Movies I saw in May: In The Grey, Wrath of Man, The Apartment

The movies I saw in May continued a distressing trend: The ones I catch in the theater are now often the ones I like the least. By a lot.

In April the dud was “Normal,” and in May the stinker was “In the Grey,” a confusingly bad offering by Guy Ritchie, who I know can do much better.

In The Grey (In the theater). Grade: D-

For all the talking this movie did explaining the small amount of action that eventually did take place, I really shouldn’t have been confused about the point of it all, but I was:

Me: So, the mission everyone was preparing for that we barely saw any of was essentially just dropping a woman into danger so you could pluck her out again?

ITG: Yes.

Me: But why does the beautiful lawyer have to meet in person with these super rich bad guys she represents — can’t they just Zoom?

ITG: No, then we wouldn’t need to rescue her.

Me: And why do I care if you rescue her? Because she’s gorgeous?

ITG: No, she also wears gorgeous outfits. Look, she’s in a red one now!

But even more frustrating than the boring and pointless meal this movie offered was the satisfying sip of brandy we got at the very end that should have been the main course: Jake Gyllenhaal and his work husband, played by Henry Cavill, operating as a very-skilled tag team of kidnappers/extraction experts.

Much more of those two, even just arguing about what music to play as they drove to their next gig, would not only have been fun, it would have made me care what happened to all those super-skilled people playing with super-expensive weapons. Instead, I found the whole thing kind of a waste of time, both theirs and mine.

Unless, of course, this was all a set-up for a sequel starring Gyllenhaal and Cavill as the “Ambiguously Gay Assassins?” Please, Mr. Ritchie, make it so! Just maybe hire Robert Smigel to write their dialogue.

Wrath of Man (YouTubeTV) Grade: C.

To remind ourselves that Guy Ritchie could make a decent movie, my husband and I decided to watch an earlier offering called “Wrath of Man.”

But while this movie was definitely better than both “In The Grey” and Jason 

Statham’s more recent “A Working Man,” it was really just a much less compelling version of “Den of Thieves,” which unfortunately keeps hopping off Netflix. So next time it appears, watch that instead.

 

DVD cover of “The Apartment.”

The Apartment (On DVD from the library). Grade: B-.

I rented this movie thinking I was in for a bit of light, old-fashioned, romantic comedy. And while it did give me a couple of laughs, I found it mostly an unsettling mix of Mad Men and American Psycho, somehow feeling even more sexist than the television show, and almost as depraved as the horror movie. 

And while I will grudgingly admit that the romance was ultimately satisfying and certainly more realistic than how most movie couples fall in love, it was jarring to watch the sad turn it takes, though we are warned of what’s to come with the movie’s best line: Shirley MacLaine’s Fran declaring that she uses a compact with a broken mirror because it “makes me look the way I feel.”

Still, all the darkness is brightened a bit by a perfectly marvelous scene where Jack Lemmon prepares spaghetti with a tennis racket, and by some hilarious work by Hope Holiday, whose frustrated wife cries my new favorite phrase: “Some sexpot you are!”

Interesting fact: Previous audiences gave this movie much better grades than I did, because in 1960 it took home Oscars for Best Picture, Best Director and Best Screenplay, making Billy Wilder the first person to win all three of those Academy Awards. 

Finally, as for movie reviews from my grandmother this month, she was so often traveling in May to her favorite city of Paris that I couldn’t find many to offer, but on May 31 in 1997, she went to see “The Fifth Element,” describing it simply as “Crazy SiFi. Bruce Willis, Gary Oldman. Set in 2314.”

Movies I saw in April: Apex, Normal, Over Your Dead Body. 

Movies I saw in June: Raiders of the Lost Ark, The Death of Robin Hood, Disclosure Day.

Movies I saw in April: Normal, Apex, Over Your Dead Body

The movies I saw in April were full of violence: violence between spouses, violence between a woman and her captor, and, in my least favorite of the four, violence that takes over an entire town:

Normal (In the theater, 4/18/2026) Grade: D.

I like Bob Odenkirk so much, I could watch him eat oatmeal. And I bet I would enjoy that more than this movie, which I only gave a passing grade because of a squeaky leather jacket and my never wanting to give Odenkirk an “F.”

