Movies Merica

We learned about dino DNA for the first time in 1993 with the first Jurassic Park movie. That DNA must have staying power but they’re still churning out Jurassic movies 32 years later. This time, in “Jurassic World: Rebirth”, it’s Scarlett Johanssen, post-Black Widow, taking the lead. She plays Zora, a merc hired by a questionable pharmaceutical rep to help a dinosaur expert get access to a forbidden area where dinosaurs still roam...

In 2022, director Joseph Kosinski wowed us with amazing sights from inside fighter jets in “Top Gun: Maverick.” In 2025, he’s dropping our jaws to the floor with awesome sights from inside F1 race cars in the summer blockbuster “F1” starring Brad Pitt. PItt plays veteran driver Sonny Hayes who is asked by his friend, who owns a team, to help them win and maybe mentor their young driver too. Hayes soon finds that today’s racing is f...

First there was “28 Days Later.” Then “28 Weeks Later.” This week we got “28 Years Later.” We better appreciate this one big time because the next one has to be “28 Decades Later”, and none of us will be around. For now, let’s focus on “28 Years Later”, which is the latest in this series of movies centered around an outbreak of what’s called the Rage Virus. People are infected with the Rage Virus and then infect others by biting th...

You know the John Wick movies are successful when they’re making spin-off TV series and movies off of that franchise. This week we get the first, and most assuredly, not the last John Wick spin-off movie, “Ballerina.” Ana De Armas takes the starring role in this as another assassin who, like John Wick, was trained to kill by the Ruska Roma criminal organization. Perhaps she’s even more lethal than Wick because no one expects her to...

Did you just watch a feel good movie and need to rid yourself of the good feelings? Then the movie “Bring Her Back”, from the directors of “Talk To Me”, just might be what the doctor ordered. There’s nothing sunny and bright about this movie,  but it is a horror movie, so that tracks. Piper and Andy are step-siblings who are placed with a foster mom, Laura, after tragedy strikes. Laura is a bit “off”, to say the least. Plus she has...

The Mission:Impossible movies started in 1996 with Tom Cruise playing Ethan Hunt for the first time. Now 29 years later, we might be getting the last Mission:Impossible movie with “Mission:Impossible The Final Reckoning.” We were left with a cliffhanger in the last Mission:Impossible movie, so we’ll perhaps get the conclusion we’re looking for. Is it worth going to the theater to see if we do? Check out this episode to find out! “M...

Have you ever been watching a classic vampire movie like “Fright Night” or “The Lost Boys” and thought, “This is good, but this could be great with two of the guy who played Apollo Creed’s kid in those ‘Creed’ movies as well as some blues music and a dash of racial commentary!”? Well, put up your black square on Instagram and clutch your George Floyd bobblehead in celebration because a celebration is a comin’! Your reason for celeb...

“War is hell” is a common phrase, but as we live our peacetime lives, it can be hard to visualize what that phrase really means. The movie “Warfare” provides a way to see and comprehend that phrase. The movie is directed by “Civil War” and “Ex Machina” director Alex Garland and Iraq War veteran Ray Mendoza. Mendoza was one of the soldiers in the middle of the real-life battle that this movie shows. Garland and Mendoza don’t hold ba...

Val Kilmer was one of the most eclectic and enthralling actors of his generation and one of the movies that heavily showcased this is this week’s movie, “The Salton Sea.” Kilmer showed he could be wacky, like in “Top Secret!” and “Real Genius” or deadly serious like in “Spartan” and “The Doors.” In “The Salton Sea” he sort of combines those two and it makes for an entertaining and captivating performance. If you want a movie that l...

There are a few thing certainties you can count on in movies. If it’s an Adam Sandler movie, there’ll be at least one fart joke. If it’s a Jason Statham movie, there’ll be at least one dude getting a limb broken and plenty of punching. This week’s movie “A Working Man” that bill. Statham plays Levon Cade, who used to be an elite military operator, but now tries to make an honest living as a working man in construction. He works for...

I’ll admit it. All us guys, at one point or another, have fantasized about being some one-man action hero that kicks a bunch of bad guy butt to rescue a beautiful woman. It’s a great fantasy until reality kicks in and you start thinking “I don’t wanna do that! I could experience pain!!!” The main character in this week’s movie, “Novocaine”, doesn’t have to worry about the pain part AND he reluctantly has to be a one-man action hero...

I have a movie telling a harrowing true life tale about a deep sea, or saturation, diver in mortal peril this week called “Last Breath.” It stars Woody Harrelson, Simu Liu, Finn Cole and Cliff Curtis. As you know, there are thousands of miles of pipes in the ocean and somebody has to maintain them. That’s where saturation divers come in. They dive to dangerous depths out in the middle of freezing cold, dark oceans, so deep they hav...

If you thought you hated Valentine’s Day, you’ve got nothing over the serial killer in “Heart Eyes.” No Hallmark cards, 2 hour wait times at a fancy restaurant and overpriced flowers for this killer. This Heart Eyes Killer’s MO is to kill couples in different cities every Valentine’s Day. You’ll see people get maimed in this movie but ubiquitous rom-com movie tropes get pummeled as well in a bitingly witty way, while the blood flow...

We’re now up to the 35th movie in the Marvel Cinematic Universe and that movie is “Captain America: Brave New World.” At the end of “Avengers: Endgame”, the OG Captain America, Steve Rogers, gave Sam Wilson (Anthony Mackie) the Captain America shield. Sam, had been Falcon up until that point, starting in the movies with “Captain America: The Winter Soldier.” After, the “Falcon And The Winter Soldier” Marvel TV series, the Sam Wilso...

Do you have that problem where someone is always asking you to watch a romantic movie but the movie has too much of that, ya know, love and romance? I just might have the solution you’ve been looking for in this week’s movie “Companion.” This movie is a romantic movie in marketing only to perhaps help you get your special someone to watch it with you. Then you’ll both get to watch how the movie spins its head and becomes a twisted,...

In 1993 Mel Gibson’s first directorial effort was a smaller movie named “The Man Without A Face.” Since then he’s made nothing but big, epic movies like “Braveheart” and “Hacksaw Ridge.” Now he’s going back to his smaller movie roots with the suspense thriller “Flight Risk.” Mel starred in “Father Stu” with Mark Wahlberg and apparently they forged a friendship because Wahlberg is the name at the top of the poster for this movie. In...

In 1941, we got the classic Lon Chaney Jr./Bela Lugosi “The Wolf Man.” Chaney looked more like an angry psychotic meth head with a Justin Timberlake haircut back then. Now in 2025, we get a much updated hairy, scary dude with “Wolf Man” directed by Leigh Whannell. This isn’t Whannell’s first classic monster movie re-make rodeo. He also directed the 2020 “The Invisible Man” which was a critical and commercial hit. In “Wolf Man” we’r...

In celebration of the 30th Anniversary of this classic from director David Fincher, it’s IMAX showing & its release on 4K, I’m doing a retro review of “Se7en.’ Brad Pitt plays Detective David Mills, who moves to a crime-ridden city with his wife, and is paired up with retiring detective William Somerset, played by Morgan Freeman. Thanks to a serial killer that appears to be preaching and forcing attrition on his victims concern...

This week’s movie had to be financed by multiple prepper supply companies because I wanted to go buy a bomb shelter and some remote land as the end credits rolled. That movie is “Homestead” which tells the story of a group of people that hole up in a self-sustaining remote survival compound known as The Homestead, after a nuclear detonation in L.A. It’s owned by Ian Ross, played by Neal McDonough from “Band Of Brothers”, “Minority ...