Watching and analyzing films is my thing. I see more movies every year than most of my buddies. And Oscar Night is my jam! As I do each year, I'm posting predictions. I'll be back later to document how I did. UPDATE: Several surprises at the Oscars this year! NO love for Star Wars -- it got nothing. And someone pointed out that Wonder Woman ( Read more... )

Well, sadly, this high concept movie, with only about 10 min of Kirsten Wiig despite what the advertising looked like, has done terrible at the box office. With reason! DOWNSIZING was all intellect and very little emotion. Except for one certain character (not the protagonist!), but more on that below. There are some intriguing elements in the ( Read more... )

Hey, there's a new Star Wars movie out, did y'all know? Want to add my (sorta) review so it doesn't slip your notice. Heh. No spoilers, plenty of surprises in the movie.

THE LAST JEDI is well written and well directed by Rian Johnson, whom I've loved since BRICK (high school detective noir) and especially LOOPER (time-travel assassins with such a ( Read more... )

Stephen King's IT as a 2017-made movie has several benefits over the earlier (1990) one. I hear! I never saw that one since it was a made-for-TV movie (so, Rated G, which handicapped it), for some reason. Or if I did, it didn't stick with me, which is also a bad sign. The TV movie also tried to do both timelines like in King's book (as kids and ( Read more... )

There's an agreeable slouchy quality to the southern-fried caper movie, LOGAN LUCKY. The actors all drawl (it's set in and around Georgia) and the money-laden target is Formula One. It feels somewhat like it was written and directed for a lark -- and the huge reason for that could be that Stephen Soderbergh announced he was retired from Hollywood a ( Read more... )

How lucky for us comedy lovers that Jordan Peele and Keegan-Michael Key met on MADTV! And that instead of replacing Peele with Key (as was the assumption) they had them perform in lots of skits together. Their chemistry made them stand out, and since then they've been on lots of TV, movie and music videos (shout out to Weird Al! White & Nerdy!). ( Read more... )

BEST PICTURE ( Read more... )

Ahhh, Taika Waititi. He's so askew and charming! Yes, his stuff is indie and low budget, filled with eccentric characters. But he's basing them on real New Zealanders like himself. He's half-Maori and half-Jewish (which explains his other performing name, Taika Cohen; Taika is Maori for Tiger). He co-wrote, directed and acted in (he was the kind- ( Read more... )

As a social justice warrior (!) I loved the idea of ghostbusters with a female crew. And then when I saw who'd be in the cast, I was delighted!! After seeing GHOSTBUSTERS, I was laughing and impressed. It is a lot of fun to watch! But I was also downhearted because the script was shoddy, the bad guy was banal, and there was obviously a ton of money ( Read more... )

A movie review. I love me some Jane Austen! And this movie PRIDE & PREJUDICE & ZOMBIES did pretty good keeping the basic plotline of P&P going, but set in a fantastical England where a terrible disease has created walking dead. Only in this world, the walking dead are only scary and not deadly unless they get human braaaaaaiiiiinnns to eat. Then ( Read more... )