So instead of bothering with this movie, I would suggest you watch another dark and violent crime drama set in snowy Minnesota called “Fargo,” because that story at least has a thick coat of quirkiness, and a warm, beating heart hiding under all the violence.

Apex (Netflix, 4/25/2026) Grade: B-.

I like Charlize Theron, and would have enjoyed a lot more of her just eating noodles at her beautiful campsite, and a lot less of her fighting with and fleeing from a seriously warped human.

And while I certainly appreciate that the movie did not make our heroine a damsel in distress,  I did bristle at the notion that the bad guy had to be super depraved to scare us. Because for most women alone in the wilderness, any man she encounters can be a threat: Statistically bigger, stronger, faster and more likely to know basic fighting moves, most men can terrify most women by their mere presence.

But even more offensive to me was all the CGI. The beginning of the movie reminded me of the documentary The Dawn Wall, which centers on two climbers trying to scale El Capitan, spending days and days in a tent perched precariously on a rock face because one of the men can’t complete a difficult section, and the other refuses to leave his partner behind.

The documentary is a compelling story beautifully shot, and I can’t help but feel sadness for the incredibly skilled people we forget about in those movies: The ones also on the mountain filming. 

Much like how Ginger Rogers did everything Fred Astaire did, only backwards and wearing heels, the camera operators are also climbing, plus wrangling heavy equipment while constantly angling for compelling scenes and framing. But now their hard-won skills are quickly being replaced by technology that can supposedly generate scenery that is just as jaw-dropping.

But not to me; I can’t be awed if I can tell a computer created it, especially not when I feel more and more each day that artificial intelligence will be the Apex predator for humans. And our captor didn't even need to drag us to its cave for dinner; no, this one we invited into our cave, letting it quietly nibble away at anything it wants until we realize far too late that even if we could still escape to the outside world again, we will find that we allowed it to evolve beyond us, willingly engineering our own obsolescence. 

Over Your Dead Body (In the theater, 4/25/2026). Grade: A-.

This movie was a bit too long and I could have done without ever seeing a lawn mower used as a weapon, but it also gave me the first big belly laugh since the reboot of Anaconda. 

And I can forgive a movie almost anything if it lets two old farts save the day: The first a nosy neighbor who uses his Rolodex and big-buttoned phone to alert the second old fart, who then breaks out of his nursing home and steals a car so he can check on his cabin by the lake.

It also benefits greatly from the charms of actors like Timothy Olyphant, who almost single-handedly notches this remake above the foreign film it is based on, a feat I didn’t think was possible after decades of watching failed attempts: “Point of No Return,” a far less interesting version of “La Femme Nikita”; “Downhill,” a far less mature and nuanced version of “Force Majuere”; and, most egregious of all, “To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything,”which I think was nothing but a ghastly insult to the marvelousness of “Priscilla, Queen of the Dessert.”

Heck, even my grandmother agreed about To Wong Foo, describing it as “Not good show. No movement, stupid at times.”

The Trip/I Onde Dager (Netflix, 4/25/2026). Grade: C-.

This is the Norwegian film that inspired “Over Your Dead Body” — so much so that the movies often felt like scene-by-scene reshoots done in different languages – that I found much less fun and inventive than the American remake, as its tone was a bit too dark without the comedic talents of both Olyphant and Jason Segel. 

But who I missed the most from this film was Juliette Lewis, whose eccentric charm is so watchable, I think she could making eating oatmeal even more entertaining than Odenkirk would.

And while I did enjoy seeing Noomi Rapace again, I think her talents were a bit wasted in this role, and recommend you catch her work as Lisbeth Salander in the Swedish version of “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo” instead.

Movies I saw in March: Ready or Not 2, Marty Supreme, Blue Moon. 

Here are the movies my grandmother saw in April of 1998:

Saturday, April 4, 1998

4/4/1998 To show, “Mercury Rising.” Bruce Willis, autistic boy.
4/6/1998: To show, “Men with Guns.” Good.

4/9/1998: To show, “Primary Colors.” Enjoyed. Only 5 there.

