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This was unexpectedly freaky given the premise. The main character, a shy, modest young man, Barron, has a huge crush on a female friend of his, Nikki, and uses this One Wish Willow thing to inadvertently cast a spell on her to “love him more than anything in the world.” At first things are whimsical, and they are happy together, but soon it backfires and she becomes pathologically obsessed with him. She also becomes belligerent and malicious, as the spell seems to have other unintended consequences creating, in effect, two Nikki’s, one possessed by a demon and one, the original Nikki, tormented by the predicament. As I said, the movie was more frightening than I expected and the performance by the girl who played Nikki was sublime.

Primate is an uninspired, hackneyed slasher movie about a group of young college-aged girls and a few college-aged boys who party at one of the girl’s father’s mansion while he’s at a book-signing event as he is a famous author. The girl, her sister and her father own a chimpanzee. The chimpanzee gets rabies and somehow instead of simply making him more aggressive, he becomes a maniacal sociopath, methodically killing each of the teenagers. It is ineffective at being scary, and actually is more unintentionally humorous than frightening.

Fantastic follow up to 28 Years Later. This one again follows Spike as he is caught up in a strange sadistic cult of blonde head-bangers led by Jimmy Crystal, each member going by the name Jimmy. This group is Satanistic believing they are living in the end times given the zombie outbreak. The scenes with Jimmy are tense and the actor who plays Jimmy Crystal does a terrific job portraying macabre psychopathy. The whole Jimmy cult thing feels like something out of the videogame Dead Rising, which is a plus. Dr. Kelson returns and subdues an Alpha infected with a dart infused with Morphine and some other drug, which pacifies the zombie. He develops a relationship with this zombie and he names him Samson. There are some strange, trippy scenes where the doctor uses drugs and dances around with his shirt off to Duran Duran alongside Samson, but it’s actually enjoyable because the soundtrack is fantastic. There were a couple jump scares in the movie involving zombies, but a lot of what was frightening was the butchery of the sadistic Jimmy Crystal and his cult.

Terrifier 2 is the 2022 sequel to the 2016 splatter horror film Terrifier and attempts to add more depth to the lore, but it feels haphazard. In this one we are introduced to a family consisting of a teenage girl Sienna and her younger brother Jonathan. Somehow, they have a supernatural connection to Art the Clown. Art stalks them, savagely butchering countless side characters along the way. The violence in this one is as wanton as it is in the other installments. The flick was alright but it did drag on a bit at the end and overstayed its welcome. Like the other Terrifier movies, number two had plenty of dark humor.

Art the Clown, the mime-like demented serial killer, is a creative new spin at a slasher icon. Damien Leone did a good job at crafting a premise for a blood splattering throwback to classic slasher flicks. It’s fun watching Art hunt down hot young women. Some of the dark humor lands as well. It’s got very much a B-movie feel and isn’t meant to be taken too seriously.

The Shining is Stanley Kubrick’s powerhouse horror thrill ride, a captivating adaptation of Stephen King’s titular novel. It’s extremely well-directed and tense as hell, with plenty of disturbing moments. Jack Nicholson’s performance is perfect as he descends deeper into madness and is perhaps even possessed by the end of the film. The movie does stray away from the novel a bit, but it doesn’t detract from its quality.

This was a return to form for the Saw franchise. Set between the events of Saw and Saw II, it explores a more human side of John “Jigsaw” Kramer as he attempts to cure his cancer. Of course, there are plenty of bloody death traps as he gains retribution over some scam artists from Mexico. Amanda makes a return in this one, played by the same actress. It gets off to a slower start than usual, but overall it pays off.

Spiral, the ninth film in the Saw franchise is more of a spinoff than a sequel featuring a Jigsaw copycat as opposed to Jigsaw. The copycat in the audio recordings has a lame, nasally unimposing voice unlike the original Jigsaw which is one minor problem with this flick. Another problem is that it stars Chris Rock as a detective which just doesn’t work. He’s constantly making these bad jokes and just acting obnoxious, sometimes going on long monologues which seem like they’re out of one of his worst specials. The movie also feels unfocused, not enough time is dedicated to the traps and the Saw stuff, and too much is dedicated to this subplot about corruption in the police force and the Chris Rock character’s personal life.

Jigsaw was the comeback film in the Saw franchise after a seven year hiatus. This one feels very much like a Saw flick complete with a group of folks with checkered pasts undergoing a series of lethal tests and traps. As usual, this one also showcases some detective work and forensics. The violence was pretty grisly, though not as brutal as some other installments in the series. It supposedly takes place 10 years after the events of Saw III, but a lot it takes place years earlier when Jigsaw was alive. The twist at the end was a little cheap, as yet another Jigsaw “apprentice” was introduced.

