THE PENGUIN LESSONS | Official Trailer (2025) Cute movie 7/10 and worth the early matinee price of $8...lol
Ghostbusters: Afterlife (2021) For a short while single mom Callie thought she had been given a lifeline. Facing eviction from her Chicago home, she takes her two children to Oklahoma to collect a hoped-for inheritance from her strange and very estranged father who had recently died. But it was not to be - he was as broke as his daughter. Now they have to make her father's home theirs. All they have is a plot of dirt where nothing grows and a run down farmhouse haunted by memories and regrets and tasks yet undone. And a ghost. If you haven't seen the movie I'm sure you are thinking "What was that, the first five minutes? That summary doesn't get us anywhere". Well, it's the movie that takes it's sweet time getting started. We don't really get anything Ghostbustery for the first 35 minutes, and the first hint of the call-to-action isn't until the hour mark. You better like movies about adolescents adjusting to small-town Middle-American (filmed in Canada) life because that what most of the movie is. And you better like the kids because the Callie character shuts down conversations with every line she speaks. There's a great deal of similarity to the plot of Lost Boys, but that movie gets us to the vampires pretty quick. However, like Lost Boys the younger of the kids is actually interesting so it's not all quite as bad as I may be implying. It's almost impossible to make a precocious polymath anti-social child character engaging, but the writers and Mckenna Grace (and the makeup artists!) threaded that needle. Afterlife is not a "formula" movie, and I can't say they made a superior work of art by delaying or skipping so many expected beats. However, I really liked the ending, especially with how it felt contained within itself. It was true to the mythos of the first movie while also growing up a bit from what was admittedly a rather slight origin.
A Working Man (2025) Dir. David Ayer Levon Cade is a retired Royal Marine who is now working construction stateside. Feeling a strong sense of loyalty to his employers, Joe and Carla Garcia, a married couple who were patient with the effects of Cade's untreated PTSD, he is horrified when their daughter Jenny disappears without a trace. Joe and Carla ask Levon to find their daughter, Levon eventually but reluctantly agrees, knowing that this opens a door to a life of violence that he had hoped to leave behind. His commando skills soon put him on the track of a gang of Russian drug dealers who also peddle in some human trafficking. Levon has to work his way up the food chain to find someone who knows Jenny's whereabouts. On the way there, he leaves a trail of dead Russians. Reuniting the director-leading man team of The Beekeeper, this is another "blue collar man with a special set of skills" action film. Not as good as The Beekeeper, which whilst being completely ridiculous also had a fun atmosphere running throughout. This is far more serious, but to its own detriment. Some of the action, especially the climactic battle, is also a tiny bit ridiculous. I did like Arianna Rivas as Jenny, giving the kidnapping victim enough attitude to keep that story line interesting.
RoboCop (2014) In the far distant year of 2028, detective Alex Murphy is a good cop in a crime infested Detroit. He tries to go after crime lord Vallon, responsible for introducing high-powered weapons to the street, but Murphy doesn't know Vallon's being protected by dirty cops. The cops blow Murphy up, but enough remains to be useful to Omnicorp. While Omnicorp make various bipedal war machines and oppressive peacekeeper robots, the law prevents them from operating them on American soil as police. What they need is a robot with a man's brain, i.e. Murphy's. But the brain turns out to be a hindrance, so they go around it more or less. This new "Robocop" is a really good at stopping crime. Maybe too good. I don't know how to compare this to the original as it's so drastically different. In many ways I really liked it, and appreciated its cyberpunk exploration of how our thinking can be manipulated while we think it can't happen. The problem is that the writing around this subject was really muddled, and they approached it with like 3 or 4 different contradictory positions. I'm not sure if they just didn't understand what they were doing, or trying to serve the plot first so they had to force different motivations to fit the situation. Don't know why they cast Samuel Jackson as the cable news host - that made no sense. It started with a harrowing depiction of how the drone robots worked, and depressingly ended on a note of people not learning anything, which is all a bit too much reality for escapist entertainment. The big fight in the dark room was a pale imitation of the one in Equilibrium. The final fight against the ED-209 started out great with its heavy video-game and then Ghost in the Shell influence but got too CGI-spectacle as it went on.
