Now You See Me: Now You Don't

Year 18, Day 267 - 9/24/26 - Movie #5,441

BEFORE: We're just a hop and a jump away from the horror chain now (no skipping) - like really just two actor links and we're there, or thereabouts. I've still got a few things to clean up first, like what happened with "The Wrecking Crew" was maybe the film wasn't available in time for the Dave Bautista mini-chain in January, sort of the same thing happened with today's film, I did a whole Jesse Eisenberg mini-chain in January, too, and this film wasn't on cable or streaming yet. Well, there are no mistakes, just happy accidents because I circled back to both films and January couldn't have been 40 films long, so really, it's all for the best. Both films ended up here in September, which isn't really the Chain's dumping ground, but you know, sometimes it feels that way. Both films are performing valuable linking functions here - OK, well one of them is - but they're filling up this month, whereas they would have overcrowded January. 

Mark Ruffalo carries over again from "Margaret". I worked at the NYC premiere of today's film, back in November of last year. The film's major stars were there, a couple of the minor ones, too, and they did a disappearing act (kind of) on the red carpet. They turned part of the red carpet into a separate room that they could fill up with smoke and the four stars were posing right in front of the main theater's exit door. So the smoke filled up, the movie stars went in through the out door, and were replaced by three other actors, so you know, that kind of worked. At least it got the stars into the theater quickly just before the film started - maybe it was kind of a trick that worked both inside and outside, I'm not sure. 

FOLLOW-UP TO: "Now You See Me 2" (Movie #2,578)

THE PLOT: The Four Horsemen reunite and team up with a new generation of young illusionists to expose a diamond heiress's global money-laundering scheme for criminals. 

AFTER: This film gets the original cast of the first film back together, while also including the replacement character who stood in for Isla Fisher when she didn't appear in the second film, so all FIVE Horsemen are back. Inside the narrative, the group has been scattered and separated for 10 years, and what do you know, in the real world it's been just about that long since the last film!  That means it's been about 10 years since I last complained about the franchise using movie magic to simulate practical magic, or whatever it is that magicians use. Well, magicians cheat all the time and if you think about it, that's what special effects people do, too - I'm still upset and disappointed that these films take the easiest way of doing things all the time, but the goal is to put out the best product, regardless of how they get there. 

I'm not even going to get into the confusing title, including the improper use of the colon, which should have been a comma. And for a while it was called "Now You See Me 3", but then I imagine there were marketing executives going back and forth over whether it was more important to maintain the naming pattern established by the previous film or to actually EXCLUDE the number 3 because there's a belief that people don't go to see sequels with numbers in them, especially if they haven't seen "Now You See Me 2", for fear they'll be too confused. So, in the end they jettisoned both the pattern AND the number and landed on a jokey title that riffs off of what a magician might say, but still has the colon in the title to make it look like the title of a sequel. So now nobody is happy and everyone's confused and well, I guess I really AM going to get into talking about the title, because I just did. 

I think most people out there are going to be saying things like, "Hey, wasn't there already a movie with these same actors playing magicians? But wasn't that, like ten years ago? I can't remember if I saw that movie, and I certainly can't remember whether I liked it or not." 

Anyway, this new group of young buck magicians is using some kind of hologram technology to appear to put on a show starring the Four Horsemen (the original four, without the fill-in) and this gets the attention of the REAL J. Daniel Atlas, who kind of approves that they held an underground show in Bushwick, Brooklyn that was all a ruse to steal money from a corporate crypto weasel and re-distribute his millions to the masses. It's kind of in the spirit of what the original Horsemen would have done, so you know, respect - but also Atlas received a mystery tarot card, possibly from The Eye (a secret society of magicians) that instructed him to recruit these very same 3 magicians for a mission to steal a diamond from the head of a South African diamond company. 

I mean, it's great that we've taken care of all the other evil things in the world and we're finally getting down to diamond companies, the people who've probably used slave labor for decades in the mines, and who also sell what's found for millions of times what they paid to get it, add to that the fact that diamonds are the most valuable commodity in the world, largely because the diamond companies TOLD us that they're worth that much. Sure, the free market decides that in the end, but it's rather recent convention that simply everyone who gets married everywhere now believes that a diamond needs to be involved in that transaction. I know there are synthetic diamonds now, and the generation coming up is a cynical one and may not fall for the same B.S., but this particular diamond company owner has sold diamonds to criminals and dictators all over the world, essentially acting as a sort of money launderer. 

The heist does work, but really only because the other three Horsemen also show up at the public unveiling of the giant diamond, they apparently all got similar tarot cards mysteriously delivered to them, with instructions on where to be to help with this heist. It's only afterwards that the new team of 7 illusionists puts the 4 tarot cards together, and the resulting image shows them their next destination, a French chateau apparently owned by that secret society, and once they puzzle their way inside (kind of the opposite of an Escape Room) they find their old friend, Thaddeus Bradley, who gives them more information about Veronika Vanderberg's crimes, and how to maybe expose them to the world. However, the French police show up to raid this castle, and arrest three of the magicians, and the others escape except for Thaddeus, who gets shot. Well, he made it through two and a half movies, at least. 

I won't give away any more about the plot, except to say that the next destination is Abu Dhabi, where the diamond company owner is sponsoring a Formula One racing team, and the Horsemen have a chance to trade the diamond for the release of Merritt, their mentalist and hypnotist, because those types of magicians are very hard to find. Anyway I've got a bunch of NITPICK POINTS to get to, the first of which, of course, is the fact that movie special effects here are used once again to create the magic illusions for the screen, and I iterate that the story would have more integrity if actual magic illusions that would work in the real world could have been used instead. 

NP #2 - We've had hologram technology for a while now, but it's still not good enough to pass for reality. Like you can always tell when it's a hologram. Sure, there are also deepfakes and A.I. now, but you're not going to find a hologram used on stage that will look real. Maybe someday technology will get so good that we won't need real actors in movies or Broadway shows, but you know, we're not there yet. 

NP #3 - the French chateau has one of those "forced perspective" rooms, where a person on one side of the room will look tiny and the person on the other side of the room will look huge, and then if they swap places, they also swap sizes, because the room is not a perfect square, even if it looks like one from ONE particular viewing angle. But that's the problem, the room looks weird from every other angle and to appreciate the illusion, you can't be standing IN the room, you have to be outside the room and viewing it from that one particular spot (where the camera is). The people IN the room are freaked out here by the illusion, and that just would not happen, because they're NOT standing in the spot where the illusion would trick their brains.

I did enjoy, however, that after the Horsemen pulled off a mission, there was additional footage that showed us how they did it. This is actually a big leap forward for this franchise, because it admits that magic is not real, and that they don't really rely on hypnotism, or holograms, just distraction, mechanical effects, and the power of suggestion. In particular, the scenes where they steal the diamond the first time, and the scenes where they fool Veronika near the end, when she's entering the underground vault, those illusions are explained with sequences that walk us through what happened, and those actually are well thought out. 

I'll also admit that once we finally do find out who sent out those tarot card invitations, and why, it all does kind of make some sense after the fact. But you know, five minutes later, we're back on holograms when the Horsemen get their next mission - and we're right back in the world of impossible fantasy and movie SPFX...

