Castle Rock: The Complete First Season is a fun and entertaining show and that’s coming from someone who generally isn’t the biggest fan of Stephen King; however as a movie buff, there are cool references to some of the King-adapted feature films.
Bad Times at the El Royale is hardly a perfect movie and it does seem like writer-director Drew Goddard channeling his inner Quentin Tarantino, yet I found this drama-thriller thoroughly entertaining ensemble, headlined with fine performances by Jeff Bridges, Chris Hemsworth and newcomer Cynthia Erivo.
When Harry Met Sally… is just a wonderful and damn near perfect romantic comedy from the tightly and sharply written Nora Ephron script, Rob Reiner’s creative direction and, most of all, the incredibly chemistry shared between Crystal and Ryan.
Halloween (2018) was on the disappointing side for me though I don’t consider myself a major fan of the franchise considering there’s really only two good ones, one I consider a guilty pleasure while the rest were either average or pure garbage. I would rank this sequel/reboot in the middle of the pack.
Speed Kills is another dud for the once great John Travolta but I do like the guy and hope he had one more resurgence in him otherwise he’ll likely be stuck in these terrible direct-to-video films.
Nemesis is certainly not a very well made movie. The action is frenetic at best, performances on the over-the-top scale, though it did have some adorably bad visual effects.
Obsession was a rather bland mystery-drama which doesn’t have a whole lot going for it aside from some good cinematography however the acting from Cliff Robertson in the lead was weirder rather than endearing, and the film lacked De Palma’s flair.
While neither Karate Kid Part III nor The Next Karate Kid are great entries in the series, far from it, there are some cheesy fun moments in both and also nice seeing Hilary Swank early in her career.
8MM is a very dark movie with an incredibly dark story and like Andrew Kevin Walker’s previous work, Se7en, not exactly the type of film one might pop in on a whim. Still, Nicolas Cage is mostly subdued and does deliver a fine performance.
Satan Never Sleeps is an odd little history-drama especially with some of the humor inserted, but the story is fairly compelling and the performance by William Holden was, as always, wonderfully charismatic.
Night School is just a poorly made comedy, one which I did not laugh once and goes to show perhaps Kevin Hart’s limitations when he doesn’t have the right director, material and even ensemble cast to work off of.
Venom had the right ingredients from an incredibly talented actor starring, a multi Oscar-nominated actress in the love interest role and an interesting anti-hero in the form of black goo. Unfortunately, the execution wasn’t the best.
Admittedly I was disappointed in I Still See You as there was plenty of potential and while I know it sticks to the source material, the mystery aspect never quite worked.
Anne of the Thousand Days is a well acted and richly photographed drama excelling with the performances from Richard Burton portraying Henry VIII and Genevieve Bujold as Anne Boleyn.
Antony and Cleopatra is a well done historical-drama especially considering it was Charlton Heston’s directorial debut and under major financial constraints, but Heston does a fine job despite being a bit too old while Hildegard Neil was at least a delight as Cleopatra.