Closed School (2019) Dir. Choi Hyo-won After a cold open in which we see the apparent suicide of a high school student, observed by another small group of HS students who for whatever reason do not interfere, it is revealed that what we saw was a nightmare endured by Yoo Ra, a young woman who actually attended the school where her best friend Mi Ok took her own life.Yoo Ra has a meet-up with a small group of former HS friends some time later, an impromptu and unofficial ten year reunion. When she mentions Mi Ok, she is shocked to find out that the rest of the group pretends not to remember the girl who took her own life. Later that same night, the group is in a car accident and wakes up not in a hospital, but in a derelict location that they eventually recognize as their former high school, since shut down. Eventually they also find out that they are not alone in the school and that the other presence is not quite human. Horror drama in the ghost story mold. A pretty simple premise, which isn't necessarily a bad thing when executed properly, but this does not raise much about genre cliches. Decent lead performance by Cheon Yi Seul and it at least tells its story fairly efficiently in just over eighty minutes.
Was on my way back from Peru spring break vacation, so caught the following two movies on the plane. 1.Motherless Brooklyn [2019] Obviously, pretty special cast all around. Norton did a great job (sort of like in Primal Fear) as a lead, but for some reason, the overall movie didn't leave me feeling very satisfied. A cliche story line and some interesting twists, but overall, even the amazing cast didn't help. 2. No Sudden Move [2021] Another super solid cast (Cheadle, Culkin, Del Toro, Liotta, Fraser, Harbour, Damon, Hamm) and I truly enjoyed it. I can't say the story and the writing was super original, or that we haven't seen these type of movies in the past, but overall, the script held up well, and the cast was just terrific.
Looks like there's a new version coming out next year directly referencing the manga not the movies, so not sure what the difference might be. Science Saru just did an amazing job with Dandadan, though, so that's a positive sign.
Adolescence [2025] Man, what a brutal show (only 4 episodes). It was just so hard to watch as a parent. Stephen Graham was frigging fantastic. The boy (Owen Cooper) was also really really good. A great, but such a depressing show to watch.
Ash (2025) Dir. Flying Lotus A wounded woman wakes up aboard a space station, alarms blaring, the place in a state of disarray. The woman in question, Riya, suffers from amnesia. As she searches the station, she finds several other crewmembers dead, their wounds suggesting they died very violent deaths. She pieces together that she was one of the members of a pathfinder mission, designated simply as 7F, one of several dozen such missions, all meant to explore earth like planets for their viability for colonization. Riya has to investigate what happened and if she is still in danger, using the clues she finds on board the station and the flashes of memories that return to her, to figure out what exactly happened. Psychological sci-fi horror that borrows ideas from movies like The Thing and Alien. Some plot elements also reminded me of the original Dead Space video game, which itself was heavily inspired by Alien. Unfortunately not nearly as good as any of the stories that inspired it, across both mediums. Eiza Gonzalez is a decent lead, having to carry much of the film on her own. Featuring supporting work by Aaron Paul and a tiny (and surprising!) supporting appearance by Indonesian action/martial arts superstar Iko Uwais (of The Raid fame) as the mission commander.
Sympathy for the Devil (2023) Average family guy David Chamberlain has just driven his average family car into the Las Vegas hospital parking lot as his wife is delivering his second child. But just as he stops a lounge coat wearing Nicolas Cage gets in the back seat, points a gun at David, and orders him to drive. He's not saying where and he's not saying why, it's only clear he has designs for David. A psychological thriller that approaches horror movie territory with the wantonness of some of the killing. Nicolas Cage was extremely Nicolas Cage with an extroverted, larger-than-life character but the motivations are revealed later and Joel Kinnaman does a really good job of being his down-to-earth counterpart. Constantly tense but not overly so, and always kept my attention. Really liked the atonal sounds and musical choices as well. Not my usual fare but glad I saw it. I honestly did not plan seeing two movies starring Joel Kinnaman back to back and the third (Suicide Squad) within a month. Just happens some times.
