FILM NOTES: From GLADIATOR to THE BATMAN PART II & More

Quick Review: OBSESSION...

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 26 May 2026 04:23:00 +0000

So before I ate barbecue for Memorial Day dinner today, I watched the horror movie Obsession at Regal Cinemas. The indie film by director Curry Barker was intense, witty, well-casted and of course gruesomely violent—just like other recent horror hits like Weapons, Barbarian and the Oscar-nominated Sinners.

Speaking of Weapons and the Oscars, Amy Madigan won the Best Supporting Actress trophy for her role as Aunt Gladys at the Academy Awards two months ago... Will Inde Navarrette be nominated for her role as Nikki at the Oscars next year? Maybe. Maybe not.

A Best Actress nomination carries more weight than one for Best Supporting Actress (not to disparage this award), and I'm guessing there will be lots of other amazing actresses who will be up for the former Academy Awards category when the actual Oscar baits get released at the theaters later this year. Other than that, well-done on a great horror flick, Barker, Navarrette, Michael Johnston, Megan Lawless, Cooper Tomlinson and company!

If only the One Wish Willow existed in real life... And I wonder what happened to that one billion dollars one of the characters won? Immediately watch Obsession on the big screen to know what I'm talking about!

Movie Review: THE MANDALORIAN AND GROGU...

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 24 May 2026 06:59:00 +0000

Earlier today, I went to Regal Cinemas to watch The Mandalorian and Grogu...the first Star Wars film to be theatrically released since The Rise of Skywalker in 2019. Needless to say, The Mandalorian and Grogu was a fun installment that's a nice addition to the mythology created by George Lucas almost 50 years ago!

If you watched the three current seasons of The Mandalorian on Disney+ like I did, you'll understand why director Jon Favreau structured the narrative of The Mandalorian and Grogu the way he did. The film fits nicely with its streaming counterpart—albeit with a higher budget ($165 million) that allowed more alien creatures and action sequences to be shown on the big screen.

One alien creature that stands out is Rotta the Hutt (voiced by Jeremy Allen White of such TV shows as The Bear and Shameless, as well as last year's biopic Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere), the son of Jabba the Hutt and a central character in The Mandalorian and Grogu. The movie's marketing campaign portrayed Rotta as a villainous UFC-type fighter who Din Djarin (Pedro Pascal), the Mandalorian himself, battled during his many adventures in the film.

In the actual film though, Rotta merely wants to separate his identity from that of his crime lord father. Rotta succeeds at the end, and will apparently become an integral member of the New Republic who might appear in future Star Wars shows. Another creature is Hugo Durant...a multi-armed food stand owner who's amusingly voiced by the great Martin Scorsese!

Not to be outdone by Rotta, Hugo and the other alien creatures (like the Anzelians, who were first seen in The Rise of Skywalker and Season 3 of The Mandalorian) are such human characters as Colonel Ward (Sigourney Weaver), the Mandalorian's New Republic handler, and Lord Janu (Jonny Coyne), who's responsible for Rotta's fighting career and was a former Imperial officer who still knows what the remnants of the Empire are up to in the galaxy. The Mandalorian and Grogu doesn't reveal any details about the Empire's secret plans...and rightfully focuses on the titular heroes of the movie instead.

Not only does The Mandalorian and Grogu have cool new alien creatures and action scenes (like a climactic X-Wing air battle), but it also had quiet moments that focused on the father-son relationship between Din Djarin and Grogu. At one point in the movie, Djarin is gravely injured during a skirmish on Nal Hutta (the homeworld of Rotta and the other Hutts), and it's in this sequence where we see how much Grogu cares for his father and how resourceful he's become under the Mandalorian's tutelage. From finding food and shelter for him and Djarin on Nal Hutta, to him using the Force to save another main character from imminent death in the film's climax, Grogu shows that he's not the helpless Jedi Youngling he was when he was rescued from Coruscant during Order 66, the Jedi Purge orchestrated by Darth Sidious in 2005's Revenge of the Sith.

A Season 4 is planned for The Mandalorian, and it's going to be exciting to see how The Mandalorian and Grogu influences the plotline for the next Disney+ adventures by Mando and company! It was The Mandalorian that ushered Star Wars into the post-Skywalker era in late 2019, so it makes sense that this particular film would be quite different from the 11 other live-action Star Wars movies that have been theatrically released since 1977. Just look at the kinetic music score for The Mandalorian and Grogu by 3-time Oscar winner Ludwig Göransson; there is not one single Star Wars theme by legendary composer John Williams in the new movie—only motifs that Göransson introduced in The Mandalorian Disney+ show itself.

Once again, I thoroughly enjoyed The Mandalorian and Grogu! I intend to watch it again on the big screen...and look forward to the next batch of Star Wars theatrical releases such as 2027's Star Wars: Starfighter. I can't wait to see how that Shawn Levy-directed installment contributes to George Lucas' mythology as well! This is the way.

A Day of Moviegoing at Regal Cinemas...

