I was a week late for this one, but it was not high on my too see list because I am not much of fan of auto racing in any form. However, I knew I have enjoyed other movies centered around the sport such as Rush or Ford vs. Ferrari, and I had heard a ton of positive word of mouth, so I wanted to make sure I had the chance to see this in the theater before it became available on Apple TV +.
I went to the IMAX theater at Cinemark to see this and it was definitely worth it. The film looked amazing with sensational cinematography, had its share of exciting moments and was thrilling at times.
According to IMDB, “After a nasty incident almost ended his career, Sonny Hayes has retired from Formula One and now races a Porsche, but when an opportunity comes from the owner of a struggling team, Sonny makes a return to Formula One racing, alongside a hot new rookie teammate, but soon realizes that he can’t take the road to redemption on his own.”
I thought Brad Pitt was clearly the standout, both in the acting area as well as having the most developed character. Most of the other characters of the film were not necessarily as deep as they could have been, but the main story focused on Sonny Hayes, so it is understandable why he got the most details.
Javier Bardem is always fun, and he does a decent job with what he was given here. Damson Idris is the other main driver with Sonny, playing Joshua Pearce. Kerry Condon was fine too, having some chemistry with Brad Pitt, but, again, her character was not as fully explored as she could have been.
I do think that I had some issues with understanding what was happening during the races as there were a lot of strategies that were pulled out that perhaps a more knowledgeable racing fan might understand more than I did. It wasn’t off-putting, but there were times that I had to stop and try and figure out why they were doing what they were doing.
However, the scenes of the racing were fantastic as was the scenes of the crashes. The film was able to build my own suspense during the races as I did not know what they might be doing.
I enjoyed the music of the film, as it really helped set the mood in many cases. There were some issues that I had with the sound of the film though as some of the voice over work of the announcers was difficult to hear during the racing scenes. I have had that compliant in the IMAX theater before so it may not necessarily be the film’s fault.
Joseph Kosinski directed this film. He had directed Top Gun: Maverick and F1: The Movie shared the same kind of thrills of that movie. The film creates a wonderful world in this F1 racing film and the creative aspect of this movie is its strength. The characters are okay. The story is okay. The look is fantastic.
See this on a big screen because I think it would be the way to truly enjoy this film.
The review is out. It was not a good one and the backlash hit the crew of the Bear in many different ways.
Uncle Jimmy and Computer came with an ultimatum about the restaurant. A clock plugged into the wall with a time that, when it reaches zero, the restaurant must be closed.
The first couple of episodes the characters feel like they are grieving over a loss, but still have hope for something to turn around.
Carmy, in particular, seems to have made a decision. He has looked on the inside and realized how much of an ass he was last season and has taken steps to draw himself back. I think he finally realized that he cannot exist in that chaos, something that Sydney calls him on in the nicest possible way.
Season three was easily my least favorite season of The Bear there was. It took some trips that I just did not enjoy much and watching Carmy self-destruct was not an enjoyable experience. Even after saying that though, the show had its moments and I am looking forward to the next season.
Season four kicked off feeling strong, even if nothing much really happened. These first two episodes helped show me why I enjoyed Carmy so much and pictured him as less of the screaming loon as I remember form season three. His apology to Sugar for not yet coming to meet the baby was the perfect realization for him.
It feels hopeful, while still having that looming failure hanging over everyone’s heads. We’ll see how things go.
Okay, the finale of season one of Duster rocked really hard.
It was probably the best episode of the season as everything came to a close and they set up some unbelievably compelling storylines for a season two.
Major points this episode:
We find out what happened to Joey. (Hint he was not killed by Saxton)
I did not see Saxton’s death coming but his sacrifice for his son fit well for this character
I did not realize that Corbin Bernsen was playing Jimmy’s dad. He had some tense scenes with Genesis.
Good seeing Billy get his, especially after his brutality with Jimmy and Nina.
The Agent Grant-Nina showdown was intense too. Thanks to Awan for his awesome timing.
Jimmy is just a hero. He drove his car right into the hornet’s nest to try and save Nina.
Of course, he had his dad set up to shoot Genesis as a way to get Saxton to change his plans. That was the old 66 Reno Split.
Izzy tells Jimmy that she had cancer to convince him not to leave town. She told him that Luna would need him.
Turned out that the mysterious Xavier is Joey, Jimmy’s brother who is not dead (Saxton helped him get away).