Directed by Ruben Fleischer (director of "Uncharted" and "Zombieland: Double Tap")

Also starring Jesse Eisenberg (last seen in "Roger Dodger"), Woody Harrelson (last heard in "The Electric State"), Dave Franco (last heard in "Hoppers"), Isla Fisher (last seen in "Playdate"), Justice Smith (last seen in "Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves"), Dominic Sessa (last seen in "The Holdovers"), Ariana Greenblatt (last seen in "Borderlands"), Lizzy Caplan (last seen in "Bachelorette"), Rosamund Pike (last seen in "Saltburn"), Morgan Freeman (last seen in "Being Eddie"), Thabang Molaba, Andrew Santino (last heard in "GOAT"), Henry Fisher, Ben Seidman, Lyssandra Skye Arias, Angela Paula Stander (last seen in "Poor Things"), William Gaminara, Scott Alexander Young, John Lovick, Amber Kemp, Dominic Allburn, Luca Besse, Lionel Desmazon, Taha Kamran, David Fleischer (last seen in "Zombieland: Double Tap"), Tayla Kovacevic-Ebong, Bobby Holland Hanton (last seen in "Thor: Love and Thunder"), Ricky Velez (last seen in "I Love My Dad"), Myah Banton, Mali McEwan, Sebastian Hansen (last seen in "The Naked Gun"), Paisley Day Herrera, Larry Neale,

RATING: 6 out of 10 thrown playing cards

Margaret

Year 18, Day 266 - 9/23/26 - Movie #5,440

BEFORE: I'm in the middle of working four days straight, two days at each venue where I'm employed, and thankfully alternating. Right now my body kind of works best if I can get one day off after each day I work, so I can physically recover, however my bank account will suffer if I get that kind of schedule. So it's four days on and then I think two days off. The New York Liberty made the playoffs, which begin next week I think, they're about to release the full schedule for all three (?) rounds which will extend to late October I think. Bad news for me, I forget to account for this possibility when I handed in my schedules for September and October, so I may not end up working any of those playoff games. This seems a bit ridiculous to me, because the schedules are JUST being announced now, and if I didn't mark myself as "available" for those days on my September calendar, then I won't be put on the schedule. But I could not possibly have known the dates of the playoff games by August 14, which is when my calendar was due, if they're just being announced NOW, in late September. Was I supposed to be psychic?  

This is becoming a problem, working out my schedule between the two jobs. I used to have two animation jobs, one was always Mon-Wed-Fri. and the other one was Tues-Thurs. Simple, right? Now I need to hand in availability calendars for TWO venues, and I can't predict which open dates either place will schedule me for, so to be on the safe side I'm only making myself available for ONE venue each day. Both venues are encouraging me to leave myself open for more days than there are days with events, because more events could be added later. But I feel if I leave myself open for BOTH venues on the same day, I'll eventually be double-scheduled and then I'll have to cancel events, which I can only do a limited number of times. So I had to consider one job the "primary" and leave myself open for the maximum number of days in a month, that way if a screening comes up at the theater, last-minute, I may be marked available for it, or if someone else is sick or cancels for any reason, being marked as "available" could get me a phone call and another shift. So the other job is therefore "secondary" by default, and I can mark myself available for events already on the schedule, then I've been leaving a few other days open there, just in case, however I don't have seniority so if a concert (or a playoff game) comes up, I might not be contacted at all. I guess I figured that if the WNBA team made the playoffs (again, impossible to predict months in advance) there would be an extra e-mail sent out to all employees to see who might be available to work. Nope, I guess they're just going to schedule the people who had the foresight to keep the day open and somehow predicted the team would have a post-season, and used a crystal ball or a Ouija board to discern which games would be home games, while I completely missed the boat on this one. 

I mean, the Nets season is starting up again soon, but it might be fun (and exhausting) to work at at least one playoff game if I could. I guess I should be careful what I wish for. Mark Ruffalo carries over from "Spider-Man: Brand New Day". 

THE PLOT: A high-school student feels responsible for a fatal traffic accident and tries to make amends. 

AFTER: Now, there appear to be two versions of this film - one is 2 hours and 30 min. long, according to the IMDB. My cable system was offering that version, and I taped that and burned it to DVD. But there is another, longer cut of the film, which is 3 hours and 6 min. long, and that version is playing on Hulu, even though it lists the running time as 2 hours and 30, it's the longer one. Want to guess how I know this? Instead of going downstairs to watch my DVD version (which has no subtitles, although I COULD have dubbed it with captions) I stayed upstairs and watched the Hulu version, where I could toggle the subtitles on. Well, digital streaming with subtitles is better than DVD without, so yeah, I watched the longer version, all three hours plus. 

Now, I may never watch the shorter version, now that I've tackled the longer one WITH regrets. It's, umm, it's way too long and I'm thinking now that the shorter version might have flowed a little better and also not taken up so much of my time WHICH is a valuable commodity. But hey, no judgment, if you love to watch people argue for 150 minutes, maybe you'll prefer watching people argue for 186 minutes, I mean, what's not to love?  So what if you watch movies to escape from your family drama issues, and the fact that you're always making mistakes and fudging everything up, across the board, or at least it feels like it. Maybe you had an awkward set of teenage years and you just hate being reminded about how little you knew back then, how you constantly were getting into arguments with your parents over every little thing, and how tough it was when you started dating and/or lost your virginity.  

But you know, the longer version, I assume it covers more ground, there's a lot that happens in this film, thousands of things in fact, but part of me wishes it was just ONE solid thing happening, something we could all focus on and relate to and it wouldn't be so all-over-the-place then. I should mention that the film was shot in 2005 and the director struggled to create a final cut that would satisfy both him AND the studio. The studio insisted on the 150-minute run-time, and as you might imagine, the director, suffering from Artist Brain, preferred the three-hour cut. There were lawsuits over this, and those went on until 2014, however the studio released their shorter cut in theaters in 2011, and the director's cut was released on DVD in 2012. Some critics and polls now regard this as one of the 21st Century's best films so far, only, umm, which version? 

I had never even heard of the film until I saw it in the premium cable channel listings, the plot sounded a bit intriguing, so I kind of put it on the someday/maybe list, then when there was another movie that shared an actor with it, I burned it to DVD, still not knowing what exactly I would be in for when I watched it. And well, that's three hours of my life that I'll never get back, isn't it? Lisa Cohen is a self-centered teenager who lives on the Upper West Side of Manhattan (I realize that sounds a bit redundant, probably every teen in that part of town is self-centered) and goes to school where her teachers are all played by various known actors (Matt Damon and Matthew Broderick at the same school, what are the odds?). She's got a male best friend who she doesn't want to date, and then finds another teen in school when she wants to lose her virginity and get that over with. Gee, what could POSSIBLY go wrong there? 

Lisa also wants to buy a cowboy hat, you know, to wear on that horse-riding vacation with her father, only she can't find one for sale in the shops in the UWS - gee, I wonder why? It's almost like nobody in NYC wears cowboy hats. Does she NOT have Amazon in 2005? But then she sees a bus driver wearing a cowboy hat, and she tries to flag him down and ask him where he bought it, however, in doing so she kind of distracts him while he's working, and he runs a red light and takes out a pedestrian. Obviously it's kind of her fault, also kind of his fault, like he COULD have stopped the bus to ask her what she wanted, or she could have just not distracted him while he was working, but it is what it is. Neither one tells the whole truth of the incident to the police who investigate it, and she later feels guilty about it, and he doesn't. 

NOTE: If you like Allison Janney and you don't want to see her character get hurt, then maybe this film isn't for you. If for some reason you WANT to see Allison Janney's character get hurt, what the hell is wrong with you? 

Well, this is going to turn into a whole thing over three hours, isn't it? Lisa ends up calling the woman's cousin in another state, and then tracking down that woman's closest friend, and taking up some kind of crusade to get that bus driver in trouble, fired or held accountable for the accident, maybe convince the cousin to file suit for damages, only that won't bring her back or help Lisa feel any better over having played a role in her death. This is also likely to affect her grades if she's spending so much time on this and neglecting her schoolwork, and it may also drive a wedge between her and her mother, not just less time spent together but concern over having another mother figure in her life, and so on. 

Lisa also seeks comfort in the arms (and beds) of several men during this time, one of whom is her geometry teacher, and that hardly seems appropriate. Sure, keep making more mistakes to make yourself feel better about the previous mistakes you made, I think that kind of counts as a downward spiral of sorts. It also implies a lack of focus if she can't keep a steady boyfriend, goes from one sex partner to another, and ignores her male best friend and won't even consider dating him. Lisa is kind of unhinged and all over the place, and somebody gave her three whole hours of movie to go off on all these tangents, was that really the best idea? 

