Netflix is known for having movies based on certain holidays for viewing on their streaming service and it is October and it is time for some Halloween action. Marlon Wayans led this comedic Halloween story that felt like a combination of Hocus Pocus, Goosebumps, Jumanji with a splattering of Stranger Things… only not as awesome as any of them.
According to IMDB, “A teenage girl, who accidentally releases an ancient and mischievous spirit on Halloween which causes decorations to come alive and wreak havoc, must team up with the last person she’d want to in order to save their town – her father.”
The teenage girl, Sydney, was played by Stranger Things actor Priah Ferguson and her father was Marlon Wayans. Wayans played Sydney’s father and he started the film as pretentious as he could be. He was dismissive and judgmental and simply unlikable. Thankfully, as you would expect, he changed his attitude as the weird Halloween stuff started happening.
This is, at best, a harmless, somewhat stupid movie that would be good for kids and their families during the holiday season. It does not try to do anything new or interesting. It feels just like a recycled plot of some of those better films that I mentioned earlier. In fact, there were moments that felt like it was directly taken from Hocus Pocus (when Sidney found the spell book, I literally yelled, ‘Boooooooooooook’ like Bette Midler did in the Hocus Pocus films). There was also a character here, played by John Michael Higgins, who was wearing, I swear, the identical outfit that was worn by Gary Marshall in the original Hocus Pocus. It is like they were not even trying to hide it.
Priah Ferguson was a fun, pseudo-lead of the film, getting to do more (though admittedly similar) things than she did as Lucas’s sister in Stranger Things. However, she is very charismatic and enjoyable to watch, so she is able to elevate the below average material to make it, at least, watchable.
Marlon Wayans was overacting as he always does in these films, but some of what he does is funny, so he could be forgiven. As I said, I think kids will enjoy the film more and be forgiving of its obvious flaws.
I think the best thing I could say about The Curse of Bridge Hollow is that it knows what its target audience is and it does a decent job of reaching it. Unfortunately, I am not in that range. I did not hate watching it, but I would not say that i was entertained by it either.
I hated the Halloween Kills film. It tainted a lot of what I wanted after a decent Halloween (2018). However, the last trailer for Halloween Ends was really good and it renewed my hope that the final film in this trilogy could pull it back onto track.
Well, Halloween Ends is better than Halloween Kills.
That’s about it, though.
It is hard to go into too much details about the movie because the trailer that I liked so much is not really what this movie is about. The trailer is most of the third act, where Michael Myers and Laurie Strode have their final showdown, but the first two acts are about something else and Michael Myers is just tangential to the story.
That fact that you are following a different story in the first part of the movie only to have it tossed aside in the third act made me feel that I wasted my time with the first part of Halloween Ends.
Jamie Lee Curtis is great as always, but she does not have a ton to do in the first part of the film. Laurie is a little inconsistent in the manner that the character is used. Her character’s daughter Allyson (Andi Matichak) is all over the place. Allyson became involved in a relationship with a local kid who was involved with a tragedy that we see at the beginning of the film. His name was Corey (Rohan Campbell) and their relationship, for me, made zero sense. I am not sure the film really committed to the relationship. They liked the idea but it never was treated as it was important to the movie. That is why the third act emotionally falls apart so badly.
Because while the final showdown with Laurie and Michael was decent, it had been benched for so long that it just took the energy out of it and how it winds up is kind of silly. Some of the ideas being bandied about in the first two acts were interesting, but the film never embraced any of them. They were there just as a placeholder until the third act started.
Halloween Ends was better than Halloween Kills, but the bar is really low. I was disappointed with the film, considering how much I enjoyed that last trailer. I am happy that I stayed home and watched it on Peacock instead of heading to the theaters for it.
The finale for She-Hulk: Attorney at Law was one of the most original and, frankly, gutsy finales I have ever seen. It stepped up and claimed the show that they wanted this to be in the most satisfying way imaginable.