The Nixon tape found its way into other hands. It had Nixon preparing to sow racial divide.
Jimmy and Nina are teaming up again to try and find Joey/Xavier.
This was a really fun episode and a great end to the season. I hope we get to continue on. Josh Holloway is a tremendously charismatic actor and his presence in every scene is perfect.
The penultimate episode of season two is the first part of a two part episode bringing a hitman to a wedding to murder the groom.
The episode brought several characters back to the canvas including Beatrix Hasp, the former crime lord who is in protective custody. She is played by Rhea Perlman. Another return character was Luca Clark of the FBI, who is a recurring character on the show played by Simon Helberg.
The Iguana is the hitman. He is shown murdering a man and taking his place at the wedding, literally with his mask he made out of the dead man. It was creepy. The Iguana is a ghost. Nobody knows who he is or what he looked like. I liked the Iguana. He was a scary individual.
Haley Joel Osment was our victim this week. He also turned out to be the son of Beatrix Hasp.
Now, here was the twist that made things not work for me. It turned out that everything the Iguana was doing was trying to find his way to Beatrix. He set up Charlie so she would go see Beatrix. The whole thing at the end kind of wasted what the concept was.
Next week, the episode continues. Maybe they will do something to make it make more sense.
I wrapped up season 10 and then I had to start season because of the cliffhanger they left us with.
“Babylon”
Homeland meets Californication.
The X-Files had a Muslim terrorist angle that did not put a very positive face on it. It had a definite feel of islamophobia to it as the terrorist organization they were pursuing was Muslim.
It seemed as if the episode was as interested in introducing mirror images of Mulder and Scully. We meet Agent Miller (Robbie Amell) and Agent Einstein (Lauren Ambrose). They were younger examples of Mulder and Scully. Miller was a believer in the paranormal and the weird aspects of the world and Einstein was a scientist who was a skeptic. She was even a red head.
At first it felt like they were just a joke, but they actually turn into characters that would play an important role in the next episode.
The bizarre hallucinations Mulder underwent (thanks to a placebo, apparently) were strange and included the Lone Gunmen (RIP).
“My Struggle II”
Why will they not just shoot him in the head?
I was just screaming at the TV again when Cigarette Smoking Man showed up, not dead again, and plotting to expose the world to a deadly alien virus. Mulder had a gun on him again and just refuses to shoot him in the head. Why won’t he shoot him in the head? Everything can be over if he would just shoot him in the head… several times. Empty the gun.
We get an apocalyptic episode where the world is going to hell and Scully and Einstein race against time to try and find the cure for the virus. Meanwhile, Mulder is confronting CSM and NOT SHOOTING HIM IN THE HEAD!!!!
This episode did feel like a mess and wound up leaving on an insane cliffhanger. It was advertised as “This is the End” and it sure felt like it.
The show did bring back Monica Reyes and put her with CSM, which allowed me to freely hate her instead of trying to like her as I did in season 8 and 9.
“My Struggle III”
Nevermind.
Oh, that ending to season 10…. well, that was just a possible vision that Scully was having. Wink wink.
I wonder how much of the dislike for season 10 episode 6 there was in the world led to this changing of mythology in season 11.
I do not think that the revelation at the end of the episode would change the negative thoughts though as it was revealed that William was not Mulder’s son, but that he was artificially inseminated by CSM and that he was the father of Scully’s baby. Not sure why anyone would think that would be a well received idea.
It was hinted that William was the one sending these visions to Scully, which make little sense, but it definitely kicks off the storyline of finding William for season 11.
Oh, and Skinner won’t shoot CSM in the head either. Why don’t they just SHOOT HIM IN THE HEAD? They have the opportunity to d it. Who would blame them. He is believed to be dead anyway. JUST DO IT!!!!
Oh and Jeffrey Spender is back this episode, but looking a lot better than he did the last time we saw him. Did it cost too much for the make up?
Happy Fourth of July, everyone! I know that the world is a difficult place these days with a ton of divisiveness in our country, but hopefully we can all stop for one day and embrace the wonder of being an American. That is what is really big and beautiful.
Books this week:
Nightwing #101-108. Continuing my dive into Tom Taylor’s run on Nightwing. I am stuck at this point waiting for #109 to arrive from eBay. I really am enjoying this book so far. I love how Tom Taylor gives Dick Grayson a distinct voice and how Taylor can give all of these secondary characters Dick’s orbit their own special voice.
