Recent Movies

 Everything I watched in October (so far)

White House Down- 7/10. Hadn't seen this one in a while. Plot is extremely stupid, but Channing Tatum and Jamie Foxx are pretty likeable pair and it's a fun popcorn action flix. Just turn your brain off and have fun kind of movie. 

A Few Good Men- 8/10. Really engaging law drama, excellent courtroom scenes. Tom Cruise is great and really likeable here. 

The Martian- 9/10. Excellent movie, don't remember liking this so much on a previous watch. Just super entertaining realistic feeling sci-fi adventure that is quite thrilling and enjoyable throughout. Phenomenal cast. 

Social Network- 8.5/10. Another very compelling drama following a series of characters. None of the characters are all that likeable so it's interesting hearing them all defend their actions. 

The Northman- 8/10. Cool revenge film with some badass action sequences. Great cinematography in Iceland. Some weird stuff but mostly satisfying and entertaining. 

You People- 4.5/10. Not a good movie. There are some funny moments here and there, but overall the characters are not likeable and there's a lot of really awkward race socially commentary jammed in there. Final outcome is not believable or deserved at all. 

Zodiac- 7/10. Pretty good, fun lead trio of actors. Kind of peters out and gets less interesting towards the end. 

The Covenant- 9/10. Great movie, really intense and exciting action/thriller sequences. The two leads are fantastic and so is Anthony Starr. 

21 Jump Street- 8/10. Pretty funny and just feels like that 2000s comedy vibe. Enjoyable movie throughout, Jonah Hill is excellent. 

22 Jump Street- 7/10. Still funny but not quite as entertaining as the first one and some of the jokes don't really land. 

Thoughts on Adam Sandler- I Missed You Tour

 October 23, 2023- Honda Center: Anaheim, CA. Indoor venue where the Anaheim ducks play, pretty similar to typical NBA/NHL arenas. Conveniently located across the street from train station, although the trains running late are limited. 

Got there around 6:45PM and zero wait/very easy to get in, not the experience I had in previous shows. Disappointing the show was supposed to start at 7:30PM and didn't start until around 8:05PM. The lights went dark and Adam was talking, but some random guy comes on the opener. I'm a little disappointed "Surprise guest" is not a very popular comedian. His name was John Vessi or something like that, but I didn't see any results when googling him. Sandler mentioned he worked with him on his new netflix film "You're So Not Invited to My Bat Mitvah". For the most part, this guy was not very funny. He did have a few funny lines, but overall not great. Very dirty/sexual jokes. Funniest joke was something to the effect of he wears condoms during sex depending on the city he's in. When in detroit, he'll make sure to wear a condom because he doesn't want to go back. In Hawaii, he won't care as much because he doesn't mind returning. 

Next up is Rob Schneider. He's actually the 2nd of 4 special guests, which was a pleasant surprise. He was actually quite funny which wasn't expected because he was terrible in his movies. He starts off with something like he enjoys doing standup with Adam Sandler because in the movies, he's just making stupid noises. He makes a joke about how he's gotten fat, but likes being fat in America because there are so many people who look much worse. He makes a joke about how you never see homeless Asian people. 

Then Judd Apatow is next. He isn't super funny and his jokes are a bit dirty- lots about sex and porn. There were a few laughs but I can't remember any good joke. He also makes a joke about being fat but it's he can only see his penis if he bends over. 

Rob Schneider comes back on and makes a really awkward joke about Judd Apatow being liberal and liberals can get away with anything, but if conservatives do the same thing, they'll go to jail. 

Then is John Mulaney. Surprising to have 4 special guests, but I'm guessing that's the proximity to L.A. where so many entertainers are. His jokes aren't dirty for the most part, but aren't really that funny. He goes on a long joke about how his parents are too old and need to die, as being over 60/70 is weird and terrifying. Not funny. His last joke is much funnier about how he doesn't think dinosaurs actually exists and it makes no sense we put together piles of bones like that correctly. Before leaving, he says a museum worker was given 30 minutes to put together a piles of bones and then when he was done he realized he had two small bones left. He said those will be the arms and that's how the T-rex got small arms. Then he introduces Adam Sandler- about 30 minutes in. 

Adam would switch long standup bits and short, goofy songs the whole night. It was pretty funny overall, but some of the jokes didn't really land. One joke about him releasing a balloon, then the balloon comes back to thank him and asks to get eaten out. His jokes aren't super dirty, but are like PG-13. He does some of the signature adam sandler weird voices but never in way that makes the material worse unlike some of his movies. He has a part where he picks people out of the audience and makes fun of them. Rob Schneider comes back for a solo song which is actually pretty good. The guy who makes crazy eyes pops up just to make that face. He finishes up with a chris farley tribute song and a song dedicated to his love for his wife. The funniest joke to me was saying ice cream cones should have an age limit of 8, because grown men licking cones is really creepy. He then proceeds to pretend to lick the microphone while imitating a older parent talking to young girl. 

