January Movies - Week 3

Good Afternoon Ladies & Gentlemen,

Another busy week... and included an emergency pulpectomy leading to future root canal... perfect way to start a certain four-year timeframe... so here are some movies we saw...

January 17 – Robin Hood: Men in Tights (1993)
 
One of the greatest musical comedies ever constructed… if you haven’t seen it, then you probably weren’t alive in the 90’s… watch it!!!
 
Rating – 10+/10 – I remember seeing this in theatres when it came out… no regrets watching it a few dozen/hundred times in my life
 
January 18 – Joker: Folie a Deux (2024)
 
Alright, so the first “Joker” made a billion dollars back when movies made a billion dollars pretty regularly… so director Todd Phillips was given a blank check for the sequel that he didn’t want to do… and he decided to do “Natural Born Killers: The Musical” and EVERYONE WAS SURPRISED THAT NOBODY WANTED THAT FOR JOKER 2?!? HOW?!? That being said… I didn’t like the first “Joker” really… it was meh at best… but now I simply HAD to see the sequel (as long as I wasn’t paying for it). It was… … … okay. Look, if you go in expecting a superhero movie, or even an anti-hero movie… you’re going to be disappointed. The movies are more character pieces… and this one is a glimpse into the mind of a deranged sociopath & his deranged sociopath girlfriend who may or may not exist (like the first movie? Spoilers? Though not really?) and hijinx ensue. Did I enjoy the movie? Not really… there was a lot of… sigh… why make this movie 2.5 hours when you’re purposely drawing out for runtime? There are definitely some good, interesting moments & scenes but…
 
Rating – 6/10 – Really seemed like Todd Phillips has earned his money & now only wants meager funding for his future projects
 
January 19 – Pale Rider (1985)
 
This is a Clint Eastwood western about a family being run off their gold panning property by outlaws working for the rich man who owns everything else in town… so the daughter prays to God for some help… and along comes a preacher to help out (Eastwood) but… he may have some history that could come back to haunt them. Okay… spoilers… he’s a ghost? He’s like… I don’t know… Spawn sent back from the dead to help this family & exact vengeance on the man who wronged him… so like a fighting angel in a western… but honestly, I was okay with this movie. I had never seen it before & it’s all the usual western tropes… and then towards the end of act two you start thinking “Wait… are they really going with this angle? The angel angle?” Michael Moriarty is the… I don’t know boyfriend of the woman who owns the gold panning property & he’s good… and yeah, lots of the usual suspects from other westerns… did it hit?
 
Rating – 8/10 – Not bad but… yeah, just kind of a weird twist on an otherwise typical western
 
January 20 – Cannonball! (1976)
 
So after Death Race 2000 came out in 1975 & was a pretty big hit… Roger Corman & David Carradine did a few more of these “Underground Race Across America” movies… and Cannonball here was the next one, though set in modern day where Death Race was a more dystopian not-too-distant future setting… and in case you’re wondering YES, the Cannonball run movies came out afterwards in ’81 & ’84 (HACKS!!!). This movie though… was basically your standard fare with soup-up cars, really one-note characters, a van full of ladies who get topless, corrupt cops & officials, DC being the infallible leading man, all kinds of shenanigans & a lot of dumb fun. Perfect movie? Oh of course not… there’s a LOT of rough edges & pointless nonsense to fill the 90 minutes… but was it fun?
 
Rating – 7/10 – It was okay… seemed like a cash-grab carbon-copy of Death Race 2000 but without the over-the-top stuff
 
January 21 – Legend of Billie Jean (1985)
 
The story of a cute Texan girl Billie Jean (Helen Slater) who gets sexually assaulted by a local business owner, so her brother (Christian Slater, though no relation) shoots him… and then they’re on the run from the law... with overnights at abandoned amusement parks & sheriff Peter Coyote smelling something wasn’t exactly ethical about the situation… and hijinx ensue when all the youth of the Gulf Coast see Billie Jean as some sort of Joan of Arc… or let’s face it… guys, this movie is basically the story of Luigi shooting CEO Brian Thompson… but in the 80’s & instead of the business owner dying, he lives to confess Murder She Wrote style and there’s a happy (though confusing) ending. It is NOT a great movie. In fact, I think they forget halfway through if there was supposed to be a point to the movie but… eh, how do I rate it?
 
Rating – 7/10 – Would love to talk in depth on the podcast about this one but… it’s a boggler
 
January 22 – Snake Eater (1989)
 
Lorenzo Lamas is a Marine (apparently the name refers to his elite squadron) but now he becomes a cop… and when his parents are killed in a “boat accident” where we see it’s backwoods hillbillies that blew up their boat & kidnapped his sister… he looks for answers… and finds hijinx. This is a dumb late 80’s action movie obviously… and it ends in vigilante justice (but hey, when the justice system isn’t there to help…) and everything is pretty ridiculous… and after watching five seasons of “Renegade” this is just like a special episode of it with slightly more rape… so what’s the score?
 
Rating – 6/10 – Podcast worthy… there are some insane leaps of faith that you have to take… but what do you expect from a movie called “Snake Eater”?
 
January 23 – The Equalizer 3 (2023)
 
After a vigilante justice event goes sideways at the beginning of the movie, Robert (Denzel Washington) has basically decided to retire in a beautiful town on the Amalfi Coast… but wouldn’t you know it, the Mafia is there & trying to strongarm his newfound neighbors… and hijinx ensue. The scenery is beautiful, the action scenes are pretty good for featuring a man in his late 60’s, it’s obviously violent so be warned about that… but yeah, if you liked the first two movies you’d like the 3rd…
 
Rating – 8/10 – At least it’s easy to look at…

We're going to make it through this... somehow!

​Steve