Film

1995 in Film

Posted by John Klein III on May 11, 2022
Posted in: Film, Retrospective. Leave a comment

One of my favorite podcasts, What Are You Watching?, with hosts Alex and Nick, are going to review 1995 in Films.  Which looking at the list :

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1995_in_film

and knowing them as I do now, I feel like certain films are going to be overlooked.  I also was looking over the list and envisioning writing about it as so many great movies came out in 1995!  Plus, I’m due for a proper blog entry.  So click the link above, and follow along, if you will!

Should be fun to look back at these movies from a fresh perspective, but also remembering what it was like to watch these 27 years ago!  I was 13, so movies meant so much more back then. 

January

Murder in the First, Christian Slater, Kevin Bacon, Gary Oldman.  Slater’s other interview movie, this time interviewing Kevin Bacon’s prisoner, I remember watching this and being blown away by Bacon’s range.  I should rewatch this as I don’t recall The Mace, Lee Ermey, and Stephen Tobolowsky being in this, or Kyra Sedgwick. 

S.F.W., I recall Kevin Smith talking about this movie, how it was the other convenience store movie, this one featuring Joey Lauren Adams, and apparently Tobey Maguire.  I should make a point of watching this, and in a twist, it is actually streaming, unlike so many movies I want to watch.  So if you have Amazon Prime, you can watch it too.

Before Sunrise, WAYW is a huge fan of this film series with Richard Linklater, Ethan Hawke, and Julie Delpy.  I’ve never seen this trilogy, I’ve heard great things, and I love how every nine years, they make another one.  Alex pointed out in one of their latest episodes how we’re currently in a nineth year, so if we are getting one, it should be soon.  Apparently the third one came out and they filmed it secretly, so they could do that again.  Before Sunrise isn’t streaming anywhere that I’m subscribed too. 

Highlander The Final Dimension, the third Highlander movie.  I don’t quite remember this one, the Highlander movies, until the fourth one, sort of follow the previous film, but also contradicts it, it is a very complicated continuity, for something that shouldn’t be that complicated of a plot about the last immortal standing, regains their mortality.  Simply, don’t tell the last story, don’t ever give that hard of a number of, there’s only six left, so watch out.  I like the first movie, but once Duncan MacLeod’s show and line of movies came along, I was all for it.  It was such a great opportunity for the franchise to have a new direction, and they didn’t waste the opportunity.

Gargoyles The Movie : The Heroes Awaken.  Remember Gargoyles, everybody?  Such a great series, and I should see if I can get Walker D to start it with me, as I remember it being very good, but not finishing it as animation was bonkers in the 90s, with no real direction on when new episodes were coming out, if they were coming out, and so many reruns.  The “movie” is just the first five episodes reedited to make a fun movie, just like how She-Ra did it with her series, but I want to say she did it the reverse, where it was a movie, and then they broke it out to the first five episodes.  So not just like She-Ra, I suppose.

February

It is also fun seeing how Hollywood works, who was hot that year and just kept making movies.  Which means they were hot the previous year and then their slew of movies come out in the next calendar year.

Boys on the Side, one of my favorite Drew Barrymore movies.  I’m a huge fan of Terry Moore’s Strangers in Paradise comic book series, and he must have done an interview where he talked about a SiP movie would have the same feel as Boys on the Side.  Some laughs, some action, a lot of heart.  Maybe it was someone on the SiP message board, now that I’m typing this.  I’m getting a memory of a thread wherein people are discussing what a SiP movie would be about.  Who knows, but I watched this movie and really was blown away by everything that happens in it.  I should rewatch it as I don’t recall Matthew McConaughey being in it.  I remember Whoopi Goldberg and Drew Barrymore, of course, and them having a third friend, but seeing how that third friend is Mary-Louise Parker, who I loved from the West Wing and followed her to Weeds, she doesn’t look like the MLP I feel hard for from the movie poster, but she was younger then.  I’m going to put a complete list on the bottom of this post so I can refer to it later of which movies I want to revisit and where they are streaming.  It is streaming on Hulu, and seeing the screencap, that is clearly MLP and she looks as great as she always does.  Its just not a flattering poster, which is unfortunate.

Billy Madsen, a legendary Adam Sandler movie, where he has to go through school again, all the way from Kindergarten to, I’m not sure he gets to high school before the plot runs its course.  Mortal Kombat’s Bridgette Wilson (she’ll always be Sonya Blade to me), is the romantic interest in the film.  Bradley Whitford, way before West Wing, is a perfect foil in it.  Norm Macdonald and Steve Buscemi are in it, such a comedy classic. 

The Quick and the Dead, Sam Raimi’s western starring Sharon Stone, Gene Hackman, Russell Crowe, and Leonardo DiCaprio.  I recall watching this on a cable channel, and it not grabbing me.  Probably the commercial breaks made it easy to jump out and onto something else.  It is streaming on Netflix.  Keith David, Lance Henriksen, Tobin Bell, Gary Sinise, and Bruce Campbell are in this?!  Well, of course, Bruce Campbell is in this, I need to give this a proper go. 

The Brady Bunch Movie, I’m pretty sure I only saw this once it came to TV, and I only saw it because Davy Jones of the Monkees was a guest star in it.  Oh, and 90s Spider-Man voice actor, Christopher Daniel Barnes is Greg Brady in this.  Did you know CDB is also Prince Eric in the Little Mermaid?  Once you hear you, you won’t be able to not hear it again.  Gary Cole and Shelley Long as the parents, and I was curious who was Marcia Brady and it was Christine Taylor, who you probably know as Ben Stiller’s wife, who is in a slew of his movies.  Were Micky and Peter in this, they must be at the big dance at the end of the movie, I don’t recall them, Davy gets a few scenes, if I remember correctly.  I also don’t remember Michael McKean, Jean Smart, or James Avery being in this, but it’s a pretty busy movie.  Lots going on.  I was never really into the Brady Bunch, only seeing a handful of episodes and seeing retrospectives about it. 

March

Outbreak, what a movie!  Starring the monkey from Friends, as that’s all I knew at the time.  My wife and I just rewatched this sometime last year, and it really holds up.  Such an all star cast too!  Dustin Hoffman, Rene Russo, Morgan Freeman, Cuba Gooding Jr., Patrick Dempsey, Donald Sutherland, Kevin Spacey, JT Walsh in a typical JT Walsh role, but really nailing it!  They really don’t make all start movies like this anymore.  Probably too much money and probably not getting that much back for it. 

Bye Bye Love, now here’s a movie I saw more than I probably should have.  Great story for the 90s about having kids and being divorce, but I don’t think that part really landed on me.  Paul Reiser, Matthew Modine, Randy Quaid, are the dads, just trying their best.  It is streaming on Starz, but we don’t have that, but I recall loving the movie.  One of those movies, where the kids became big name actors like Mae Whitman and Eliza Dushku.  Empire Records’ Johnny Whitworth is one of the kids, and Jack Black is in this and he must have been one too.  Rob Reiner is also great in this, and I’m a huge Reiner fan.  Might have to track this to see if it ever streams elsewhere.  Strangely, VUDU doesn’t have it.  If it was cheap enough, I would throw four dollars at it.

Major Payne starring Damon Wayans, I almost saw at school, and then again on Comedy Central.  I’m not sure I’m ready for it.  I want to say the tape didn’t work at school, and I may have missed the first couple segments of it on TV.

Tall Tell, I recall my father buying the VHS and growing up, we tried to do family movie nights.  This was the first movie that I tried to skip, as it didn’t look that good.  Maybe it was just the day, but I must have watched it, with my arms crossed, daring the movie to try to entertain me.  It is the story of what if Paul Bunyan, John Henry, and Pecos Bill all lived in the same setting.  I’m still not that familiar with Pecos Bill.  I’m a huge fan of the Paul Henry story, man vs. machine, ever since I saw the documentary, The Terminator, as a young lad, its definitely been one of my huge concerns that one day, machine is going to win, and win big.  Patrick Swayze is Pecos Bill, Oliver Platt is Paul Bunyan, and Roger Aaron Brown is John Henry.  It is on Disney Plus, so I should see if I can get the family together to watch it.  Walker D is notorious for shooting down all movie ideas, so I’m probably setting myself up for some disappointment. 

Tank Girl, based on the very British comic book, I recall starting and just not connecting with it. 

Tommy Boy, a Chris Farley and David Spade classic!  Brian Dennehy, Bo Derek, and Rob Lowe also co-star.  I don’t recall Dan Aykroyd in it, but I mostly remember Farley and Spade and how funny it is.

April

I’ve never seen Bad Boys, and have no real interest in it.  I’m run cold on Martin Lawrence.

I’ve seen moments of While You Were Sleeping, and I also have seen scenes of Sleepless in Seattle, neither film was in my wheelhouse in 1995.  Sleepless came out in 1993, when I was even more inclined to not watch it.

I’ve also not seen any of the Friday movies. 

I’ve never seen any Children of the Damned movies.

My wife is a huge fan of the original two Escape to Witch Mountain movies, and she didn’t even know there was a remake in 1995.  We didn’t care for the Rock remake in 2009.

Ooof, I didn’t see any of these April 1995 films

May

I recall starting French Kiss starring Meg Ryan and Kevin Kline, and not connecting to it. 

I must have seen a Freaky Friday movie, I was more incline to watch the male versions of this concept of switching bodies between an adult and a child/teenager.

Die Hard with a Vengeance, here we go.  My wife and I treated ourselves to the Die Hard digital collection and finally watched all five of them.  Die Hard Three is probably my second favorite one, but it is definitely the one I’ve seen the most.  This is my Die Hard.  It has all of the charm of the first one, but on a large scale.  Bruce Willis, of course, joined by Samuel L. Jackson, as they struggle against Jeremy Irons.  Such a great film! 

Braveheart, I’ve seen Mel Gibson’s opus.  I didn’t connect to it then, and then it became a parody of itself in the media as shows had fun with the face paint and all of the yelling.  So that’s Braveheart in my head.  I recall it felt like a chore to watch and then it won the Oscars, and then it became one of those “Oscar movies,” that I know it deserves some respect, but I’m never going to watch it again, most likely.

Casper, starring Christina Ricci and Bill Pullman.  With a very fun guest appearance by Dan Aykroyd.  I really enjoyed this then, and the Wiki page implies there is a slew of guest stars, but I don’t recall Clint Eastwood, Rodney Dangerfield, or Mel Gibson being in this.  I do remember watching this in eight grade social studies, that was a fun class. 

Mad Love, starring Drew Barrymore and Chris O’Donnell.  Matthew Lillard and Liv Schreiber are also in it, but I don’t recall them, but I also wasn’t invested in the film.  Too chaotic, maybe?   I didn’t connect to it.

June

The Bridges of Madison County.  I was obsessed, OBSESSED!!!, with the American Film Institute’s (AFI) Lists of Greatest Movies and all of their spin off lists.  Once I started working at NAU-Yuma, and started making actual money, I had this amazing Excel sheet, tracking all of the movies, with which movies appeared on multiple lists, and if Best Buy or Hastings had the movie for cheap, I would treat myself to the movie.  So I bought Bridges of Madison County, and watched it.  It was okay.  I run cold on Meryl Streep, barely seeing a handful of her movies.  I get it, she’s in a lot of Oscar movies, but besides this one and Doubt, I don’t think I’ve seen that many of her films.  Looking at her Wiki page, as I was curious to see which ones I’ve actually seen.  The Devil Wears Prada in 2006, I didn’t connect to it.  I want to watch Lions for Lambs, but only because Andrew Garfield talked about how it was his first real movie role.  Oh yeah, Mama Mia!  I loved that movie, I still haven’t seen the second one.  Fantastic Mr. Fox, if that counts.  The Giver, such a great book, deserved a better movie.  I do like how at one point, she realized she needed to start being in more popular films or rom coms.  Probably a nice break for her.  In the Woods, I didn’t care for, but I also had higher expectations going into it.  Anna Kendrick’s lesser musical performances.  The Last Five Years was so much better.  Was she in Mary Poppins Returns?  Oh yeah, she’s in Ryan Murphy’s The Prom, that movie would have been better without the celebrity angle.  So yeah, those are my experiences with Meryl Streep.  I should watch Kramer vs. Kramer and Sophie’s Choice, but also, I’m not going to any time soon.

Congo, I recall enjoying, but not any real specifics in it.  That’s the gorilla sign language movie, right?  It is streaming on Starz.  Great cast, Laura Linney, Dylan Walsh, Ernie Hudson, Tim Curry, Joey Pants (Pantoliano), and Bruce Campbell. 

Batman Forever.  June 16, 1995.  Here we go.  By 1995, we had moved from Yuma Proving Ground (YPG) to Yuma proper.  I still recall sitting in our backyard, and my father asking me if I wanted to watch Batman Forever or the Power Rangers movie.  In my 13 year old head, this was such a silly question, as of course, we’ll watch both movies.  They are the only two films I even want to watch, and I’m pretty sure this is the first movie I saw in the theater that year, as none of the above even register as a theater movie to me.  (Spoilers, I guess that Power Rangers also came out this year).  Anyway, I was asked which one of the two I wanted to see, and I had to say Batman Forever, as of the two, I was (and still am) a huge Batman fan, but I secretly hoped we would watch Power Rangers, as there was a lot of hype for that first movie.  I love Batman Forever, and it is even better now as we have so many live action Batman films, so its nice that in the catalogue, there’s some lighter films in there. 

Do I wish Jim Carrey was less Carrey as the Riddler?  Sure, do I wish that final outfit of his on the island, wasn’t so much, whatever it is?  Sure.  Is Val Kilmer a great Batman and an even better Bruce Wayne, heck yes!  We finally got a live action Robin again, in Chris O’Donnell, who is great in the role.  Tommy Lee Jones as Two-Face, yes please!  Drew Barrymore and Debi Mazar as Two-Face’s lady friends.  Nicole Kidman, who has never been hotter than she was in this movie.  People will tell you other films, but this is prime Kidman for me.  Never been better.  Well, until I saw Paddington, and I was like, where has this Kidman been this whole time?  I like her in Moulin Rouge, but in terms of pure attraction, this is it for me.  I’m not sure why I’m trying to win this argument.  This is also my first Kidman exposure, so that probably plays a factor into all of this. 

Pocahontas, we must have seen this in theaters, but I’ve definitely seen this.  I do like learning how Christian Bale was the voice of Tom in it, a slight consolation prize for being in Disney’s Newsies, is how I’m sure he viewed it.  He had a Disney contract, and made the most of it.  A pretty fun movie.  I still get the words, Savages Savages, stuck in my head to this day. 

I’ve yet to see any Leprechaun movies, even the one with Jennifer Aniston.

Apollo 13.  We probably didn’t watch this in the theater, but I must have saw it on HBO or one of the other movie channels, as I saw this movie a bunch.  I love me some Kevin Bacon and Gary Sinise is in this, who I also love.  Ron Howard directing, of course starring Tom Hanks and a slew of actors.  An all star studded cast!  Bill Paxton, Ed Harris, Mumford’s Loren Dean (not sure why he doesn’t get more roles), Clint Howard of course, and Roger Corman is in this.  Wiki says Bryce Dallas Howard is in this, she must be one of the daugthers?  Such a great movie, it really captured my attention and imagination, and it is a long movie, but I would watch it now.  Its on Peacock but behind a paywall that we refuse to pay for, we have too many subscriptions, but apparently, not enough.  One day I’ll watch the rest of the Saved by the Bell reboot. 

Judge Dredd, starring Sylvester Stallone, I recall really enjoying.  It wasn’t until years later, when I learned that Dredd never takes off his helmet, and looking at, Stallone is constantly taking his helmet.  Which always bugs me in these superhero movies when the hero has to go maskless for so much of it, just because the studio paid millions of dollars for that face, they’re going to get their money’s worth.  Probably why Marvel Studios has so many of their heroes not even wear masks, as why bother working in damaging the suit, just to get to the part where they take off the mask.  I don’t recall much of this film and seeing the cast list doesn’t trick any real memories. I recall Rob Schneider trying too hard in this.  I don’t recall Diane Lane or James Earl Jones being in this.  I haven’t seen the newer Dredd film, but I heard good things.

Mighty Morphin Power Rangers : The Movie.  We did end up seeing this in the theater.  I recall thinking it was essential viewing, as how else will the show explain the change of powers and Zords?  They are going to have to put words on the screen, “hey kids, hope you watch the movie, as here we go!”  They didn’t have to do that as the show made up its own origins, making the movie’s continuity extremely questionable.  Not sure why they went with that direction as it just means the movie itself was a 15 million dollar commercial for the show, which I reckon it was going to be that, but it made 66.4 million back, so that’s why we got at least a second movie out of it.  Movie takes place between seasons two and three of the series. 

Besides putting Amy Jo Johnson more into the hearts of young boys everywhere, the movie’s real legacy was Trouble by Shampoo.  It doesn’t even take much to put this song in my head, just the word, Trouble, would do it, and also, Uh Oh, is all it takes, then I’ll be there singing the first two lines of the chorus.  There was a Behind the Scenes special on Fox and they kept hyping the music video for the official song from the movie and I was blown away with how catchy the song is.  Is it super cheesy and embarrassing to enjoy, a guilty pleasure, if you would?  Yes, but does it bring a smile to my face when it plays on my iPhone when I’m shuffling songs?  Heck yeah! 

