Ted Lasso Season 3

Ted Lasso – Season 3

At the end of last season, Ted Lasso (Jason Sudeikis) and AFC Richmond found themselves in an unexpected position as victors.  With a critical assist from assistant coach Nate Shelley (Nick Mohammed), they were promoted back into the Premier League, an achievement no one besieged Ted believed would happen.  When season three begins, the glow from that success has already worn off.  Nate quit the team in a huff and accepted Rupert’s offer to be the coach of West Ham.  Sports prognosticators have AFC Richmond finishing in last place.  Ted, as always, is comfortable with people underestimating him and his team.  He knows that predictions don’t win games, players do.  However, there’s the feeling that the club over-performed.  After doing the impossible, everyone is thinking, “Now what?”

Continue reading “Ted Lasso – Season 3”
Spider-Man Across the Spider-Verse

Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse

Spider-Man is back!  Which one?  I don’t blame you for being confused, what with so many Spider-People swinging around these days.  There were three Spider-Men in the previous Spider-Man movie, the live-action No Way Home.  2018’s animated Into the Spider-Verse had seven of them.  Across the Spider-Verse, a sequel to that film, includes so many Spider-People that your head will spin trying to count them all.  (Don’t worry, someone on Wikipedia is on the job.)  The key arachnids in this year’s Spider-Movie are Miles Morales (Shameik Moore), who stepped into the role when his Earth’s Spider-Man was killed by the Kingpin, and Gwen Stacy (Hailee Steinfeld), who is Spider-Gwen on her Earth.

Continue reading “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse”
The Boogeyman

The Boogeyman

As far as horror movie cold openings go, The Boogeyman has a brief yet effective one.  A toddler is crying in her crib while something that sounds like a wet bag of bones lets itself into her room.  A few seconds later, there’s a slashing sound, a spray of blood and the child is silent.  (The movie is rated PG-13, so nothing graphic is depicted throughout the movie.)  Who, or what, killed the child?  The answer to that question arrives soon enough, and to nobody’s surprise it is The Boogeyman.  

Continue reading “The Boogeyman”
The Sinner Season 4

The Sinner – Season 4 (2021)

In the fourth and final season of The Sinner, newly-retired Detective Harry Ambrose (Bill Pullman) and his girlfriend Sonya (Jessica Hecht) are vacationing in Hanover Island, Maine.  While she has been able to put the traumatic events of the previous season behind her, Harry has not.  He still feels guilty over killing Jamie (Matt Bomer), even though Harry did what he needed to do to protect his son Eli and Sonya.  Harry feels he should have taken a different course of action that would have resulted in a non-lethal outcome.  His nagging doubt makes it difficult for him to move on, even though he’s no longer an active law enforcement officer. 

Continue reading “The Sinner – Season 4 (2021)”
Nefarious Movie 2023

Nefarious

I want to sue the people behind Nefarious for fraud. This is not because something in the trailer wasn’t in the movie. No, Nefarious is fraudulent because the advertising campaign behind it implies that it is a horror movie, and it is not. At least not in the literal sense. The movie is actually a Christian pro-life diatribe in the guise of a horror movie. Maybe people who fall into that category believe in their hearts and minds that the topics discussed in this movie are horrific. If that’s true, then I guess there will be plenty of opportunities for them to shout “alleluia” and “amen” while they watch this movie. If the intent of the filmmakers behind Nefarious was to convert the unwashed, it fails completely due to the disgusting shots it takes at the other side. I don’t know what appeal this movie would have to those who consider themselves righteous, since it basically preaches to the already enraptured choir. While Nefarious is a well-made movie that features decent acting, competent direction and realistic sets, the argument it makes is pure lunacy, at least in the viewpoint of this lapsed Catholic. As if that weren’t enough, the movie features a shocking cameo at the end of the movie by a fringe media figure that left my jaw agape with utter disbelief. (As much as I want to, I refuse to spoil it. I have movie critic principles to uphold.) Not Recommended. Unless you’re morbidly curious, then have at it. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Continue reading “Nefarious”

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3

This is the end of the road for the Guardians of the Galaxy.  After pitching in to defeat Thanos and working as intergalactic mercenaries, the team has decided to hang up their guns and put down roots on Knowhere.  You remember Knowhere, right?  You know, the place that’s actually the severed head of a dead god.  The place where Thor gave the Soul Stone to the Collector (Benecio Del Toro) at the end of Thor: The Dark World for safekeeping.  The place Thanos destroyed after taking the Soul Stone from the Collector in Avengers: Infinity War.  The place with Howard the Duck.  Yes, MCU lore is dense.  Thirty-two movies into the MCU saga (thirty-three if you include this one), you either jump-ship or swim.  I’m still swimming, although the boat has been taking on water the last couple of years.

Continue reading “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3”
We're All Going To The Worlds Fair

We’re All Going to the World’s Fair

The internet is a place where things that are strange, stupid or both thrive like weeds.  In one corner you have TikTok, where members challenge themselves to do incredibly dangerous things like swallow a spoonful of cinnamon without drinking any water, punch unsuspecting people in the back of the head or construct a flamethrower from a lighter and an aerosol can.  In another corner there is the website Creepy Pasta, where the stories and videos of a fictional  being named the Slenderman influenced two teenage girls into murdering one of their friends.  (Luckily, she survived.)  We’re All Going to the World’s Fair considers what an intersection of those two worlds would look like, who would be interested in it, and what the ramifications would be.

Continue reading “We’re All Going to the World’s Fair”
The Super Mario Bros. Movie

The Super Mario Bros. Movie

In The Super Mario Bros. Movie, Mario (Chris Pratt) and Luigi (Charlie Day) are two working-class jamokes from Brooklyn who leave their steady jobs to start their own plumbing business.  When they reveal that they’ve put all of their savings into a corny-yet-catchy television commercial to promote themselves (with stereotypical “a-this and a-that” phrasings) I thought, these guys are living the American dream.  They should be commended for doing something so risky, given how most small businesses fail within the first year.  So when their own family openly derides the brothers at the dinner table for being idiots, I was a bit stunned.  Is this the message we really want the future business owners in the audience to hear?

Continue reading “The Super Mario Bros. Movie”