The View From The Mountain

Warning, this review contains a mild spoiler Godzilla: King of the Monsters is a sequel to the 2014 Godzilla film that many people trashed because Godzilla wasn’t shown onscreen nearly enough in the film. Personally, while I understand the criticism, I still enjoyed the 2014 movie, which re-introduce the Big G to modern day audiences, and it was successful enough to start a whole new universe of film sequels that started with Kong: Skull Island . That universe-building continues with Godzilla: King of the Monsters , which is directed by Michael Dougherty, who also helmed the Halloween classic Trick R Treat . There are monsters galore in the new Godzilla , which heeded the complaints about the earlier film by showing all of them onscreen in their full glory. The most intimidating of these monsters--next to the Big G himself--is Monster Zero, a three-headed, winged beast that is also known as Gidorah. When he’s released from the antarctic ice beneath a secret base, Monster Zero imm...

Warning, this review has spoilers for this movie. First off, I enjoyed Avengers: Endgame ( A:E ). It’s hard not to enjoy this epic superhero tale, which unites a group of heroes in a daring plot to undo a horrific, universe-wide mass murder that’s been committed by an interstellar warlord named Thanos (well-played in motion capture by Josh Brolin). Even though time travel is involved, the Russo Brothers do a grand job in keeping a handle on it, making sure that the concept, as well as its execution, is understandable to lay audiences. And even if the science explanation is lost on some people, it doesn’t really matter, because A:E gets very far on its charm and excitement. However, with a three hour running time, A:E can still be very unwieldy, and it even drags badly in many sections. I did not see A:E in the theaters, instead I waited for it to hit home video, and I’m very glad that I did this. I paused the movie after every hour for either a bathroom or a snack replenishment br...

Jordan Peele strikes again with Us , his latest horror film. Lupita Nyong'o stars as Addy Wilson, the matriarch of an upscale family that goes to the beach for a vacation. Addy has a wonderfully idyllic life that’s complete with a loving husband--Gabe--two happy, well-adjusted kids--Zora and Jason--and the disposable income required to take all the time they need to recharge at their summer home, which is just a short drive from the boardwalk of Santa Cruz (which is where Lost Boys was shot--a film that's referenced often here). But the Wilson’s cheerful time at the beach is shattered by the arrival of a very weird family that literally shows up on their doorstep. Despite Gabe’s (well-played by Winston Duke) best efforts to scare them off, as well as Addy calling the police immediately, this creepy family breaks into their home and holds them all captive. And as if that wasn’t scary enough, these intruders ARE the Wilsons: they are doppelgangers of each member of the Wilson f...

When Serenity , starring Matthew McConaughey and Anne Hathaway, was released theatrically earlier this year, it was ripped, bashed and completely trashed by reviewers, many of whom thought of it as being an insipidly stupid story that never should have seen the light of day. Some even criticized it for taking the name of a much better movie called Serenity (2005), the Joss Whedon-directed science fiction film that served as a magnificent capper to his equally marvelous TV series, Firefly (and I agree that the SF Serenity is superb). Naturally, I wanted to see this new Serenity , which dared to take the name of a beloved SF film, because I wanted to see if this new film lived up to the hype of being such a scathingly reviewed flick that has already earned its place on several “worst of” lists of 2019. McConaughey stars as a fishing boat skipper named Baker Dill who’s having some trouble keeping his grip on reality. He’s served in Iraq, and--as he freely admits--his tour in the milita...

I was looking forward to seeing Bumblebee , largely for two reasons. The first was that Hailee Steinfeld was starring in it. This is the very same Hailee Steinfeld who admirably held her own against Jeff Bridges in the Coen Brothers’ superb remake of True Grit (and she also gave voice to Gwen Stacey in one of my all-time favorite superhero movies, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse ). The other reason I wanted to see Bumblebee was that it was directed by Travis Knight, who also directed the astoundingly good Kubo and the Two Strings , a movie that made me care deeply about a group of animated characters from beginning to end. Bumblebee starts out like a typical Transformers film, with the Transformers battling their blood enemies on their homeworld, and losing badly. When I first saw this CGI orgy, I let out an audible groan, thinking it would devolve into the usual confusing Transformer slugfest that Michael (Boom-Boom) Bay gave us in the previous five (!!!) films, where you ha...

Before Batman first premiered in the summer of 1989, my younger self was convinced that it was going to suck really badly. Here were my reasons: it was directed by Tim Burton--who, at that point, only directed Pee Wee’s Big Adventure , and Beetlejuice --and it starred Michael Keaton, an actor, who, at that time, was best known for starring in comedies like Mr. Mom . Once I heard that ‘Mr. Mom’ was playing Batman, I was convinced that the then-new Batman film was going to be a disaster. Of course, back when I held these firm convictions about Tim Burton’s Batman , I hadn’t actually SEEN the movie yet. When Batman opened, it wasn’t just a hit movie, it was a cultural phenomenon. The character was already a well-known commodity, thanks to the 1960s Batman TV series, which served as my introduction to the Dark Knight back when I was a toddler. However, it felt as if the entire nation happily suffered Batman fever during the summer of ’89. Batman , both the film and the character, was ...

When I finally saw Shazam , the latest superhero movie from the DC Comics Universe, I thought it was marginally good at first. It was interesting, and a little bit funny…cute, even. But as I kept watching Shazam , something really nice happened. It got better. And then from that point, just when Shazam was getting really, really good, something even more amazing had occurred. Shazam had become fantastic. I should mention that I have been a fan of the Big Red Cheese from a very long time ago, back when he was known as Captain Marvel and had a TV show alongside another superhero named Isis (this was back in the 1970s, before that name became thoroughly trashed by real-world connotations). You see, “Shazam” was the phrase that young Billy Batson used to turn into Captain Marvel, a super powered hero to comes to the aid of those in need. But since Marvel Comics hijacked the Captain Marvel name for their own second stringer hero, the Shazam filmmakers, led by director David F. Sandber...