But that confusion and disappointment when that third season started, and I was like, why are they telling a different story?  That is pretty real.  Great cliffhanger from season two to three, that was a long wait and it was in prime time, so that made it feel special too. 

July

Species, I was definitely too young to fully appreciate it.  I remember, like most people, being blown away by how attractive Natasha Henstridge is in it, and the scares were scary, but being lost by the plot. 

The Indian in the Cupboard, I must have saw, but we watched it a few years back and it felt like the first time.  A concept that would have really overrun my imagination if I had committed to it more.  Such a great story idea. 

Under Siege 2 : Dark Territory, I must have seen this, or at least, the set pieces.  Steven Seagal on a train, doing Steven Seagal action stuff.  I don’t think I took to either Under Siege movie.  Now, Executive Decision, I liked that one. 

Clueless, the movie that gave us Paul Rudd!  Also set up Alicia Silverstone for many years!  Such a great movie!  Donald Faison and Breckin Meyer too.  Dan Hedaya and Brittany Murphy.  Is Wallace Shawn in this, he must be one of the teachers.  It is streaming on HBO Max.  Be fun to revisit it. 

Free Willy 2 : The Adventure Home, I remember it not being as good as the first one, but how could it be?  They made several Free Willy movies, four total and a TV series I didn’t know about.  Jason James Richter is in all three, then the tv series is actually an animated series, ran for two seasons, and then there was a roboot in 2010, with Bindi Irwin, in her film debut, and Beau Bridges.  My favorite Bridges brother. 

Kids.  Ooof, this movie!  I’ve seen it once, that scene with Chloe Sevigny, that’s as many times as you should watch this movie.  Rosario Dawson is in this too, but I only remember Sevigny in it.  Googling “Kids Movie Streaming” is not the way to get an answer. 

The Net, starring Sandra Bullock.  I was thinking about this movie the other week, with how dated I’m sure it must be, and how the dangers of the film, we just take for granted now. 

Operation Dumbo Drop was advertised on the back of many of my comic books for a while, but I never saw it, or heard much about it. 

Waterworld, I’ve seen once, and I didn’t connect to it at all. 

August

I may have saw Babe in school, but I remember much of it.

Something to Talk About, I haven’t seen it fully, my wife is a huge fan of this Julia Roberts and Dennis Quaid rom com.  It was on TV a couple times and we watched it from whatever that scene was to the end, so I’ve seen the last half of it a couple times. 

Virtuosity, Denzel Washington v Russell Crowe, one of them is a robot, or something?  I’m remembering the final action sequence pretty clearly, so I wonder if I saw the last 30 minutes before watching whatever movie came on afterward. 

Dangerous Minds, starring the amazing Michelle Pfeiffer.  I do love me a high school teacher trying to change the school movie.  Well, until Hilary Swank’s 2007 Freedom Writers, sort of killed all of my enthusiasm for the genre.  When we’re watching one of these movies and we’re following the teacher and her one class, are we supposed to be under the impression that the teacher is applying the same thought and energy to the rest of the classes that they teach?  Or is this a special class and the rest, the teacher is simply going through the motions with?  Especially these high school movies, where we know they are teaching at least four other classes.  Anyway, that’s a thought and question I didn’t have until Freedom Writers, and now it makes me apply that question to every movie in the genre. 

Dangerous Minds has that great Dylan vs. Dylan discussion of Bob Dylan or Dylan Thomas, who I’m still not that familiar with Thomas’ work outside of what is referenced in the film.

Mortal Kombat, no wonder I associate Bridgette Wilson so much, it came out in the same year as Billy Madsen.  What a one two punch for Wilson!  Not a bad movie, the first one and the remake are pretty good.  Christopher Lambert also had a good year, as Rayden. 

Desperado, directed and written by Robert Rodriguez.  Starring Antonio Banderas and Salma Hayek.  I remember the set pieces and being blown away by Salma Hayek.  Clearly I was 13 and going through some things.  I don’t remember Steve Buscemi being in this, or Quentin Tarantino.  Cheech Marin and Danny Trejo, I can place in it. 

Dr. Jekyll and Ms. Hyde, I recall watching on TV, Tim Daly turns into Sean Yong.  That’s pretty much all I remember, and how hard women really do have it.  Harvey Fierstein and Jeremy Piven are also in this, apparently. 

Lord of Illusions, Clive Baker wrote and directed it.  Scott Bakula is in it, it was advertised on the back cover of most of my comics for what felt like forever, but I never saw it.  It might be streaming on Tubi, but Google has misled me before with Tubi. 

September

To Wong Fo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar, I have always been a fan of the title of this movie, but never had an opportunity to watch t.  It isn’t streaming anywhere, which seems odd in today’s culture.  Wesley Snipes, Patrick Swayze, and Johnny Leggs (John Leguizamo), as drag queens on a road trip?  How is this not on at least two streaming services?!  Apparently Stockard Channing is in this too!  RuPaul and Robin Williams?! 

Truman, I remember being super excited to watch this on HBO.  Gary Sinise as one of my favorite presidents, yes please.  I want to say the movie was pretty good, broad strokes but it was a movie and not a miniseries.  Based off, of course, David McCullough’s biography.  From humble beginnings to President of the United States.  What a story!

I must have seen Angelina Jolie’s Hackers, or I may be getting it confused with 1992’s Sneakers.  Looking at Sneakers’ Wiki, one looks like a comedy and the other is a very dated moody film about hackers.  I probably seen it the one time and it didn’t leave much of an impression.  Jonny Lee Miller, Lorraine Bracco, and Matthew Lillard are in it?  It might be free on YouTube. 

It is free on YouTube!

Bryan Singer’s The Usual Suspects.  Definitely did not see this in theaters, but definitely worn out a DVD of this movie, such a legendary film!  Worthy of multiple rewatches.  Amazing cast too!  Stephen Baldwin, Gabriel Byrne, Benicio del Toro, Chazz Laminteri, Kevin Pollack, Pete Postlethwaite, Kevin Spacy, and Dan Hedaya.  Is Giancarlo Esposito and Clark Gregg in it?  Oh, Esposito is one of the detectives.  Gregg is one of the doctors. 

Empire Records, another one I definitely did not see in theaters, but once made available to me, I watched so many times!  Wait, so Bye Bye Love and Empire Records came out in the same year, so he must be one of the teenaged characters.  Heck, they could all be teenagers, but fresh face, so they look younger in my mind’s eye.  Empire Records, such a classic film and one of my favorites!  Dman the man, save the Empire!  Which is opened until midnight.  Midnight!  So many quotable lines!  This past Rex Manning Day, April 8, I treated myself to the soundtrack and whenever a song I don’t recognize comes on, its almost always from Empire Records. 

Seven, I’m starting to see why WAYW is covering 1995, so many legendary films!  David Fincher directed, starring Brad Pitt, Morgan Freeman, and Kevin Spacey having quite the year!  Gwyneth Paltrow, R. Lee Ermey, Richard Roundtree, a young Richard Schiff, and John C. McGinley are all in it.  Another movie that gets better with multiple viewings.  What’s in the box?!  WHAT’S IN THE BOX?!  So great.

Showgirls, starring Elizabeth Berkely, not as bad as people want you to believe it is.  Plus, Elizabeth Berkely.  Kyle MacLachlan (Hello, Captain!), Gina Gershon, and Robert Davi are in it too.  This was definitely something I watched on HBO. 

Just in time to kick off October, Halloween : The Curse of Michael Myers, the sixth movie in the franchise.  I’m on record 5 and 6 are my favorite of the Halloween sequels, we really get into the character of Myers with these.  Donald Pleasence is the detective, and Paul Rudd is in this too!  Wow, Rudd really does not age, or if he does, its for the better!

October

Assassins, starring Sylvester Stallone and Antonio Banderas, trying to kill each other.  I had no idea this was a Richard Donner movie, nor that the Wachowskis wrote it!  It is streaming on HBO Max.  I recall a scene in the shower.  Julianne Moore is in it too! 

Strange Days, definitely a movie I did not appreciate until later in life.  I watched it as Juliette Lewis is in it, but the cast is pretty amazing.  Ralph Fiennes, Angela Bassett, Tom Sizemore, Vincent D’Onofrio, William Fichtner.  A future movie (of 1999) and lots of drugs and even more plot that I could not follow for the life of me.  Kathryn Bigelow directed, with a screenplay co-written by James Cameron and Jay Cocks. 

Get Shorty, I watched once, remember it being fun, that’s about it.  Big cast too!  It was all a rage.  John Travolta, Gene Hackman, Rene Russo, Danny DeVito, Dennis Farina, Delroy Lindo, James Gandolfini, and John Gries.  A gangster movie set in Hollywood.

Mallrats, here we go!  Another film where, once it was in my hands, I absorbed it fully!  I should have been keeping track of my favorite films of 1995, as I’m sure I can easily create a Top Ten list.  You’ll find it on the bottom of this list.  Kevin Smith’s second film with such a great cast!  Jason Lee, Shannen Doherty, Jeremy London, Jason Mewes, Ben Affleck, Joey Lauren Adams, Renee Humphrey, Ethan Suplee, Michael Rooker, Walt Flanagan, Bryan Johnson, Brian O’Halloran, Stan Lee, and Scott Mosier!  A day at the mall, well spent! 

Now and Then was a movie that I wanted to watch back in the day, follow a group of girls at one point in their live, then we skip 15 years, and they’re all grown up.  Still can’t as it isn’t streaming anywhere.  Well dang.  Fun to see who was supposed to grow into who :

Gaby Hoffmann into Demi Moore (sort of maybe did?)

Christina Ricci into Rosie O’Donnell

Ashleigh Aston Moore into Rita Wilson

Thora Birch into Melanie Griffith, again, sort of did?

Two out of four, not too bad. 

Bonnie Hunt is in this?!

Doom Generation, I watched because of Rose McGowan, and this is another trippy drug induced movie with a lot of plot my younger self did not follow that closely.  Though I was probably a tad older when I watched it. 

Leaving Las Vegas, I need to watch, but it isn’t streaming anywhere.  This movie earned Nicolas Cage is Oscar.  Elisabeth Shue is in it as well, as is Steven Weber, Emily Procter, French Stewart, R. Lee Ermey, having an amazing year, and Mariska Hargitay. 

Mighty Aphrodite, which earned Mira Sorvino her Oscar, written and directed by Woody Allen.  Not streaming anywhere but I was part of the camp that thought Mira Sorvino would have made an amazing Katchoo in Terry Moore’s Strangers in Paradise movie.  Along with Jennifer Connelly as Francine.  Imagine the universe that got that movie?!  I know I do.

Powder, a young genius pale boy, with superpowers.  I saw it once and really enjoyed it back in the day.  Then in 1996, John Travolta made Phenomenon, which in my mind, was like the adult Powder.  But maybe they are nothing alike?!  Powder stars Sean Patrick Flanery, Mary Steenburgen, Lance Henriksen, Jeff Goldblum, and Ray Wise. 

November

Ace Ventura : When Nature Calls, so Jim Carrey had an incredible movie this year and a sequel to Ace Ventura.  I wonder if I saw this one in the theater?  This is the movie that made me realize that the Batcave would have to be covered in bat poop.  Poor Alfred, that must have been a terrible day when he realized he couldn’t just let the poop be. 

The American President.  We got three West Wing actors all having movies out before the show launched in 1999.  This is Martin Sheen’s film and a lot of sets for this movie were later used to make West Wing.  This movie is written by Aaron Sorkin, and directed by my boy, Rob Reiner.  Michael Douglas is the President, and he’s trying to date Annette Bening.  Sheen and Michael J. Fox are on Douglas’ staff.  This is also streaming on Starz, which is a shame as I wouldn’t mind rewatching it again.  John Mahoney, Richard Dreyfuss, Wendie Malick, and of course, Joshua Malina are in it.  Wiki states Samantha Mathis is in this, but I don’t remember her in it.  I Googled “Samantha Mathis American President,” and got no image results from the movie. 

GoldenEye, now I definitely saw this in the theater.  This was my first big screen James Bond movie, which is probably why I always consider Pierce Brosnan my James Bond.  Such a fun movie and great performance by Brosnan.  Is it my favorite Bond film of his, I believe so.  Do they get less good with each one?  Probably, I’ll have to rewatch them and see.  Amazon Prime has GoldenEye, and the rest of his are behind paywalls, so dumb.  Sean Bean is 006, which is fun to get more lore of who are these numbers.  Famke Janssen and Alan Cumming are in it, and I rewatched this right before X-Men 2 came out, just to see them in their first film but they were united.  Mutants United.  Judi Dench as M.  Is Minnie Driver in this, I don’t remember her being in it.  Oh, she’s the singer.  I have to rewatch this as the screencap is familiar but I have no memory of the context. 

It Takes Two, starring the Olsen Twins, Kirstie Alley, and Steve Guttenberg.  More like Greatenberg, am I right?  A take on the classic Parent Trap, but with a Prince and the Pauper twist to it.  You have to suspend your disbelief that two girls unrelated to each other, look exactly like each other, but that’s an Olsen twin movie for you.  When they are not playing sisters.

Casino, WAYW is going to talk about this movie a bunch, but I barely recall watching it.  I need to rewatch it, but it isn’t streaming anywhere.  Martin Scorsese opus, starring Robert De Niro, Joe Pesci, Sharon Stone, James Woods, Kevin Pollock.  I mostly remember it coming in two VHS tapes and that being very intimidating. 

Toy Story comes out, and wins the hearts of everybody who saw it!  Such an amazing film and the films get better with each one, until the fourth one.  I’m mostly kidding, but the story should have stopped at 3. 

December

Sense and Sensibility, I probably saw the one time.  Ang Lee directed it, so I probably watched it as his Hulk was coming out in 2003.  Great cast, Emma Thompson, Kate Winslet, Alan Rickman, and Hugh Grant.  A couple years ago, I gave Hugh Grant a fair shake and saw as many movies of his as I could that were streaming, and I quickly got on board the Hugh Grant train.  Grant it, pun very intended!, I was way late, but he has a great body of work.  Very enjoyable. 

Heat, the movie that kicked off this whole thing! 

Alex and Nick reviewed Heat, I bought it five dollars through VUDU, it was the Director’s Definitive edition, and I’m like an hour into it.  They end the episode stating they will review 1995 next and here we are. 

Heat is Michael Mann’s cops and robbers opus.  Starring Al Pacino, Robert De Niro, Val Kilmer, Tom Sizemore, Ashley Judd, John Voight, star of Anaconda.  Hank Azaria, Dennis Haysbert, William Fichtner, a young Natalie Portman, Kevin Gage, and Danny Trejo.  Such a perfect film!

Jumanji, we just watched this a month ago, Walker was really into it, and I’ve caught him watching it a few times since then.  Robin Williams and Bonnie Hunt, most likely the first film I saw of hers and immediately fell in love.  A very young Kirsten Dunst.  David Alan Grier is also in it. 

Sabrina, oh gosh, I completely forgot about this film!  I’m not sure what made me take a chance on this movie, but once I saw it, I immediately bought the VHS, and watched it so many times.  It wasn’t until years later, I learned it was a remake of a 1954 film.  The remake is directed by Sydney Pollack, and it starts Julia Ormond, who is initially attracted to the fun brother, Greg Kinnear, and then slowly becomes fond of the older, more mature, Harrison Ford.  It is streaming on Paramount Plus and I should rewatch it, as it has been years.  Harrison Ford is so good in it! 

I’m pretty sure I saw Mel Brooks’ Dracula : Dead and Loving It, or at the very least, I started it.  I may have noped out as I wasn’t in the mood for outlandish comedy.  Leslie Nielsen as dragon, Steven Weber is in it as well. 

Grumpier Old Men, is a title I love and I wish more sequels were bold enough to add an -er to their original title for the sequel.  Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau are back at it and their grumpier than ever!  I saw this in high school and it was pretty fun.  Kevin Pollak and Daryl Hannah are also in it with Burgess Meredith. 

12 Monkeys, I started and didn’t connect with.  Too out there and I wasn’t ready for it.

I need to watch Mr. Holland’s Opus.  It doesn’t appear to be streaming anywhere. 

Well, that’s 1995 and my opinions of the majority of the films from the year! 

I have no idea how WAYW is going to cover this massive year in one movie, they are going to have to either give one sentence opinions or just narrow it down to ten films each.  I’ll do a follow up post about which movies they highlight. 

. . .

Births of 1995, all of them should be 28

Shameik Moore

Justice Smith

Dua Lipa

Katherine McNamara

Timothee Chalamet

Ross Lynch

. . .

Deaths of 1995

Donald Pleasence

Big John Studd

Burl Ives

. . .