Lisa's mother, meanwhile, is a Broadway actress who's got a show opening in a couple of weeks, and she's also started dating an admirer of hers from Colombia (the actor is French and has a French accent, but sure, we can buy him as a Latino, he's foreign, right?) and things seem to be going well in her career and this new relationship, however she only gets a bunch of sass and attitude from her daughter, and they seem to be drifting further apart. Well, that can happen when one parent has to be the disciplinarian and the other parent lives far away and only needs to send money and talk about grand plans like taking vacations with his daughter. Lisa and Ramon start going to the operas at Lincoln Center, and the relationship seems to be going well, but then when they go out to dinner with Lisa and Lisa's friend Emily (the best friend of the dead woman) Ramon says something that seems a bit anti-Semitic to Emily, and well, that's probably the start of another downward spiral. 

There's also terrible, terrible acting coming from the director, who inserted himself into the film in the role of Lisa's father, who lives on the West Coast and directs commercials, and they talk on the phone frequently and they plan a vacation to a horse-riding ranch that never actually happens, partially because self-centered Lisa never responded to those requests from the ranch over what her meal preferences were. Now, just because you are the director of a film and you CAN cast yourself in a role, it does not mean that you SHOULD. If you're as dynamic as, say, Tarantino, by all means, go ahead. If you're boring as dirt and unable to deliver a line with any conviction, then maybe not so much. If this director played HIMSELF I think I'd have trouble believing him. 

If you feel that life is ultimately pointless and we're all just killing time and going around in circles, well, here's a movie that will be just like that for two or three hours, depending on which cut you watch. Remember to be like Lisa and never make the same mistake twice - well, why would you when there are so many NEW mistakes that you can make in the future?  

Directed by Kenneth Lonergan (director of "You Can Count on Me" and "Manchester by the Sea")

Also starring Anna Paquin (last seen in "She's All That"), Matt Damon (last seen in "The Rip"), J. Smith-Cameron (last seen in "No Pay, Nudity"), Jeannie Berlin (last seen in "The Fabelmans"), Jean Reno (last heard in "Zootopia 2"), Sarah Steele (last seen in "You Hurt My Feelings"), John Gallagher Jr. (last seen in "Pieces of April"), Cyrus Hernstadt, Allison Janney (last seen in "Drop Dead Gorgeous"), Kieran Culkin (last seen in "A Real Pain"), Stephen Adly Guirgis (last seen in "Jack Goes Boating"), Betsy Aidem (last seen in "Arbitrage"), Adam Rose (last seen in "The Back-Up Plan"), Nick Grodin, Jonathan Hadary (last heard in "The Swan Princess"), Josh Hamilton (last seen in "Jay Kelly"), Rosemarie Dewitt (last seen in "Smile 2"), Glenn Fleshler (last seen in "The Seagull"), Stephen Conrad Moore, Gio Perez (last seen in "Morning Glory"), Matthew Broderick (last seen in "John Candy: I Like Me"), Jake O'Connor, David Mazzucchi, Jerry Matz (last seen in "The Meyerowitz Stories"), Kevin Carroll (last seen in "Till"), Hina Abdullah, Olivia Thirlby (last seen in "Dumb Money"), Kenneth Lonergan (last seen in "White Noise"), Enid Graham (last seen in "A House of Dynamite"), Brittany Underwood (last seen in "Game Change"), T. Scott Cunningham (last seen in "The Out-of-Towners" (1999)), Michael Ealy (last seen in "Think Like a Man Too"), Renee Fleming, Susan Graham, Adam LeFevre (last seen in "Romance & Cigarettes"), Krysten Ritter (last seen in "Mona Lisa Smile"), Matt Bush (last seen in "Paddleton"), Anna Berger (last seen in "Deep Cover" (1992)), Rose Arrick (last seen in "Ishtar"), Pippin Parker, Kelly Wolf, Johann Carlo (last seen in "Reversal of Fortune"), Carlo Alban (last seen in "Mile 22"), Christine Goerke, Liza Colon-Zayas (also carrying over from "Spider-Man: Brand New Day"), Jason Pendergraft (last seen in "Let's Be Cops"), Yves Abel, Mel Rocco

RATING: 4 out of 10 heated classroom discussions about 9/11

Spider-Man: Brand New Day

Year 18, Day 265 - 9/22/26 - Movie #5,439 - VIEWED ON 8/16/26

BEFORE: They played this at the theater where I work, a special screening booked for the members of the Visual Effects Society, who then in turn open up their screening for the students of the Arts College. Everybody wins, the local SPFX masters get to see the film on a big screen, with a real audience, the college kids get to see a first-fun film for FREE, and so do I, as long as I'm not booked to manage the screening. If I'm not, I can also see the film for FREE, and even bring a guest. I've only done this a couple times before, like for "Superman" and one of the "Jurassic Park" films, I think "Dominion"?  

I did have a houseguest that weekend, however he left before the screening, so my wife came along, even though the film was screening in 3-D and she'd have to wear the funky glasses, or risk getting a headache. So, surprisingly, she agreed to come and finally see where I've been working part-time for the past five years. Now, she has NOT seen the prior "Spider-Man" films with Tom Holland, but she has seen him in the "Avengers" films, so, umm, that's something. Look, I don't have time to explain to her what happened in "Homecoming" or "Far From Home" or even "No Way Home", so I'm hoping this turns out to be a good jumping-on point for her, and if she wants she can go back and see the other films with THIS Spider-Man in them, of course we know now there's a multiverse with a large variety of Spider-Men (Spiders-Men?) in it, but I can rant about that later. 

Jacob Batalon carries over again from "The Wrecking Crew". 

FOLLOW-UP TO: "Spider-Man: No Way Home" (Movie #4,007)

THE PLOT: A forgotten Peter Parker lives alone as a full-time Spider-Man until mounting pressure triggers a dangerous change and a powerful new enemy emerges. 

AFTER: I've been reading "Spider-Man" comics since about 1983, and really, the one thing that's been consistent is change. Peter Parker loves Gwen Stacy, no, wait, Mary Jane Watson, no wait, maybe Betty Brant, or maybe Black Cat, who is a villain. No, wait, now she's a hero and Mary Jane also has superpowers, of a sort, and she calls herself Jackpot. No, wait, now she took over the Venom symbiote after it was worn by Flash Thompson, and Eddie Brock before him. Jeezus, who can keep up? They've messed with Spider-Man's powers, too, usually he has the web-shooters but for a while he had webbing that came out of his body (from his wrists, not from where a spider's webbing usually comes from, because Ewwwww....) and sometimes his Spider-Sense is very strong and other times it's on the fritz, and I kid you not, for a while he mutated and had FOUR extra arms coming out of his body, so he really looked like a spider. And then some writer did a storyline where he went into a cocoon and apparently died, but then emerged like a snake from that skin with a slightly different set of spider-powers, and then another writer did an EXTREMELY similar storyline six months later, proving that the different writers don't talk to each other. 

But now they're kind of doing the same thing with the MCU movie Spider-Man, he's got web-shooters like the Andrew Garfield Spider-Man, NO WAIT, he's got natural webbing like the Tobey Maguire Spider-Man did. Spider-Man loves MJ, NO WAIT, that's too dangerous for her, so he has to have Dr. Strange cast a spell so everyone forgets his identity, NO WAIT, he changed his mind and wants to get back together with MJ. Geez, I'm getting story whiplash here, but you know, it's a new director now so it's a bit like a new writer on the comic book, he can pick and choose what he wants to have in Spider-Man's life, and what he wants to change. This new guy wants to bring Ned Leeds back into his life. (Ned Leeds in the comic books, however, went through some changes, first he was married to Betty Brant, then he was apparently the villain known as the Hobgoblin, then the next writer says, NO WAIT, he was framed and never the Hobgoblin, but it was too late, somebody had already killed him for being the Hobgoblin, so he's dead - NO WAIT, he's alive again somehow, with little explanation. Well, it's not like the MCU didn't kill a few billion people with "The Snap" and then bring them back with "The Blip". 

