Spider-Man 2 (2023) – HQ Mobile Wallpaper

The Last Starfighter

The Last Starfighter: Directed by Nick Castle. With Kay E. Kuter, Dan Mason, Lance Guest, Dan O’Herlihy. High schooler Alex Rogan conquers the Starfighter video game, only to find out it was just a test, and is transported to another planet. He has been recruited to join a team of the best starfighters to defend their world from the attack.

Recently released by Arrow Video in 4k / HDR and originally released in 1984 this film still holds up by ever measure that I could apply to it. The music is still unique and interesting, the plot is captivating, and the special effects are obviously from the beginning of the CGI era, but they still look great.

The basic story is that a young man in a trailer park so far away from civilization that there’s no light pollution from city lights gets good enough at a video game that an alien organization takes note and recruits him to be a Starfighter. There’s a bunch of trailer park shenanigans, including a 80’s era trope of a young kid looking at playboy magazines, but for the most part this is a timeless movie that’s going to hold it’s appeal for a long time. I remember as a kid myself being freaked out by the clone’s freaky face, the laser drilling into the spy’s head, and being moved by the “victory or death” chant.

It’s definitely a kid safe concept, but there’s a whole bunch of un-kid safe stuff like the playboy and brain laser thing.

I get some very strong Wing Commander vibes from most of the in space stuff, not sure if WC did that intentionally or if they were both in the same genre. It wasn’t until the end of the film that we get a good sense of just how large the GUNSTAR really is. 10 stories? it’s huge!

The disk comes with some pretty cool special features:

interview with Catherine Mary Stewart, the main female character
interview with composer Craig Safan: intention to stay away from star wars music sounds
interview with writer Jonathan Betuel: struggle to stay away from star wars concepts, “bigger’s not better, emotional works every time”
interview with special effects supervisor Kevin Pike
interview with sci-fi author Greg bear about CGI production: he has a emotionally gushing explanation of the computer generated graphics and the company that made them “Digital Productions”
interview with arcade game collector Estil Vance on reconstructing the Starfighter game, which never actually came out.

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Marvel Studios’ The Marvels | Official Trailer

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JAVELIN

Minnie Driver 1995

Unknown: Cosmic Time Machine

Follows a team of engineers and scientists in an ambitious mission to launch the James Webb Space Telescope and take the next giant leap in the understanding of the universe.

The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel Season 5

After her husband leaves her, young mother of two Miriam “Midge” Maisel discovers that she has a talent for stand-up comedy. Could this be her calling?

I think this series could have gone for another 5 years and still be one of the best comedies on television, but it’s nice to see them go out on an exceptionally high note. This final season wrapped up a bucket load of emotional loose ends and opened up another bucket load worth, but we had 5 good seasons that all stand on their own and make for an enjoyable and eminently watchable series.

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Katie Holmes 1990s

Derrière

Now I remember why I hate cooking for myself

Hole in one

TURF

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Chupa

While visiting family in Mexico, teenage Alex gains an unlikely companion when he discovers a young chupacabra hiding in his grandpa’s shed. To save the mythical creature, Alex and his cousins must embark on the adventure of a lifetime.

As much of a homage to the 80’s films that inspired it, this is a fun story of a kid trying to find himself by finding his family, then inadvertently finding a goat killing monster hiding in his grandfather’s massive stable on a property that’s got to be valued in the millions. They all act like they’re super poor though, so maybe land and buildings are just that much cheaper in this universe.

The baby Chupacabra is adorable and the cgi is passable, so if you want to get your heart warmed by Netflix this would be an ok choice.

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Star Trek: Lower Decks Season 4

The support crew serving on one of Starfleet’s least important ships, the U.S.S. Cerritos, have to keep up with their duties, often while the ship is being rocked by a multitude of sci-fi anomalies.

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Wonka

Wonka: Directed by Paul King. With Timothée Chalamet, Olivia Colman, Hugh Grant, Keegan-Michael Key. The story will focus specifically on a young Willy Wonka and how he met the Oompa-Loompas on one of his earliest adventures.

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MC

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🤯🤯🤯 LEAKED! Newly obtained photographs from the Pentagon of the UFO crash site exposing ‘non-human biological material.’

NN [3696×6033]

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Odesza: The Last Goodbye Cinematic Experience

A documentary about the friends who made a name for themselves with electronic music live concerts.

