Opiniones de zkonedog

A film like Eden had a tremendous amount going for it in terms of marketing/interest: a legendary director, a stacked cast, and an interesting real-life "in". Somewhat amazingly, all of those things are utterly squandered in this boring slog.

For a very basic overview, Eden tells the story of how Dr. Ritter (Jude Law) and partner Dore (Vanessa Kirby) became frustrated with post-WWI society and decide to start their own society in the Galápagos Islands. All seems to be going fairly well...until Heinz (Daniel Bruhl) & Margret (Sydney Sweeney) show up, followed closely by an entitled Baroness (Ana de Armas). With "too many cooks in the kitchen", principles begin to break down and chaos infiltrates the commune.

Perhaps the most shocking thing about Eden is that director Ron Howard couldn't make a more exciting film out of the overall concept. We're talking the director of such classics as Apollo 13, A Beautiful Mind, & Cinderella Man (to name but a few), and instead he turns this interesting real-life story into a boring morass. The crazy thing is that in reality it seems legitimately fascinating and relevant. But not through this lens.

Cast-wise, one here sees Sweeney against type, de Armas exactly on-type, and Law/Kirby (the ostensible leads) all about equally wasted. No interesting dynamics, no sex appeal (somewhat implicit in the cast/marketing), and no real direction or momentum.

It really hit me how bad this film is when the closing credits show the actual footage of the island goings-on. I'd be interested in, say, reading a book about the events. This version certainly didn't move me towards anything but boredom.

All in all, a colossal failure that doesn't pay off a single one of its potentialities. At just over two hours long, it still manages to feel interminable and many watch-checks were clocked during its runtime.

I had always considered John Carpenter's 1978 Halloween to be the birth of the horror slasher genre. Well, it was the birth of the successful horror slasher. In 1974, it was actually Black Christmas that broke the mold (despite not being a huge financial success). I can't call it a great film, but it has its moments and is an interesting "case study" if nothing else.

For a very basic overview, Black Christmas tells the story of a sorority house stalked by a murderous prank-caller. As the young women being falling prey to the psychopath, it becomes a race to determine just who and where this guy is before he strikes again (and again).

It is admittedly tough to objectively evaluate Black Christmas because the horror tropes it dabbles in are now commonplace and have been done better in other flicks. But I give it at least a good share of credit for sort of inventing the slasher (young women pursued by a psychopath) genre. I honestly had not realized how many ideas (point-of-view shots, killer's on-camera breathing, spooky/obscene phone calls) were cribbed from this film and placed into Halloween.

There are also a number of fun things for film buffs to latch onto here:

-A pre-Lois Lane Margot Kidder performance.

-Olivia Hussey as the original "final girl" just a few years after her iconic turn in Romeo & Juliet.

-Direction from Bob Clark, who would go on to helm the decidedly more family-friendly A Christmas Story nearly a decade later.

Like I said, a film like Halloween took this overall concept and elevated it into an art form rather than a curiosity. But Black Christmas deserves praise for showing the concept could work with solid acting, interesting visuals, and creepy atmosphere.

I came into writer/director David Freyne's Eternity with no expectations other than it seeming like an interesting premise and the star casting of Elizabeth Olsen, Miles Teller, & Callum Turner (amongst others). I left the theater thinking the film is likely the best I've seen in 2025 so far!

For a very basic overview, Eternity tells the story of Joan (Olsen), who is thrust into an impossible situation: while in a sort of "limbo" waiting to decide on her afterlife eternity, she must choose between longtime husband Larry (Teller) or her first love Luke (Turner) who was killed in military combat. With whom will she choose to ride off into eternity with?!

The hallmark of Eternity is how it can so seemingly effortlessly be a hilarious comedy and a very poignant, emotional drama.

It starts with all the cast possessing instinctual and impeccable comedic timing. This goes for the aforementioned three leads, and also for supporting players Da'Vine Joy Randolph & John Early. One could place this flick in the "comedy" section/genre and it wouldn't be at all out of place.

At the same time, the script from Freyne and Patrick Cunnane really digs deep to the heart of relationships and how different each emotional bond can be. Viewers will sympathize with Joan's impossible conundrum and begin applying it internally. The film also goes down some ambitious roads that normally wouldn't be ventured in a rom-com, lending further emotional depth.

What does this all add up to? An incredible mix of humor and heart that caught me completely off guard in how entertained and moved I was all the way through. Though there are certainly some movies left on the '25 slate that could eclipse Eternity on my personal rankings, it for now resides at the very top! Perhaps best of all: it can appeal to audiences from teens all the way up to the oldest of cinema-goers.

This Netflix limited series contains some of the highest-quality acting you'll ever see in a drama. Mainly from generational talent Claire Danes, but also from Matthew Rhys and the likes of Jonathan Banks & Brittany Snow. Unfortunately, The Best in Me's overstuffed plotting can only be elevated so far by such star-quality thespian-ism.

For a very basic overview, The Best In Me tells the story of Aggie Wiggs (Danes), a reclusive author who has supposed-murderer Nile Jarvis (Rhys) and his wife Nina (Snow) move in next door. Desperate for her next book idea, Aggie makes Nile her new project (especially when another victim may be attributed to him right in her hometown), only to fall further down the rabbit hole than originally anticipated.

I quite literally cannot stress enough how strong the acting is here. When Danes & Rhys are feeling each other out on screen, the chemistry practically crackles. Danes does most of the early heavy-lifting, while Rhys gets his close-ups, so to speak, more towards the endgame. Meanwhile, Banks & Snow are more-than-solid in their supporting roles. It is certainly reason enough to watch The Best In Me for the acting alone.

