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My Favorite Movies I Saw in 2020

Posted in Blog Series, Movie Board, movies with tags Marvel, Movie Board, movies, reviews, Star Wars, The Avengers on January 15, 2021 by Paxton

2020 was an odd year for movie viewing, to say the least. Typcially I would’ve seen nearly 50 movies in the theater. This past year I think I saw two. And both of those were old movies; Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban on 2/16 and The Godfather on 2/23. The theater by us was going to show all 8 of the Harry Potter movies starting in Dec 2019 through like May 2020. I was going to take the kids. Unfortunately I missed the first two movies in December 2019. But I caught Harry Potter 3 right before the pandemic. Then everything shut down and I won’t get to complete that marathon with my kids. Which sucks because they really connected with Harry Potter (books and movies) over the quarantine. It would have been nice to take them to the theater to see them. Anyway, that’s my 2020 sob story about seeing movies in theaters.

Anyway, I keep my list of movies watched (with some small reviews) in two places, similar to my books list. The first is the usual Google Spreadsheet. That list is easier to get an overall view of the year and pick out favorite entries because I have it all color coded based on rating and year released. The other place I keep a list of the movies I watch is over on Letterboxd. So check me out there. Friend me. I need friends. I’m lonely. SO LONELY.

But now, let’s dig into my list. Rules are like my books, only movies new to me in 2020 are eligible. Normally, I’d start off giving you a list of my favorite “released in 2020” movies. But, surprise, surprise, things being how they are, I didn’t really watch a lot of “2020 movies”. So I’m going to mix this list up and do ten of my favorite movies that I watched for the first time in 2020. And they may not all be movies. I may include mini-series as well.

So let’s see what my favorite things to watch in 2020 were. I got most of my images and links from Wikipedia.

Ip Man 4: The Finale (2019) – I’m going to start with this one because it leads directly into the next one. I love Donnie Yen. I think I first noticed him in his all too brief appearance as Snowman in Blade II. I’ve followed him ever since. And this Ip Man series has been fantastic. Yen is just *awesome* as Ip Man. The first one is still my favorite, followed closely by the second. The third one is still good, but not one I love. However, Part 4, is amazing. It might be my new favorite after the first. But tied with the second. And one of the reasons why is the villain, played by Scott Adkins. He is brutal and amazing in this. He has such a powerful screen presence. I’ve only ever seen him in one movie before this and I remember being underwhelmed. I may have to revisit that movie now because I was wrong. This is a great capper to the Donnie Yen/Wilson Yip Ip Man series. And Scott Adkins is now someone that I’m going to dig more deeply into his filmography.

Scott Adkins movies – 2020, for me, has been about watching movies with my dad. Things have been really rough this year for my dad and I’ve been going back to Alabama to help him with medical stuff and to just spend some time with him, which has been in short supply these last few years. Anyway, he and I watched a TON of movies together this summer. I caught up on a lot of stuff I’d never seen before and discovered a lot of new things. One of those things, thanks to Ip Man 4, is Scott Adkins. Now, being an action/martial arts guy, I’d totally heard about Scott Adkins. This guy is a machine and puts out a ton of movies every year. I’d always meant to catch some but never have. So, my dad being a lover of the action genre, was interested in also checking him out. Especially after I spoke so highly about Scott in Ip Man 4. So we binged like 5 of Scott Adkins’ movies. And they were AWESOME. We watched The Debt Collector, the sequel The Debt Collectors, Avengement, Close Range, and El Gringo. And Adkins delivers in every one. Especially the ones where he gets to show a little personality. Of these, my favorites may have been The Debt Collector, and its sequel, Debt Collectors. Adkins and Louis Mandelore have such great chemistry and it was fun watching them get in over their heads in the debt collecting business. Avengement is awesome because it’s brutal. He starts off a normal guy and SO MANY bad things happen to him he’s pretty much a different person by the end of the movie. It’s one bad ass revenge flick. El Gringo felt like a Robert Rodriguez movie. I mean that in a good way because I’m very hit or miss on Rodriguez’s output. Oh, one other movie we saw had Akins in it, but it was a surprise. We also watched American Assassin with Michael Keaton, Dylan O’Brien and a small but important appearance by Scott Adkins. Very good.