Saw 3D, also known as Saw: The Final Chapter, was originally intended to be the final Saw movie in the series. This one felt the lowest budget and relied on the tried and true formula of a morally questionable protagonist undergoing a series of tests and trials of lethal puzzles and traps involving associates and cohorts. It feels a bit repetitive at this point. The stuff with Hoffman wasn’t very compelling in this one. Also, it doesn’t make much sense how Jigsaw had the forethought to construct the new traps in this one. The twist with Dr. Gordon at the end was as absurd as one might expect. Still entertaining enough to keep you engaged though; it is Saw after all.

Saw VI is a step up from Saw IV and Saw V. The plot largely revolves around Jigsaw testing a sleazy health insurance executive and Detective Hoffman taking up Kramer’s mantle while evading apprehension. John “Jigsaw” Kramer is still the mastermind behind the “games” in the movie as he had them all planned out before he died. This one feels more focused and doesn’t just feel like it’s jumping from flashback to flashback as much.

Just doesn’t feel that innovative anymore. Not particularly scary like some of the previous installments. Tries to be topical with commentary on immigration, but rings hollow. Some good action, but overall it feels like it drags on.

The Black Phone 2 has some decent jump scares but it doesn’t hold up to the first one. Feels too much like a ripoff of A Nightmare On Elm Street and too saccharine at moments. The Grabber character isn’t as menacing as in the first one, and there are moments in this flick that are unintentionally funny.

Sporadically very funny, and oftentimes horrifying, Weapons is an example of an effective combination of good screenwriting and superior direction.

Saw V is one of the weakest Saw sequels. A lot of this one provides backstory for Detective Hoffman and how he came to be Jigsaw’s apprentice. Lots of flashbacks and retconning. There is a somewhat interesting subplot with five sleazy individuals vying to escape one of Jigsaw’s machinations, but it isn’t enough to save this flick. Detective Strahm is killed at the end of this one from one of either Hoffman or Kramer’s traps.

Saw IV is the sequel that first introduces us to the uninspired twist that Detective Hoffman is an apprentice of Jigsaw. However, this is only at the very end of the film, so it doesn’t bring it down that much. Most of the film takes place at the same time as the majority of Saw III. The very beginning is a bit of a flash forward with John “Jigsaw” Kramer’s autopsy. The autopsy, like the brain surgery scene from the prior film, should satisfy those with a thirst for blood and guts, but it doesn’t serve much of a purpose. They find a tape recorder in Jigsaw’s stomach which Hoffman listens to but this doesn’t really feel necessary as Hoffman is Jigsaw’s apprentice. The main plot of this one revolves around Officer Rigg who is kidnapped by Jigsaw and put through a series of trials, and given the opportunity to save criminals from Jigsaw traps. Officer Perez and Detective Strahm stumble across Billy the Puppet in the police office who has a recording in Jigsaw’s voice telling them Strahm will kill an innocent man. Billy’s face then explodes and kills Perez with shrapnel. It turns out that Strahm really does kill an innocent man after he shoots Jeff in the final showdown at the end, which takes place directly following the events of Saw III. Strahm was unaware that Jeff was frantically searching for his daughter. In a lame twist, Hoffman seals a dying Rigg and desperate Strahm fates, with the tagline “Game over.” I also didn’t find the backstory with Kramer’s ex-wife to be very captivating.

Saw III, the third Saw sequel, isn’t bad but it’s a step down from its predecessors. The film starts by showcasing two grisly Jigsaw murders including one involving Detective Kerry. The remaining portion of the film involves Jigsaw tormenting Jeff, the father of a young boy killed by a drunk driver and testing him in various ways to see if he will save various wrongdoers from his past from elaborate death traps. On the other side of the coin, Amanda has kidnapped Jeff’s wife who is a neurosurgeon and forces her to operate on her mentor, John “Jigsaw” Kramer. She places a contraption around her neck that will kill her if Jigsaw’s heart rate reaches zero. The brain surgery scene is gruesome, intense and will satiate the thirst for gore. However, with this one it felt like the torture porn was often being used as substitute for scares.

Saw II, the first sequel to Saw, opens with a random Jigsaw murder which just screams classic Jigsaw. The majority of the film takes place in an abandoned house where several victims are told by Billy the puppet there is a nerve agent filling the house will kill them within two hours unless they find the antidote. Of course, there are traps and lethal puzzles scattered all over the house. One of the victims is the son of Detective Matthews, an officer working on the Jigsaw case. Another one is Amanda who was a survivor in the previous film. One twist revealed at the end of the movie that felt somewhat cheap was that Amanda is actually an apprentice to Jigsaw. Another silly twist is that Detective Matthews’ son was in a “safe place” as in a literal safe in the factory in which Matthews was interrogating Jigsaw. It felt like this one was trying to measure up to its predecessor in terms of being subversive. Nonetheless, it was still enjoyable and the best of the Saw sequels.

