"Sony's Venom" R
Tom Hardy is transported to San Francisco to avoid the Spiderman universe in this odd take on the antihero Venom from Son.y He tries very had to be Deadpool in this movie. At times, it seems to work, but mostly it's kind of a hot mess. When scientists bring alien parasites in cansiters to Eargh, one of them means to infect hapless people with the symbiots to see what they do, and to see if they're compatible. The scientist is clearly a twisted version of Elon Musk, from contemporary times, and it really doesn't make sense. His motivation in this is cheesy. He is doing it to perfect humanity, or some other drivel, using aliens from a comet or asteroid. Vemon is created when hapless Eddie Brock is caught up in it, and the snarky black goo covering bad guy rises, with a taste for eating heads off. You don't actually see such a graphic thing, but it is implied and suggested.
"Halloween 2018" R
Halloween 40 is here, the 40th year of the franchise. Returning is Loaurie Strode, now no longer the sister of Meyers, because we're ignoring the second movie and all of the others, and the Shape, and a whole cast. Carpenter helped produce the film, so it goes back to the roots of the original, and succeeds in making The Shape once again the boogeyman, scary, a killing machine, with no moral direction. He merely takes out anyone in his way, and even when they're not. Also there are messed up teenagers, as usual, but in the film they spend most of their time getting high or being picked off by the melted Shatner masked killer. This Halloween was actually worth the watch. So they even ignore H2O from 20 years back, and pretend like it never happened. So there is this vast alternate timeline bush ot timelines out there. They even have a Loomis. Could be the best horror film so far of the year.
"Mid '90's" R
Although the reviewer was an 80's kid, at least one nephew was a '90's kid, and would like this movie, so it was worth a watch. The movie is directed by a Superbad alum, but he doesn't do comedty this time around. Sometimes called the "Lighter version of Kids", the midle 1990s AIDS parable film, it really is not all that dark. It's just not a comedy. The movie is about foive friends who are skater losers hanging out in an LA like town, where there isn't much to do. The boy plays off a family who are kind of dorks, and the Mother used to be a party girl, but had given that up. The boy and his wuss older brother fight, a bit like the dynamic in that bad Vacation remake, but here it works much better. For the gang, they seem obsessed with trying to do stunts and get hurt, but are amazed the boy pulls through. Not an Oscar film, but surely in the ballpark, er, skate park. Maybe best actor.
"Bohemian Rhapsody" R
Rami Malik replaced earlier Shasha Baron Cohewn to play the titular rock icon, Freddy Mercury of Queen in this rocking biopic story. Also they replaced the director. The movie has enough Queen songs for any fan, and is quite nioce to the life of Mercury, even when he fell from grace on occasion in the story. They do address the AIDS, despite the rumors from critics who evidently didn't actually see it. Also the last 30 minutes are basically Live Aids for Africa 1985 all over again. As a kid othe '80s, that was awesome, and well done. Can't say they got anything wrong there. It was pretty darn close. Maybe the audio was too good, and not hissy, but you can't make audio hissy nowadays. Mike Meyers as a "composite" rock promoter cheekily claiming the titrle song is "6 minutes, which is 3 minutes too long", from the trailer, is ironic considering his Wayne's World character played the set in the movie, in the 1990s. The actual Mercury died in 1991. Malik needs to get a best actor nod for this film. He was amazing! He channeled the King of Pop of England of the time. (Our King of Pop was Michael Jackson at the time).
"Overlord" R
It seemed JJ Abrams got the memo and dropped making Overlord about Cloverfield, and made it just about a crazed super soldier making Nazi scientist in WW2 France. When some paratroopers go down before D Day, they are trapped in a small town in France where there is a crazed Nazi commandant who has been experiemnting on villagers to create the super uber race. The men discover one of them, and then a girl who had a little brother, and an aunt who is mutated from the tests. They help the girl to defeat the commandant, only to have him flee after breaking out using the serum. Then they had to go and stop him before he unleases a horde of zombies, and also to blow up the tower. is a decent war picture, not Oscar bait, but decent.
"Fantastic Beasts 2: The Crimes of Grindelwald" PG 13
Grindewald is a demented wizard from the end notes of the Harry Potter books, specifically from Fantastic Beasts, a textbook in the story. ust basing an entire new series as a prequel to the original, set 90 years beforehand, is problematic, and it doesn't really jell. It does look pretty, and has some nice horror moments, but it is missing a lot when you don't really have a story to tell. Grindelwald and Dumbedore had a falling out some years before, and that is why Dumbledonre can't fight him, so he sends Scemander to do it, which kind of makes no sense. Also we know that in the textbook, it is Dumbledore who will defeat him in 1945, which means at this rate it will be 10 movies before they get to see that! Ug, not such a good idea. Seeing Hogwarts again new and pristine, and the Ministry of Magic, are cool set pieces, although the US one and the French one seem tacked on. Also it's odd the magic is more hyper kinetic and better than in the first movies, implying some of it went downhill.We also get to meet Nigini the snake girl. And we get to meet the first LeStrange. Not sure how this will all play out. Worth seeing in theaters though. Yates returns to direct. Rowling produces.
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