Last movie you watched......

Seven Days in May.

Terrific cast headed up by Lancaster, Douglas and Fredric March. Had no idea it was directed by John Frankenheimer until I saw the credits. Intriguing plot. Apparently John Kennedy approved.

 

The Secrets of Dumbledore.

Give it a C+, maybe a B-. See it if you’re a Potterhead. Otherwise? Nah.

 

I finally saw Top Gun: Maverick, and I loved it -- all of it.

It was just so fun, but also, so good, too. It moved me, even to tears a couple of times; it surprised me occasionally; it brought back good memories of the first Top Gun movie from 36 years ago. (Geez, time has flown by, almost as fast as one of those F-18s). This movie made me, almost, wish I was young enough to join the Navy and fly those planes; and it made me want to see it again, maybe even within just a couple of days from now.

Tom Cruise, known as an action-oriented actor, doesn't get enough credit for his ability pack emotions into his performances, and draw people in, and actually make them care about his characters. I thought that even about the first Top Gun movie all those years ago, and it is really true in this one.

And all the hark-backs and subtle references to the first movie...Wow. So many, both plain, and not-so-obvious, but all over the place, in script words, old pictures, old fighter planes, scenes, tones, and even some of the music, for all the people who saw and loved the first iteration of Top Gun.

There were also a lot of strong performances among all the co-stars, particularly Jennifer Connelly and Miles Tiller.

I don't know if I'd say this movie was better than the first Top Gun, even though the story is certainly deeper in this one. But for me, that's only because the Maverick/Tom Cruise-Goose/Anthony Edwards chemistry/relationship in the first movie was the strength of it, and was so good that it really carried it.

Of course, I consider myself even more right about that now, because that relationship was STILL the real lynch-pin, even of this movie.

 

Anyone with kids? We saw The Bad Guys last weekend and I can say it was pretty enjoyable.

 

Well, I doubt that.

It's a terrific movie, well worth seeing, especially if you've seen/liked the original. I didn't even mention this in my post above, but the flying scenes really are genuinely great -- and very close to what they would be like in real life, according to several critiques and straight reports I've read about the making of Top Gun: Maverick. It's apparently not just digitally-enhanced or Hollywood-manipulated stuff.

It's probably also exactly what movie theaters need right now in attempting to recover from the past two-plus years of closures and light attendance and returning to any semblance of business normalcy.

 

I liked Cruise's welcome before the movie too.

 

Saw the Dr. Strange sequel. Really liked it. A few random thoughts:

1. People say they didn't see the Sam Raimi touch. I don't get that. When you have the gore and

Spoiler

Mr. Fantastic's head exploding like a balloon

and

Spoiler

a zombie Dr. Strange at the end,

you have a Sam Raimi movie.

2. But with an embarrassing motivation for the villain - even if you consider they're under the influence of whatever. I mean,

Spoiler

is every single woman without kids just one step away from being a mass murderer? (And when you marry an android, isn't not having bio-kids an expectation?)

 

Here's a story on the training regimen Cruise put his fellow actor/flyers through for the Top Gun: Maverick movie. Full-on naval testing/training tactics, real flights, tips on acting while also flying at such speeds, etc. His fingerprints really were apparently all over this movie. Long, but pretty interesting and enlightening.

https://www.theringer.com/movies/2022/5/24/23137965/top-gun-maverick-training-tom-cruise

 

Regarding the first two, anybody who doesn't see Raimi's influence in this movie doesn't understand Raimi's filmmaking history. Hell, there were parts I half expected Dr. Strange to conjure up Ash Williams to help him.

I didn't love what they did with the villain, but the writing for that character has been all over the place in all media for a very long time, and most of it has not been good. That said, I do think you were oversimplifying the character's motivation.

 

Just got home from “Smokey and The Bandit” on the big screen. It was glorious. My 13-year-old thought it was really weird.

 

Drops in a few weeks.