Video of the Day - The GHOSTBUSTERS: AFTERLIFE Trailer...

Just thought I'd share the newest preview for Ghostbusters: Afterlife, which arrives in theaters nationwide on November 11, 2021.

While I enjoyed the 2016 reboot of Ghostbusters that was directed by Paul Feig and starred Melissa McCarthy, Kristen Wiig, Kate McKinnon, Leslie Jones and Chris Hemsworth (with a cameo by Bill Murray), I'm very excited for the Jason Reitman film since it's clearly the official sequel to Ghostbusters and Ghostbusters 2.

Not only is Afterlife produced by Ivan Reitman—Jason's father and the director of the 1984 and '89 installments—but Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Ernie Hudson, Sigourney Weaver and Annie Potts will reprise their classic roles of Dr. Peter Venkman, Dr. Raymond Stantz, Dr. Winston Zeddmore, Dana Barrett and Janine Melnitz, respectively. (Rick Moranis won't be returning as Louis Tully, unfortunately.) Harold Ramis, who played Dr. Egon Spengler in the original films, sadly passed away in February of 2014.

Not to be outdone by their legacy co-stars are Paul Rudd, Carrie Coon, McKenna Grace, Finn Wolfhard (who appeared in other supernatural projects such as Netflix's Stranger Things and both IT films) and Celeste O'Connor.

Just like with Star Wars: The Force Awakens—where Luke Skywalker's brief cameo was kept under wraps till the movie came out—it appears that the appearances of Peter Venkman (that last shot in the new preview notwithstanding) and company will either be shown in the final trailer, or saved for the film itself. Either way, I can't wait to see this flick less than four months from now! Check out the preview below.



That four-wheeled ghost trap is awesome!

Quick Review: SNAKE EYES...

Earlier today, I went to my local AMC theater to watch the G.I. Joe prequel Snake Eyes. This film was intriguing in that it obviously told the tale of how the Joes' heroic black-clad ninja (played by Henry Golding) came to be, and the start of his rivalry with a warrior who once considered him as his brother: Cobra's Storm Shadow (portrayed by Andrew Koji).

Snake Eyes had lots of cool action sequences in it, though of some of them were marred by shaky handheld camera work that you would see in a Jason Bourne film and definitely a Michael Bay flick. On the plus side though, Snake Eyes didn't have overblown computer-generated effects like 2009's G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra did.

Spoilers Ahead: We do not see how Snake Eyes lost his ability to talk in this movie, but the seeds are planted in regards to him forming a bond with Scarlett (Samara Weaving) and how Storm Shadow became his chief adversary.

If a sequel to Snake Eyes is made, then it's safe to assume that we'll watch as the ninja gets his vocal cords damaged...and witness his disfigurement (both in a helicopter explosion, presumably) as revealed in G.I. Joe canon. No sense for Paramount Pictures to hire a charismatic actor like Golding for the lead role if he becomes unrecognizable by the end of the first movie; I hope Snake Eyes 2 gets made to finish the story of this shadowy warrior. Carry on.

On This Day in 2011: Remembering HORRIBLE BOSSES...

10 years ago today, I went to the local multiplex and watched Horrible Bosses...the Seth Gordon-directed dark comedy about three white-collar subordinates bent on exacting revenge on their supervisors for treating them, obviously, like garbage. Horrible Bosses was my favorite comedy of 2011—with the A-list cast doing a stellar job in making this flick an absolute laugh riot! The best subplot in this movie was the one between Dale Arbus (Charlie Day) and his gleefully sexual-harrassing boss, Dr. Julia Harris (Jennifer Aniston). Aniston pulled out all the stops in making Harris as sinister and carnally ravenous as possible; coming in only at second place behind the tyrannical Dave Harken, the boss of Nick Hendricks (Jason Bateman) aptly played by Kevin Spacey. Colin Farrell was hilarious as Bobby Pellit, the obnoxious son of respectable company owner Jack (Donald Sutherland), and the arch-nemesis of Kurt Buckman (Jason Sudeikis). Not to be outdone in this crime comedy was Jamie Foxx as Dean 'Motherf*cker' Jones—an ex-con who didn't mind helping Arbus, Hendricks and Buckman try to fatally whack their hated superiors.