4/16/1998: To show, “City of Angels.” N. Cage, Meg Ryan.

4/25/1998: To show, “The Locket.” Old, 1946. Robert Mitchum.

4/26/1998: To show, “Spanish Prisoner.” Good.

Movies I saw in March: Blue Moon, Marty Supreme, Ready or Not 2

Poster for Ready or Not 2: Here I Come.

I saw a lot of movies in March while trying to catch as many Oscar nominees as I could before the Academy Awards were handed out. 

And since I really wanted Michael B. Jordan to win Best Actor but fully expected Timothée Chalamet to get the award instead, I particularly wanted to watch Marty Supreme before the ceremony in case I needed to grudgingly admit that Chalamet deserved the Oscar.

And while I am pleased to report that I could indeed have been OK with Chalamet winning, I am even more pleased to report that I didn’t have to be, since Jordan actually got the statuette!

That was cool. 

And it would have been even cooler if Sinners also won best picture and best directing, but hey, I don’t run the Oscars. 

(But if I did run the Oscars, I’d give them to the ocean:  https://youtu.be/jasw45u1FUM)

Here are the movies I saw in March of 2026, in order of preference:

Ready or Not 2 (In the theater, 3/22/2026) Grade: A.

I gave this movie an “A” based on this fight scene alone: Two women in wedding dresses trying to kill each other while blinded by pepper spray with Bonnie Tyler’s “Total Eclipse of the Heart” blasting in a deserted reception hall, in what also has to be the best use of that song ever. 

Why? Because if you are a survivor of 1980s radio like me, you likely also feel that a year (or was it two?!) of hearing that very long song at least once an hour was enough play for a lifetime, but I fully supported listening to it again for that scene.

I also went into this movie not sure we actually needed a sequel to “Ready or Not,” which had been a pleasant surprise created largely by no expectations, but I checked out the follow-up anyway in large part to see the return of Buffy, aka Sarah Michelle Gellar. And though Gellar was not playing our heroine this time, I thoroughly enjoyed seeing her and the rest of the cast, with my favorite part being how our actual heroines end up not marrying into a new family, but re-committing to themselves as their first family. That was cool.

Blue Moon (On Netflix, March 7). Grade: A-/B+

I never liked Ethan Hawke when he was younger, but am quite enjoying his older years. He started to win me over in “Juliet, Naked,” then I officially became a fan of his gray-hair work when he moved to television recently to star in “The Lowdown” as a used bookstore owner in Oklahoma who also writes for a local magazine, but mostly drinks too much and disappoints his daughter. And while everyone in that show is great, my favorite character just might be the old white van Hawke drives.

In “Blue Moon,” Hawke plays another writer who drinks too much, though after having far more success to piss away. The movie is like spending an evening on a bar stool next to a man whose best years are fumes even he can barely smell anymore, so it is full of pain disguised as pithy dialogue, with Hawke completely believable and sympathetic as a man drowning in memories he can’t stop swimming in. So yeah, if Jordan didn’t win Best Actor this year, Hawke would have been my second choice for the award.

Marty Supreme (On YouTube, March 14). Grade: B

I wanted to see this movie long before any of the Oscar hype: Wait, it’s all about a guy trying to be a ping pong champion? I’m in! But... there was too much dog caper and not enough ping pong, frankly. And as good as Chalamet is at playing Marty, I could never root for this heel, or anyone else in the movie, really, except maybe the dog. The only human who came close to winning my sympathies was Marty’s lovesick sidekick Rachel, played admirably by Odessa A’zion, so here’s hoping her next role is a starring one she can really shine in, perhaps on her way to becoming the next Natasha Lyonne?

And to my surprise, I also really enjoyed the performance of Gwyneth Paltrow, who perfectly captured the frustration and despair of a faded beauty trapped in a gilded cage while trying to grasp her last bit of glory. Frankly, I found it a much more admirable bit of acting than the role that won her a Best Actress Oscar in 1999.

How to Make a Killing (In the theater, March 1, 2026) Grade: B-/C+

This movie was like a burger without blue cheese and bacon: A perfectly acceptable plate of food, but no special ingredients to make it sing. And while I can’t point to anything I didn’t like about it, as it was certainly competent and enjoyable, I also can’t point to anything I especially liked, either.

