With the success of the Barbershop movies, and with at the time Queen Latifah’s growing fame following her Academy Award nomination for her supporting role in Chicago, it’s no surprise there would be a spin-off with Beauty Shop which had a good heart at its core.
Barbershop 2: Back in Business is a fine sequel and although, as with the first film, isn’t my cup of tea in terms of comedy but any fan of Ice Cube or Cedric the Entertainer might find it entertaining.
Barbershop is a fun enough ensemble comedy that actually shows some depth for Ice Cube unlike some of this crappy family adventure fare.
Siberia had the opportunity to be a compelling little crime-drama along the lines of A Simple Plan (same author and screenwriter) and although Ana Ularu was impressive in her performance, Keanu Reeves was a bit flat with some tepid dialogue.
Solo: A Star Wars Story might be unnecessary and it’s also not all that memorable, yet it was entertaining enough for what it is and featured some fun action set-pieces and the performance from Ehrenreich.
Gotti is a well intentioned but terribly conceived bio crime drama with some so-so acting but worse, terrible editing and pacing making for just an all around bad movie.
Scream for Help is an odd little 1980s movie where the first two-thirds are kind of Nancy Drew like but the final third was genuinely thrilling, negating any issues I had.
Occupation was a surprisingly decent enough sci-fi/thriller that should entertain any fan of B-level type of movies and the film itself does feature some respectable enough visual effects and an entertaining enough story.
Big Wednesday is a well acted drama mixing surfing drama with 1960s culture clash, not a great movie but it is worthy of a rental.
Supergirl: Season 3 is a solid year for the Girl of Steel and features a fine performance from star Melissa Benoist who absolutely owns the role. The writing, however, still is weak though some of the actual storylines were decent and had some cool villains.
The Day of the Jackal is one of my favorite suspense-thrillers from the 1970s, alongside classics like The French Connection and The Conversation, and features a wonderful performance from Edward Fox in the titular role.
Cold Water (L’eau froide) is a well acted and quite realistic drama about adolescent youth with Assayas’s screenplay holding no punches and avoids some of the pratfalls of similarly themed movies from the ‘80s and ‘90s.
Blindspot was never priority viewing, and to be fair not much television is nowadays, but I have enjoyed the series and this third season does have some fun twists and turns.
The Universal Classic Monsters: Complete 30-Film Collection is one hell of a set from the studio, particularly for folks who didn’t already pick up the Legacy Collection sets, and just in time for Halloween.
Once Upon a Time has been a mixed bag of a series for me, mostly on the negative side to be honest, but I actually did enjoy this seventh and final season.