Palm Springs (2020) – Time travel. Andy Samberg. JK Simmons. I don’t think I have to say anything else. I’m a sucker for time travel movies. Especially if they are doing something creative or different with the idea. And this definitely does that. Plus it has classic Andy Samberg and a hilarious appearance by JK Simmons. This is great. See it.

The Last Dance (2020) – This was a documentary produced by ESPN and Netflix. I’m a huge sucker for 80s-90s NBA stuff. Books, documentaries, game footage. This scratched every single itch I have for that kind of content. It’s so good. It mostly covers Jordan’s career and how he approached the game of basketball but it touches on so many other things like competiveness, drive, how much is too much, and what it costs to be the best.

Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (2019) – I’m always interested in what Tarantino’s next movie is. Even if it doesn’t look good I’ll check it out. This one totaly looked good and I finally sat down to watch it. And loved it. I love the atmosphere, I love the time period, I love the performances. Leo and Brad are fantastic. Margot is great, and beautiful, and plays Tate with surprising sadness. I really felt for her. And the ending, in typcial Tarantino fashion, goes bananas. I loved it. I’m picking up the novelization that Tarantino is writing later this summer. What a fun movie.

Ford v Ferrari (2019) – I’m not technically a “car guy”. I admire some styles of cars; especially mid-to-late 60s american muscle cars. But this movie caught my eye not because it’s about racing, but because of the cast. Christian Bale and Matt Damon in the 50s-60s tearing up race tracks and taking on the Italians? Yes. I’m on board. And I loved every second of this movie. Damon and Bale are fantastic as always and the action was packed. There was also a surprising amount of humor which I love. I was interested to see this movie, but I didn’t expect to like it as much as I did.

Ready or Not (2019) – I thought the premise of this sounded fun so I streamed it on a lark one night when I had nothing else to watch. And so begins my obsession with Samara Weaving. This move was so fun, but also unexpected at the same time. Lots of crazy, kooky characters. And a crazy cool premise. Samara Weaving finds herself on the run from her new husband’s family in a series of deadly games due to a curse that they believe was put on their family. It’s so much fun and Weaving is pretty great. After watching Ready or Not, I jumped into another Samara Weaving movie, Guns Akimbo. Which is even more crazy and over the top. Guns Akimbo also has Daniel Radcliffe who is forced into a weird viral game against other crazy characters to kill each other. Samara Weaving plays the top bad ass character and she’s so awesome. Both of these movies are pretty over the top but in kind of the best way possible.

We also wound up binging a bunch of TV shows in 2020. So here are three shows we loved watching in 2020.

The Great – I heard buzz about this, but I saw it as something like that dreamy and weird Marie Antoinette movie from 2006, which my wife loved. And I didn’t. Therefore I didn’t want to watch it. However, being a good husband, I gave it a chance. And I was wrong. SO WRONG. This is a period piece. Yes. But it has more akin to A Knight’s Tale than Marie Antoinette. It weaves in so much grown up humor, lots of sex, lots of language, and backs it all with a modern music soundtrack. People like to throw around irreverant, but considering that this movie is ostensibly about Catherine the Great’s rise to power in Russia, it is absolutely irreverent. And doesn’t care one bit about the actual history (which sounds worse than it actually comes across). Elle Fanning is amazing in this. Nicolas Hoult as Peter is so awesome. This surprised me to my core. I loved it.

11.22.63 – My wife and I read the Stephen King book back in 2012. And it made my 2012 year end favorites list. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. Time Travel. I’m a sucker for it. But this series is really good. James Franco discovers a time warp in the back of a diner that leads to the early 60s. There are a whole bunch of rules to how it works but he agrees to a plan with the diner’s dying owner to go back in the time warp and try to stop the assassination of John F Kennedy. But to do that he’ll have to survive and live for two years in the past. And during those two years while he’ll be preparing to stop the assassination, time itself will do everything it can to stop him. It’s a cool premise. Great cast. And loaded with suspense. Just like the book.