That said, the messy plotting of this series severely limits its ceiling. It is a decent thriller with something to say message-wise, but a lot of that potency is lost in a stew of too many twists and too many characters. Perhaps this all works better on the page where more can be expounded upon, but here it was hard to follow all the motivations (of even the side-characters, at times). I wish the focus could have been squarely on Aggie & Nile throughout.

Overall, I settled on a solid-but-not-spectacular 7/10 rating for The Beast In Me. The acting will render it likable to almost any audience even if the plot may underwhelm some viewers.

I came to this Wicked franchise via a bit of an odd path. I tried the novel long ago and disliked it so much I never saw the stage play (my loss, I know). But when Wicked (part 1) came to theaters in 2024, I absolutely loved it. The Glinda & Elphaba chemistry utterly entranced me and the college roommate or relationship metaphor was my "way in" to those characters. Having it set in perhaps the most recognizable cinematic universe of all time (that of The Wizard of Oz) was simply a bonus.

Of course, even folks like me who haven't seen the Broadway production likely know that one of its criticisms is how front-loaded the great songs and material are. So, I was very interested to see how this would be handled here by director Jon M. Chu. While it certainly did not rise anywhere near the heights of its 2024 predecessor, Wicked: For Good was probably about the best it could be all things considered.

For a very basic overview, For Good picks up some time after the dramatic finale of Wicked. Elphie (Cynthia Erivo) continues her quest to free the animals of Oz while being smeared by The Wizard (Jeff Goldblum) and Madame Morrible (Michelle Yeoh) in the court of public opinion. Glinda (Ariana Grande) is capitulating with that establishment, yet also still trying to recruit her once-dear friend back into the fold. All the while, a gingham-wearing girl from Kansas approaches the Emerald City.

I'll start with the positives here, which are mainly the scenes in which Erivo & Grande appear together. Those still crackle with the chemistry seen in the first film. If not needing to follow the basic strictures of a novel and a play, there's a version of For Good (perhaps a better version, if only for me) where this relationship is again the centerpiece. Sort of a "how to navigate adult friendship from very different perspectives" continuation of the original's thematics.

But of course, the back-half of this Wicked tale is required to do so much more, and that's where I stumble on it a bit:

-As For Good pushed further towards The Wizard of Oz material, I floated further away from it. I know that is sort of what this whole enterprise is set up to accomplish, but I think there's a case to be made that the Glinda & Elphaba relationship should have been front and center throughout.

-Having major plot and character themes turn on what is essentially a childish love triangle surrounding Fiyero (Jonathan Bailey) is also problematic. This is Twilight or Hunger Games-esque material, not something to lean on in such a story of female empowerment. But again, such material was handled with less care in the early-00s when the stage lights came on. I just wish that angle could have either been backgrounded or simply done with more nuance here.

-One's overall enjoyment of For Good may turn on whether Glinda's character journey is believable. Has she really learned some lessons from her relationship with Elphaba? That is certainly a rough sketch of what the endgame wants you to feel--but does the two hr & 15 min film do enough to make it legit? I'd argue: No. It spends too much time on jealous catfighting (in one case literally) and Oz lore to elevate Glinda's final turn.

I realize this is a tricky line of criticism that is very centric on my unique path through the franchise. But whereas Wicked was once more of an "Oz vehicle" than anything else, I think perhaps it has matured into a Glinda/Elphaba story over time. All of that excellent material was able to be expanded upon in 2024's Wicked, but largely fell by the wayside (but for a song/moment or two) in For Good. As such, while hard-core lovers of The Wizard of Oz lore and visuals will likely appreciate this finale more than me, those who wanted believable or legitimate Glinda/Elphaba character resolution may leave the theater feeling slightly wanting.

There are two ways to make a historical film such as Nuremberg. The first is to take some liberties (if more in time than in actual facts/events) in pursuit of drama. The second is the "just the facts, ma'am" strategy. Director/writer James Vanderbilt takes the latter approach here, which crimps the movie's ceiling but also raises its floor.

For a very basic overview, this film looks at the Nuremberg Trials largely from the perspective of Douglas Kelley (Rami Malek), a psychiatrist brought in to evaluate the German prisoners, most notably Hermann Goring (Russell Crowe). Simultaneously, Justice Robert H. Jackson (Michael Shannon) struggles to put together a war crimes trial unlike anything any justice system has ever seen.

I'll start with the ceiling-limitation on Nuremberg, which is that it's far from Spielberg-ian drama. This is a simply-made film that does not lean into dramatic flourishes. This approach renders it more "history lesson" than "fully engrossing drama". As such, it's tough to give Nuremberg the highest of marks.

On the positive side of things, Nuremberg covers a compelling story which was truly a watershed moment in the history of war and its crimes. Crowe is chilling in embodying the pompous Goring, while Malek portrays a wonderfully sympathetic adversary. The final 20-30 minutes are the highlight here, when the psychological battling and the actual trial converge.

All told, Nuremberg is a movie that deftly portrays all the themes it sets out to cover. The underlying message, that fascism isn't contained to the Nazi regime, is an important one (if frustratingly difficult to convey with high drama and still be as historically accurate as Vanderbilt shoots for here). This results in somewhat of a "take your medicine and learn your history" feel to the overall experience (eschewing manufactured drama), but the end result is still a solid flick from which at least some entertainment and many lessons can be derived.

Director Ben Stiller's (yes, THAT Ben Stiller) The Cable Guy is built upon a really intriguing idea: the notion that with television becoming ubiquitous in the American home, who might wield more power than the cable guy?! Unfortunately, the film doesn't stay focused enough on that specific premise to continue Jim Carrey's mid-90s generational run of successes at the box office.