Kicking off the show with a parody of the 70s TV program The Incredible Hulk’s opening was brilliant. Having Jen step in for Bill Bixby and seeing her transform into the “Savage She-Hulk” just like Lou Ferrigno used to do was such a stroke of genius that it started this episode off which such a wonderful burst of energy and nostalgia. “You wouldn’t like me when I’m angry”- the iconic line from that show is used so well, including Mark Ruffalo’s subtle head turn (which was really funny).
We then discover that Jen has been arrested by Damage Control after she flipped out after the Intelligencia played the sex tape of her and Josh. A deal is struck for her to wear and inhibitor and not to be allowed to be She-Hulk again. In an unbelievably unfair series of events, Jen loses her job, her apartment and has to move back in with her parents.
Can we pause a moment to mention how awesome Mark Lynn Baker was as Jenn’s father? He was so supportive of his daughter (so much more so than her mother… what a horrible woman she was). With every comment like “People go to jail every day” or that “I have water pressure for days,” Baker showed to be a rare thing, a supportive father in the MCU… which is a joke dropped later in the episode.
Another pair of side characters that we really could have used more of this season was Nikki and Pug. They returned in episode 9 to infiltrate the secret meeting of the Intelligencia. Watching Pug trying to be a douchebag is one of the most charming parts of the episode. Nikki’s constant banter in Pug’s earpiece was very funny.
This was also where we found out that, in the worst kept secret of the season, Todd Phelps was behind the Intelligencia and that he was Hulk King. This revelation was not that earth shaking for anyone who has been following the MCU over the last 14 years. Even Nikki knew this made sense. When Pug realized that Todd was Hulk King, Nikki reacted at first with shock and then said, “Oh that tracks.” LOL. Still, just because it was not the biggest surprise in the world does not mean that it is not the right move.
This was when the show started to begin the big “Marvel finale episode smash fest” that has been a criticism of so many other Marvel Disney + shows. People have complained about the finales of plenty of other Marvel shows, from WandaVision to Moon Knight, that the finale just devolved into a gigantic fight. So Abomination is there. Titania is there. Bruce’s Hulk is there and everyone is fighting.
By the way, I loved that Emil (Abomination) was not evil here. He was just speaking to the crowd like he does all the time. He was spouting his platitudes to the assembled Intelligencia without any real knowledge of what they stood for and he was being very broad in his words. It was nothing more than a paycheck and, actually, when the fighting started, Abomination helped Jen.
During this whole fight scene, Jen was breaking the fourth wall, complaining that none of these storylines made any sense and wondering why this was happening. She said that this can’t be where the season was heading.
It was then that the biggest risk ever from the MCU happened. For a second, I thought that something had gone wrong with Disney + because suddenly, there was the Disney + Marvel page… and She-Hulk was smashing through… obliterating the fourth wall.
She-Hulk moved through the Disney + menu and found herself in the “real” world. She-Hulk went to the writer’s room and went to see Kevin. It was not Kevin Feige as we expected, but instead K.E.V.I.N, an AI running the MCU, appeared in a little black hat.
The the show went ahead and satirized itself unmercifully with shots at the MCU movies all ending the same way, with Marvel Studios use of the non-disclosure agreement (NDA), the lack of sex in the MCU, the persona of Kevin Feige and how he is looked upon in a worshipping fashion, Marvel daddy issues, the cost of the special effects… along with plenty of other jokes. Marvel was not afraid to poke fun at itself, using all of the criticisms from the internet and its audience from over the years. It was META beyond all meta. And the reference Jen made to KEVIN about “When are we getting X-Men” with a cheeky smile and a thumbs up to the camera was just everything!