Saw, the 2004 horror film which led to an extremely lucrative franchise, made use of tropes that became iconic in contemporary culture. This one introduced the idea of the elaborate death traps which someone could hypothetically escape, the creepy Jigsaw “Billy” puppet often appearing on a television screen or riding a tricycle, the Jigsaw audio recordings, and the pig masks. The main plot is creatively spun, with many twists and turns. As this is the first of the series, I think it is the most effectively scary, though not terrifying. Cary Elwes as Dr. Gordon gave a serviceable performance although I think he was a little too overacted. Overall though, the acting didn’t bring down this modern day horror classic.

The long awaited sequel to the Adam Sandler comedy classic Happy Gilmore has its moments and can sporadically be quite amusing, but is pretty hit and miss overall. This one starts off with Happy accidentally killing his wife with a golf swing and becoming an alcoholic which sounds dark but is largely played up for laughs. He hits rock bottom and works at a grocery store before returning to golf to raise money for his daughter’s dance academy. A lot of the previous cast returns for this one like Ben Stiller who is hilarious as the evil rehab counselor having apparently switched jobs since he was the nurse in the first one. What they do with Shooter in this movie is clever at first but gets old. Lots of pop culture references and cameos from celebrities like Post Malone, Sean Evans, Travis Kelce, and Eminem. One problem with this movie is that it was too long and dragged a bit. Also, the humor could be a little too juvenile and crude.

Fantastic Four: First Steps is a refreshing take on the Marvel family since Fant4stic in 2015. It is also better than the 2005 movie which starred sexy ass Jessica Alba and that movie’s 2007 sequel which shared a similar plot line to this one. Obviously this movie was better than the unreleased 1994 fiasco. In this film, the Fantastic Four have already had their powers for four years and it is established they have already fought obscure members of their rogues gallery such as Mole Man. The family dynamic is showcased and it resonates well, with Reed Richards (Mr. Fantastic) and Sue Storm (the Invisible Woman) as husband and wife, and Johnny Storm as Sue’s brother, and the Thing as Reed’s best friend and Johny’s best friend. The banter between the family is amusing, though most of the jokes aren’t laugh out loud funny and the levity is a little excessive, though it’s not over the top or too sardonic. The plotline with the Silver Surfer and Galactus is very well done the stakes are high. The movie gets pretty tense. It was awesome how they made Galactus faithful to the comics/cartoon and just made him a giant purple dude as opposed to a cosmic force or whatever like the 2007 movie. I didn’t mind how they made Silver Surfer Shalla Bal as opposed to Norrin Rad, it didn’t detract from the overall narrative. Definitely the best Fantastic Four movie to date.

Superman, written and directed by James Gunn of Guardians of the Galaxy, takes the superhero in a new direction from Zach Snyder’s darker, more serious look. This one is colorful and full of contemporary humor, similar to past Joss Whedon productions. The humor can be amusing, but sometimes detracts from the moment. The depiction of Lex Luthor is well done. He is probably the most serious character in this flick, and depicted as brilliant, cynical, and methodical with technological prowess and is also a political figure. He is bent on killing Superman and controlling some fictitious region of the world. The portrayal of Lois Lane in this one is serviceable. She is already in a relationship with Clark/Superman at the start of the movie and is depicted as a tenacious reporter. The guy who plays Superman does a good job, though this Clark Kent isn’t nearly as dorky as the original Christopher Reeves vision. Superman in this one is portrayed as extremely altruistic, against killing under any circumstance, compassionate-even to the point of having a deep concern for animals. He also has a little of that more contemporary sarcastic style humor, which makes him feel somewhat like Spider-Man in addition to being Superman. But Superman’s wholesome nature makes this film endearing. It just suffers from some tonal issues and its plot is a little convoluted so it doesn’t get a perfect score.

The Substance is an intense body horror thriller about an aging Hollywood star, Elisabeth Sparkle, played by Demi Moore who is introduced to a substance that allows her to manifest into a younger, sexier woman played by Margaret Qualley. Despite the fact that the two initially share a consciousness, the women begin to develop separate identities and despise one another. It is an interesting exploration of superficiality and materialism and how this affects women. Also, it is an exploration of the moral fallibility of a woman who is desperate to maintain beauty, fame, and fortune. There are plenty of gross out scenes and gore galore. I thought the movie was interesting but jumped the shark for roughly the last fifteen minutes.