Film Debuts, all working for 28 years

Casey Affleck

Michael Bay

Connie Britton

Hayden Christensen

Rachel Leigh Cook

Rosario Dawson

Peter Dinklage

Minnie Driver

Michael Clarke Duncan

Peter Facinelli

Will Ferrell

Natasha Henstridge

Rhys Ifans

Monica Keena

Keira Knightley

Johnny Knoxville

David Koechner

Jared Leto

James McAvoy

Debra Messing

Amanda Peet

Mekhi Phifer

Ryan Phillippe

Jeremy Renner

Paul Rudd

Peter Sarsgaard

Chloe Sevigny

Michael Sheen

Ethan Suplee

Charlize Theron

James Van Der Beek

Johnny Whitworth

. . .

Top Ten of 1995

In no real order :

1              Empire Records

2              Mallrats

3              Batman Forever

4              Apollo 13

5              Usual Suspects

6              Seven

7              Die Hard with a Vengeance

8              American President

9              Heat

10           Power Rangers

. . .

Amazon Prime

SFW

GoldenEye

Hulu

Boys on the Side

Netflix

The Quick and the Dead

Disney+

Tall Tale

HBO Max

Clueless

Assassins

YouTube

Hackers

Paramount Plus

Sabrina

2022 in Film

Posted by John Klein III on December 31, 2021
Posted in: Film. Tagged: . Leave a comment

Feel free to follow along as I review the films of 2022!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_American_films_of_2022

January

The 355, (in)famous X-Men producer and director of Dark Phoenix, Simon Kinberg is making an action spy movie.  Jessica Chastain must have liked the experience as she’s back.  Sebastian Stan is joining her, so that’s fun.

The fourth, and possibly final installment of the Hotel Transylvania franchise, Transformania, comes out.  Surprisingly, I have actually seen all of these.  They seem to be getting worst with each one.

Scream, the fifth movie in the franchise, but without the numbering, what does it all mean?!  Hopefully Syn, Gail, and Dewie make it out.  I’m super worried about losing one per act.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/movies/news/deep-water-with-ben-affleck-and-ana-de-armas-pulled-from-theatrical-release/ar-AARF1kW?li=BBnb7Kz

MSN had an article stating Deep Water is not coming out when expected, so who knows what is happening there.  We’ll have to see Ben Affleck in something else, I supposed.

Guy Ritchie is making a comedy spy movie with Hugh Grant, Cary Elwes, Aubrey Plaza, and Jason Statham.  Even Josh Hartnett is coming back for this.  Or has he already come back?

Cyrano, a musical, starring Peter Dinklage is coming out.  That should be interesting.  Ben Mendelsohn is in it too.  Fun how musicals are coming back.

Redeeming Love has Famke Janssen and Nina Dobrev, but not in starring roles, but always nice to see Janssen in a film.

The King’s Daughter, a fantasy film, has Pierce Brosnan (my favorite Bond), William Hurt (Big Chill represent!), and Julie Andrews.

Morbius is finally coming out!  The Sony-Spider-verse finally expands again.  Probably the first movie I will actually try to watch.

The Ice Age is getting dusted off for Ice Age Adventures of Buck Wild, which I haven’t seen any of these.

February

Roland Emmerich is back destroying things with Moonfall.  I can only imagine what the threat will be.  Halle Berry, Patrick Wilson, Michael Pena, and Donald Sutherland are in it, so that’s a cast worth seeing.

Jackass Forever, should have gone with Fourever, but sure, or even 4ever.  They could have had more fun with it.  Seen all of these, but 3 came out in 2010, believe it or not.

I still need to watch Kenneth Branagh’s other two Agatha Christie films, but the third one, Death on the Nile comes out.  Annette Bening, Russell Brand, and Gal Gadot are in it.

Graphic novel adaption of Marry Me comes out, starring Jennifer Lopez, Owen Wilson, and Sarah Silverman.

I Want You back stars both Charlie Day and Jenny Slate, so that should be super funny.

Uncharted finally comes out!  The second film of the year I actually want to see and probably the actual first movie I see.  I still wish Mark Wahlberg had Sully’s mustache and Tom Holland was older looking in it, but the trailer does look amazing.  For some reason, borrowing a scene from Uncharted 3, and mentioning a character from 4, makes me think that they are trying to squeeze everything into this one in fear that there won’t be a second one.  But maybe they’re plan is to make the second one limitless with possibilities?  I’m really hoping Elena shows up in it, but I get them going with Chloe first.  Maybe it will end with an Elena appearance?

Michael Bay’s Ambulance, starring Jake Gyllenhaal.  If you see the trailer, I really feel like they showed the entire movie with it.  I really like how Marvel has a policy of not showing any footage past the first act.

Channing Tatum is co-directing a film, that he’s starring in, Dog.  It has Kevin Nash and Ethan Suplee, so I like that.

Texas Chainsaw Massacre is getting the Halloween treatment and getting a direct-sequel-forget-those-other-films business.  I’ve only seen Next Generation with Renee Zellweger. I’m the worst.  Coming to Netflix, so I might watch this.

Disney is modernizing Cinderella with Sneakerella (get it?).  Coming to Disney Plus, so we’ll probably watch this eventually.

March

The Batman, finally!  I just bought Walker the Hot Wheels version of the Batmobile.  We’re pretty excited.  Paul Dano as the Riddler?!  Yes please!

We saw the trailer for Disney’s Turning Red, and it looks super fun.

My wife should be excited about Downton Abbey : A New Era.

The Contractor, Chris Pine is back (is there a reason he only makes like one movie every two years?), Ben Foster (when is Flash Forward going to come to Disney+ ?!), Gillian Jacobs (Community represent!).

The Lost City, an adventure comedy, has Sandra Bullock coming back, Chatum Tatum Oscar Nunez, and Daniel Radcliffe.

April

Jay Chandrasekhar directs Easter Sunday, which has Tia Carrere in it!  We follow a fictional Joy Koy as he comes home for Easter.  I’ve seen clips of Koy and seems funny, just never committed to a full special.

Bullet Train, an action thriller, has quite the cast.  Brad Pitt, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, who I have to admit thought I read it as Anya Taylor-Joy.  I’m like a small percentage of people who made that mistake, right?  Well, Michael Shannon and Sandra Bullock are in it, so she’s coming back ya’ll.

Sonic the Hedgehog 2, will make Walker super excited.  I’m expecting it to take place mostly on Mobius, right?

The Northman, an epic historical thriller, has Alexander Skarsgard as a Viking (of course!), Nicole Kidman (who clearly likes working with him, who wouldn’t?!), and hey, Anya Taylor-Joy, I read that right this time.  Ethan Hawke and Willem Dafoe too!

The third Fantastic Beasts comes out, and I only seen the first half of the first movie and fell asleep.  That’s on me though.  Well, that and the movie, I reckon.  I haven’t gone back.  The Lego Dimensions levels were enough for me.  I feel I got it.

While at the Montana Bookstore, we saw the book series, The Bad Guys, and it looked pretty interesting.  They didn’t have the first book nor the collection of the first four books, so we passed on it, but nice that it is being turned into a movie.

The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent sounds super fun!  Nicholas Cage playing a fictional version of himself, in an action comedy.  That’s how I prefer my Cage, with lots of action!  Pedro Pascal, Tiffany Haddish and NPH are in it!  NPH everybody!

May

Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, this movie should have a lot of pressure to be amazing, but I bet it pulls it off!

DC League of Super-Pets, I saw the trailer for this before Ghostbusters Afterlife, and I didn’t even know it was a thing!  Looks super fun!  I’m hoping Ace the Bat-hound shows up.  Oh shoot, just looked up the page, and Kevin Hart is playing Ace, a hound, but gets super strength and invulnerability.  So unless the film ends with him being Batman’s Ace, probably not going to happen.  I just typed that and already envisioning the movie ending, Ace losing his powers, and Batman adopting him.  That’s how it is going to end, right?  Hey, the page states that it will be on HBO Max 45 days after its theatrical release.  That’s awesome!  I can definitely wait 45 days, though we may just watch it in the theater too.

Hey, Legally Blonde 3 is coming out.  Is Luke Wilson (my favorite Wilson brother) in the second one?  Is he in this one?  He is!  At least the second one, which apparently, I never saw.

Top Gun : Maverick finally comes out too.  Val Kilmer, Ed Harris, Jennifer Connelly, even that Miles Teller is in this, with Jon Hamm too!  The film literally can be about anything, but it will definitely have Tom Cruise now the veteran having to now deal with someone who was like him in the day.  Classic Disney sequel plot.

John Wick, Chapter 4.  I seriously need to watch these films!  Joining Keanu Reeves is Laurence Fishburne, Clancy Brown, and Ian McShane!  I still want to watch Nobody as well.  Apparently there could be a potential crossover as they share the same creative team.  Also, a fifth movie is planned.  McShane is a regular of the series, as is Fishburne.

Bob’s Burgers Movie is coming out, a series I should be watching more a I simply love H. Jon Benjamin.  Kristen Schaal and Eugene Mirman are amazing too.

June

Jurassic World : Dominion appears to be the one they are dumping all of the money into.  They got Sam Neill, Laura Dern, and Jeff Goldblum!  Probably just one scene with all three of them, right?  Is BD Wong going to make it out of this alive?!

Lightyear, I’m still confused by Tim Allen can’t do the voice of a young Lightyear?  Like, does it matter?  He still sounds the same.  But I get them going with Chris Evans, but seems mean.  Maybe Tim Allen bookends the film?

They are making about bioflick for Elvis, Tom Hanks will be Colonel Tom Parker.  There has to be a website now of all of the real people Hanks has portrayed now, right?  He’s been a lot of real people.

July

Minions : The Rise of Gru.  I had to check to see if we have missed one of these, but this must have been pushed way out.  Taraji P. Henson, Jean-Claude Van Damme, Lucy Lawless, Dolph Lundgren, and Danny Trejo join the cast, so it must be pretty heavy on the villainy, right?

Thor : Love and Thunder.  Here we go, another movie I’m super excited!  We’re getting Natalie Portman back, ya’ll!  Going to work as Guardians 2 ½ as well, which is super fun.  I imagine we’ll get bookend scenes, right?  It would be fun if they were just there just like how Captain America : Civil War was essentially just an Avengers movie.  I completely forgot that Christian Bale joins the Marvel universe with this film!  Such a huge get!  He’ll be playing Gorr the God Butcher, from Jason Aaron and Esad Ribic’s Thor run in 2013.

Jordan Peele keeps making horror movies, with Nope, and I really need to start watching his movies!  I’m the worst!

Dwayne Johnson’s Black Adam finally comes out.  I’m seeing Sarah Shahi and Pierce Brosnan are in this.  I would imagine Zachary Levi shows up in a fun cameo, right?

August

Secret Headquarters sounds like a lot of fun, and it is based on a story by a great X-Men writer, Christopher Yost.  A kid finds his father’s secret headquarters (nice!) and I assume hijinks ensues.  Owen Wilson and Michael Pena are in it.

A Mythos Comics graphic novel is being adapted, Samaritan, starring Sylvester Stallone.  A young boy comes across a once legendary superhero the world thought lost, who may have just been living a normal life.  That’s a type of story I’ve thought about, like what happens to Daredevil once he’s in his 50s?  He can’t keep going on and on.  Martin Starr is in this, and I do enjoy him.

September

Salem’s Lot is being adapted, again.  I couldn’t get through the book after multiple attempts.

We’re getting another Puss in Boots movie, which I haven’t even seen the first one.

Olivia Wilde’s thriller, Don’t Worry Darling is coming out.  It stars Florence Pugh (who was simply a delight in Hawkeye’s fifth episode), and Harry Styles.  Kiki Layne, Nick Kroll, and Chris Pine are also in it.

Mission : Impossible 7 comes out.  I do like how they just keep making these, I really need to watch these again, I think I got to 3? before I stopped for whatever reason.  Hayley Atwell is back too.  Interesting that there is no subtitle.  Oh no, this is the one she was already filming, so they must have been delayed as well.  It will be coming to Paramount+, so hopefully they have the other films available too.  8 is in the works.  I wonder if a subtitle will be added at some point?

October

Spider-Man : Across the Spider-Verse (Part One).  Ooof, that title!  Seems like such a waste of a second movie, when they could have gone By the Spider-Verse.  We’re pretty excited.  Though hopefully this version of Miles gets a movie where he isn’t dimension hopping, but I get that this is a classic Disney sequel, so the universes came to him, and now he will go to them.  Plus, this one should launch the other characters into their own films, right?

Halloween Ends, gosh, I really need to watch these new Halloween movies!  Kills was available to stream, but 2018 wasn’t, so I couldn’t get caught up.  For free, I mean.

Ticket to Paradise reunites Julia Roberts and George Clooney in a romantic comedy.  That should be nice to see them together and just working again.

November

Flash, like Uncharted, is one of those films that I will believe is actually coming out when I see it listed at Cinemark.  I still have my doubts.  Though I’m pretty excited about a big screen version of Crisis of Infinite Earths, but that’s a lot of story to squeeze into two hours.  Michael Keaton back as Batman should be incredible!  Ben Affleck is listed in the cast too, even if it is for only a minute, that would be fantastic as well.  The movie is more like Flashpoint than Crisis apparently.

David O. Russell is united an all start cast for his latest untitled project.  Christian Bale, Margot Robbie, John David Washington, Anya Taylor-Joy, Rami Malek, Zoe Saldana, Chris Rock, Timothy Olyphant, Michael Shannon, heck, even Taylor Swift, Mike Myers, and Robert Do Niro are in this.  I like how the Wikipedia description for the movie is simply : A doctor and a lawyer form an unlikely friendship.  Like, with that cast and that director/writer, that’s all we really need.  It will run the gambit of emotions if it is anything like The Fighter, Silver Linings Playbook, and American Hustle.

Kenneth Branagh is working on a Bee Gees biopic, so that’s happening.

We’re getting so many superhero films and I am definitely here for it!  Black Panther : Wakanda Forever has the impossible task of continuing the Black Panther movie franchise.  Though I completely understand not wanting to recast T’Challa as Chadwick Boseman, as he was the best, but also, we do live in the world of 12 Batmans and 6 Spider-Mans, so recasting is something that we are used to have happening.  But what an impossible task and decision to make!  Super excited about this movie, and what they have going for it.  Seems like we are going to be introduced to a slew of characters (like Iron Heart) and this is supposed to launch a television series too.  Imagine a Wakandian version of the West Wing?!  That’ll be terrific!

She Said, a film based on the book about taking down Harvey Weinstein, starring Carey Mulligan, Zoe Kazan, and Andre Braugher.

Lyle, Lyle, Crocodile, is a throw back to the good ol’ days of live action / animation musicals.  Javier Bardem and Constance Wu are in this, could be very interesting.

Steven Spielberg is back in a big way, with The Fabelmans.  Michelle Williams and Seth Rogen are reunited and they are bringing along Paul Dano in a movie that Spielberg co-written.

Creed III, I have yet to watch any of the Creed films and I need to get on top of that.

Disney is relating Strange World, and that’s all we know about it right now.

December

The threat of James Cameron’s Avatar 2 become very real. The original film came out in 2009, so anticipation has been building for 13 years, or people have forgotten about it.  I’m definitely more in the camp that it was a decent film, but still confused why it was the number one film of all time for as long as it was.  Until Endgame replaced it and now we have a great movie up on the charts.  Sam Worthington is dusted off for this.  2024 promises to have Avatar 3.  I felt bad and had to look up what other films as he worked on since 2009.  Jennifer Aniston’s Cake in 2014, Ensemble film Everst, and Andrew Garfield’s Hackaw Ridge.  Some other films I didn’t recognize.  Zoe Saldana is back as is Sigourney Weaver.  Either also back or joining the cast are : Giovanni Ribisi, Vin Diesel, Edie Falco, Jermaine Clement and Kate Winslet.  I want to say they are mostly new, but who remembers Avatar?

Hey, I didn’t even know we were expecting an Aquaman sequel!  Two DC films in one year?  That’s pretty impressive.  Jason Momoa, Amber Heard, Patrick Wilson, and Doph Lundgren are definitely back for it.  Didn’t the first movie have a couple lost kingdoms?

The Mario film.  I’m still not on board with Chris Pratt being Mario, as he’s already lent his voice to several high profile animated films, but here we are.  I am excited that we’re going to get a slew of new Mario merchandise, especially plushies, and hopefully, hopefully a new game.  I’m wanting at least eight different worlds.  I recognize six of them will probably be montaged, but that’s okay.

We’re getting a Whitney Houston biopic, I Wanna Dance with Somebody.

The year ends with Babylon written and directed by Damien Chazelle, of Whiplash and La La Land.  Brad Pitt, Margot Robbie, Lukas Haas, Olivia Wilde, Spike Jonze, and Jean Smart is in this.  Tobey Maguire is executive producing and has a supporting role in this period drama.

2021 in Film

Posted by John Klein III on December 31, 2020
Posted in: Film, Websites. Tagged: . Leave a comment

We’re entering into 2021 and it has to be better than 2020, right?