Queen’s Gambit – Like The Great, this was another series I’d heard buzz about but wasn’t necessarily excited to start watching. But again, I was wrong. The cast in this is so strong. Ana Taylor-Joy? Are you kiddding me? She’s awesome. Set mostly in the 60s, it centers on Ana Taylor-Joy’s character who turns out to be a chess prodigy. And in the 60s, chess was not considered a girl’s game. But Ana Taylor-Joy has a few issues, mostly due to her unideal home life. And it manifests in drinking. And pills. Can she maintain her high level of chess play while shoving booze and fistfuls of pills into her mouth? Watch to find out. If I was pressed really hard, I may even say that this was my favorite thing I watched this year. But only if I was pressed.

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I Read Movies’ 2020 Year End Round up

Posted in Blog Series, Book Report, books, movies, pop culture with tags Book Report, books, I Read Movies, Movie Novelizations, movies, podcast, reviews, Year End Books on January 13, 2021 by Paxton

For those that don’t know, I host a movie novelization podcast called I Read Movies. Every month I read a movie novelization and then on the podcast I talk about the differences between the movie and the novelization. Novelizations are great resources for extra information on your favorite movies. Extra scenes, plot points, missing characters, all can be found in a good novelization.

September 2020 was I Read Movies’ third birthday. December’s Willow episode was episode 42. On the main podcast, I covered 11 novelizations in 2020. You can see the covers of the 11 novelizations above. I say, “on the main podcast”, because I did cover a few extra novelizations on other podcasts. Back in May I covered the novelization of Highlander by Gary Killworth for Cult Film Club. I also talked about the novelizations of Pale Rider and Tombstone on the western podcast Hellbent for Letterbox. For the last two, I covered those more informally and didn’t go beat by beat the differences with the movie.

So that makes 14 novelizations covered by me in 2020. I was going to include some of these in my last favorite books article but I decided to just do a quick round up here and pick my 5 favorite novelizations that I covered this year on I Read Movies. I picked really well this year. Out of 12 novelizations, it would have been easy to pick 10 as my favorites. But I really dug deep and narrowed it down to my five favorite novelizations.

So let’s see which novelizations I most enjoyed in 2020!

FYI, all images and links are to my buddy Shawn’s movienovelizations.com.

The Goonies UK
The Goonies (1985) by James Kahn – This was the first novelization I did in 2020. Written by James Kahn who also wrote the Return of the Jedi novelization (which I covered in 2018) and the first two Poltergeist novelizations. There is so much to love about this novel. It’s written from Mikey’s POV, but clearly after the events have already taken place. There are extra scenes including the squid scene at the end, as well as a long drawn out scene of the kids riding a raft through some underground caverns. There’s even an entire chapter written from Chunk’s POV where he takes over telling you the story. It’s a lot of fun. And you do get a type of epilogue at the end that shows you what happened after the movie’s last scene via articles in the local newspaper. If you are a Goonies fan, this novelization is a must.

Knight Rider 2
Knight Rider #2: Trust Doesn’t Rust (1984) by Glen A Larson – I mostly cover movie novelizations for I Read Movies. However, starting in 2019, I decided I’d pick one TV novelization to do each year. Last year I did a novelization of the original Knight Rider pilot episode, Knight of the Phoenix. If I had done an I Read Movies year end round up last year, it would have been on it. I had so much fun with that first book, that for 2020 I picked up the second book in Larson’s Knight Rider novelizations series, Trust Doesn’t Rust. This book is based on the season 1, episode 9 debut of KARR, the evil rival to KITT. I love this TV show, and the KARR episodes (there were two) were definitely some of my favorites. This book, being based on only one of those episodes, certainly expands a lot on the action in the episode. And Larson knows these characters well, so he’s the perfect person to do these novelizations. However, there are two things about this book that surprise me. First, these books were written a few years after the episodes. So Larson had knowledge of later episodes in the series when he wrote them. Despite this, he doesn’t normally incorporate this future knowledge into the story. So some story beats of the book will contradict what comes later in the show. Or not really even mention it at all. The other thing I’m surprised about is that this book doesn’t also novelize the second episode featuring KARR. They could have easily said, “1 Year Later” and continued on to tell that story. But those are nit picks. This book and the previous Knight Rider book is so much fun to read that I’m hoping to continue on in this series.

