Selecting Kyle Reese because he previously had a passionate few minutes with Sarah is quite a time trick.
A lot could have gone wrong if Kyle died earlier. Luckily Skynet didn’t realize killing Kyle was a easier way to eliminate John Connor.
But it did work and John Connor was conceived. Sarah barely pulls her boots back on before Arnold gets to the motel.
Biehn did a great job portraying Kyle. Sarah was initially terrified of him. Biehn was convincing as a slightly deranged protector.
Anaconda (2026) with Jack Black and Paul Rudd
It’s a comedy but the only funny character dies a third of the way through the film.
The movie at least had the upside of taking the old 1931 Universal stodgy, slow-moving and downright racist movie and turning it into a kinetic action film with interesting scenes. And I say this as a fan of the old Universal movies. John Balderston (who reworked Hamilton Deane’s stage play Dracula into the more interesting American version that Bela Lugosi starred in, then wrote the screenplay for the Universal film) was originally going to write Cagliostro about the supposedly immortal magician, but turned it into a film about a mummy (Balderston had, as a reporter, covered the opening of King Tu’s tomb) and stirred in the bits about the female lead being Im-Ho-Tep’s reincarnated wife, a topic he was a fan of, having written the play Berkeley Square with a similar theme. Berkeley Square became the musical On Clear Day You Can See Forever, the movie version of which starred Barbra Streisand. And how’s that for a complex set of inter-relations?)
Balderston and Universal clearly didn’t grasp what made the character so interesting, which was being a wrapped-u-in-linen-bandages mummy. After an initial scene with Boris Karloff all swaddled up, he quickly loses the bandages and for the rest of the movie he’s just creepy Ardath Bey in a fez and with a collodion-wrinkled face. Later Universal Mummy movies – and, in fact, most Mummy movies after this – literally kept the wraps on, and kept the title character in bandages and mainly mute. At least the Brendan Fraser movie gave us plenty of the Mummy running around in various stages of restoration before giving us bald Arnold Vosloo speaking Egyptian.
(You can argue that the 1999 movie is racist, too, but watch the 1931 film again and try not to cringe. The faults of the 1999 film are not in the same category).
Anyway, on the topic of Reincarnated Loves, have a look at my webpage:
It’s a paradox which destroys the whole franchise if you think about it too hard.
I prefer to think of it as a very sad story of someone sending his own father, who doesn’t know he is his son (and never will, and maybe have not known each other for long) back in time so he can exist and save humanity.
As Sarah said, “a person can go crazy thinking about all this.”
I made the mistake of seeing this in ‘4DX’, which is uncomfortable seats that move around and blow air and water on you. Very distracting, will not do that again.
Did enjoy the movie despite the format.
I think the hype is a little bit to high. It is nice to see an original family film. I know there is a book, but it feels very fresh in the theater.
The funniest bits were almost the bits where Ryan Gosling tries to use the stuff in space, but has no real idea what he is doing.
I hope it never gets a sequel. I think the ending is just right. We don’t need to know everything.
I try to minimize starting new posts about a movie that’s already been reviewed (although sometimes I do anyway) but in this case I’ll use this as a jumping-off point.
While your summary here is accurate about the circumstances that lay the groundwork for what is to come, it should be stressed that this is absolutely not an office drama, but more in the nature of a thriller with a fair amount of blood all over the place. It has lots of interesting twists and proves once again that you can’t go wrong with Sam Raimi. Perhaps not his best, but that’s a very high bar (he also directed A Simple Plan, for example). Definitely recommended.
My daughter described it as “a family-friendly version of Iron Lung”, which I thought was rather funny.
And it is a lot better than Iron Lung.
Oh, so just like the original.
The Equalizer 2, 2018 Denzel Washington, Melissa Leo, Orson Bean
Seen it twice. I think the first movie is slightly better. But the sequel is pretty good. I appreciate that McCall helps people in small ways. Sometimes just offering a sympathetic ear and encouragement.
McCall is definitely a formidable fighter and assassin. The battle this time is much more personal compared to the 1st movie.
I never realized Orson Bean was such a fine actor. I think he was primarily a stage actor. I remember him goofing around on 1970’s game shows. Orson gives a stunning performance as an elderly Holocaust survivor. Orson was 89 at the time and died two years later. 
That I can’t see his brilliance again. He was an exceptionally gifted actor.
