The Electric State

The Electric State (Netflix)

The Electric State falls under historical fiction, a category of works where the past is reimagined due to a key event having a different outcome.  This results in an alternate timeline where things are both familiar and different at the same time.  In The Watchmen, America became an authoritarian state after Richard Nixon refused to leave office and won a third term as president.  The Man in the High Castle reimagined a post-WWII America where the Germans and the Japanese won and invaded the east and west coasts.  For The Electric State, problems ensue when the automatons originally developed by Walt Disney for his theme parks evolve into autonomous service workers and start taking people’s jobs.  We all knew that the “It’s a Small World” ride was evil, but this is ridiculous.

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Bridget Jone: Mad About the Boy

Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy

It was back in 2001 that Renée Zellweger first appeared in Bridget Jones’ Diary.  Thankfully, both return in fine form Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy, the fourth entry in what has become a franchise.  Both Zellweger and her character are still reliable sources of laughs as they ever were.  Hugh Grant’s Daniel Cleaver is still a relentless Lothario, but is slowed by heart issues.  Alas, Colin Firth’s Mark Darcy has passed on prior to this sequel, and appears only as an apparition that Bridget can see.  Although the movie is funny, Mark’s death gives this entry a melancholy tone, where the passage of time and the loss of a loved one grounds things more than a typical romantic comedy.

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A Working Man

A Working Man

Jason Statham: Monster Hunter.  That’s what stuck in my mind as I watched Statham do his punch-kick-shoot-stab thing in A Working Man, an entertaining movie that often feels generic and routine.  Although there are no literal monsters in this movie, the movie’s gothic touches and freakish villains imply what could have been, if the filmmakers had the nerve to take the story in the direction they apparently wanted to go.  Seeing Statham hunting and killing evil Russians is fine, but swap out those ordinary targets to vampires and werewolves and we’d be talking next-level badassery.

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The Order

The Order

There’s nothing more dangerous than a man of principle.  That man will sacrifice everything to advance his cause, his friends, family, his health and even his own life.  His unshakeable belief in his own righteous cause justifies every decision, no matter the cost or who pays it.  The Order tells the story of two such men, one an FBI agent, the other the leader of a white separatist faction.  Despite their distinct differences in age, background and life experience, the movie reveals that they’re actually sides of the same coin.  Before the movie arrives at that conclusion, it establishes that these men are destined to collide in violent fashion.

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The Day the Earth Blew Up

The Day the Earth Blew Up: A Looney Tunes Movie

The Day the Earth Blew Up is funny, visually inventive and, unlike Warner Brothers Discovery, honors the legacy of the Looney Tunes cartoons.  The movie is a testament to what hand-drawn animation can achieve when in the right hands.  Although 2025 is only three months old, this movie is already the front-runner for comedy of the year.  Highly Recommended. Continue reading The Day the Earth Blew Up: A Looney Tunes Movie