Overall probably give it a 7/10. Good show- funny, not hilarious. Ended around 10:20 so Adam was just under 2 hours. Length felt appropriate. With the big venue, sometimes the laughs obscured the volume. Would go to a separate tour. 

Recent Shows

 You S4- terrible. The first half is really solid with some great characters, but it goes down such a dark direction after that where you can't root for any characters at all. The plot twist is easy to see coming and Joe crosses over into pure evil territory in a way that isn't satisfying at all. 

Severance S1- good. Explores the really interesting concept of being severed- your work memories and personal memories are separate so you essentially live two lives. Felt it could have gone into more "thriller" category but instead played it slow, but overall a really solid watch. 

Mandalorian S3- decent. Half the episodes in the season are unfocused filler like some of the S1 episodes. Then there are some really good ones in there too. But much worse than S2 on a whole. 

Ted Lasso S1-3: awesome. Hilarious show with great characters and consistently has excellent and satisfying moments. Absolute bummer that's over. 

Beef S1: pretty good. Starts off a bit weird but I really like the whole flawed protagonist approach. Everyone has massive flaws/does terrible things but at least attempts to be good every once in a while so you have to make decisions about who is worth rooting for. Episode 9 goes into hard crime thriller territory and is excellent. A little disappointing in the finale, wanted 10 more minutes or so to check in on the other characters as it leaves it on such a cliffhanger and likely won't get more content. 

Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 3

 Pretty good overall- give it an 8/10. First half is fairly dull and it feels like a bad movie, actually wanted to leave the theater early on. Gets significantly better in second half with the final act (last hour) being really excellent and having a lot of great moments. It wraps up the guardians arc super well without closing the series off for more adventures if need be. 

Spoilers below:

...

Rocket is essentially the core of the movie as he is out and needs saving. His flashbacks are actually really good and there's some dark + very sad material in there that's done well and typically the MCU is more lighthearted. His final scenes and also redemption like material are fantastic. 

The villains are really mediocre/forgettable. Not terrible but Adam Warlock is really underused and not in it much. His mom is annoying and has zero impact. The real villain is fine but not especially fleshed out or intimidating. 

Most of the characters are pretty good and have their moments. Mantis and Drax are both called out as being useless by Nebula and then it's cool to see Drax actually knows a language they don't and Mantis calms down the beasts at the end. Star Lord is pretty good and has good moments. Wasn't a big fan of Gamora. 

Thoughts on Fast X

 Really mediocre movie- 5/10. Wasn't expecting it to be great, but definitely fell short of the recent movies at least having great action sequences. For the most part, everything was just okay- it was never terrible or unwatchable, but there were few good moments either. 

The good:

-Dom/Vin Diesel is better than usual. He's still a bland character, but it feels like there's less stupid Dom stuff than usual (like him jumping into the water for no reason in F9)

-Similar John Cena/Jacob is way better. Went for a somewhat comedic approach which was a much better fit for a John Cena actor. His scenes aren't great, but they're not bad either, and at least he's not Dom. His last scene in the movie seems really pointless.

-Han and Deckard are some of the better characters in the franchise and their action sequence was on the better of the one. Unfortunately Jason Statham was not in the movie much at all. 

-The post credits scene is a good and at least confirms that a character that has been missed is returning. 

The okay/whatever:

Many of the characters: letty, cipher, tess, little nobody. None are bad, but none are particular good either. 

The bad: 

-lack of exciting action. All the other issues are expected, but for a fast movie this far in to have so few action spectacles is disappointing. F9 clearly has a ton of issues but it was one of my favorites in the franchise because the action sequences were great. The same can't be said here of the boring, less big/explosive sequences or the final action sequences where the CGI is awful and the picture is so stupid looking it's bad. 

-the tej/roman/ramsey combo who I thought was pretty funny and had enjoyable banter throughout F9 has horrendous dialogue here and are easily some of the worst characters. 

-Dante. Jason Momoa should be a good addition, but his villain is absolutely terrible. So poorly written with the character supposedly motivated by revenge but acting like an absolute child at all times seemingly just there for fun and never actually hurting Dom or his friends. So many times where he could have been taken down and then randomly gets away because of ridiculous plot situations. 

Series rankings:

1. Furious 7

2. F9

3. Fast Five

4. Fast and Furious 6

5. Hobbs and Shaw

6. Fate of the Furious

7. The Fast and the Furious

8. Fast X

9. 2 Fast 2 Furious

10. The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift

11. Fast and Furious