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 21 May 2026 18:01:00 +0000

Gettin' ready to watch In the Grey today!

A Day of Moviegoing at Regal Cinemas...

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 09 May 2026 17:01:00 +0000

Gettin' ready to watch Mortal Kombat II today!

A Day of Moviegoing at Regal Cinemas...

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 02 May 2026 18:55:00 +0000

Gettin' ready to watch Deep Water today!

A Day of Moviegoing at AMC Theatres...

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 25 Apr 2026 23:01:00 +0000

Gettin' ready to watch the Michael Jackson biopic Michael this evening!

A Day of Moviegoing at Regal Cinemas...

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 18 Apr 2026 19:01:00 +0000

Gettin' ready to watch Lee Cronin's The Mummy today!

When Art and Entertainment Meets Science and Reality...

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 09 Apr 2026 05:03:00 +0000

Cool comparison shots that we have here. Just make sure Krypto doesn't get anywhere near NASA's Orion capsule in space!

Seriously though— Have a safe journey back to Earth, Artemis 2 crew! The four astronauts will splash down off the coast of California this Friday, April 10...ending their successful 10-day Moon mission.

And the Superman sequel, Man of Tomorrow, will be released in theaters nationwide on July 9, 2027. Can't wait!

Warner Bros. Pictures / NASA

A Day of Moviegoing at Regal Edwards...

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 04 Apr 2026 17:51:00 +0000

Gettin' ready to watch The Super Mario Galaxy Movie today!

A Day of Moviegoing at Regal Edwards...

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 26 Mar 2026 18:15:00 +0000

Gettin' ready to watch Ready or Not 2: Here I Come today!

A Day of Moviegoing at Regal Edwards...

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 21 Mar 2026 16:51:00 +0000

Gettin' ready to watch Project Hail Mary today!

A Day of Moviegoing at Regal Edwards...

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 14 Mar 2026 18:51:00 +0000

Gettin' ready to watch Undertone today!

A Day of Moviegoing at Regal Edwards...

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 28 Feb 2026 18:15:00 +0000

Gettin' ready to watch Scream 7 today!

A Day of Moviegoing at Regal Edwards...

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 14 Feb 2026 17:51:00 +0000

Gettin' ready to watch Crime 101 today!

A Day of Moviegoing at Regal Edwards...

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 07 Feb 2026 19:49:00 +0000

Gettin' ready to watch The Strangers – Chapter 3 today!

A Day of Moviegoing at Regal Edwards...

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 31 Jan 2026 19:49:00 +0000

Gettin' ready to watch Send Help today!

A Day of Moviegoing at Regal Edwards...

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 10 Jan 2026 20:05:00 +0000

Gettin' ready to watch Greenland 2: Migration today!

A Day of Moviegoing at Regal Edwards...

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 08 Jan 2026 18:55:00 +0000

Gettin' ready to watch The Housemaid today!

ID4: Will We See Will Smith and Co. Whup E.T.'s Ass on the Big Screen Again This Year?

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 01 Jan 2026 17:21:00 +0000

Happy New Year, everyone! Just thought I'd point out that 2026 marks three decades since Roland Emmerich and Dean Devlin's sci-fi megahit Independence Day (ID4) invaded movie theaters nationwide.

Will 20th Century Studios (formerly 20th Century Fox) and Disney—which has owned Fox's entire film library since 2019—re-release ID4 on the big screen this year? I surely hope so.

I saw ID4 again on the big screen back in June of 2016...when it was shown in a doubleheader with the newly-released sequel Independence Day: Resurgence. I was just as blown away by ID4's Oscar-winning visual effects in 2016 as I was on opening night in 1996, and would surely like to be blown away (like the White House, Empire State Building and U.S. Bank Tower were in the film) again in 2026!

So if Disney CEO Bob Iger stumbles upon this blog entry, please bring Independence Day back into multiplexes soon! A film made 30 years ago would be among my most anticipated movies to see this year if Iger greenlits the re-release. Happy Holidays!

A Day of Moviegoing at Harkins Theatres...

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 27 Dec 2025 20:19:00 +0000

Gettin' ready to watch the reboot of Anaconda today!

A Day of Moviegoing at Harkins Theatres...

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 20 Dec 2025 17:01:00 +0000

Gettin' ready to watch Avatar: Fire and Ash today!

A Day of Moviegoing at the California Science Center...

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 18 Dec 2025 18:29:00 +0000

Gettin' ready to watch Antarctica in IMAX 3D today!

A Day of Moviegoing at Harkins Theatres...

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 08 Dec 2025 17:49:00 +0000

Gettin' ready to watch Wicked: For Good today!

A Day of Moviegoing at Harkins Theatres...

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 29 Nov 2025 16:21:00 +0000

Gettin' ready to watch Now You See Me: Now You Don't today!

A Day of Moviegoing at Regal Edwards...

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 15 Nov 2025 21:35:00 +0000

Gettin' ready to watch The Running Man today!