list/discuss/rate - your recently watched movies

Nobody (2021) Directed by Ilya Naishuller

Starts promisingly enough and carries faint echoes of Joel Schumacher's Falling Down from 1993 but soon degenerates thereafter into a very pale albeit stylish imitation of the John Wick franchise (cat lover's edition) Bob Odenkirk is likeable as the ex FBI assassin 'Hutch' who has retired to a life of suburban domesticity to be disrespected and unloved by his family and bored in a dead end job he hates (a.k.a. 'reality' for the rest of we 'nobodies') A bungled robbery at his home however, where he is judged not to have acted bravely in the face of danger soon coaxes him back into the saddle to take out the entire Russian mafia in less than 60 blood spattered, head imploding, knife wielding, gun toting, bone shattering minutes. The violence is as visceral and ludicrous as any wannabe Tarantino could possibly devise but this is state of the art pushback fantasy for emasculated bank clerks the world over. It's very well made and unfailingly professional throughout but so was the Transporter Trilogy. Dumb, derivative and double dipping by writer Derek Kolstad who somehow managed to sell his John Wick story to two different studios. Director Ilya Naishuller is a founder member of Russian indie Rock band Biting Elbows. There is overwhelming evidence that Rock stars cannot act so why should they be any better at directing?

(satire/farce)

An asteroid is headed towards earth. The republicans control the white house.

How ever will we all survive?

Leonardo DiCaprio and Jennifer Lawrence star as a pair of academic astronomers in a perfect metaphor of our times.

Peter Bogdanovich passed.   Paper Moon one of my all time favorites

One of those films that going into it, the less you know the better. The plot is quite twisty, and genre wise flirts with horror and thriller , but is mostly a mystery drama . Starring the ever reliable Helen Hunt, at about an hour and 40 minutes it doesn't outstay it's welcome while leading to a neat well thought out conclusion. 7/10

(Action/Revenge)

Dwayne Johnson, Billy Bob Thornton

I like Dwayne, and he brings enough to the screen to keep me watching for the 90 min. or so it takes to watch. There are just enough plot holes to keep this firmly in the B-Movie arena.

Sometimes, you just have to turn off your brain, and when that happens, these are the movies that flush the clog.

This old comic book would sit in flimsy rotating metal racks at corner liquor stores during the 1970s alongside Doctor Strange, Inhumans, Luke Cage, Black Panther, and the X-Men, tempting kids to spend that last quarter in their pocket after splurging on a green glass bottle of Coke.   It was far from Marvel's best, but on a sleepy summer day a poorly-rendered comic was better than daytime TV, that's for sure.   The movie version continues that tradition of mindless entertainment but raises the level of this gongfu hero to something creative, fun, and respectful of the Chinese myths the comic so clumsily handled.   Shang-Chi is no Kwai Chang Caine but then neither was David Carradine.