December Movies - Christmas Week

Good Afternoon Ladies & Gentlemen,

Happy Holidays everyone!!! Izzy is doing much better now that she's been properly diagnosed & I've been to various hospitals 7 times in the last 10 days... but everybody's doing okay now. During that time, here are a few movies that I gleamed between visits...

December 16 – The Devil’s Advocate (1998)
 
A hotshot Florida lawyer (Keanu Reeves) and his stunning wife (Charlize Theron) hit the big time as they join a NYC law firm… but hijinx ensue when the partner that recruited him (Al Pacino) may not be what he appears… come on guys, he’s the f**king Devil. It’s in the title! Keanu is literally the advocate of the Devil! This movie is… absolutely fantastic!!! Now, there’s only slight tongue in cheek when I say that… because it’s well shot, you have NO idea how crazy it’s going to get… and the first time that I watched this movie, because I was recovering from a disfiguring injury, I turned it off at a certain point… only to find out later that I had missed possibly the greatest 15 minutes in cinema history at the end!!!
 
Rating – 10/10 – Some unnecessarily stupid decisions made keep this from being a 10+ but I love this crazy movie
 
December 18 – An American Werewolf in London (1981)
 
Two Americans go backpacking across the English countryside… and then are attacked by a creature, killing one and leaving the other… changed? Guys, it’s called an American Werewolf in London so… you know it was a werewolf. Classic horror comedy with the transformation scene that changed cinema & the awards system forever… if you haven’t seen this movie, check it out! There are crazy things that I forget every time that I see it & never disappoints.
 
Rating – 10+/10 – See You Next Wednesday!
 
December 20 – Ballistic: Ecks vs Sever (2002)
 
Famously this is the movie with the most reviews on Rotten Tomatoes to have a 0% rating with the critics. It’s an action movie directed by Kaos (full name is Wych Kaosayananda) and starring Antonio Banderas & Lucy Liu as dueling assassins (technically FBI & DIA agents but… really?), who then have to work together when they find out there’s a bad guy… it’s trying to be the Matrix set in Vancouver with over the top techno music & explosions… and Ray Park shows up too.
 
Rating – 7/10 – I’ve definitely seen MUCH worse movies, so for this to be 0% on RT is pretty ridiculous… but I can also understand
 
December 22 – Disney’s Pinocchio (2022)
 
In order to keep up the copyrights on all their animated classics from (sigh) 80+ years ago, Disney is doing all the live-action remakes of their movies… and this one came out last year. Yes, it’s the tale of Pinocchio… from the director of Back to the Future & Forrest Gump, starring Tom Hanks, and the rest is mostly CGI so… yeah. Now, I had mentioned this a while back with “The Little Mermaid” earlier this year, there’s no reason for these to be a full two hours. The original was 80 minutes with credits and more than enough… but yeah, it’s nearly beat for beat with a few modern additions to… I don’t know… it doesn’t really build character as much as add color. It was… meh…
 
Rating – 6/10 – Just watch the original…
 
December 24 – Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio (2022)
 
So director GDT has been working on doing this for decades… and he was about ready to release this stop-motion movie upon the world about the time Disney was ready to do theirs. I’m pretty sure a conversation was had… and this movie was released (on Netflix) three months after Disney’s release (which flopped). Basically… this is a darker telling of the story, with creepier stop-motion animation, and being a del Toro movie… it begins & ends with death and talks about it constantly throughout. That being said… it’s pretty goddamn incredible & you should all check it out!
 
Rating – 10/10 – If you’re going to watch a Pinocchio movie, check this one out!

More to come, hopefully before 2024 catches up with us! Have a great weekend everybody!!!

​Steve