Masterplan is a 2026 French-Italian crime-comedy heist film.
Stanley Tucci plays a different kind of role in this one.
It’s a heist romp. Entertaining.
Stealing the Mona Lisa from the Louvre.
Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.
Category: movies
The Odyssey (2026)
Saw The Odyssey in IMAX. Worth watching.
I was impressed how they adapted the LONG, SILLY, CONFUSING ancient Greek epic poem watchable by a modern audience.
It doesn’t look an A.I. monstrosity. Director Nolan prefers practical, “old school” in-camera special effects over CGI.
Modern language, American accents, and profanity are a bit shocking at first. But I got used to it.
Cast is great: Matt Damon stars as Odysseus, alongside Anne Hathaway (Penelope), Tom Holland (Telemachus), Robert Pattinson (Antinous), Zendaya (Athena), and Charlize Theron (Calypso).
The blind friend and servant Eumaeus, played by John Leguizamo is particularly interesting and original.
I recommend it.
Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.
Racist Musk was offended by the cast. I assume he wanted more authentic Ancient Greek looking people, rather than Americans. 😀
Musk is working on an A.I. generated version.
Fighting with My Family (2019 film)
I’d heard good things about this sports comedy. And it truly is a heart warming, charming movie.
It’s based on the true story of Paige (now known as Saraya in AEW) won her first title on April 7, 2014, on WWE Raw by defeating AJ Lee on her main roster debut, making her the youngest Divas Champion in history at age 21.
… written and directed by Stephen Merchant … it depicts the career of English professional wrestler Paige as she makes her way to WWE, while also following her brother Zak Zodiac, as he struggles with his failure to achieve similar success.
Florence Pugh and Jack Lowden star as Paige and Zodiac respectively, alongside Lena Headey, Nick Frost, Vince Vaughn, and Dwayne Johnson, with the latter also acting as producer.
I’d expected it to mock professional wrestling. Not at all. It looks at the human side of the sports entertainment.
Watch it.
Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.
Spider-Man: Brand New Day
Excellent. Even saw it in a theatre.
Generally ignoring superhero movies, I do have soft spots for Ironman, Batman, and Spiderman.
An unprecedented, record-breaking, summer blockbuster HIT — it’s actually worth seeing.
Ignoring the superhero fight scenes, I appreciated the cast. Tom Holland good. But my EX, Zendaya, a little underused.
Sadie Sink is the real female start of the film, playing the mutant Jean Grey.
Jon Bernthal is excellent as the gritty vigilante Frank Castle, also known as The Punisher,
Critics appreciated Marvel moving away from the “multiverse slop” and massive space battles.
You can relate to these characters. Peter Parker starts as a lonely, independent “friendly neighbourhood” hero dealing with young adulthood and grief. And getting along with the cops.
See it!
Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.
Odd Thomas (2013 film)
FUN movie.
Odd Thomas is a 2013 supernatural thriller film based on Dean Koontz‘s 2003 (excellent) novel of the same name.
Odd Thomas is a 20-year-old short-order fry cook who possesses a paranormal gift: he can see and communicate with the dead. He uses his clairvoyant abilities to help the local police chief quietly solve murders and bring criminals to justice.
The film stars Anton Yelchin as the titular character, alongside Addison Timlin and Willem Dafoe.
Despite receiving a limited theatrical release due to legal and financial disputes involving its production companies, the movie has since gained a dedicated cult following for its charm, fast pacing, and the strong chemistry between its lead actors.
Addison Timlin is super charming as as Stormy Llewellyn.
Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.
Desperation by Stephen King
Excellent.
Desperation (1996) is a horror novel by American author Stephen King.
… a story about several people who, while traveling along the desolated Highway 50 in Nevada, get abducted by Collie Entragian, the deputy of the fictional mining town of Desperation.
Entragian uses various pretexts for the abductions, from an arrest for drug possession to “rescuing” a family from a nonexistent gunman.
It becomes clear to the captives that Entragian has been possessed by an evil being named Tak, who has control over the surrounding desert wildlife and must change hosts to keep itself alive.
They begin to fight for their freedom, sanity and lives before realizing that if they are ever to escape Desperation, they must trap Tak in the place from which he came.
