This is a spin on the classic train movie that leans heavily into some specific styles in reimagining the genre. (Is the train movie a genre or is s it a sub-genre?)
Tag: Action
Thor: Love and Thunder (2022, Taika Waititi)
The fourth Thor film isn’t as good as the third but is still better than the first two.
Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016, Zach Snyder)
God these DC movies are just so…dour. I am no fan of the MCU, as you know, but every time I watch one of these DC movies from the teens I think the MCU has really stumbled onto something. They may be dumb, but they’re usually at least moderately entertaining. But these films are just …
The Batman (2022, Matt Reeves)
A little while ago, Jenn and I decided to watch every Batman movie in order. We watched the Adam West movie and then we watched the Burton/Schumacher films. But then, we got this one sooner and ended up watching it before all the other 21st century Batman films. (I’ve most Batman films already, save one …
John Wick: Chapter 2 (2017, Chad Stahelski)
I didn’t like John Wick as much as most people did, though I found it entertaining, and so you’ll no doubt be surprised that I didn’t like Chapter 2 as much as most people did, or as much as I enjoyed the first one.
The 2022 Toronto International Film Festival
This was my first time attending TIFF in person in 3 years. It was a little exhausting, given how far out of downtown we now live but, once I got the hang of it, I fell back into the rhythm of it and thoroughly enjoyed myself. It also helped that, after a few movies that …
Project Wolf Hunting (2022, Hong-Sung Kim)
This is an extremely gory, bloody and bonkers action/horror film about a ship of inmates travelling from the Philippines to Korea. The theme of it is basically overkill – don’t just hit somebody once, do it seven times. Why shoot at someone once when you can use the entire magazine? It’s quite funny and entertaining …
Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (2022, Sam Raimi)
Can you tell me why some characters in other universes are played by the same actors and others aren’t? In this film Dr. Strange is always the same actor but in other films of the MCU Spider-Man is played by different actors. Jenn suggested it was British cast who stayed the same and American cast …
Starcrash (1978, Luigi Cozzi)
Usually, I’m pretty good about rating a film I’ve watched through Mystery Science Theater 3000. But, apparently, not in this instance. As this film as starting, I got a massive sense of deja vu and so I went to its Wikipedia page and saw that I had indeed already watched it (or most of it) …
Battle Beyond the Stars (1980, Jimmy T. Murakami, Roger Corman)
If you’re looking for a Roger Corman Star Wars ripoff starring Johnboy Walton, with effects by James Cameron and a story by John Sayles…well, you’ve found it.
The Island (2005, Michael Bay)
For some reason, I had rated this movie on IMDB without ever having seen it. I’m not sure why I did that but for some reason I did. Because not only have I never seen it, I had no idea what it was about. MILD SPOILERS
Ator the Fighting Eagle [Ator l’invincibile] (1982, Joe D’Amato)
This is a classic terrible ’80s fantasy film, made in Italy but starring America’s Tarzan because, why not?
Eternals (2021, Chloe Zao)
Well, we have a winner for the “Worst MCU Movie.” I’m sure you’ve heard that already but apparently I had to see it to believe it.
Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021, Jon Watts)
The MCU Spider-Man movies are probably the best overall series within the whole massive thing, though there may be better individual movies. But this is the weakest – and longest (and most self-important) – of the three and, in many ways, reverts back to the usual Marvel crap. There is a difference here, of course, …
Arcane (2021)
This was recommended to me by work colleagues whose pop culture tastes I don’t yet know. I mention that because I might not have started this show if I’d known much about it. It is apparently associated with the League of Legends game franchise, something I know nothing about.
Venom: Let There Be Carnage (2021, Andy Serkis)
So I liked this substantially more than the first movie and I think it’s for one main reason: Venom is present from the beginning. I don’t remember if there were this many wisecracks in the first film but, if there were, I was already pretty bored when they started. Here it’s clearly a comedy (in …
Baby Driver (2017, Edgar Wright)
This is a pretty entertaining car chase film with a love story built into it. But it’s one of those films that fall apart the more you think about it, even though there are some touches that should elevate it to something more.
No Time to Die (2021, Cary Joji Fukunaga)
I don’t quite no what to do here because I must admit that I have only seen Skyfall and Spectre once each. And I have very little memory of either, except the vague impression that I didn’t like them, and that they were going the way Bond movies always go near the Bond’s run, getting …
Samurai Rebellion [Jôi-uchi: Hairyô tsuma shimatsu] (1967, Masaki Kobayashi)
This is an exceptional samurai film from a little bit past the genre’s early heyday, that manages to do nearly everything right. I have only one criticism, but it feels like a minor one given the overall quality of the film.
Red Notice (2021, Rawson Marshall Thurber)
This is a fairly entertaining movie that would be actually pretty fun if it wasn’t so stupid. It’s a frustrating experience to watch a movie where a bunch of the jokes land really well but the script is bad and the plot is ridiculous. The filmmakers don’t appear to trust their audience and the film …
From the Sea aka Atlantic Rim (2013, Jared Cohn)
The Asylum takes on Pacific Rim. (Honestly it’s sad they changed the name.)
Zombieland (2009, Ruben Fleischer)
This is an amusing zombie comedy which sort of makes you wonder why it took until 2009 to make this movie. (In retrospect it feels kind of obvious.) There are certain things I didn’t love about it, but it was mostly pretty effective.
El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie (2019, Vince Gilligan)
Two disclaimers: First, I watched the final season of Breaking Bad quite some time ago. Not the season it premiered but whenever it found its way to Netflix, so within a year or so of its premiere. Call it 2014 ish. It’s been a while. Second, I hated the ending of Breaking Bad. But my …
The Incredible Hulk (2008, Louis Leterrier)
So I’ve finally found my way to one of the few MCU movies I’ve missed, the weird one where they replaced the star before things really took off. At this point this feels like a movie from another era, as it has more in common with the first Iron Man, as you’d imagine, than it …
Jurassic World (2015, Colin Trevorrow)
I have no idea who was clamouring for yet another Jurassic Park sequel over 20 years after the original movie but somebody must have been. My memory is that this movie got some pretty good reviews, certainly better than the reviews for the last sequel. But I imagine the pitch meeting was “This film will …
The Suicide Squad (2021, James Gunn)
Before I get to the film: the branding is super weird, right? With an article different from the title of the notorious disaster it is supposed to replace, it sure feels like we’re supposed to forget about the earlier movie now.
Birds of Prey: And the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn (2020, Cathy Yan)
I remember hearing about the good reviews. And I briefly thought that maybe here was a recent DC movie I wanted to watch. And then I promptly forgot about it until I got on a plane. Now, it’s possible that this film didn’t work for in part because it was the second film I watched …
Black Widow (2021, Cate Shortland)
Much like Captain Marvel, this is a necessary and needed corrective. And much more than Captain Marvel, we can legitimately wonder what took so damn long. Most of the other Avengers got their movies a long time ago. (The Hulk got his own movie, remember.) But being a necessary corrective to a patriarchal movie franchise …
Venom (2018, Ruben Fleischer)
The world is a strange place. Because of rights issues, Venom is not currently part of the MCU even though Spider-Man and the recent Spider-Man movies are. So Venom isn’t part of the MCU and there is no Spider-Man in it. So that’s, um, weird. It might not be the worst thing, given all the …
Saloum (2021, Jean Luc Herbulot)
My first Senegalese film (as far as I know), this is a tonally inconsistent horror movie which tries to trick you into thinking it’s something else more than once. It’s super stylized and some of my confusion with it likely stems from having never been to Africa and knowing literally nothing about this part of …