For a very basic overview, The Cable Guy tells the story of Steven (Matthew Broderick), a guy moving into a new apartment after being kicked out of his place by wife Robin (Leslie Mann). When it comes time for the all-important cable TV installation, an eccentric Cable Guy (Carrey) is the man for the job...and, as it turns out, for quite a bit more.

The Cable Guy has always been a bit of a controversial film in that many despise it while others absolutely swear by it. I list towards the former for one primary reason:

Whether the writing of Lou Holtz Jr or Stiller's direction (or maybe just Carrey's blinding wattage), The Cable Guy never comes all that close to nailing what it seems to set out to do from the beginning. It seems like it wants to be both an ode to and a cautionary tale about the 'ol "idiot box" and how in the mid-90s its cable TV application was turning into a primary form of entertainment. Sure, Carrey's character backstory of being "raised by the box" plays a key role in the proceedings and he often spouts lines or uses names from classic shows, but that needed to be nearly 100% of what this film is built upon. It doesn't play out that way.

Instead, viewers get a no-chemistry Broderick/Mann main plot and a lot of Carrey hamming. I don't believe the acting to be the problem here, but rather that the irreverent material largely covers up the TV-centric stuff that should have been front-and-center at nearly all times. As-is, this whole movie descends into a mixed bag of some really thoughtful comedic commentary on the institution of television surrounded by a lot of weird/boring material.

I'm not sure exactly what went wrong with The Cable Guy. Perhaps Carrey's brand of physical humor overshadowed the more subtle messaging. But any way I tried to slice it, I came away from this '96 flick disappointed in what could have been.

I consider Stephen King's It novel to be perhaps the finest ever written. Yet, I'm also not too precious with the material's interpretation. I enjoyed the first half of Andy Muschietti's 2017 It feature film (enjoying the time-shifting rather than bemoaning it) and tolerated the second half, like most folks. But Welcome To Derry? After two episodes (about 2 hours of total runtime) I was almost completely disinterested by the material.

For a very basic overview, Welcome to Derry goes back 27 years from the first film to show the previous It cycle in Derry. The two biggest problems (enough for me to jump ship):

-No connection to the young characters. This needs to be the backbone of any It interpretation and it is not present at all here, especially when an episode 1 ending choice is more discombobulating than shocking.

-No Pennywise proper. Yes, we get an evil presence, but this time in the form of a weird bat-like creature. I'm sure this will go somewhere, but I just don't have the patience or interest to follow it through. There's none of the Pennywise terror from the novel or movie present here.

A side-plot involving a military base in Derry grinds the already-slow pace of the series to an absolute halt. Again, no interest from me in that material whatsoever.

I usually don't bail on a series this early, but with Welcome to Derry it quickly became clear that its extremely slow approach simply wasn't going to cut the mustard in this 8 episode season.

Here in 2025, the problems facing society seem to be more about political polarization, social media, "othering", and learning how to interact with each other again. In the midst of that, noted director Kathryn Bigelow drops this film about...the dangers of nuclear war. Erm, okay.

For a very basic overview, A House of Dynamite constructs a scenario in which an unattributed missile is hurtling towards America's heartland with little warning and the potential for mass casualties. In three parts, we see pieces of the federal government response to such an event in a limited-time scenario.

There's nothing bad about A House of Dynamite. It's a perfectly acceptable thriller with a great cast. Rebecca Ferguson, Tracy Letts, & Idris Elba are the ostensible principals but the film also includes the likes of Jared Harris, Moses Ingram, Greta Lee, Jason Clarke, Willa Fitzgerald, & Kaitlyn Dever (to name just a few). Director Bigelow & writer Noah Oppenheim also craft a thrilling scenario that would seem to be a fantastic base from which to build tense drama.

The big problem here: I'm not sure a cautionary tale about the still-present danger of nuclear war is necessarily what viewing audiences want to see right now. To me, it certainly felt like "why is this important at the current moment?" and thus struggled to full entomb me once I realized that "ending answers" would not be the point of the flick.

Bigelow could have (perhaps should have) telegraphed the importance of nuclear scenario readiness within the film. A message of "let's not get complacent" or "let's focus on real-world improvement/safety instead of the distractions around us" may have gone a long way here. Instead, Bigelow constructs the movie as a straight-ahead political thriller and as such it really loses steam down the home stretch (again, without that sense of cultural importance).

I'm not saying that every film needs to be a product of its times. But A House of Dynamite feels like it should have been made 20 or more years ago (not today) and that is a problem all the way through which not even a great hook and a star-studded cast can overcome.

Who Killed The Montreal Expos is not a great documentary. It's too unfocused and scattered to come anywhere near approaching that territory. But it is just informative enough, and poignant enough in the endgame, to warrant a watch from baseball fans.

Basically, what director Jean-Francois Poisson does here is examine the reasons why the Montreal Expos Major League Baseball team (assembled in 1969) ultimately moved to Washington D. C. in 2005. The reasons are multiple: constant cash flow shortages, the Loria/Samson ownership fiasco, an inability to secure public funding for a new stadium, the 1994 MLB strike (upsetting the best season in Expos history), and the lack of a TV deal by the end are all mentioned.

