Killerman (2019) A New York City money launderer desperately searches for answers after waking up with no memory, millions in stolen cash and drugs, and an insane crew of dirty cops violently hunting him down.

🎬 Meh. Dark and gritty and very forgettable. Slightly confusing as well. It’s not technically bad it just lacks overall - refusing to be original or stand out in any way.

Extremity (2018) A young woman with a severely troubled past signs up for an extreme haunt called Perdition. She believes that putting herself through Perdition's nightmarish trials will help her exorcise her internal...

🎬 Not sure why this has so many negative reviews. It’s not groundbreaking or anything but it is a novel plot (yes there are holes) pulled off with enough competence to make it very watchable (although the last minute was kind of dumb but not enough to ruin it).

Book of Evil (2018) Stan Harris is a procrastinating horror novelist who gets a call from his publisher warning him that he's only got until the end of the night to complete his latest work. As paranormal events start un...

🎬 Anthology with a low score that isn’t low enough to make it fun bad. The stories got marginally better as they went but just not good overall.

The Beldham (2024) At the edge of postpartum psychosis, new mother Harper moves in with her own mother at their family's rural farmhouse. Soon she finds herself hunted by a threatening monster who has designs on her chi...

🎬 I got most of the twist 30 minutes in. Overall doesn’t make much sense. Was just ok - would have been better as a drama I think.

Blood (2022) Jess, a newly separated mother and nurse, moves into her old family farmhouse with Tyler, her teenage daughter, and Owen, her eight-year-old son. One night, the family dog senses something in the wood...

🎬 This was just ok. I expected more somehow. The weak point was the story. The mother, even though she works in the medical field, has zero intellectual curiosity about what is happening to her son to try and fix it, rather than just treating the symptom. I just can’t buy that and it lost me.

Alien Shark (2022) When Aleesha's friends throw her a military deployment party on an island, a meteor crashes into the dunes and a massive alien shark targets the beach. Now, Aleesha must fight back to save them and th...

🎬 Batshit insane and nonsensical. Makes absolutely zero sense. Just pure head scratching inane fun.

Killer Whale (2026) Follows best friends Maddie and Trish as they find themselves trapped in a remote lagoon with the dangerous killer whale named Ceto.

🎬 It’s a bad green screen remake of The Shallows by a scriptwriter who isn’t good enough to only have 1 character. Too good to be bad fun, so it ends up just being awful.

M3GAN 2.0 (2025) After the underlying tech for M3GAN is stolen and misused by a powerful defense contractor to create a military-grade weapon known as Amelia, M3GAN's creator Gemma realizes that the only option is to ...

🎬 I wasn’t terribly impressed with the first one but this one is a whole lot of fun. They scrapped horror for action and did it pretty well.

Father's Day (2011) Ahab, a man obsessed with exacting a brutal, violent revenge on the man who murdered his dad, joins John, an eager priest, and Twink, a hot-headed street hustler, on an epic quest to find and defeat t...

🎬 Grindhouse wannabe that is tonally uneven and has sections of obvious crappy green screen. It has some laughs but overall isn’t good enough to pull off what it wants to do.

Manborg (2011) The evil Count Draculon and his army of demons have conquered Earth, but a young soldier who lost his life in the first war against Hell has reawakened in the future as MANBORG! Together with a crew o...

🎬 Ok idea but awful execution, the entire thing is green screen and watching the jerky washed out images is exhausting. So it wears thin quickly.

PG: Psycho Goreman (2020) Siblings Mimi and Luke unwittingly resurrect an ancient alien overlord. Using a magical amulet, they force the monster to obey their childish whims, and accidentally attract a rogues’ gallery of inter...

🎬 Fun comedy sci-fi thing from the director of the new Deathstalker. Very throwback and very fun while being totally terrible and silly. Dude loves his practical effects.

🎬 On first viewing it’s not bad at all. But when it settles, you see missed opportunity for commentary. You see overly dramatic bits followed by a killing - rinse repeat. You see holes in the world building. All adding up to something only average.
Shame.

Cutting the Arts from schools was a serious mistake that has been to the detriment of going on 3 generations of students. Music helps tremendously with math. Seen the math scores recently for Americans? The state of our schools is a crime. Get rid of the goddamn tech and bring back music and art.

Mr. Holland's Opus (1995) In 1965, passionate musician Glenn Holland takes a day job as a high school music teacher, convinced it's just a small obstacle on the road to his true calling: writing a historic opus. As the decades...

🎬 Absolutely phenomenal if a bit schmaltzy.
Shame Richard didn’t get his second Oscar. Certainly as worthy a performance as Nicholas Cage. Flash vs nuance. (Frankly it’s a more mature superior performance to his Goodbye Girl win)

continued...

Lost in Yonkers (1993) In the summer of 1942 two young boys are sent to stay with their stern grandmother Kurnitz and their childlike aunt Bella in Yonkers, New York.

