Between “Bullet Train” in August and “Wakanda Forever” in November, the theaters had a blockbuster drought. The studios scheduled no blockbuster movies for the last three months due to COVID-19. The new movies that did come out didn’t break $100 million US on opening weekend. The theaters showed old blockbusters and new non-blockbusters to fill out the schedule.
Here are the nine movies that I saw during the blockbuster drought.
Read more “Watching 9 Movies During The Blockbuster Drought”“Julie & Julia” author, Julie Powell, passed away from a cardiac arrest at age 49. She started a blog on Salon called the Julie/Julia Project in 2002. Her goal was to cook all 524 recipes in Julia Child’s “Mastering the Art of French Cooking” in one year.
The blog became a book, “Julie & Julia: 365 Days, 524 Recipes, 1 Tiny Apartment Kitchen,” in 2005. The book became a movie, “Julie & Julia,” starring Meryl Streep and Amy Adams, in 2009. If you read the book or seen the movie, you would think her life was all sunshine and roses.
Her death revealed a darker side of her life and for food writing.
Read more ““Julie & Julia” Author, Julie Powell, Dead at 49″Will Michael Myers return after the end of “Halloween Ends”?
If you’ve seen the movie, there’s no way in hell that he can return for another movie. Unless the next movie is set in Hell with Jason and Freddie. A “Halloween,” “Friday the 13th,” and “Nightmare on Elm Street” crossover is unlikely to happen.
The new movie is Jamie Lee Curtis’s last “Halloween” movie. The series could reboot with a different cast like it did for the two Rob Zombie movies in the late 2000s. The final scene of “Halloween Ends” hints at a possible sequel without Michael Myers.
That depends on whether the boogieman was inside the man or the mask.
Read more “Will Michael Myers Return After Halloween Ends?”When I was growing up in the 1970s and 1980s, my father’s truck radio got only two stations: country and talk.
Country was Radio KEEN on 1370 AM in San Jose that shut down after 40 years in 1993. The land underneath the transmission tower became more valuable than the station itself. Radio KEEN folded its cards and walked away with the money.
Talk was KGO Radio on 810 AM in San Francisco that shut down after 80 years last week. The station owner, Cumulus Media, shut down talk without warning and hinted that a new format was coming. The station reopened as “The Spread: The Bay’s Best Bet on Sports.”
I find the timing for the switch to sports gambling somewhat curious. The November ballot has two propositions, 26 and 27, to expand gambling in California.
Did Cumulus Media gamble away KGO Radio on a sports gambling bet?
Read more “Did Cumulus Media Gamble Away KGO Radio 810 AM?”The Bay Area Glass Institute (BAGI) held their annual Glass Pumpkin Festival at Santana Row (San Jose, CA) from Friday, October 7, through Sunday, October 9, 2022. This montage video features numerous glass pumpkins, acorns, and witches for sale.
Ryan Reynolds dropped two new videos about “Deadpool 3” on his YouTube channel. He asked Hugh Jackman to play Wolverine one more time and he said yes. They answered how they were going to handle Wolverine’s death in “Logan” and what to expect in the new movie. This announcement shouldn’t be a surprise anyone who watched the extended end-credits in “Deadpool 2.”
Read more “Deadpool 3 with Hugh Jackman Shouldn’t Be A Surprise”When I saw #BoycottWomanKing trending on Twitter, I wanted to see “The Woman King” even more. Whenever someone on social media tells you to boycott a movie, you should probably see the movie. You might be missing out on something special. “The Woman King” is less about the slave trade and more about the bonds of love.
Read more “What The Woman King Boycotters Got Wrong”“Dirty Harry” with Clint Eastwood was a controversial movie when it came out in 1971. A homicide detective takes the law into his own hands to stop a serial killer who got off on a legal technicality.
A different scene from that movie inspired a real life kidnapping five years later. The serial killer hijacks a school bus with the driver and children on board to get away from Dirty Harry. The school bus crashes inside the entrance to a rock quarry.
The Chowchilla kidnapping was—and still is—the largest kidnapping in U.S. history.
Why is that kidnapping still relevant today? The third and final kidnapper got paroled from prison and came out $100 million US richer than he went in.
Read more “Dirty Harry, Chowchilla Kidnappings & The Parolee”The Empire State Building became the tallest building in New York City in 1931. King Kong climbed that building to make his last stand in 1933.
The twin towers of the World Trade Center became the tallest buildings in 1973. King Kong climbed those buildings to make his last stand in 1976.
On September 11, 2001, 21 years ago today, terrorists brought down the twin towers. One World Trade Center, a.k.a., the Freedom Tower, rose up from the ashes to become the tallest building in 2014.
Is the Freedom Tower ready for a kaiju movie?
Read more “Is the Freedom Tower READY For KAIJU MOVIE After 9/11?”Between “Bullet Train” in August to “Wakanda Forever” in October, expect no new blockbusters. New movies that should be out now are going straight to streaming or coming out next year. Theaters are bringing in old blockbusters to fill out the calendar.
I recently saw “E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial” for the first time after it came out 40 years ago. This weekend I saw “Jaws” on the big screen for the first time. Out of those two Steven Spielberg movies, “Jaws” was a better movie than “E.T.” on IMAX.
Read more “Watching Jaws (1975) On The Big Screen FOR FIRST TIME!”