Like I said, Who Killed the Montreal Expos is not in the upper-echelon of docs. In some part, this is because the fast-paced, quick-cutting style doesn't really jive with baseball analysis. But the doc also is not nuanced enough in how it deals with the "first person sources". It plays out rather predictably: of course Samson isn't going to fully take credit for the demise of the Expos; of course Felipe Alou is going to come off as the sentimental hero; of course some of the minority stakeholders of the franchise are going to air sour grapes for how it all went down. This doc has its heroes and villains from the very beginning and the approach isn't quite sophisticated enough to pry out the really interesting material.

That being said, I did learn a decent amount about the question the project proposes in its title. It's certainly informative in that sense. Plus, the final 10-15 minutes are quite poignant (especially considering the up-and-down nature of the piece until that point) in showing how much the Expos are missed in Montreal. I had no idea fan conventions are still held for the franchise well into the 2020s.

So, while this doc's scattershot execution largely exempts it from the top-notch star rankings, if you are a big enough Expos (or baseball-in-general) fan you'll at very least learn a little bit and feel a little bit from Who Killed the Montreal Expos.

Some John Hughes films are all-time classics, such as Home Alone, The Breakfast Club, & Ferris Bueller's Day Off. These are the flicks that will be relevant for decades to come because their plot, characters, and themes are so perfectly fused. But then there is the "next tier" of Hughes, which is a little wackier and a little less utterly timeless. That's where The Great Outdoors lands, and it may be towards the bottom of that tier.

For a very basic overview, The Great Outdoors tells the story of everyman Chicagoan Chet Ripley (John Candy) taking his family on a lake resort vacation. As it turns out, Chet's loud and obnoxious "friend" Roman Craig (Dan Aykroyd) also invites himself into the proceedings, which creates a sort of Odd Couple dynamic that powers the narrative.

To be fair, I can see how and why The Great Outdoors was a solid-to-moderate (though not resounding, by any means) success in 1988. Candy & Aykroyd were on top of the comedy heap, and the film does try to cultivate some common themes. The "everyday working man" vs his "rich, annoying friend" angle could be evergreen, along with the "city slickers trying to brave nature" dynamic. Candy is really strong in his part-seething, part-wisecracking role.

Yet, I found Candy to be about all that really works in The Great Outdoors. It may contain some relevant themes, but they simply don't amount to much in this specific 90 minutes. Instead of leaning into the relatable material, here the jokes are fronted in the form of physical humor gags, "talking" raccoons, and some other family member side plots that go nowhere. I also don't feel as though Aykroyd was right for his role. I liked his credit-roll dancing shenanigans far better than any acting he did before the closing scroll

The capper: the usual Hughes uplifting ending here cannot hold a candle to, say, Uncle Buck or Planes, Trains, & Automobiles. Those films may not be materially all that better than The Great Outdoors in many ways, but at least when the emotional/serious material hits it really hits in those flicks. Not here.

At the risk of sounding pretentious, The Great Outdoors features too much "dumb humor" for my cinematic tastes. For those who can throttle back the brain a bit better than I, it'll likely rise in the rankings. But to me, this one is a largely-forgettable try-hard.

As a young child in the late 1980s, I stumbled upon this series and in the glow of the recent Christopher Reeve big screen portrayal absolutely fell in love with it. Featuring a very similar costume and (especially in the later seasons) living in the verisimilitude of the character as imagined by Richard Donner, I watched many of these episodes over and over from the VHS tapes my father recorded for me off the roof antenna. It has remained a curious fascination for me ever since.

In one sense, there's absolutely no reason anyone should be talking about this Superboy TV series some 35+ years after its creation. Brought forth by Ilya Salkind largely as a way to retain the Salkind family option on the Superman rights as they mulled a fifth feature film, Superboy was never aired in a prime-time slot. In fact, it bounced all over the dial. In some markets it was Saturday morning kids TV fare, while in others it was buried in the depths of nighttime filler programming. It bowed out after exactly 100 episodes (the requirement for syndication), and then was strangely never actually syndicated. It lay dormant for decades until Superman Returns mania in 2006 and the efforts of super-fan Sam Rizzo finally got the episodes released in DVD/buy-per-episode formats.

The first season is an out-and-out 2/10-star mess, featuring a Superboy/Clark (John Haymes Newton) & Lex Luthor (Scott Wells) who were extremely wrong for the roles. Even the tales themselves were low-grade crime capers or sappy morality plays. Likely only the strong flying/wire-work and the general goodwill towards the Superman character in the late 1980s allowed the series to continue past that first effort. Suffice it to say, this series had strikes against it from the word "go".

But then, a funny thing happened. Season Two executed some excellent casting decisions, replacing Newton with Gerard Christopher and Wells with Sherman Howard. With the stalwart Stacy Haiduk already rock-solid as Lana Lang, Ilan Mitchell-Smith was also added to the proceedings to give the production some 1980s energy. The tales themselves were updated to reflect the more fantastical elements of the Superman canon, such as Mxyzptlk (Michael J. Pollard) & Bizarro (Douglas Meyers). S2 was still no great shakes as a whole, but one could finally see the promise of the concept.

Seasons Three and Four elevate the series into "solidly good" territory. Now set at the Bureau for Extranormal Matters, the series sheds its college dorm-room trappings and becomes a proto X-Files investigative series, with Clark & Lana often sent into the field to puzzle through the paranormal. Some episodes in these seasons are still not great, whether it be the lack of budget, being unsure of the show's audience (some eps play directly to children, while others are a bit darker), or simply the amount (20+ eps) produced each season. But others produce iconic moments that, somewhat remarkably, stand up with the very best Super-stories ever told. A few examples:

-Inter-dimensional portals (Roads Not Taken; The Road to Hell) featuring universes in which Superboy is a despot (or even deceased), or a child never found by the Kents, or Lex is a benevolent figure. These are truly some of the best Superman tales ever put to screen.