One of the best facts about She-Hulk: Attorney at Law is that there is not really a “Big Bad” like most series. The villain of the show was the Internet trolls that complain about everything to give a voice to their misogamy. Todd was the face of the organization, but the Intelligencia could be the real internet. It is like Marvel knew how this series would be seen by a section of the populace and they poked fun at it all along. It is also epic that the “Todd uses blood to turn into a Hulk” plot point was discarded so easily because the show was not about that. t was about Jennifer Walters accepting who she is… coming to grip with both the Jen side of her personality, but also the She-Hulk side, and that when she finally started to bring those together, he entire world gets yanked away. The show is saying that they did not need a gamma-irradiated Todd. Jen said it best. The Hulk powers were not the villain, Todd was.
Oh, and Daredevil showed up again, per Jen’s request. Then, Matt Murdock joined Jen at a “Fast and the Furious” style cook out at the end where Matt is grilled by Jen’s parents and the Hulk returned from Sakar and casually introduced his son Skaar! Such a major moment in MCU history and it was dropped so nonchalantly by Bruce that it really wotked within the concept of the show. One wonders where Skaar is heading next.
I know there are people out there who do not like She-Hulk: Attorney at Law for reasonable, fair reasons, but there is also a section of the internet who hate this because of the female led property that was parodied in this show. For me, this was a lot of fun from the first episode and that it took risks that no other Disney + show (with the exception of WandaVision) would dare to try. Tatiana Maslany was exceptional as Jennifer Walters all season long and the side characters, though underused, were characters that I would love spending time with. Tim Roth reemerged as Emil Blonsky, who went back to prison for parole violation, and is now hanging out with Wong at Kamar-Taj after escaping form his prison cell thanks a portal. I saw that post credit scene coming when I spotted Benedict Wong’s name in the credits along with Mark Ruffalo and Tim Roth and I knew we had not seen the Sorcerer Supreme in episode 9 yet.
She-Hulk is unapologetic for what it is and it bravely carved out a place inside (and outside) of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It was funny, full of comedic characters and still managed to move the MCU forward into the future. I enjoyed the series quite a bit.
I’m not intentionally watching a bunch of horror films because it is the season, it may just seem that way. I went back to Shudder for a film that I had seen commented about on Twitter, but hadn’t seen anything else about. It was called Deadstream and it was a joy.
Disgraced YouTube influencer Shawn Ruddy (Joseph Winter) was hoping to regain his reputation by facing one of his major fears: ghosts. To do so, he went to a haunted house to spend a night livestreaming onto the internet. Shawn found that there were more in this house than he would have hoped.
This is a found footage horror film that emulates the concept of a livestream, something that has been a huge piece of the current culture. Deadstream, despite the fact that it brings out some ghosts and horrors, is a broadcast that I could actually see happen in the real world. My guess is that there are podcasts or livestreams happening right now that deal with the paranormal that would be just like this one (minus the actual ghosts, of course). By using this, the film is able to comment on the culture of YouTube, Twitter, TikTok and all of the other social media outlets that allow such a platform.
It also can comment on the rules of the videos that might lead to demonetizing a post (such as excess swearing) or being struck with a copyright claim are real issues that creators on YouTube have to be aware of and having Shawn gripping about it, as well as asking people to like and subscribe, make this feel real.
The way the internet was watching everything happen too makes for an intriguing situation. Did anyone ever call for the police like Shawn had begged them to do? Sure, some of them provided videos to help out with knowledge, but there were several watching who believed that Shawn deserved what he was getting, that is was karma for his past sins.
Joseph Winter starred as Shawn, wrote and directed the movie too. He is fantastic through the whole of the film, having to carry most every minute. He shows his scummy side early, though one could argue that he was more ignorant than mean. His early screams over nothing was hilarious, but his continual panic as things got worse was great. Shawn absolutely went on a journey of self-realization by dealing with the horrors that he faced while learning about the social relevance of his platform.
This was hilarious. I laughed through the film, even when I was being grossed out by the blood or the other such fluids.
I really loved this movie. I was surprised how engaged I was with the story and with the character of Shawn, specifically because he was shown to be a pretty unlikable guy. Still, I was rooting for him to survive his encounter with the ghosts of the house. There may be a few plot holes (where did all the electricity come from?) but none of that bothered me as I watched this excellent and original found footage film that really felt like it could actually be on YouTube.
