Tag Archives: movies

Paradise S2 E1, E2, E3

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Spoilers

What an unexpected surprise. As I was going to Disney + this morning, there is was. An ad at the top of the page for Paradise season two, the first three episodes dropping together.

Paradise was a Hulu series from last year that was unexpected as well. Starring Courtney B. Vance and James Marsden, Paradise was a sci-fi series that was remarkably compelling and brilliantly set up. It was a sci-fi/apocalyptic show, a murder mystery and a thrilling political drama.

If I had known Paradise season two was scheduled for release in February, I had forgotten it. Three episodes, each about an hour long, starting off the second season was just was the doctor had ordered for a sick day at home.

“Graceland”

Of course, I had not expected the first episode to start off in Graceland, of all places. We get some details that told us how the end of the world came about. Supervolcano explosion, bringing cloud of dust across the planet. I am not sure I knew this detail from season one, but it made a lot of sense.

We are introduced to a new character named Annie, who was hired as a tour guide at Graceland, thanks to her knowledge of Elvis Presley.

We passed time, several years, with Annie while she survived at Graceland. We saw the other security guard at Graceland, who injured her leg on the first day, slowly die over the next two months. It left Annie alone.

That is… until a group of armed men arrived. However, they did not seem to be the typical armed men in this type of a setting. They were friendly, named after TV characters, and befriended Annie. Especially Link, whom Annie drew closer to during the time they all were at Graceland.

It did seem that this group had a hidden plan. They wanted to find the underground bunker in Colorado and kill Alex. They had told us that they were shutting down nuclear power plants, but I wonder how much of that is a cover story.

Annie refused to go with them and wound up heading out on her own, where she found a crashed airplane and an unconscious Xavier.

“Mayday”

The second episode went back to telling the story of Xavier and how he wound up unconscious on that ground. It also showed us how he and his wife met the first time.

The flashback took us to a time where Xavier had injured his knee and was in the hospital. He was placed in the same room with Teri, who had a surgery, a side effect of which made her blind. They bonded during the time when she was getting her sight back.

Xavier and Annie’s meeting was shown and Annie took him back to Graceland.

“Another Day in Paradise”

Then episode three focused in on the show’s main antagonist, Samantha “Sinatra” Redmond, and her recovery from the gunshot of last season and the further development of assassin Jane Driscoll. Jane is a terrible person and, in the course of this hour, assassinated the new President of the US and framed Agent Robinson for the job.

Billy Pace showed back up in a flashback working for Sinatra. He was told to get the rights to the company owned by a man named Miller. Miller refuses and there is an emotional standoff at his home, beside the bed of his comatose wife, Alex. Is this the same Alex from before? Miller gives his wife a lethal dose of something, and as she died, he asked one favor of Billy… don’t harm the boy from his class that was such a genius and who he felt like a father to. Billy kills Miller and ends up leaving the boy alone.

The boy turned out to be a younger Link.

Wheels are turning here.

Man there are a lot of things happening in this show and I am so pleased that it is back.

Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die

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This movie is like Everything, Everywhere All At Once on a combo of speed and LSD.

That is in the good way.

Sam Rockwell leads this intriguing ensemble in a wild, time travel, sci-fi mash up with stuff that you would never expect to see on the big screen. It is a dark comedy, with some extremely dark moments of humor.

Sam Rockwell is great as always. He throwed himself into this project as he does in everything that he ever appears in. He is such a top notch performer that you know you are getting his best in every role.

According to IMDB, “A ‘Man From the Future’ arrives at a diner in Los Angeles where he must recruit the precise combination of disgruntled patrons to join him on a one-night quest to save the world from the terminal threat of a rogue artificial intelligence.“

This film does not hide its themes about AI. It is anything but subtle that it sets AI as the villain of this film and that it sees AI as being a major problem to the world. While it also blends the idea of technology into the theme, AI is absolutely the leading concept.

