Movies I've Seen

 

Duck Tales: Treasure of the Lost Lamp - in which Scrooge McDuck and his 3 nephews go on a treasure hunting expedition and score big. So, Scrooge and a rival are hunting for a treasure in a cave, and he outwits them, and gets there first. But he is soon outwitted, and he loses the treasure, except a dinky lamp that they let Webby keep. There is a genie in the lamp! The children discover it, and make some dumb wishes, and its cute and fine. Until the rival, who is a shape shifting mage who previously owned the lamp, gets a hold of it again, and wishes himself the McDuck fortune. The mage wished for unlimited wished back in 42AD, so now he gets them. Well, he can't get away with it, and the ducks concoct a plan  to take back the lamp. Scrooge uses his 3rd wish to wish genie into be a real boy, so he can't be a slave anymore. It works. Everyone gets ice cream.

The Crush - in which Cary Elwes makes out with a teenage girl in 1993, and it wasn't me. Alicia Silverstone is amazing and charming. She plays Adrian, a teenage girl with very rich parents, one friend, and a tenuous grasp on reality. The protagonist is supposed to be this author, played by Cary Elwes, but dude's a creep, so he's the villain to me. Reframed: this guy moves into Adrien's parents'  carriage house, in the back yard, and I guess she's not used to it being rented out, because she keeps going in there. Like, she has no sense of boundaries, and it seems like no one has ever told her "no," in her whole, beautiful life. So, Wesley, from The Princess Bride, I mean, Cary Elwes, is friendly and charming to her, and obviously flattered by the attention of a young woman. Oh, she's 14. Yeah. So, she gets obsessed with him, and he encourages this friendship by talking to her, inviting her in, spending time with her, and taking her suggestions, like...

Arrival - in which aliens come by the earth to make some new friends, and it goes okay. First, some scary ships have descended on Earth, and there's a bunch of them, like 30, and they just look like hovering rocks. The militaries of the world are cooperating with each other, except the jerks like N. Korea and Russia, and the other new axis guys. So, the plot happens when Forest Whitaker comes to find Amy Adams in the college where she works, this is while the alien invasion is new, and she is convinced to go help communicate with the aliens. She gets there and makes friends with physicist Jeremy Renner, and they work together to decipher the inky messages the squid-aliens transmit. The messages are all visual. They work on this together for months, hanging out in the ship with the aliens, struggling to communicate. Amy Adams starts having visions, or dreams, of the future, where she has a daughter, who dies of cancer, and she knew her daughter would have cancer and die, but she ...

Sicario Day of the Soledado - in which border crossers and coyotes help Benicio Del Toro almost smuggle a teenage girl into US witness protection. Benicio is still working for Josh Brolin, who is working for Matthew Modine this time. Matthew Modine is ruthless, and tries to start a cartel war in Mexico by kidnapping a kingpin's daughter and framing a rival gang. Okay, but Modine is just giving the orders, Josh Brolin is the one telling Benicio that once the teenage daughter sees who has her, she's gotta go as well. There are a lot of murders, and Benicio doesn't want to kill this little girl. He smuggles her across the border and she gets saved by Josh Brolin, Matthew Modine relents, and she doesn't get murdered, but they put the hit out on poor ole Benicio. He gets shot while hooded, so he survived and ended up working in a mall food court but he's still in the game. There is a subplot about a nice America (also Mexican) kid joining the cartel life for money, a...

Death Wish (1974) - in which the justice system fails a man who lost his family, and he goes off the rails in finding personal justice. I mean vengeance. Charles Bronson plays Paul Kersey, a husband and father and architect, who has a nice NYC life. One day, near the beginning of the movie, Paul's wife is murdered and his daughter is raped into a catatonic state, from which she will not likely recover. Sexist. Anyways, Paul is destroyed, so his boss sends him out to New Mexico, or another lawless state, for a 3 month long project. Paul does some recovering while he is out there, and is befriended by his big money client, with a big hat and big guns. Upon arriving back in NYC, Paul is disheartened to find his daughter in terrible condition, and his son-in-law coping poorly. There have also been no arrests in his wife's murder, as the police are very busy with a crime spree related to gang violence. Paul is a really sympathetic guy, and his pain is visible, and very real. So,...