During last year’s DailyView binge, around Halloween time, I watched, for the first time, the original Clive Barker 1987 Hellraiser, and it was decent. I have not seen any of the following sequels that have, apparently, not been up to the same level. This weekend, a new version of the film was released on Hulu and I decided to give it a chance.
A young woman, Riley (Odessa A’zion), had plenty of problems, including one with addiction. She had hooked up with a guy named Trevor (Drew Starkey), against the better wishes of her brother Matt (Brandon Flynn). Trevor convinced Riley to help him attempt a robbery but all they came out of it with was a strange puzzle box that neither of them could understand. Riley had no idea that the puzzle box was used to summon the Cenobites, a group of sadistic supernatural beings.
Pinhead here is played by Janie Clayton and the character is every bit as scary as the original version. The other Cenobites looked good as the effects worked.
The story felt a little convoluted to me, and I did have some struggle to follow along, but as I am not the biggest fan of the franchise, I think that is to be expected. The director, David Bruckner, does a solid job of creating tension and anxiety among the audience and keeping the viewers unsure about what was going to happen. There is a twist in the third act that I did not see coming and made everything come together successfully.
There was a lot of blood and violence in the new film and it is done in a dramatic way.
Hulu has had some top notch films in 2022. There was Prey in the Predator franchise and the original horror movie Fresh. Hellraiser (2022) fits nicely into the list of films on the streaming site. It is a solid Halloween movie, though it may not be one that sticks with you very long.
I am not a fan of Kid Cudi. I don’t dislike him, and, honestly, I have never been exposed to his music much before so it is difficult to state anything about him. However, Kid Cudi is the driving force behind the animated special on Netflix called Entergalactic, which was released as a companion to Cudi’s new record and the animated movie is very impressive.
According to IMDB, “Jabari, a charming, streetwear-clad artist on the cusp of real success. After a chance run-in with his cool new photographer neighbor, Meadow, Jabari has to figure out whether he can make space for love in his life.“
Jabari is voiced by Scott Mescudi, aka Kid Cudi and the neighbor Meadow was voiced by Jessica Williams. The story introduced us to these two artistic and creative characters who find love with one and other and then try to make their relationship work in New York City.
An adult rom com is not the usual fare for animation, but the style of the movie worked very well with the romantic tale that engulfed the two characters.
The animation was beautiful. I read a review somewhere that compared Entergalactic’s story to a combination of When Harry Met sally and Into the Spider-verse, which felt 100% accurate to me. The colors, the changing of styles, the visual excitement exploded from the screen throughout the movie. Director Fletcher Moules did a great job of creating shots that added to the romance as well as showed a creative visual energy.
The Kid Cudi music, which was not in my repertoire typically, did work very well for the story being told and helped create the movie’s tone and feel.
There were a great voice cast included in Entergalactic including Timothée Chalamet, Ty Dolla Sign, Vanessa Hudgens, Keith David, Jaden Smith, Macaulay Culkin, Laura Harrier, 070 Shake, Christopher Abbott and Arturo Castro.
Everything blended together into a solid animated film that looked amazing and sounded cool. It does feature adult situations so it is not for kids, but it is a stylish rom com that takes that genre to new levels.
I have been waiting for this movie’s price to drop on Vudu for quite awhile. After seeing this charming film, I should have rented this a long time ago.
In 1950, Mrs. Harris (Lesley Manville), a British cleaning leady, widowed since the war, saw a couture Dior dress purchased by one of her employers and she fell in love with it. Scraping together whatever money she could muster, Mrs. Harris decided to go to Paris and purchase her own couture Dior dress.
The star of this film is clearly Lesley Manville, who is absolutely charming and effervescent as the titular character. She is a character that you just can’t help but love and who can take even the worst moment and make it better. Lesley Manville perfectly embodied this bright light of a woman, bringing a specialness to the role. Mrs. Harris is a character that can appeal to every class of people.