Stephen King’s Desperation (2006) is an American made-for-TV horror film based on Stephen King’s 1996 novel of the same name.
Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.
The Life of Chuck (2024)
Wow. Original. Interesting. Uplifting
What a great movie.
The Life of Chuck is a 2024 fantasy-drama film written, directed, and edited by horror auteur Mike Flanagan.
Moving away from his signature macabre horror style, Flanagan delivers a life-affirming, emotionally resonant adaptation of Stephen King’s 2020 novella of the same name.
The film took home the prestigious People’s Choice Award at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF).
The movie explores the life of an ordinary accountant named Charles “Chuck” Krantz through an unconventional reverse three-act structure:
- Act III: Thanks, Chuck! – The film opens during a surreal, crumbling apocalypse where infrastructure fails and the world is slowly ending. Mysteriously, massive billboards and TV ads appear everywhere thanking an ordinary man named Chuck for “39 great years,” baffling local residents.
- Act II: Busking – The narrative jumps back to Chuck’s adulthood, capturing a profound, spontaneous, and joyous street-dance sequence during a business trip that celebrates pure human connection.
- Act I: Childhood – The final act explores Chuck’s upbringing by his grandparents after his parents die. He grapples with a love for dancing versus his grandfather’s practical accounting expectations, all while living in a home with a supernatural, prophetic secret hidden in the attic.
The underlying thesis reveals that the global “apocalypse” in Act III is actually the fading consciousness and brain decay of Chuck himself as he lies dying in a hospital bed.
The film acts as a metaphor for the Walt Whitman philosophy that every single human “contains multitudes” and holds an entire pocket universe within their mind.
Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.
Steven Spielberg’s Disclosure Day (2026)
I saw Disclosure Day in the theatre.
Silly. But entertaining.
Rotten Tomatoes, critical approval rating of around 82%.
It could have been better if not so complicated.
I enjoy some of the small touches, however. For example, Emily Blunt’s character (Margaret Fairchild) has a musician boyfriend named Jackson, who is played by Wyatt Russell. That character is funny and believable.
Colin Firth makes a good bad guy.
Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.
Hot Fuzz – Action Comedy Film
An insane, over-the-top comedy.
Hot Fuzz is a 2007 British action comedy film directed by Edgar Wright and written by Wright and Simon Pegg.
Pegg stars as Nicholas Angel, an elite police officer who is reassigned to a West Country village and investigates a series of gruesome deaths. Nick Frost co-stars as Police Constable Danny Butterman, Angel’s partner. …
Wright and Pegg spent eighteen months writing the script.
The first draft took eight months to develop, and after watching 138 cop-related films for dialogue and plot ideas
Influenced by American movies like Raising Arizona ,Bad Boys, & Point Break, the cinematography in Hot Fuzz (2007), shot by Jess Hall, parodies Hollywood action movies by applying a blockbuster visual style to a sleepy English village.
High-contrast lighting, wide-angle lenses, and rapid-fire editing.
The film features over 5,500 edits. Fast cuts connect quick “insert shots” (close-ups of objects like a gun, a pen, or a badge) with wide shots. This turns mundane chores into high-intensity action.
Director Edgar Wright frequently cuts to extreme close-ups of eyes, boots, and weapons to build dramatic tension.
The “Whip Pan”: The camera rapidly swings to the side. This creates a blur effect.
The “Crash Zoom”: The camera violently zooms into a character’s face during moments of sudden realization. It is a classic 1970s and 1980s cop-movie trope used for comedic effect.
Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.
The Recovery Agent by Janet Evanovich
The Recovery Agent is the first book in an adventure-mystery series by #1 New York Times bestselling author Janet Evanovich .
Launched in 2022, the series introduces Gabriela Rose, a professional recovery agent who specializes in finding lost treasures and stolen heirlooms for wealthy clients.
Something of a silly Indiana Jones clone.
Suspend your disbelief.
I probably won’t continue with the series — though ex-husband, Rafer, is very entertaining. Laid-back, charming, and infuriating to Gabriela, Rafer is a slovenly surfer dude.
Paramount Pictures has acquired the rights to Janet Evanovich’s bestselling Recovery Agent book series for a feature film adaptation, with Gal Gadot producing and potentially starring as globe-trotting agent Gabriela Rose.