A bit like “Ready or Not” in reverse but without all the fun and laughs, I felt like this movie was trying to tip its hat to “American Psycho” without making Glen Powell go as depraved as Christian Bale, because they needed him to be more likable.

And that was the movie’s downfall, because it depended too much on Powell’s charisma, as if the filmmakers decided to just sit back and let his smile do all the work. But that plan failed for me, I’m afraid, as I found no one to like in this movie, not even Powell. 

Movie on Netflix I recommend: Anaconda! 

Movie on Netflix I don’t recommend: War Machine.

Movies I saw in February: Pretty in Pink, Crime 101

Here, finally, are the movies my grandmother saw in March of 1999:

Thursday, March 18, 1999

To Gottschalk’s, got 2 cheap rings.

Talked to Myra, gave her magazines, jars.

To show, “Shakespeare in Love.” (4th). Forgot hearing aid! See again?

Friday, March 19, 1999

To Drug Emporium, got Kleenex and Band-aids.

Got donut/coffee. Girl fun to talk with.

TV: Bio on Gwyenth Paltrow from Shakepeare. Good!

Saturday, March 20, 1999

Awake 6:30, usual breakfast. 

Chores: Vacuumed, cleaned furnace filters.

To show, “Affliction.” Nick Nolte, good performance.

Sunday, March 21, 1999

Up 6:30. Typed some collected info on eye surgery.

To Kmart, gassed car.

TV: Siskel & Ebert, Oscars: Gwyenth Paltrow, Dench, Roberto Benigni, Best Actor & Best Foreign Film.

Thursday, March 25, 1999

Cleaned patio, in part.

To McDonald’s, coffee.

To library, sent email to Carla.

To show, “Shakespeare in Love.” [Fifth time!]

Friday, March 26, 1999

To show, “True Crime.” Clint Eastwood, face lined!! First shot at bar with 23-year-old!

To Lucky to get bread. All $2.

Sunday, March 28, 1999

Swept patio, washed car. 

To show, “Forces of Nature.” Sandra Bullock, Ben Affleck. Stupid at times.

To Kmart for ice cream.

Home, five mins yard work.

Movies I saw in January: Send Help, Anora, Blink Twice

I didn’t see many movies in January, but those I did watch packed a surprisingly satisfying punch; all three featured women defying the control of others to carve new paths for their lives, with most carving those paths straight through their captors with very sharp knives. 

That was cool.

And while my favorite movie of the trio features a woman realizing that the VIP club she desperately wants to join is just a gilded cage, my favorite character was a woman suddenly released from her cage of conformity and quickly realizing her true talents lie in plotting revenge, not playing nice.

January’s movies:

1. Anora (On DVD rented from library, 1/10/2026) Grade: A

Last year I was disappointed that Demi Moore didn’t win an Oscar for her work in “The Substance,” but after finally seeing “Anora,” I full embrace the Best Actress win by Mikey Madison. Not only did I believe every moment of her portrayal, I would have given her the statue just for the screaming fit she throws to keep two men from containing her, as their response to her full-bodied revolt created one of the funniest scenes I have ever watched.

And that comedy came at just the right time, for I was about to give up on this movie that lifts bits of plot and dialog from “Pretty Woman,” but little else from that fairytale. Because while the 1990 movie was essentially a rom-com/Cinderella story with just a side of sex work ordered from the kids menu, “Anora” has our main character’s body being rented by a man with far more realistic demands than Richard Gere’s too-driven-to-date businessman.

The resulting debauchery and disrespect inflicted on our heroine in this movie almost had me turning it off, but I am very glad I stuck with this slow-burning love story, which I not only found more realistic, but far more satisfying, than the nearly squeaky clean “Pretty Woman.”

2. Blink Twice (On DVD rented from the library, 1/17/2026) Grade: B+

I’ll admit it, I picked “Blink Twice” off the shelves because Channing Tatum was on the DVD cover. And knowing really nothing else about this movie, I was pleasantly surprised at how much I enjoyed it despite Tatum playing almost a bit part.