The story was wonderful too. Her time in Paris was treated much like a fairy tale, with the ending being the perfect cherry on the top of the sundae. There were so many ups and downs for Mrs. Harris in Paris but she brought the folksy magnetism to the characters all around Dior, and her presence brought about so many changes to the secondary characters on the screen.
Based on Paul Gallico’s novel Mrs. ‘Arris Goes to Paris, this is the third film adaptation of that novel. Directed by Anthony Fabian, the story is simple but so effective. Lesley Manville is amazing in the role, perfectly suited to the delightful Mrs. Harris.
If you have not seen this film yet, it is worth the rental.
David O. Russell’s new movie Amsterdam starts off with the comment that ‘some of these events really happened,’ leaving the question about how much of the film has been exaggerated.
In Amsterdam, we follow Dr. Burt Berendsen (Christian Bale) and his friend Harold Woodman (John David Washington), who met during World War I and formed a pact to watch each others backs. After they were terribly wounded, including Burt losing an eye, they meet a nurse Valerie (Margot Robbie) and the three of them formed a relationship during their recovery in Amsterdam.
When Burt decides that he must go home to his wife Beatrice (Andrea Riseborough), Valerie predicted that something terrible was going to happen.
Years later, Burt and Harold were working together, one a doctor the other a lawyer, and they were hired by the daughter of a man who had died on the return trip from Europe. She believed that there was foul play and she wanted Burt to do an autopsy.
After the autopsy, with evidence of possible poisoning being turned up, Burt and Harold meet with the woman, but she gets pushed beneath a car and is killed. The actual killer pointed at Burt and Harold and claimed that it was them who had pushed the woman, sending them fleeing from the crowd and setting them on the case to try and find out why she was murdered.
Christian Bale, John David Washington and Margot Robbie were sensational together. They had such chemistry as a trio that they were always a pleasure to watch. Bale, in particular, was electric here, with so many amazing facial moments and a performance that was both funny and heart-wrenching.
The film had a great cast besides the three leading actors. These included Robert DeNiro, Rami Malek, Michael Shannon, Mike Myers, Timothy Olyphant, Chris Rock, Taylor Swift, Anya Taylor-Joy, Alessandro Nivola, Matthias Schoenaerts and Zoe Saldaña.
The story did meander a tad and the mystery was not remarkably strong. However, I so enjoyed watching the characters interact and I found myself laughing several times that the messiness of the story did not bother me. It was only upon reflection where these faults came out.
The Rotten Tomatoes score was considerably lower than I anticipated, because I enjoyed watching this movie. Is it too long? It did not feel long to me, but some may say so. Christian Bale was a real standout and gave a performance that you cannot look away from. Amsterdam was a fun and engaging film, no matter what anyone else claims.
Based on a short story by Stephen King, Mr. Harrigan’s Phone arrived on Netflix and featured two outstanding performances from two notable actors.
First was Jaeden Martell, who has appeared in several films over the years- most notably It Chapter 1. Martell played Craig, a young high school student who spent three days a week reading to an elderly man at his house. That elderly man, Mr. Harrigan, was much more than he seemed and was played by Donald Sutherland.
Craig, out of friendship, bought Mr. Harrigan a smart phone and showed him how to use it. Mr. Harrigan refused the gift at first, but eventually succumb to the benefits of the phone.
When Mr. Harrigan died, Craig tucked his phone in Mr. Harrigan’s coffin. Craig was shocked when he received a text message from Mr. Harrigan after his burial.
This was a strange film. It certainly had two great performances from Sutherland and Martell. Their scenes together in the first half of the movie were the best moments here.
However, the story did not seem to know how it wanted to go. The film seemed to want to a ghost story of some sort, but that did not pick up until later in the film. The connection between Craig and Mr. Harrigan carried the first half of the film and it dropped some hints along the way that perhaps Mr. Harrigan was not the kind hearted old man that he seemed. It is not developed very well because the film took it into a new direction.