So now we have a Spider-Man who has tried to solve the equation of balancing being a superhero AND having a personal life by focusing on just one but not the other, which seems fine at first because he did make everyone forget his secret identity, and his friends MJ and Ned went off to college and he watched them succeed from far away. Only now Spider-Man is living alone, always on the neighborhood beat, focused just on being Spider-Man, but you know, is he happy?  Not really, he's stressed out, always trying to undo the guilt of seeing his Aunt May die, which is impossible, and feeling like he's failing at life because no friends, no social life. Dude, just join the Avengers, be part of a team, those teammates count as friends! But no, he wants to stay in the city and help the police whenever he can, he's got his rogue's gallery of villains like Scorpion and Tombstone and Boomerang and Tarantula.

Spider-Man is a solo act, sure, like here while taking out a tank that's barreling toward Damage Control, he's not only trying to stop the tank by himself, but he's got to expend extra energy and time trying to keep The Punisher from "helping", because the Punisher only knows how to blow things up and cause more collateral damage. Hey, the Punisher could be a friend for Spider-Man, only Punisher really doesn't "do" friends, does he?  

The stress of saving NYC is getting to him, though, and so is the stress of knowing that his ex-best friend and ex-girlfriend (who don't remember being his best friend and girlfriend) have moved back to town, and she's seeing somebody. This is all causing his powers to mutate - yep, they basically send him into a cocoon and when he emerges, he's got the organic webbing and heightened senses, basically his powers are in overdrive, however his first impulse is to contact Bruce Banner and learn about his inhibitor device that keeps him from being the out-of-control Hulk for a while, to see if he can learn enough to design one for himself, using a form of RNA to suppress his new mutation - sure, what could POSSIBLY go wrong when you start gene-splicing yourself? At the same time, he learns that there is a telepath that can control other people, kind of jumping from person to person, who's got some kind of a vendetta against the Department of Damage Control, a government agency that basically does clean-up work after super-heroes fight super-villains. Marvel Comics had a mini-series titled "Damage Control", but it was sort of a spoof comic, not meant to be taken seriously, like in this movie. 

The telepath tries again, but by mind-controlling Mac Gargan, the Scorpion, and Spider-Man's new mutations cause him to beat up Scorpion very badly, and he also injures a police officer in the process. Spider-Man does take MJ to stay with the Punisher for her own safety, and to keep her out of range of the telepath, who turns out to be Jean Grey. Man, this is a LONG way to go just to finally introduce the future X-Men into the MCU, I have to say. Jean attacks the Damage Control one more time, but this time she's got the Hulk under her mind control. This to me was probably the best part of the movie, getting Spider-Man and Punisher and the Hulk all involved in one big epic battle. This is really the point of having guest stars, like why have them and not use them? Like the new White Widow (or is she Black Widow now?) is also in this film, and they don't really use her much at all.

Of course, there's another twist - Jean Grey's not really a villain, of course, we all knew that going in, they just kept us from learning her name for the longest time because then we'd know she's not really a villain. But, then who is? Well, my wife called it correctly from the jump, and I didn't, I really should have because I've read WAY more comic books than her. But that works both ways if they want to hide the villain inside of something that was never villainous in the comic books, instead it was a spoof comedy. But this is yet another example of those constantly shifting sands - this is a helpful person, NO WAIT, this person is a villain, and the same goes for the ninja organization called The Hand, which is an evil group in the "Daredevil" comics, but NO WAIT, here they're on the good side and they're being rehabilitated, but NO WAIT, they're still villains after all. Can we just have a little bit of consistency here, please? It's not like the next writer is changing everything around, this is everything changing back and forth, again and again WITHIN THE SAME STORY! Spider-Man has new powers, and that's a good thing, NO WAIT, it's bad, we have to build a device to inhibit them, but NO WAIT, they're really a good thing that he should totally lean into. Make up your damn minds!

I want to point out that Wikipedia suggests that the movie "Brand New Day" is based on the Spider-Man comic book storyline of the same name and, well, nothing could be further from the truth. The only thing the two storylines have in common is that they were both essentially reboots for the character, in the comics it was a new writer trying to start fresh without all of the things that the previous writer had added during his tenure. Also, both storylines took place some time AFTER the world was made to forget Spider-Man's identity, but really, all of the other details are vastly different. In the comic book "Brand New Day", Aunt May is still alive, Harry Osborn is alive (again) and Peter Parker goes back to work getting Spider-Man pictures for the financially struggling Daily Bugle newspaper. Mary Jane Watson comes back after an absence (more on that in a second) but might also be the new goverment-registered superhero known as Jackpot. Peter Parker starts dating Carlie Cooper, a forensics expert who seems like a perfect love match, at least until the next writer takes over. Spider-Man then faces new villains like Overdrive, Mister Negative, Freak and Paper Doll. 

In the comics, "Brand New Day" followed an extremely unliked and confusing storyline titled "One More Day", in which Aunt May was dying from a gunshot wound and Spider-Man sought help from Tony Stark, Reed Richards, Doctor Strange, Doctor Octopus and even Doctor Doom. I mean, Reed Richards said to take her to see a "doctor", and I guess Peter Parker got confused. The only entity, hero or villain, that can really help is Mephisto, Marvel's version of Satan. Mephisto offers to save Aunt May's life is Peter is willing to give up his marriage to Mary Jane Watson, poof, change the timeline, the marriage never existed and Peter TAKES THAT OFFER. Narratively speaking, it's not a good idea to make a deal with the devil, there is always a cost or a trick involved, but here Spider-Man says, "Nah, I think the devil is a straight shooter, I can't see how he benefits from this, so sure, make my aunt well and you can undo my marriage." No, no, NO, this is NOT what a hero does, make a deal with the devil. Just because you, Joe Quesada, as a writer do not LIKE a particular aspect of a character's story, does not mean you can order the book's writer to just "undo" it. That's not fair to all of those fans who read the book for years, watched Peter and MJ fall in love and get married, only to have someone start unraveling the whole story like a sweater with a loose thread. A writer should be able to find a better way to split this couple up, maybe they argue, maybe they have a trial separation, which is something that adults do, nope, the devil's going to just make the whole marriage disappear, and he doesn't even have the reality stone. This doesn't even FIT with what we think of as the devil's powers, sure he can tempt people and offer them fame and fortune and convince them to sign away their souls, but does the devil have the power to just change the timeline? This has not been established in previous stories.  

What's worse is that there NEVER was a follow-up story to explain what Mephisto had in mind. Like, perhaps Mary Jane was pregnant and that baby would have grown up to be Spider-Girl or some other powerful hero, but now I'm doing the writer's job for him. What was his goal, what did Mephisto get out of this deal by dissolving Spider-Man's marriage? It's unclear, I guess nobody cares except for one comic-book fan in Queens, NY, so we don't ever need to explain this. Thanks, guys, you really know how to make me lose interest, and also you totally broke the fourth wall by imposing your personal inclination to write Spider-Man as a "single" character and that spilled over into a nonsensical story that most of the fans hated. Great, you kept the series fresh by changing things up, but you only exposed how weak your writing is because you couldn't come up with a believable way of getting there. You know, Aunt May had a long run, she was quite old (at least in the comics) and lived a good life, sometimes people just die and you can't magic them back to life, and that would be a powerful lesson not only for Spider-Man to learn but also the audience. 