As always, I will look to see which movie titles jump out at me.  All dates are subject to change.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_American_films_of_2021

January

Chaos Walking is finally coming out.  A movie I recently saw the trailer for and was reminded the movie has been delayed quite a bit.  The Tom Holland and Daisy Ridley, alien planet where your thoughts are heard by everyone.  Sounds interesting, but I’ll wait until it is streaming somewhere.

Our Friend, has Jason Segel in it, so I’ll eventually watch this.  I keep meaning to check out Dispatches from Elsewhere on AMC.

February

A non-Disney, but still a musical, version of Cinderella is coming out.  I’m not that familiar with Camila Cabello, but I feel her being cast as Cinderella is very telling of what type of film this will be.  Idina Menzel, James Corden, John Mulaney, Miniie Driver, and Pierce Brosnan are in it, so it will probably be pretty fun to watch.

French Exit has Michelle Pfeiffer so that’ll be a movie to watch.

Dog has Channing Tatum co-directing and starring.  It will be a comedy.

Flora & Ulysses is coming to Disney Plus, and it has Alyson Hannigan, Danny Pudy, Kate icucci, Bobby Moynihan, and Ben Schwartz, so should be a fun family film.  I’m not familiar with the book at all.

oooooof!  Tim Story is bringing a live action / animation mix Tom and Jerry to HBO Max.  This is going to be like those Alien / Predator films that should be 80 percent the title characters, but won’t be.

The Russo brothers are co-directing Cherry, starring Tom Holland, based on a movie I’m not familiar with, so this promises to be good, with just those three being involved.  Full disclosure, I haven’t read a book in maybe two years, which I really should get back into the habit of.  As if I was Whoopi Goldberg.

Nobody has both Bob Odenkirk and Christopher Lloyd, so I’ll add this to my list of films to look out for.  Which I have now done.

March

Coming 2 America, a sequel 33 years in the making.  Eddie Murphy, Arsenio Hall, John Amos, Wesley Snipes, and James Earl Jones, yes please!  Also proving any movie can get a sequel.

Disney’s latest animated feature, Raya and the Last Dragon, comes out!  I’m so excited!  And maybe it is coming to Disney Plus as well?  I love how Warner Brothers just threw it out there that all of their movies are coming to HBO Max on the same day.  That’s a service I can fully support.

The King’s Man is the prequel in the trilogy, and I have yet to watch a single one of these Kingsman films.

Typing about prequels, The Many Saints of Newark, the prequel film to Sopranos is actually coming out.  David Chase is co-writing it.  Leslie Odom Jr. is in it, so that’s fantastic.  Vera Farmiga is in it too, so that’s nice.

Morbius may be coming out, so that the BluRay will be out in time for Halloween.  Will he be in the upcoming third Tom Holland Spider-Man film?  The cast of that film is a dream coming true!

Another series I have dodged, Boss Baby, adds another film to its franchise, Family Business.

April

No Time to Die, the 25th film in the James Bond series, and most likely Daniel Craig’s fifth and last one.  Such a great title.

Peter Rabbit 2 : The Runaway, I saw the first one, so I’ll eventually watch this one.

Bob’s Burgers : The Movie, H. Jon Benjamin getting that sweet movie money!  Odd that Bob got a movie before Archer.  It is a musical too!  Fun!

Mortal Kombat is braving its face gain!  Coming to HBO Max as well!  For some reason, I thought this was the fifth in the series, but it is only the third.

A Quiet Place Part II reminds me that I really need to watch that first movie.

Edgar Wright brings us Last Night in Soho, with Anya Taylor-Joy, Matt Smith, and Terence Stamp!

The Asset reteams Michael Keaton and Samuel L. Jackson.

May

Hopefully, Black Widow, actually comes out!  We have to get these Marvel films back on track.

I saw, Rumble, thought it would be a WWE Royal Rumble movie, knew it wouldn’t, was about to move onto the next film on the list, but then I saw it.  WWE Studios, say what?!  It is an animated movie, and I’m hoping it is a fun romp.

The graphic novel, Marry Me, which I haven’t heard of, gets a big screen adaption.  It will star Jennifer Lopez, who will be providing the soundtrack for, Owen Wilson is being let out of movie jail for this.  Sarah Silverman was the name attached that peaked my interest.

Godzilla vs. Kong is finally coming!  I have to yet to see either creature’s latest films, and I should really correct that.

Free Guy is probably my most anticipated movie that isn’t being produced by Marvel.  A Grand Theft Auto mixed with Fortnite movie starring Ryan Reynolds?  I was already trying to figure out how to preorder movie tickets when I first saw the trailer.

Saw is getting a ninth film in the franchise!  This time with Chris Rock and Samuel L. Jackson, so it should be getting good again.  I have not seen a Saw film since maybe the third one?

F9, the latest Fast and the Furious film, another complete franchise I have yet to see any films of.

Curella continues Disney’s need to create live action films based off of beloved animated series.  In a twist, this is a prequel, starring Emma Stone.

June

Sylvester Stallone stars in a new twist on the superhero film, Samaritan.

Ghostbusters : Afterlife hopefully comes!  We are really anticipating those sweet Lego sets that ought to come from the film’s release.

Lin-Manuel Miranda’s In the Heights is coming out, and hopefully Roku and Amazon will have finally add HBO Max to their streaming TVs and devices by then.  So annoying!  My wife and I will probably watch this a slew, simply based on how often we watched Hamilton.

Venom : Let There be Carnage ends the month.  Since when was Andy Serkis set to direct this?   I feel like that should really step up the film, right?

July

Top Gun : Maverick finally comes out.  Jon Hamm is in it, and I realize I sort of forgot about that guy.

Minions : The Rise of Gru comes out.  Sequel heavy year, but that makes sense, as the movie industry has to make up for lost time.

Marvel’s Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings should be great, and I can’t wait to see a trailer.

The Forever Purge is the fifth and final installment of the Purge franchise.  I should watch these once it is all said and done.  Anyone know if they ever dealt with the events that lead up to the first Purge?  I really could go for a documentary set in the that explains that first year and how bad things must have been.  Like, there is no way Congress okayed this, but if they did, what made it all possible?  Was the first two years like the worst?

I’ll believe Tom Holland’s Uncharted is coming out once I see a trailer, and once I see an article that states it is coming out “this Friday.”  Until then, I have my doubts.

So they actually were making the LeBron James Space Jam movie?  Titled, New Legacy.  Coming to HBO Max, which is nice!  And, yes, Lola Bunny will be part of the cast.

J.K. Simmons will be in Chris McKay’s The Tomorrow War, along with Chris Pratt, and Yvonne Strahovski.

M. Knight Shyamalan is being let out of movie jail again with Old, based on a graphic novel, Sandcastle, by Pierre Oscar Levy and Frederik Peeters.

Disney’s latest film based on one of their rides, Jungle Cruise (that does not even sound familiar), is coming out, starring Dwayne Johnson, Emily Blunt, and Paul Giamatti.   People really like the Rock in a jungle setting.

Everyone’s other favorite Old English story, The Green Knight, is getting a modern update.

August

James Gunn’s reimagining of The Suicide Squad is coming out.  Should be pretty fun from everything I have seen.  Coming to HBO Max, so that’s fantastic.

Hotel Transylvania 4?!  For some reason, I have seen all of these.  I really thought we said everything we needed to say with the 3rd one.

Deep Water, an erotic thriller starring everyone’s dream boat, Ben Affleck.  This makes sense.

Jennifer Hudson will be Aretha Franklin in Respect.  Surprised they didn’t go with R-E-S-P-E-C-T as the official writing of the title.  Forest Whittaker, Marlon Wayans, Marc Maron, and Mary J. Blige also star in the film.

I forgot I wanted to watch The Hitman’s Bodyguard with Ryan Reynolds and Samuel L. Jackson.  Well, a sequel is coming out, The Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard – which I already fell in love with the title.

There’s going to be a PAW Patrol movie, a franchise Walker Dennis completely avoided.

Candyman is getting a direct sequel and not a remake, so I’m all about that.  Though I’ve never seen any of the films.  I imagine it will work like Halloween and ignore the films in the middle that they want to ignore.

Peter Jackson has apparently been working on a Beatles documentary this whole time.

September

Jackass 4 is going to be a thing.

Resident Evil gets a reboot, probably to be more in-line with the tone of the actual games, and tie-in nicely with Resident VIIIage.

Kenneth Branagh continues to adapt Agatha Christie books with, Death on the Nile.  The film stars Annette Bening, Russell Brand, Gal Gadot, and Armie Hammer.

My Little Pony is getting a sequel film.

October

Dune will finally coming out.  Well, Part One anyway.

Addams Family 2 reminds me that we kept not watching the first film.

Halloween Kills is a sequel to the 2018 Halloween direct sequel to the original Halloween film, and the 12 entry into my favorite scary franchise.

Ben Affleck and Matt Damon wrote a movie together again!  The Last Duel will be directed by Ridley Scott and stars Matt Damon and Ben Affleck will be more in a supporting role.  Adam Driver will be dueling Damon.

Snake Eyes will get his spin-off film from the G.I. Joe franchise, yet another series that I have not watch any of the films of.  There are only two other films, I thought there were like four of them.

November

Marvel’s Eternals finally comes out!

I was literally having the thought yesterday about how no one under 25 probably even knows Elvis or his significance, and here comes Austin Butler (Elvis) and Tom Hants (The Colonel) to bring the King back.

Clifford The Big Red Dog also finally comes out.

Mission : Impossible 7 comes out, and I’m way behind on this franchise, like, I’m sure the last one I saw was the second one.  Hayley Atwell has joined the cast, so it should be pretty great.

There are a few films were directors are releasing two films, which makes sense as I’m sure there were films already completed and were waiting for theaters to open.  Ridley Scott is directing a story about Guccio Gucci, staring Lady Gaga, Adam Driver, Al Pacino, and Robert De Niro.

December

Steven Spielberg’s West Side Story finally comes out as well!

December 17, Spider-Man 3 featuring every single person!  Probably my most anticipated film of the year!

Matrix 4 should be interesting. NPH joins the cast.

Sing 2 comes out, making it five years since the original, but I’m sure Walker Dennis will still want to watch it.

So not a bad year of films.

SDCC : New Mutants @ Home

Posted by John Klein III on August 6, 2020
Posted in: Film, Fun With YouTube. Tagged: , , , . 2 Comments

Thanks to Comic-Con International for hosting their own video!

I love seeing the cast together and having a great time!  They filmed this so long ago.

I liked how they had fun with all of the delays, but ideally, we will see this moving on August 28, 2020.  I am not sure why they are still holding out for theaters, I guess to be eligible for Oscars?

Towards the end, they reveal the opening scene, which looks super dark to me.

I strained my ears for any hints of Lockheed, and then I strained my eyes during any shown footage, and I could not see the little guy anywhere.  I sincerely hope he makes the cut.  Just see me an official Lockheed plushie, please!

It really is incredible how this cast just gets more and more famous, and yet, this film cannot just come out.

Anya Taylor-Joy has won me over as Magik already!

They made a Twitter emoji for Magik, #NewMutantsMagik is how you get it to show up.

I tried #NewMutantsLockheed, but it did not work, which would have been a fun treat.

2020 in Film

Posted by John Klein III on December 31, 2019
Posted in: Film, Fun With YouTube, Songs, Websites. Tagged: , , , . 2 Comments

Time for our annual look at the movies coming out in 2020!

If you want to follow along, this article is brought to you by Wikipedia!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_American_films_of_2020

Unofficially, of course.  Though, one of these times, I really should donate to Wikipedia, with how much I rely on them.

We are bound to watch a movie in January so that we can get our 2020 Cinemark Souvenir Cups.  Walker Dennis would get one of him for the first film but then go back to getting his kids combo that includes a very small drink.  But we like having a third one for when we take a guest, most likely, one of our nephews.

January

The Grudge is having another go in the theaters.  John Cho is in it so that’s one thing it has going for it.

Kristen Stewart continues her comeback with Underwater.

The Informer has Clive Owen coming back to films!  I thought about that guy a bunch this year.  He apparently has been making two movies a year for a while but I have not had any of those bring them to my attention.  He was apparently in the show, The Knick, with Chris Sullivan, so I really want to watch that show now.

Whatever happened to Rupert Everett?  I liked him in a slew of things!

Josh Harnett is even coming back to films with Inherit the Viper.

Dolittle may be the movie we actually end up watching in the theater, begrudgingly.  I was not a huge fan of Eddie Murphy’s franchise, only having seen the first one, but it looks like they are putting money in this one with a giant all star voice cast.  Robert Downey Jr. is Dr. Dolittle, the veterinarian who talks to animals, and can understand what they say back.  The voice cast includes Emma Thompson, Rami Malek (coming a long way from Until Dawn!), John Cena, Kumail Nanjiani, Octavia Spencer, Tom Holland, Craig Robinson, Ralph Fiennes, Selena Gomez, and Marion Cotillard.

Will Smith continues his quest to reclaim the love of the people with the the concluding chapter of the now Bad Boys trilogy, along with Martin Lawrence.  Which I appreciate him trying to bring back his 90s fun era as his attempts at Oscar gold has left me cold.

For Sebastian Stan fans, The Last Full Measure comes to theaters, sounds like a very interesting story involving William H. Pitsenbarger.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_H._Pitsenbarger

Stan portrays an investigator looking into a Medal of Honor request for Pitsenbarger.  The film also has Peter Fonda in it, and I did not even realized he died back in August 2019.

Charlie Hunnam will be in Guy Ritchie’s The Gentlemen.  Hugh Grant is in it too!

On my birthday, we get another attempt at making Gretel & Hansel into a movie.

February

I was going to give Birds of Prey a hard pass but Mary Elizabeth Winstead as The Huntress intrigues me.

So that is something the film has going for it. As Ali Wong is in the film along with Ewan McGregor as The Black Mask.

This really is the year of the comback!  Alicia Silverstone is back, ya’ll!  In The Lodge, a horror film.

Probably the definition of someone trying to reclaim their 90s cred, Jim Carrey in Sonic the Hedgehog!  If I watch it, it will be for James Marsden and for the (hopefully) ten minutes we get in Mobius.

I am reminded that horror movies come out in February so that the BluRay will be available by Halloween.  Fantasy Island is getting a horror film adaption that until right this moment as I type this, I was thinking about the Love Boat.  I have never seen an episode of Fantasy Island so I have no connection to this.

Community’s Jim Rash is co-directing a film, Downhill, a remake of a Swedish film, Force Majeure.  It stars Julia Louis-Dreyfus and WIll Ferrell.

Hey, Valiant Comics actually got Bloodshot made into a movie, starring Vin Diesal.  Good for those guys!

Maybe the first legitimate movie I am actually interested in.  Call of the Wild, a CGI-Animated adaption of Jack London novel.  The voice cast is pretty stunning with Harrison Ford, Dan Stevens, Karen Gillan, and Bradley Whitford!  Which reminds me, I still have that final season of Legion to watch.

It has been enough years (I guess?) so we are getting another adaption of Emma, this time with Anya Taylor-Joy.  Are we going to get New Mutants this year?

The Boy is getting a sequel, this time with Katie Holmes.

I am a sucker for The Invisible Man, so I am excited about this new movie!  Elizabeth Moss, who is enjoying an amazing career post-West Wing, is the gal who is being tormented by Oliver Mansour Jackson-Cohen’s the Invisible Man.

Wendy, a re-imagining of Peter Pan, is coming out at the end of February (along with Invisible Man), so that should interest my wife as she’s a huge Peter Pan fan.  Seems like a very dark take on the characters.

March

I saw a trailer for Disney Pixar’s Onward, it looks cute with two demon sons wishing their father back to life but only get him from the waist down.  Tom Holland may be lending his voice to too many animated films.  Probably watch this with Walker Dennis but I would be okay with passing on it.

Ben Affleck will be in a sports drama, The Way Back.  It is a re-team with Director Gavin O’Connor, which reminds me that I did want to watch The Accountant.

My Spy, starring Dave Bautista, Kristen Schall, and Dr. Ken Jeong, is the first kids’ movie I would be tempted to see.  It looked silly and over the top, but in a good way.

A Quiet Place is getting a sequel, which might prompt me to finally getting around to watching the first movie.

Looks like the Riverdale cast has started making side movies!  KJ Apa (Archie) is portraying Jeremy Camp in I Still Believe.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeremy_Camp#Personal_life

Britt Robertson (who I know from Under the Dome but she’s been in loads of things now), is portraying his first wife.  His parents are played by Gary Sinise and Shania Twain.  The story is what he based his song, I Still Believe, about.

Thanks to JeremyCampMusic for hosting the video!

Disney’s continuing quest to turn all of their animated feature films into real films, continues with Mulan’s release. Probably another one of these I will not watch until it is on Disney+.

April 

Peter Rabbit 2 comes out and the first one was not horrible.  Probably catch it whenever it becomes available to stream.  Rose Byrne and Domhnall Gleeson are back, and that is all I care about.

Lookie lookie, we have New Mutants set for April!  I cannot find a movie poster with the new date on it so I will believe it when I see it.  I also still need to watch The Dark Phoenix Saga, I know it is not good but I should still watch it.  Like Fallout 76, it feels weird not experiencing something in one of my favorite franchises.