WarGames (1983) and Hackers (1995) by David Bischoff – This is a two-fer because they are by the same author. Like my buddy Retromash, WarGames is one of my favorite movies. I had actually read the WarGames novelization back in high school when I found it in an old “garage sale store” back in Alabama. I remember loving it. So, I looked forward to a reread and to cover it on I Read Movies. And it didn’t disappoint. It fills in some pretty great story beats, has a few extra deleted scenes, some throwaway dialogue, and a completely different ending. It’s a lot of fun, and Bischoff would also write another “techno” based movie novelization I read last year, Hackers (1995). That movie is so much fun and the novelization preserves that fun while vastly increasing a lot of the context of the story. There are one or two extra scenes, but what Bischoff does is add a lot of story beats to further flesh out the characters. Plus, there’s a lot of techno jargon that is either wildly inappropriate, or wildly out of date. I can’t recommend these two novelizations enough.

Jason Lives: Friday the 13th Part 6 (1986) by Simon Hawke – Back for my blog’s AWESOME-tober-fest 2012, I covered a bunch of horror novelizations. Many of the 80s horror novelizations have become extremely hard to find and very collectible. I had a friend that had almost all of them and he let me borrow them to read and review for the site. This Friday the 13th book was one of them. It was released in conjunction with the movie, but lead to Hawke also novelizing the first three movies in the franchise. I wish they would have let him complete it, because I would have loved to have seen Hawke’s Part IV adaptation. Anyway, fast forward to 2019 and I lucked into finding a copy of this book at my local used store for $3. So I decided to cover it last November. This is such a great adaptation of probably my favorite Jason movie. It’s lots of fun. It does add some context to characters and even fills in a bunch of back story for Jason. Plus, there’s an epilogue featuring Jason’s dad, Elias. Like I said, it’s become really hard to find and it’s super expensive on the secondary market. But if you get a chance, I recommend you give it a read.

Halloween (1979) by Curtis Richards – This particular novelization has picked up a sort of legendary status for novelization collectors. Again, it’s an early horror novelization, so it’s highly collectible and very hard to find. Plus, it adds *so much* to the story. I was able to acquire a copy of this in digital form and covered it for I Read Movies’ Halloween episode last year. And it delivers. The book starts off talking about weird celtic cults in Ireland. Then it downshifts into a scene with Michael’s grandmother and mother discussing Michael’s “unfortunate accidents” in school. It takes a while before you catch up to the movie. and even then, you get a ton of extra scenes of Michael and what his life was like inside the asylum. This novelization is an exercise in why novelizations are great. Actually, I could probably say that about all of my favorites this year. They all added so much to their stories it made reading them a joy.

So those were my favorite this year. Let’s take a look at a few overall stats for I Read Movies.

Over the course of the show I’ve covered just over 50 books and novelizations. That includes the 42 episodes of the main show, as well as the Apendix special episodes, and any other special episodes I did for Nerd Lunch and Cult Film Club. How about an author breakdown? Currently, the author I’ve covered the most on I Read Movies is a three way tie between James Kahn, Jeffrey Cooper and Craig Shaw Gardner with three titles each.

James Kahn – Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, Star Wars: Return of the Jedi, The Goonies
Craig Shaw Gardner – The Lost Boys, Batman, Batman Returns
Jeffrey Cooper – Nightmare on Elm Street, Nightmare on Elm Street 2, Nightmare on Elm Street 3

Then there are a bunch of authors where I’ve covered two titles; Alan Dean Foster, George Gipe, David Bischoff, Hank Searls, and Glen Larson. I have a few of these authors scheduled again in 2021 so we shall see who jumps in front next year.

Okay that’s my I Read Movies year end novelization round up. Hope you enjoyed this past year of the podcast. I picked a lot of really good choices last year and I think I have a lot of good novelizations coming up in 2021. I typically take a break in January, but I might have a special episode for January and then I’ll be back in February covering The Last Starfighter by Alan Dean Foster.

