What general film/series have you just seen.. marks out of 5

[grim_tales]

The Amateur (USA, 2025): 4/5

After his wife is killed in a terror attack, a computer decoder decides to take matters into his own hands and become an assassin, in an exciting thriller with Bond/Bourne-esque elements. Good movie.

[Lou Bloom]

Cockfighter (USA, 1974) 4/5
"He came in to town with his cock in his hand and what he did with it was illegal in 49 states". I think that was the original tagline. Warren Oates stars as a mute cockfighter who refuses to give up his career despite the fact he rarely wins. Harry Dean Stanton best known from Paris, Texas is his prime adversary on the Alabama circuit. Great watch, different slice of life.

[grim_tales]

Mickey 17 (USA/S. Korea, 2025): 3.75/5

Weird dark comedy about an experimental clone 'Mickey 17', that is sent to explore an ice planet. Reminded me of Red Dwarf in places When another clone of Mickey is made it seems like a more evil/dark version of him which Red Dwarf has done in a few episodes - eg Me Squared
Explores the theme of death/living Eg if you're born again with your memories when you die, do you truly enjoy living, do you really die?

[grim_tales]

Thunderbolts* (USA, 2025): 4.25/5

A ragtag group of misfits must work together and go on a dangerous mission to make their own kind of superhero team. I definitely enjoyed this one.

[grim_tales]

Sinners (USA, 2025): 4/5

Good movie, I enjoyed it. The period details and music was very good. Reminded me of From Dusk til Dawn (1996) though, but this seemed more serious because of the setting and racial themes. And I just remembered True Blood, which was a more recent vampire series
Shows that there's nothing new under the sun, I guess.

[grim_tales]

Mission Impossible - The Final Reckoning (USA, 2025): 4.5/5

Action packed and really exciting. Excellent, the dangers and costly mistakes of some computers and rise of AI make this very current

[EvaUnit02]

Ballerina (2025) - 5/5. 
This John Wick spin-off is pretty great. Wall to wall action and the most grounded movie in the series since John Wick 1. If you were turned off by the later main series sequels making Wick pretty much an immortal video game character, give this one a go. 

Characterisation was good, Eve is not a girlboss or more Mary Sue by any means and has to work for her skills. She gets thrown by men 3x her size/weight easily enough and gets suitably banged up during the action. While of course there is of course an amount of plot armour used + a suspension of disbelief required it still isn't anywhere near to the degree required by the time we get to John Wick 4.

[grim_tales]

Ballerina (USA/Hungary, 2025): 4/5
A dancer turned assassin sets out to avenge her father's death.
Action thriller spin-off in the John Wick universe, starring sexy Ana de Armas. This was the first time I've seen a John Wick movie and it was certainly entertaining. Some great action.

[grim_tales]

Tornado (UK, 2025): 3.25/5

A travelling dad and daughter team stage a samurai puppet show. The atmosphere was good, and the young lady (Kōki) was very good in her role but I was expecting some more action.
If the story is set in the late 18th century had Japan started to open up to the West by then? I'm not 100% sure.

[EvaUnit02]

M3gan 2.0 (US/NZ, 2025) - 2/5
Eh, it was fine. Fight choreography was decent at least. It's no longer a slasher like the first, they genre shifted to action comedy. Big mistake cuz the movie flopped, chased away the people who turned out for the first movie.

Played a meta game with myself while watching, spot the NZ actors (it was filmed in Auckland). Flight of the Concords glasses guy was the big, obvious one of course. Ben from Viva La Dirt League was a US federal agent stormtrooper mook.

I'm impressed that the film's producer actually came out and gave a non-PR laden explanation. They were basically high on their own farts after Megan 1 made $100 mill USD and thus they thought that they could do anything, thinking they had a license to print money.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EaXcUlLgHxE

[EvaUnit02]

Superman (2025) - 3/5
Pretty mid. Not terrible, but not great either. Everybody was pretty well cast IMO. Any traces of Zach Snyder 13 year old edgelordiness is well and truly gone now. People who wanted optimism and portrayals of heroism in a Superman adjacent movie will be happy with this one.

Thunderbolts (2025) - 2.5/5 
Same sentiment as above, except it was even more forgettable. The "THAT happened" Whedon-esque one liners within the first few minutes of the movie had he groaning. Being mid is a certainly a step-up since the MCU movies had been aggressively utter shit for a number years (exceptions being Spider-man 3, Deadpool 3, Guardian OTG 3.).