-Mxyzptlk & Bizzaro are successfully ripped straight from the pages of the 1950s/60s comic books.

-Howard's Lex Luthor is always a delight, whether it be trying to wed Lana, probing into his own subconscious memories, or body-swapping with the Boy of Steel.

Ultimately, I land on a 6/10 rating for Superboy-as-a-whole even though there is a lot to parse through to get to that landing point. There are a decent number of truly awful episodes throughout its 100, and the vast majority are either just above or just below average. In that sense, by the math it isn't even at a 6/10 level. But as I've said, there's just enough eps that are really solid, and a handful that are absolutely spectacular and hold up as Superman stories for the ages, that I find it impossible to rank the series any lower. There's Boy of Steel magic here. One just has to wade through some mediocrity and cheese to discover and appreciate it.

The third season of Superboy raised the bar for the series-changing the setting to the Bureau of Extranormal Affairs & injecting some all-time classic canon moments (inter-dimensional portals, body swaps, etc.) into the proceedings. Season four keeps that same setting and tone and though it doesn't quite hit the highs that S3 achieved, S4 is still a solid campaign that creates a few final memorable moments before series-end.

The highlights of S4 include...

-Know Thine Enemy: A trip into Lex Luthor's (Sherman Howard) mind and childhood.

-Into the Mystery: A poignant story about "little Clark" and his aunt.

-To Be Human: Bizarro (Douglas Meyers) returns in the as-usual solid eps when that character is featured.

-Obituary for a Super Hero: Superboy's (Gerard Christopher) rumored demise is covered national news-style. Perhaps quaint now-but still fairly groundbreaking in the early 90s.

-Rites of Passage: The finale in which more of Superboy's other-worldly origins are revealed and Lana Lang (Stacy Haiduk) gets closer to Clark's secret than ever before.

There are, of course, still a number of middle-of-the-road or subpar installments here in S4. The beginning of the season is particularly wobbly and at one point it features two clip-show episodes in a row. Also, the best episodes of this campaign are not the handful of 10/10 efforts that populated S3.

But overall, Superboy's fourth and final season is enjoyable as long as one understands the limitations of this made-for-syndication effort. It's too bad the fate of the production wasn't known when this season wrapped, as I have little doubt a better denouement could have been crafted if so.

Usually, a documentary of this kind hinges on behind-the-scenes character reveals or some sort of past conflict. Recent docs on the likes of Billy Joel & Paul Ruebens focused on understanding the "man behind the entertainer", so to speak. But John Candy was pretty much an open book. Everyone knew him as an extremely affable and generous man. Here, doc director Colin Hanks takes that portrayal and runs with it (to great effect) in I Like Me.

From the opening talking-head segment with Bill Murray, it is clear that Hanks isn't making a dirt-digging doc on Candy. If mainly because there's nothing to shovel! Hanks does make note of some early tragedies in Candy's life (like the death of his father at age 5) that may very well have shaped his life output, but other than that I Like Me is largely a love-fest.

Candy's story is told basically chronologically, starting with his Canadian childhood and continuing into his time with the Second City comedy troupe. From there, his ventures into screen acting, perhaps most notably pairing up with writer/director John Hughes in the 1980s/90s for a number of iconic films (Uncle Buck, Planes-Trains-and-Automobiles, Home Alone, etc.) up until his far-too-young death in 1994.

Because Candy was universally recognized as a genuine nice guy in an oft-cutthroat Hollywood atmosphere, this doc utilizes many "talking head" segments from his friends and contemporaries. The likes of Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Martin Short, Eugene Levy, Catherine O'Hara, Tom Hanks, Steve Martin, Mel Brooks, Conan O'Brien, and an especially-poignant Macaulay Culkin all give their two cents as to why John was such a luminary of talent and genuine nature. Candy's children and wife also contribute their poignant thoughts.

I watched Home Alone on an almost endless loop as a 90s kid, and every time Candy showed up with the Kenosha Kickers he injected a fresh element to the endgame of that film. I recognized that spark even as a child, but after I Like Me I now understand it almost in full. John Candy was a special talent and as good of a person to match. I'm glad he received this "prestige doc" treatment.

The original 1978 Halloween is in my top five favorite films of all time. As such, I resisted watching the Michael Myers-less Halloween III for many years. I finally caved and found H3 to be just about exactly as bad as I had been dreading.

For a very basic overview, Halloween III tells the story of the Silver Shamrock company, a factory producing seemingly innocent (and incredibly popular) Halloween masks one season. But as Dr. Daniel Challis (Tom Atkins) and Ellie Grimbridge (Stacey Nelkin) quickly discover, Silver Shamrock's mysterious maven Conal Cochran (Dan O'Herlihy) has something sinister up his sleeve for All Hallows Eve.

Though the Akkad family financiers could not have known it at the time, H3 was set up to fail in just about every possible way. The original Halloween and Myers character was still popular in the early 1980s, but not yet to the generational degree that cable TV would propel it to by the end of the decade. So, after the rather soulless Halloween II, the thought was to turn Halloween into an anthology series.

Wrong answer.

First and foremost, this flick is as boring and slow-moving as it is confusing. It can't hold a candle to its '78 predecessor's spooky ambiance, and the capitalistic message is as thin as the overall project's ultimate reputation.

To make matters worse, it is very clear that John Carpenter & Debra Hill are still involved in the production. Sets/locations from H1 & H2 can be seen, similar camera angles are used, and the heavy synth beats are back. A goofy meta moment of having Halloween '78 being shown on a television in this film may have been tongue-in-cheek in '82 but reads more like "slap in the face" decades later.

