I remember House 2 to a be a classic too, like Evil Dead 2, a sequel a lot better than the original.
I just watched Swapped, an animated movie from Skydance, streaming on Netflix. It’s a decent watch. The plot is nothing new, but the visuals and character design are outstanding.
House 2 is very good. It has a different cast. John Ratzenberger has a role in House 2. Cliff and Norm together in a horror film would be cool. Too bad it didn’t happen.
I’ve seen all “four” of them. I put four in quotes because House 3 was filmed with nothing to do with the series and, get this, features no House and has no connection.
House - fun. Better than it would give expectations to.
House 2: The Second Story - pretty fun. Bill Maher shows up from his attempts at acting days. I think he plays a douchebag, so it is is pretty natural from him. Ha ha.
House 4 - A valiant effort to make a sequel to the first one, but falls flat. It has the “pizza scene” and that is it. Seriously, google House 4 pizza scene.
If you really want to go in, watch the Japanese movie “House” from 1977. Unrelated to the American series, but really excellent and fun. Better than any of the American ones.
The Ballad of Wallis Island (2025 — Prime)
Leesee.., here’s an earlier review:
Yeah, that’s a good summary. I found it on a list of the best films on Prime (RotTom 97% fresh). It walks a fine line, but mostly avoids being too twee, too sentimental, too fantastic, too trite. I smiled a lot, and cried once or twice.
As the RotTom rating implies, most people will like this. I’ll be recommending it to my wife, adult daughter, in-laws.
Blue Giant (2023). A Japanese animated film based on a manga about a teenager who moves to Tokyo to try to become a great jazz musician. It is a touching film with plenty of humor and great music. The visual style is mix of different styles with a lot of colorful and stylistic images during a number of the music sequences. If you like Jazz music this is a treat because it is more than just a few bit performances to advance the plot but essentially full on songs. It was recommended to me by a music teacher who came across it on Netflix and I am glad he did. A very enjoyable way to spend two hours.
//i\\
I watched a movie on Netflix called Remarkably Bright Creatures on the recommendation of a coworker. Narrated by an octopus in a small town sea aquarium, it tells the story of the elderly cleaning lady and a young stranger who comes to town looking for his father. Not as bad as it may sound, but not exactly my kind of movie. Mostly it made me want to go back and watch the documentary My Octopus Teacher again.
Charley Varrick (1973) on Prime
The premise is kind of a stripped down No Country for Old Men. It’s very much a Don Siegel movie from the 1970s with some really good performances that may have, unfortunately, cemented certain stereotypes on them. Walter Matthau plays a character written for Clint Eastwood, which makes it weird when he easily beds a woman he just abducted (played by Jack Lemmon’s wife, Felicia Farr, so it may have been some kind of inside joke.) In fact, almost all of the women in this film have questionable taste in men. Joe Don Baker is menace personified and John Vernon and Norman Fell are surprisingly believable in non-comic roles.
We watched Remarkably Bright Creatures on Saturday. We both loved it.
I can’t watch these films. They make me feel so guilty about liking takoyaki.
(I know, I know, but it’s really good.)
I mainly ate squid when I lived in China, so I feel OK. They oddly did not have octopus on the menu almost ever.
Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy. Now, I saw this back in 2011 when it came out and couldn’t make heads nor tails of it. So I thought I’d watch it again 15 years later and see if I could figure it out. Nope. Much like Le Carre’s books, I couldn’t make heads or tails of it. Really good actors doing their thing, but way too muddled (British, in other words) for me.
Yeah, I like TTSS a lot, but you definitely better be paying close attention.
Side note: that movie was the first thing I ever saw Benedict Cumberbatch in.
I almost had it figured out when I saw it in theaters, but only became convinced I understood everything when I watched it with my wife at home and could compare notes as we watched.
Kung Fu Hustle (2004). I had heard about this movie from various people and decided to finally watch it, and I found it mostly OK. There are many funny parts and the story is fine, but on the whole I did not find it as coherent as the previous Stephen Chow production Shaolin Soccer(2001) which is perhaps the point. There are a lot of references to other movies of the same type of films and a lot of absurd moments, but I felt the film did not flow well from one set piece to the other making it feel disjointed despite a linear plot.
//i\\
L.A. Confidential (1997) - Another movie from my youth that I owned on VHS and that I am sure that I have watched several times. However, unlike Robin Hood, this movie has a complex plot (and good writing) that made it difficult for me to remember. It is a film set in 1950s Los Angeles, but doesn’t go with the grainy sepia toned look that a lot of period pieces use, about corrupt cops, drugs, murders, and a Hollywood gossip writer.
Stars: Russel Crowe, Guy Pearce, Kevin Spacey, James Cromwell, Danny DeVito, and Kim Basinger in her Oscar winning role.
Excellent movie that I will probably watch again in 5-10 years.
Oh you should try the 1979 miniseries. Maybe you’ll do better than us. We gave up a couple hours in.
The director also made the deliberately anachronistic choice to not have the male characters wear hats, so that audiences wouldn’t think (in his words) “Oh look, it’s a guy in a costume.” (Or a Guy in a costume.)
Mortal Kombat II
Not recommended.
Wow, they messed up a Mortal Kombat movie again. It’s not that hard. Work on elaborate fight scenes and then find a little plot to string them together.
But this movie…was a whole lot of boring talking and by the time any of the real fighting got going, it wasn’t even very engaging.
Now, the last 30 minutes were pretty neat. There are some cool fights and stuff in there, but what a slog to get to very little payoff.
Skip it.
Send Help - Recommended. Gross out horror to some times hilarious extremes, but was still a fun ride. Sam Raimi directs and makes his style felt. Recommended for those who appreciate Army of Darkness levels of silly gross horror.