This movie is utterly batshit crazy. It has some of the most wild, crazy situations I have ever seen. I compared it earlier to Everything, Everywhere All at Once, and that is a fair comparison, but this takes it to another level. If you were someone who did not like the absurdity of some of EEAAO, then this will not be your cup of tea. If you came out of EEAAO with the wish that the writers would have taken the gloves off and really gone to town with the weirdness, then Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die is for you.

I was thoroughly entertained by the film, even if my jaw was agape several times.

Gore Verbinski, who directed the Pirates of the Caribbean films, returned to helm this satire and he brought a vision that just was engaging and hilarious, while still bringing an important message to the screen.

One of my favorite movies so far in 2026.

4.8 stars

Psycho Killer

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So I went to a movie today.

Psycho Killer is a new serial killer film from director Gavin Polone, featuring Georgina Campbell. It was written by Andrew Kevin Walker (who also wrote Se7en). I saw the original poster for this movie when I was doing the banner for February 2026, and it looked good. I saw it at Cinemark today and I realized that Psycho Killer was anything but good.

In fact, it was the worst film I have seen so far in 2026. Yes, the year is only in its second month, but this was certainly bad and it was outside of January.

What was good about this movie?

Hm

Wait a minute….

Um… it is better than last year’s War of the Worlds.

To be fair, I believe this film had a premise that could have been cool and could have worked, but anything that was cool about the movie was discarded and was ignored as the film moved on. It was such a mess, writing wise that one wondered how this could have been written by the guy who wrote Se7en.

There are no characteristics about any of the characters. They are all just one-dimensional cardboard cutouts. The psycho killer is not a character at all. The Psycho Killer is nothing more than a deep (silly) voice.

I have to say as well that the end of this movie is one of the worst endings that I have seen in such a long time. It totally did not make any sense and even the lacking character that this psycho killer had made no sense as to why this was done. It was just DUMB. I thought that I missed something along the way before this ending, but I did not. There was nothing that led to this story arc.

This felt like a lazy film without any real characters or real stakes for anyone I gave a crap about. It has one of the worst ending sequences of the last several years and just is not worth an hour and a half of anyone’s time.

0.8 stars

Agents of Shield S2 E19, E20, E21, E22

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Spoilers

“The Dirty Half Dozen”

“Scars”

“S.O.S. (Part One)”

“S.O.S. (Part Two)”

The Inhumans arc of Agents of Shield wrapped up with the last few episodes. Jiaying and the Inhumans tried to start a war with Shield only to find that things were not going to go in a positive way.

Lots of arcs were resolved in these episodes including:

  • Kyle MacLachlan’s run as Daisy’s father, Cal. His ending is kind of happy, even though the idea of mindwiping someone is iffy at best.
  • Skye officially began calling herself Daisy Johnson.
  • Raina, who had been an antagonist through most of the first two seasons of the show is killed by Jiaying in a way to keep her quiet.
  • Robert Gonzalez is murdered via the Terrigan crystals at the hands of Jiaying. See ya later Edward James Olmos.
  • Agent 33 and her crazed vengeance on Bobbi came to a close when Ward accidentally killed her thinking she was May.
  • Ward apparently is the new head of Hydra.
  • Post credit of the monolith swallowing up Simmons was creepy as all get out.
  • Coulson had his left arm chopped off by Mac to prevent the spread of the Terrigen after Coulson caught the crystal, preventing it from breaking and killing the rest of them.
  • Coulson talked about forming a small team of powered individuals (aka Secret Avengers)
  • Lincoln turned on the other Inhumans to help Daisy and the Shield agents.
  • Mac joined back up with Shield despite his initial doubts.
  • Fitz and Simmons were the Jin/Sun (from LOST) of this show, something always happening to keep them apart.

