Movies

Rating: ★★½ (2.5/5)

I watched this movie when it came out and it just didn’t grab me. I didn’t love any of the characters, I didn’t think the American setting was all that great (looking at you no-maj), and the beasts in the movie honestly grossed me out a little.

I came away this time a little more appreciative of it.

The movie follows Newt Scamander, the author of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, which is an in-universe book that’s used at Hogwarts to teach wizards about, well, fantastic beasts. It’s kind of fun that they would go back in time to the 1920s to see who Newt Scamander was and why he would write a book about beasts. Turns out he’s a fairly awkward guy who really has more interest in animals than people.

Rating: ★★★★ (4.0/5)

I love this movie. It’s pretty much the GOAT of all road trip buddy comedy movies. John Candy is brilliant as Del and Steve Martin plays such an incredible straight man against him. At the time Steve Martin was very known for being a “wild and crazy guy” and this has him playing a very believable businessman curmudgeon.

It also has loads of heart. John Candy’s “I like me” speech stands out as one of the highlights of his whole career and it’s really not that long. Its all carried by the way he’s reacting to Steve Martin’s punishing insults.

Rating: ★★★½ (3.5/5)

I am a huge fan of the movie Greenland. It came out during the pandemic so was largely overlooked but it was actually one of the best disaster movies I’ve ever seen. It kept the scope really small by focusing on one family trying to survive. No view from the top. No flashy rescue plan. You as a viewer didn’t have any information beyond the characters and it made it so much more intense than some other “meteor going to blow up earth” movies are.

Rating: ★★★★ (4.0/5)

When I originally watched Skyfall in the theatre when it came out, it was the first Bond movie that I felt like I could follow from start to finish and the plot was clear. It was also a movie that included so many little baby steps back to being the Bond we know and love from before the Pierce Brosnan era. We got the Astin Marin, we got Q, we got a new M, and we got that M’s office with the padded door. It was kind of a return to form.

Rating: ★★★ (3.0/5)

Not too shabby! Nothing to get too excited about, but the fights were fun. It definitely felt like a karate kid retelling but I was good with it. I don’t know if we needed to unite both the Jackie Chan and Ralph Maccio storylines in the end. The story didn’t really need it but I enjoyed it anyway. Good Saturday afternoon flick. 

I wrote this in my phone real quick. Don’t judge me.

Rating: ★★★★★ (5.0/5)

I’ve tried watching this off and on for the last month and finally got it done tonight. I’m thrilled that I kept going.

I grew up, like most millenials, with John Candy in my orbit. He was there in Home Alone, The Great Outdoors, Uncle Buck, and Cool Runnings. Movies that were pivotal in my childhood. Memorable because I loved them with my mom, who also was a big John Candy fan. I even watched his cartoon, Camp Candy. He was just always around.

Rating: ★★★★ (4.0/5)

If there is a top Roger Moore Bond film, I definitely agree that this is the one. This movie captured all those elements that make a good Bond movie and it captured them really well. Nothing feels thrown in or wasted. It’s a joy to watch from start to finish, even though Roger Moore is not my favorite actor to watch.

Rating: ★★★½ (3.5/5)

I always thought that George Lazenby was somehow a second class Bond. A Bond that was worth forgetting. An actor that only did one movie because he wasn’t good enough at portraying the character. A lot of this thought came from friends of mine who seemingly had more Bond knowledge than I ever did.

George Lazenby is great. He deserves better.

Rating: ★★★★½ (4.5/5)

There are very few James Bond fans you’ll ever find that don’t have Goldfinger on their “Mount Rushmore” of Bond films. It’s pretty much the gold (heh) standard by which all Bonds that come after have to live up to. Why is that though? What makes Goldfinger the movie that we all look to as a definitive view of who Bond is and what makes a great Bond film? I’ve been thinking about this for some time and even now I don’t know that I have the answer to those questions.

Rating: ★★★½ (3.5/5)

I don’t know why this movie gets the hate that it does. It’s rated as rotten with the audience score on Rotten Tomatoes at a 59%. Yet the critics, for once, rate it actually higher at 64%. I’m more in line with the critics, if maybe even a bit higher.

I get that this movie is the worst of the Sean Connery films, but I’d say its far from bad. I had a good time with it. That being said, this all comes down to what makes a Bond movie. This has all the ingredients for a great Bond film: an interesting villain in Blofeld, cool gadgets, Sean Connery, women. Okay that last one is a stretch because the writers had no idea what to do with women at this age of cinema, particularly with James Bond. All in all though, this has the stuff of a good Bond movie, it’s just the decisions made that I think knock it down a few rungs.