A Descent into Dullness

Ozark s.1: Drags a bit in places, but an excellent cast, especially Bateman and hillbilly girl.  I almost thought the season would end on a note too dark for me to come back, but they swerve and end on a very slightly upbeat note.
Easy  s.2:  More of the low-key relationship comedy and drama as before.  Several characters return (including Maron's Indie Comix guy & Jacqueline Toboni's lesbian activist).  My only issue was the episode where the 18-year old high school gives away all her savings to spite her parents for making her go to church.  And thats mostly 'cause I can't even conceive of just tossing away what is TWO years of my earnings to prove some kind of half-assed point.

Guardians of the Galaxy vol.2 : Just as good as a rewatch.
Bushwick: The set-up is kind of dumb in that idiot racists decide Texas will secede from the union, joined by various other Southern states.  Again.  This time they'll get the federal government to capitulate by taking the 5 Burroughs hostage.  Because no ones armed there and so it'll be easy.  I mean at least the New Confederacy or whatever they called themselves are shown to be more than a little dumb.  But despite that its actually an entertaining movie.  Stars Dave Bautista and Bethany Snow are both better than I'd expected.  Ending goes a bit grimmer than I was expecting though.

Ip Man, Ip Man 2 & Ip Man 3: The bit I like best about Donnie Yen is how he spends 90% of the time being the chillest dude who knows he could kick a dude's skull off but doesn't need to show it.  Until the bad guys murder one of his friends or threaten his kid or something and then he just starts destroying people.  Also the 3rd movie has Mike Tyson as the bad guy for the first half of the movie.

Stranger Things s.2:  More 80s call backs.  Helped along with the addition of Sean Astin & Paul Reiser to the cast.  Also new monster from the Upside Down, more psychic kids with punk rock gangs and Cali skate board girls.

Ip Man: the Final Fight:  Not really a 4th movie in the series as a reboot.  Also one that doesn't really seem to flow well as an actual story.

Great action sequences, dopey rest of the movie.  Character's motivations were either missing or all over the place.  The espionage story was near random nonsense and the attempt at deep dialogue just came off as silly.  But that car chase and Theron's fight scenes.  Those were perfect.

First off, no dogs were murdered this time around.  And while various Russian goons get killed in the opening bit (where John goes to get his car back) the vast majority of dead goons this time around are Camorra.  Who are part of some kind of High Table of Crime I guess?  Anyway John wants to re-retire after the first movies blood letting (after getting back his car) but he can't because reasons.  Murdery reasons.  In addition to all the shooting, punching and stabbing we get more Secret World of Crime world building with more on the Continental Hotels for Assassins and their support businesses.  Also Laurence Fishburne as the Beggar King of New York.  Fun enough killspree action movie.  And again no dead puppies this time around.

The finale, well perfectly fine, lacked some of the emotional punch of the previous movies.  I mean part of it is knowing several of the big "shock" deaths were coming.  But there wasn't a lot of connection with most of the deaths during the final assault on the Capitol.  I mean I know Katniss' new squad of Army pals had names, but I just thought of them as Expendable NPCs #1-5.  A couple of her returning sidekicks had a little more heft to them.  Oh and the scene towards the end with the cat still got to me, a combination of resonance with the book and Jennifer Lawrence really is an outstanding actor.

As for the action stuff it was mostly ok, with the running battle with Mutt-ghouls in the sewers being the only one that really rose up...

Trouble Man: So you've got Mr. T who is hired by to find out who's knocking over floating craps games and keep a gang war from breaking out.  And then that leads to some murders in a pool hall and a frame-up by crooked cops.  And it all ends in a big shoot-out in the rented out top floors of a luxury hotel which are all offices and a swanky apartment.  Anyway Robert Hooks' Mr. T is one chill cat...

Catch Me If You Can:  That was a lot of federal resources dedicated to catching one non-violent check fraud person.

Adaptation:  That, that was not where I was expecting things to go.  Also, always odd to get reminded that Nicholas Cage CAN be a good actor.  And not just a sometimes fun, hammy actor...

Q: What was awesome in this movie?
A: Everything.  Especially motorcycle sniper grammas and dude with a flamethrower guitar.

Q: What was missing form this movie?
A: I don't know.  A monkey maybe?

Honestly the movie is worth it just to watch Colin Firth berserker-murder what is totally not a branch of the Westboro Baptist Church shit-heads.  The rest of the movie is pretty enjoyable in a over-the-top super-spy kind of way.  And dude who is the lead is pretty charming and he and Firth play well off each other...

I kind of feel like I shouldn't be counting Springbreakers or Don Jon as watched movies.  Since I didn't get very far into either.  I didn't even get to the spree crime bit of the former.  It was just sooooooo dull watching three college ladies try to find the money to party thru Spring Break.  Gave up well before James Franco shows up.  And as for the latter, Joseph Gordon-Levitt is a really good actor.  So good that I truly hated his porn-addicted bro very quickly.  And so tapped out right around the movie date with ScarJo...

Cockneys Vs. Zombies didn't really bring anything terribly new to the zombie survival genre.  A group of Eastenders trying to rob a bank to save their grandfather's retirement home from demolition.  Which gets interupted by the sudden zombie infestation.  Very suddenly.  I mean they go out the door, cops all over the street.  Rush back into the back, spend about a minute grabbing some hostages and go out and street is all post-zombie attack.  Still a fun movie.  I mean someone drop kicks a zombie baby...

I spent part of 42 trying to figure what the most southern MLB team would have been then.  Did Atlanta have a team then?  I'm pretty certain it was well before Florida or Texas had a major franchise.  Anyway, great acting all around though I'm betting Robinson's recruitment wasn't as high intentioned as shown...

Monsters University is a..nice..enough prequel sequel.  Its nowhere near as touching as Monsters Inc.  I did like Nate Fillion's smug BMOC bad guy.  And there were lots of visually interesting monsters.  But still was a fairly cookie cutter college underdog movie...

And finally we've got White House Down, one of the better Die Hard at Blank type movies.  Much better than the last two actual Die Hard movies definitely.  This is the one with Jamie Foxx as NotObama and Channing Tatum as NotJohn McLaine.  I don't know when Tatum learned to loosen up his acting, but its a decided improvement over some of previous work...

The Campaign: Beyond Will Ferrel punching a baby I wasn't expecting to find this funny. But it was and touching at times. I was honestly pleasantly surprised by this. Plus Will Ferrel does punch a baby. Also a puppy...

The Long Good Friday: Bob Hoskins is a London crime boss having a weekend party to convince some American investors to help him with his big, legitimate real estate project. And then someone starts killing his people and blowing up his stuff...

Salmon Fishing in Yemen: The title kind of sums it up. Yemen royal wants to build up a river and then stock it with salmon. Quietly funny with lots of great acting work...

Frankenweenie: Boy loves dog. Boy loses dog. Boy plays God in violation of all natural law and gets back dog. Later more dead pet related mayhem...

The Bourne Legacy: Doesn't really bring anything new, but I like seeing Renner as an action super-spy. Makes me think a Hawkeye movie is possible. And remembering Renner from the Unusuals makes me think a Fraction version Hawkeye movie is possible...

The Devil's Double: Based on the true story of Uday Hussein's body double. Reminded me a lot of the Last King of Scotland, as again you've got a basically decent person who gets shackled into the life of sociopathic monster...