Horrible Bosses was such an entertaining movie that I'm not surprised it received a sequel...2014's Horrible Bosses 2 which had Chris Pine and Christoph Waltz join the fold. Unsurprisingly, the sequel wasn't as funny as the original movie, but that didn't stop me from enjoying the continued antics of Bateman, Sudeikis and Day in these films. If Horrible Bosses 3 gets made (unlikely, as it's almost been 7 years since the first sequel was released), I'll be there to watch it on opening weekend. Happy Friday!

Quick Review: BLACK WIDOW...

A few hours ago, I went to my local AMC theater to watch the first Phase 4 movie of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), Black Widow. It was very enjoyable...and a lot deeper than I expected. Black Widow is clearly about family and redemption—with Natasha Romanoff (once again played fiercely by Scarlett Johansson) reuniting with the folks (a.k.a. Russian agents) she called family when she was young, and confronting a person from her past (now working as the mysterious assassin named Taskmaster) whom she did wrong when Romanoff was trying desperately to leave the life of a cold-blooded assassin behind before she joined SHIELD and the Avengers.



Just like every other Marvel movie, Black Widow was very entertaining and had top-notch special effects (I actually know someone who was a visual effects artist on this film... Well-done, Delon Ho). Ironically, it was the amazing CGI at the climax of Black Widow that somewhat had a negative impact on the movie. For the first two acts of the film, we see Natasha and her sister Yelena Belova (Florence Pugh) try to outrun fellow Widows in cool action sequences that were shot on location in Budapest and Norway, respectively. (It was in these parts where this movie felt like the 2018 Jennifer Lawrence espionage flick, Red Sparrow. Not a criticism.) But by the end of the film, we see Natasha, Yelena, Alexei (David Harbour) and Melina (Rachel Weisz) make their way up to a giant floating fortress hidden in the clouds...something that you would obviously see in an Avengers or Captain America movie.



While Black Widow's change of tone from a gritty assassin film to a CG-heavy comic book movie could've been handled a bit differently, it was still an enjoyable flick. As mentioned at the start of this review, Natasha Romanoff sought redemption—and ultimately achieved it. It's after watching this film that Marvel fans should feel sad for Black Widow considering the fate that befell her in 2019's Avengers: Endgame. But when it comes down to it, Natasha's story was finally told alongside those of Captain America, Iron Man and Thor...and the MCU is better for it.

Quick Review: THE FOREVER PURGE...

Earlier today, I watched the latest installment in The Purge franchise at my local AMC theater. Needless to say, The Forever Purge is my favorite sequel yet. While the previous movies dealt with different groups of characters and how they managed to make it through 12 hours of lawful destruction and murder, The Forever Purge was about folks trying to survive not only during the Purge, but afterwards when a nationwide hate group—known as the Ever After Purgers—continued violent attacks across America despite the final siren bringing the government-sanctioned carnage to an end.



What makes The Forever Purge more intense that its predecessors is that it is definitely inspired by the divisiveness that afflicted the United States during the Trump presidency. Not only is it intense, but the film is also a lot scarier in that the hate-filled acts portrayed in this movie feel more plausible; there are folks (as shown during the January 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol) who would be more than willing to don scary outfits, form murderous militia teams, and purge this country of people deemed un-American for as long as it takes. (Imagine what the QAnon movement would become if the Purge actually existed...) And The Forever Purge ends with an interesting twist on real life by labeling Yanks who survived the mayhem by crossing the U.S./Mexico border as "American Dreamers."