Kyle MacLachlan is a tremendous actor. He could bring unbelievable levels to a crazed killer. He was basically Mr. Hyde from Marvel Comics, but I could understand and relate to everything he did. I think he was a fabulous character and I was pleased that he had such a strong arc this season.

The whole Agents of Shield connection to Avengers: Age of Ultron with the arrival of the Helicarrier felt a touch awkward since much of the action around the reveal of the Helicarrier and the secrets Coulson was keeping played out in the movie. Because of that, the storylines felt a touch anticlimactic. Still, the season did a great job of wading through the stuff that was necessary and still created some tense moments of action and exciting scenes.

Sha Na Na S3 E5, E6, E7, E8

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This was an interesting stretch of episodes with Sha Na Na. They had four guest stars that did not fit into the typical type of performers that were on the show prior. Charlie Pride is a country singer, Disco Queen Gloria Gaynor, Isaac Hayes and Lola Falana both do not sing typical Sha Na Na music. It is an expansion that could open up more doors for other musicians.

The diner made a surprise return in episode eight. It was part of a running joke, which was also one of the first times this was done on Sha Na Na. Lennie wanted to play Annie because of the pretty dress, but the people in charge of Annie said Lennie was too fat to play the role. So Lennie went on a diet during the episode and they returned to the joke several times.

There were a couple of good comedy bits during these episodes. I especially enjoyed the “Rock and Roll is Here to Stay” bit where Sha Na Na dressed up like old folks. They were very funny with their outfits. The other one I liked the best was “Black Leather Denim Trousers” where they were on the street set.

We also had a comedy bit where Pamela Myers joined in to sing “How Much is that Doggie in the Window” with Sha Na Na dressed in dog outfits. It was nice to have her female voice once again in the show.

In episode 5, we got the performance by Screamin’ Scott of the song he wrote for the movie Grease, Sandy. Simon wrote the song with Louis St. Louis. The Lady in the Window said that Scott wrote the words, so perhaps he was the lyricists of the song. The song was written for the movie and was performed by John Travolta. Scott did a nice job performing it.

There were also a few songs that I did not know, specifically the ones at the beginning and end of the show. There was a cool one done by Lennie in the fifth episode and one by Jocko in episode 8.

The cuts on YouTube are still irritating, but haven’t been as bad as a few other times.

Dracula (2026)

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I dozed off during Iron Lung today, but I sure as heck wished I had dozed off during this new version of Bram Stoker’s classic Dracula. It would have made the film seem better than it was.

According to IMDB, “When a 15th-century prince denounces God after the loss of his wife he inherits an eternal curse: he becomes Dracula. Condemned to wander the centuries, he defies fate and death, guided by a single hope – to be reunited with his lost love.“

I found that there were a bunch of things about this version of Dracula that I did not like at all. Directed by Luc Besson, who I loved as the director of The Fifth Element, Dracula was just a waste of my time.

First of all, what is the exact tone of this thing? It bounced around between a horror movie and a comedy, almost slapstick-like. There were scenes where I was laughing at that I am not sure were intended to be funny. Or maybe it was and the scenes were more successful in the end. There was a scene with Matilda De Angelis’s Maria that seemed like it should have been in one of those horror movie parody films. It was easily the worst scene of the movie.

Then, Dracula had a bunch of stone gargoyle friends, like this was a Disney movie. The gargoyles did not speak like they did in Hunchback of Notre Dame, but they looked ridiculous and did not fit with the concept of this movie.

The look of the movie was terrible too. There were so many scenes where the CGI looked bad and that you could tell where the green screen was and there is no excuse in 2026 for your CGI to be this bad.

The whole love story at the center of the film was not believable to me either. Zoë Bleu felt like she was overacting in nearly every scene and I did not feel any chemistry between Zoë Bleu’s character and Dracula, who was played by Caleb Landry Jones. Jones was fine as Dracula, but that is about it. I do not think his performance will be remembered in the echelon of Dracula performances.