So, the combination of bad philosophy (anthology) and bad story render this one a never-to-be-watched-by-me-again 2/10 stars. It was a dodgy idea even at apotheosis--and the legacy of Michael Myers & Halloween '78 has rendered it utterly inane at this point.

After two seasons of largely poor quality (if a few really good episodes sprinkled in here and there), Superboy finally finds its groove here in Season Three!

A big reason for the turnaround: a new setting. Now at the governmental Bureau for Extranormal Affairs, Clark (Gerard Christopher) & Lana (Stacy Haiduk) are able to see the mysterious and paranormal come to them, so to speak, rather than the writers needing to conjure idea AND setting each week. In a certain sense, Superboy hit upon that genius formula before The X-Files took it to the next level a few years later.

Some standout moments from S3:

-The Bride of Bizarro: A return of Douglas Meyers' incredible Bizarro character to kick off the campaign.

-Roads Not Taken: A story about portals to other universes--one in which Lex Luthor (Sherman Howard) is President and another in which Superboy is a ruthless dictator (The Sovereign)--that ranks in the top tier of all Superman tales ever told.

-The Golem: A tale of Jewish ancestry and struggle that is surprisingly effective and emotional within the Superboy formula.

-Bodyswap: Superboy & Lex change bodies, and the result is each actor getting to perform completely against type. Wildly fun!

-The Road to Hell: Back to the inter- dimensional portals to close the season, this time focusing on a child Superboy who must be protected at all costs.

Now, don't get me wrong. There are a number of poor episodes even in this third go-round (hence the solid-but-room-for-growth 7-star rating). But the overall quality of S3 is vastly improved from anything that came before. I'd be willing to wager that somewhere within this slate is when 90s kids fell in love with the series.

I never saw Jennifer's Body when it first came to theaters. Being just-post-college in 2009 was not exactly the film's demographic. But whereas I'd bet it had a niche following at time-of-release, it feels dated and cringey (but for a few moments of flair) some 15 years later.

For a very basic overview, Jennifer's Body tells the story of the titular Jennifer (Megan Fox), a cool-girl high schooler who is possessed by an evil spirit. As best friend Needy (Amanda Seyfried) tries to first understand and then reign in the now-holy-terror Jennifer, a stream of bodies are left in her ravenous wake.

Easily the hallmark of Jennifer's Body is the acting performance from Seyfried. Even when the proceedings around her are utterly ridiculous or cheesy, she totally commits and captures every scene she is in. It's little wonder she continues to have a prominent place on the big and small screens.

Jennifer's Body also, at times, crackles with what I'd call "teenage energy". At the mid-to-late 2000s brand. This means it is largely never terrible if simply because it is so propulsive.

Alas, director Karyn Kusama & writer Diablo Cody never get the mix right. Jennifer's Body wants to be a horror film, but shows no signs of understanding the suspense of that genre. Jennifer's Body also wants to be a commentary on girls/women (especially the high school variety), yet it can't get out of its own way on that accord. The snappy, Veronica Mars-ish banter and sardonic tone actually hurt this screenplay's chance to convey a real message. In short: it's tough to go deep when everything is treated as "sarcastic remove". That's a tough needle to thread, and Kusama/Cody don't achieve it.

Of course, some props must be given for getting a woman-directed, woman-written, women-starring, and women-commentary film off the ground in 2009. Granted, it probably says something that the it-girl-of-the-moment Fox needed to be cast in the sexy main role.

Overall, I land on 4/10 stars for Jennifer's Body. It isn't good, but it thrums along well enough to never truly be awful.

I had been awaiting this movie for quite some time. I watched those old UFC tapes of Mark Kerr & Mark Coleman, the trailer looked incredible, and even the first 15-or-so minutes of the film promise a bold vision. After that? A complete tap-out, if you will, of any substance from writer/director Benny Safdie. The Smashing Machine has absolutely no idea what it wants to convey.

For a very basic overview, the film tells the story of Kerr (Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson), a UFC fighter in the late-1990s. Alongside buddy Mark "The Hammer" Coleman (Ryan Bader), Kerr ascends to the top of the mixed martial arts world. But along the way: domestic squabbles aplenty with wife Dawn (Emily Blunt) and substance abuse battles from trying to numb the pain from many in-ring beatings.

Without mincing words, the big problem with Smashing Machine is that it ostensibly boils down to a low-drama domestic squabble in which one wonders why an audience would be all that invested (I certainly wasn't). Perhaps this was portrayed more convincingly or emotionally in the documentary upon which the film was based, but here in the fictional version it comes off as just about as low-stakes as a drama can get.

The Rock is great as Kerr--no question on that front. The physical resemblance is striking and Johnson manages to capture Kerr's benevolence even in the face of high-stakes danger in the octagon and/or belittling outside of it. However, Blunt seems miscast (maybe just misused?) in her role and no one else shines.

Ultimately, I think Safdie simply stretched the material too thin in Smashing Machine. It sort of wants to be an ode to the early days of the UFC--but it isn't. It sort of wants to be an action/fight picture--but it isn't. It sort of wants to be a sports-issues drama--but isn't. By the time all those avenues are ultimately thrown to the wayside, there's little time or effort left to truly make this the deep relationship drama it ached to be.

As such, I give this film a supremely-disappointing 3 stars. I want to like everything here--but absolutely every character turn or plot point underwhelmed me, to the point where by the end I found myself a bit bored because I was so emotionally disconnected from the proceedings. Simply for comparison's sake, 2023's The Iron Claw (a similarly-themed flick about the pro wrestling world) runs circles around The Smashing Machine.

