100 Movies for 2025!

[CaptHayfever]

New year, new list.

1) Moana - A-
2) The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, & the Wardrobe - B+
3) Frozen - B+
4) What If/The F Word - A

In TV news, we've been rewatching Leverage, & I highly recommend everyone else does too.

And remember, "I'm-a Luigi, number one!"

[I REALLY HATE POKEMON!]

Haven't watched any movies super recently, but speaking of TV, I watched an episode of Mob Psycho 100 because a friend was watching it. I remember AtJ suggesting quite a while ago but it just isn't for me, though I can see why people like it. The art style is simply too off-putting.

A sort of similar but much better show I binged the past couple days was Dandadan. It's about ghosts too, but its pacing is way better, it gets straight into things in the first episode. It's a little bit more wild but it's fun.

[CaptHayfever]

5) How to Deal - D+. Good concept, good cast, sloppy mess anyway.
6) Laggies - B-
7) Stranger Than Fiction - A+

And remember, "I'm-a Luigi, number one!"

[CaptHayfever]

8) IF - B. I needed a good dose of whimsy right now, & this fit that bill perfectly.
9) Craig Ferguson: A Wee Bit o' Revolution - A-. It's been 10 years since the good version of The Late Late Show ended; I needed some fresh CraigyFerg material.
10) The Wild Robot - A. Chris Sanders, you mad genius.
11) Spider-Man (2002) - A-

And remember, "I'm-a Luigi, number one!"

[Booyakasha]

So of course I've seen 'Total Recall' before, but it's always worth watching. Great flick. Man, that's one for the bucket list. It's engrossing.

I knocked 'Fifth Element' off my bucket list last year-------------'Total Recall' next, Fathom, make it happen in 2025. And how about 'Beverly Hills Cop'? Ronny Cox as a good guy for once--------------thrill me, babe!

[Booyakasha]

Watched 'Live and Let Die' for the first time since I was a kid. I forgot most of what happened between then and now, aside from the really punishingly stupid stuff, like Kananga's death and Sheriff Pepper.

It's pretty wild that a movie as dumb and bad as 'Live and Let Die' doesn't crack Moore's bottom three, but hey, 'Moonraker', 'Golden Gun' and 'View to a Kill' are pretty stiff competition. That's the world we live in.

At least it has a rad theme song. Good old Wings. 'View to a Kill' has a horrible theme, and it commits the heinous crime of wasting Christopher Walken. Christopher Walken and Christopher Lee should be the best Bond villains. They're not. They're garbage, and it's infuriating. Somebody's to blame.

The Broccolis refused to let George Lucas and Steven Spielberg make a James Bond movie. That's how we got Indiana Jones. Which Bond movie was getting crapped out when 'Raiders' was in production? Was it 'Moonraker'? (EDIT: No, it was 'For Your Eyes Only'. That's a good one, but it's mostly good for a James Bond movie-----------it's not as good as 'Raiders'. The Bond franchise could've used a 'Raiders' after Moore's sad little losing streak.)

(EDIT2: They should have the Proclaimers do a Bond theme. That'd be fantastic.)

[Booyakasha]

Oh my gosh, can you imagine if Dolly Parton did a Bond theme? She's so sweet and pure, it'd be the biggest mismatch ever.

[CaptHayfever]

^That would be awesome.

12) Twisters - B-. Better than I expected, still not great.
13) A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood - B+. Trippier than I expected, but intriguing.

And remember, "I'm-a Luigi, number one!"

[I REALLY HATE POKEMON!]

Is that a sequel to Twister? Random but interesting.

[CaptHayfever]

14) Spider-Man 2 - A
15) Spider-Man 3 - C+
16) The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks - B. Not as much about Henrietta as I expected.
17) Gigantic (A Tale of Two Johns) - A-

And remember, "I'm-a Luigi, number one!"

[Booyakasha]

I watched an MST3K i haven't seen in ages--------'The Magic Sword'.

...I like MST3K's swords 'n' sorcery biz. They're kind of a breath of fresh air after a dozen 'The Thing That Wouldn't Stop It' and 'That Time Those Scientists Fought The Huge Millipedes' and 'Captain Courage Vs The Spaceship Chock-Full of Bad Guys'-style shlock-fests. That said...'The Magic Sword' isn't very good. It's kind of a mess.