I went to see this with my wife at a CMX movie theater that’s clear on the other side of town, one that we normally don’t go to, and it was a bit of a frustrating experience. The first part of that frustration was that I bought the tickets online through Atom Tickets, who emailed me a QR code, which I thought was going to be like AMC’s scan to enter system, but no, CMX wanted us to go to customer service first to use the QR code to claim paper tickets, THEN we could get in line. We got to our exceptionally comfortable seats and had a relatively enjoyable experience with the exception of one giant dead green pixel right in the center/left of the screen. It was super noticeable and very frustrating to see,

The movie itself though was pretty ok, I’m a huge fan of Odesza’s work, most of the albums I’ve heard have a strong throughline that makes it easy to listen straight through, something that this film didn’t capitalize on, it interweaved one song from a live show then doing behind the scenes stuff, which I was hoping for more BTS of the show and not a look back on the musician’s lives or time at college.

The music was great!

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MS. MARVEL returns as a mutant in new series co-written by MCU actress Iman Vellani

The recently deceased Ms. Marvel returns as an Inhuman/mutant in a new mini-series co-written by her MCU portrayer, debuting this August

late 70s Catherine Bach

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NOVA

Star Wars directed by Guy Ritchie

Billiards

Venom vs Spiderman [1920×3948]

early 90s RIP Sinead O’Connor

Bird Box: Barcelona

After an entity of mysterious origin annihilates the world’s population causing those who observe it to take their lives, Sebastián and his daughter begin their own great adventure of survival in Barcelona.

A sequel to the movie that had no relation at all to the previous movie is a bold choice for Netflix and “Bird Box Barcelona” has a distinct feeling of a movie that was made only so Netflix could check off a language requirement or two to sooth local government’s nerves about the big American company coming in and steamrolling local culture. Is it a good film? It’s good enough for me to say that if you were a fan of the first film, this one should be on your watch list. I’m frustrated by everyone speaking at least 4 different languages, so if you watch this, it’ll need to be with the subtitles turned on and the movie being the sole focus while it’s on, no fixing websites or reviewing previous movies. There’s a fair bit of world building that happens throughout the film with a few large pieces falling into place in the last 20 minutes or so. The acting is pretty ok and the story is pretty ok as well, but again, for what it is, I still recommend it.

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Titans Season 4

Titans: Created by Greg Berlanti, Akiva Goldsman, Geoff Johns. With Brenton Thwaites, Anna Diop, Ryan Potter, Teagan Croft. Dick and Rachel, a girl possessed by a strange darkness, get embroiled in a conspiracy that could bring Hell on Earth. Joining them along the way are the hot-headed Starfire and lovable Beast Boy. Together they become a team of heroes.

A good ending for an ok series that never really hit the highs that I had hoped for, but never hit the lows that many other comic shows have fallen to recently. I was particularly impressed with the end of the Brother Blood storyline and the specifics of how his plan was actually enacted. And his costume, he had a dope cape.

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Oppenheimer

The story of American scientist J. Robert Oppenheimer and his role in the development of the atomic bomb.

Not having seen him in any of the trailers, it took me a solid 5 minutes to realize how large of a part Robert Downey Jr was going to have in the story, and I think we’re all a little better that they didn’t lean on him in the marketing. “Oppenheimer” the film is a mostly true story of how the Manhattan project was conceived and run with a large part of the scientific and practical testing happening under J. Robert Oppenheimer’s direct watch and control. It’s also a movie by Christopher Nolan, so the story isn’t going to be linier or make sense until you have all the pieces on the board, and even then you’ll want to hit up the Wikipedia entry for Oppenheimer the man to figure out exactly what was happening in Oppenheimer the film. It’s a great film with muddled sound mixing coupled with soul wrenching acting about a man that lived his life the way he wanted to with little regard for the long term political fallout of his personal behavior.

It’s good and worthy of a movie theater experience, but it’ll be best to watch at home with subtitles on because Nolan still hasn’t figured out how to properly use that center channel.

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Fall Out Boy – We Didn’t Start the Fire (Lyric Video)

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Burger King Unveils Pink ‘Barbie’ Burger

Yes, it’s real – at least in Brazil.

SEXY

*swallows convincingly*

Secret Invasion

Fury and Talos try to stop the Skrulls who have infiltrated the highest spheres of the Marvel Universe.

“A six hour mini series that should have been a two hour movie” is how I’m seeing it described on the blogosphere and I agree, there’s way too much padding, too little story, and some of the action beats just didn’t make sense to me. There’s also some really open questions about who was a skrull and when they were switched out, questions that were not answered by the end of the series and will likely never be touched on by the future movies, The Marvels is out in just a few months but I’m sure they’re not going to talk about the millions of Skrulls on Earth.

It was nice to see everyone doing their parts though, I have no complaints about the acting or actors themselves, but the plot (and the obligatory 3rd act CGI slugfest) was mediocre and could have, SHOULD HAVE, been better.

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Well, is not like a catastrophic event or something. Oh, wait

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Fran Jeffries (1960s)

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