I found the ending to be really stupid too. How can you have a star like Christoph Waltz in your film but let him flounder as he did during this version of Dracula.

I just did not like this film much as I struggled to find much positive to say about it. There are a half dozen Dracula movies better than this one, at least, and I am not sure why anyone would choose this version of the film over some of those.

1.4 stars

Iron Lung

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I had no idea what this movie was last week when it debuted as the number two movie at the box office. I heard some talk about it this past week after its massive success. That certainly put it on my radar.

The film was written and directed by YouTuber Markiplier and is based on a video game from 2022 by David Szymanski. Markiplier said the the film would be self-financed and that he would star in the film. With a small budget of $3 million dollars, Iron Lung made a whopping $30 million + worldwide.

With the huge story of the self-made man overcoming the Hollywood order to make a hit movie, the question was, “Was Iron Lung any good?” Sadly, I did not enjoy the film as much as I had hoped that I would.

According to IMDB, “In a post-apocalyptic future after ‘The Quiet Rapture’ event, a convict explores a blood ocean on a desolate moon using a submarine called the ‘Iron Lung’ to search for missing stars/planets.“

The convict was played by Markiplier, aka Mark Fischbach, and the setting was definitely an effectively claustrophobic thriller with an air of uncertainty. I would even go as far as to say that the best part of the film was the setting as it created the desired effect of the audience.

Unfortunately, I found that the story did not grab me and that I found it dull. If I am being honest, I dozed off a couple of times during the movie, so it might not be fair to judge it, but I can say that the story failed to maintain my attention.

I am very happy for Mark Fischbach and I am impressed with his success with this movie. Maybe I should give it a rewatch some day, maybe when it arrives on streaming. As for now, I would recommend people go see it to support someone who is not letting the challenges stop him from reaching for his dream. I just was not much of a fan of the part of the movie that I saw.

2.5 stars

(I reserve the right to raise or lower this score in a future viewing)

MASH (1970)

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January 31

So another Genre-ary comes to an ending with today’s movie, MASH, the original film from 1970 starring Donald Sutherland, Elliot Gould and Tom Skerritt, wrapping up the Comedy Genre-ary 2026.

I love MASH the TV show (it was my #8 in the Top 100) and that probably hurt this film, which I have seen a few clips from, but never sat down and watched the entire thing.

They were saying character names that I loved, but who did not seem like the characters that I loved. Outside of Radar O’Reilly (who was played by Gary Burghoff in the film and the TV series, the only cast member that returned), we saw Hawkeye Pierce, Trapper John, Henry Blake, Hot Lips, Frank Burns, Father Mulcahy, and Spearchucker.

My biggest problem with this film is that it is not the TV show. The doctors of the 4077 MASH felt so much meaner than what I was used to. I did not like some of the things that they did because they felt cruel instead of funny. They were cruder, obnoxious and not as empathic as I expected.

The plot was nearly non-existent. The film was just a series of scenes that were only connected together because they came at the 4077 MASH. That is… until the show turned into a football film. There were several episodes of the TV show where they competed against other units, but seeing them all in full football pads and helmets was weird.

The actors were strong with Donald Sutherland, Elliot Gould, Tom Skerritt, Gary Burghoff, Rene Auberjonois, Robert Duvall, Sally Kellerman, Jo Ann Pflug, Fred Williamson, David Arkin, Roger Bowen, Michael Murphy, and Timothy Brown.

I am sure that I would have liked this more than I did, if I did not have the TV series so firmly placed in my head.

And with that… the 2026 Genre-ary is closed.

Dirty Rotten Scoundrels (1988)

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January 27

I had thought that I had seen Dirty Rotten Scoundrels before, but I do not think I have. Certainly not all the way through to the end though I have seen clips of it. I always believed that I was not a fan and that it was not something that I would find funny. I guess this is a lesson to make sure that you have watched something before judging it, because I thought Dirty Rotten Scoundrels was fantastic.