Event Horizon - in which sci fi space body horror gets very fucking real, and totally gross. First, Lawrence Fishburne is a space captain named Miller, and his first mate is Joely Richardson, and she rocks. Her accent is real. A bunch of space sailors are escorting science genius Sam Neill to the wreckage of a space ship. It wasn't just a space ship, it was a massive black hole generating machine, and it recently re-emerged around Neptune, and now its just orbiting, being spooky af. To give all the details, Sam Neill, AKA Dr. Weir, is having creepy dreams about his dead wife in his cryo/gravi-sleep pod before they even get to the abandoned wreck. Oh, its called the Event Horizon. So, once the crew rolls up on Event Horizon they get nervous, because its creepy, and a few people go out to investigate the empty ship. Miller orders Dr. Weir to stay aboard their vessel, and he doesn't do a good job of listening. As soon as the crew splits up, one young guy gets sucked into the g...

Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom - in which Owen Grady is popular with dinos, and Henry Wu gets away with it, again! So, if I don't do this now, I'm definitely gonna forget what happened in this movie. First, Claire is back on her bullshit, working for a paleontology based non-profit, advocating for the intervention of the US government into the Jurassic World broken down theme park situation, to save the remaining dinosaurs. There is a ticking clock on this work, as the island is also an active volcano that is literally now starting to erupt. Who is the bad guy? Um, first, some lawyer who works for Hammond's old partner calls Claire and offers to pay for dino relocation and suggests she enlist Owen's help. Claire convinces Owen to come by reminding him that he can once again see his dino-daughter, Blue. Once they are on the island with para-military forces to help round up the dinos, Claire and Owen are getting along great. There's two normies with them, one clas...

Incredibles 2 - in which gender stereotypes are challenged, and the villain is a girl. First, I had to rewatch the first one before I saw this, and it was cute. Now, Incredibles 2 has the Incredible Family move into a fancy new house, while Mrs. Incredible is being bankrolled to come back and be a super hero on the down low. Its supposed to generate goodwill towards supers, and might lead to the repeal of anti-super legislation. Keep that in mind, as all of the crimes Mrs. Incredible thwarts are fairly easy to solve, and they are all being perpetrated by the same criminal - The Screen Slaver, who uses strobe lights to hypnotize people into committing the crimes for her. Mrs. Incredible catches on, because she's no dummy, and after the framed Screen Slaver is caught, she won't relent and keeps investigating. There is this dope ass fight scene in a room full of strobing lights, and it looks amazing. Anyways, Mrs. Incredible finds out that the "benevolent" donors who...

Coming Soon, A Podcast of Movies I've Seen

Hereditary - in which family means everything to some people, and nothing at all to others. Annie has a nice family, with a husband and two kids, but her mom is kind of a pill. When her mom dies, Annie chooses not to go through all her belongings because she wants to respect her dead mother's privacy, I guess. It comes out that they had a bad relationship, even though Annie took her in and cared for her in the last days of her life. Um, it also becomes apparent that Annie was scared of her mother, and didn't speak to her for the first few years of her older son's life.      Ummm, this movie was so haunting and scary that I don't need a blog post to remember all the horrible stuff that happened in it. So, I will just say that his name was King Paimon, and just go watch it. I don't ever want to see it again. Maybe.

