And his theme music is unapologetically badass.

Burton definitely redefined Gotham, giving it a certain timeless quality. Kind of modern, but the Art Deco/Art Noveau stylings, 40’s/50’s fashions but entirely modern technology. That of course carried over to the Animated Series, which may well be the best thing on celluloid ever.