Smile 2, the sequel the highly successful Smile, delivers just as many terrifying moments as its predecessor. This one follows sexy pop superstar Skye Riley as its protagonist, played by Naomi Scott.

Smile 2, the sequel the highly successful Smile, delivers just as terrifying moments as its predecessor. This one follows sexy pop superstar Skye Riley as its protagonist, played by Naomi Scott.

Terrifier 3 is the third installment of the Terrifier series and is more fun than the second installment, despite some shortcomings when it comes to plot coherence and dialogue. Art the Clown, the mime-esque demonic serial killer clown has a lust for blood and is sadistic as hell as is his sidekick Victoria Heyes, the mentally disturbed deformed woman from the first two. Vick was actually for the most part a major protagonist in the story for the first film until she loses her mind due to her disfigurement. Victoria is apparently also possessed by a demon in this one, though her voice only changes demonic in the last half of the movie after she slits her wrists. This one follows Sienna Shaw and her family like the last one as she attempts to rebuild her life after the trauma she endured last time. She ends up recovering the magic sword she used to decapitate Art the Clown and uses it on Victoria and Art. Nonetheless, Art escapes and the movie is left open. The movie is total gore fest with gratuitous violence. It also has a lot of dark humor, and it got few chuckles out of me.

Robocop 2 is the obligatory sequel to the megahit Robocop from 1987, released in 1990. Written by Frank Miller alongside some unknown dude and directed by Irvin Kershner (same guy who directed Empire Strikes Back), this movie had all the makings of a classic. Was it a classic? Debatable, but it was enjoyable. The movie starts where the last one left off with Omni Consumer Products testing possible cop cyborg prototypes and planning a private takeover of Detroit in the near future. Robocop still has memories of his wife and he stalks her just for executives at OCP to tell him to knock it off. His wife visits him, but he tells her Murphy, his old self, is dead and now he is Robocop. So this subplot is never really resolved. The main plot focuses on Robocop going after drug lords and one of these druglords is a 10 year old boy. Yeah, movie is pretty campy. There is also a weak subplot where Robocop is reprogrammed, albeit briefly, to be soft on crime. The main antagonist is the main drug lord who is almost killed and turned into a cyborg by OCP, who has a female psychologist who is soft on crime program him to be a crooked cop. The movie was fun, but not great.

This movie was a slow burn. It centers around four photojournalists in the midst of an American civil war set in the near future. Texas, California, and Florida alongside other unnamed states have seceded from the union presumably due to the president seeking a third term. There are a lot of pretentious lingering shots of landscapes and moments where the audio just goes silent which can get a little grating. I also didn't like the angle to focus on photojournalists as opposed to soldiers or politicians. There were too many boring moments where just not much was happening. Though there were some scenes which featured battles, it would have been better if the movie was more akin to American Sniper or if it had been more political and been like Lincoln. Which leads me to the other issue with this film, it took no chances politically. It virtually had nothing to say about our current tumultuous political landscape and the upcoming election. It seemed like it didn't want to alienate anyone, so it actually had the secessionists be the more sympathetic party. None of the war had anything to do with MAGA when MAGA has already shown they're capable of starting an insurrection if an election doesn't go their way. An alliance between California and red states seems unlikely unless we're talking about a conflict in the distant future and this movie seemed to be taking place near the present day.

Barbie, Greta Gerwig's live action depiction of the Barbie lore, stars Margot Robbie as "conventional" Barbie and Ryan Gosling as "conventional" Ken. I found the film interesting as it starts out in a fictitious Barbieland, where all the different Barbie characters reside, and live perfect idyllic lives free from any stress or anxiety, well maybe with the exception of Ken who is a total simp, only happy when Barbie notices him. Barbie begins to have an existential crisis because it turns out her owner in the real world is not happy and this affects Barbie. She begins to have lingering thoughts of death, things in her playhouse quit working, and she begins to develop a little cellulite. She visits "weird" Barbie who is an expert on these dilemmas and is told she has to go to the real world to unite with her owner and make her happy again to prevent the crisis. From here the movie becomes kind of like a fish out of water adventure with Ken and Barbie in the real world. Ken learns about the patriarchy in the real world but can't take advantage of it because he has no real-world skills so he takes the patriarchy back to Barbieland. Barbie finds the teenage girl she thinks was playing with her, however, her owner actually turns out to be the teenage girl's mother. There is some good social commentary in these scenes in the real world on gender issues and consumerism; much of the criticism of consumerism promulgated by Barbie was delivered by the teenage girl and is meant to be overly harsh and rabidly left-wing. Will Ferrel plays the CEO of Nuttel who is in pursuit of Barbie to put her back in her box. It's a typical Will Ferrel performance, though his dialogue wasn't that great. In Barbieland, conventional Ken takes over and makes it an actual patriarchy with the Barbies being subservient to the Kens and brainwashed into being satisfied with their downgrade. Barbie ends up going back to Barbieland to rescue it from Ken and restore the matriarchy alongside the human woman and her teenage daughter. In the end, Ken learns to be satisfied with who he truly is and becomes less dependent on Barbie. The Kens in general are given marginally more influence in Barbieland, though the movie makes a facetious note that they would only end up getting as much power as what women have in the real world. Stereotypical Barbie ends up going back to the real world and becomes a real woman. Overall, the movie is very silly for the most part until the end when it becomes a little sappy. It's very entertaining though and always keeps your attention. Was it preachy? Maybe a little, after all I'd heard about the movie I was expecting it to be, but really the social commentary is part of what made the movie interesting.