That's one big advantage that the MCU Spider-Man has over the comic-book one, at least after they kill a character in the movies, they stay dead. (Umm, except for all those people Thanos un-existed). But Aunt May is so far still deceased, at least until the next reboot. Yeah, I'm not really looking forward to the upcoming "Doomsday" and "Secret Wars" films, which are kind of teased here at the end of "Brand New Day". It's all going to be multi-verse stuff, and it looks like they're going to bring together characters from the main MCU, the X-Men universe (seen briefly in "The Marvels") and the Fantastic Four universe from "First Steps". No good can come of this, as I suspect that we're going to see so many variant characters from other timelines that it's just going to be one rug pulled out from under us, followed by another one, and another one, etc. The whole Robert Downey Jr. cast as Dr. Doom thing feels more and more like a fake-out, and I'm expecting evil Captain America from another timeline (they call him "Stevil Rogers" in the comics) and so many more bad ideas in a giant failure pile. Like they JUST introduced Jean Grey in this Spider-Man film, why not just build from that instead of doing a complicated cross-over between the current MCU and the old X-Universe?  Are the writers just not talking to each other again? 

I know, I know this "Brand New Day" movie is super popular right now, everyone loves it and it's made more money than any other movie ever, but obviously I've got reservations about it. Still, it's a (somewhat) well put-together Spider-Man movie and that goes a long way, so I'll give it a score that's a little better than "No Way Home" and a little worse than "Far From Home". OK? 

Directed by Destin Daniel Cretton (director of "Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings" and "Just Mercy")

Also starring Tom Holland (last seen in "How I Live Now"), Zendaya (last seen in "Bob Mackie: Naked Illusion"), Mark Ruffalo (last seen in "Mickey 17"), Jon Bernthal (last seen in "We Are Your Friends"), Sadie Sink (last seen in "The Whale"), Florence Pugh (last seen in "Thunderbolts*"), Liza Colon-Zayas (last seen in "Cat Person"), Tramell Tillman (last seen in "Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning"), Marisa Tomei (last seen in "Untamed Heart"), Michael Mando (last seen in "72 Hours"), Marvin Jones III (last heard in "Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse"), Olivia Booth-Ford (last seen in "The School for Good and Evil"), Taryn Marie Butler, Johnny Myers (last seen in "Laws of Attraction"), Billy Clements (last seen in "Deep Cover" (2025)), Zabryna Guevara (last seen in "She Said"), Nina Galano, Maikol Roque, Jamel Davall Rodriguez, Ethan Sokontwe, Tariye Peterside, Phoenix Di Sebastiani, Vivien Keene, Camila Lopez, Eman Esfandi (last seen in "King Richard"), Shannon Young Cho, Niyi Akin, Daisy Sequerra, Nezar Alderazi (last seen in "The Mauritanian"), Fan Xiaoshuang, Elvis Carlos, 

and the voices of Naomi Watts (last seen in "The Friend"), Keith David (last seen in "Agent Cody Banks 2: Destination London")

RATING: 7 out of 10 photos on Ned's Spider-Man secret identity vision board

The Wrecking Crew

Year 18, Day 264 - 9/21/26 - Movie #5,438

BEFORE: I find myself envious of Nathan Caine, to some degree - my ankle still hurts a bit and I'm going to be working tonight, standing for a long period of time, and also the next three nights as well. So I think by the end of Thursday I could be in quite a bit of pain, thank God for Icy Hot and Advil though. I think if I found myself in a situation like his, where my wife or girlfriend got kidnapped, and I didn't have his genetic condition of being impervious to pain, my reaction would probably be, "Well, I'm sure going to miss her..." Look, I'm a pacifist by nature and also by design, if I tried to fight back or enact vigilante justice in anyway, that's it, I would most likely end up dead, and really, there's no reason for us BOTH to die, right? I mean, it would be better if one of us were able to carry on, alone and sad, sure, but still alive. 

Jacob Batalon carries over from "Novocaine". I don't HAVE to include this here, because it's the middle film of a 3-movie Batalon chain, but since I passed on this movie once before, I'm giving it priority status. This was cut from January's chain which had three films with Dave Bautista in a row. Sure, I could have gone for four, but look how things worked out, I needed this film HERE to make the connection and help form a path to October 1, so cutting it was the right call.  But hmmm, what other big movie released in 2026 also has Jacob Batalon in it? 

THE PLOT: Estranged half-brothers Jonny, a volatile suspended cop, and James, a disciplined Navy SEAL, reluctantly reunite in Hawaii after their private investigator father is murdered, triggering a dangerous clash with Yakuza operatives. 

AFTER: This was a solid action film, double the star power and double the beefcake, and sure, you can maybe totally believe these two actors as brothers, even if only one is of Native Hawaiian descent, and the other is part Greek, part Filipino. Asian is Asian, right? Anyway, they're playing HALF-brothers here, so they don't have to resemble each other all that much, a little bit is fine. It might have been hard to cast an actor to play someone who would look like he could be the father of both of them. 

There are some killer action scenes here, both of the car-chase / shoot-out / explosion kind and also the close combat / one-man army kind. This is what people come to this movie for, and this is also why you cast THESE two guys to be in it. Unfortunately there's hardly any plot, just barely enough to connect all of those action scenes, really. If you want to have a REASON for the close-up fighting and the car chases and the exploding helicopter, well, then you've come to the wrong place. Like there's not really any rhyme or reason here, I watched the whole thing and I can't even tell you what exactly the crime was. Oh, sure, their father was killed, but WHY? It's got something to do with casino plans, even though gambling is illegal in Hawaii. Somebody apparently thought that was going to change, though, and umm, well, it's not. 

Then there's a crime syndicate of some kind, a corrupt politician and for some reason, the Japanese Yakuza. No, it does not all make sense, not by a long shot. But does it really have to? Did we determine that everything is connected, or could it be that all of the evidence is circumstantial? Did all of the evil henchmen need to DIE, every last one of them? I suppose so, but now who's left to testify? I guess I see where the "Wrecking Crew" term comes from, because these brothers only know one solution to everything, sneak in and then wreck the place. There's a party? OK, we'll dress as caterers, get in there and wreck the place. Our family members got kidnapped, no problem, we'll just sneak in and wreck the place. And these are supposed to be the GOOD guys...

They left themselves wide open for a sequel, now that they took down the person who killed their father, the next illogical move is to team up again and take down whoever killed Jonny's mother, the information was RIGHT THERE. They've got the money from the digital wallet on the hard drive to finance the operation, so another film like this should be a no-brainer. 

Directed by Angel Manuel Soto (director of "Blue Beetle")

Also starring Dave Bautista (last seen in "The Naked Gun"), Jason Momoa (last seen in "A Minecraft Movie"), Temuera Morrison (last heard in "Moana 2"), Morena Baccarin (last seen in "Roger Dodger"), Roimata Fox, Frankie Adams (last seen in "Next Goal Wins"), Claes Bang (last seen in "The Last Vermeer"), Maia Kealoha, Stephen Root (last seen in "Mad Money"), Josua Tuivavalagi, Miyavi (last seen in "Kate"), David Hekili Kenui Bell, Mark R. Black, Lydia Peckham (last seen in "Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes"), Branscombe Richmond (last seen in "Journey 2: The Mysterious Island"), Brian L. Keaulana, Stephen Oyoung (last seen in "Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning"), Takuma Anzai, Mainei Kinimaka, Lelea'e Kahalepuna-Wong, Ahmed Youssef, Antonio Te Maioha (last seen in "Zoolander 2"), Ryan Farrell, Bruce Bennett Ah Leong, Mike Edward, Makana David, Meaalofa Vaifale, Josh Thomson, Kael Munro-Nonoa, Moana Johnson, Sherry Shaoling (last seen in "Repo Men"), Jodie Yee, Lila Marcellino

RATING: 6 out of 10 Navy SEAL trainees

Novocaine

Year 18, Day 263 - 9/20/26 - Movie #5,437

BEFORE: I worked three days last week, then got the weekend off, but I've got FOUR days of work in a row coming up tomorrow, so I'm trying to rest up for that. My ankle is still not 100% but I'm hoping I can get through the next few days with my cane (I only really need it for going up or down stairs now) and my pain is at a manageable level, I think. I just can't take any more days off, I think I used up all of my sick hours at one job, so if I take any more time then I'll have to use the sick hours at the other job, and I don't want to do that. But if I don't get my full leg strength back then I really have to consider finding a new job that isn't so physical. But that's not really a good solution either, because if I went back to sitting at a desk I think that could be worse for my body than standing up during a shift and selling beer. I just can't seem to win here. 