According to IMDB, “Two con men try to settle their rivalry by betting on who can swindle a young American heiress out of fifty thousand dollars first.“

The Dirty Rotten Scoundrels were Michael Caine and Steve Martin and they were absolutely perfect together. The chemistry between the two con men carried the film. Glenn Headly added a nice touch of apparent innocence to the group with her portrayal of Janet Colgate.

I was rooting for Steve Martin in the beginning of the movie, but Michael Caine became someone better than you would expect. It was a fun ending which fit perfectly in with the story.

It had great comedy and showed the quick-wits of both characters. The rivalry between them was so believable, even if some of the things that they pulled off was out there.

This is a remake of the 1964 movie Bedtime story. This new version was directed by Frank Oz, who was well known as a Muppet performer (he did Miss Piggy and Fozzie Bear), the voice of Yoda, as well as director of other classic comedy hits such as Little Shop of Horrors, Bowfinger, and What About Bob?

I was sure that I had seen this before, but I had not seen the full film. It was very entertaining and full of Martin and Caine’s comedy chops and timing. I was very pleased to include this one in the Genre-ary for 2026.

The Beauty S1 E1, E2, E3

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Spoilers

“Beautiful Pilot”

“Beautiful Jordan”

“Beautiful Christopher Cross”

Ignition Press released a comic a few months ago called The Beauty, written by Jeremy Haun. I was unaware that there was a series before this one from Image Comics. I am enjoying the book from Ignition Press so I was intrigued when I heard that Ryan Murphy was adapting it to a FX series. The first three episodes dropped this past week and there will be a weekly drop on Wednesdays after that.

There is a virus that is transmitted sexually. When you get the virus, you become beautiful (in a horribly painful and gross way). Admittedly, there are some people who just explode in a big bloody mess. Not sure the difference at this point.

Evan Peters stars in the show as Cooper Madsen. The show also featured Rebecca Hall, Anthony Ramos, Ashton Kutcher, and Jeremy Pope.

FBI Agents Cooper and Jordan were investigating the mysterious deaths of several super models, including one that went crazy, killing a bunch of people before she exploded in a bloody splash. Meanwhile, out-of-shape and pathetic young man named Jeremy went to a plastic surgeon with the hope to make himself more attractive. The plastic surgeon worked on him, and it seemed to be successful. Jeremy went to a club where a group of women gave him some attention. However, they were just scamming him for free drinks.

Jeremy, in a rage, went to the surgeon’s office with a gun, killed several staff members, and threatened the doctor. The doctor, however, had another suggestion and hooked him up with a mysterious woman. Jeremy and the woman had sex and Jeremy wound up transforming into a more handsome, in shape person.

This series has a lot of body horror in it, and that is not one one of my favorite types of horror, but I am interested in the series so I will certainly be giving it a chance. I have been disappointed with Ryan Murphy lately (hated American Horror Story: Delicate and Grotesquerie). I did love early AHS and American Crime Story, so he has a hit-or-miss run for me. We’ll see how this goes.

Sunday Morning Sidewalk #53

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Spoilers

Death By Lightning

“Destiny of the Republic”

I have been simultaneously looking forward to and dreading the fourth and final episode of the Netflix mini-series, Death by Lightning. Looking forward to because I have been thoroughly enthralled by this historical drama about James Garfield and dreading it because I have grown to admire and love the character of James Garfield and I knew what his fate held.

The Sunday Morning Sidewalk came this morning and I watched the final episode.

It was so powerful.

It made me wish for a man like James Garfield who could step up and face the corruption of the current political setting. What I wouldn’t give for an honest man, one who did not play the games, like James Garfield. Seeing how his presence and kindness transformed Chester A. Arthur was amazing.

But, it was not just James Garfield who changed Arthur. He had help from a force of nature that we got to witness in this episode: Crete Garfield. The First Lady spent the episode bringing forth the vengeance.