That was a commentary on the use of cell phones and how they are able to take over one’s lives. Mr. Harrigan said outright all of the drawbacks for the obsession with phones, but he could not drop the addiction of the phone. It was grasped tightly in his hand when he died.
There were a couple of plot threads that were left dangling that I thought were going to pay off eventually, but did not. There was a plot thread involving a drug dealing high school bully (Cyrus Arnold) which did not fit the themes that the story seemed to be telling.
Though the movie felt as if it was trying to be several different types of genres all crammed into one, the two leading performances are very strong and help to elevate the plot above what’s there. The message about cell phones is a major part of the second half of the film and is not as subtle as it could be. Martell and Sutherland are the reasons to watch this.
I have been a longtime fan of the writings of Edgar Allan Poe. Not just of the writings but also the entire package of the man, from his behavior as an adult to the mysterious circumstances surrounding his death. Edgar Allan Poe is an enigma and I love that about him.
However, I have not found a movie portrayal of the man, Edgar Allan Poe, that I have thought was worth much of anything. There was the John Cusack in 2012’s The Raven, the series of Poe adaptations by Roger Corman in the 50s and 60s, and plenty of allusions and adaptations of his stories. There has been a lack of the truly iconic performance of this fabled author/poet.
So when I found this horror film on Shudder that used Edgar Poe as a character, I was definitely curious. This fictionalized tale fit into the past of Poe during the time when he was a cadet at West Point and he came across a man horribly attacked, who whispered his last words “Raven.”
Edgar Poe (William Moseley) and four of his fellow cadets took the body to the nearby village, coincidentally (or not so much) named Raven’s Hollow. Once here, the mystery of what was going on in the village led to more death and a supernatural spectacle that informed the life of Poe moving forward.
My favorite part of this movie was trying to suss out all the different allusions made to Poe’s works. Clearly, there were a ton of The Raven references, including the use of the name Lenore, right down to the use of some of the well-known lines from the epic poem as dialogue in the film. However, there were more mentions throughout. One of the characters was named Usher (Oberon K.A. Adjepong), which connects to The Fall of the House of Usher. I caught the use of the line “Love with a love that was more than love” which came from the poem Annabel Lee. One of the victims of the village was chopped up and buried in the floorboards of a house and Poe wound up holding a still beating heart in his hands as happens in The Tell-Tale Heart. I’m sure there were more, but these were the ones I caught.
Unfortunately, the rest of the movie was not nearly as clever as the film attempted to weave in a legend about a mysterious creature called the Raven, something that was more than just a bird. The mystery of this Raven was convoluted and never felt like a clear narrative. I found it too messy to be effective and certainly not when talking about a person such as Edgar Allan Poe.
The character of Poe was lacking in charisma for me. He was fine, but I picture a much darker or troublesome character than what we got. I know the idea is that the troubles and darkness that plagued Poe in his life was supposed to come from this incident, but that did not full work for me.
The Raven creature looked fine, but most of the rest of this film was unremarkable. It was fine and an okay watch, except the fact that it deals with the life of one of the most amazing personas of the 19th century. It felt very surface in many ways, which is not bad, but it is not the standout that I had hoped it would be.
I am still looking for that seminal performance of Edgar Allan Poe. Maybe one day…
The one-hour special presentation of Werewolf by Night on Disney + was a surprise to many. There had been rumors about a Halloween special coming from Marvel Studios and that it would be featuring Jack Russell, the Werewolf by Night. It was a long time before it was confirmed that it was coming, with a fantastic trailer at D23.
Making his directorial debut with this short was composer Michael Giacchino, a real risky choice. Giacchino does an incredible job with some outstanding shots and a perfect tone, based on the Universal Monster movies from the 1930s and 1940s. Shot in black and white, Werewolf by Night is remarkably stylish and beautiful.