The final scene in The Forever Purge is a powerful one: I won't tell you what happens to the main characters themselves, but we see peace and calm at a refugee camp in Mexico while on the other side of the border, Texas (where the entire film takes place) is engulfed in fire and smoke. And the very last shot is a night-side POV from space showing the United States completely covered in flames...to exemplify that the NFFA, the New Founding Fathers of America, was being destroyed by its own experiment. Powerful stuff—especially for a sci-fi action-horror flick.

I look forward to the next Purge film!

On This Day in 1996: Remembering INDEPENDENCE DAY...

25 years ago today, I watched the hit alien-invasion epic Independence Day at the theater. I've spoken about the sci-fi blockbuster—which is my favorite movie of 1996—so many times throughout the years that there's really nothing new to say about the film (but stay on this page, anyway)! Though in the wake of a recent report released by the Department of Defense about UFOs encountered by U.S. Navy pilots over the past two decades, blogging about ID4 today couldn't be more timely. If you want to read previous things that I've said about the Roland Emmerich-directed epic, you can visit this blog update that celebrated the 10-year anniversary of ID4 in 2006.

Will I post an entry commemorating the 10-year anniversary of Independence Day: Resurgence (which was released in theaters nationwide on June 24, 2016) in 2026, you ask? Probably not. That movie broke my heart like the Dumb and Dumber sequel, Dumb and Dumber To did in 2014. Happy Fourth of July weekend to my fellow Yanks!

On This Day in 2011: Remembering TRANSFORMERS: DARK OF THE MOON...

10 years ago today, I watched Transformers: Dark of the Moon—the third installment in Michael Bay's action-packed film franchise based on the classic Hasbro toys—at the local AMC 20 theater. Dark of the Moon is my favorite movie of 2011...even though I'm still bummed that Megan Fox got herself fired from the film due to poorly-worded comments about Bay in a 2009 interview (it was Executive Producer Steven Spielberg who demanded her removal after she compared Bay to Hitler), and the fact that Shockwave didn't live up to his intimidating appearance that was the centerpiece of Dark of the Moon's pre-release marketing campaign. There isn't one Autobot that Shockwave killed in this Transformers movie, which makes him as poor a villain as The Fallen—the title character of 2009's Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. (I'll also point out that the two of them went out like chumps to Optimus Prime...who decimated both of their faces before they were defeated at the hands of the Autobot leader.) At least Bay and his writers corrected this flaw with the badass antagonist Lockdown, from 2014's Transformers: Age of Extinction.



In terms of the good things about Dark of the Moon, Steve Jablonsky's music score for this flick was absolutely top-notch (Listen to "It's Our Fight" on YouTube below), the CGI was amazing as usual, and the portrayal of Sentinel Prime—through Leonard Nimoy's voice work for the character and his design—was awesome. Rosie Huntington-Whiteley was commendable as Carly, though as I said in the previous paragraph, I wanted to see closure between Megan Fox's Mikaela and Shia LaBeouf's Sam Witwicky in this movie. I liked how the Apollo 11 Moon landing played an important role in this film, and that NASA's Kennedy Space Center itself was featured in Dark of the Moon. Regarding the future, Transformers: Rise of the Beasts—a direct sequel to the 2018 spinoff flick Bumblebee—hits theaters nationwide in 2022. Carry on!

Photo of the Day: Indy Is Back for His 5th Adventure!

Photo by IJ Adventure Outpost - Twitter.com

Almost two years after he appeared as Han Solo on the big screen for the final time in Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, Harrison Ford is donning the fedora once again as he began filming Indiana Jones 5. This photo was first posted online yesterday...as principal photography has commenced on the first Indiana Jones film that will not be directed by Steven Spielberg, but by James Mangold (of 2005's Walk the Line, 2017's Logan and 2019's Ford v Ferrari), respectively. Joining Ford in this cast will be Rogue One: A Star Wars Story's Mads Mikkelsen, and Solo: A Star Wars Story's Phoebe Waller-Bridge. John Williams is set to return to compose the music score for this latest installment. Indiana Jones 5, which doesn't have a proper title yet, will be released in theaters nationwide on July 29, 2022, hopefully.

