For this last Film at 11 podcast episode of 2025, I have once again made the ill-advised mistake of inviting both my sons to watch a movie with me, together, at the same time. That never works out well, and certainly didn’t here. Somehow, all the squabbling and fighting that ensued (mostly, but not entirely… Read More Film at 11 Podcast: Episode 43 | National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation (1989)
I had originally wanted to do a Thanksgiving-themed episode for the Film at 11 podcast this week, but then I realized the best Thanksgiving movie (Planes, Trains & Automobiles, obviously) is rated R. Instead, Joseph and I finished off the Indiana Jones trilogy with the franchise’s third and final movie, Indiana Jones and the Last… Read More Film at 11: Episode 40 | Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989)
Ghostbusters II has one truly inspired, nearly iconic line of dialogue, when Dan Aykroyd’s character Ray refers to a bunch of bratty kids at a birthday party as “ungrateful little yuppie larvae.” I love that phrase and think of it often whenever I’m harassed by too many annoying children. (Ironically, most of the kids in… Read More Everything You’re Doing Is Bad | Ghostbusters II (1989) 4K Ultra HD
Given that most comedy sequels already struggle to live up to the original films they follow, how well can two such sequels be expected to weather the passage of time thirty-plus years later? I asked myself that question and, honestly, braced for the worst when I sat down to binge both The Naked Gun 2… Read More Looks Like the Cows Have Come Home to Roost | The Naked Gun 2 1/2 (1991) & The Naked Gun 33 1/3 (1994)
Confident that the Predator franchise is finally back on track, executives at 20th Century Studios greenlit not just one but two new movies for release in 2025, both shepherded by Prey director Dan Trachtenberg. The first, an animated prequel/side-story called Predator: Killer of Killers, arrived directly on Hulu streaming (as Prey had) to serve as… Read More I Pray You Bloody Your Spear Tonight | Predator: Killer of Killers (2025) on Hulu
Apparently, neither two failed direct sequels nor two failed Alien crossovers were quite enough to keep one good Predator down. Perhaps they should have been. Even though three decades of trying to turn the Arnold Schwarzenegger 1987 action classic into a sustainable franchise had not thus far worked out, someone in the studio had what… Read More Not My Space Animal | The Predator (2018) 4K Ultra HD
In theory, the 2010 sequel Predators was supposed to do for Predator what Aliens had done for Alien – take an originally confined premise and expand it in scope and scale, then escalate the action to a new level of intensity, potentially a different genre entirely. Sadly, what we actually got was just a rote… Read More No Hunting Like the Hunting of a Man | Predators (2010) 4K Ultra HD
For a movie nerd who’d only recently come of age and started young adulthood at that moment, the early- to mid-1990s were a very exciting time in cinema. The independent film movement was flourishing, and even within traditional Hollywood circles, a new generation of writers and directors were rising up to make their voices heard.… Read More The Biggest Mexican I Have Ever Seen | Desperado (1995) Arrow Video 4K Ultra HD
Released just shy of three decades since the last installment, Bill & Ted Face the Music is exactly the sort of legacy sequel that every old movie franchise has felt compelled to roll out in recent years, typically to mixed success. The very few smash hits that rekindle the original phenomenon are usually followed by… Read More You’ve Got to Earn the Right to Rock | Bill & Ted Face the Music (2020) 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray
Watching Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure become an unexpected phenomenon in 1989, any studio executive with at least half a working brain cell would of course fast-track a sequel to ride however much of that wave still remained a couple years later. And because the characters’ first movie had been so Excellent, it stands to… Read More Most Non-Non-Heinous | Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey (1991) 4K Ultra HD
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