June Movies - Week 3

Good Afternoon Ladies & Gentlemen,

I tweaked my back a few days ago... but Izzy has been amazing & running her art shows solo. One positive of having back pain though... plenty of time to watch movies...

June 15 – Son of the White Mare (1981)
 
Watched this one during the Satanic Temple Movie Night… and it’s a beautifully animated Hungarian folktale about a horse goddess giving birth to three brothers who go into the underworld to save their princesses from dragons & reclaim their ancestors’ lost kingdom! Oh… and hijinx ensue. This was subtitled but you know, it’s a beautiful mythic tale and the animated is absolutely incredible. I can’t even tell you what style it is… just very impressionistic yet vibrant… and yeah, I’d recommend just checking it out & seeing it for yourself.
 
Rating – 9/10 – Stunningly beautiful… but I was dozing off at some spots… but I’ll blame the environment, after a long day at work
 
June 16 – Mom and Dad (2017)
 
I’m not sure if I already did this one when we talked about it last Nic-August Cage… but yeah, something is causing all parents (including Nic Cage & Selma Blair) to KILL THEIR CHILDREN… and hijinx ensue… especially when the grandparents get involved (Lance Henriksen) and it’s from Brian Taylor, one of the directors of the Crank movies & Gamer… obviously I love it.
 
Rating – 10/10 – May actually be a 10+ but I may get put on a list…
 
June 17 – Showgirls (1995)
 
Yes, I’m one of the record number of people who pre-ordered the Vinegar Syndrome 4k UHD release of the Paul Verhoeven classic “Showgirls” about an absolutely horrible woman named Nomi Malone (Elizabeth Berkeley) who moves to Las Vegas to become a famous dancer like… … well, I guess she’ll be the first? Along the way a magical best friend shows up the first hour she’s there to help her through (and ends up being violently raped) and hijinx ensue. Yes, the movie is… over-the-top crazy & every single line of dialogue within it is absolutely horrible like the main protagonist. However, it’s campy as f**k to watch… and makes perfect sense when it’s the Danish director who brought you things like RoboCop & Starship Troopers doing an escalated version of Joe Eszterhas’ script when they were both basically given a blank check to do what they want after the success of “Basic Instinct” & “Total Recall” or something.
 
Rating – 9/10 – I can’t give this a 10 based on the abhorrent dialogue… but this movie has a soft (and hard) spot in my heart
 
June 18 – Creed III (2023)
 
Yes, I’ve seen all the Rocky movies… lots of times… and I cried watching Creed II… I have a thing for daddy stories, sue me! So was I excited for Michael B Jordan to direct & star in this movie that I originally assumed was him going up against Clubber Lang’s grandson from Rocky III? Of course! Was I excited once I found out it was his buddy from the hood that’s been in jail for 15 years? Sure, I dig the Bernard Hopkins “coming into the game late” angle. Well, drama & hijinx ensues… and it’s a pretty decent boxing movie but… the drama was hard for me to grasp because… yeah, some stretches in logic were taken. Aside from that though, not bad at all.
 
Rating – 9/10 – Like most Rocky movies, the boxing scenes are great… the drama is lukewarm… but not bad in this case
 
June 19 – Avatar: The Way of Water (2022)
 
I tweaked my back the other day… so instead of helping with one of Izzy’s art shows, I had orders to rest up… so I finally had the 3.5 hours free to watch the 2nd Avatar (not the Last Airbender) movie. This picks up 15 years after the original story of a guy who had his consciousness transported into an alien clone to infiltrate the local alien tribes for human domination to mine Unobtainium (the more I try to explain the movie, the more ridiculous it sounds) but now he’s had children with Zoe Saldana alien & they’re teenagers… oh & Sigourney Weaver had an immaculate birth that is probably going to bring balance to the Force or the Matrix or whatever in one of the planned sequels… but in this one, there’s an alien clone consciousness transfer of the bad guy (Stephen Lang in original) and he wants revenge & wouldn’t you know it… now Earth wants the whole planet because Earth is dying… add a new sea tribe of aliens that live on Samoa… er, let’s face it… they’re Maori Na’vi with the exact same tattoos & war dance… and hijinx ensue. I wasn’t huge on the original & often refer to it as Dances with Smurfs… but it’s a simple story (with a bunch of convolutions) and it’s beautifully shot. This one has war whales.
 
Rating – 7/10 – No need for it to be 3.5 hours, not particularly excited for more sequels… but it was alright…
 
June 20 – The Old Way (2023)
 
Nic Cage’s latest is a Western where he’s a retired gunslinger who was the Devil incarnate… but he found a woman who changed him… and they have a daughter (Ryan Kiera Armstrong from “Firestarter”) and a gang comes through & rapes his wife to death… so now he & the daughter go after them… and come to terms with their lack of human emotions. Sounds like an intriguing premise… and I can’t say it’s a bad western… but the tone is a little all over the place. At times it’s a super serious western with suspense & drama… and you know, a woman being violently raped to death… and then you have Clint Howard being kicked in the nuts… or a two-minute monologue about apples from someone’s tree tasting like sh*t… and then done AGAIN. The tone is weird. The performances are stilted, though on purpose because the two main characters are explaining how they don’t have emotions or empathy… but it’s tough to pull something like this off.
 
Rating – 7/10 – It’s not the worst… Nic Cage is the best… maybe give it a watch if you’re into westerns…
 
June 21 – Wooooooo!!! Becoming Ric Flair (2022)
 
This documentary is the life story of one of the most charismatic wrestlers in history & his 50+ year career… including stops in a plane crash, being struck by lightning, highest highs, lowest lows, four wives, children overdosing, wise & unwise business decisions, all sorts of stuff…
 
Rating – 9/10 – I found the documentary interesting & learned about a bunch of stuff I had no idea about… and 70-something Ric Flair still has it…

Until next time! Have a great week everybody!!!

​Steve