Happy New Year 2025!!!

Good Afternoon Ladies & Gentlemen,

Well, another year has come & gone... 2024 is finally over but 2025 is here now... and he/she/it ain't f**king around... so prepare yourself... by watching movies, I guess?

December 27 – Beetlejuice Beetlejuice (2024)
 
Yes, the sequel some 37 years after the original… and they bring back most of the original cast (Keaton, Ryder, O’Hara) and add some new faces (Jenna Ortega and Monica Bellucci) and… okay, the story is kind of whatever. Basically the father dies (wasn’t asked back & you probably know why) and the family is reunited there… and Lydia has a ghost talk show or something… and her daughter is at boarding school… and the mom is still insane… and drama ensues when the daughter is tricked into giving up her life for a cute boy ghost next door and… you’ve seen the latest Ghostbusters & how dumb that was, right? Yeah… more of that… but meanwhile Beetlejuice is being chased by his ex-wife… and hijinx ensue. I don’t know… this one didn’t grab me at all. Yeah, there are funny & nostalgic moments but… everybody sucks in this movie. You know, the characters I mean… and the whole thing didn’t make sense… but still waiting for the next great Tim Burton movie since Sleepy Hollow…
 
Rating – 7/10 – Just kinda meh…
 
December 28 – AfrAId (2024)
 
A family tests out a new AI home assistant system… and hijinx ensue as it always does. That’s the story. Sound familiar? Well, this one has John Cho (Harold & Kumar) as the dad… and the AI starts off as kinda good at first… but then as it develops he finds out the sinister truth behind it… and guys, I’m going to try not to spoil it in case you want to watch it but… liberties are taken with reality towards the 3rd act. The whole movie comes off as kind of a scare piece for AI (which it should be) but at the same time it’s to the level of Reefer Madness being a scare piece for weed… it starts with AI becoming a vengeful friend & escalates from there. Again, just didn’t grip me… but decent performances & such.
 
Rating – 7/10 – Guys, why invite one of these narcs into your home?
 
December 29 – The Last Man on Earth (1964)
 
2025 we’re celebrating the Year of the Apocalypse on the podcast… and a pretty important post-apocalyptic movie in the history of cinema is when Vincent Price was the last man on earth, living in an empty Rome, going door to door slaying zombie-vampires or something & then realizing that he might not be the last person on Earth… and hijinx ensue. This movie is a classic for so many things… post apocalyptic movies with real thought behind it… introducing zombies in a way to the movie masses (though they’re called vampires but… I mean, watch the movie) and just bringing up interesting points in a sixty year old movie that somehow resonate differently after 2020… but will it still grip Steve after all these years?
 
Rating - ???/10 – Find out on Everything I Learned from Movies with a first-time guest, artist & podcaster Steve Stones!!!
 
December 30 – Bad Boys: Ride or Die (2024)
 
The 4th installation of the Bad Boys universe (but unfortunately they ruined the title Bad Boys 4 Life with the 3rd installation because they had NO idea it was going to be a hit?) starts off with Will Smith & Martin Lawrence STILL as Miami’s most amazing cops even though they’re both in their late-50’s/early 60’s? Spoilers… Martin Lawrence has a heart attack… then somebody tries to smear the name of their deceased former captain (Joey Pants) and then… I swear Will Smith had a heart attack too… but they say panic attack… and then they’re framed for shenanigans & hijinx ensue as they must then become fugitives to clear names. Look… this is an action movie & it delivers on that… over the top set pieces, lots of camera movements, explosions, one-liners, Michael Bay even has a cameo since it’s basically the next generation of him directing it… but does that style hold up?
 
Rating – 8/10 – I really enjoyed it being a fan of the genre… but it’s all stuff that you’ve seen before so can be tedious… Reggie gets his respect though…
 
December 31 – Red One (2024)
 
Santa has been kidnapped by terrorists or something from his North Pole compound… and now his elvish head of security (The Rock) needs to join forces with the hacker that helped the terrorists (Captain America) and hijinx ensue… Now… you know this is going to be a dumb action movie with plenty of attempted humor for the kids. If you go in with that frame of mind… you know, the whole “movie gotta movie” and “oh yeah, of course that’s totally a thing, enough said” mentality… it can be entertaining. Plenty of Christmas gags, just ‘roided out & over the top is you would expect in… basically a Christmas superhero movie. I would say that there are twists & turns… but again, it’s mostly just the whole “Oh yeah… I guess in a world where that’s a thing, it makes sense that’s what happened from the beginning, had I known such a thing was possible like everybody else seems to know” but would I recommend watching it?
 
Rating – 7/10 – Sure, why not? Honestly… I’m forgetting a lot of this movie already other than JK Simmons as Santa & the waitress from Sunny in Philadelphia was in this

Have a happy & safe New Year's tonight & we're all looking forward to seeing you in 2025!!!

​Steve & Izzy