To avoid giving away too much of the plot, I’ll just describe “Blink Twice” as a nice mix of Fantasy Island and Get Out (and did I detect a dash of that creepy movie in which director Zoe Kravitz’s mom starred called Angel Heart?) that delivered an impressively edited feast of sounds, music and visuals that kept my attention far more competently than “Him,” which failed to create even a fraction of the “what the heck is happening?!” ambiance this movie deftly maintains throughout.

3. Send Help (In the theater, 1/31/2026) Grade: C

The best thing about this movie was Rachel McAdams, which was another surprise because I’d never quite warmed to her before. But here she exudes the perfect mix of cheerful-yet-creepy as a ridiculed outcast who suddenly gains power and popularity when civilization collapses around her. The only actress I’ve seen doing that role better these days is Christina Ricci in “Yellowjackets.”

But overall, the movie felt like a mediocre mix of the two great movies “Cast Away” and “Misery,” since it pales in comparison to both. My favorite parts of “Cast Away” are watching Tom Hanks opening packages, learning to fish and build a fire, but this movie decides not to show us much of how Linda adapts to the island she is dropped on, preferring instead to linger on her punishing her former boss. 

Yet unlike “Misery,” when it came time for any actual torture, “Send Help” shies away from Linda physically maiming her boss unlike Kathy Bates’ Annie does to her captive, instead deciding to linger far too long on our two main characters squabbling with decidedly uninteresting chemistry, and mysteriously having the most violent scene not even featuring a human victim. 

As someone who can definitely identify with Linda's inability to adapt to “polite society,” I wanted this movie to get far more detailed and depraved that it dared, and wish a director like David Fincher had been hired to relish in showing us exactly how Linda realizes her full potential.

Movies I saw in December: Anaconda, Song Sung Blue.

Finally, here are the movies my grandmother saw in January of 1996:

Thursday, Jan. 4

Up 6:30, tea, breakfast McDonald’s.

Debbie and I to show, “The City of Lost Children.” French, very weird!

Sunday, Jan. 7

Thought to have haircut, he not there. Home, watered houseplants.

To “Toy Story.” Good.

Tuesday, Jan. 9

Breakfast Carl’s Jr., walked mall, Lilly passed test at DMV.

To show, “Waiting to Exhale.” Stupid, I thought.

Thursday, Jan. 11

Longs, Xerox gone. Wrote Mina, to Kinkos to copy Stimson's letter.

To deli, got sandwich. To show, “12 Monkeys.” Brad Pitt is paranoid, good acting.

Saturday, Jan. 13

Played La Boheme, some TV.

Watched “All the Mornings of the World.” French. Lovely color!

Monday, Jan. 15

To show, “Tom and Huck.” Better than I thought.

Ate Wendy’s, brought home salad.

Friday, Jan. 19

To show, “Sense and Sensibility.”

Post office, mailed pictures to Justine. 

Home to find letter from Justine, no email luck. She taking International Communications.

Saturday, Jan. 20, 1996

To mall, post office, library, returned two books + records. Read Newsweek.

To show, “From Dusk til Dawn.” Special effects!

Monday, Jan. 22, 1996

To show, “Dead Man Walking.” Sean Penn, Susan Sarandon. Good.

Mail: letter from Mina, $103.88 from Colonial Penn.

Friday, Jan. 26, 1996

To show, “12 Monkeys,” second time. Understood better, not completely.

Kmart Scotts Valley, got more chicken.

Movies I saw in August: F1, Naked Gun, Thelma & Louise

The movies I saw in August were all about sexy people in their 50s and 60s — yes, they do exist! And while most of those still given screen time were men, I’m pleased to report that there were at least two actresses allowed to prove that life as the most interesting woman in the room doesn't have to end at menopause.

FI: The Movie (8/12, in the theater) Grade: A-. My favorite things about this movie were Brad Pitt, whose effortless charm helps us care about yet another washed-up phenom given another chance at glory, and when the audience is put behind the wheel of a race car, offering us nearly all of the adrenaline rush with none of the danger. Much like how “Gravity” was the closest I ever want to get to outer space, F1 is the closest I ever want to get to a racetrack, let alone to driving 200 miles an hour next to people who are actively trying to get me to crash.