Well, that's tomorrow's dilemma I suppose. Today, Amber Midthunder carries over again from "Prey" and I'm starting the countdown to the Shock Block, which starts in just 11 days. The Food Network is already airing the Halloween Baking Championship and also Halloween Wars, and the Family Channel is pushing their own "31 Days of Halloween" programming. Other channels are doing the same, so even though my chain is set for this year, I should easily pick up some spooky movies for next year. 

THE PLOT: When the girl of his dreams is kidnapped, a man incapable of feeling physical pain turns his rare condition into an unexpected advantage in the fight to rescue her. 

AFTER: This is a very sneaky way to make an everyday character into one of those "one-man army" characters, in the style of Batman or Jason Statham. Nathan Caine is a character with a genetic condition called CIPA, which stands for congenital insensitivity to pain with anhidrosis, and apparently IS a real condition. I think probably more people have this than the "stiff person syndrome" that Celine Dion pretended... I mean TOTALLY had for real. CIPA is caused by a mutation in a particular gene and are unable to perceive pain or changes in temperature, because they don't have the nerve cells necessary to transmit the related signals. Their bodies will still suffer the effects of an injury or extreme heat or cold, in other words, they will incur damage, but they won't feel it. They also won't sweat, at least not from heat, perhaps they would still sweat from exercise, but since sweat is a cooling function, perhaps not. 

Those who suffer from CIPA are at high risk for accidental injury - like most of us have that reflex that will cause us to drop a hot pan that we grabbed, but they would not, they could just hold on to it and burn their hand. Patients with CIPA often also have hyperactivity, irritability, and some cognitive impairment, possibly learning difficulties as well. It's unclear if these are directly related to the condition or are a result of HAVING the condition and being injured so easily. 

Of course, the character here is completely normal in every other way, he just happens to have the condition without all those possible side-effects, HOWEVER his back-story includes a set of over-protective parents (I feel you, Nathan) who were afraid to let him eat most foods out of a fear that he could bite through his own tongue and not feel it. So he's sustained himself on a liquid diet over the years, apparently. When he finally decides to go on a lunch date with the co-worker he's been afraid to talk to, and she convinces him to eat some cherry pie, it's quite a revelation to him. What other food-related (or touch-related) pleasures has he been missing out on? The mind boggles, however, Sherry is willing to show him a few new ones. 

Sherry is also with Nathan when he encounters a former high-school bully - because when the other kids found out he couldn't feel pain, they just took to beating him up every day, because they could, and he wouldn't feel it or get them in trouble for that. But in the present, in the bar, Sherry pretends to offer to "bury the hatchet" with shots, that turn out to be high-Scoville hot sauce, and of course Nathan can't feel the burn, but his former bully can. Wow, Sherry sure seems like a catch, he told her about his genetic disorder and that was NOT a deal-breaker, in fact it just endeared him to her, must be something about his vulnerability, his innocence, and her realizing that there are like a THOUSAND delicious foods that she can introduce him to, so that's the next few months sorted then. But this meet-cute seems just a bit too good to be true, so you're probably wondering, what could POSSIBLY go wrong here? 

Well, three Santa Clauses come into the bank (where they work together) and pull out machine guns, so, umm, THERE IT IS. They beat up some bank customers and kill the bank manager who won't give them the combination to the giant safe. When they start threatening Sherry, though, Nathan caves and gives it up, because he JUST made the connection with her and doesn't want to see her get hurt. After all, she's not lucky enough to also have a genetic condition where she can't feel pain... So Sherry should be safe now, except that the cops show up and the bank robbers need a hostage, and she's the one they pick.  After a shoot-out with the police, the robbers speed off in TWO cars (for some reason, maybe so they can split up and double their chances of getting away?). 

Nathan tends to a wounded officer, but then takes the keys to the police car so he can pursue the robbers. Well, he knows that a hostage is likely to be killed within the first few hours of being taken, so he feels like that clock is ticking. Also, really, isn't it about time that he put his skill of not being able to feel pain to some use?  Like, if you can't use your genetic disorder to save the woman you think you love, then really, what good is it? But he follows the car with one robber and some money, not the one with Sherry in it. This leads to a fight in a restaurant kitchen where Nathan proves that he's not very good at fighting, at least not until his condition comes in handy, he can take a punch, he can take being thrown around, and he can fish a loaded gun out of a deep fryer, literally anything to win the fight.  

This kind of then turns into your standard Statham-like film, where the lead character has to work his way up the criminal chain, use his contacts and his expertise to track down the bad guys who are in hiding, also whatever resources he has. His resources here are just one friend who he knows from online gaming, along with that inability to feel pain. But will that be enough? The next stop is a tattoo artist (Nathan also happens to have a lot of tattoos, because that's the kind of thing you'd do if you couldn't feel pain, I guess) to try and indentify the other robbers based on their ink. But Nathan's not really good at this investigating thing, and tips his hand, which leads to another knock-down fight with a very large tattoo artist. Again, Nathan has to go to extremes to win a fight, but at this point he'll do whatever it takes, as ridiculous as it seems. 

Also, the police are looking for him, because he was the assistant bank manager who gave the robbers the codes, and then he disappeared with them. So at first they figure him for being the "inside man", someone who got a job at the bank with plans to help it get robbed, then disappear. However when the cops track him down by phone, they learn that he's just a vigilante trying to save his girlfriend, and also that he's just not going to stop until he does. It's a good look, being the crazy hero, it just would work better if he had any fighting ability at all. Taking a punch does not usually constitute winning a fight, that's all. 

There are still a few twists here that I don't want to give away, especially since they surprised me, and considering how many action movies I've seen - heists, one-man army fighting, working one's way up the criminal structure - I'd like to think that surprising me at all has gotten pretty hard for films to do. Considering how many injuries Nathan "Novocaine" Caine gets along the way, this starts out a bit like "A Working Man" but then starts to resemble "Crank" more than anything else. Bear in mind that all this fighting is causing injuries, even if Nathan doesn't feel them. So by the end he's kind of like that cartoon gunfighter who gets shot full of holes, and he seems undamaged, at least until he drinks some water and it all leaks out. 

And by the end I still wasn't sure how seriously to take this whole film - I mean, is it trying to be the ultimate one-man-army movie, or is it trying to be a parody of one? There really is such a fine line between the two, I think. Is this high-concept or just plain ridiculous? Your call, I think. And I may regret saying this, but I kind of hope that there's a sequel in the works. 