There is a lot of iconic material in director Charles Laughton's The Night of the Hunter. It contains striking imagery/thematics, and its ostensible main character is a performance for the ages. At the same time, taken as an actual motion picture, there's a strong case to me made that it isn't all that great. A fascinating mix.

For a very basic overview, Night of the Hunter sees Ben Harper (Peter Graves) hide a bounty of stolen cash right before his incarceration and swear his children-John (Billy Chapin) & Pearl (Sally Jane Bruce)-to never disclose its location. But while in the pen, smarmy "preacher" Harry Powell (Robert Mitchum) sniffs out the money tale and, when released, begins working on Ben's wife Willa (Shelley Winters) to weasel his way into the family and find the money for himself.

In some ways, Hunter is about as overblown of a picture as you'll ever find-even by 1955 standards. The child-acting is poor (a problem with a film that ultimately centers on just that), everything is hammed up to the Nth degree, and the whole thing is so over-the-top in its conception and execution as to strain every bound of credulity. Thematically, it jumps from a mystery, to a thriller, to almost a social-conscience drama in short orders. The whole experience is a wild swing from one scene to the next.

All that said, there are aspects of Hunter that are truly iconic. That starts with Mitchum's Harry Powell. The "L-O-V-E" & "H-A-T-E" markings on his fingers are now legendary, and Mitchum's actual performance-even when ultra-hammy-is startingly. The usage of his singing the Christian hymn "Leaning on the Everlasting Arms" to announce his presence is genuinely creepy. Also, once the movie settles into its "this is really about the children" thematic endgame, it finally finds a nice groove (if, as described above, it takes working through multiple other genres to get there).

Wading through all that craziness, I settle on a 6/10 rating for The Night of the Hunter. From my "seeing it for the first time in 2025" perspective I often found it eye-rolling and incredibly trope-y. Yet, I also immediately recognized its iconic moments, characters, and themes and could see what it was going for by the end. Even taking into account that far more nuanced, better shot, and better acted (outside of Mitchum) films were made in the 1950s or even earlier, I can see how The Night of the Hunter would terrify audiences of all ages at the time of its release. I still prefer Mitchum's later Cape Fear slimy-character portrayal for sheer uncomfortableness, but here in Night of the Hunter he establishes that general persona with an iconic turn.

After a dreadful (even by kitsch standards) season one, Superboy re-tooled in its sophomore effort. A number of casting changes reinvigorated the series and perpetuated some really strong episodes--even if surrounded by enough dreck to still render this a subpar season overall.

The new additions:

Gerard Christopher as the Boy of the Steel--an immediate improvement over predecessor John Haymes Newton.

Ilan Mitchell-Smith as Andy McAlister, replacing the T. J. White character. Again, a big upgrade in injecting some youthful 1980s energy into the series.

Sherman Howard as the reconfigured Lex Luthor--the biggest jump yet! One could make a case that Howard is one of the best Lex portrayals of all time--all insecure-and-cackling madman but droll enough for some tongue-in-cheek humor.

As always, the rock of the series remains Stacy Haiduk's Lana Lang. Even when saddled with ridiculous material or used as little more than "damsel in distress" (a common S2 issue), she gives her all and is equal parts charming and beautiful.

With the right people now in the right roles, Superboy S2 produces a few gem episodes:

-The opening two-parter (With This Ring I Thee Kill; Lex Luthor Sentenced to Death) immediately sends a strong a new tone for the series after the plodding, predictable S1.

-Bizarro...The Thing of Steel/The Battle With Bizarro introduces the best portrayal of Bizarro--played by Douglas Meyers--in Superman canon history. Truly an iconic character performance.

-Mr. & Mrs. Superboy may actually be the season's standout episode, with Michael J. Pollard making a return appearance as Mxyzptlk and teaming up with fellow guest star Richard Kiel (of James Bond villain fame). A magical tale that showcases all of what the series can be when clicking on all cylinders.

Alas, there are still A LOT of duds here in Superboy's second season. Enough so that when taken as a whole, this is still a subpar 4/10 star season.

Yet, that's still twice as good as the 2 stars I gave S1, so it was a noticeable improvement in acting and tone and showed beyond a shadow of a doubt that this series could indeed produce not just good but great episodes of television (syndicated as it was)!

Director Kogonada's "A Big Bold Beautiful Journey" is chock full of interesting themes--an absolute gumbo of ideas. But you know the old saying "too many cooks in the kitchen"? That notion plagues Big/Bold from beginning to end.

For a very basic overview, Big/Bold tells the story of Sarah (Margot Robbie) & David (Colin Farrell), two strangers who meet at a wedding. Both are stag at the celebration, but in little time they are whisked away on the titular journey via a strange car-rental service with a propensity for bringing them exactly where they need to be.

Despite a trailer that makes this one look like an intriguing fantasy/romance, Big/Bold immediately gets off on the wrong foot with an extremely awkward meet-up of the leads. After that? Absolutely no clarity from Kogonada or writer Seth Reiss as to where the picture is going. It is part science fiction, part fantasy, part really serious drama, part rom-com, part arthouse--and all a mess. A shame, considering that some of the actual ideas present--like loneliness and social interaction--are indeed important ones here in 2025. This film just does nothing with them.

Further maddening is that Big/Bold views itself as a Hollywood blockbuster, with high production values and an auxiliary cast--the likes of Jennifer Grant, Hamish Linklater, Phoebe Waller-Bridge, Kevin Kline, Chloe East, Lily Rabe, Billy Magnussen, & Sarah Gadon appear. Alas, all of that ends up wasted by an utter tone/purpose ambivalence.