Pitt, who at 61 is obviously drinking the same “how-to-keep-your-boyish-grin juice” as Robert Redford, is still gorgeous, and having at least half the scenes featuring sexy men over 55 (Javier Bardem, Kim Bodnia and Pitt) was another plus for me. And while this movie recycled plenty from other racing and flying movies such as Top Gun, Days of Thunder, Point Break, and Ford vs. Ferrari, it was extremely competent reworking, even with at least 20 unnecessary minutes. Because unless those 20 minutes included more banter between Bardem and Pitt in the laundromat, more spats between Bodnia and Pitt on the track, or even simply Pitt driving on a beach (something I hardly ever endorse, by the way), then I didn’t need them.

Thelma & Louise (8/15, on my well-loved DVD) Grade: A+. No, I wasn't inspired to watch this 1991 classic again because of seeing Brad Pitt in F1. Another hunky guy named Michael Madsen (who died in July at age 67) is why I broke out my DVD of this movie, though it does feature Pitt in what I still believe is his best role. And I do apologize for this Mr. Pitt, so maybe picture these words being spoken with a soft twang under a cowboy hat to help ease their sting, because I know you feel you've done much more admirable acting in the past 34 years, but that shirtless scene where you made Thelma, and a good portion of the human population, fall in lust with you? That will always be your finest work.

Of course, the true stars of this movie are Susan Sarandon, Geena Davis and that teal Thunderbird they blast through the Southwest in. I remember smiling for days after I first saw this movie, loving that two smart, sassy and sexy women were finally front and center in a buddy road trip/crime spree movie. And while they did not (or did they?) survive their grand adventure, I loved having filmmakers decide that Bonnie and Clyde could not only be two women, but that we didn't need to see them, and that beautiful Ford, get shot to pieces.

Nobody 2 (8/17/2025, in the theater) Grade: C-. I really liked the first Nobody movie, but did not enjoy this sequel much at all, and am only giving it a passing grade because of some fun performances, especially the delicious big bad played by Sharon Stone, who was great to watch having a great time being evil, even getting to do a nice nod to Joaquin Phoenix’s Joker dance. It also features the best use of an amusement park in a finale since Zombieland.

The Naked Gun (8/26/2025, in the theater). Grade: C+. Speaking of sexy people in their 50s, it was nice seeing Pamela Anderson still getting to play the not-so-dumb blonde at nearly 60, and I loved learning that she looks even better in a brunette bob than her platinum mane. As Liam Neeson's sidekick, she outperformed him in every category -- looks, comedic timing and pratfalls -- though he was better at putting down the “I-don’t -have-time-to-crack-even-a-quarter-of-a-smile” face than I thought.

Overall, Anderson and Neeson were fun goofballs to hang out with, but despite one inspired scene involving an emergency bathroom visit after a chili dog that still has me laughing, I didn't find the movie all that funny.

Movies I saw in July: Megan 2, Jurassic World Rebirth

And, finally, here are the movies my grandmother saw in August of 1995:

8/2/1995: To show in Aptos, “The Net.” Sandra Bullock.

8/4/1995: To show, “Something to Talk About,” Julia Roberts, Dennis Quaid.

8/6/1995: Watched “Survive the Savage Sea,” Robert Urich. True story of family sailing from Australia to Tahiti. Whale hits boat, it sinks, they 38 days on raft.

8/8/1995 Watched “Mona Lisa,” still can't make out Bob Hoskins.

8/15/1995 To show, “The Indian in the Cupboard.” Morals.

8/17/1995 To show, “Apollo 13.” Well-done.

8/26/1995 To show “Belle de Jour,” Catherine Deneuve.

8/29/1995 To show in Aptos, “Desperado.” Almost comic book atmosphere.

Movies I saw in July: Megan 2.0, Jurassic World Rebirth

Theater poster for Megan 2.0.

I didn’t see a lot of movies in July, but the two I did catch last month continued a trend I am quite enjoying: No-nonsense women having the lead role.