🎬 A Neil Simon written piece of misery with very little comedy inside. No one here is particularly likable. Everyone is miserable all the time. I mean it was well made and decently acted but it was not a fun watch. Just 2 hours of people being unpleasant to each other basically.

The Buddy System (1984) A school truant officer uncovers a young boy's attempt to fake his residential address and subsequently befriends the kid and his mother.

🎬 It’s serviceable and that’s about it. It’s a perfectly acceptable watch and Dreyfuss and Sarandon do just fine but it’s not special in any way. It’s a generic romantic comedy where the kid sets up his mom and the normal hijinks ensue with a totally predictable story and ending.

Nolte on the other hand plays his part so indifferent that you can't glean any motivations. Is he a sociopath? Is he just clueless? Is he crazy? Unknown, so the ending really makes damn near no sense at all. It just doesn't work for me. However it did gangbusters box office.

Down and Out in Beverly Hills (1986) Beverly Hills couple Barbara and Dave Whiteman find their lives altered by the arrival of a vagrant who tries to drown himself in their swimming pool.

🎬 Didn't like this in the 80's and not a huge fan now. It's not funny enough to be called a comedy but it's also not a drama. It isn't really social satire either.
Anyway, it's ok if you go in with no expectations. Dreyfuss does his best as does Midler.

continued...

John Badham crafted a poignant film here only to completely switch gears to Blue Thunder after - his career is wild. There is an absolutely lovely black and white ballerina memory sequence that is pure art and love of form. Just beautiful.

Whose Life Is It Anyway? (1981) Ken Harrison is an artist that lives to make sculptures. One day he is involved in a car accident, and is paralyzed from his neck down. All he can do is talk and move his head, and he wants to die. Wh...

🎬 Dreyfuss was so drugged he has no recollection of even making this film - however his performance is fantastic - funny and warm but with an understandable undercurrent of dark anger and sadness. Must be difficult to act without being able to move but he is tonally perfect throughout.

continued...

The subplot of the Russian defector is silly but necessary so easily forgiven.
My issue is I really don’t like classical music and don’t really appreciate the actual piano work, so I wish there was less of it and more of the love affair which worked so well.

The Competition (1980) The movie centers on a piano competition whose winner is assured of success. It is Paul's last chance to compete, but newcomer Heidi may be a better pianist. Can romance be far away? Will she take a d...

🎬 Amy Irving and Dreyfuss make a really good looking couple and their chemistry is fantastic. That being said the rest of the film is just ok for me. They do look convincing playing the piano even though they aren’t.

continued...

That is precisely where I was.

The Big Fix (1978) Private detective Moses Wine is hired by his former college girlfriend to investigate a political smear campaign and he sets out to find out who is responsible, with deadly results.

🎬 Gotta say this wasn’t great. Dreyfuss was fine but the film was very meandering with a diffuse plot about politics that just wasn’t terribly interesting nor made interesting via film work. This may be due to the director being a tv guy and used to that format and style? Dunno. Just wasn’t great.

Dreyfuss won best actor here with his quintessential performance. He is warm and charming and witty and weird and frenetic. Watching him is fantastic, and like Jaws he balances his performance off the more restrained Mason.
Lovely film.

The Goodbye Girl (1977) After being dumped by her live-in boyfriend, an unemployed dancer and her 10-year-old daughter are reluctantly forced to live with a struggling off-Broadway actor.

🎬 This film is stuffed with, what is now considered cliches, and takes a wild tone shift from banter to romance in the third act and yet…
It works. It works so so well.

continued...

Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) After an encounter with UFOs, an electricity linesman feels undeniably drawn to an isolated area in the wilderness where something spectacular is about to happen.

🎬 I remember after seeing this as a kid in the theater thinking it was a better film than Star Wars. It is. (I mean it’s Spielberg)

Dreyfuss is spectacular here dealing with his growing obsession he doesn’t understand. The effects are top notch even by today’s standards.
Wonderful film.

Jaws (1975) When the seaside community of Amity finds itself under attack by a dangerous great white shark, the town's chief of police, a young marine biologist, and a grizzled shark hunter embark on a desperate ...

🎬 What is there to say? It’s Jaws. Brilliant, with the best drunken male bonding scene ever put to film. Dreyfuss is fantastic with his high energy performance balancing out Scheider, and Shaw has the greatest soliloquy ever.

It gets better as Dreyfuss and Harper are left alone, slowing down allowing them to actually act, but it's hard to connect with them.
There is potential - glimpses - of what could have been and that’s a shame.
Not sure why this was rated X at the time. This is barely R by today’s standards.

Inserts (1975) A young, once-great Hollywood film director refuses to accept changing times during the early 1930s, and confines himself to his decaying mansion to make silent porn flicks.

🎬 What a strange film. It’s written, directed and staged like a play.
The actors do a good job with the crappy dialog they are given. It’s either too fast or verbal sparring that just doesn’t work as a film much at all. The quiet bits are the best but there are just too few of them.

continued...