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- DirectorLilibet FosterStarsJai CourtneyAndy WhitfieldIndigo WhitfieldAs though life is imitating art, actor and sex-symbol, Andy Whitfield, had just become a star as the lead in the hit television series,'Spartacus,' when he is faced with his biggest personal challenge - life-threatening cancer. 'Be Here Now' is a feature documentary that follows him on his dramatic journey to cure himself. Confirmed in matching affirmative tattoos, he and his charismatic wife and their two children, commit to taking Andy's healing into their own hands and living life fully, not in the shadows of the disease. Each step tests their limits and strength of character, while revealing their tenderness, humor and determination. And, as each person goes through their own transformations, the film becomes an inspiring and universal story of courage, love and resilience.I've been watching and enjoying Starz' series "Spartacus" series. The pilot is a bit rough, with its cartoonish gore, excessive use of slow-motion, and overwrought dramatics; these things are essentially baked into a sword and sandals epic like "Spartacus", but the show finds a better balance of its pulpier elements swiftly, and it finds its voice in no small part due to charismatic lead Andy Whitfield.
After filming the first season, Whitfield was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin lymphoma and immediately went into treatment. Treatment was successful, and he went into remission, but shortly before he was to return to the show it was discovered that the cancer had relapsed. Treatment resumed, but a year after the relapse was discovered, Whitfield died, leaving behind a wife, Vashti, and two children.
"Be Here Now" was shot during this traumatic time, chronicling Whitfield's treatment and shortlived recovery, and the staggering toll the disease takes on his body. It is not an especially intimate portrait of the disease process, as the salient details are conveyed mostly in interviews with Whitfield and Vashti, yet still, when watching it, I felt as though I were intruding in a private moment of grief. - DirectorMark PirroStarsJim HanksRikki BrandoMonique ParentFast-food mogul Harry Buford serves up the best barbecued bunny sandwiches, and the hottest waitresses, in town. His only son, Jeeter, will inherit the empire only if he can overcome his life-long fear of women. When Buford offers $100,000 to the first of his sexy employees who can turn shy-guy Jeeter into a red-blooded he-man, the summer heat sizzles as Amber, Boopsie and Lauren pour on the charm in their efforts to win Jeeter's heart.cheap, gross misogyny from the USA channel's Up All Night era
- DirectorJoe JohnstonStarsChris EvansHugo WeavingSamuel L. JacksonSteve Rogers, a rejected military soldier, transforms into Captain America after taking a dose of a "Super-Soldier serum". But being Captain America comes at a price as he attempts to take down a warmonger and a terrorist organization.2/23 on demand. Formulaic, as Marvel movies are, but I like this one more on revisiting. Visually it is one of the studio's biggest departure from the its own house style, with warm colors and even a rousing musical number. Good performances by Evans, who's square hero is charmingly sincere and sweetly awkward, and Atwell, though she gets more the spotlight she deserves in the "Agent Carter" series. Plus you got Tommy Lee Jones.
- DirectorDwayne Carey-HillStarsBilly WestKatey SagalJohn DiMaggioPlanet Express sees a hostile takeover and Bender falls into the hands of criminals where he is used to fulfill their schemes.Futurama came to a proper close with "The Devil's Hands Are Idle Playthings", the finale of its fifth season. But Matt Groening and company weren't done with the Planet Express crew, bringing them back in four made for tv movies, then bringing the season back for 2 more seasons on cable. I have been rewatching the original run of the series. Probably should have waited a bit to delve further.
My reaction, then as now, was that the series did not especially cry out for resurrection, and that the continuation did not make an especially good case for it. The movies are episodic, like a handful of episodes spliced together, and so the story does not build but rather darts about here and there; and its a convoluted story, too, with lots of time travel and concomitant paradoxes. The villains, a trio of gross naked alien email scammers, lack much in the way of motivation, and though they willingly resort to violence to get what they want, it doesn't occur to anyone to respond in kind until toward the end, or indeed to do anything to try and stop them at all. Nor do the scammers bat an eye while our heroes go about with their usual shenanigans.
It may amount to a lot of fan service, but as a fan being serviced so, I did enjoy it a bit more than before. Really, I was glad just to see Fry happily reunited with his faithful dog Seymour. - DirectorPeter AvanzinoStarsBilly WestKatey SagalJohn DiMaggioThe Planet Express crew discovers a tentacle-covered, planet-sized alien that wishes to copulate with it all the inhabitants of Earth.
- DirectorDwayne Carey-HillStarsBilly WestKatey SagalJohn DiMaggioThe Planet Express crew get trapped in a fantasy world.I've said before that these movies are episodic, but this one barely bothers to tell a story at all, let alone a different one every thirty minutes. Here, Bender is determined to prove that he has an imagination, becoming obsessed with Dungeons and Dragons in the process. And a weird science thingie sucks everyone into his quarter-assed fantasy world, where they go on a generic quest that has no bearing on anything.
