Mystery Fanfare: The Lincoln Lawyer: Season 4

Mystery Fanfare: The Lincoln Lawyer: Season 4: The Lincoln Lawyer, Season 4, starts February 5 on Netflix.  On trial for a murder he didn’t commit, Mickey must face a relentless DA as he...

Monday Evening Humor Seen On Facebook

 

Mystery Fanfare: HOSTAGE: New thriller on Netflix

Mystery Fanfare: HOSTAGE: New thriller on Netflix: I highly recommend  Hostage on Netflix , a  new British series that premiered on Thursday. Good acting, strong plot, if not a bit familiar,...

Mystery Fanfare: The Thursday Murder Club: Coming to Netflix

Mystery Fanfare: The Thursday Murder Club: Coming to Netflix: I really enjoyed Richard Osman's The Thursday Murder Club (and the other books in the series), and I'm quite excited about the movi...

Mystery Fanfare: Department Q: New Series on Netflix

Mystery Fanfare: Department Q: New Series on Netflix: The new "Department Q" series , starring Matthew Goode, will be available exclusively on Netflix and will premiere on  May 29, 2...

The Rap Sheet: From the TV Front

 The Rap Sheet: From the TV Front 

The Rap Sheet: Bullet Points: Success in Excess Edition for 10/8/2021

 The Rap Sheet: Bullet Points: Success in Excess Edition for 10/8/2021

Bustle: The Chair Was Filmed At Several Scenic College Campuses

 Bustle: The Chair Was Filmed At Several Scenic College Campuses

Tampa Bay Times: Michael Connelly says goodbye to Amazon’s ‘Bosch,’ hello to Netflix’s ‘Lincoln Lawyer’

Tampa Bay Times: Michael Connelly says goodbye to Amazon’s ‘Bosch,’ hello to Netflix’s ‘Lincoln Lawyer’ 

Mystery Fanfare: LUPIN on Netflix

Mystery Fanfare: LUPIN on Netflix: When I was in 10th grade, we read Arsène Lupin in my Advanced French II class. I loved the stories because they were mysteries about a Gen...

The Rap Sheet: Bullet Points: Election Anxiety Edition for 11/6/2020

 The Rap Sheet: Bullet Points: Election Anxiety Edition for 11/6/2020

Lesa's Book Critiques: The Duke and I by Julia Quinn

Lesa's Book Critiques: The Duke and I by Julia Quinn

The Rap Sheet: Bullet Points: On Heavy Meds Edition for 9/12/19

The Rap Sheet: Bullet Points: On Heavy Meds Edition for 9/12/19

SleuthSayers: Murder Mystery – Spare Me by Leigh Lundin

SleuthSayers: Murder Mystery – Spare Me: by Leigh  Lundin Thanks to a couple of friends, I’ve been indulging in one of John Floyd’s favorite passions– NetFlix. How could I resist a...

Sunday Movie Review: The Jurassic Games (2018)

The Jurassic Games was a flick Scott spotted on Netflix and had sent to us. When he told me what the deal was supposed to be about, I was less than impressed. But, an action movie is an action movie and we had it here, so I figured, what the heck?

Synopsis:

In the near future, every year 10 of the world's most lethal death row criminals compete for their freedom in "The Jurassic Games", a TV show where contestants must survive against ferocious dinosaurs and each other. The last survivor is granted freedom, fame, and fortune.

Freedom anyway. Having seen this deal, I am not so sure about the fame and fortune part. All in all, this was a decent action movie. Not epic, but certainly not hideous either. The CGI is a bit weak in some spots, but for the most part, pretty good. Dialogue was decent and those involved did not practice the sin of overacting. The movie had a bit of a secondary storyline that also was not only interesting, but had some relevant social commentary.

Both Amazon and Netflix have it as non-rated as is typical with straight to DVD flicks. There is no frontal nudity, let alone nudity of any type in the movie. Language, at times, is on the adult side, but nothing that just burns your ears off.  Violence, human upon human(s) as well as creature on creature and creature on human(s) is off the charts. Depending on the individual viewer involved, I would think teen and beyond. Atthe same time, my late eighty year old Mom would have been bothered by the violence so this one would have not been appropriate for her either.

Bottom line…..we enjoyed it for what the movie is. Did not expect much out of it and was pleasantly surprised. Enjoyed it much more than Escape Plan 2: Hades from last week and way more than The Hurricane Heist from early June.

Sunday Movie Review: Escape Plan 2: Hades

Having seen and enjoyed the original ESCAPE PLAN starring Sylvester Stallone, Scott and I were looking forward to the sequel, ESCAPE PLAN 2: HADES.

