Movies

[Rusty]

148 - Beauty and the Beast (2017) - 8/10 - I thought they did a really nice job with the live action version of this fairy tale. The music was familiar, of course, but well done. The costumes and acting and effects were all pretty good.

[Rusty]

149 - Nerve - 7/10 - Emma Roberts plays a high school senior who is pretty shy and afraid to take risks. This changes when she gets involved in an online game called Nerve where players compete for money by completing dares given to them by watchers. It was not very realistic, but it was still entertaining and I liked the music.

[Rusty]

150 - Dunkirk - 9/10 - The film has three storylines which intertwine -

1) The sailors on the beach at Dunkirk who are trying to get on a ship that will take them across the channel and home
2) The civilian ships (one in particular) that cross the channel to take part in the rescue
3) Several fighters in the RAF who battle Nazi planes to try and protect the ships and soldiers

The movie is very well done.

[Rusty]

151 - The Fate of the Furious - 7/10 - Lots of action, though not as good as some of the other Furious films.

[Rusty]

152 - John Wick Chapter 2 - 6.5/10 - This was almost one long gun battle. I thought the first film had a certain charm to it that this one lacked. There were parts that I enjoyed and the action sequences were decent, but repetitive.


153 - Ghost in the Shell - 6.5/10 - A robotics company has been experimenting with putting human minds into cybernetic bodies. Major is the first one labeled as a success. The movie could have been a lot better, but it was okay. It seemed a bit generic and dull, but wasn't horrible.


154 - Hit & Run - 7/10 - Dax Shepard stars as a man in witness protection whose girlfriend (Kristen Bell) gets a job offer/interview in Los Angeles. He isn't supposed to go to LA because of danger for him there, but he decides to go anyway. The plot and characters are kind of stupid from the jealous ex-boyfriend to the inept US Marshal to the police officer who spends time on a gay smartphone app while on duty, but it is still a fun, if mindless movie.

[Rusty]

155 - Smurfs: The Lost Village - 8/10 - Smurfette, Hefty, Brainy and Clumsy go through the wall to the forbidden forest to try and warn a lost tribe of smurfs about Gargamel. I thought the movie was a lot of fun.


156 - Keanu - 7/10 - Key and Peele play cousins who get involved with a gang that sells drugs out of a strip club when one of the cousins has his cat stolen. I thought the movie was funny. Kind of stupid, too, but entertaining.

[Rusty]

157 - CHiPS - 6.5/10 - The new Chips movie is kind of crude and doesn't measure up to the original series, but it gets better in the second half and was watchable.

[Rusty]

158 - Fist Fight - 6.5/10 - It's the last day of school and the seniors are pulling out the stops with crude pranks. Mr. Campbell just wants to survive the day and get to his daughter's talent show, but ends up making an intimidating teacher mad and gets challenged to a fight at the end of the day. This school made my school look angelic. The movie was fun at times and was watchable, but wasn't great by any means.


159 - Money Monster - 7/10 - George Clooney stars as the host of a popular stock market show where he puts on all sorts of stunts on a regular basis. he is held hostage by a man who lost all of his money due to a bad stock tip for a company that had its stock price crash. The head of that company is unavailable, bit the staff of the show (including Julia Roberts) try to track him down and find out what really caused the company to lose $800 million in value in a single day. The movie was okay, though not anything special.

[Rusty]

160 - Alien: Covenant - 6/10 - This movie is supposed to help bridge the gap between Prometheus and Alien. I just found it to be pretty boring and fairly predictable. I think that I've lost my taste for the Aliens franchise, cinematically at least.

[Rusty]

161- Going in Style - 7.5/10 - Morgan Freeman, Michael Caine and Alan Arkin play elderly men who are having financial difficulties and are about to lose their pension so they decide to rob a bank. It was lots of fun.


162 - Bridget Jones's Baby - 7.5/10 - Bridget Jones is single again and turns 43. She gets pregnant, but doesn't know who the father is since there are two candidates for the role. She has to navigate work with new bosses and letting two men know that each is a potential father. It was a decent film.

[Rusty]

163 - Thor: Ragnarok - 8/10 - This one was a comedy with Thor, Loki, Hulk and others. It had lots of humor and I thought it was entertaining. The battle scenes were good and the movie was fun.

[Rusty]

164 - Band Aid - 7/10 - A married couple who argue a lot turn their arguments into songs as they form a band as a form of therapy in an attempt to save their marriage. It was a decent movie and had a few funny scenes.


165 - The Big Sick - 8.5/10 - A stand up comic of Pakistani descent meets a young woman after his show and they eventually hit it off. However, he is being pressured by his family to accept an arranged marriage and he knows that they will never accept a white woman. She becomes sick and ends up in a coma and he stays by her side throughout. This is based on a real story and was very good.

[Rusty]

166 - Passengers - 7.5/10 - I watched Passengers again, this time using On Demand. I don't usually like watching the same movie a second time in so short a span of time, but it was just as enjoyable the second time around.

[Rusty]

167 - Justice League - 8/10 - I forgot to post about this one, but I saw it on the Saturday before Thanksgiving. I didn't care for Steppenwolf that much, but otherwise I thought it was a pretty good movie. Not great, but entertaining. I liked Superman's portrayal more here than in other recent appearances.


168 - Coco - 9/10 - Pixar delivers a very entertaining movie about a young Mexican boy who wants to be a musician, but whose family has shunned music in favor of making shoes for several generations. On the Day of the Dead, Miguel comes face to face with his ancestors and discovers a number of things about his family history.

[Rusty]

169 - Psych: The Movie - accidentally left off earlier



170 - Star Wars: The Last Jedi - 8.5/10 - I enjoyed this one quite a bit, probably on par with Rogue One and more than The Force Awakens. It wasn't a perfect film, but it was very good.