Captain America #1. Written by Chip Zdarsky with art by Valerio Schiti. I have two covers for this book. Cover A art is done by Ben Harvey while Cover G is the Netease Games Marvel Rivals Variant. Steve Rogers is back in the 12th volume of Captain America as we see some of the story around his beginnings as Captain America. Chip Zdarsky is one of my favorite writers and I am excited to see what he can bring to Cap.
Batman: The Detective #1-6. I saw an advertisement for this mini-series in one of the Nightwing books and I went to eBay and ordered it. This is more of my deep dive into Tom Taylor and this book told a future story of Batman, seemingly around the Dark Knight time and it was just so good. I buzzed through this series quickly. Top notch Batman.
X-Men #19. “Revelation.” Written by Jed MacKay and penciled by Netho Diaz. Ryan Stegman & Marte Gracia did the cover art. Doug Ramsey had become the heir to Apocalypse last year and we have not seen him since. Here the story is devoted to Doug fully and is clearly setting up the next arc for the X-Men.
Detective Comics: Mercy of the Father softcover. Written by Tom Taylor and art by Mikel Janin. Remember when I just mentioned that Batman: The Detective was “top notch Batman?” Well, this collection of Detective Comics #1090-1096 is one of the best Batman books I have ever read. Tom Taylor is brilliant in this book and he developed such deep characters and amazing situations to toss the Dark Knight into. He uses the world so effortlessly that it feels as if I was reading Batman for the first time, incorporating history in ways that enrichen the story, not reframing it. This is really good stuff.
Avengers #28. “Masters of Evil” Finale. Written by Jed MacKay with art by Andrea Broccardo. Valerio Schiti and Federico Blee were the cover artists. Black Panther and Captain America are down to the final struggle against the Mad Thinker. I think this arc has helped revitalize the Mad Thinker as a top level villain.
Daredevil #23. “Rites of Reconciliation” Part Four. Written by Saladin Ahmed and penciled by Carlos Nieto & Jose Luis Soares. Taskmaster has been paid to take out Daredevil, the “dude version.” What happened when Elektra Daredevil showed up?
Immortal Thor #25. “The Twilight Kingdom.” Written by Al Ewing with art by Jan Bazaldua, Justin Greenwood & Pasqual Ferry. Cover art was done by Alex Ross. So Thor’s dead, huh? Well, kind of I guess. This does finish the arc of Thor written by Al Ewing, which has been very solid, though perhaps not his greatest work (that is still Immortal Hulk, I believe). This is like the prelude to the next Thor series, The Mortal Thor.
All-New Venom #8. Written by Al Ewing and art by Carlos Gomez. Adam Kubert & Laura Martin are the cover artists. Mary Jane is the all-new Venom and she is taking on one of her ex-husband’s classic villains in Doctor Octopus.
Sisterhood: A Hyde Street Story #1. Written by Maytal Zchut and art by Leila Leiz. Leila Leiz & Alex Sinclair are the cover artists. Sophie and Violet were lifelong friends who were drifting apart at college. When Violet drowns, Sophie takes some drastic measures that you just shouldn’t do on Hyde Street.
Grim #23. “Play the Game.” Written by Stephanie Phillips and illustrated and cover art by Flaviano. Jessica Harrow has three questions that she must ask and the supernatural being she wants the answers from is End. This issue really did feel like a series conclusion, as Jessica seems to end up in a very final place, but I guess there is another book in October. This was a solid read, but Grim coming out quarterly has hurt the flow of the series.
Absolute Green Lantern #4. “Chaotic Action.” Written by Al Ewing and art and cover art by Jahnoy Lindsay. Jo confronts Oa, which has to be right because it rhymes. Absolute Green Lantern has been intriguing because of the differences that this series has taken. I still like the arc for Hal Jordan so far.
Amazing Spider-Man #7. Written by Joe Kelly and penciled by John Romita Jr. Variant cover art was done by Doaly. Spider-Man faces off with the mysterious new “villain,” Hellgate. This issue reminded me of some of those old Spidey classics such as Amazing Spider-Man #229-230 where Spidey took on the Juggernaut and Amazing Spider-Man #269-270 where he battled Firelord. Spidey felt outmatched but never surrendered and found a way to win. Here, of course, it may only be temporary.