Netflix Synopsis:

“Security expert Ray Breslin returns to face a highly personal challenge when his best operative, Shu Ren, is abducted and held inside a state-of-the-art prison, making any attempt to free him virtually impossible.”

Well, they may all have had the best of intentions, but movie two is a far weaker version of the original. They ramped up the special effects, ramped down the dialogue, and created a semi yawn of a movie where Stallone is hardly around at all. Present for a few scenes in the early stages of this epic and a bit more at the end, but nowhere in between as various folks from his team are grabbed and thrown into the prison to meet each other and plot their escape.  And, if they did not escape, one could not as easily do the third movie as implied at the end.

Hopefully, if they do a third movie, at the very least they do a better job of working in the stunt double for Stallone if they must do his fight scenes. Not sure, but this visually could be worse than what is done for Steven Segall in his fight scenes these days. It is a close call and I am not willing to make the sacrifice of repeat viewings to clarify my impressions one way or another.

Do not buy this unless you have a collection of every Sylvester Stallone movie ever made. Do the rental thing through RedBox where they have both the first and the second one as a double feature deal or as this movie only by way of Netflix like we did.  Our issue was having too high expectations as we liked the first one so much. This one does not come anywhere close to that level of action adventure.

AT&T plans to expand HBO, but could destroy it in the process

AT&T plans to expand HBO, but could destroy it in the process

Movie Review: The Hurricane Heist

I very rarely review movies as I am not at all good at it. My late friend, Glenn Walker, was and did an amazing job at his blog. Glenn passed just a few days after Sandi did last December making 2017 even worse in my mind. Glenn’s great blog, “Welcome To Hell” is still up so you can go check out his many reviews of movies, television shows, and other things anytime you would like to do so. I suspect he would have had a few words to say about The Hurricane Heist.

Netflix Synopsis:

“As a hurricane bears down on a coastal town, the U.S. mint located there faces an additional threat from hackers who’ve infiltrated the facility to steal millions—and only a storm chaser and a government agent are left to foil the thieves.”

Scott and I worked our way through this insanely bad movie Friday afternoon by way of Netflix. One knows that such a premise is going to lead to unrealistic viewing. But, we had no idea just how stupid this thing was going to be. Think SHARKNADO without the humor and you have THE HURRICAN HEIST. There are so many things wrong with this movie if I named them all you would quit reading a third of the way through reading this review. A couple of highlights will have to suffice.

The alleged coastal town is Gulf Port, Mississippi as Hurricane Tammy approaches wreaking havoc at levels far off the charts. Yet, even with 145 plus mile an hour winds that crumble buildings and rolls/ flips cars, one of our intrepid heroes is able to move around the streets shooting her gun at bad guys who are also able to dodge rolling and flipping cars, walk nearly upright, and fire their guns. At the same time, another intrepid hero is able to scale an ladder affixed to the side of a building to get on the roof to climb an additional ladder on the side of a cell tower so that they can pull down the tower and interrupt the bad guys attempt to establish a connection for the computers back in the mint.

Hubcaps can be used as a weapon when one is out of bullets. As the winds howl and flip nearby cars, you can semi stand and throw numerous metal hubcaps, one at a time, like a Frisbee. It will accelerate, turn, twist through the air, and hit bad guys. Bad guys will suffer injuries and go down hard. Good guy has amazing aim.

Also amazing is the fact that almost nobody in the area put up plywood sheeting or taped their windows and yet the glass nearly always holds. Glass in doors and windows hold as debris flies through the air with the greatest of ease. Even the skylights at the nearby mall hold as viewers are treated to action shots of various things passing by the overhead windows. That includes at least one flying door, a flying tree, and quite possibly airborne rocks. Then, in an action scene that is totally beyond any belief and generated spontaneous laughter here by both of us, things get way worse.

Then there is the whole action scene at the end which is a long sequence of people running from the attacking hurricane eyewall. Yes, the hurricane eyewall is coming after them all, bad guys and good, and can be outrun by way of semi-truck for just so long. Just when you thought things could not get more ludicrous…they do.

From start to finish this thing is just bad. Plenty of water and wind, plenty of action, plenty of violence, several family angst scenes, and more are present in The Hurricane Heist. No frontal nudity which was very disappointing as the movie would have seriously benefited by a little of that. Like a lot of action movies, one must detach the brain before viewing.

Kevin R. Tipple ©2018

Amazing Stories: “LOST IN TIME, LOST IN SPACE…and MEANING” by Steve Fahnestalk

Amazing Stories: “LOST IN TIME, LOST IN SPACE…and MEANING” by Steve Fahnestalk

SleuthSayers: Space Opera and Horse Opera

SleuthSayers: Space Opera and Horse Opera: by John M. Floyd Those who know me know I like to write--and read--mostly mystery stories. As for the writing part, my "genre spec...