The first was Megan 2.0 (7/01/2025, in the theater), which I will give a B+, mostly because it was exactly what I wanted, and even better than I expected. I did not see the first Megan movie because it looked too scary for my taste, but I gleaned that the sequel would be more my speed, happily discovering it is basically a female version of Terminator 2: Judgement Day, one of my all-time favorite movies.

Just like Terminator 2, Megan 2 has a mom forced to trust a machine that initially terrorized her. In the first Terminator movie, for instance, Linda Hamilton’s Sarah Connor was hunted by Arnold Schwarzenegger’s robot, but in the second, they team up to protect her son, as she realizes that the robot in many ways is even better at caring for the boy than a human father.

The mom (or aunt? I was never sure!) in Megan 2 realizes this as well, eventually forced to trust a machine that previously tried to kill her because it is the only way to protect the teen both want to keep safe. All in all, I enjoyed this mostly-female twist on Terminator 2, as Megan 2 was pretty short with a good story, good action, and just enough inside jokes in its banter to keep adults like me interested in a movie that is definitely geared toward a much younger crowd.

The second movie I saw in July was Jurassic World Rebirth (7/29/2025, in the theater) which I give a B-, a grade mostly earned by the presence of Scarlett Johansson, whom I’m glad to see has successfully engineered an action hero career. 

I enjoyed her playing the tough guy lead, as the other “tough guy” gets eaten as soon as the first dinosaur shows up. I also can’t help thinking her white tank top was a nod to the one Helen Hunt wore for most of Twister, and wonder if it will again make a humble undershirt the sexiest fashion accessory for women.

But surrounding the calm charisma of Johansson is a mostly dull mix of people and props, including a criminally underused Mahershala Ali and a slew of completely underwhelming special effects. Though the movie, produced by Steven Spielberg, was a lot like his original Jurassic Park movie with a big dose of Jaws and a small dose of Raiders of the Lost Ark mixed in, I still think all of the older movies, even the one made in 1975, had better effects than this 2025 movie.

Heck, just one shot of the T-Rex’s gigantic foot in the original Jurassic Park, released nearly 30 years ago in 1993, was better than all the T-Rex scenes in Rebirth. In fact, I sorta think JWR was not worth seeing on the big screen, as frankly both the napping T-Rex and its mutant cousin at the end would likely look much better on a smaller screen. And I definitely think that if this movie represents our film future, one full of the “magic” of AI but stripped of the magic of real, and really creative, effects, then I am very sad indeed.

One particularly disappointing scene has Dr. Loomis rappelling down a cliffside with supposedly gorgeous, but obviously fake, waterfalls in the background. Since about half of the YouTubers I follow could go to the jaw-dropping Burney Falls, a Grand Canyon like waterfall in Northern California, and easily film a better sequence without even having to break any park rules, there was no excuse for that scene to feel so canned.

Still, Rebirth had a lot of the best parts of Jurassic Park, like punishing (or rather, grinding in a set of huge teeth) people who care more about money than the dinosaurs, or even their fellow humans, but with the nice flip of having Sam Neil’s Dr. Grant, this time Dr. Loomis, be nerdier and less capable, often dependent on a woman for rescue.

Movies I saw in June with more no-nonsense women: Ballerina, Thelma. 

Finally, just for fun, here are my grandmother’s much shorter movie reviews for July of 1999:

• 7/5/1999 “Notting Hill.” 4th time. (My grandmother obviously loved this movie, as she saw it more than 10 times in the theater, then bought the DVD and watched it countless more times. I remember at the time that we both liked the movie, but I don't remember her ever talking about why she LOVED it so much.)

• 7/8/1999: “The General's Daughter.” Exciting. Lunch KFC in Aptos.

• 7/10/1999: To show, “An Ideal Husband.” Trouble with audio.

• 7/11/1999:  “Arlington Road.” Enjoyed, but Siskel & Ebert said “no.” Last 20 minutes bad, not logical.

• 7/14/1999: “Ideal Husband.” Enjoyed, I think, but thought about bad breath, etc. Takes place in 1895.

• 7/16/1999: To show, “Tea With Mussolini.” Good. Maggie Smith, Cher, Lily Tomlin, Judi Dench.