We are getting the 25th Bond film, No Time to Die, such a great Bondy title!  I still have to watch Spectre.

Trolls World Tour will be a definite movie we watch in the theater. I have to remember that Cinemark does Discount Tuesdays where movies are actually properly price, so we should try to take advantage of that more in the coming year.

The Secret Garden is getting another remake that maybe someone asked for?

May

Black Widow is hopefully a movie we watch in theaters.  For whatever reason, we missed out on Captain Marvel, we kept missing times or the weekend got away from us.  But I would like to watch it.

Tom Hanks wrote and stars in Greyhound, a war film based on a book.

The Personal History of David Copperfield has 12th Doctor, Peter Capaldi in it.

We get yet another animated origin story of Scooby Doo, titled Scoob!  This was a trailer before Frozen 2 and Walker Dennis really wants to watch it.  I wish it was just a feature length animated film and not an origin story but I am sure it will be decent.

Chris Rock developed a story that is being turned into the ninth installment of the Saw franchise, The Organ Donor.  I thought we were done with that series?

Fast & Furious 9 is happening, I will be skipping that, I still have not seen one of these films.

Spongebob will have a trilogy of films come this summer.

Artemis Fowl, directed by Kenneth Branagh is coming out, I have heard of the book series but do not know anything specifically about it.

June

Wonder Woman kicks off the month!

Candyman pulls a Halloween and is making a direct sequel to the original film, and Tony Todd is back in the role as well!  Which reminds me, I still have to watch that new Halloween film.  Plus, I should play more Dead by Daylight, I feel like I am constantly reminded of how I made so many purchases in that game, and have not played in a while.

We saw a trailer for Pixar’s other movie, Soul, but I am not sure if we are going to watch it in theaters, I do like the idea of the film though and it promises to have jazz music in it, so I like that.  Tina Fey co-wrote it, so it should be funny.

Judd Apatow is back with King of Staten Island, that stars and is co-written by Pete Davidson.  He was just starting SNL when I gave up on the long running sketch comedy series.  Heck, I used to at least know who was hosting it but I have given up on that too.  Do people even talk about SNL sketches?  I was told about the Batman sketch and even that was years old.

So funny!

Thanks to Saturday Night Light for hosting the video.  Thanksgiving 2017, so two years ago, and I only heard about it a few months back when Arkham Knight was the free PS+ game.

Ton Gun’s sequel, Maverick, finally becomes a real thing after years of hearing about it.  Looks pretty legit with Jennifer Connelly, Jon Hamm (also making movies again?), and Ed Harris joining the cast.  I imagine the plot is Miles Teller (out from movie jail) is the new maverick and Tom Cruise as to get him to focus his energy and dial back his bad boy ways.

In the Heights, is this year’s musical!  I have not heard about it before but I hope there are some good songs in it.  Jimmy Smits, Stephanie Beatriz (who we heard sing in Lego Movie 2), and Lin-Manuel Miranda are in smaller roles, by judging how their names are listed on the Wikipedia page.  I still have not seen La La Land outside of watching three songs from it.  This post is mostly about movies I was excited about but did not go out of my way to watch.

July

Minions gets a sequel, The Rise of Gru, which should deal with his twin brother, right?  At least it should be acknowledged.  Thankfully, Walker Dennis is not despicably into this franchise, I think he likes it enough but he seems to be a bigger fan of Illumination’s other properties.

Ryan Reynolds has a science fiction comedy, Free Guy, coming out.  It sounds super fun!  Reynolds is a NPC in a GTA/Fortnite mashup of a game, and becomes aware that he is in a video game.  Which is a very fun premise.  What would that world be, just an open world first person shooter?  Is there a game like that?  So Fortnite but in a more city like local but still with the countdown and the parachutes?

Ghostbusters : Afterlife, the movie, if we do not watch any other movies this year, we will watch this one, for sure! Probably buy the souvenir cups and popcorn bowl too.  I am committed to this!

The Purge gets a fifth film!  Five more and they overtake Saw, if I am counting right.  The concept fascinates me but I need an origin story as I have so many questions about how it all got set up and what the infrastructure must have been like to get it started.  Have they dealt with that yet?  Even if it takes place in a comic or novel, I would totally read that.

Christopher Nolan is back with Tenet, and he did bring Michael Caine along for the ride!  “Action thriller” seems to be the only description of the plot.  RPatts getting some pre-Bat-time.  Kenneth Branagh is having a banner year with directing a film and featuring in another one.

Bob’s Burgers is getting a film!  Fun series, I only seen the first season and maybe some of the second?  I just barely have time for the shows I do watch.

Disney ride, Jungle Cruise, gets a film starring Dwayne Johnson, Emily Blunt (who must have really impressed someone with her Captain Marvel audition), and Paul Giamatti.

We’re getting a Marvel Morbius movie?!  I have been wanting one of these since Marvel has made movies and we have had Octobers!  Missed ropportunity to have it be in October as even the BluRay will not be available by then.  Jared Leto as Marbius kills my buzz but maybe he will be better in this role?  11th Doctor, Matt Smith, plays a friend in it!  I cannot find a legit image that does not look like an artist rendering of what he should look like.  Unless the above is legit, then we are off to a good start.

I get Sony has to do something with the Spider-franchise but I am really hoping this is at least watchable.  I just wish Disney had all of the characters but then we would not get a Morbius movie.  Then again, we are getting Blade, imagine that crossover?  I am now!

August

Respect, Jennifer Hudson as Aretha Franklin.  This is dumb, and I am sure someone had the conversation, but I wished it was spelled R-E-S-P-E-C-T, which I get is longer and the hyphens are distracting, but it is probably more fun than they are hoping for.

I completely forgot to expect Bill & Ted Face the Music!  I am smiling just typing that!  William Sadler is back as The Grim Reaper, so that is amazing.  I really wished they did this while George Carlin was still alive.  Amy Stoch is back as Bill’s step-mother and Hal Landon Jr. is back as Ted’s father.

Let Him Go is a drama with Kevin Costner and Diane Lane, so someone really wanted more of them together after not getting it from Man of Steel, and I am right there with them!  Thomas Bezucha, who directed Family Stone, directs this film.  The pair have to save their grandson from an off-the-grid family.

September

Video game franchise, Monster Hunter, gets a film starring Resident Evil’s Milla Jovovich.

The Conjuring gets its eighth film in the franchise, which I am happy that Patrick Wilson keeps getting continued work.

The Kingsman gets a prequel with The King’s Man, another franchise I have nothing to do with.

Tom Clancy’s Without Remorse gets a film adaption, the origin story of John Clark, a recurring character in Jack Ryan stories. They have to do something while Amazon has the Jack Ryan rights.

Sopranos prequel film, The Main Saints of Newark comes to theaters, with David Chase co-writing.

Edgar Wright is back with Last Night in Soho, starring Anya Taylor-Joy, Matt Smith, and Terence Stamp.

Aaron Sorkin is writing and directing, The Trial of the Chicago 7, based off of the true events of the riots that took place during the 1968 Democratic National Convention.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago_Seven

and not the Chicago White Sox like I originally thought it was going to be about before clicking the link for more information.  Seems like a very interesting case and I have not heard anything about it before hand.

Apparently the story has been adapted a couple times already.  The film stars Sacha Baron Cohen, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Thomas Middleditch, William Hurt, Frank Langella, and Michael Keaton.  So I will eventually watch this.  I am sure it will also get Oscar buzz around it.

October

Now we get the real reason why Morbius is not the October movie from Sony’s Spider-Thinktank!  Venom 2 is a thing, were we even expecting it?  Walker Dennis sure did take to the first one so he might be able to watch the second one in the theater.  Woody Harrelson is in it so we must be getting Venom vs. Carnage, which should look better as two black characters fighting each other was not pleasant on the eyes.

That poster may not be legit, but it looks pretty cool.

Tom Hanks’ second movie, BIOS, it is a science fiction film that also features Skeet Ulrich.

Hey, Murder on the Orient Express is getting a sequel!  Death on the Nile, also written by Agatha Christie.  Kenneth Branagh is back as the director and star of the film.  So Sir Branagh is directed two films in one year and stars in two films as well, that has to be a record for director/actor, right?  Along for the ride is Gal Gadot, Letita Wright (Shuri from the Marvel films), Armie Hammer, Annette Bening, and Russell Brand.  These movies have quite the cast and I really do want to watch MotOE.

The 1990 masterpiece, Witches, is getting a remake!  This time by Robert Zemeckis, so I am not sure if this is going to be a CGI film like his previous ones or a proper live action film.  Cast is shaping up to be a delight with Anne Hathaway, Octavia Spencer, Stanley Tucci, and Chris Rock.  The film promises to be closer to the book version, which typical of remakes.

As referenced above, Halloween Kills is the sequel to the 2018’s Halloween sequel to the original movie.  Seems like a giant cast but Michael definitely needs to kill people so a larger cast lets that happen.  I really need to see that 2018 one.  Jamie Lee Curtis and Judy Greer are back, and Anthony Michael Hall is in this too!  This marks the 12th installment for the franchise.

GI Joe’s Snake eyes gets his own spin off!  I have yet to watch any of these films, and not necessarily going to break that tradition with this one.  Now, if there was a new Ninja Turtles and/or He-Man movie, along with Ghostbusters, then my trinity of cartoons would be complete!

We get two musicals this year with Everybody’s Talking about Jamie, which will be the comedy one.  I have not heard of this one either.

November

Can Marvel strike Guardians gold a second time with Eternals?  So many question marks with this film, including, what is this even going to be?  Is this going to work as an origin story for the Marvel Universe?  A second option?  Still, that cast and it being a Marvel movie, should mean success.  Black Widow could be the more action heavy movie and this one being the more thought-provoking film, though I am not sure if Marvel has one of those just yet.  Angelia Jolie, Kumail Nanjiani, Salma Hayek, and Kit Harington, please come on into the Marvel Universe!

Clifford the Big Red Dog gets the live action adaption treatment.  Hopefully they do not lean into the Curious George disaster walking tropes, which Clifford is not known for but I can only imagine they are going to attempt to give the big ol’ dog an origin story.  Will Walker Dennis want to see it?  I doubt it,

There is no link but Netflix is making a movie (for theaters?) titled “Red Notice” directed by Rawson Marshall Thurber who also directed We are Millers and Dodgeball.  So it has to be a comedy.  The cast is pretty great with Dwayne Johnson, Gal Gadot, and Ryan Reynolds.

Ben Affleck’s second film, Deep Water, based on the psychological thriller book.

Maybe the first movie I watch with Walker Dennis and I watch due to my wife’s disinterest in the big monster genre, but who knows, she might want to watch it.  My big caution about the film is the percentage of dumb humans to actual monster content as I would want the split to be 95/5 monster to humans.  Dumb humans can set up who the characters are for 15 minutes, then the next hour could just be the monsters fighting, as humans seek shelter but I also don’t care if any of the humans live.  Which is my biggest gripe with the Aliens vs. Predators films as it is like 30/70 with the humans taking most of the film’s running time.  Plus, there are so many humans in this film!  Dreamboat Alexander Skarsgard, Millie Bobby Brown, and Kyle Chandler, so maybe they will not take up too much time either.  Plus, these are not any two no-name monsters, this is Godzilla vs. King Kong, so this should be presented like the once every 40 years match-up that it is!  Can you actually believe the last time they fought was in 1962?!  Way too long!

Disney’s official 59th animated feature film, Raya and the Last Dragon comes out.  Raya is searching for, you guessed it, the last dragon.  We have managed to watch the last several Disney films in the theater, so I imagine this one will get seen as well.

Will Smith, chasing that Oscar gold, stars in King Richard, a film about Venus and Serena Williams’ father, Richard.  I guess he’s the most important part of those two’s career?  I guess a movie from their perspective or from their point of view, could be a tad larger in scope so focusing on someone managing both daughters is the way to go.

December

Sylvester Stallone has a film, Samaritan, kicking the month off.

We are trying our hands with another Dune movie.  The film should cover the first half of the novel, so hopefully we get the second film.  The film stars Oscar Isaac, Josh Brolin, Daddy Stellan Skarsgard, Dave Bautista, Zendaya, Jason Momoa, and Javier Bardem.  The original film came out in 1984 and the book in 1965.

As this post takes some time to write, I legit was thinking that it has been a while since Steven Spielberg released a film and wondering if he was retired.  Turns out, he has been directing West Side Story!  We are getting three musicals this year!  That should fill up the Golden Globes Musical or Comedy category!  I have also not seen Ready Player One, or it turns out, several other Spielberg films.  It looks like a cast of relatively unknowns, but I bet it launches several careers.  The original film came out in 1961, and like most remakes, is supposed to be closer to the original Broadway source.

Even Coming to America is getting a sequel!  Coming 2 America, get it?  That’s fun.  The original film came out in 1988.  Plot seems a little dicey with Eddie Murphy’s character realizing he had a child (a son) he did not know about, like how he claimed Scary Spice’s daughter was not his, and now has to make six movies a year to pay off that child support.  Silly Eddie Murphy!  Arsenio Hall is back for this as is James Earl Jones.  Leslie Jones and Wesley Snipes joins the cast.

We are supposed to get Uncharted this year, but for some reason, I am very doubtful of it.  The lack of a Wikipedia page, Mark Wahlberg as a young Sully, no movie posters even being made by fans, Tom Holland as an even younger Nathan Drake, I’ll see if Travis Knight sticks around.  I would love an epic Uncharted film, it would have to be at least three hours long, right?  Hopefully we get a new Uncharted game, heck, even if it was shorter one like Lost Legacy, that would work for me!  Which I still have to play Uncharted 4 and Lost Legacy, I will one of these months soon.  Probably once I have Lego Marvel Superheroes 2 completed, or out of my system, whichever one happens first.

Good grief!  We are getting a live action / animated combo of a thing to bring Tom and Jerry to modern audiences!  Repeat my complaint already about too many humans above in Godzilla vs. Kong, but even more so here!  Colin Jost is in movies now?!  At least Dr. Ken Jeong is in it.  Oh, and it is being directed by Tim “Fantastic Four” Story.  At least it is during December, when we need a kids movie.  Probably be a hard pass for it.

The Croods finally get a sequel to their 2013 film, which I also have no interest in watching.  Hopefully the Cinemark Dollar Summer Movie program offers the first movie, or this will have to be another pass for old dad.

Tom Hanks’ third film, News of the World helps close out the year.  Takes place after the American Civil War, he is tasked with bringing an orphan daugther to her next living kin.  It is based on a novel.

The year ends with a third Ben Affleck movie, Ridley Scott’s The Last Duel, that reteams him with life mate, Matt Damon, who along with Affleck, co-wrote the film.  That’s fun.  Adam Drive is also in it, no other information is available.

.  .  .

It looks like Affleck and Tom Hanks have three movies out this year.  No Christian Bale or Hugh Jackman (has anyone seen him in a while?) He’s doing Broadway and world tours, good for him!

By my count, 11 films, I am legit interested in watching, that seems like a decent enough movie going experience.  As Walker Dennis gets older, it will be more fun to take him to more films.

Of course, other movies might crop up but these are the ones I could manage any opinions on.

.  .  .

I wish you a Happy New Year!  Make Good Decisions!

2020 is going to bring us the Summer Olympics and a Presidential Election.  Who are the Democrats going to put up?  It does not look like anyone is leading nor does it look like any of them can do it.  Which seriously, how come no one is ever being groomed to be the ideal candidate?  We did not get anyone during Obama’s re-election nor did we get anyone for George W. Bush, nor Clinton before him.  It really cannot be that hard but I also understand no one would really want that job.

The Summer Olympics will be held in Toyko, Japan, so they should be glorious!  Nasa is supposed to launch an exploratory mission to Mars.  Liberia is going to agree to stop cutting down their trees and Norway is going to pay them to not do it.

In fiction, Arno Stark, Iron Man 2020, is supposed to become a thing.

Turtles in Time’s Neon Night Riders takes place in this year.

The company that makes the robots in I, Robot, forms.  Godzilla : Final Wars takes place in 2020.  Hugh Jackman’s Real Steel also takes place this year.

Of course, SeaLab 2020.  The events of Harry Potter : The Golden Child take place.  Dark Angel’s second half of Season One and the first half of Season Two.

The 11th Doctor two parter, The Hungry Earth / Cold Blood.

Glee’s series finale.

Robot House from Fallout is born on June 25, 2020.

 

 

2019 in Film

Posted by John Klein III on December 31, 2018
Posted in: Film. Tagged: . Leave a comment

I was noticing all of the movies that are coming out this upcoming summer and it looks like a major movie like every other week or so!  Once I started down the list, I had lots of opinions and I figured I’ll get them out of my head.

For anyone who wants to follow along:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_in_film

January

Glass.  I still need to watch Split but I’m super excited from what I’ve seen from the trailers.  I just loved Unbreakable and anything that gives us more stories from that world, the better!  Why is Dunn even locked up?!  I could see if he made various visits to Glass and then it timed out well with the Split fellow but he’s clearly locked up there too.