Betty Gilpin got her moments in this episode and she was tremendous.

There were no shortage of villains in this episode. Starting off with Charles Guiteau, who wound up shooting the president in the back. The joy he showed at his actions, despite how demented he was, was obscene. I took a lot of satisfaction in the confrontation with Crete and Guiteau’s eventual hanging. The moment just before he is hanged where he finally realized what was going to happen was best. I also found a strange satisfaction in seeing his brain removed from his dead body for research at the end.

Another villain in the episode was Roscoe Conkling. He was horrendous in his response to the shooting of Garfield. His machinations being turned back on him was great, and seeing how Chester Arthur finally stood up to him.

Then, there was Doctor Bliss. The bullet was not what eventually killed Garfield. He was killed by infection brought on because Bliss did not sterilize his instruments when he was probing for the bullet. The arrogance of this doctor came through clearly in this episode.

This was one of the most compelling four episode mini series I have seen in a long time. Great performances and amazing true stories highlighted the show. I did not expect to love this as much as I did. If you have time, binge this series on Netflix. You will not be disappointed.

Next week, the Sunday Morning Sidewalk switches to another Netflix mini-series: three episodes of a show called Agatha Christie’s Seven Dials. I can only hope that it is as excellent as Death By Lightning.

Mercy

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A new “Screen Life” film is out this weekend featuring Chris Pratt and Rebecca Ferguson, directed by Timur Bekmambetov, who was a producer on last year’s classic War of the Worlds. That should have been the first hint.

However, to be fair, this is better than War of the Worlds because, of course, it had to be, right?

I actually liked the premise of this film. It was a lesser version of Minority Report (much lesser), but there were some ideas here that were going to work.

Chris Pratt was fine as the lead actor, playing Chris Raven, the police officer who was on trial for his wife’s murder. All of the videos and internet stuff made him look real guilty.

Thing is.. the near future world this movie was set in had done something new. It placed AI in charge of the justice system, setting the AI up as judge, jury and executioner. It gave the accused 90 minutes in which to prove his/her innocence or else they would be executed. So the whole trial was on a counting clock, which created some tension in the tale.

The AI judge was Judge Maddox, played by Rebecca Ferguson, and I feel like I missed out on something here. Was she supposed to be all AI or was she meant to be somehow human, because the AI judge kept being influenced by Raven and gave some seemingly emotional responses, which seemed to go against the whole set up. This was one of my biggest problems with the movie as I just did not understand what the AI judge was meant to be.

I also picked out the killer immediately. I do not think it was a huge pull for me as it was painfully apparent and predictable.

I thought the beginning of the film wasn’t bad, but the last act or so was aggressively dumber than it should have been. Things happened that made zero sense and played against what the film had spent time setting up.

There was a drone scene too, but at least they did not have to go to Amazon Prime to order it before they use it.

2.6 stars

Bamboozled (2000)

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January 19

In honor of Martin Luthor King Day, I scheduled Spike Lee’s film Bamboozled for the Genre-ary. It was quite the satire.

According to IMDB, “A frustrated African-American TV writer proposes a blackface minstrel show in protest, but to his chagrin, it becomes a hit.“

The idea of this movie was used recently in the film American Fiction starring Jeffrey Wright. The thing is that this was so much more satirical than I ever expected.

Damon Wayans played Pierre Delacroix, a highly educated and uptight TV writer whose pitches were being rejected by his boss, Thomas Dunwitty (Michael Rapaport). Delacroix decided to provide a protest by presenting a minstrel variety show embracing all of the negative stereotypes associated with blacks. He intended on the show being rejected and leading to his own firing to escape the contract that he signed.

The problem was that the show became a huge hit by the public and the critics. Delacroix became enthralled by the success, losing himself in the racism.

