Incredibles 2
Genre: Action, Superhero
Release Date: June 15, 2018
 
     As a huge fan of the first one, I was hopefully, yet skeptical, this movie would live up to it. I won’t say it was better than the first, but it was certainly on par and just as good, though in a different way. There are many similarities between the two films in terms of what the family was dealing with personally. The parents were dealing with the balance of wanting to be superheroes and the reality they would need to get normal boring jobs. Violet was dealing with learning how to deal with boys, and Dash…well Dash didn’t have really anything going on here. The baby was cute and the developing of his powers was fun. Especially his scene with the racoon. Bob Odenkirk was great as the villain, but it reminded me of his Saul character. It was fun to see more superheroes introduced and the fact many of them were silly made it much better. That was one of the best parts of The Tick and worked well here.
     Like most Pixar sequels, there was nothing new offered. It wasn’t really a rehash, but it didn’t push the envelope of what the characters experienced. Monsters University was about as close as Pixar came to pushing in the past which that wasn’t as well received, and based on the Incredibles 2 box office, they made the right decisions in keeping it consistent.
 
Rating: 9
Rewatchability: High
 
 

Genre: Action, Comedy, Horror
Release Date: October 2, 2001
 
     The first Tremors was good, but I guess the worm thing was played out by the time they got to the second one because they decided to up the ante and make little above ground monsters than ran around like short fat ostriches and had them use heat instead of sound to “see” people. Well, that was cool, but the writers for part three knew they needed to take it further and not rest on their previous merits. But what to do? What could possibly be better than the previous monsters. Two words, Ass Blasters. That’s right. Take the two-legged guys, make them have wings and give them the ability to blast off by using their ass as a rocket. It is both ridiculous and glorious at the same time. You can’t watch a Tremors movie and hope for deep meaningful dialogue, but you can expect Michael Gross shooting crazy monsters and that is what you get in part three and you get it with abundance. This movie was fun from start to finish. It didn’t quite live up to the first one, but was better than the second. I want to also point out the CGI was a bit rough, but they did an excellent job with the practical effects.
 
Rating: 7.5
Rewatchability: Moderate-high
​

Genre: Documentary
Release Date: June 8, 2018
 
“Love is at the root at everything, all learning, all relationships, love or the lack of it.”
 
     One of the most heartwarming documentaries I have and am sure will ever see. The question everyone always has is whether Fred Rogers was really that good of a guy. There must be some seedy underbelly to him, right? Well apparently, not. What you see is what you get with Fred Rogers and it is inspiring. The cynic in me wants to believe everyone is jaded, but Mr. Rogers was a loving man who devoted his entire life to teaching kids how to be better humans. The doc highlights how he purposely made specials to address current issues such as Bobby Kennedy’s assassination and the Challenger explosion. He wanted kids to know how to maneuver through life’s challenges. He was walking the fine line between talking to children in ways a child could understand, but not talking to them like a child, if you know what I mean.
     Fred cared about love and wanted everyone to find love in their hearts for our fellow man. We can disagree and feel differently about subjects, but everyone deserved the right to be loved for the uniqueness of their person. Our politicians and society today could stand to learn from that and so can I. I have not been moved by a documentary this much in a long time.
 
Rating: 143
Rewatchability: Moderate

Genre: Comic Book, Action, Super hero
Release Date: February 16, 2018
 
     A lot has been made about how this movie caters to the underserved black community, but I think that doesn’t do the film proper justice. Calling this film a good “super hero” movie is a bit of an injustice as well. I won’t go so far as calling it a masterpiece or some other hyperbole, but this was a damn good movie with a quality story, great directing, good visuals, and fantastic acting performances.  When it comes to great films, we expect them to either reinvent or at the least elevate the genre or sub-genre it falls in. I won’t say Black Panther reinvented the super hero movie by itself since the Marvel Cinematic Universe has been doing just that for a while, but it did change how companies will approach smaller characters, how they will focus on minorities and the filmmakers they hire to make minority driven films. With Wonder Woman and Black Panther significantly overperforming and having been directed by a woman and an African-American, we will start to see more like them. In addition to changing how these types of movies are approached, Black Panther certainly elevated super hero movies with its story telling. AS I said, Marvel has been doing stuff like this for a while, but this movie’s story telling rises above the rest.
 
Rating: 9
Rewatchability: High 
​

Genre: Action, Adventure, Fantasy
Release Date: July 29, 1983
 
     I’m not sure how many times I saw this in the theater back in ’83, but I know it was a lot. I loved this movie and video game and was enthralled be the special Frisbee knife known as the Glaive. So, the question stands, will I still like it as much 35 years later? Luckily the answer is yes! From the moment it starts you know it is a 1980s action/fantasy and it gives you everything you would want from one of those. Pretty bad fight scenes (at least by today’s standards)? Check. And old man from the mountains coming down to help? Check. CGI that didn’t age well? Check. A damsel in distress, a young king, a quest for the ultimate weapon? Check, check, and check. That makes it sound like a Legend of Zelda movie, which I guess it kind of is. The movie also has some excellent quotes. Two of my favorites are “Short in stature, tall in power, narrow of purpose, and wide of vision,” and “Fame? Nah. It's an empty purse. Count it, go broke. Eat it, go hungry. Seek it, go mad!” Not to mention, it has Liam Neeson who has a “special set of skills” and Rubeus Hagrid (Robbie Coltrane) who is half giant, so you knew they would win.
     I know there is at least an extra point in the rating because of nostalgia, but it is still a great movie.
 