February

Jacob’s Ladder.  Can you believe they are remaking Jacob’s Ladder?!  That’s when I knew I was going to want to write this article.

Lego Movie 2 : The Second Part.  This movie once I tell Walker Dennis that it is coming out, is going to be very eagerly anticipated.  He saw the trailer and wanted to watch it immediately.  Luckily, he’s forgotten about it for a minute so that’s good for us.  We’ll watch it probably the second weekend it is out.

What Men Want.  On the flip side of Jacob’s Ladder, I read this title was thought to me self “what is this, a female version of What Women Want?”  And it totally is and I love it!  Especially as it stars Taraji P. Henson!  I imagine there will be at least one joke about how men are always thinking of sex, or it would be a running gag but I’m hoping it has more than that.

All-Star Weekend.  Jaime Foxx is writing and directing films now.  Pretty great cast with Robert Downey Jr., Dr. Ken Jeong, and Gerald Butler.  I’m not sure why Butler doesn’t act more, him and Clive Owens should have much better careers.

March

Chaos Walking.  I’m not familiar with the series but this has Tom Holland and Daisy Ridley, both of whom must have filmed it in-between breaks from their bigger films.  This is supposed to be the start of a new franchise so we’ll see about that.

Fighting with My Family.  Stephen Merchant wrote and directed this movie about WWE’s Paige, who I’m not familiar with at all.  But I do love me some Stephen Merchant.  If you haven’t listen to his episode of Inside of You with Michael Rosenbaum, please do so!

https://player.fm/series/series-2331217/ep-29-stephen-merchant

So great!

The Rock co-produced the film and will be in the movie too.

Captain Marvel.  I can’t wait for this film, my first film of the year that I really want to see.  I want to see Lego Movie 2 as well but if I had to choose only one film, will it probably be a later film but I wouldn’t watch that one unless I got to see Captain Marvel.  My wife might be done with the Marvel films so I might have to take Walker Dennis with me.  The Marvel films are usually rated PG-13 but that’s for like superhero violence and he sees that type of stuff with most action cartoons.  I was folding laundry and he sat through Scott Pilgrim just fine.  He seemed way into it, now that I typed that.  I was building some Lego sets that he received for his birthday and I had Captain America : Winter Soldier and he didn’t seem to pay too much attention to that one.  Those are two completely different films though.  Scott Pilgrim holds up like crazy.  This past weekend, I was folding laundry again (a weekly chore), and I started Black Panther and that movie starts off pretty slow for a now five year old.  I’m sure watching it in the movie theater will help too.

Dumbo.  Tim Burton’s Dumbo.  The trailers look pretty good and I like how they seem to focus on Dumbo but I’ve seen Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland and I’m hoping Dumbo is treated better.

April

Shazam!  I’m all for funny super hero films and Captain Marvel probably lends itself to more comedy or at least, more family friendly fare, but that first trailer left me rather cold.  I do like how both Captain Marvels are getting films in the same year.  At least Carol came first.

Pet Sematary.  Another remake but horror movies can be remade all the time, with special effects being what they are and how long ago the first film was, I don’t see a problem with it.

Hellboy.  I’m really hoping this new version works out as I would love a new Hellboy movie every other year.  He could easily sustain that type of franchise.  David Harbour should be great in the role too.

Breakthrough.  I saw a thumbnail of Chrissy Metz on YouTube and made a dumb judgment call on what the trailer would be like and what type of film it would be but I was pleasantly surprised.  I also had to look up the true story as I do with any film based on true events.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Impossible_(2017_novel)

It comes out on Easter so that’s pretty smart.  The film also stars Topher Grace and Mike Colter.  We just started Luke Cage’s first season last night too.  Such a great first episode.  We’re hoping to go between Luke Cage and Season Five of Agents of SHIELD but we’ll see how that works out.

Under the Silver Lake.  A neo-noir film starring Andrew Garfield and Topher Grace, could be interesting.

Avengers : Endgame.  My buddy Greg has a theory the film will end with Tony in space, giving Pepper that farewell speech of his that can be seen in the trailer.  I’ll be curious who survives and how Captain Marvel plays into the film.  I’m really hoping no one dies and any of these actors can just come back as they please.  But I also get why the studio has to write them out if the actor doesn’t or can’t come back.

May

Pokémon : Detective Pikachu.  I had shrugged my shoulders when I first heard of this film and figured it would come and go like the other Pokémon films that come to the theater.  Then I saw the trailer with Ryan Reynolds as Pikachu and now I’m all on board.

The Hustle.  A female version of Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, starring Anne Hathaway and Rebel Wilson.  Could be good.  I do like Anne Hathaway.

John Wick 3 : Parabellum.  I have yet to see any of these John Wick films but I really should.

Aladdin.  I’m still iffy on Will Smith as the Genie but once I see the first official trailer, I’m sure I’ll be sold on him.

Brightburn.  A horror film using the premise of Superman, written by the Gunn brothers (but not the third one, he’s producing it though), I’m all signed up for this.  Teenage Superman but with invisibility and maybe only heat vision?  Also, the film has Elizabeth Banks, so that’s great too.

Godzilla : King of the Monsters.  This film will have Mothra, that’s all I needed to know!  One day, we’ll get Mechagodzilla but I imagine that’ll only come with a Pacific Rim crossover.  Hopefully this would be the film that makes it 80/20 monsters vs humans seen on film but I doubt it.

Rocketman.  The Elton John biopic, with Taron Egerton has Elton John.  I still only really know him as the voice of Johnny from Sing!  He was the gorilla.

June

Dark Phoenix.  So odd they dropped “X-Men” from the title as this is going to be the last X-Men film made by FOX.  I’m still hoping that they go into space but it seems like this will be based more off of Ultimate X-Men’s Dark Phoenix, which we sort of did to poor results.  I have high hopes for it.

The Secret Life of Pets 2.  Another film Walker Dennis is going to love.  I wish Patton Oswalt was at least attempting a Louie C.K. impression but I also completely get why Illumination didn’t want that.

Men in Black International.  I didn’t even know we were set to get this picture.  Doesn’t look like we’re getting either Will Smith or Tommy Lee Jones but maybe they are holding that as a surprised.  I know it was the first thing I looked up.  This is the London based MiB with Chris Hemsworth and Tessa Thompson, both great in Ragnarok.  I’m also happy to see Kumail Nanjiani will be in it as well as Liam Neeson.

Shaft.  I was all about Samuel L. Jackson as Shaft with Christian Bale as the villain way back in 2000.  This one stars Jessie Usher as the latest Shaft.  Richard Roundtree is back as well.  Tim Story of Fantastic Four fame is directing the film.  I was hoping they were going to make Usher the nephew to Jackson’s Shaft, so that it was always the brother of the previous Shaft but they are not going in that direction.

Toy Story 4.  I still wished they stopped at 3 but 3 made $1.067 billion so that’s pretty hard to walk away from that type of money.

Grudge.  Another horror movie remake.

Child’s Play.  The eighth installment but a reboot!  Aubrey Plaza is in this one so that’s two things.

Ford vs. Ferrari.  James Mangold who directed the 3:10 to Yuma remake and The Wolverine and Logan, is giving us our sole Christian Bale film of the year.  I thought Vice was supposed to come out but it must have had a limited release in 2018.  Bale is neither Ford or Ferrari but based on the events of the 1966 24 Hours of Le Mans.  Matt Damon is also in this but is neither Ford or Ferrari.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1966_24_Hours_of_Le_Mans

Tracy Letts is Ford II and Remo Girone is Ferrari.

47 Meters Down : Uncaged.  This reminds me I hadn’t seen the Mandy Moore first film where she fights sharks.  Probably not a good sign for her that she’s not in this one.  I do wish they titled it, 48 Meters Down.  That would have been awesome.

July

Spider-Man : Far From Home.  The European Vacation of Marvel films!  I’m all for Jake Gyllenhaal as Mysterio and Cobie Smulders is in this too!  Keaton is back as the Vulture too!  So many coincidences!

The Lion King.  I know they were never going to do this but it would be great if they let Jon Favreau had his way with the film but just carried over the audio from the 1994 film.  Since there is no human element like Jungle Book, this is just going to be a feast for the eyes.  Plus, they had James Earl Jones come back as Mufasa, so they should have just let everyone come back.

Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.  Quentin Tarantino’s ninth film, and I like how we’re still counting these.  His take on the Charles Mansion instructed murders.  A giant cast for this film!  DiCaprio, Brad Pitt, Margot Robbie, Damian Lewis, Luke Perry, Emile Hirsch, Dakota Fanning, Nicholas Hammond.  Yes, that Nicholas Hammond!  thwip thwip!  I forget he was one of the young children in The Sound of Music.  Apparently he made two films in 2018, The BBQ and Ladies in Black.  Ladies in Black has Julia Ormond as one of the ladies who was Sabrina in the 1995 Sabrina remake.  Which is always high on my list of worthwhile remakes.

Al Pacino is also in the movie.  Lena Dunham and Rumor Willis too.  Damon Herriman is Charles Manson.  Looks like a guy who has been in known films but wasn’t known from said films.  Bruce Dern rounds out the cast.  In nondisclosed roles are – Tim Roth, Michael Madsen, Kurt Russell, Timothy Olyphant, and James Marsden!

August

Hobbs & Shaw.  The Fast and the Furious spinoff.

The New Mutants!  Hopefully this movie doesn’t get pushed back any further!  Several July/August horror films so they can be released on BluRay in October.  I can’t wait to see more of Anya Taylor-Joy as Magik and I really hope Lockheed makes the cut into the film too.  I also want to see them in a variation of the New Mutants classic uniforms.  Since this is going to be the last last FOX X-Men project, I want them to just go crazy and include everything as there will not be a sequel.  Unless there is and we can get Warlock and Karma but time will tell.

Dora the Explorer.  A live action take on the story.  I wonder if the plan is to make one of these every year or have this transition into a live action series.  Benicio del Toro is Swiper, I’ll have to rewatch a scene but it feels like a miscasting but I’m sure he’ll be fine in the role.  She’s entering high school and there’s a plot about rescuing her parents.  You know, like in the cartoon.

Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark.  I want to be in so hard with this film!  I love the classic children’s stories so much!  They are barely a page long but the images and the words really stick with you as you read.  I used to reference this as my favorite horror stories back in high school and only a few even remembered it.

Such a great collection and Amazon has it for under $20!

https://www.amazon.com/Scary-Stories-Tell-Dark-Paperback/dp/B00ZQB6AW0/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1545088935&sr=8-2&keywords=scary+stories+to+tell+in+the+dark+box+set

The film is co-written by Guillermo del Toro.  Imagine if this was done like a 30 minute HBO series, roughly animated and retold five stories in those 30 minutes?  That would have been awesome or at least, another take on the story.

Angry Birds Movie 2.  Can you believe they are making a sequel?  I can now that I see the first one made $352.3 million.  That and I’m sure the tie in game makes Rovio Entertainment tons of bank.

Playmobil : The Movie.  Like the Lego Movie but harsher on the eyes is my best guess for the film.  I’m hoping it steals a lot from Lego and has a wealth of references to their playsets.

Especially their Ghostbuster sets!  Walker Dennis got all of these except for the Egon/Ghost and the Terror Dogs sets.  Mostly as I didn’t even know they made a Terror Dogs until right now.  He still wouldn’t have gotten it but still.  The Firehouse, Ecto-1, Stay Puft and Slimer all look amazing.  But the individual figures do not look great on the box.  They are fine and clearly in the Playmobil model but ooof.

A real shame we ended up with two Janines and no Egon but that’s how you sell a boxset.  Walker doesn’t mind at all and he got plenty of people and he’s all for a play house set.

Angel Has Fallen.  A film I was going to scroll pass even though it has Gerald Butler and Morgan Freeman in it.  So first the White House (Olympus) falls, then London fell, now Butler’s character is being framed (of course!).  Classic Jack Bauer nonsense where the one guy who has spent years (or two days?!) saving the country and should have a school in every state named after him, is of course, turned traitor and everyone immediately doesn’t question it.  But this one taking place on Air Force One does catch my attention.  I have yet to see any of these films but I’m a sucker for a airplane hostage film.  I get that from my mom’s love for disaster films.

September

It : Chapter Two.  I’ll watch these eventually.

Downton Abbey.  My wife was interested in this once I told her about it.  The show has been off the air since December 2015.  It doesn’t feel like three years has passed but I also haven’t heard people talk about the show in a while.  Probably at least two years.  I wonder if it was better to do a film than a revised television series.  I guess it was as they went with the feature film route.

October

Gemini Man.  Ang Lee directed.  An aging assassin (Will Smith) has to fight a younger clone of himself, also played by Will Smith?  For some reason the younger clone can predict the older one’s moves when you’ll think it would be the other way around.  So the original older model will have to come up with some new tricks, I supposed.  Mary Elizabeth Winstead is in this, which is what caught my eye.  She’s so great in Scott Pilgrim and one of these days, I’ll pick up Mercy Street again.  I read All About Nina was a good film of hers that came out in 2018.

The Addams Family.  A few horror movies get released in actual October.  This is the kid friendly animated horror movie.

Zombieland Too.  I have to still watch the first one.

The Goldfinch.  Our sole Luke Wilson film of 2019.  Another great actor that I don’t see why he doesn’t get more roles.

November

Terminator 6.  With this film, I’ll be three movies behind on the Terminator series, and one television series.  Linda Hamilton is back, so this one might be the one to watch.

Charlie’s Angels.  This was the other movie that sparked wanting to write this article.  I’m all for Elizabeth Banks directing this film.  I wonder if this is why she didn’t direct Pitch Perfect 3.  The cast on the other hand, ooof.  Kristen Stewart, probably ran out of Twilight money and now needs another success story.  I imagine she’s available for two more films.  Naomi Scott, of Pink Ranger fame in the last Power Rangers film.  She’s also going to be Jasmine in the Aladdin live action adaption, so 2019 could be big for her, she’s on both ends of the year, so that works for her.  Ella Balinska rounds out the trio.  I guess she’s the Lucy Lu of this cast.  I’m sure the other two are fine to great but Kristen Stewart being the star of the film isn’t ideal.  Maybe she’s loosen up these days and is ready to have some fun.  Patrick Stewart is also in this so that could be really neat too.  Seems like this could be a television series if it wasn’t for Naomi Scott blowing up.

I had to check.  Taylor Lautner hasn’t acted since 2016, Run the Tide as his last film and he had a main role in Scream Queen’s second season.

Robert Pattinson has been steadily in films and has four films in post production right now.  I heard Good Time was supposed to put him back on the map.

Sonic the Hedgehog.  We didn’t get Walker the Sonic Lego Dimensions set so he still doesn’t have much connection to the game.  He’ll love it if we got it for him but it doesn’t seem likely.  I like that they kept his red shoes but apparently are giving him two separate eyes, which seems disappointing.  Once the official image comes out, I’ll make up my mind if we’re going to watch it.  It has to be better than the Mario film, right?

Midway.  We way into playing Lego Dimensions again and my initial thought was this was going to be related to the Midway Arcade era of games but that isn’t the case at all.  This movie gives us the sole Aaron Eckhart film appearance of the year.  Not sure why he doesn’t get more work either.  He had four films in 2016 and now this film.  I forgot he was in London Falling and he was in Tom Hank’s Sully film too that year.  The film is about the Battle of Midway:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Midway

A decisive naval battle between America and Japan during World War II.  So it will be pretty intense.  I should check to see if there are any documentaries or docuseries that have dealt with the subject material as Wikipedia doesn’t offer any insight with that.

The film also has Woody Harrelson, Mandy Moore, and Patrick Wilson in it.  I like Wilson in most things I see him in but he’s making those Insidious and Conjuring films.  He’s always working and it is hard to keep up with him. Glee’s Darren Criss is in the film as well and Nick Jonas is back to acting as well.  Jonas is also in that Choas Walking film too.

Margie Claus.  Ben Falcone and Melissa McCarthy are bringing us a new holiday musical about Mrs. Claus stepping up.

Last Christmas.  One of my favorite Christmas songs and it is being turned into a film now.

Frozen 2.  This is finally happening and I’m sure we’ll be taking Walker Dennis to it.

December

Jumanji 3.  Combining story elements from both previous films and recognizing the sequel was a sequel and not a reboot.

Star Wars : Episode IX.  Working title has been Black Diamond but I’m sure that’s not what will be on the poster.

Cats.  The famous musical will be finally given the movie treatment.  Jennifer Hudson and Taylor Swift are in it so that’s happening.  JHud has been growing on me with the previous season of The Voice so either she’s tone down her antics or I’ve grown to accept it.  I’m sure it is the latter.  The film of course will be a big deal, lots of names in it.  Ian McKellen, James Cordon (of course), Idris Elba, Dame Judi Dench, Rebel Wilson (also back in a big way in 2019), and Jason Derulo. I recall watching some of Cats on VHS back in the day from the Broadway show but I think I lost interest 20 minutes into it.

Super Intelligence.  Ben Falcone and Melissa McCarthy are also bringing us a Sci-Fi Action Comedy and they are bringing James Cordon along as well.