- DirectorMax McGillStarsSam PhillipsMyAnna BuringAlex FernsHot Property is an anarchic satire for 'generation rent'. An un-romantic comedy about love, greed and psychotic estate agents. Set amid London's deranged property market and self-parodying hipster culture.Tone-deaf millennial "satire"
- DirectorPeter AvanzinoStarsBilly WestKatey SagalJohn DiMaggioThe team visits New Vegas. Leela tries to save eco systems. Fry gets mind-reading abilities - useful at the poker championship. Bender has an affair with the robot mafia boss's wife. Can the team stop Wong's space "mini" golf project?When he gets a piece of jewelry lodged in his head, Fry discovers that he can read minds. A secret society of fellow mind-readers convinces him to save an emerging ecosystem from developer Leo Wong. Not nearly as awful as Bender's Game, but hardly great.
- DirectorPoul BangSidney W. PinkStarsBent MejdingAsbjørn AndersenPovl WøldikeAfter copper miners discover a piece of the frozen tail of a giant prehistoric reptile in Lapland, scientists inadvertently bring it back to life.on MST3K: The Return. This Danish kaiju pick is pretty odd, not a bad pick for the much awaited return.
- DirectorChris PrynoskiStarsPaul RuddPatton OswaltHannibal BuressThe story of two best friends whose dreams of success and stardom have fizzled, so they decide to become famous in one day - at all costs.Paul Rudd and Patton Oswalt voice two pathetic roommates eking out a squalid existence in the LA sprawl, scheming to somehow find success, or at any rate notoriety. This, the first feature from cartoon studio Titmouse, is a good showcase for their animation, but the story is aimless, and the free-floating misanthropy becomes grating.
- DirectorCourteney CoxStarsSeann William ScottOlivia ThirlbyGarret DillahuntOn the verge of giving up on life, a guy travels to his hometown to make amends.Sentimental drivel centered on a bunch of repugnant characters.
- DirectorSteven GoldmannStarsNichole HiltzLew TempleJeanette BroxSix troubled high schoolers and their leader become lost after their bus crashes during a raging storm. They seeks refuge for the night in an abandoned trailer park, managed by a sexy woman, Norma.Ugly, unpleasant, and cartoonish
- DirectorKelly ReichardtStarsMichelle WilliamsBruce GreenwoodPaul DanoSettlers traveling through the Oregon desert in 1845 find themselves stranded in harsh conditions.I was expecting a more plot driven movie, which is my mistake, as I know director Reichardt from her similarly quiet, ruminative drama "Old Joy". "Meek's Cutoff" is also a sort of travelogue, but the journey of a band of settlers across the desolate wastes of the American west is more rife with danger than the weekend camping trip from "Old Joy", naturally. Rather than creating a rousing spectacle, Reichardt the realist excels at capturing moments of quiet desperation. Desperate to lighten their load, the frontier wives toss clocks, furniture and valuables out the backs of their wagons. The big climactic set piece, such as it is, hinges on the simple yet perilous process of getting a wagon down the side of a hill. And for much of the film, the characters fret over their dwindling supply of water. It is a gorgeous looking movie. I may appreciate it more on revisiting sometime down the line.
- DirectorMatteo GarroneStarsSalma HayekVincent CasselToby JonesFrom the bitter quest of the Queen of Longtrellis, to two mysterious sisters who provoke the passion of a king, to the King of Highhills obsessed with a giant Flea, these tales are inspired by the fairytales by Giambattista Basile.ntflx streaming. A decidedly adult spin on Italian folk tales. Certainly a handsome production, but a bit cold, and the three tales are inter-edited somewhat distractingly.
- DirectorLee UnkrichAdrian MolinaStarsAnthony GonzalezGael García BernalBenjamin BrattAspiring musician Miguel, confronted with his family's ancestral ban on music, enters the Land of the Dead to find his great-great-grandfather, a legendary singer.Nflx streaming. This is a movie that is perhaps better knowing the twist. Top tier Pixar
- DirectorJames D.R. HickoxStarsDavid KeithVanessa AngelJohn Rhys-DaviesScientists create a genetically engineered sabretooth cat and must hunt it down after it escapes and begins eating innocent people.This Syfy channel schlock is truly bottom of the barrel stuff, pitting a nefarious geneticist and her greedy investor against their creation, a cloned sabertooth depicted with stiff puppetry and cartoonish CGI. Can our villains and hired huntsman David Keith subdue the big cat before it makes a meal of some dumb teenage hikers, including Lost's Josh Holloway? Find out, if you dare to waste an hour and a half.
- DirectorBrad BirdStarsTom CruiseJeremy RennerSimon PeggThe IMF is shut down when it's implicated in the bombing of the Kremlin, causing Ethan Hunt and his new team to go rogue to clear their organization's name.For my money the best of the series thus far. Watching it at home on demand is hardly as spellbinding as it was on an IMAX screen, but the big set pieces are all top notch. Cruise climbing the side of the Burj Kalifa with just a glitchy pair of magnetized gloves is Brad Bird's piece de resistance, but when it's over we don't get a moment to catch our breath, as the IMF team hurtles through the next daring set piece.