I give Big/Bold 4 stars for its production value, cast, and somewhat interesting potpourri of ideas--but in reality it isn't even that good of a flick. A muddled mess pretty much from beginning to end.

I do not like medical dramas. Nothing against them as a concept, but on the whole I'd rather listen to, say, sci-fi technobabble than medical jargon. I've never been truly compelled by a medical show--until The Pitt. That's honestly the biggest endorsement I can give this series.

The Pitt is structured in a real time hour-by-hour setup, mirroring the 15-hour shifts often worked by doctors & nurses. It takes place--as the name implies--in a Pittsburgh hospital emergency ward. Ostensibly led by Dr. Michael Robinavitch (Noah Wyle), his team of doctors, nurses, and med students are tested to the brink in physical and emotional capacities they never dreamed of when this shift started.

The genius of this show is how it is able to deftly weave social issues into its medical setting. In just these 15 episodes alone viewers see the results of a mass shooting event, a medical treatment denier, and a host of other physically and psychologically damaged patrons that Robbie's crew must patch up in a perpetually understaffed and underfunded environment.

At the same time, The Pitt is also a strong ensemble cast series. None of it would work without Wyle's absolutely veteran presence in the lead role--a joy to have back in a prestige TV drama (he's been a favorite of mine since Falling Skies). I'll also call out the likes of Dr. King (Taylor Dearden), Dr. Whitaker (Gerran Howell), & Dr. Javadi (Shabana Azeez) as strong performers. But overall from stem to stern The Pitt both needs and gets really strong acting performances.

Episodes of The Pitt are structured a bit differently than your typical HBO drama. Some end on a cliffhanger, while others simply trail off. That can take some getting used to--but it is all in the serving of building up to the final few episodes and the big emotional climax.

There's so much depth to The Pitt that this brief review only scratches the surface, but suffice it to say that simply being a medical series I really enjoyed is proof enough (at least to me) of its overall quality. Show creator R. Scott Gemmill took a genre I had no interest in and by sheer force of strong characters and compelling drama hooked me in. I'll be back for another shift.

In order to understand my dislike of 2025's The Long Walk, a brief history lesson of the original short story is in order:

Before Stephen King ever penned Carrie, threw it in the trash, and had his wife fish it out to begin his literary career, he was writing other stories. The Long Walk was composed during his college years in the 1960s and later released under his Richard Bachman pseudonym. As a story in and of itself, the text is "just okay". As a Vietnam War metaphor? Incredible. A bunch of young boys told by "The State" to march to their death for the chance at fortune & glory (even when they mostly are being exploited). It was a story for and of its times.

Fast-forward to 2025 and the metaphor doesn't work any longer. Sure, one can kinda-sorta twist it to fit today's ultra-capitalistic society, but it loses much of its punch (especially when the narrative isn't the strongest to begin with).

Add to that a reliance on gore and profanity and The Long Walk starts approaching "real mess" territory. The filmmakers here seem to think that every kill-shot needs to be graphically depicted. I'm not objecting on content grounds, but after a time it becomes a trope to goose suspense rather than anything meaningful. The same goes with the high dosage of profanity present. Again, I'm not a prude-but where that language from "1960s-era college-age boys" might have worked years ago, in 2025 it simply felt over-the-top to have seemingly every other word be profane. I'm just not sure that is how even young people communicate these days.

It's also a little baffling to me that writer JT Mollner (who penned a great script for Strange Darling) & director Francis Lawrence (of The Hunger Games fame) couldn't mold this into a better film. The ostensible stars-Ray Garraty (Cooper Hoffman) & Peter McVries (David Jonsson)-are fine and the venerable Mark Hamill has a key role, but by the end I was more bored than engaged because the narrative never seemed to compelling lead me anywhere other than a lot of grisly violence and profanity-soaked dialogue.

I think it is very possible that The Hunger Games simply eclipsed The Long Walk in terms of depicting a totalitarian state putting out "bread & circuses" competitions for its beleaguered citizens. As such, trying to back-fill King's story with a feature-length motion picture feels (at least to me) like a letdown.

As this Superboy series was wont to do--especially after the dreadful first season--it sometimes puts together absolutely wonderful episodes that hold up to anything in the Superman canon. Mr. & Mrs. Superboy is exactly that kind of installment for Supes' interactions with Mxyzptlk--the imp from the 5th Dimension.

For a very basic overview, Mr. & Mrs. Superboy sees the mischievous imp (Michael J Pollard) pop back into our universe while being pursued (to the tune of a violent fate) by fellow magical being Vlkabok (Richard Kiel). The only way to cool the situation: have Superboy (Gerard Christopher) & Lana (Stacy Haiduk) pose as Mxyz's parents--from which hilarity of course ensues.

This 22-minute syndicated effort from director Peter Kiwitt has it all--drama & humor. It showcases the best of the entire cast. Christopher & Haiduk have tremendous chemistry, so pairing them up in a wacky domestic situation is a no-brainer. Meanwhile, Pollard & Kiel are two of the best guest stars to ever appear in this series.

There are moments here that are laugh-out-loud funny--with sidekick Andy (Ilan Mitchell-Smith) usually the butt of the joke--yet other moments that are achingly sweet, like Supes & Lana being "forced" to kiss (the look that Haiduk gives Christopher once again shows her to be the star of this series).

For the character of Mxyzptlk and within the general confines of this series, it is tough to imagine a better episode. Mr. & Mrs. Superboy is easily in the top ten (if not top five) of episodes this series churned out.