Always strive to learn something useful. --Sophocles

I just learned this and was quite surprised!

Which Bond movie also had TWO Avengers in it?!

Answer under the cut, and best of luck!
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The list:
12/28 Aquaman 2: The Lost Kingdom

11/24 The Marvels
11/4 Chariots of Fire (streaming rental)

9/9 Oppenheimer
The French Dispatch (DVD)

08/26 Barbie

07/25 Clerks 3 (DVD)
6/20 History of the World Part 1 (DVD)
6/17 Guardians of the Galaxy 3

5/28 Super Mario Bros Movie

2/23 The Amazing Maurice

I'm sure I watched more movies via streaming or in the theater, but this is all I logged. So this is all that I'll talk about. Movies are sorted by inverse order of when I saw them with the most recent on top.

Commentary under the count:
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I have to say, this movie brings a smile to my face just thinking about it. I love this film! It's pure, grade-B cheese, but I love it none the less. Sylvester Stallone, Wesley Snipes, Sandra Bullock, and Nigel Hawthorne?! How the hell did they get Nigel in a piece of schlock like this?!

Nigel, to American audiences, is best known for his portrayal of the title role in the film, The Madness of King George. Or, in England, The Madness of King George III, since they need to differentiate the different Georges over there. He also was the Permanent Private Secretary in the series(es?) Yes, Minister and Yes, Prime Minister, two other series that I absolutely loved.

As it happens, I read Nigel Hawthorne's biography, and it was a fantastic read. And he specifically wrote about Demolition Man. And he absolutely HATED the experience! It was, as I recall, his first experience making a Hollywood movie, and he couldn't believe the egos of Stallone and Snipes. Said it was the worst experience of making a film in his life. Sadly, he was only 72 when he died of AIDS 22 years ago.

But I'm here to rant about the movie, not one actor in it.

If you're a fan of this film, you really ought to read this article. It has lots of great bits and information on the making of it that you wouldn't have otherwise have learned, such as a link to the film Heathers, a tie to Schwarzenegger, and some interesting commentary to our current socio/political climate. One thing that I particularly liked about the film was the shots of the San Diego Convention Center: I used to go there for ComicCon but stopped 20 years ago when it just got too damn crowded.

If you like the film, B-movie that it is, read the article and tell me what you enjoy. If you don't like it, why did you read this far?

https://arstechnica.com/culture/2023/10/enhance-your-calm-demolition-man-turns-30/

Russet worked Saturday night. And one of our arrangements is that when she works, I scurry off to the movies and see things that she has zero interest in. And she does similar things when I'm at work.

And the new Nicholas Cage movie, The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent, was right there in my sweet spot and not hers!

I will not say the trailer says it all, because clearly it doesn't. But to reprise it a bit, Nick the actor is down on his luck and not getting the roles that he wants. He's not really getting any roles at all. He accepts a million dollar offer to go to a rich man's birthday party and make an appearance as he really, really needs the money. And it turns out the guy is a weapons dealer that the CIA wants Nick to get intel on.

And things get complicated.

It's a meta movie and I found it hilarious. I was laughing my butt off, and it was convenient that I was the only one in the theater. It's also very slashy, I can see fics appearing on AO3 about this. The thing that I find really cool it I'm not sure where the "reality" of the movie is and the meta part of the movie is.

This trailer is red band, i.e NSFW with explicit language.

Wow. Lot of fun! Now, it's a B-movie, but it had a surprising amount of interesting plot! My wife insists it continues from the 2014 movie, but I honestly don't remember it: there's been too many Giant Monster movies for me to keep straight. Including this Godzilla movie, there have been eight Godzilla movies released since 2000, though it's possible not all made it to the USA. Now add in the two Pacific Rim movies, Cloverfield, and you have lots of giant monsters destroying the coastal USA.

So I have no idea if THIS Godzilla is a good sequel to the 2014 Godzilla. But I'll take my wife's word on it.

Anyway, it does have a decent plot, and it's a good, fairly traditional Godzilla movie with LOTS of property destruction and giant monster throw-downs. If you like that sort of thing, you'll enjoy this. It still had plenty of stupid, but it did have plot.

The two of us had the theater to ourselves, so we got to do some MST3K snide commenting out loud! That was a lot of fun.

We set out to see the new Spider-Man movie, but literally at the last minute Russet had to do a task remotely for the observatory, and that was it for Spidey, which was at 9:00 as we got to the theater at 9:15. But Godzilla was at 9:30, so an excellent fall-back. Conveniently, they showed a new trailer for Spidey, which added some good info and pushed my wife from 'ambivalent' about seeing it to 'now wants to' see it. We might be able to catch it Sunday, we shall see what happens.

Rats. I really wanted to see it at least twice. Oh, well. That's the joy of having only one theater with 10 screens locally. Growing up in Phoenix and living there for so long really spoiled me for movie theaters, and they've practically doubled the number of screens in the 14 years that I've been gone!

But they've announced home video release dates: July 30 for cloud through Disney's new streaming stuff and August 13 for home physical media. I'm wondering if it'll be Blue Ray only, as long as the movie is. Apparently they're doing two versions, one that's just the movie and one with bonus material. Gee, I wonder which one I'll be getting!

And I'm DEFINITELY not signing up for Disney's streaming service!

Simply excellent. I'm so happy that the Puppies are feeling so hurt over it, they deserve to have their poor fragile egos squashed at every opportunity, and the amount of money this movie is taking in and their inability to make it fail just makes me feel all the better. It is the highest grossing March movie EVAH!