Spider-Gwen: Ghost Spider #15. “Uncharted” Part 5. Written by Stephanie Phillips and art by Von Randal. This is the final issue of this volume of Spider-Gwen before she gets an official restart in August. This issue does everything I wanted… got rid of the Cosmic Cube, the symbiote costume, over-powered Gwen and returned her to her original statis. I am very excited about that as I have not been liking the powered up Gwen character the last few issues.
Ultimate Wolverine #7. Written by Chris Condon and art by Alessandro Cappuccio. Alessandro Cappuccio and Frank Martin were the cover artists. Logan reunites with his old mates, though several of them are a little suspicious of the former Winter Soldier. Illyana is making her machinations.
Sam & Twitch Case Files #15. Written by Jordan Barel with additional script by Todd McFarlane and art by Thomas Nachlik. Marco Failla & Don Aguillo are the cover artists (Silver Medalist). Things are not looking good for Sam and the investigation into the shooting case against his partner Twitch takes a deadly turn.
You Never Heard of Me #5. Written by Iolanda Zanfardino and illustrated by Elisa Romboli. This was a difficult book to get my hands on. It was not ordered at Comic World, sold out at In This Issue and nowhere to be found in Des Moines (thanks to Todd for turning over every rock he could think of). I finally went to eBay to pick up this issue, which was the finale for this series. It does feel like a happy ending for this book.
X-Men: Hellfire Vigil #1. Cover art by Luciano Vecchio & Nolan Woodard. A massive group of writers and artists worked on this book, which saw all of the major mutants of the world coming together as a vigil for Krakoa. It felt like a book giving us ideas on where the stories of the mutants were heading over the next year plus. I did not expect to be as intrigued by this book as I was.
Wolverines and Deadpools #1. Written by Cody Ziglar and art by Rogê Antonio. Cover art was done by Alessandro Cappuccio & Marte Gracia. I have been feeling tired of Wolverine & Deadpool team ups in the comics. I have been skipping some of the latest Deadpool books too. It was just tiring. So I was truly shocked when I read this first issue and found it to be exceptional. I really enjoyed the banter between Laura and Ellie, and Wade did not feel as out of control as he has in the past. Logan and Wade bonding over parenting? More of that please.
Whatever Happened to the Crimson Justice #2. Written by Frank Tieri and art and cover art by Inaki Miranda. John has no intentions of returning to his life as Crimson Justice. However, Mayhem has a different plan. This has been a good Mad Cave book with some excellent world building going on basically without a main hero.
Pop Kill #1. Yes, this is a second printing of number one with yet another new cover. The cover art was done by Dave Johnson. This series has been known for some of the best variant covers of the year not drawn by Mark Spears.
Other books this week: Lady Baltimore: The Daughter of Medusa #2, Conan the Barbarian #17-18, Resurrection Man: Quantum Karma #4, Uncanny X-Men: Prelude to a Future Past #104.5, Plague House #4, Bug Wars #5 and Storm #8.
Quick Hits: I was at the shop in Bettendorf and I saw Charlamagne Tha God Presents Illuminati #1 on the shelf from AWA. The cover was appealing, but I did not grab it at first. I tried to resist, but I eventually succumbed and grabbed it. AWA has had some interesting books recently. The
Chamberlains #2 was out this week from Keenspot. It is a solid horror book. Another book that I picked up for fun was Ghostbusters: Dead Man’s Chest #2. I had picked up number one and I have always liked the Ghostbusters and this issue captured some of the humor of that franchise. It has been a huge week for the King of the Monsters, Godzilla! Godzilla vs. Thor #1 (Gold Medalist for its variant cover), two covers for Godzilla Heist #5 (Cover B a Bronze Medalist) and Justice League vs. Godzilla vs. Kong #2 all came out and were all a lot of fun. It was nice to see a book from DSTLRY once again as Warm Fusion #3 came out. I did not remember anything about that book sadly. The release schedule for DSTLRY has been a major drawback to some of these awesome books. Todd made fun of me for picking up Comics of the Movement #1 this week. It is a historical comic and is presented in an original manner. What is not to like? I grabbed two covers of the Bring on the Bad Guys: Green Goblin #1 book this week. I have the A cover and the cover featuring Sister Sorrow. Finally, I grabbed a back issue from Comic World of Sergio Aragones The Groo Chronicles #4. I had no idea this series was out and I may need to search the rest of these down.
The seventh film in this franchise was released on Wednesday as Jurassic World: Rebirth found its way into theaters for the Fourth of July weekend.