• 7/18/1999: To show, “Notting Hill.” (5th)

• 7/23/1999: Saw “Notting Hill.” 6th. Look for She!

• 7/27/1999: To “Notting Hill,” 7th.

• 7/28/1999: “The Haunting.” Over the top. Some intriguing preliminaries.

• 7/29/1999: “Notting Hill.” (8th!)

• 7/31/1999: Bought sound track of Notting Hill. Not too good.

Movies I saw in May: Mission Impossible 8, Columbus, Extraction & Extraction 2

Movie poster for MI:8.

The movies I saw in May included only one seen in the theater, one seen on DVD, and two seen on a streaming service:

Mission Impossible: Final Reckoning (In the theater). Grade: Solid B. I stopped watching the Mission Impossible movies after that ridiculous scene (maybe in the second installment?) where Ethan Hunt, played by Tom Cruise, and a foe are driving straight at each other on motorcycles, then both jump up and start grappling in midair – a sight that made my eyes stick in mid-roll for at least a week.

But I came back to the series for Mission Impossible: Fallout, which was enjoyable and certainly visually stunning, then found myself venturing back to the theater for Mission Impossible: Final Reckoning, though somehow I completely missed MI: Dead Reckoning, Part One. But no matter, they filled me in on all I missed from MI:7 with quite an exposition dump at the start of MI:8.

Final Reckoning is quite long, just a bit shorter than Oppenheimer. But while I never felt the length of Oppenheimer, I felt the length of this movie. A lot. The first hour is schlocky, the second hour slowly gets better before featuring the best sequence, which has Hunt diving into a sunken submarine and being forced to strip to his underwear again (I forget how many times total they showed us what great shape Cruise is still in), and the third hour has the best action, though it features a dueling-planes battle almost as ridiculous as the dueling-motorcycles one.

Columbus (DVD, rented from the library) Grade: A. I don’t remember ever hearing about this movie, though it came out nearly 10 years ago in 2017. Maybe a lot of other people never heard about it, either, because it has possibly the least-intriguing cover art ever, something my husband described as “looking like a boring training video.”

And for some, the movie itself might be quite boring, as not much happens. Just a lot of soothing and artistic visuals interspersed with lots of talking, mostly between a young woman living in Columbus, Ohio, and a Korean man visiting the city because his father had a stroke during his visit and is still in the hospital there. The two main characters meet over a cigarette and strike up a friendship that changes each other's lives in that way only a chance encounter can do, as often you need a stranger to finally convince you to do the thing that everyone else, including your inner voice, have been telling you to do.

My only gripe about the movie is that if you decide to have a character's smoking be important to the plot, you should really make sure the person portraying that character can believably smoke. Otherwise, people like me get pulled out of the movie with every puff pulled off by someone who very obviously has never smoked cigarettes.

Extraction & Extraction 2 (Netflix originals) Both get an A-. I watched these out of order, because my husband said the second one was far superior. So of course I preferred the first one! Both are definitely worth a watch.

I enjoyed the characters and their relationships much more in the first movie, though the second one includes one of the best fighting scenes I have seen in a long time, with Chris Hemsworth's Tyler Rake fighting off an entire prison full of inmates attacking him with whatever they can find, and being saved multiple times by the woman he is “extracting,” who bravely whacks anyone she can reach with a shovel, her fists and her feet.

Having women join the fighting is my favorite thing about the second Extraction, as some of the most brutal and inventive hand-to-hand combat scenes feature Rake’s handler, played by the beautiful and badass Golshifteh Farahani, fighting off multiple attackers more than once after being cornered in seemingly-impossible situations.

So, wait: Maybe my husband was right after all, and the second was better? Impossible! Either way, this review will self destruct after reading.

Bonus: My grandmother’s reviews for the movies she saw in May of 2000:

Mumford, rented from Hollywood Video, recommended by (Roger) Ebert: “Enjoyable.”

Dreamed of Africa: No review

East/West: “Thought good.”

Center Stage: “Excellent.” (Justine here: I loved that movie, too!)

Small Time Crooks: No review, though she notes that Ebert liked it.

Movies I saw in April: Sinners, The Accountant 2