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Super Blog Teamup: Jumper and the creation of a multiverse

Posted in books, movies, pop culture with tags Book Report, books, movies, Super Blog Teamup on June 24, 2020 by Paxton

Well, I decided I needed to write more, and I haven’t really found a time to do it. Keeping up work, podcasting, and several “real life” things during the quarantine have kept me pretty busy. However, I still have that urge to write more on the blog. So when Charlton Hero gave me the opportunity to join the latest round of Super Blog Team-Up, I thought that this was a perfect chance to do that. And the topic of expanded universes in pop culture was a perfect fit for me.

So let’s talk about Jumper.

Back in 2008, a movie named Jumper was released. It starred Hayden Christensen from the Star Wars prequels, Jaime Bell, Rachel Bilson, and Sam Jackson (also from the Star Wars prequels). It looked like a fun, big budget, high octane, genre movie. It’s about a kid, Davey Rice, that learns he has the ability to teleport. And he also learns that there are others like him and a shadowy government agency is out to control them, and their ability, for themselves.

jumper movie

The movie is…pretty good. There’s lots of interesting ideas throughout. I love the idea of teleporters. And Davey discovers this whole group of people who can teleport just like him, and then also discovering Sam Jackson’s character and his agency are after him. Ruthelssly. No holds barred. I like that. But the movie isn’t as good as the sum of the parts. Christensen isn’t great as Davey. He’s a bit like Anakin Skywalker in Episode II, rather whiny. I like Rachel Bilson, but she isn’t really given a lot to do. Jamie Bell is awesome as Griffin who introduces us to the wider world of Jumpers and their battle against Sam Jackson’s Paladins. This movie, for the most part, sets up a cool world that I would have liked to have seen continued. But it went no further than this despite rumors that they are trying to start up a TV show featuring Jamie Bell returning as his Griffin character.

But I’ll admit, I’ve always been a sucker for teleportation as a power. I was always a big fan of Nightcrawler. There were several DC Comics villains that could teleport or “warp”. I just thought it was a great power and not utilized enough. In fact, if you ask me today what super power I’d like to have, I would say teleportation or “warping” powers. Imagine rolling out of bed, showering and “popping” into work 5 seconds later? Or, time to drive the kids to the grandparents’ house 5 and a half hours away? Ok kids, grab your suitcases, think about Gramps’ house. BAMF. We’re there. No yelling in the car. No “are we there yet”s. None of that goddam nonsense. Ok, see you in a week, kids. BAMF.

Anyway, after seeing the movie, I did a little research into the story. I discovered that it was based on a book. A book about a kid that can teleport. Needless to say, I was intrigued. That book was from 1992 and it’s called Jumper by Steven Gould.

Jumper Book 1

So a few months later I picked up a used copy of the book and started reading. And clearly I didn’t research the story enough, because the whole time I was reading it, I was waiting for Sam Jackson’s Roland character or Jamie Bell’s Griffin character to make an appearance. I had no idea that the movie was rewritten to be so different from the book. None of the movie characters show up and, as a matter of fact, the entire concept in the movie of Paladins, and legions of people with the ability to jump, and this huge war going on between them is not even mentioned. The movie created a whole alternate universe for Jumper that essentially just shares the characters of Davey and Millie and that’s about it.

The book’s story focuses on Davey and Millie, and their relationship, as well as Davey’s strained relationship with his father and mother. The entire story is more intimate and, honestly, works a bit better in many respects. In the book, Millie is a girl he meets at a party, not his elementary school crush. Davey is the only person in the book we ever see that can teleport. And the government is, in fact, after Davey, but it’s the NSA, not some shadowy government branch with agents called Paladins. Also, it’s more clear in the book that Davey is supposed to be very immature and whiny due to his poor relationship with his family, and the fact that he’s been on his own since he was 14 or 15. Which somewhat explains Hayden’s whiny performance in the movie. Also the ability to jump is explored more, which is nice. But it’s not explained how it really works. The reader is learning about jumping as Davey learns about it. We see him test out his powers. Learn how they work. And how they don’t work. The book is also really good about exploring many issues not apparent in the movie version. It explores a little more realistically about Davey and his responsibility to use his power and not let it be abused. And there’s some extra stuff about his mother that is really explored in the book that is only touched on in the movie. So while I enjoyed the movie, it was technically a terrible adaptation of the book. The stories are completely different.