Directed by Dan Berk & Robert Olsen (directors of "Villains") 

Also starring Jack Quaid (last seen in "Heads of State"), Ray Nicholson (last seen in "Smile 2"), Jacob Batalon (last seen in "Lift"), Betty Gabriel (last seen in "The Purge: Election Year"), Matt Walsh (last seen in "You People"), Conrad Kemp (last seen in "G20"), Evan Hengst (last seen in "The Kissing Booth 3"), Craig Jackson (last seen in "District 9"), Lou Beatty Jr. (last seen in "Ford v Ferrari"), Garth Collins, Tristan de Beer, Jessica Leigh Stanley, Chioma Antoinette Umeala (last seen in "The Woman King"), Margot Wood, Keeno Lee Hector (last seen in "Bloodshot"), Maria Vos, Dominique Maher (also last seen in "G20"), Lance Elliot (ditto), DeVille Vannik, Motsi Tekateka (last seen in "The Kissing Booth 2"), Toni Jean Erasmus (also last seen in "The Kissing Booth 3"), Drew Simon

RATING: 7 out of 10 "Wile E. Coyote"-style booby traps

Prey

Year 18, Day 262 - 9/19/26 - Movie #5,436

BEFORE: This one's a couple years old already now - hey, don't blame me, blame the linking. I think there's already another two installments in the "Predator" franchise that have come out since this one, but you know, none of them are linked to each other which doesn't help me out one bit. It's almost like Hollywood doesn't care any more about my system... I'd say that I'm still very lucky, though, because if there are THREE films outstanding and the chain has seen fit to bring me to the oldest one first, well, it's like it was meant to be, right? But I'd better hurry up and watch this, I can't even wait until the real horror chain starts on October 1 because I need to strike while the iron is hot here, if it took three years for me to link to this, perhaps another opportunity won't come around again. Or I'll be forced to watch them in the wrong order or something. 

Amber Midthunder carries over from "Opus". Really, the only way for me to watch this film sooner rather than later is to put it between two other films with her in them. 

FOLLOW-UP TO: "The Predator" (Movie #3,377)

THE PLOT: Naru, a skilled warrior of the Comanche Nation, fights to protect her tribe against one of the first highly-evolved Predators to land on Earth. 

AFTER: It's a pretty neat trick that this film serves as both a sequel AND a prequel to the movies that have gone before. To the audience it's a sequel, of course, because we're experiencing it after, but the film is set back in the early 1700's, allowing it to function as a prequel as well. We can assume it takes place in what will someday become America, and the presence of French trappers perhaps places it somewhere in the northern part of the future U.S., perhaps near Canada, however if these Native Americans are Comanche, that would suggest Oklahoma or thereabouts instead. Possibly French trappers could have come up river from New Orleans, I suppose. If they're not going to pinpoint it than a lot of places are possible. 

Of course, we're dealing with a futuristic species that has interstellar travel capabilities, that can. be just as true 300 years ago as it is in a more modern "Predator" film, because we don't know how long it's been since that species gained the ability to travel to other worlds, whether it was 500 years ago, 1,000 years ago or longer, it's possible for life on different worlds to evolve on a different timetable than our own, meaning there could be thousands of years of human history during which we were visited by others and either treated as slaves made to build pyramids, or just creatures hunted for food or sport. So this film's on board with that, but chooses to focus on the latter, the sport-hunting thing.  

The Predators have their own rules when it comes to this, what's seen here suggest that they only hunt other hunters, the Predator has no interest in that rabbit, but is fascinated by the wolf chasing the rabbit, and that's HIS prey. Same goes for the grizzly bear in a later scene, anybody can catch fish, even a hungry bear, but how many hunters can take down the bear, which is the "apex predator"? The predator also stumbles upon these Comanche hunters who are tracking a mountain lion, and, well, his interest is piqued. The humans seem so small and frail, and non-vicious by comparison, but here they are, tracking the lion to its den and hunting it not just for food, but also to keep future members of the tribe safe from it. 

So, naturally, this puts the Comanche (and later the French fur trappers) on the Predator's to-do list. We think of man as the most dangerous animal, because of his brain power, but the Predator may have different thoughts on the topic. But the central character here is Naru, a young woman who's been trained as a healer, but also wants to be a hunter and provide for the tribe. Yes, even back in the native tribes of the 1700s there was sexism, apparently, and some people had rigid ideas about what women could and couldn't do. The other warriors, including her brother, Taabe, think they're safe once the mountain lion is dealt with, but Naru has seen the Predator in action (or at least partially, because it's wearing one of those camouflage suits that makes it darn near invisible.) and she's convinced that the real danger to the tribe is still out there, and if nobody else will hunt it, she'll go out with her dog and do it herself. 

I mean, it's really a terrible idea, because the Predator is better left alone, but of course she doesn't know that. He's here for a short time, maybe just let him hunt a few large animals, he'll collect a few skulls and turn some snakes inside out, then he'll be back on his spaceship and off to the next planet. However, there's some Comanche legend about a monster called a "Mupitsi", and the Predator sort of fits the description, that's another reason she feels that she needs to take action. The story is that it's supposed to be some giant, hairy monster or owl-like beast, and who knows if this later morphed into Sasquatch or if it was all just some boogeyman story that parents told their children so they wouldn't go out at night? 

Anyway, the Comanche of course are no match for a super-warrior from another planet, who's got laser-sights on his arrows and claws on his hands, and uses his heat-vision to track his prey in the dark. The whole landscape is dark at night because electric lights wouldn't come around for another 150 years or so - it's amazing when you think about how long Earth was dark every night, umm, except for torches, campfires and candles, right? But both Naru and Taabe end up caught, not by the Predator but by those French trappers, who have apparently been dealing with creatures like this before, or vice versa, because they seem to know about it and want to use the Comanches as bait to trap it. I guess when all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail and if you're a trapper, your solution to most everything is to trap it. 

OK, good luck with that, the Predator has heat vision and spear guns and laser sights, and you've got what, flintlock pistols that fire once and then take another five minutes to reload? Plus the thing just does not WANT to be trapped, he can probably work his way out of whatever trap you set for him, and then, well, he's going to be angry. Best solution, as I stated already, is to just leave him alone, let him hunt whatever he wants and then maybe he'll get back in his ship and fly away. 

It's an interesting enough idea, I mean, the franchise was maybe getting a little stale, except for those "Alien vs. Predator" movies. They could keep this going and have other Predators visit earth during other eras, it might be cool to see one hunting dinosaurs or another one visiting ancient Roman and winding up either taking out Roman soldiers or fighting in the Colisseum. Hell, why not visit Earth during the Civil War or Athens vs. Sparta or take on the army of Genghis Khan? Once you open up all of human history there are some great narrative possibilities...

Directed by Dan Trachtenberg (director of "10 Cloverfield Lane")

Also starring Dakota Beavers, Dane DiLiegro (last seen in "Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3"), Michelle Thrush (last seen in "Dead Man"), Julian Black Antelope, Stormee Kipp, Stefany Mathias, Bennett Taylor, Mike Paterson (last seen in "Heist"), Nelson Leis, Tymon Carter, Skye Pelletier, Harlan Blayne Kytwayhat, Corvin Mack, Samuel Marty, Ginger Cattleman, Seanna Eagletail, Samiyah Crowfoot, Cody Big Tobacco (last seen in "The Revenant"), Stephane Legault (ditto), Troy Mundle, Curtis Pilon-Vinish, Eric Beaudoin. 

RATING: 6 out of 10 giant footprints

Opus

Year 18, Day 261 - 9/18/26 - Movie #5,435

BEFORE: Sorry, no more animated films in the pipeline - except for one that will pop up at the end of the month. That was a good run, though, 8 animated features in a row. Now I've got a couple that are sort of horror-like or horror-ish, because we've got THAT big chain coming up in just a couple weeks now, and you know, it's good to prepare ourselves. You don't want to just dive in to that freezing-cold pool, you want to kind of ease in, a bit at a time. Same goes for the pits of hell, you don't dive in to the lava, you dip a toe in and watch it burn off and then you acclimate yourself from there...

What's even harder than putting together a horror chain and a Christmas mini-chain each year is leaving enough material, and the right movies, behind so that I'll have something to work with NEXT year. I think one cable channel is running all of the films in the "Scary Movie" franchise, I should probably grab those while I can, especially if there's any possibility that they all link together in release order, and that could take up five or six slots next year, or the year after that. 