Brie was great, they did an excellent job of de-aging Fury and Colson. We learn some interesting things about the both of them. The first surprise footage in the end credits bears directly on the forthcoming Avengers movie, the second involves info on the very first Avengers movie! (and was somewhat predictable)

The kitty was awesome! And hilarious Stan Lee cameo! (somewhat subtle)

Definitely going to see it again at least once or twice.

LET'S HEAR IT FOR KICK-ASS SUPERWOMEN!

07/01 Incredibles 2
07/07 Ant Man and The Wasp
07/13 Coco (vod/v)
07/20 Queen of Katwe (vod)
07/21 Mamma Mia (vod/v,rw)
07/24 Mamma Mia Here We Go Again

08/10 Demolition Man (rw,v)
08/10 The Hobbit 1: An Unexpected Journey (rw,v)
08/11 The Hobbit 2: The Desolation of Smaug (rw,v)
08/12 The Hobbit 3: The Battle if the Five Armies (rw,vod)
08/14 LOTR 1: Fellowship of the Ring (rw,v)
08/15 LOTR 2: The Two Towers (rw,v)
08/16 LOTR 3: The Return of the King (rw,v)
08/20 Christopher Robin
08/24 The Spy Who Dumped Me
08/25 Run, Lola, Run (v,rw)
08/28 High Fidelity (v)
08/31 Inside Out (v,rw)

09/01 Johnny English (v,rw)
09/01 Johnny English Reborn (v,rw)
09/02 Spy Hard (vod,rw)
09/03 Happytime Murders
09/08 The Player (v,rw)
09/12 The Men Who Stare At Goats (v,rw)
09/13 Saving Mr. Banks (v)
09/14 Cowboys and Aliens (v,rw)
09/14 Magic Mike (vod)
09/20 How to be a Latin Lover (vod)
09/23 Hot Fuzz (v,rw)
09/29 Spy (unr, v,rw)
09/29 Zootopia (v,rw)
09/30 Shrek (v,rw)

Once again, my parenthetical codes are V if I have it on DVD or Bluray, and VOD if I saw it on Video On Demand. If I list both, I have it on disc but watched it on VOD because I was feeling lazy. RW is a rewatch

This brings my movies seen up to 56 as of the third quarter of 2018, so well beyond a movie a week. I just wish they were all new and seen in a theater, but that’s not going to happen up here! Only six of these 32 seen this quarter were in the theater, and of these 32, twelve were new to me. So just over a third were fresh, which is good! Only one foreign, Run Lola Run, and that was a re-watch as I finally got my wife to sit down and watch it with me. Excellent film, I gushed about it previously.

Comments under the cut with minimal spoilerage for the more recent films.
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Caught the last showing, and I think we picked the right night as we had the theater to ourselves!

I have taken to avoiding movie reviews for the most part. I can't avoid review headlines, and they've been largely negative. And I honestly don't see why. We both thought it was a pretty good movie. No, it wasn't the largely groundbreaking first movie - because the first movie broke that ground. DUH. Regardless, it had a good story, we got to see 1920s Paris, and it had lots of clever stuff in it.

After it was over, I asked my wife how many movies the series was supposed to be. I don't know whether or not she was joking when she said twelve. My thought was four felt about right. I looked it up on Wikipedia and originally it was planned for three but they're now going to go for five, and that feels comfortable for me.

In tone, it feels like one of the darker Harry Potter movies, and that's fine AFAIK. You know they have to have a 'rising of the Big Bad', otherwise they have no conflict in the future. They pull it off quite well, and no more shall be said about that.

Anyway, don't let the reviews hold you back: if you like the Potterverse or the first movie, definitely see this one. It's worth your time and money.

I had a hankering to see the 1998 Avengers movie, the movie based on the John Steed/Mrs. Peel British TV series, the movie that was REALLY bad. But it was bad in kind of a good way. Turned out it wasn't available on any of my streaming services, and I didn't want to pay a rental for it.

Found it at Zia Records, and with my credit on my account I paid $2 and got change back! I'm looking forward to popping some popcorn and watching Ralph Fiennes, Uma Thurman, and Sean Connery over-act in ridiculous ways. For less than $2, I think I got a good deal.

But that wasn't all!

I also got a Criterion edition of Hopscotch for $12! This is a great Walter Matthau movie based on a Brian Garfield book about a CIA agent who is put out to pasture and decides to get even by writing a tell-all book - not just about the CIA, but about EVERY intelligence agency! They all set out to kill him, but he's VERY good. The book is absolutely excellent, and one of the few page-turners that I've encountered recently. And a Criterion for $12?! And Garfield was involved in the screen play, so they did a good job implementing the book. I'm really looking forward to seeing it again. And Herbert Lom is in it! I love seeing him in movies, I don't recall seeing him in anything prior to the Peter Sellers Pink Panther movies (I was a teen then), but I really came to appreciate him as an actor.

But that wasn't all!

I ALSO found a copy of Rampage, on Blu-ray plus DVD plus digital, and for $12! I can't redeem the digital, which truly breaks my heart (did you notice the sarcasm there?), but I'm looking forward to showing it to my wife and watching the gag real and deleted scenes. I thought it was an excellent movie in the giant monster genre.

That's all. Just the three movies. I did find a copy of a Criterion edition of Wings of Desire by Wim Wenders, but I was restraining my spending. I can find that price pretty commonly, so it'll wait.