Then, I discovered, that in 2004, Gould wrote a sequel to Jumper called Reflex.

It’s obviously a sequel to Gould’s novel and not the movie as it was published a few years before the movie was released. It makes the odd choice of jumping 10 years in the future after the first book. At this time, Davey, who is now working for the NSA as an agent, is finally captured by a secret criminal organization and is tortured and conditioned into working for them. Millie must work with the government to save him. I really do recommend reading both Jumper books, even if you didn’t like the movie (but especially if you did). What happens to Davey in this book, how the criminal mastermind tortures him and “conditions” him to obey his commands is terrifying. Millie gets a lot to do because it’s up to her to save Davey. You could almost see how this story could be modified to be a sequel to the movie Jumper. Just change the shadowy criminal organization to Sam Jackson’s Paladins and you’re set. You’d have to omit the part where Davey is actually working for the government, but maybe not, maybe there’s a rogue element in the government allowing it to happen. Speaking of, in the beginning of this book we learn that Davey did ultimately agree to start working for the government. When we get to the beginning of this book, which is, like I said, 10 years later, we see he’s about to get out of it. I’m surprised we haven’t gotten any stories from Gould about the 10 years Davey spent as an agent for the government. I bet there are some really good stories you could do with Davey as a teleporting secret agent. That could have been a lot of fun.

So, at the time of the movie’s release, we had two Jumper books by Steven Gould to support the movie. There wasn’t a separate novelization of the movie, which honestly would have made sense to do because the movie is just so different from the original novel. No, instead, to confuse everybody, they just rereleased both Gould Jumper novels with brand new movie poster covers. And, along with the rereleases, instead of a new novelization, Gould wrote a new Jumper book. It was called Jumper: Griffin’s Story.

And again, to completely confuse everyone, this book is written as a prequel to the movie. So now, with the movie release, we have two Jumper books by Steven Gould that honestly have *nothing* to do with the movie except a cover with the movie poster. And also a new Jumper book, written by Steven Gould, and also with a movie poster cover, that has nothing to do with the original novels. Complete madness, guys.

As the title suggests, this book tells us the story of the Griffin character before the events in the movie. Honestly, it’s a pretty good book. The only character from the movie other than Griffin to show up is Sam Jackson’s Roland, but that was only briefly. I was also hoping that towards the end of the book we’d see an appearance or cameo by Davey. However, in an odd decision, the book ends years before the movie is supposed to begin. So it doesn’t really connect to the movie at all.

After this book and the movie was released, not much really happened with the Jumper universes. No new movie ever happened and no new books were released. Nothing, that is until 2013 when Gould released Impulse, followed by Exo in 2014.

These two sequels jump ahead a few more years and focus on Davey and Millie and their daughter “Cent” (actually, Millicent, like her mother). It continues on in the same novel universe as before. Impulse is actually really good. I was concerned when I realized it was going to focus on the daughter going to school and her parents being all paranoid and weird, because I wanted to hear more about Davey and Millie. However, the way it builds on how they live. Totally off the grid. They teleport to several places on Earth. Davey is paranoid for a reason. Almost to a fault. All Cent wants is to go to high school like a normal person. I really enjoyed it. Exo is currently the most recent sequel. It’s…okay. It jumps a few more years. Cent is much older now. There’s a WHOLE LOT more experimentation in this book with the ability to teleport. Like, they really try to break down how it works what with the air pressure differences and the differences in elevation between two supposed jump sites. It’s almost a bit too much.

There was also a prequel comic book that was released around the time of the movie. It was called Jumper: Jumpscars. It followed Davey’s mother before the events of the movie. That’s the one thing with Jumper that I haven’t read yet. It’s become kind of hard to find for a good price. No one I guess bought it when it came out. It’s not even on Comixology.