With Scarlet Johansson and Mahershala Ali leading the cast, Jurassic World: Rebirth resets the franchise after the seemingly final film Jurassic World: Dominion.
It is five years past the events of Jurassic World: Dominion, where it seemed as if the humans and the dinosaurs were going to be living in the same world. Turned out that was not going to work out for the dinos as they found out that living on earth was bad for them and they had to move closer to the equator.
A group of mercenaries led by Zora Bennett (Scarlet Johansson) and Duncan Kincaid (Mahershala Ali) went to the island where all the worst of the dinosaurs, the weird mutates from the science experiments were cast out in a chance find DNA of certain dino monsters that can help cure diseases.
Also, there was a family who were out sailing (I guess near the equator) and a dinosaur in the water caused their boat to capsize. They also wound up on this mutant monster island (no Godzilla or Kong to be found). The two groups cross paths at the beginning.
While there are so many problems with this movie, I’ll start with some of the good things. I thought there were some good action scenes or dinosaur chases sequences. There was a scene with a dinosaur and a inflatable raft that was fairly tense. Some of the action was pretty good.
I think Scarlett Johansson and Mahershala Ali are charismatic performers and I like cheering for them. Of course, I was cheering for them because I like them as actors, not because they have characters that I enjoyed. We’ll get back to the characters in a bit.
Unfortunately, that was about it for positives for me. I found myself bored quite a bit at the beginning of the movies. I thought these characters were all just bland and one-dimensional and if they weren’t played by familiar and likable faces, I wouldn’t care about these people at all.
The dinosaurs were not really dinosaurs. They are actually just monsters and most of the designs were okay at best. There were several times when you could easily see the green screen. Some of the monsters were cool and looked good on the screen, but just not enough. Give me more of the T-Rex instead.
The film basically had two stories crammed together in the movie that really did not have any crossover. The mercenaries after the DNA is one story and the family stranded on the island is the other. There was not enough story for either one of them, let alone for both.
There are so many moments in this movie that were basically recycled from the original three films, just tweaked a bit. There really was not anything new or original in the movie.
Rupert Friend’s character is right out of the stereotypical playbook for this type of film. You could easily see what this guy was going to do a mile away.
I’m not even going to comment on Delores.
I was very disappointed, but not surprised at Jurassic Park: Rebirths, which is more like Gareth Edwards’s Godzilla and less like Rogue One. Bringing David Koepp back in (who was a writer on the classic and iconic original Jurassic Park) did not help this franchise at all. It did have a few moments that were decent, but certainly not enough for a two hour and fifteen minute slog.
Welcome back for the EYG Favorite Comic Cover of the Week. Everybody have a great Independence Day tomorrow.
Also-Rans: Immortal Thor #25, Charlamagne Tha God Presents Illuminati #1, Amazing Spider-Man #7 (Variant Cover D), Captain America #1 (Cover A), Pop Kill #1 (2nd Printing Cover T), Bring on the Bad Guys: Green Goblin #1, and Spider-Gwen: Ghost Spider #15.
Bronze Medalist
Godzilla: Heist #5
Variant Cover B
Cover art by Pablo Tunica
This was a homage to the movie poster for Inception. The imagery of Godzilla walking through the city was awesome. I love the movie poster inspirations some of these variant covers have been doing.
Silver Medalist
Sam & Twitch Case Files #15
Cover art by Marco Failla & Don Aguillo
This is an impressive cover with the red shadow of the man with the knife and Sam and Twitch running toward a victim. This one truly stood out from the pile.
Gold Medalist
Godzilla vs. Thor #1
Variant Cover E
Cover art by Mitsuhiro Arita
Big week for Godzilla as the King of Monsters has a gold medal and a Bronze medal. There were some really great covers for this issue (Cover A, which I have not gotten yet, is beautiful too). This is truly compelling with Godzilla and Thor sharing this cover.
I had heard the rumors. I had heard the speculation. I knew of the comic story. I still did not believe it. After four years, since WandaVision, I had kind of given up the idea that we would ever see him. Then, episode six of Ironheart came about and…
Mephisto CONFIRMED!
Sacha Baron Cohen had been rumored to be playing Marvel’s big devil, but that was just something I never truly took for certain. Even when all the signs were pointing to it being true, I had trouble believing it. Then, there he was, standing in front of Anthony Ramos, giving him his magical hood, just part of the deal.
I loved Sacha Baron Cohen as Mephisto. he was creepy and played it perfectly. They did avoid the red skin, which I kind of wanted, but will probably be in his future.