- DirectorJay Schlossberg-CohenStarsEric FosterMaurice GrandmaisonJohn TallmanPaul is a student whose family lives in an area surrounded by miles of wilderness where bigfoot sightings have become woven into local legend. After saving the creature's life, it gives Paul a magic pendant that can summon Bigfoot anytime.MST3KR. A very poor man's Harry and the Hendersons, which finds a young lad running away from boarding school after receiving word from his old friend Bigfoot that his father, a forest ranger, is in dire trouble. He hitchhikes to the forest where dad and his quick-to-laughter Indian chum are investigating a deadly animal attack with the unwanted help of a cocky big game hunter, that is, whenever they aren't laughing at the kooky antics of the raccoons and other strangely plentiful woodland creatures.
- DirectorGuillermo del ToroStarsRon PerlmanSelma BlairDoug JonesA prince of the mythical world starts a rebellion against humanity in order to rule the Earth. Hellboy and his team must fight to stop him from locating the all-powerful Golden Army.Superhero movies were largely regarded as a niche market way back when del Toro's Hellboy came out. Sure you had your Batman movies, Raimi's Spiderman franchise, and If someone could make a good Superman movie again people would've been into that, but other than that comic book movies were the province of geeks. But the same year as Hellboy II, a picture called Iron Man came out, and since then superheroes have been big business. And not just the old household names, but goofy characters like Ant-Man, and more obscure creations like Task Force X.
Del Toro's Hellboy was bit too far ahead of the curve, maybe. Maybe it was a bit too odd a mix for audiences at the time, and they didn't like getting Lovecraftian horror in their superheroics.
Anyhow, I loved this one at the time, but in retrospect it feels a mite too conventional, like a slightly more oddball marvel movie. I've been reading Mignola's comics, too, and having that basis for comparison may diminish the movies a bit as well. The comedy is a bit too broad here, which lessens the impact of the horror. In addition to Perlman's smart-mouthed take on the character, there's Seth MacFarlane doing a silly accent as an ectoplasmic BPRD agent. - CreatorCharlie BrookerStarsWunmi MosakuMonica DolanDaniel LapaineFeaturing stand-alone dramas -- sharp, suspenseful, satirical tales that explore techno-paranoia -- "Black Mirror" is a contemporary reworking of "The Twilight Zone" with stories that tap into the collective unease about the modern world.watched "Nosedive" and "USS Callister". I would add the episodes individually, but imdb is seemingly bent on making the list feature, like the rest of the site, less and less user-friendly, so why bother
- DirectorChristopher McQuarrieStarsTom CruiseRebecca FergusonJeremy RennerEthan and his team take on their most impossible mission yet when they have to eradicate an international rogue organization as highly skilled as they are and committed to destroying the IMF.Rogue Nation has the series' breakneck pacing down pat, but McQuarrie, though a capable enough director, can't match the peerless eye of Ghost Protocol's Brad Bird, still the franchise's high water mark.
- DirectorIb MelchiorStarsPreston FosterPhilip CareyMerry AndersIn 1964, a group of scientists create a portal that takes them to a barren, mutant inhabited, Earth in the year 2071.MST3KR. My favorite thus far from the revival. Three scientists and a dorky janitor fall through a time portal and wind up in a future populated by mutants and androids.
- DirectorKiyosumi FukazawaAtsuo OkunakaStarsReiko TokunagaHiroko SaitoMasaaki KajiA woman and her two children are accidentally cryopreserved and awaken at a time when apes dominate the planet.From the second season of MST3K, a lousy bargain-bin Planet of the Apes ripoff for Japanese TV. Two schoolchildren and their minder are touring a cryogenic lab when an earthquake hits, and they wind up getting thawed out in a future populated by fascist ape police. Also, there's a flying saucer buzzing around for reasons that never become clear. I'm going to have to pace myself a bit more on this show, because I seem to get tired of it when I'm watching every day.
- DirectorBrian LevantStarsJohn GoodmanRick MoranisRosie O'DonnellIn a parallel modern-day Stone Age world, a working-class family, the Flintstones, are set up for an executive job. But they learn that money can't buy happiness.Inexplicable attempt to bring Hanna and Barbera's caveman variation on The Honeymooners to the big screen spares no expense on that account, and nevertheless looks distractingly cheap. Amblin brought dinosaurs to startling life just a year before with Jurassic Park, but the special effects work here isn't aiming for that high bar, its running the fool's errand of "bringing the cartoon to life". In this empty exercise of nostalgia, does it matter whether or not they succeed?
- DirectorRon ClementsJohn MuskerStarsAnika Noni RoseKeith DavidOprah WinfreyA waitress, desperate to fulfill her dreams as a restaurant owner, is set on a journey to turn a frog prince back into a human being, but she has to face the same problem after she kisses him.Boilerplate Disney princess stuff