M3gan is a horror-comedy that for the most part lands. In it, we have our main character, Genna, working as an engineer for a robotic toy company. She designs a doll for her niece that she thinks will be a good companion. However, the doll becomes malevolent after it gains sentience. The movie is pretty entertaining and there are some laughs and thrills.

The Black Phone is a horror/thriller with supernatural elements about a teenager who is abducted by a serial child abductor nicknamed the "Grabber." It starts off introducing us to two teen siblings, Finney and Gwen Blake, who live with their abusive alcoholic father. Gwen has dreams which are disturbing and turn out to be reality where she has premonitions of friends and her brother being captured by a serial killer. Finney is the victim of bullies but is protected by his friend, Robin, who is tough and fends off the bullies. Robin is later abducted and killed by the Grabber serial killer. Eventually Finney is abducted by the Grabber and he is thrown in a basement with a phone. Finney contacts ghosts of previous victims through the phone which is a supernatural element of the movie. They give him advice on how to get out of his imprisonment. The movie was creepy and the Grabber character was terrifying. The movie got tense at various points though it did suffer from some plot holes.

Thor: Love and Thunder is the fourth Thor standalone film and was enjoyable, though a bit uneven in tone. It tries too hard to be funny constantly and the levity isn't always very effective. The villain, Gorr the God Butcher, played by Christian Bale was handled pretty well and was decent for a lesser-known Marvel villain. It was interesting seeing a female version of Thor in Natalie Portman's Jane who becomes the Mighty Thor after she seeks out Thor's old hammer when she is diagnosed with stage-four cancer. Of course, the original male Thor is still the main character in the film. Jane and Thor rekindle their old romance in the movie. The movie is fast-paced, as I already established it can be silly, and there is a lot of action and pretty realistic cgi. The movie attempts to gain political points by featuring some LGBT side characters, though this is a minor feature of the film and not very distracting fortunately.

Robocop is the classic Paul Verhoeven futuristic crime action movie featuring Robocop, a cyborg who is something of a superhero in a dark universe. The movie takes place in the near-future Detroit where there is a dystopia and the city is on the brink of societal and financial collapse. The mega-corporation Omni Consumer Products takes control of the police force. Corrupt rich executives at the company end up creating Robocop after a good cop, Alex Murphy, is almost killed by Detroit gangsters. Following the introduction of Robocop there are some amusing scenes showcasing Robocop apprehending bizarre crimes. From there, the rest of the movie gets a little sentimental about the humanity of Robocop and how he still has some memory of his family. The movie is also a satire of corrupt crony capitalism and corporatism controlling the police force. The film is very effective in what it is trying to convey and still holds up as a classic.

The Batman is the new Batman flick that was just released starring Robert Pattinson as the Dark Knight. It starts out with the murder **** city mayoral candidate by the Riddler and we are told Bruce Wayne has been Batman for 2 years fighting crime. We see Batman apprehend some random thugs early on in the Gotham streets. Batman meets with Gordon to solve the Riddler mystery, and the Riddler leaves behind riddles as clues. The Riddler is sort of like Jigsaw in the Saw movies, the serial killer in Seven, or the Zodiac killer and he wears a green domino mask with a green jumpsuit with a question mark on it. The Penguin is also in the movie as a mob boss and he's somehow involved in the whole ruse. A sexy Zoe Kravitz plays Selina Kyle or Catwoman, a cat burglar, who wants revenge on Carmine Falcone for killing her roommate. She is Batman's love interest in the movie. Overall, the movie has some great action and cinematography and is pretty tense. It keeps you on edge. One criticism I have is that it was a little too gritty and dark, and took itself a little too seriously. There is very little in the way of comic relief, but that's usually what you can expect from the Batman movies.