Monster! (Humanoids From the Deep) - in which the terror of Jaws is actually giant fish guys who will rape you. In a small town, in a fishing community, locals are preparing for a new cannery, but there appears to be some infighting about it. Well, the local Native American is opposed to the new plant and its science chemicals, but the town leaders call him some racial slurs at the Friday Night Fish Fry, and a fist fight break out. Our main character is a nice white guy who wants the cannery, but can't abide by doing racist shit to this nice neighbor. The violence starts early, with a graphic onscreen dog murder, followed quickly by several more canine corpses littered around the docks. Dog remains are found in a Chrissy-like pile on the dunes. Then, a cute couple has sex on the beach, only to be attacked by these fish monsters! The woman is raped, and the guy is murdered. Further down the beach, another woman is raped. The town folks figure out there are some dangerous things...

The Neon Demon - in which Elle Fanning is not as good of an actor as her sister. Sorry. Marketed as a horror movie, this starts out atmospheric and innocence focused, with a pretty girl being photographed by a guy who looks like a creep. I'm not really gonna start on how unnecessary it is to illustrate that the movie is filmed through a male gaze, because its about models, and its a major studio movie. Of course the lens is the male gaze. Whatever, skip it. So, over the course of two long ass hours, here's what happens. Elle is befriended by Jena Malone who is a makeup artist. She goes to a LA party where Jena introduces her to her mean model friends. Elle is only 16 (shock! she said her parents were DEAD), her agent tells her to lie about her age to everyone. She has a boyfriend in his 20's, she tells him her real age, and he doesn't leave her. Whatever, he also wants to protect her, he seems nice enough. Elle is staying at a seedy motel run by a grouchy Keanu Reev...

UPGRADE - in which the 'husband seeks revenge' trope gets fucked sideways, and something on the periphery reminds me of Pi. In the vaguely distant but unspecified future some hot, masculine dude still wants to drive cars the old fashioned way, and his future-savvy wife thinks its cute. His name is Grey, and he builds/restores muscle cars for money, and today he has built a car for a rich weirdo who lives in a desert in the basement. His wife comes along for the ride, and also so she can drive him home, in her self-driving car. On the way home, the car goes haywire and they crash, and some merc looking dudes come up and shoot him and his wife. Upon awakening, Grey is mostly paralyzed, and he is immediately suidical, even though his nice mom is there to help with adjustment. Grey is beyond pissed that he needs robots now. Fuck robots (not really!). So, the weirdo he sold the car to brings him out to the desert again, and offers him a chance to wear this new AI microchip out, ...

Logan Lucky - in which child beauty pageants are not played for comedy, but doing yoga is. Some schlub played by Channing Tatum is working in an underground construction site, and his name is Jimmy Logan, and he gets fired because he has a limp, and his daughter wants him to come to her Lil Miss West Virginia pageant rehearsals, but he's kinda busy getting drunk with his brother. His brother is Adam Driver, aka Clyde, who has a fake hand and is a total weirdo. So, they also have a sister who does hair and drives fast. The point is, it takes the plot a while to get going, and by then Jimmy has enlisted a group of rogue idiots to help him with his plan to steal money from the pneumatic tubes under the stadium he's been working under. For the plan, his one armed brother goes to prison, and breaks out with blonde numbskull Daniel Craig, and the rest of the prisoners do a fake riot to cover their absence. Its a small jail. So, they break into the tubes while a very famous race i...

Deadpool 2 - in which Deadpool cries like a bitch, and I do not. First of all, Deadpool is working, and then he goes home to celebrate an anniversary with his girlfriend, who tells him they can try to have a baby now. Also, he gives her a plot device for a gift, and she gives him her removed IUD. There is no sex scene, and then the two of them are just chilling, and some guy Deadpool neglected to murder comes and kills his girlfriend. Deadpool does not take it well, and even though he like, immediately got revenge on the guy who shot her. Ultimately, he feels both responsible and sad, so he tries to kill himself. It doesn't take. His friend, Colossus, shows up and takes DP to be a part of a B team of X-men, as an official trainee. They go to a showdown between a teen named Russel (Julian Dennison) and some jerks who run the orphanage he lives in. Russel wants to kill the guys who have been abusing him, and Deadpool kind of talks him down, until The kid tells him he was abused b...