The show also name dropped Dormammu as a way to try and swerve the people way from the idea of Mephisto. Riri went to try and get some help from… Zelma Stanton, who in the comics was a librarian who went to Dr. Strange with a mind maggot and she stayed as his apprentice for a time. She also became a teacher at Strange Academy.
These three episodes were really solid in my opinion. I do think the Alden Ehrenreich character, Zeke Stane, felt a little forced, but I do like Alden as an actor so I am able to let it be.
The very end of the sixth episode leads us to believe that Riri has made a deal with the devil himself as it looked as if Natalie was alive once again. It left this series off on a gigantic cliffhanger that kept me off-guard. Are there more planned with Ironheart or Mephisto? There has to be.
I thought this was a good show that I enjoyed. I was really engaged, especially with the arrival of Mephisto. It feels significant moving forward. Perhaps with the rumored supernatural phase that Marvel may be preparing for after Secret Wars.
The fourth episode of the short tenth season was very eventful, especially for Scully. Scully’s mother died and opened up a whole bunch of questions for Scully, many of which led to Scully wondering about her son, William, whom she had given away at the end of season 9 to protect him.
Gillian Anderson was powerful with er performance in this episode as he was dealing with the loss of her mother and the fresh memories of her loss of William.
The case that they were working on prior to Scully receiving the phone call about her mother was one that did not work as well for me. These scenes were just not as powerful as the ones that Scully was directly involved with. It was meant to give Scully some more questions about William and served that purpose, but did not have the kind of meat that the Scully scenes had.
I know that the series goes into the William storyline much more moving forward and episodes like these show how crushing it was for Scully. Mulder is always quiet and supportive, but you can tell from his facials that he is every bit as in pain as Scully is.
Duster has taken a wild swing into the world of political thriller, connecting the story they have been telling to, of all things, the Watergate tapes.
Howard Hughes made a guest star appearance and told Jim that Joey was killed by the CIA. Is that the truth or just the ramblings of a crazy man?
Sgt Groomes awakened and gave his info on Jim to Billy, all the while then ousting Nina from her Russian interpreter role. Billy snatched Nina at the end of the episode, which technically saved her from Agent Chad who had received orders to take Nina out.
Luna stowed away in the duster with Jim and Saxton, who were delivering the case (that contained the “smoking gun” tape of Nixon) to Hughes. When she was discovered, she dropped the fact that she was the daughter of the protestor that Saxton had been having so much trouble with, but Saxton did seem to be willing to listen to the little girl argue the case for the protest and for women’s rights.
Who, by the way, is Xavier?
There were a ton of storylines coming together and setting up for net episode’s finale of season one.
I have been a fan of improv comedy for decades. From the Christopher Guest films to Whose Line is it Anyway, I have always lapped up improv. So seeing the synopsis of this movie with improv at the heart of it, I was in on Deep Cover.
Sadly, this was a scripted improv comedy/adventure that flied in the face of the artform.
The cast was interesting with Bryce Dallas Howard, Orlando Bloom and Ted Lasso’s Nick Mohammed. Toss in Sean Bean and Ian McShane to make this cast pretty good.
The main three characters are tossed into a story in London criminal underworld by the police to try to use their improv skills under cover.
I just did not grasp this film. As I said, the idea that the improv is all scripted makes it feel too forced. It seemed all they really had was “Yes, and…” and it did not work for me.
2.4 stars
With that, the June Swoon 4: Two a Day comes to a close. Thirty days and sixty movies! I avoided using any in the theater movies for the “It’s Now” films even though I had set the precedent up that I could. The two a day format was harder than I thought it would be. The last week or so got harder to find the movies to watch and I got in a stretch where there were some bad films. Thankfully, I broke out of that run and finished better.
We have arrived at the final day for the June Swoon 4: Two Day. The final movie for the 2024 films (“It’s Then, Now”) is a Liam Neeson film called Absolution that I watched on Hulu.
A lot of Liam Neeson films are similar over the last few years and they have titles that are anything but distinct. This movie had the same feel to it. The title “Absolution” seemed just as random as many of the other films. It i snot memorable.
However, Absolution does take some different steps in the story to set itself apart from “Retribution,” “The Ice Road,” “The Marksman,” “Cold Pursuit,” “The Commuter” and such.