Venom: Let There Be Carnage is the sequel to the standalone film Venom, in which journalist Eddie Brock was bonded to the alien symbiote, Venom, and became our anti-hero. In it, we have Eddie Brock doing investigative journalism on the serial killer Cletus Kasady and eventually gets bitten by Kasady who is exposed to his blood and becomes infused to a red symbiote, Carnage, who is evil and wants revenge on Brock. Carnage breaks out of prison and frees Kasady's girlfriend, Shriek, however, Carnage soon grows tired of Shriek as her powers involve shrieking and causing irritating noise, one of the symbiote's weaknesses. Eddie is turned down by his love interest in the movie, which actually largely played up for laughs. Venom and Eddie have trouble getting along, so the symbiote leaves Eddie at one point and literally just starts raging at a rave. At the end of the film, the movie takes place in a cathedral where Shriek and Kasady are wed, and they kidnap Brock's love interest so Venom is there to battle Carnage. Venom is triumphant in the end and there is a end-credit sequence which references Spider-Man: No Way Home. Overall, this was a pretty fast-paced, short-lived movie that probably had too much cringey comic relief. It was still entertaining and pretty fun though.

The Beta Test is a psychological thriller of sorts, with the premise of the movie being that a Hollywood agent gets an anonymous note from some alleged woman who wants a casual sexual encounter in a hotel room. He partakes in this and it induces anguish and anxiety. He attempts to uncover who was sending the letters and why and tries to hide the affair from his fiance. The movie is a comedy of manners of sorts similar to American Psycho in that the main character is focused on his appearance and status and possesses an artificial, yuppy-like demeanor. It's also kind of an odd movie as it collapses on its own weight of its premise as it can't adequately explain why the notes were sent out. It turns out they were dispersed by some internet geek in a basement who used an algorithm collecting people's data on social media to instigate the encounter. It made very little sense. It was also never explained what the woman's role was in the hook up, if she was an accomplice to the internet geek or if she was just another recipient. These plot holes brought the movie down a peg, but it was an interesting experience.

This is the third MCU Spider-Man movie, and the movie starts where the last one left off with Spider-Man's secret identity being broadcasted by J Jonah Jameson at the Daily Bugle after his exploits with Mysterio and Peter is trying to avoid attention. He goes to Doctor Strange to cast a spell to make everyone forget he's Spider-Man. Strange casts the spell but it is tampered with by Peter so that other unwanted characters come through. Alfred Molina returns as Doctor Octopus and Willem Dafoe comes back as Green Goblin. The best part of the movie was having all these characters from previous franchises come back. Sandman, Lizard, and Electro were re-introduced, and they were all portrayed by their former cast members. It was also cool seeing Tobey's Spider-Man again and Andrew Garfield's Spider-Man and I liked how they are given a real role in the film. The movie ends bittersweet with Peter and MJ going off to college, having had her memory of Spider-Man being Peter erased. There are potential routes the series could go from here, one is a symbiote storyline which is winked at after the credits. Kraven the Hunter, Hydroman, Shocker and Black Cat could be introduced. Scorpion or a storyline with Ned Leeds becoming Hobgoblin has also been speculated on.

What made this 1983 Roger Moore Bond film standout was its provocative title. In terms of plot, it's pretty standard Bond fare, somewhat convoluted and hard to follow. The movie starts with Bond infiltrating a military base in Latin America and has to escape in a minijet. From there, 009 agent dressed as a circus clown and carrying a counterfeit Fabergé egg, crashes into the British ambassador's residence and dies after fleeing two knive-throwing twin Russian assassins. The British suspect the Soviets, and Bond is sent to bid for the Fabergé egg to identify its seller. From there, Bond follows a Saudi prince Kamal Khan to his palace in India. Bond hooks up with an associate of Khan's, a beautiful young woman named Magda who has the tattoo of an octopus she calls her **** Bond later meets **** a beautiful and wealthy businesswoman, smuggler and Khan's associate. She also leads the Octopus cult, of which Magda is a member, which is entirely comprised of women. Traveling to East Germany, Bond infiltrates the circus and discovers that Soviet General Orlov has replaced the Soviet treasures with a nuclear warhead, primed to explode during the circus performance at a US Air Force base in West Germany. Bond manages to deactivate the warhead. Bond and **** return separately to India. Bond arrives at Khan's palace just as **** and her troops launch an assault on the grounds. **** attempts to kill Khan, but is captured by Gobinda. While ****'s team, led by Magda, overpower Khan's guards, Khan and Gobinda abandon the palace, taking **** as a hostage. As they attempt to escape in their airplane, Bond clings to the fuselage and disables an engine and the elevator panel. Struggling with Bond, Gobinda plummets off the plane's roof to his death, and Bond and **** jump off the plane onto a nearby cliff only seconds before Khan fatally crashes into a mountain. At the end, Bond is in bed with **** on her private yacht. The movie suffers from too many cheesy one-liners, and doesn't really have a good iconic villain, though of course the **** Bond girl character is memorable. There is a lot of action and explosions, but some of Bond's exploits like when he is clinging onto an airplane mid-flight require you to suspend too much disbelief.