So, as a stand alone movie, Jumper is good. When compared with the source material, it is a very bad adaptation. However, since the movie makers made an interesting enough story, I’d say it balances out to a win. I mean, the movie got me to read the entire Jumper series by Gould, so it must have had something there.

Check out some of the other awesome entries in this Super Blog Team Up Expanded Universe series:

Michael May: Treasure Island Universe

Super-Hero Satellite: M.A.S.K.: The Road To Revolution.

Between The Pages Blog: Fantastic Forgotten Star Wars Characters

Comics Comics Comics: The Further Adventures of Indiana Jones

The Source Material Comics Podcast: TMNT/Ghostbusters

DC In The 80s: The TSR Universe

Pop Culture Retrorama: The Phantom Universe

The Telltale Mind: Archie Andrews – Superstar

The Daily Rios – Little Shop of Horrors

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My Favorite Movies I Saw in 2019

Posted in Blog Series, Movie Board, movies with tags Marvel, Movie Board, movies, reviews, Star Wars, The Avengers on January 10, 2020 by Paxton

Yesterday, you saw my favorite books/comics I read in 2019 list. Had lots of fun with it? You agree with everything I put on the list? Tough. It’s my list, sucka! And now it’s time for another list. This time we are looking at my favorite movies list.

I keep a list of the movies I watched with some small reviews in two places, similar to my books list. The first is the usual Google Spreadsheet. That list is easier to get an overall view of the year and pick out favorite entries because I have it all color coded based on rating and year released. The other place I keep a list of the movies I watch is over on Letterboxd. So check me out there. Friend me. I need friends. I’m lonely. SO LONELY.

Anyway, I think it’s time to dig into my list. Rules, like my books, only movies new to me in 2019 are eligible. I’ll start with my list of favorite movies released in 2019, then I’ll do a list of favorite movies I watched in 2019 that weren’t necessarily released that year.

But first, my favorite movies that were released in 2019

Avengers: Endgame (2019) – I started off last year’s list with Infinity War, so I’ll start of this list with the sequel. Again, what else can I say? This wrapped up the first 10 years of the MCU in a nice, tight, little bow. I loved it.

Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (2019) – Yikes. Well, I don’t think Star Wars will ever *not* be divisive again. This movie had the unenviable task of not only following The Last Jedi (good or bad), but also fully wrapping up the Skywalker saga. I don’t know that *any* movie could live up to that pressure. I had fun with this. They made a few decisions that I don’t necessarily agree with, but for the most part I had a lot of fun with the movie. It felt good to have fun-loving Finn and Poe again. They were not themselves in the previous movie. And I again love Rey and Kylo and their whole relationship. I’m *mostly* happy with how this went down.

Knives Out (2019) – I loved this movie. It’s like a more quirky Clue the Movie mixed with Kurosawa’s Rashomon. Great cast and everyone is bringing their A-game. Lots of fun and the mystery is good too.

Happy Death Day (2017)/ Happy Death Day 2U (2019) – The second movie was released in 2019, so that’s why this entry is here. I kept hearing how good the first movie was, and by the time I sat down to watch it the sequel had come out. So I watched both, back to back, in 2019. And I was pleasantly surprised how good these movies are. The first one is like a horror movie Groundhog Day. It’s very inventive and fun. The second movie, is not really even a horror movie. It’s a Sci-Fi fantasy adventure. And you wouldn’t think that would work *at all* but it totally works. I really enjoyed both of these movies.

Downton Abbey the Motion Picture (2019) – I’m a sucker for this show, so, I was a sucker for this movie. I loved returning to this world, I loved revisiting these characters, I loved this movie.

Always be My Maybe (2019) – So. Much. Fun. The leads in this are adorable. I love the music Marcus makes with his band. Keanu Reeves makes a scene stealing cameo that I just loved. This is a great movie. See it if you haven’t.

And now, movies from any year that I watched for the first time in 2019

Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse (2018) – How great was this movie? I didn’t get to see this in the theater, but I’d heard from everyone how good it was, so I rented it. And everyone was right. This gets it all right. Miles is great. I love the other versions of Spider-Man that show up. Penny Parker in particular. It’s really so good. And the animation is terrific.