Little Women.  This film is finally being remade as 1994 was 15 years ago.  1994’s version is when Christian Bale met his wife, Sandra Blažić, who was Winona Ryder’s personal assistant during the film.  That was mine and his main take away from that film.  So it is time to remake that story.  Apparently there was a remake done in 2018 but it doesn’t look as big of a deal but it does have Lea Thompson as Marmee March.  Susan Sarandon was the character in 1994 and Laura Dern is the character in the 2019 edition.  So a rich legacy there.

Call of the Wild.  Jack London’s 1903 classic novel come to life.  Harrison Ford, Dan Stevens, Omar Sy and Karen Gillan are in it.  Omar Sy was Bishop in X-Men : Days of Future Past.  He was also in Jurassic World as Barry and provided the voice for Lego Dimensions : Jurassic World – it is truly all connected!

. . .

So that’s the 2019 in Film!  Some big films and some small ones and several sequels and remakes.

Happy New Year from your friends at S&FwM!

Generation X Movie

Posted by John Klein III on February 22, 2017
Posted in: Film, Fun With YouTube. Tagged: , . Leave a comment

Thanks to YouTuber TheX-MenFiles’ channel for hosting this video.

Also, thanks for making this one big video instead of the two different parts ones that I’ve been watching (or trying to watch) for months now.  Still can’t get through the movie but that’s because I keep starting it when I know I can’t commit to it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation_X_%28film%29

Still can’t believe that Emma Frost and Banshee were the first X-Men to be adapted to live action.

This film came out in 1996 and I still remember being so excited for it coming out and counting the days and making sure my VCR was set up to record it.

Still wish we were able to get Husk instead of the made up character of Buff.

Whenever I see Matt Frewer in anything (which sadly, isn’t enough these days), I get in the mood to watch this again.  So yes, I have now seen 50/50 and it wasn’t the depressing ride I was told it was.  Anna Kendrick is great in it though I do question the ending of it, as far as her involvement.

Also, thanks to BBC America, I see the Star Trek : The Next Generation episode – A Matter of Time, pretty regularly or at least, I have the option to do it.

I didn’t know he was the voice of Sid in the Batman : The Animated Series episode – The Man Who Killed Batman.  Such a great episode!

 

Ultimate X-Men Volume 5 – Ultimate War DVD

Posted by John Klein III on January 23, 2017
Posted in: Film, Review. Tagged: , , . Leave a comment

Ultimate War DVD

Writer Mark Millar

Artist Chris Bachalo

I really like seeing Bachalo’s art in quasi-motion.  We get all four issues of the miniseries here.  As well as X-Men 1 (the comic that started it all way back in 1963!) and Giant Size X-Men 1 that gave the X-Men a new lease on life.

The worst part of this is Ken O’Brien as the voice of Iceman.  Not as bad here as he isn’t a main part of it but X-Men 1, ooof, that is hard to listen too.

I’ll go into the individual issues once I review the actual comics but as a DVD, this is a good story.  The story is that Magneto has escaped and this is worst as the world thought he was dead but instead, Xavier just tricked everybody with his disgusting mind powers in believing that so the world’s guard was down.  SHIELD has the Ultimates go after the X-Men as they are as bad as Magneto’s crew.

I don’t own issue one as Kitty doesn’t appear in it so the entire first part was a surprised.  I had read it in the trade version (as that’s how I was reading Ultimate X-Men for the first ten or so trades until I started buying back issues) but that was a while ago.

This DVD only cost me $1.99 but most times, if you try to search for it, people want like $50 to $100 for this item.  Who would pay more than ten dollars for this, is beyond me.

I wish there was more to this collection but the run stops here, the first five trades were converted to motion comic.

I’m not sure why they went with solely Ultimate X-Men and not bothered with Ultimate Spider-Man as I would have bought those as they were being released.

This DVD came out in October 12, 2004 – so the first one would have been out to tie in with the X2 at the time. Though Spider-Man 2 was around that same time but who knows why they went one direction and not the other.

Astonishing X-Men : Dangerous Motion Comic DVD

Posted by John Klein III on August 7, 2016
Posted in: Film. Tagged: , , , , , , , . Leave a comment

Astonishing-X-Men-Dangerous-DVD-post

While rewatching this DVD, I noticed something.  It does a great job of crediting Joss Whedon and John Cassaday, as it should – it doesn’t mention Laura Martin, at all.

That got me thinking about how Chris Eliopoulos gets completely screwed with these DVDs.  Since the dialogue and sound effects are now spoken or heard, does he not get anything from the success of the comic, that made these motion comic DVDs possible?  Does anyone know?  It isn’t right that these two don’t get any credit, but to shut out Eliopoulos completely?  That is not cool.

I commented on how I thought Kitty did the least amount in this arc, out of the four.  I was pleasantly surprised that Kitty probably does just about the same amount here as the other arcs.

Kitty and Lockheed get spotlighted when all the psychics are taken, but these two can still communicate via their empathic ability.

Kitty first confronts the Danger Room, pre new body.

Kitty names Danger.

Kitty saves the team on Genosha from the initial blast from the giant Sentinel that originally killed everyone on the island.

Kitty gets to experience her first fastball special.  Also, a major wedgie.

Plus, other situations.  I really like the motion comic but the credit business bothered me.

 

X-Men Apocalypse

Posted by John Klein III on June 13, 2016
Posted in: Film, Websites. Tagged: , , . Leave a comment

X-Men Apocalypse Movie Poster

Our friends Tina and Damian agreed to watch Walker Dennis on the 11th and we were able to watch X-Men Apocalypse, as an early Father’s Day present.

Overall, I really enjoyed the film.  Much better than I was lead to believe it was.  I really don’t have any problems with it, lots of surprises.  Which I really need to learn a lesson with this, and not follow films too closely.

Onto the major spoilers –

The film opens in 3600 BCE, which I didn’t even know we were adding the E to it, it stands for Era, which doesn’t seem that crucial of a change.  I see some traitors of Apocalypse that try to halt the body transfer that Apocalypse has to do to gain additional powers.  I like how his ship is clearly Celestial powered but the film doesn’t go into the alien technology aspect of Apocalypse’s origins.  That’s probably for the best, as we’re not going to go into the Celestials in the next film – or any of these films.  This also explains why Apocalypse hasn’t been around before the “present day” main portion of the film, he’s been sleeping this entire time.  We see his Horsemen in action.

We jump to the present, which is 1983, in Ohio.  The first new character is Scott Summers, a welcome addition to the films!  He’s portrayed by Tye Sheridan who I just saw in the Standford Prison Project – which has a lot of known faces in the cast.  Once he has the glasses on, he sort of reminded me of Miles Teller.  Maybe all white twenty year olds look the same with that chin?  I tried to find an image of the two together but it doesn’t exist, hmmmm.

Scott gets his powers activated in the boys room and totally takes out a dumb jock, which is awesome.  His high school teacher is explaining how it is the tenth anniversary of Magneto’s attack on the White House, seen in Days of Future Past.  They really emphasis that passage of time in this film.

Berlin.  Angel played by Ben Hardy – who I don’t know but apparently he was on EastEnders for a while.  I know the old BBC show, by reputation only.  He’s in proper Angel form, and has recently taken out Blob, in a cage fight.  This is his tenth victory, in a role.  This scene makes me start thinking about how this new timeline and so now I’m thinking of how Wolverine Origins still fits into this new continuity.  I imagine that some details may be tweaked but that film should remain the same – so I’m just looking for aspects that could be changed.  Blob’s inclusion here, I feel like it doesn’t change anything of Wolverine Origins.  I do like how Blob was wearing his black unitard with yellow belt.

Angel is sort of bad arse.  We see Mystique, looking like a white Jennifer Lawrence, is snooping around the arena.  Angel’s next opponent is Kurt Wagner, Nightcrawler – played by Kodi Smit-McPhee who I also haven’t seen before.  I really enjoy Kurt and he definitely didn’t disappoint in this film.  I wished we got more than just the one scene (well two I suppose) of just Mystique and Kurt together but they didn’t want to play up that angle and I can’t blame them for that.  Kurt hurts Angel’s wing, and Mystique is able to crash the arena’s power systems so everyone flees.

Kurt is brought in a box that dampens his power, a motif that we see a couple times throughout the film.  Which makes total sense, as ten years later, yeah, people are going to have created security measures to protect themselves against rogue mutants and mutants named Rogue.

Poland, once again, Michael Fassbender’s Magneto steals the film for me.  I’m still all for a Magneto solo film, I could watch two hours of Magneto straight killing humans (or whatever he wishes to do) as he is Magneto for me.

I’m not a big fan of Assassin Creed, I played parts of the first two games – i did like the second one more than the first but with Fassbender as the star of the film, I’m all for watching it now.  Though I don’t know how they will turn an 80 hour game into a two hour film.  That one looked good and the Mark Wahlberg’s Deepwater Horizon.  It was nice to see Kurt Russell in a film again (I know he’ll be in Guardians of the Galaxy 2) was Interstate 60 his last film?  Probably the last one I’ve seen him in.  Such a great movie.  I’m not that familiar with the events of Deepwater Horizon.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deepwater_Horizon_explosion

Oh, this is the event that lead to the BP Oil Spill in the Gulf of Mexico, I hadn’t thought about the origins of the event itself, back in 2010.

Magneto is going by the name of Henryk Gorzky.  A name that I don’t believe has any significance to Magneto of the comics.  A quick Google search lead me to Henryk Gorski, the Polish sport shooter in both the 1960 & 1964 Summer Olympics.  There was also, in 2009, another Henryk Gorski (52) strangled a 24 year old woman.  “Gorzky” didn’t have any results besides related to this film.

Erik has a wife, who I kept listening to hear her get name checked but she never does.  It wasn’t until the credits that listed her as Magda that I got the confirmation, which is great that they got the name right from the comics.  I’m not sure why they took the time to get Magda right but didn’t name the daughter Anya instead going with Nina.  Why go half way with the research?

Havok, with totally 80s hair, has taken Scott to Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters.  Scott meets Beast, who is also in his white Nicholas Hoult form.  He meets Jean Grey, portrayed by Sophia Tuner.  I really need to watch Game of Thrones as I’m missing so much.  Plus, I need to know more about Daenerys Targaryen.  I do like seeing these three Original Five members of the X-Men being together.  I start watching the backgrounds, like a hawk, looking for any boy throwing an iceball or a girl walking through a wall – but I had no luck.  I’m sure I saw a young brunette with a giant patch of white hair on her head, so that could be Rogue.  Maybe Singer’s way of throwing a character a bone for skipping her in the theatrical cut of Days of Future Past.

Scott meets Xavier, who wants Scott to test out his eye blasts.  I guess Havok hadn’t seen Scott’s powers either, as no one thinks to just have Scott blast into the sky.  Instead, he blasts a tree that Xavier’s grandfather planted and he use to swing on – it was his favorite tree.  The other students are weary of Scott now.  This is also the first light moment of the film, which the film does a better job of peppering with as this film didn’t seem as dark and dreary as the others.

Mystique brings Kurt to a mutant underground railroad of sorts.  There we meet Caliban –

X-Men Apocalypse Caliban Tomas Lemarquis

played by Tomas Lemarquis, who looks like he was taken straight from the comic!  I still need to watch Chris Evan’s Snowpiercer one of these days.

In Egypt, the beautiful Rose Byrne returns from First Class, as Moira MacTaggert.  She’s following a mutant cult who worship Apocalypse.  Unfortunately, if it wasn’t for her actions, the entire film wouldn’t have happen.  She follows the cult members under a rug that leads underground but she didn’t recover the entrance with the rug so sunlight hits the underground pyramid that wakes up Apocalypse.  This is the first callback to First Class, one of the two X-films that Bryan Singer didn’t direct.  I didn’t quite miss her in Days of Future Past but she is a welcome return.  Apocalypse waking up causes an earthquake.  Back at the factory in Poland, Magneto saves a co-worker from being smashed by a molten bucket – this will backfire on him.  Poor Magneto, from mutant leader to common factory worker – sort of like what Wolverine did for years during Wolverine Origins.

Xavier’s School.  The students are scared as Jean is having one of her nightmares.  Xavier comes to her bedside, as Beast stands at the door.  Xavier sneaks into her dream and witnesses the possible destruction of the world.  Jean wakes up and to sooth her, he leaves his wheelchair and gets into her bed.  Which seems highly inappropriate but Beast is at the door so nothing is going to happen but it is still an odd choice.

Which reminds me, during the trailer, I had thought Sophie Turner wasn’t all that attractive in this scene (for those short seconds) but she is attractive and I wanted to correct the record.

Cairo, Egypt.  Storm, played by Alexandra Shipp – who I also don’t know.  Did this happen at anyone else’s theater?  Before the film started, after the trailers, Alexandra Shipp had a message of thanks and kept emphasizing that the film employed over 1500 folks and it was a pleasure to work on and everyone is excited for us to see the final product.  Or did only Cinemarks get this message?  It felt like an odd choice.  Like, get Singer to do the message or someone bigger or smaller from the cast.  Like, I don’t know, like it put her in a lower tier or something.  Maybe I’m overthinking it.

We see Storm using her powers to steal some food.  Before we see her do it, we see Apocalypse wearing a cloak and walking about the city.  I was hoping we’ll get a twist of Storm pick pocketing Xavier, but this time, with Apocalypse but that didn’t happen.  In an alley, Apocalypse saves Storm from the shop keepers she stole from.  I make a big deal about movie Captain America waking up 60 years later but imagine waking up 3800 years later?  I’m not even sure how the brain rations anything it sees.

Poland.  Magneto is telling Magda that they need to leave.  After some convincing, Magda agrees but Nina is missing.  They search for her and come across her surrounded by police officers.  They know who they are talking to, as they brought wooden bats and one dude brought a bow and arrows.  That guy, I couldn’t believe someone thought an archer was the way to go.

The officers let go of Nina as she runs into her mother’s arms as Magneto has agreed to go with the officers.  Nina starts freaking out and this causes birds to swoop down and start harassing the officers so she has some sort of mutant power over animals.  Apparently, on the ride home, when we first see Nina – my wife pointed out to me – that Nina was feeding a deer and wild rabbits so she knew from the get go.  The archery fuck gets distracted and lets loose an arrow.

The entire time, once we saw the officers, my mind was racing on how Magneto’s family was going to die.  It didn’t make sense it would be by baseball bat, as he should be able to stop one of them from being killed.  But when that arrow was fired and it goes through both mother and daughter, my heart just stopped.  Being a husband and father, these scenes hit me harder than in my single days.  Magneto has had nine years of being a father and husband and he loves his family so much.  As he should!  To have them both die, in that same moment, is heartbreaking.  I would have been fine, super fine, if the movie just stop and we got thirty minutes of Magneto killing the police officers and leaving that one archer to just straight torture for the remainder twenty-five minutes.  Instead, he kills them in seconds, including the archer, with Nina’s necklace that has the last remaining pictures of Magneto’s parents.  It is intense!  I swear, the scene probably lasts like five minutes at most but it felt like forever as my brain processed it from expectations to results and what-could-have-beens.

Hank tells Xavier about the earthquake and Hank’s computers are going crazy.  We see the Cerebro from the original X-Men trilogy.  Xavier checks in on Moira, who he still secretly loves.  He’s checked on her a few times and can barely talk about her, which is pretty funny.  Xavier and Havok, as we need to get as much screen time of Havok and that hair, as possible.

X-Men Apocalypse Havok Lucas Till Hair

Lucas Till should have told the hair dressers to go less 80s with it.

Xavier reminds Havok how, in a total dick move – very much like Superman in Superman 2, Xavier erased Moira’s memory.  In an awesome and silly exchange, Xavier gets Moira to reveal she has a son – who is totally Kevin and that is frightening! and an ex-husband.  Havok enjoys this exchange, as do I, so much.  Moira is a good sport during it, she doesn’t know why Xavier knows so much about her or why he seems so familiar to her.  Though she has read all of his papers he has written.

Moira essentially gives us the scene that was in all of the trailers, the background exposition of who Apocalypse is.

Egypt.  Storm takes Apocalypse back to her place.  He discovers television and is able to touch the screen and absorb all information of the missing years.  I like the way Apocalypse, who is played by Oscar Isaac who played Poe Dameron in Star Wars : Force Awakens.

Meme Poe Dameron Apocalypse Oscar Isaac

Who I glossed over in the very beginning of the film and he’s the flipping star of the film.

I’m glad they were able to make Apocalypse appear more blue as he looked way more purple in photos prior to the film’s release –

X-Men Apocalypse Power Rangers Ivan Ooze

made him look like Ivan Ooze from the first Power Rangers film.

Apparently I’ve seen Oscar Isaac in a few things.  He was Joseph in The Nativity Story and he was Little John in Russel Crowe’s Robin Hood film.

One of the news reports mentions how America and Russia is a super power and we get a fun moment when Apocalypse uses the term “super power” which I feel like is hardly used in these comic movies.  It sounded unique.

