An FBI agent and an Interpol detective track a team of illusionists who pull off bank heists during their performances and reward their audiences with the money.
No idea when I first saw this but I’m sure it was in a cinema. Can’t believe we paid for that…
★★
A live broadcast of a late-night talk show in 1977 goes horribly wrong, unleashing evil into the nation's living rooms.
Don’t you hate it when you sell someone else’s soul to the devil, then the devil reneges and wrecks your career?
★★
A special-ops team is dispatched to fight supernatural beings that have taken over a European city.
It’s not the overall plot or the dialogue but how it’s assembled. Reminds me of all those great TV shows that floundered when the writers went on strike…
Maybe all the money went on costume and props, which are amazing.
★★½
Val McKee and Earl Bassett are in a fight for their lives when they discover that their desolate town has been infested with gigantic, man-eating creatures that live below the ground.
When a single, unattributed missile is launched at the United States, a race begins to determine who is responsible and how to respond.
I must admit, that I skipped to the end after “Inclination Is Flattening” to confirm my suspicions and then went back and watched the rest. Based on that, to get the best out of this, you probably stop watching at the end of “Inclination Is Flattening”.
To the spoilers…
It’s tightly made but the idea that they couldn’t wait two minutes to confirm that it wasn’t an errant delivery from a rocket pizza start-up, before pressing the president to decide on a “retaliatory” nuclear strike option, was asking a little too much from the audience.
★★★½
Following a ghost invasion of Manhattan, paranormal enthusiasts Erin Gilbert and Abby Yates, nuclear engineer Jillian Holtzmann, and subway worker Patty Tolan band together to stop the otherworldly threat.
On first viewing, I didn’t know if this was a sequel, spin-off or a reboot. Turns out it was none of those.
Instead, it’s a retelling of the original film with the lead characters gender swapped. And if it existed in a vacuum, the worst thing I’d have to say about it is it’s too long. Some good laughs, though.
Andy Garcia is particularly funny.
★★★
An exploratory dive into the deepest depths of the ocean of a daring research team spirals into chaos when a malevolent mining operation threatens their mission and forces them into a high-stakes battle for survival.
Pure popcorn entertainment and a lot more fun than most Jurassic Park movies and equally nonsensical. Not just in plot but also in terms of character motivation and their sense of self-preservation!
★★★
Manchester, 1976. Tony Wilson is an ambitious but frustrated local TV news reporter looking for a way to make his mark. After witnessing a life-changing concert by a band known as the Sex Pistols, he persuades his station to televise one of their performances, and soon Manchester's punk groups are clamoring for him to manage them. Riding the wave of a musical revolution, Wilson and his friends create the legendary Factory Records label and The Hacienda club.
Turns out this is like a stealth Alan Partridge film because Coogan (allegedly) based Partridge on Tony Wilson. So, if you like Alan Partridge and ever asked yourself: “what would it look like if Alan started a record label and bought a club to promote his bands?” Here’s your answer.
It’s also a biopic of the Manchester music scene of the late 1980s and early 1990s (before I was even in my ‘tweens), that apparently reshaped “club life” itself. As with any biopic, I dunno how much of that is strictly true, but it’s a good story well told.
Features a boatload of British acting talent (including Moaning Myrtle getting uprighted in a toilet cubicle) and, obviously, some banging tunes.
★★★½
An undercover MI6 agent is sent to Berlin during the Cold War to investigate the murder of a fellow agent and recover a missing list of double agents.
After more than thirty years of service as one of the Navy’s top aviators, and dodging the advancement in rank that would ground him, Pete “Maverick” Mitchell finds himself training a detachment of TOP GUN graduates for a specialized mission the likes of which no living pilot has ever seen.
Watched with the kids (10/13), they loved it. Can’t blame them.
Afterwards was trying to think of a better sequel. Not just a sequel that surpassed the original but in a “Best films that were sequels” way.
T2 was the only contender I came up with off the top of my head.
★★★★★