Rating: 8
Rewatchability: Moderate 
​

Genre: Drama, Horror
Release Date: June 8, 2018
 
     You ever walk in on some people laughing and when they tell you why they are laughing you don’t find it funny and then they say you had to be there? Well, I was there for this, and I still don’t get why everyone seems to like this movie so damn much. It was terrible. While I will admit there are a few interesting horror scenes, they were few and far between. I can get behind a well down slow burn horror, but this was glacier slow. Some of the acting was good, but most was over the top. People seem to believe Toni Collette gave an amazing performance and some are calling it Oscar-worthy, but it was so over the top, I see no way that could happen. The boy could damn near qualify for a Razzie, and his crying was jokingly bad.
     This movie made me long to see the train wreck that was Taffik again, or even better go play in traffic and end the suffering.
 
Rating: 1
Rewatchability: Never

Genre: Action, Drama
Release Date: July 27, 2017
 
     I wasn’t sure what to expect from this since I went into it blind. I only chose to watch it since it was one of only 5 I have left to see from the all-time top 100 box office. I did enjoy this though. To me it seemed like a Chinese Rambo movie in a way, but tried much harder to be a good drama and was a little less outrageous in the action. I say a little less, because some of the action here was pretty ridiculous and unbelievable, but in a good way since that is exactly the type of thing you want in a film like this. For example, let’s say you wanted to save some people (including kids) in a hospital. Would you just jump your SUV halfway into said hospital with no warning and no idea where you were going to land? Apparently if you are fighting a rebellion in Africa that is precisely what you do! There was a fair amount of stuff like that and it was a fun time which is all you can ask for from a film like this. I will say the drama was a bit better than a normal movie in this category, but the acting wasn’t always the best.
 
Rating: 7
Rewatchability: Low 
​

Genre: Action, Horror, Comedy
Release Date: April 9, 1996
 
     Overall, this was a nice sequel and what one would expect from a franchise about giant man-eating prehistoric worms that love terrorizing small remote desert towns.
     I wouldn’t call the first movie exactly serious, but this one was a big step away from whatever seriousness that one had. Tremors 2 had the sole purpose of being a horror-comedy, though it is only horror in the slightest of sense. It reminds me of the Evil Dead series which starts off with a more serious horror movie, only to move to more comedy with each film. This reminds me I should rewatch those movies.
     This wasn’t as good as the first one in my opinion, but it was a decent monster B-movie. I did like how they introduced a new Graboid in this one, though I’m not sure I loved what they introduced. It was a little odd that they tried to introduce so many new attributes with the one creature though. Adding heat sensing, legs, jumping, and weird quick reproduction seems like a bit much to introduce and it seems like they tried a bit too hard.
     I am a long-time horror and creature movie fan and I always prefer practical effects (though I do see the reason for modern CGI effects in some movies) and they went away from that a few times here. This was made in 1996 which wasn’t exactly a hotbed of great CGI tech and a few times in this film, that lack of tech really showed. I can’t remember how it would have compared back then, but it was pretty bad by today’s standards.
 
Rating: 7
Rewatchability: Moderate

Genre: Documentary
Release Date: 2016
 
     This movie hits me in a personal way that most docs can’t. The film is about a teenage boy who is transgender and his transition from female to male as well as how his family handles the transition. I am a father of a teenager who is transitioning from a female to male and many of the same things this young man went through are things that my son is going through now. I don’t think I can give the film an objective review, but I will say it is very good and I think if someone saw it without a personal connection they would find it enjoyable, provided they are not anti-transgender. Since the movie also spent a decent amount of time showing what the family goes through, it helped me get some insight in to how others have dealt with it. While I don’t think this woman handled it well at all, it does highlight how hard having a child transition can be. It is not even comparable to what the child goes through, but it has pretty tough challenges including some I didn’t really expect.
 
Rating: 8
Rewatchability: Low (it is too emotionally draining for me)

Genre: Action, Sci-Fi
Release Date: June 1, 2018
 
     This was flat-out the best action movie to come out so far this year and one of the best in a long time. I was a huge fan of Saw when it came out and Insidious was solid horror fare. I even liked Dead Silence, so I would consider myself a Leigh Whannell fan. He outdid himself this time. I wouldn’t say I enjoyed it more than when I watched Saw for the first time since that movie was unbelievable and horror was always my first love. That said, this movie blended the sci-fi and action genres better than has been done it quite some time. While the sci-fi isn’t as strong as something like Terminator, the action scenes are far superior. Whannell’s direction and the fight choreography by Chris Weir changed what I will expect from a movie like this and will likely inspire many copycats. Much like the Bourne style shows up in everything. I’m not even sure the Bourne movies started that trend, but that goes to show how things spread and end up quite similar when something strikes a chord.
     It is a bit of a shame how few people saw this on opening weekend, but as I was leaving the theater every other group of people were talking about how awesome it was. I expect that if this doesn’t have good box office legs, it will end up a cult favorite in the action genre.
 
Rating: 9.5
Rewatchability: Very high
​