Apocalypse makes Storm his first Horseman, it is a shame that each one isn’t given a proper title.  By turning her into a Horseman (woman?) he turns her hair white.  This won’t be the only hair change Apocalypse is responsible for.   At some point, Storm talks about her hero worship of Mystique.  Mystique is a hero of many young mutants.  Mystique disagrees that she’s a hero, it is why she is rarely in her blue form.

Hank has made a special pair of sunglasses made of ruby quartz for Scott to hold back his powers.  I wished we could have gotten a montage of different materials, or just have Hank with three pairs of glasses, with different materials.  Instead, Hank got it right on the first go.

X-Men Apocalypse Cyclops

Scott still has to lift the glasses to let loose his optic blasts and it wasn’t until the final fight when I realized that he typically has a visor – I got pretty swept up in the film and didn’t really watch the film with my arms crossed looking for faults.

Mystique brings Kurt to the Xavier Institute.  Kurt makes fast friends of Scott, Jean and Jubilee.  I really thought Lana Condor, as Jubilee, was going to get more screen time.  It wasn’t until I was looking things up for this post that I remembered that Jubilee was suppose to get an entire moment in an arcade in a mall but we never get it.  Bryan Singer said that there will be no Director’s Cut of this film but there will be delete scenes.

Jubilee, Kurt, Scott and Jean go the mall.  They watch Return of the Jedi, which is fun – especially for FOX to allow them to make a Star Wars reference, when they no longer own the rights.  I think Jubilee is the one (if not her, it is Jean) who says third films are the worst of the trilogy.  Which I thought was producer and screenwriter, Simon Kinberg’s way of insult X3.  Then I realized this film is the third of the new trilogy and I thought it was pretty good.  Hard to believe this is the ninth film in the X-Men franchise.  That’s pretty impressive.

Xavier and Mystique get a fun moment to catch up.  I first saw this scene during Graham Norton Show, Season 19 episode 8 –

Thanks to DailyMotion user, El Weston for hosting this episode.  I originally saw it on YouTube but that video appears to no longer exist.

Jennifer Lawrence looks stunning in that dress, some great stories are told in that episode.  Then Johnny Depp and Will.i.am appear and you can stop the episode before all of that happens.  Jack Whitehall is pretty funny, I should watch his proper comedy special, if he ever gets one.

Mystique tells Xavier about Magneto’s family dying and the look on Xavier’s face, like he knows the entire world is going to be ripped to shreds.  Magneto, or his power over magnetism, truly is one of those all powerful powers.

Back at Caliban’s shop.  After hours, Apocalypse & Storm arrive, looking for powerful mutants.  Caliban tries to get them to leave but quickly learns he is out of his league with Apocalypse.  As a comic Horseman, it was great that we got a scene with Apocalypse and Caliban.  Caliban is protected by Psylocke.

X-Men Apocalypse Olivia Munn Psylocke

Olivia Munn is Psylocke, she doesn’t get a lot to do but is seen a whole bunch in this film.  If she made a reference to her brother, Brian, I missed it as she doesn’t talk much once this scene is over.  Though she is great in the role.  We also do not get her saying “focus totality” which is a real shame.  She has both a real sword and her physic sword.  Later, she uses a physic whip, which I didn’t care for but it is her powers, she can do with them as she wanted.

Psylocke becomes Apocalypse’s second Horseman and she knows where to go for a third one.  Which will be Angel and I wish we got more moments with Angel and Psylocke, as the two dated in the comics.  Angel has a busted wing, due to Kurt’s fight earlier.  I do like how they said an angel needs to fight a demon, in that earlier scene.  Reminded me of Ultimate X-Men.

Apocalypse takes pity on Angel and gives him a massive power upgrade –

X-Men Apocalypse Angel

I do wish Apocalypse called him “his Archangel” but he didn’t but Angel does look great with the metal wings.

Quicksilver, who tries to steal the movie again but is usually the best part of the scenes he is in.  He’s watching the news that Magneto is clearly back and murdering fools.  His mother comes into the room and he goes back to playing Ms. Pac-Man – who he mistaking just says “Pac-Man” but he’s in fact playing the much superior game.  On another television screen, we see and hear the Knight Rider theme song – which is awesome!

Magneto shows back up to the factory, he gives a pretty great speech.  One of these fuckers told the police that the all powerful Magneto was living in their sleepy Polish city.  Which lead to the death of his wife and daughter, so  now all of these fools have to die.  If I worked at the same factory as Magneto, I would just be cool and the next day, I would have brought him in a cake or something.  Magneto is about to kill these fools when Apocalypse and his Horsemen arrive.  Apocalypse kills the factory workers and offers to make Magneto even more powerful.  They all teleport away.

Apocalypse teleported them to Auschwitz, which I already know is a brilliant move on Apocalypse’s part but he could be just igniting Magneto’s rage in an uncontrollable way.  We get flashbacks to both First Class and the first X-Men film, to Magneto’s origins.  Which wouldn’t be affected by the timeline change so that’s a smart move.  We get several clips from the previous films which I’m not sure is a holdover from Days of Future Past but I enjoyed them.

Once Magneto has been properly motivated, he destroys all of the remaining buildings, so the world knows that Magneto is on the warpath.

Back at Cerebro.  Xavier, Mystique, Hank, Alex and Moira are about to look for Magneto.  Xavier had to tell Mystique, earlier, that he midnwiped Moira’s mind as Mystique wasn’t there for that scene as she had joined Magneto.

Xavier finds Magneto and they have a telepathic conversation.  I like how Apocalypse is just cool that Magneto walked away (but not out of the room) to mutter to himself.  I’m really not sure what those four were doing during Magneto’s conversation, as they seem to just be walking around.

Xavier is a good friend, having so much sympathetic for Magneto’s lost.  He doesn’t try to belittle Magneto’s motivations.

Eventually Apocalypse walks over and uses his connection to Magneto to connect to Xavier.  From here, the movie really kicks into gear.  Apocalypse uses Xavier’s connection to Cerebro to reach into the minds of everyone on the world.  He has soldiers and seamen fire all of the nuclear warheads into space.  So there goes the main offense the world was going to have on Apocalypse.

Xavier is glued to Cerebro so Hank has to start trashing the place.  As the heroes start to leave the chamber, Apocalypse and crew arrive.  Magneto takes a knocked out Xavier with them.  Alex, trying to help, blasts at Apocalypse but they teleport away.  So Havok’s blast hits the fancy new Blackbird and it explodes!

Quicksilver arrives, and notices the explosion starting.  We get treated to what would be a minute’s worth of explosion, experienced over six minutes as he is rescuing the main cast and the students in a super fun sequence.  Once everyone is out, we get treated to our first . . . Xavier Mansion Explosion!

It is intense to actually see the whole thing go down as it happens so often in the comics, that I got use to it.

http://goodcomics.comicbookresources.com/2013/11/03/drawing-crazy-patterns-the-x-mansion-is-destroyed/

Brian Cronin, over at Comics Should Be Good, has a great list of when the comics mansion exploded.

It is during the rescuing part, that we see the girl with the white patch of hair but I can’t find that image anywhere.

Scott, Jean, Kurt & Jubilee come riding back and Quicksilver believes he saved everyone.  Hank asks about Alex, who Quicksilver doesn’t know, as it turns out, Havok was the closest to the explosion, so Quicksilver didn’t see him.  Scott doesn’t take the lost of his older brother well but it is okay, as we have the much better Summers brother in the film.

It is this at this time that my bladder starts telling me that I have to pee.  Which I always do before the movie starts and that usually works for me but not this time.  I worked at Hastings that morning and I had a very tight window from leaving there, to go home and pick up my wife and son so we can get him to Tina’s.  This caused a slight issue where, in my rush to get out of the store – I apparently annoyed an older man wanting into the lock video cabinet, as he had waiting twenty minutes before I got around there.  Which I know that couldn’t be true but I tried to be playful and that upset him greatly but I got him his Blurays and he wanted to talk to my supervisor but I didn’t have time to defend myself but I’m sure I’ll hear about that at some point.  Has this happened to other Hastings were sales are low and staff has been scaled way back?  This keeps happening where I either get a Friday night shift or a Saturday morning shift.  So there was suppose to be someone else on the floor but he was covering cafe and the other person hadn’t arrived for 2pm so that’s what happened there.  I probably could have handled it differently but I had to go home.

I knew a certain scene was coming up so I had to hold out until that scene had happened, a scene or a moment.

Once Scott has had his moment, Colonel Stryker arrives and knocks all the mutants out.  For some reason – Kurt, Scott & Jean are not knocked out.  The soldiers pick up Mystique, Beast, Moira and Quicksilver.  They are thrown on a helicopter and the mutant teens with altitude jump on the helicopter too.  By the time the chopter is about to take off, Stryker flips a switch that dampens their mutant powers.  If only Kurt teleported onto the chopter and immediately teleported them off, the rest of the film would have played out differently.  Instead, some acting had to happen and everyone is now captive.

If you wanted the interview above, Jennifer Lawrence reveals that they were able to scale the makeup process way back.  So now she is essentially wearing pantyhoes on her legs and arms.  Which is unfortunately as whenever she is in knocked out, and in her natural blue form, you can see her white skin through the slits in the pantyhoes.  Sort of takes me out of the film but I can see production trying to stay on Jennifer Lawrence’s good side.  Mystique and Beast are both in their blue forms, now that they are taken captive.

Styrker has taken the mutants to Alkali Lake, a great connection to X2.  Quicksilver wakes up and freaks out now that Beast is blue and Mystique is blue.  He’s worried that he’s going to turn blue too – so funny!  Plus, Kurt is blue so that’s a lot of blueness going around.  The three teens, meanwhile, are running around the base, trying to go unnoticed by the troops – which doesn’t work.

Meanwhile, Apocalypse and the Horsemen have Xavier, back in Egypt.  Apocalypse forces Xavier to send a message to everyone in the world – the dark days are coming.  At some point, Apocalypse mentions how the world needs to be cleansed and it totally reminded me of Ra’s al Ghul’s speech about how the League of Assassins have been cleansing the world, for generations.  Xavier, somehow sends Jean a side telepathic message – I’m not sure how that works.  Apocalypse wants Xavier to finish the speech by stating “the strongest will survive” but instead, Xavier ends it by saying the strong need to protect the weak – which isn’t the same at all. 

In the dampening cell, that still gets Xavier’s message – so I’m not sure how that works too.  Quicksilver mentions to Mystique how Magneto is his father – no mention of the younger sister from the first film.  Mystique is confused by the information and Quicksilver tries to explain to her where babies are made but she understood that part of his story.

Then we got to the actual scene that steals the film.  Like Spider-Man in Captain America : Civil War, I knew this was coming but I also thought this was only going to be a minute but it was a full on scene.  An awesome scene!

Jean senses a mutant, who is more machine than man –

X-Men Apocalypse Wolverine

Thanks to Tumblr user, hughjackmania for the above image.

The head gear is a pretty good attempt at the comic Weapon X by Barry Windsor-Smith –

Comic Weapon X

but with the understanding that once Jackman agreed to be in the film, FOX wasn’t going to allow his face to be covered by a silly helmet.

The scene is awesome, as he slays into soldiers as he tries to escape.  It really did remind me of the Wolverine Origins video game (that I still enjoyed) with him just mowing down fools.  I was reminded of my own thought – of why did the soldiers keep coming at him?  I would have just stopped and walked away.  The teens keep following behind him.

This, of course, did not happened during Wolverine Origins, and I’m okay with this change (especially as I have to be) but it still lines up in my mind.  Jean gives him back a few memories and he runs away in the snow, not naked.  So Wolverine Origins can still happened.  Except that Scott isn’t going to be a prisoner for Wolverine to be free about that is another slight change.  That film can still work,  maybe not with “Deadpool” at the end but another Weapon XI stand in.  Also, that Patrick Stewart’s Xavier wouldn’t be at the end of that film, but James McAvoy’s but that works too, due to what Apocalypse does to Xavier.

Wolverine, has a crazy amount of hair on the back of his head, as the last we’ll see of him.  My wife says it is due to being in that chamber for so long but I say it is due to being filming a movie that requires him to have long hair.

So once Weapon X is gone, I head to the bathroom so I missed like three minutes of the film.

I come back and the mutants are on a new plane.  My wife said it was a Russian plane but I’m sure it must be Canadian as they were at Alkali Lake.  So I’m not sure.  I did see that Beast sees the flight suits and the X-Men get sweet suits!

X-Men Apocalypse Flight Suits Jean Scott Kurt

X-Men Apocalypse Flight Suits Mystique Quicksilver

X-men Apocalypse Flight Suits Beast Moira

I had forgotten that Moira got a suit even, as she stays in the plane during the final battle.  The suits seem very flattering on the ladies

Egypt.  We start the climax of the film.  Apocalypse tells Magneto to start stripping the world of metal.  He takes Xavier to the transfer plates so that Apocalypse can take Xavier’s body and powers.

In classic X-Men fashion, they split up.  Beast, Scott, Jean and Kurt will go after Apocalypse.  Mystique and Quicksilver go after Magneto.

X-men Apocalypse Magneto

Magneto was given a sweet new outfit too!

Quicksilver decides to not to tell Magneto that he is Magneto’s son – though I’m sure that would have had Magneto stop destroying monuments.  The world is definitely going to be changed after this.

Storm and Cyclops fight, and it is awesome.  I wish we stuck with these two for a bit.  Psylocke seems to really beat Beast down and we are treated to Round Two of Kurt v Archangel.

Quicksilver tries to slow flight Apocalypse but he stops him in his tracks.  That slow fight does look pretty great through.  Psylocke is told to kill Quicksilver but it is really Mystique.  Apocalypse grabs Mystique by the throat, as Storm watches.

Apocalypse made a comment about how he is linked to Xavier.  Xavier knows this to be true and realizes that he has a connection to Apocalypse.  It is at this time when I realize that we haven’t seen the scene where Xavier loses a fight with a giant Apocalypse in the mansion.  Which we get the beginning of that fight.  I do like Apocalypse showing off one of his known powers – the ability to grow – I was hoping a giant A would show up on his belt but that didn’t happened.  Xavier puts up a decent fight but Apocalypse is clearly beating him.  Xavier reaches out to Jean but she is super slow to coming to the rescue.

On the outside, we get a classic Claremont care bear stare moment as Magneto turns on Apocalypse as does Storm – so powers are coming at him.  Cyclops starts blasting the dude, as well.  Jean finally decides to help and goes all out Phoenix Force – which looks pretty incredible.  I hope Singer gets his wish of properly adapting the Dark Phoenix Saga and having it be in space.  That would be simply uncanny!

Apocalypse is dead, which makes sense as you can’t have Apocalypse just sitting somewhere, planning a second attempt.  Psylocke walks away, silently.

For her thanks, Xavier gives Moira her memories back – which she is happy about but I hope she never drops that it was a dick move on his part.  A clear time jump happens as Magneto and Jean are almost done rebuilding the school.  Downstairs, Xavier tells Magneto that the world has already started rebuilding.  Quicksilver has decided to not tell Magneto about his origins.

During Magneto’s decision making process, before he turn on Apocalypse, we got full clips from First Class – which was fun.  I do like Xavier and Magneto together, they have great chemistry and moments together.  They repeat the whole “what will you do when someone comes to this school looking for trouble” that I feel like has been done in X-Men 1 & 2 and again in First Class.  Xavier has had to answer this question a few times to Magneto but I do love the answer every time.

Movie ends with Mystique giving a speech about how these peeps are the X-Men as we see they got sweet new official outfits –

X-Men Apocalypse The X-Men lineup

X-Men Apocalypse The X-Men

I forgot to mention how during that Apocalypse fight, when he was going to take over Xavier’s body, it came at the price of Xavier’s hair!  So that’s how he became bald.

The outfits do look pretty nice, I’m glad Kurt got some red on his and Cyclops got his visor.  Mystique being in a white outfit is nice as well.

During the post credits scene, we see the janitors working on collecting the bullet shells fired from Weapon X’s escape.  Which is a great detail, I could go for a Damage Control series.  We see government officials open a cabinet and take some blood from Wolverine and put it in a briefcase.

X-Men Apocalypse Post Credit Scene Weapon X blood Essex Corp briefcase

 

A great way to tease both Mister Sinister and X23!  I know when asked who he would play in a comic book movie, Bryan Cranston said “Mister Sinister” which if FOX could get him to sign a contract, they would go out of their way to make that film.  It wouldn’t be great, unless it was a Mutant Massacre style film.  Which could really work as a film.

This was a pretty good movie, I think the altered timeline could still make the other films work – until told otherwise.

Jackman has made all nine films, a record for an actor in a comic book movie franchise!  I imagine Chris Evans is going to beat this record, with his brief appearance in Thor : Dark World, him or Robert Downey Jr. due to both Incredible Hulk and Spider-Man : Homecoming.

. . .

Thanks for these websites for keeping my memory of the film alive –

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X-Men:_Apocalypse

http://marvel-movies.wikia.com/wiki/X-Men:_Apocalypse

Here is hoping that the next X-Film, either New Mutants, Deadpool 2 or X-Men : Dark Phoenix Saga (which can’t be the next one) keeps the streak alive.