Longtime monster hunter Ulysses Bloodstone had died and this triggered a ceremonial hunt by some of the greatest and most mysterious monster hunters in the world to learn who would gain control of the Bloodstone, the powerful artifact that Ulysses used to help kill the monsters he fought.
Organized by his widow Verussa (Harriet Sansom Harris), the monster hunters congregated at Bloodstone’s home for the opportunity to gain control of the Bloodstone. Ulysses’s daughter Elsa Bloodstone (Laura Donnelly), who had been estranged from her father for years, was among them, intending on claiming the Bloodstone as her birth right.
Another one of the hunters arriving was Jack Russell (Gael Garcia Bernal), who arrived with a dark secret that he kept hidden from the other hunters.
Verussa announced that there was a monster on the premises, and the first monster hunter to find and kill the monster would earn the right to carry the Bloodstone.
Laura Donnelly and Gael Garcia Bernal were spectacular in this show. They brought so much humanity to these characters. Both of these actors do wonderful work and fit these Marvel characters brilliantly.
As we saw in the trailers, we get our MCU debut of Man-Thing in Werewolf by Night. Man-Thing, which is named Ted, is performed by Carey Jones. The design on the character of Ted is awesome. There are specific details to Man-Thing that make this monster extra special. I do not want to go into any more specific about this character outside of the fact that Man-Thing is one of the most outstanding aspects of this special.
Of course, Giacchino not only directed the movie, but he also scored it and the music of Werewolf by Night was so great. It started off right at the beginning with the Marvel banner, the score of which Giacchino originally made and has been playing over the banner since Dr. Strange.
Werewolf by Night is one of the most original and creative entries into the MCU in years. It was unlike most anything that Marvel has ever done. It was tremendously violent and gory, with the black and white helping cover up the blood, of which there was plenty. The horror parts of the show really worked well and the film truly felt like one of those old Universal Monster movies. Giacchino knocked this out of the park and I hope he gets a chance to direct again. Werewolf by Night felt like a stand alone film that truly did not have much of a connection to the MCU, but yet opened another realm of possibilities for the franchise.
Charlie Cox’s Matt Murdock walked into the courtroom to defend Luke Jacobson against Jen Walters and her client, Leap Frog who was suing him because Leap Frog claimed his suit, that Luke made for him, was defective. Matt Murdock was awesome in the courtroom as he quickly got the case dismissed.
Big News too in the court: The Sokovia Accords were appealed. It was a line dropped by Matt Murdock, but it carried a ton of weight for the future of the MCU.
Matt and Jen then met up in a bar and they sparkled with chemistry. In just a few minutes, these two were just perfect for each other.
Daredevil and She-Hulk wound up in the typical super hero fight and She-Hulk was pretty impressive, though also very destructive.
Seeing Daredevil back fighting henchmen in a hallway was so awesome. The show used the Netflix Daredevil music in this scene and watching Daredevil dominating once again was such a great feeling.
Daredevil and She-Hulk team up to rescue Jacobson from Leap Frog’s secret headquarters, the Lilly Pad. Then, they hung out on the roof of the Lilly Pad and flirted like crazy.
And then they hooked up.
Unbelievable. Daredevil did the “walk of shame” afterwards.
The first part of this episode was so amazing that when the tone shifted, it became very unsettling. Jen, back in her apartment, started breaking the 4th wall and wondering why the episode wasn’t over yet. They also made a fun reference to the Red Hulk and to being “fridged.” It was unsettling how she reacted and then they went off to the gala for female lawyer of the year.
The Intelligencia came out fully as they played a video showing Jen and Josh having sex. Jen reacted in a violent manner and nearly lost control of her hulk.
This was such a great episode this week and I am excited to see the finale.
As I opened up Netflix to see what was on the streaming service, I discovered a film called Last Seen Alive featuring Gerard Butler. It was listed as the number one movie on the streaming service. I had never heard of it, but the length of the film fit nicely into the time I had available, so I decided to give it a watch.