There are so many shocking moments throughout Bamboozled that it is a difficult movie to watch. It is a powerful dismissal of the manner of television and its portrayal of African-Americans over the years. Admittedly, Bamboozled is not subtle in its satire, which may make it too cartoonish at times.

The ending was extremely tough to watch as everything came to a head. The idea that this movie had times that were difficult to watch was clearly done on purpose. It was meant to shake up the idea of racial stereotypes and racism inside the entertainment industry as well as throughout history, and Spike Lee definitely reached that level.

This is one of those movies that I enjoyed, but will probably never want to watch again. I do think it is a worthwhile show and some of the big ideas are necessary to today’s world.

Polite Society (2023)

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January 15

Polite Society has been on my queue over on Peacock since the 2024 June Swoon. I had just never gotten around to watching it. It was not that appealing for me.

However, when I came across it on my queue a few days ago and it listed it as a comedy, I thought this would be the perfect chance to put this one to bed. The Rotten Tomatoes score was strong and I thought I would finally give it a chance.

According to IMDB, “Ria Khan believes she must save her older sister Lena from her impending marriage. After enlisting her friends’ help, she attempts to pull off the most ambitious of all wedding heists in the name of independence and sisterhood.“

I had a hard time getting into the movie at first. It did not grab my attention to really intrigue me. However, I have to say that about halfway through the film, I started to get into it and was much more engaged.

I do think the wilder the plot became for the film, the more interested I was.

I enjoyed the performance of Priya Kansara as Ria, the sister whose behavior did seem out of control. She was very funny, even if she was hard to like at first. She seemed so over the top that it made her a bit abrasive. However, once the shoe dropped, things took off.

I loved the performance of Nimra Bucha, who played Raheela. She became a devastating villain and an amazing foil for Ria. Bucha, who also appeared in Marvel Studio’s Disney + series, Ms. Marvel, showed exactly what she could have been on that show with her big time villain turn. She was sinister in the very best possible way. I would have loved to have seen this side on Ms. Marvel more. Even though the plot became exaggerated, she made it work with everything about her.

The film had a definite Bollywood feel to it, mixed with a martial arts film. It was very original and I wound up very much enjoying it, even after the slow start for me.

Superbad (2007)

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January 13

When I scheduled Superbad for the comedy Genre-ary, I was really not looking forward to it. It has typically been the type of movie that I hate. I was pushing it off as long as I could.

And then…

I really liked this.

I’m as surprised as anyone.

According to IMDB, “Two co-dependent high school seniors are forced to deal with separation anxiety after their plan to stage a booze-soaked party goes awry.”

I found this surprisingly entertaining, with some excellent writing and witty dialogue. The lines were sharp and hilarious and the situations were over the top, and yet not so much that you roll your eyes.

Jonah Hill, who I have never been a big fan of, was really great as Seth, and he was actually quite deep in this loud and obnoxious character. Historically, this is the type of loud character that irritates me, but, for some reason, this was much better than other films with the same type of character. Hill had great chemistry with Michael Cera, who played Evan. His balance against Hill’s loudness worked well.

The film was also debuts of both Emma Stone and Christopher Mintz-Plasse. Both actors had solid characters and I do think Mintz-Plasse’s run as McLovin was easily the best running joke of the film.

I do think it was too long. I would have liked to have seen about 10-15 minutes trimmed from the film as the middle dragged on a bit. However, the ending of the film was truly charming and hinted at more than just surface story.

The most over-the-top aspect of the film was the police officers, played by Bill Hader and Seth Rogen. I liked them, but there may have been too much of them over the course of the film. Some of these scenes would be the ones I would trim, but they had a wonderful scene near the end of the film with Mintz-Plasse, as that relationship had been built up during the middle.

This is the style of movie that I usually hate. Crude. Drug and alcohol jokes. Sex jokes. It just goes to show you that a film that is intelligently written, with strong characterization and plot that is legitimately funny even without the crude parts, can still be entertaining and well done. With quality, any style can be fun.