This is the fifth installment of the Bond franchise, with Sean Connery as James Bond, and takes place largely in Japan. The plot has to do with SPECTRE being behind a NASA spacecraft being swallowed up and lands in the Sea of Japan. In the film, Bond is dispatched to Japan after American and Soviet crewed spacecraft disappear mysteriously in orbit, each nation blaming the other amidst the Cold War. Bond travels secretly to a remote Japanese island to find the perpetrators, and comes face-to-face with Ernst Stavro Blofeld, the head of SPECTRE. The film reveals the appearance of Blofeld, who was previously a partially unseen character. SPECTRE is working for the government of an unnamed Asian power, implied to be the People's Republic of China, to provoke war between the superpowers. Blofeld again is seen in his Mao suit and pets his Persian white cat. He has a scar on his right eye and is bald. The movie gets a higher score because it is the first to reveal Blofeld's face. The action and cinematography are fantastic especially for the year the movie was released. Overall, the movie is a fun ride.

Goldfinger is probably the best Bond film of all time. It is the third installment of the franchise, with Sean Connery as Bond. The film's plot has Bond investigating gold smuggling by gold magnate Auric Goldfinger and eventually uncovering Goldfinger's plans to contaminate the United States Bullion Depository at Fort Knox. Oddjob, Goldfinger's Korean henchman with the steel-rimmed hat and Bond girl **** Galore are classic characters from this one. There are some timeless scenes in this film, like when a woman is killed with gold spray-paint, or when Bond is placed on a table under an industrial laser and almost killed by Goldfinger. Auric Goldfinger is an iconic villain, with his lust for gold, and gold gimmickry.

Thunderball is the fourth installment of the James Bond franchise starring Sean Connery as the titular character. It's a fun movie, with the plot being that the insidious SPECTRE organization headed by Number One, Ernst Stavro Blofeld, steals two NATO atomic bombs and holds the world for ransom of £100 million in diamonds under its threat to destroy an unspecified metropolis in either the United Kingdom or the United States (later revealed to be Miami). Bond searches for the bombs in the Bahamas, where he encounters Emilio Largo, the card-playing, eye patch-wearing SPECTRE Number Two. Backed by CIA agent Felix Leiter and Largo's mistress, Domino Derval, Bond's search culminates in an underwater battle with Largo's henchmen. The underwater fight scenes are exciting but a little too lengthy. There are some good action scenes, and Bond uses some classic gadgets like a jetpack. Number One or Ernst Stavro Blofeld's face is never shown, and he strokes a white Persian cat which is a trope parodied in mainstream culture. He wears a Mao suit and kills subordinates with a control switch that drops them from their chairs at the desk to a pit of fire. Emilio Largo, or Number Two, kills subordinates in a similar fashion, by feeding them to sharks. These are classic Bond tropes I enjoyed seeing in the movie.

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]

The Spy Who Loved Me was the third James Bond flick starring Roger Moore as the iconic MI6 spy 007 and is named after Ian Fleming's 1962 novel. The storyline involves a reclusive megalomaniac named Karl Stromberg, who plans to destroy the world with nuclear missiles and create a new civilization under the sea (which is sort of similar to Lex Luthor's plot in the original 1978 Superman). Bond teams up with a Soviet agent, Anya Amasova, or XXX, to stop the plans, all while being hunted by Stromberg’s powerful henchman, Jaws who is about 7 feet tall and possesses metallic teeth that can cut through steel. The movie has its fair share of action and chase scenes and some explosions, but also is stymied by tedious scenes that don't do much to move the plot along and some cheesy one-liners and gimmicks. There were also some cringeworthy dated politically incorrect aspects of the movie regarding Bond's interactions with the opposite sex which shouldn't be surprising. Overall it was decent, but not the greatest Bond film. It does feature one of my favorite Bond adversaries, Jaws, though.

