Jamie Lee Curtis

Halloween H20: 20 Years Later

  • Title: Halloween H20: 20 Years Later
  • IMDb: link

Released 20 years after the original Halloween, Halloween H20: 20 Years Later brought back Jamie Lee Curtis as Laurie Strode while retconning much of the franchise becoming a direct sequel to Halloween II (which, until H20, marked Curtis’ last appearance as the character). After an initial sequence showing Michael Meyers (played here by Chris Durand) back on the hunt, the movie opens with Strode having faked her death years earlier and now living as Keri Tate, the headmistress of a private school that her son John (Josh Hartnett) attends.

Directed by Steve Miner, after John Carpenter proved too expensive for the project, the sequel lacks the look of the early Halloween films feeling much more like any other generic 90s horror flick. We also get LL Cool J in a role of school security guard, Adam Arkin as a love interest for Laurie, Janet Leigh as the school secretary, and Michelle Williams, Adam Hann-Byrd, Jodi Lyn O’Keefe, Branden Williams, and Joseph Gordon-Levitt as teen monster fodder for Michael.

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Knives Out

  • Title: Knives Out
  • IMDb: link

Knives Out movie reviewRian Johnson delivers a devilishly good time in this fantastically entertaining whodunit set around the apparent suicide of the patriarch (Christopher Plummer) of a wealthy family. Set almost entirely in the Thrombey home, the writer/director makes excellent use of both setting and a talented cast featuring Daniel Craig as private investigator Benoit Blanc who has reason to believe murder has been committed. Part Hercule Poirot and part Columbo, Craig is in good form as the smartest man in the room.

The suspects include every member of the dysfunctional Thrombey family (Jamie Lee Curtis, Toni Collette, Chris Evans, Don Johnson, Katherine Langford, Michael Shannon, Jaeden Martell, and Riki Lindhome) each of whom has motive for murder. To help unravel the family’s dysfunction, Blanc enlists the help of the deceased’s nurse (Ana de Armas). The large supporting cast offers opportunities for several of its stars to steal scenes including Evans playing a role as far removed as possible from Steve Rogers and Johnson as a perfect rich douchebag completely oblivious to his own behavior.

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Don’t Call Me Stupid!

  • Title: A Fish Called Wanda
  • IMDb: link

A hitman who quotes Nietzsche and believes the London Underground is a political movement, a stuttering animal lover who keeps accidentally killing small dogs, an English barrister stuck in a loveless marriage, a thief used as a patsy, and a woman named Wanda who wraps each one of them around her little finger to get what she wants.  Rarely are romantic comedies this good.

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