Havoc (2025) Dir. Gareth Evans After an opening narration in which a seemingly dirty cop expresses regrets at the decisions that brought him to this point in his life, we actually meet the man in question. Walker is a burned out detective with an estranged family who along with his new partner arrives at the scene of a mass shooting: unknown individuals shot up the HQ belonging to a triad boss, during what appears to be a drug deal gone wrong. Walker recognizes someone on the security footage: Charlie Beaumont, son of mayor Lawrence Beaumont, a man who Walker has done 'favors' for in the past. Walker visits Lawrence to inform the mayor of his son's predicament and of the fact that if he is indeed involved in multiple violent murders, there is very little he can do to help him. Lawrence makes a deal with Walker: if he can get Charlie safely out of the city, their slate will be wiped clean and the two men will part ways forever. Only getting Charlie out and to safety is much harder than it might appear. Apart from being a suspect in the murder case, a small group of dirty cops is also after him for their own reasons, and the mother of the murdered Triad leader touches down, bringing along her own private army for her own revenge. Not sure how I feel about this. Gareth Evans has one of the more fascinating careers in 21st century film-making. After making two of the greatest action films of this century with The Raid and The Raid 2, he also made an excellent gothic horror film with Apostle (led by a very good Dan Stevens). This is trying to be a gritty crime drama, with some of the aesthetics and action set pieces we know from The Raid, only it doesn't really work for me. Without Iko Uwais and company, it kind of feels like a poor knock-off. And the writing is all over the place, which wouldn't matter if the action was top notch. One other thing that turned me off was a car chase scene with far too obvious use of CGI, which completely took me out of it. A shame, because this is genuinely a very good cast. Lead Tom Hardy, Tim Olyphant, Forest Whitaker. And Jessie Mei Li, who is pretty good as Walker's suffering young partner Ellie.
Mr Inbetween [3 seasons] A pretty decent Aussie show. Nothing too spectacular or original, and probably low budget, but genuinely enjoyable enough for 3 seasons, especially with 30-min episodes.
Cats (1998) The Jellicle cult is having its once-a-year conclave to determine which cat is to be sacrificed and every cat in turn makes a case it should be them. Only Macavity has the skills and desire to stop this abomination from taking place. His plan - kidnap their cult leader, Old Deuteronomy. A theatrical but performed-for-filming version of the stage musical Cats. You might think I chose this as one of my occasional zags in what film genre I watch or because of my sympathy for furries (and to be fair those played some part) but the main reason I watched it is this YouTube video. In it the Sideways channel explains why the infamous 2019 version of Cats got almost everything about the original Cats so wrong. It is my favorite YouTube video ever and I rewatch it frequently. It is funny and entertaining but most of all it explains a lot of complicated theater concepts in a way that makes me feel smart. It's like I got a semester of theater theory in an hour. And it does those things even though I don't really care much about theater and I've never before seen Cats. So about Cats itself... it's fine. I'm not sure why it went on to be the longest running show. It certainly works as spectacle - lots of nice dancing and singing and I liked the costumes and set design. The main story is good but there is just so little of it - it's just like 15 minutes of the 2 hour filmed version which is shortened from the almost 3 hour stage work. Of all the songs only "Memory" is memorable, and because of the nature of the singing I couldn't understand most of the lyrics. When I turned on subtitles, I found out I wasn't missing anything. It seems to me to get the most out of it you just have to sit, turn off your brain, and let it wash over you. That's not a bad thing, I'm just not used to it.
My son loves Sideways! I've seen this takedown of the Les Miserables movie several times, and I do love theater, and musical theater in particular. Basically, theater is a different medium than tv or movies, and making the leap from one to another can be nothing more than a money grab -- as much of a money grab as the last Road House or live-action Last Airbender -- if not done really well. (The director for both of these embarrassments is the same guy, so he's 0 - 2.) Cats on Broadway became a thing, so it was allowed to continue on, to fester as it were, kind of like Mousetrap in London.