In the film, Gerard Butler played Will, the husband of Lisa (Jaimie Alexander). Will and Lisa were having problems in their marriage and Lisa was needing a break. So Will was taking her to her parents where she planned onstaying.
Needing to stop for gas, Lisa disappeared after going into the station. Will looked desperately around, but he could not find her, and the station attendant was stonewalling him. Will called the police, speaking with Detective Patterson (Russell Hornsby), but the police began to suspect that Will may have been more involved than he was admitting.
This is a typically generic action/revenge movie. There is nothing here that hasn’t been seen before and is pretty predictable. Gerard Butler has played this same type of heroic role several times in his career. He was fine. I like Russell Hornsby, whom I knew from TV’s Grimm. Jaimie Alexander, aka Sif from the MCU, did not have much to do.
There was an explosion during the film that looked absolutely horrible. The CGI on the fire appeared very amateurish.
I did not hate the film. In fact, I was engaged in parts of it. There just did not seem to be much reason for it. It had nothing original to say and moved rapidly through the story it was telling. It was not a bad time watching it, but you’ve got to shut off your brain and not think too much.
This week was another fun episode of She-Hulk. Jen headed out to check with Emil Blonsky, whose inhibitor seemed to be malfunctioning. She winds up being stranded at Blonsky’s retreat, Summer Twilight where she worked through a therapy session with Blonsky and some D-list villains.
I loved seeing this group of characters. Man-Bull, El Aguila, Porcupine, The Wrecker and Saracen, all real villains from the Marvel Comics. I loved how they worked Jen through her issues about Josh, the guy she met at her friend’s wedding and who has ghosted her after they slept together. As El Aguila said, “Josh has made an enemy of everyone in this group!”
By the way, in the comics El Aguila is a mutant. Just sayin’
Of course, we learn that Josh was a dirtbag from the start as the last scene showed us that he did take Jen’s blood and copied her phone while she slept. Josh has become the most hated character on the show because of what a slimeball he was manipulating Jen for Hulk King. It is ironic that the villains were the men Jen could count on, but all the other men in her life are bad.
When Josh did not respond to Jen’s text, she proved that the Muppets were canon in the MCU as she was watching The Great Muppet Caper.
Prime Video had a new horror/comedy film on its streaming service this weekend called My Best Friend’s Exorcism.
According to IMDB, “The year is 1988. High school sophomores Abby (Elsie Fisher) and Gretchen (Amiah Miller) have been best friends since fourth grade. But after an evening of skinny-dipping goes disastrously wrong, Gretchen begins to act…different. She’s moody. She’s irritable. And bizarre incidents keep happening whenever she’s nearby. Abby’s investigation leads her to some startling discoveries-and by the time their story reaches its terrifying conclusion, the fate of Abby and Gretchen will be determined by a single question: Is their friendship powerful enough to beat the devil?”
I was liking the beginning of this movie. It was set in the 80s, for some reason, and we had a school setting similar to the typical movie school we see. At first, I thought things were going well. With Gretchen possessed, she turned into the ultimate mean girl and was doing terribly cruel things to her friends. However, the film went way off the rails in the second half when Abby started to look into ways to help Gretchen.
The tone of this movie was all over the place. Many times blending comedy with horror is a difficult thing to do and this film simply could not handle it. There was too much silliness that made little to no sense and it took whatever potential positives that was here and tossed it aside.
The performances were pretty weak. There was no subtlety to any of the performances in My Best Friend’s Exorcism. They introduced a character named Christian Lemon (Christopher Lowell) that was nothing more than a cartoon figure. There is no seriousness in that character at all. His involvement in the third act was one of the worst parts of the film. It felt like Shaggy from Scooby Doo was here to try and perform the exorcism.
There were some interesting moments here and there, but the fluctuating tones and the detour that the story took took any possible positives and sent them straight to Hell.
EYG- Embrace Your Geekness 