This was a film that was very culturally relevant, with the "Me too" movement having just taken precedence to its release. In it we have our protagonist, a young woman aged 30 who works at a coffee shop and still lives at home with her parents. She goes out to dive bars and clubs on the weekends and goes home with men and seduces them while pretending to be inebriated only to reveal she is not really intoxicated when they try to take advantage of her. This typically has the affect of freaking out the male she is with. This aspect of the film I was a little critical of, as she is putting herself in danger always going home with strange men from bars and pretending to be f****d up. The guy could still be an actual threat and still attack her even after she reveals she is sober. Anyway, she does this to take vengeance on the male gender for the time her friend was **** after a party in college and committed suicide when her case wasn't taken seriously. She also takes vengeance some women who did not help her friend who was sexually assaulted and tricks them into thinking they were molested or their loved ones were molested. She also meets a guy she went to medical school with before dropping out due to her traumatic experience having the friend that committed suicide due to being **** and things go pretty well between them at first as they start dating. I found it a little strange how this woman who clearly didn't trust men and had issues with men was willing to date some guy just because he seemed like a good guy and I guess she was attracted to him. Anyway, she discovers he was actually present during the sexual assault of her friend and just stood by bemused by it. She is devastated and breaks up with him. She then goes on to pretend to be a stripper at the bachelor party for the man who **** her friend in college as he is now engaged. She gets him alone in a bedroom and ties him up, revealing who she truly is and attempts to attack him, carving her friends name on his back. He gets free and strangles her to death. However, in the end he doesn't get away with it as a cop she previously met who was sympathetic to her story found out about the murder and has him arrested in the end. I thought the movie was sometimes pretty tense, and for the most part it landed emotionally. However, the main character seemed too vindictive and I thought it was a little unfair how the movie implied that almost without fail every man from the parties/bars wanted to take advantage of her when she seemed impaired. It was also a little unrealistic how she would continue getting away with her deception.

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]

It was alright. A lot of action and fight sequences. Harley Quinn has incredible fighting abilities apparently and is an expert gymnast like she is in the comics which is alright even though it doesn't really make much sense since she was just a psychiatrist before she became a criminal and she doesn't have any powers or combat training that we know of. Regardless, this is a female empowerment movie so the female characters are made strong and most of the male characters are depicted as detestable misogynists. If you can get past that, the movie is okay.

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]

Clint Eastwood's American Sniper is probably the best movie featuring the War on Terror that has been made. In it, our hero, Chris Kyle played by Bradley Cooper is presented as a young man growing up in Texas and we see that his girlfriend is cheating on him. Later, he meets his beautiful wife played by Sienna Miller in a bar. We see Chris Kyle react to the September 11th attacks and he enlists in the military to fight terrorists in the middle east. Kyle is deployed in Iraq and we see his escapades as the most deadly sniper in the U.S. military. Iraq had been listed as a State sponsor of terrorism by the U.S. since 1990, when Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait. Iraq had also been on the list from 1979 to 1982; it was removed so that the U.S. could provide material support to Iraq in its war with Iran. Hussein's regime had proven to be a problem for the UN and Iraq's neighbors due to its use of chemical weapons against Iranians and Kurds in the 1980s. The Iraq War began in March 2003 with an air campaign, which was immediately followed by a U.S.-led ground invasion. The Bush administration cited UNSC Resolution 1441, which warned of "serious consequences" for violations such as Iraq possessing weapons of mass destruction. The Bush administration also stated the Iraq war was part of the War on Terror, as Saddam Hussein was a radical Sunni muslim, leader of the Baathist party who may have had ties to Al-Queda. The movie is gripping, and you're pulling for Kyle who is tough and gallant. One criticism I have of the movie is it doesn't show many airstrikes, it only features one in the entire movie, when I know we bombed the hell out of Iraq. But it wants to focus on the sniping on the ground so its acceptable. The movie can get pretty exciting and intense. There are some cool action sequences with American marines going up against terrorists. The movie does a good job depicting PTSD caused by the trauma of war, as Kyle has to deal with these problems after his exploits in the middle east. There is a well-directed scene at a barbeque where Kyle freaks out with a dog and it disturbs his wife. The movie ends tragically, as we are told Chris Kyle is killed by a mentally disturbed veteran he was trying to help. Overall, a good tribute to an American although controversial, was virtuous and a hero.

This was one of Sandler's first movies. It's one of his best, a classic. There are a lot of funny moments in the movie. And the movie is fun. Happy Gilmore is a sympathetic main character, though he has anger issues, you're rooting for him against the snobby antagonist. There are multiple laugh out loud moments in the movie.

This was a fun movie. Sandler is funny, and the premise works. Also, there is a scene with Jessica Biel in her prime where she strips down to her underwear and that alone makes the movie spectacular. There are some great shots in that scene, very pleasurable.