And yes, I hope that this sequel will be more along the lines of The Last Crusade (Raiders of the Lost Ark can't be beat) than Kingdom of the Crystal Skull! Happy Tuesday.

On This Day in 1996: Remembering THE ROCK...

25 years ago today, I watched the Michael Bay-directed/Jerry Bruckheimer-produced action flick The Rock at the theater. Seeing as how I only viewed this film once (even though a lot of folks I know consider it to be Bay's best movie, along with 1995's Bad Boys), my recollection of moments from this flick will probably be inaccurate. (I went to the movie's IMDb page to get their character names correct, at least.) I remember the scene where John Patrick Mason (Sean Connery), a former Alcatraz inmate, effortlessly uses one hand to hold a rope that an FBI agent is grabbing onto for dear life as he hangs over the balcony ledge of a tall building. I recall a car chase scene that either took place before or after that...most likely after. I remember the scene where General Francis X. Hummel (Ed Harris) yells "Cease fire" as his mercenaries gun down the Navy SEALs who infiltrated Alcatraz to neutralize chemical weapons that Hummel placed on the island. (This was a very emotional scene.) And I remember the climactic moment when Stanley Goodspeed (Nicolas Cage)—after injecting himself with the antidote following exposure to one of the chemical weapons—ignites two flares to signal incoming F/A-18 Hornets to abort their airstrike since Mason and Goodspeed managed to secure the deadly nerve agents. And of course, I remember Mason uttering the memorable line (in Connery's British accent), "Welcome to the Rock."



The main reason why I'm reminiscing about The Rock—apart from it being an entertaining, high-octane Bay flick—is because it was released in theaters only a few days before 10th grade (my favorite year in high school) came to an end. This is also the reason why I posted a recent blog entry about Broken Arrow, which is still a fun, action-packed movie without the nostalgia. And next month, I plan on typing about my most favorite film of 1996. I'll give you a hint about what it is: It's a mega summer blockbuster that had the White House getting blown up by a 15 mile-wide alien spaceship...prompting Will Smith and Jeff Goldblum to go and save the world. Happy Monday!

Quick Review - THE CONJURING: THE DEVIL MADE ME DO IT...

Earlier today, I went to the local AMC 20 theater to watch The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It...the third installment in the cinematic horror franchise started by James Wan in 2013, and directed by Michael Chaves this time around. In The Devil Made Me Do It, Ed and Lorraine Warren (once again aptly played by Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga) need to prove that the real-life 1981 murder of Alan Bono (whose name was changed to Bruno in this film) committed by Arne Cheyenne Johnson was the result of demonic possession following the exorcism of a young boy named David Glatzel, whose family Johnson knew. Johnson eventually served 5 years in prison for committing manslaughter (when the prosecutor proposed the death penalty instead...according to the movie)—a result, at least in The Conjuring 3, of the Warrens successfully tying the crime to a sinister Satanic cult that was behind Johnson's homicidal act.



Overall, The Devil Made Me Do It was pretty darn scary...just like the two previous Conjuring flicks (and spin-off films like 2014's Annabelle and 2018's The Nun) before it. However, there was nothing in this movie to really freak me out as 1.) much of the backstory behind what caused David Glatzel himself to become possessed was embellished, and 2.) we all know that both Warrens will happily survive this investigation—as the real Ed Warren passed away in 2006, and Lorraine was 92 when she sadly died two years ago. Also, I'm a huge fan of the now-concluded CW Network TV series Supernatural, and the idea that people are cursed by hexes secretly placed inside their homes by evil cults was conveyed numerous times during this show's 15-year run (which is also why the Paranormal Activity sequels felt more and more derivative with each new installment that was theatrically released last decade). With that being said, I look forward to the next chapter in The Conjuring franchise. I'm definitely excited for The Nun 2 (I drew an artwork of Valak at the start of the pandemic last year)! Carry on.