I will miss Melissa Leo as the movie franchise moves forward. She elevates any project that she appears in. The producers were very foolish to eliminate her character. We probably won’t see Bill Pullman again either. The husband & wife characters were a crucial link to McCall’s past and provided insight into his personal pain. McCall is more vulnerable and human when he visits his old friends.
Equalizer 3 is available. I’ve read the plot on Wikipedia and am not optimistic. He’s relocated to Southern Italy. WTH? The best supporting characters are gone. I’ll still watch and hope for the best.
Honey Don’t (2025)
Do I need to see a movie with Margaret Qualley executing one of the most perfect female orgasms on screen? Of course, I do. But it doesn’t make it a good film. The characters and locations are all interesting, but there isn’t much of a plot, especially for a noir detective story.
This is the second of Ethan Cohn and Tricia Cooke’s “lesbian b-movie trilogy” after Drive-Away Dolls. If these films were made in 1975, I would probably be a huge fan, but as homage they kind of land flat.
I wasn’t sufficiently impressed by Drive-Away Dolls to make Honey Don’t an “automatic watch” on the basis of being a follow-up or companion piece. But a little more research tells me that in addition to Qualley, Aubrey Plaza and Charlie Day are there, and I’ll happily watch them, for sure. I wasn’t aware of this one until now, but I’ll look for it on a streaming service, although not necessarily as a priority.
The 1961 epic with a cast of 12000, How The West Was Won. I’d never seen it. It was a special screening in the theater.
They did a really good job of transferring the three projector Cinerama into one very wide image. I never noticed any boundary remnants, but my wife did.
The plot is pretty good, tying 50 years of American expansionism as seen through one extended family. Or, alternately, a long film about a bunch of people making bad choices. Either is valid.
In the spirit of grindhouse it barely cracks 90 minutes, so it’s not a huge time investment. It’s currently on Netflix.
Robocop 1987 Peter Weller, Nancy Allen, Ronny Cox
Was the movie inspired by The Six Million Dollar Man?
Similar story. Dying cop is transformed into Robocop, a heavily armored Cyborg. His memory is wiped, but soon the Cyborg’s humanity resurfaces.
The movie holds up well except for the ridiculous looking police vests and football helmets.
I laughed at the Doctor Who Daleks reference. The Enforcement Droid Series 209, or ED-209 can’t walk on stairs either.
8 out of 10
That was my reaction to Drive-Away Dolls - it was fun but it felt like a good film several decades too late to be relevant.
Also seen:
Blue Moon - I know this year’s Oscar field was strong but goddamn Ethan Hawke acts his goddamn ass off in this as Lorenzo Hart on the opening night of Oklahoma!, sidelined as Rodgers and Hammerstein triumph. The supporting cast (including Margaret Qualley, Andrew Scott and Bobby Canavale) are also strong - would highly recommend.
Bella - documentary about Bella Abzug. Worthy for the subject matter alone.
Merrily We Roll Along - a filmed stage production of the Sondheim musical starring Daniel Radcliffe and Jonathan Groff. It’s a good show but surprisingly depressing, and (kind of like Memento) told in reverse chronology from 1976 to 1957. We get to see how the main character goes from wide-eyed idealist to jaded sellout, but starting from him hating his life and having ruined the ones around him and seeing how he got there step by step is both brilliant and horrible.
(Funnily enough, Sondheim appears as a character in Blue Moon as a young boy, having been taken under Hammerstein’s wing at that age. This really happened although I don’t remember if he went to the opening of Oklahoma! with him. This is the only clunky acting in the film. I think the kid was going for a Young Sheldon vibe.)
Robocop 2014 Joel Kinnaman, Gary Oldman, Michael Keaton, Samuel L. Jackson, Abbie Cornish
Leaves Prime March 31
Remake is totally different than the original. The original was intended as Satire.
I wasn’t prepared for the seriousness of this version. It leans heavily into the medical ethics of creating and manipulating a Cyborg.
Samuel L. Jackson recreates the tone and voice of his Pulp Fiction preaching character. But, without the violence.
Rating 5.5 out of 10
Perhaps higher if I was evaluating the film entirely separately from the original. Why call this a remake of Robocop? I don’t feel that it’s part of the same film franchise.
There is a superb 4 part documentary on the making of Robocop on Amazon Prime which may be of interest. It’s called Robodoc. Probably the best film documentary/behind the scenes I’ve ever seen.