The X Files movie starts with an ancient alien with claws and fangs attacking a caveman and infecting him with Black Oil back in prehistoric times. In the present day, a kid played by Lucas Black gets infected by the Black Oil. (Lucas Black is apparently best known for being in the Fast and Furious films which I’ve never seen, but I know him from playing Caleb in the canceled-too-soon TV series American Gothic)

I remember thinking the first two Deadpool movies were hilarious, plus there’s been a lot of positive reviews for the third film, so I was looking forward to Deadpool & Wolverine. Unfortunately, I was disappointed. I didn’t laugh once. The main joke of the movie seems to be that’s it’s funny to play a pop song during a fight scene as they do this repeatedly. I think the first time I saw a show play upbeat music during a violent scene, it was an episode of the X-Files back in the 90s. I was impressed at the time since it was so unexpected, but decades later, upbeat music playing during a bloody scene no longer feels novel.

Back when I did my Cowboy Bebop rewatch, I wasn’t able to find the movie (also known as Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door) anywhere. I was recently able to track it down and was finally able to watch it. It’s probably been about twenty years since I’ve seen this movie and didn’t remember anything about it. Since we have the whole crew here, the movie takes place between episodes 22 and 23 of the series. Let’s see how it holds up.

The new Netflix documentary Have a Good Trip: Adventures in Psychedelics interviews celebrities about their personal experiences with psychedelics and provides reenactments of their experiences. Some of the reenactments are animated while some are live action. There’s also a funny skit poking fun at 1980s after-school specials. Continue reading →

A few more Marvel movies have come out since I last did a review of them. I don’t have much to say about Ant-Man and the Wasp, other than it’s absolutely hilarious. Probably the funniest movie Marvel has ever done. It felt like I was laughing through pretty much every scene. Continue reading →

I didn’t care for the first Incredibles movie. Its repeated central message is “If everyone is special than no one is.” In the world of The Incredibles, some people are born naturally superior to others and equality is bad because it takes privilege away from those who were born into it. So I wasn’t looking forward to watching Incredibles 2. But I’ve got a kid, so I knew it was inevitable. I turned out being pleasantly surprised. Continue reading →

Not all movies stand the test of time. We’ve probably all experienced shock at rewatching a childhood favorite only to discover it’s not as good as we thought it was. I remembered The Transformers: The Movie (1986) as being sophisticated because Optimus Prime dies in it and tried to get my wife to watch it one time, only to be chagrined to find out it’s basically just one long toy commercial. Continue reading →

I didn’t like The Incredibles (2004) the first time I saw it. Now that a sequel is coming out, I thought I’d give the original movie another chance. Let’s see how that goes.

The Incredibles seems to be an homage to the Fantastic Four (1961-present), a comic in which someone with super strength, someone who can stretch, someone who can turn invisible and make force fields, and someone who can light themselves on fire and fly form a kind of found family. In The Incredibles, we have someone with super strength, someone who can stretch, someone who can turn invisible and make force fields, and someone who can run fast forming an actual family. Continue reading →