Tony Hale carries over from "Megamind vs. The Doom Syndicate"

THE PLOT: A writer travels to the compound of a pop icon who disappeared years ago. Surrounded by his cult of sycophants, as well as fellow journalists, she soon discovers his twisted plans for the gathering. 

AFTER: OK, so a group of people get invited to a celebrity's extremely private resort complex, but they have to surrender their cell phones and sign some kind of NDA before they board the private plane. Wait, isn't that the plot to "Blink Twice"? 

No, wait, there's a special celebrity event, the top star in his craft is having a private dinner party and has invited some of his longest-standing critics to come and spend time with him in the hopes of winning them over. Wait, isn't that the plot to "The Menu"? 

The guests arrive and their needs are attended to, though the whole resort starts to feel a bit cult-like, and a couple of the guests have disappeared with no explanation. Wait, isn't that the plot to "Midsommar"?  

Yes, yes and yes. This is a mish-mash collab of some of the most famous "thriller-disaster-What Could POSSIBLY Go Wrong" films from the past few years, and I think we can now certify that this is a trend in filmmaking. Cultures clash, class warfare is involved, male sexism and "Artist Brain" collide and it doesn't matter if the central figure is a tech mogul, a celebrated chef or a reclusive pop star, when you're famous, they let you do it, no matter what "it" is. 

To say "Opus" is derivative is an under-statement, but there could be a lot of films that follow this disaster-trend, I don't really know if it this genre has a name yet. Psychological thriller? Satirical social horror? Escape-core? Does this all go back to "Get Out" and/or "Ready or Not"? Are we going to get some kind of comedic mash-up in the vein of "Scary Movie", titled "Get Out and Blink Twice Before the Midsommer Menu"? 

Anyway, let's deal with tonight's film on its own, because it's got one thing that all of the others don't have, and that's John Malkovich as the reclusive pop star. Yes. We get to hear what a John Malkovich ALBUM would sound like, maybe, if he were a pop star on the level of, say, Michael Jackson or Prince or something. Look, if you want to watch this film JUST for the novelty of that, it just might be worth it. There's a lot of other stuff that's going to come along with it, but you get so much Malkovich here, and all that that entails, I mean Jesus, he's a great actor and a weird actor and I'll watch just about anything he's in. Him and Willem Dafoe. I wonder if there's ever a clash between them over who's going to play a particular weird, oddly calm, genius who might also be a maniac psycho-killer, we're just not sure yet. 

Malkovich plays Alfred Moretti, who disappeared from the pop music scene 30 years ago, but is back with a new album. We're led to believe from the hype around it that this would be equivalent to someone like David Bowie or Michael Jackson disappearing at the height of their fame, and then coming back with new music out of the blue. What would that sound like, I mean one thing you can say about Bowie or Jacko is that they put out a lot of albums - but what if they didn't? What if they took time off, and their sound evolved and then they came back with a completely new sound or a weirdly evolved manner, or a new look, new fashion, new hairstyle? The only music star I can think of that took a long break and then came back, stronger than ever, was Roy Orbison, however he never stopped touring and trying, his music just fell out of favor for a while, and then he had a revival with the help of some friends. Jerry Lee Lewis, maybe Chuck Berry went through something similar, maybe. 

Generally, this is not how the music industry works - could you imagine Taylor Swift announcing tomorrow that she's going to take the next 20 years off? Nobody works like that, if you have a hit record you go out on tour, you work the crowd and make sure everyone knows you because you're creating the fan base of people who are going to maybe buy your second album, which you start working on as soon as your first tour is over, if not before that. Could you imagine Guns and Roses putting out a new album this month, like after 30 years of non-self-imposed exile, and for people everywhere to somehow be excited with anticipation for that album? Nope, it just doesn't happen. If your career is dormant for 30 years, you might as well be dead. Some of the top acts of 1996 were No Doubt, Oasis and The Smashing Pumpkins. Even if those bands are still active or got their members back together, I don't think they could just pick up where they left off and have a successful album release. 

But anyway, Moretti invites a select group of music journalists to attend this listening party at his private compound in Utah. Yeah, never go to a celebrity's private compound, that's a pretty good rule of thumb to follow. This one is four and a half hours by BUS away from the nearest airport, that should have been the first warning sign. This reclusive billionaire can fly people in by private jet, but there's no private airfield? You know you can build an airfield just about anywhere, like for sure a lot closer to his house. I'm not sure if this is a NITPICK POINT or just a warning sign that these journalists chose to ignore. The weekend starts with a very fancy dinner, of course they probably had to ask if anybody had any food allergies when they were preparing the menu, but then the "bread course" involved passing a giant dinner roll down the table so that each person could take a bite out of it. Umm, what if I have a food allergy to eating bread that a dozen other people had in their mouths? And why am I sitting at the end of the table that gets the very germy bread last, and the other end of the table got to take bites of it before everybody else drooled on it? 

Junior journalist Ariel Ecton, who seems too young to have been a fan of Moretti's 30 years ago, is there just as support staff, to take notes for her boss, Stan Sullivan, who will be the one writing the article about Moretti's new album. Ariel is the first to notice that the other people at the compound, the ones who are not party guests, are all wearing the same blue outfits and are assigned tasks by Moretti, as if he is their cult leader or something. This should have been another cue to leave ASAP, because we know how this ends, the leader says that the spaceship is behind the comet, and the time has come to drink the Kool-Aid or the Everclear or whatever and leave our flesh prisons so that the spaceship can pick up our souls and carry them to heaven. 

Well, that's not exactly what's happening here. But there is a form of religion being practiced, which is called "Levelism". There's a book that the guests are given (oh, good, something to read) which describes the concepts of Levelism (oh, darn, it's a manifesto) and then there's a whole agenda for the weekend, which involves Fashioning, the Album listening party, Archery, Painting, Shucking Oysters for Hours, and a puppet show. I mean, go there to hear the new album, but come on, you're going to want to stay for the puppet show.

Ariel is also the one to notice that two of the invited guests have not been seen since the first day, so, umm, where are they?  And she's also the first one to express a desire to leave (smart girl!) but of course, this takes place just before Everything Goes Wrong. I'm not going to get into all of that, but I have hinted about it. If this isn't your bag, or if you've had your fill of this escape-core genre, this might still be worth a look if you want to see what kind of aging pop star John Malkovich would play. I found that to be like what Michael Jackson might have become if he had lived, and if he had continued to surround himself with people who were willing to cater to all of his desires (yes, ALL of them) and nobody was ever allowed to tell him "NO". It's food for thought, even if this "food" is shared by several different movies, just like that dinner roll that got passed around. 

Directed by Mark Anthony Green

Also starring Ayo Edibiri (last seen in "Lorne"), John Malkovich (last seen in "Billy Joel: And So It Goes"), Juliette Lewis (last seen in "Strange Days"), Murray Bartlett (last seen in "Girl Most Likely"), Melissa Chambers (last seen in "Being Rose"), Stephanie Suganami, Mark Sivertsen (last seen in "The Last Stand"), Amber Midthunder (last seen in "Dream Scenario"), Tatanka Means (last seen in "Killers of the Flower Moon"), Aspen Martinez, Peter Diseth (last seen in "Maggie Moore(s)"), Tamera Tomakili (last seen in "Fruitvale Station"), Jasper Keen (last seen in "End of the Road"), Young Mazino, Jean Effron (last seen in "Frank"), Justin Perry, Aimee McGuire, Chris Highlands (last seen in "Suburbicon"), Andrew McMaster, Lily Joy Winder, Orion Carrington, Jeremiah Core, Marjorie W. Conner, Lex Lotito, Gabriel Armijo, Casey Messer (last seen in "Army of the Dead"), with cameos from Bill Burr (last seen in "Paul Anka: His Way"), Wolf Blitzer and the voice of Rosario Dawson (last seen in "Haunted Mansion"),

RATING: 5 out of 10 beanbag chairs