Upgrade (2018) – I expected this movie to be sort of a low-key update to the Bionic Man. It’s not that. It goes a different direction and I applaud the movie for going there. It’s dark and intense, but I really liked it. I’m not going to say much more than that except, give it a watch.

Staten Island Summer (2015) – I saw this while scrolling around on Netflix one afternoon and watched it on a lark. And wow, it’s really good. It’s one of those “one last summer before college” movies. It just hit every single nostalgia button for me. It takes place in and around a community swimming pool, which, when I was in high school, I worked three summers as a lifeguard at one such pool. It’s a sweet, fun movie about friendship and moving on to the next step in your life. This was such a fun surprise, check it out.

Uncle Drew (2018) – I love ragtag basketball movies. This one has a great cast, it’s lots of fun, and it’s really funny! I almost didn’t watch it because, while I thought it looked good, I was afraid they showed all the funny stuff in the trailer. Nope, this is a solid roadtrip/basketball movie with some heart thrown into the story.

Those those were my overall favorite movies I watched in 2019. Hopefully you can find some gems in this list.

Next week, I’ll put out some Honorable Mentions of things I thought were worth talking about, but not necessarily “listworthy”.

AWESOME-tober-fest 2019: Happy Halloween + Random Fango Ads

Posted in AWESOME-tober-fest, Blog Series, Fangoria, Halloween, holiday, magazine, nostalgia, pop culture with tags AWESOME-tober-fest, AWESOME-tober-fest 2019, Fangoria, Halloween, magazine, monsters, movies, pop culture on October 31, 2019 by Paxton

HAPPY HALLOWEEN! This is it guys, we made it. Another year. Another Halloween AWESOME-tober-fest countdown. Thank you so much for reading, I hope you have a safe and fun Halloween.

But, before you go, how about one more Fangoria article? How about we look at some random ads that ran in Fangoria throughout the years? Let’s do it!

Click the images to make them BIGGER!

From 1988, an ad for the Nightmare on Elm Street board game. That’s right, I said BOARD game. I totally thought this was a video game ad until I actually read it and saw that it comes with a rule book, gameboard, playing cards, and Freddy markers. If you want to get a look at what all the goodness inside the box looks like, check out the entry at Board Game Geek. It looks bizarre. The game board gives me a headache if I look too long.

How about some more Freddy product? Here’s an ad for the 1-900 Freddy’s Dead telephone game. From 1992. The 90s were stuffed with all kinds of 1-900 pop culture telephone numbers. In the same issue of Fangoria as this Freddy ad was an ad for a 1-900 Terminator 2 telephone challenge. Careful, it’s yellow background will burn out your retinas.

Vintage Monster-y ad goodness coming your way! This ad is from 1981, and it’s for mail away Monster Miniatures! All four of these pewter figures sold as a group for $79.95. Postage included! You could also get them in a white metal for about $7 each.

More monster-y goodness! Here are two ads for Screamin’ Vinyl Model Kits! The one on the left is from 1989. It has four options; Jason, Freddy, Elvira, or the generic Werewolf. Each model kid is about $60. Honestly, they look pretty nice. On the right is another Screamin’ models ad, this time from 1996. They’ve greatly expanded their offerings with new product, but for some reason, Jason is missing. You can’t even order him below. However, amongst the new faces you see they added Leatherface, Ash, Lon Chaney from London After Midnight, Pinhead and the Cenobites, and one fantastic looking Crypt Keeper. Different models have different prices, but this seems like a really nice model set.

From 1987, check out this ad for buy 2 books and get a FREE Dracula Pendant! Filled with soil from Dracula’s castle!! Wow. The ad makes sure to note these are the same pendants that were sold in Famous Monsters of Filmland magazine in the 70s.

Check out this ad for the rugged, compass survival watch. Never get lost on freeways, mountains, deserts, jungles, or oceans! I don’t know how many deserts, jungles, or oceans your average Fangoria reader would encounter in their lifetimes, but they now have the watch to get them out of that predicament if they ever do!