Does it sound horrifically insulting to say a movie should be more like 'Jack the Giant Killer'? That's what 'The Magic Sword' reminds me of most in terms of plot. 'Jack the Giant Killer' is loads of fun. Mostly 'The Magic Sword' is dull. There's good stuff, but it's very few and far between. It's fantasy, man, go nuts.

...I like Basil Rathbone. He was a great actor, and I'm sure he did the best he could with this material. If the movie had come along fifteen years earlier, maybe he could have played a magnificent swordsman instead of some dorky old zauberer.

They broke one of the cardinal rules---------------the bad guy has to be defeated by the good guy or by hubris. Didn't happen here. Good guy barely factors. His witch mom teleports in, then transmogrifies into a catamount and mauls the bad guy while his back is turned. Weak sauce.

[CaptHayfever]

18) Moana 2 - B+. The first was a hard act to follow, but this was still pretty good. The supporting cast is badly underdeveloped, though.
19) The Amazing Spider-Man - B+
20) The Amazing Spider-Man 2 - C-

And remember, "I'm-a Luigi, number one!"

[Booyakasha]

It's rumored that 'Moana 2' began its life as a half-hour show on Disney+, but Disney realised that wouldn't really earn them any cash in the long run, so they repackaged what they had into a movie. No idea how true that is.

[CaptHayfever]

^It's confirmed by Disney. But what they already had was still good, & the movie ended up placing 3rd on the year.

21) The Adventures of Milo & Otis - B+

And remember, "I'm-a Luigi, number one!"

[Booyakasha]

Rewatching one of my longtime favourite eps of MST3K----------'The Undead'.

Features an instance of one of the best running gags in the whole series---------------Servo yelling 'SLEEP!!!' whenever someone's being hypnotized. I dunno where that even came from, but something about it just cracks me up every time.

I love the host-segment where Servo gets invited down to the Planet of the Observers and they kick him out after he steals all their spoons. Like who does he think he is, Harpo?

Movie's goofy, but I like it. Corman's a competent filmmaker, say that for him. It's a little weird to see him doing a medieval fantasy flick--------------sort of feels like he found a bunch of old period costumes and thought, 'hey, why not. I'm Roger Corman, I can make a passable flick in any genre on earth'. Sort of like in TOS when you could just tell the studio was cleaning out a storage locker of old props, because the episode would be 'the Enterprise goes to Ancient Rome planet' or 'the Enterprise goes to Nazi planet' or 'the Enterprise goes to Wild West planet' or what-have-you. [EDIT: I shouldn't mock. One of my favourite episodes of TOS, one of the best episodes of any Star Trek ever was "A Piece of the Action", aka 'the Enterprise goes to 1930s gangster planet'. Kirk, Spock and McCoy get all pinstriped up and run a protection racket on a whole world. You get to see Spock in a fedora, Bones with a tommy gun, man. That alone is worth the price of admission.]

I like that Gypsy shows up a couple times, even joins in the "i guess we're just dumb!" bit Mike and Crow are doing. We generally don't get much of her just clowning around with the boys-----------it's fun.

[I REALLY HATE POKEMON!]

I rewatched Groundhog Day a couple days ago, should've watched it on Groundhog Day.

[Booyakasha]

There was a showing of 'Groundhog Day' at the Times on Feb 1st this year. I didn't know about it until about two minutes to showtime, otherwise I might've gone. Boy, what a coup that'd be------------seeing it on the big screen almost the day of.

[CaptHayfever]

22) Venom - C+. Better than I expected, mostly because Hardy is really good in it.
23) Morbius - D. Worse than I expected, despite Smith being really good in it.
24) Madame Web D-. Holy crap. This is MST fodder.
25) She's the Man - A-
26) Me Before You - B+
27) 50/50 - A-
28) Captain America: Brave New World - B. Some janky editing & greenscreening brings it down, but the story, action, & performances are tight.

And remember, "I'm-a Luigi, number one!"