According to IMDB, “An aging gangster attempts to reconnect with his children and rectify the mistakes in his past, but the criminal underworld won’t loosen their grip willingly.”
This summary from IMDB does not touch upon the seminal fact of the story that made this Liam Neeson performance different than all the others. Since it is not mentioned here, I will avoid spoiling it and say that this one fact really adds to the typical character that Neeson plays.
Neeson’s co-star was Yolanda Ross and she was excellent in her role. I thought the scenes with Neeson and Ross stood out from the rest of the movie and I wish there had been more of this.
I also liked the young actor Terrence Pulliam, who played Dre, Neeson’s estranged grandson. The two of them also had some good scenes that gave Neeson’s character more depth than it would have had. Pullian does not have a ton of dialogue, but he played the scenes well with his facial features and looks.
Some may think that this story was too slow, but I liked the pace of the film. It gave us a chance to get into the character Neeson was playing and connect with the choices he had made and the regrets that were swallowing him.
There was a series of weird scenes with Neeson and his father (Josh Drennan) that seemed to be in a different movie, but these scenes did not derail the film for me.
Absolution was not as bad as I thought it was going to be, and I did actually like a lot of what was there. It has a 55% critics score on Rotten Tomatoes and a shockingly low 32% audience score. I think it is much better than that.
Episode 10 of the second season of Poker Face was probably my least favorite of the season so far.
It featured the story of a man Rodney (Jason Ritter) who wanted to get “pumped up” for a class reunion and tried to get the owner of a local gym, Brick (Method Man) to get him some of the “good stuff” that he was selling to the other gym members who were making more progress than he was.
When the man, who worked as a health inspector, discovered that the “good stuff” was mother’s breast milk, he was angry and ready to report him. Rodney and Brick fought and Brick accidentally hit him in the throat with a weight. He set it up to look like Rodney had been lifting weights without a spotter and had a terrible gym accident.
Here comes Charlie.
Charlie and her new friend Alex (Patti Harrison) began to have doubts about the story being told by Brick and, even though Charlie wanted to turn over a new leaf and start to mind her own business, she couldn’t help herself.
I just did not find this episode very engaging. I did laugh as Charlie had been locked in the sauna by Brick because she was trying to get a message to Alex via smartwatch by doing a sequence of exercises that included heel raises, arm circles, lunges and push-ups. This was meant to spell HALP.
I found this to be a bit of a step back for Poker Face, although a crime solving partner was new for Charlie. There are two more episodes of season 2.
The second film of the penultimate day of the 2025 June Swoon was on Amazon Prime and it was an action/political thriller starring Viola Davis called G20.
The G20 is is an international forum of both developing and developed countries which seeks to find solutions to global economic and financial issues. (g20.org). It stands for Group of 20.
This movie has the leaders of the G20 facing a group of terrorists who take over the G20 summit. The leaders looked to President Danielle Sutton (Viola Davis) because she had extensive military service prior to her election. Sutton helped battle the terrorists through the halls of the fictional Grand Diamont Hotel in South Africa.
There is no way around it. This movie is stupid. It is stupid in the way that what Viola Davis does would NEVER be allowed for any sitting US President to do. She is shooting weaponry, fighting hand to hand and battling the forces opposing her. Absolutely NEVER would this happen. So it is as unrealistic as any film could be. It is not unprecedented for a movie president to take on terrorists (for example Harrison Ford in Air Force One), but President Sutton does a whole lot more here.
If you can get past that and just allow the stupidity to get by you, this is not the worst movie I have seen. Silly? Yes. I do like Viola Davis and she carried herself with a swagger in this movie that made you believe that she was the most powerful person on the planet. She does a great job as action hero #1.
Our lead villain was Rutledge, played by Antony Starr. Starr is a much better villain as Homelander in the Boys. Here he feels too much like a dime store Hans Gruber from Die Hard. He had a strange plan involving the world’s currency, making him just an “exceptional thief.”
There is a fun group of ensemble cast including Anthony Anderson, Ramon Rodriguez, Marsai Martin, Elizabeth Marvel, everyone’s favorite Phil Coulson- Clark Gregg, MeeWha Alana Lee, Douglas Hodge, John Hoogenakker, Joseph Steven Yang and Theo Bongani Ndyalvane.
If you can accept this as just a dumb action movie, you might get a kick out of it. If you think of it as a political thriller that features the US president, the flaws come out pretty easily. Viola Davis is a kick ass either way.
EYG- Embrace Your Geekness 