So much potential, so little Fate… HENRY CAVILL IS BACK! No, wait – aw shit! – he’s gone again… Black Adam awakens from a 5000-year slumber. And only James Bond can sing him back to sleep. Born from the same magic as Captain Marvel (i.e. by pronouncing the word “SHAZAM!”), ancient protector Teth-Adam (Dwayne Johnson) is awakened by archaeologist Adrianna … Read More
65
Kylo Ren: Before The Dark Side. 65 million years ago, Kylo Ren crash-lands on Earth the day before the asteroid hits. A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away… Kylo Ren, Master of the Knights of Ren, exuding Keanu energy, leaves his home planet Somaris on an interstellar mission that would separate him from his ailing daughter (Chloe … Read More
I SEE YOU
The Horror of Being Human. The scariest thing in this movie is Helen Hunt’s face. Hunt is Jackie, married to Detective Harper (Jon Tenney), with a teen son Connor (Judah Lewis). And she’s just had an affair that has driven her family apart irreconcilably. And something supernatural is going on in her house. I SEE YOU starts as a generic … Read More
ESCAPE PLAN
Rocky and Terminator: Retirement Plan. A man who analyzes prison weaknesses by escaping from them is imprisoned in one of his own creations by people who want him disappeared. Now he’s gotta do it for reals! Former rivals, now old pals, Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger team up in ESCAPE PLAN, a brawling actioner that never strays too far from … Read More
LOST IN SPACE – SEASON 1-04: THERE WERE GIANTS IN THE EARTH
Giant Cyclops, Tiny Science. First of all, that title – There Were Giants In The Earth. This ain’t Earth. And that fact alone should make the Space Family Robinson think twice about any interaction they have with the native fauna or flora… it doesn’t, as they go about eating the flora and killing the fauna, even though the movie year … Read More
LOST IN SPACE – SEASON 1-03: ISLAND IN THE SKY
Bubble-Headed Badboy and Deadly Dr. Smith. Professor John Robinson (Guy Williams) has gone out the airlock of the Jupiter to apparently “fly” down to the planet they are orbiting to scope it out. One would think there are instruments onboard the spaceship that would carry out all that spectroscopy and visual reconnaissance. Nope. The only piece of tech the writers … Read More
OUIJA: ORIGIN OF EVIL
Devil: 1. God: 0. Again. A charlatan spirit medium discovers her daughter can actually contact spirits through a Ouija board. And all, uh, hell breaks loose. OUIJA: ORIGIN OF EVIL is a prequel to 2014’s OUIJA; set in the late ‘60s, we meet the young family that would become the ghosts of the 2014 film, and we experience their harrowing … Read More
MARK FELT: THE MAN WHO BROUGHT DOWN THE WHITE HOUSE
When Immovable Corruption Meets Unstoppable Corruption. MARK FELT: THE MAN WHO BROUGHT DOWN THE WHITE HOUSE is a clickbait title. It tells us it’s going to push the mainstream narrative that FBI Associate Director William Mark Felt singlehandedly brought down the corrupt Nixon administration in 1974, by leaking anonymously to the press during Nixon’s Watergate scandal. Nicknamed “Deep Throat” by … Read More
LAST SEEN ALIVE
Goes from Very Real to Somewhat Hollywood. A movie where the lead character does everything that YOU would do in a dire situation – at least in the first two acts, before he must bow to Action Movie Protocol and shoot the bad guys, rescue the girl and take down a redneck meth lab all by himself… LAST SEEN ALIVE … Read More
THE ADAM PROJECT
For the Love of Adam. Never have I cried so much at a time travel film, especially one loaded with this many Hollywood tropes. THE ADAM PROJECT is pretty straightforward in its first two acts, about a pilot from the future who lands in 2022 and enlists the aid of his 12-year-old self to time-travel further back in time to … Read More
MEMO FROM PURGATORY | THE ALFRED HITCHCOCK HOUR | S3 E10
Insipid take on an Ellison classic. MEMO FROM PURGATORY is a slice-of-life tale (from the 1961 Harlan Ellison novel Memos From Purgatory) about running with a savage Brooklyn street gang. Memos was written after Ellison actually infiltrated a gang called The Barons when he was 19 – for the research! – adopting the alias Phil Beldone, surviving their initiation, taking … Read More
THE MANY SAINTS OF NEWARK
Tainted Saints and Sainted Taints. I really wanted to like THE MANY SAINTS OF NEWARK. Hey, it’s a prequel to THE SOPRANOS, the best television show in the history of television. But it’s not quite a prequel and not quite THE SOPRANOS… … Not quite a prequel because the character that was the blood and bone of THE SOPRANOS – … Read More
REPLICAS
Movie clone of a clone movie. So it’s not cool enough to call them “clones” anymore? Now we call them REPLICAS. Keanu Reeves fulfils the role of mad scientist in this modern FRANKENSTEIN meets PET SEMATARY tale, where he tragically reconstructs his dead family after a fatal accident. We meet bio-engineer William Foster (Reeves), as he and his team try … Read More
KISS 2020 GOODBYE
KISS vs. Muhammed in a Battle to the Bitch. Even though KISS 2020 GOODBYE is one of the biggest single rock shows on planet Earth, there’s something much bigger at stake here: the future of live music. Overcoming the diabolical logistics of the covid pandemic to put on this mastodon show didn’t just prove how meticulous KISS and their crew … Read More
THE MIDNIGHT SKY
Tragedy Insufferably Painted as Redemption. THE MIDNIGHT SKY is indecisive on whether to be a human drama set in space, or a science fiction film loaded with human drama. It ends up sacrificing both genres to George Clooney’s beard. A worldwide catastrophe has made the Earth’s surface uninhabitable – something to do with republiKKKans blocking climate change legislation, I’m guessing … Read More
THE OLD GUARD
Immortals: can’t live with ‘em, can’t kill ‘em. No – literally. They’ve been on Earth for millennia, four unkillable, battle-hardened mercenaries, led by Charlize Theron, in jeans so tight I can see the outline of her cock. Theron is Andromache of Scythia (“Andy”), the oldest of the four warriors, her name of Greek goddess origin; there’s Booker (Matthias Schoenaerts), a … Read More
CIRCLE 2015
Not for squares. 50 disparate people stand in a staggered circle facing each other, on some kind of technological dais, where the floor is touch-sensitive to their presence, so they cannot move off their individual space or touch each other on pain of electrocution. Black background, like some episode of LOST IN SPACE or THE TIME TUNNEL. Every two minutes, … Read More
DIE ANOTHER DAY
Diamonds are endeavor. A megalomaniac designs a satellite to harness the sun’s power. And James Bond is there to rain on his parade. Cold Open Pretty Orange Explosion Zone: James Bond 007 (Pierce Brosnan, in his 4th and final turn as the superspy) surfs some rad waves into North Korea (reflecting the tenor of the times, no more Russians), infiltrating … Read More
THE WORLD IS NOT ENOUGH
Rich people wanting richer. Another villain with a bomb. Another hero who must defuse it. That’s what the twisty confusing plot boils down to in the James Bond actioner THE WORLD IS NOT ENOUGH. The cold open features a rather tame, though humorous, escape for a Bond movie, as Bond easily rappels down an office building (tied around a man’s … Read More
ALICE COOPER | Easy Action
From Earwigs to Spiders… t’s a line from WEST SIDE STORY, when one of the characters turns to another called Action, and warns him to cool it – “Easy, Action!” Those lines, and others from WEST SIDE STORY appear in Still No Air, the third song on the Alice Cooper album, Easy Action. Released nine months after their debut (Pretties … Read More