Sinners OK, I completely bought into the hype surrounding this movie's release to actually go back to the theater. Three reviewers I read and one I heard on NPR all described themselves as "excited" as they left the movie theater and three of them were already counting down the hours til they could go again. This is a splashy, exciting movie all right, and I'm glad I went, but I didn't find it as near as great as my over-the-top reviewers. The genius of Sinners is that it is a mash-up of three different movies. It starts out as a period piece. The twins Smoke and Stack (both played by Michael B Jordan) come back to their hometown in Mississippi. They are world weary, having fought in WWI and then been gangsters in Al Capone's Chicago. They've got money to toss around and they are going to open up a juke joint. For some reason, it has to open up that evening, even as they are buying the property in the morning. Then the party starts and it becomes a concert film. The most incredible scene in the movie is when the newly-discovered blues genius plays and he brings into the repurposed slaughter house the spirits of African tribal drummers, Caribbean singers and even a modern rock guitarist. It's a wondrous scene, if this movie were on stage it would be the showstopper at the end of the first act a la One Day More from Les Miserables or Defying Gravity from Wicked. There's one more number where a church gospel singer discovers her inner freak and brings the house down. And then the movie turns into a zombie movie. (I'm glad, so very glad, that I knew this going in because this jarring shift would have ruined the movie for me otherwise.) It is done well: these are singing vampires, and the since most of the newly-created vampires were just in that juke joint an hour earlier, there is a casual familiarity between vampire and prey. My wife is not a fan of vampire/zombie movies/tropes but even she thought this was well done. And yet... it strikes me that this movie is more three half-baked movies than one full movie. Director Ryan Coogler seems to have found his muse in Michael B Jordan who doesn't strike me as that significant an actor. He's fine, but I think there are dozens of actors who could have done the job in this film. I liked this movie, but I'm certainly not going to go out and see this again anytime soon. I will say, as a parting thought, that the after-credits scene is the best after-credits scene I've watched. You gotta stick around to see it. [Edit: Delroy Lindo shines in this. He recounts a story of a guy who was lynched. It's almost out of place, too powerful for a movie that becomes a vampire movie.]
One of my favorite movies is the 1973 Jesus Christ Superstar and one of the reasons is that it never forgets what it is - it just adds more to it. This is one of the things that surprised me when I went to a few Broadway shows, and I still can't really believe it - there's a culture of people who go to shows over and over again. I saw it when I went to see Blue Man Group, and the front one fourth of the audience was really excited in a way I couldn't understand and they clearly recognized which of the Group were portraying the three particular Blue Men that evening (while I was all "they have names?"). I understand this was a feature of Rent and other long lasting shows, and I assume Cats. It just seems a very expensive hobby to have.
To be sure. But if live is your thing, it's the only way to see it. Do you know people who have seen R.E.M. or Bruce Springsteen 40 or 50 times. This is no different? How many times have you watched Leverage by now? People like the familiar and all. And as hard as it is to imagine, here on a soccer board and all, there are folks who don't like sports, so their entertainment time and dollars have to go somewhere else.
Somewhere around 20. Just started the new third season of Leverage Redemption and that first episode had some bust-out-laughing moments. The thing about Broadway shows is that it is incredibly expensive and a major commitment of time. It isn't just about liking a particular form of entertainment - you have to be part of the idle rich or really close to it.
Broadway can be very expensive but right now there are about 40 shows running and most have tickets available between the low $50 to mid $70 range. Expensive, for sure, but it's also Broadway and you can easily spend $30 per person at the movies these days if you're not careful. Granted, the long running hits (Hamilton, Lion King, Wicked, Just In Time) are charging over $120 for the cheap seats, but if your focus is theater over both TV and movies, then you're probably cutting out cable/streaming costs on top of going to the movies, making it believable that you could see a show or two per month without it breaking the bank. Where it gets silly is things like Clooney doing Good Night and Good Luck where tickets are going for a minimum of nearly $350. If I were going to be in the area, I'd spend the $200+ for a ticket to the current run of Glengarry Glen Ross with Kieran Culkin, Bob Odenkirk, and Bill Burr.
Ludwig [Season 1] My wife and I are huge fans of British suspense series, so we decided to give this a try. Now I've only seen David Mitchell in various comedy shows on British TV, so didn't really know much about him. I guess this could be thought of a British version of "Monk", but only so slightly. It's not the most captivating detective show and some cases were pretty ridiculous, however, Mitchell has enough of charm and comedic flavor to make this work. Only 6 episodes, so a short watch. Apparently Season 2 has been picked up.