[grim_tales]

The Naked Gun (2025): 4/5

Very funny, the kind of movie that makes you happy

[grim_tales]

Jaws (1975) - 4/5 (first time viewing, Cinema)

When a great white shark starts attacking and killing beachgoers, it's up to a police chief, a marine expert and an old seafearer to hunt and kill the predator for good.

Da-dun... da-dun... da-dun... must be two of the most famous notes in movie history. An exciting and suspenseful movie, definitely worth seeing. IMO the shark looked naff up close, but I guess they did what they could given the effects technology of the time.

One thing I found a bit strange was the image seemed really dark at times, especially in some of the beach scenes. Is it meant to be a bright sunny day?

[HungFist]

Final Destination (USA, 2000) [TV] – 3/5
Solid teen horror with an original premise and imaginative, engineer-like approach to death scenes. It’s also fairly scary – perhaps not so much when watching it, but afterwards when you start thinking about all the things that could kill you at your home (and this was the first film I watched after moving to a new house…). It could be even more stylish, and have better characters, however.

Final Destination 2 (USA, 2003) [TV] – 3/5
Same concept repeated, lacks the originality, but the premise still works. Some of the death scenes and gore effects are fairly spectacular. This is the last film is the series that isn’t considerably hurt by CGI though there are some ugly bits.

Final Destination 3 (USA, 2006) [TV] – 3/5
This gets off to a bad start with some distracting CGI in the opening disaster scene. The plot somehow still works, however, and Mary Elizabeth Winstead makes a likeable lead. The solarium scene with the topless girls is something you wouldn’t be able to get away with in today’s horror movies – and the world is a worse place to live in now because of that.

The Final Destination (USA, 2009) [TV] – 2.5/5
This gets off to a worse start with a complete GCI train wreck opening. However, the plot still functions and there are some imaginative bits. Not a bad as its reputation, despite the DTV feel.

Final Destination 5 (USA, 2009) [TV] – 2/5
Nominally functional, but utterly unimaginative and burdened by tons of disgusting CGI. Compare this to the first film where death often struck in unexpected and creative ways – here we get gym, doctor’s chair and other places where you’d be likely to die even if death wasn’t after you. The ending is kind of neat, however.

[grim_tales]

Weapons (USA, 2025): 4.25/5

A very strange mystery/horror with a Rashomon style, I liked how it told some of the story from different people's view and you had to try and piece things together.
I'm more into mystery than horror but it was still very good, with some spooky jumps for sure

[grim_tales]

Little Shop of Horrors (USA, 1986): 4.5/5

[HungFist]

Death Walks at Midnight (Italy, 1972) – 2/5
A woman under the influence of drugs has a vision of a murder, but neither the police nor her boyfriend believe her - even after the killer starts stalking her. A fairly frustrating giallo that goes nowhere, despite its positive reputation. The violent climax is highly satisfying, but comes too late to save the film.

Oasis of Fear (Italy, 1971) – 3.5/5
Outlaw lovers on a road trip in Italy draw the attention of the police, and seek shelter and gasoline in a mansion where a housewife is waiting for her husband's return. Umberto Lenzi is best known for poliziotteschi and cannibal films; however, this breezy thriller stands as one of his better films. It's got a youthful swing more reminiscent of late 60s than the early 70s, and pair of likeable leads in Ray Lovelock and Ornella Muti.

[grim_tales]

Fackham Hall (UK, 2025) - cinema: 3.5/5

Entertaning, gag-filled spoof of period drama and murder mystery - imagine Naked Gun doing a send-up of Downton Abbey and the like. Of course, it doesn't reach Naked Gun/Leslie Neilsen heights but still good fun Not very joke landed which is to be expected, but some were hilarious, and I enjoyed it

[grim_tales]

Wake Up Dead Man - A Knives Out Mystery (USA, 2025) - cinema: 4/5

Daniel Craig and Glenn Close are excellent, it's a good movie but I didn't enjoy it as much as the first one. It was much darker, more serious and lacked the quirky humour overall that made the first two appealling to me as well as the mystery. There were some great characters though and amusing lines here and there.I'm not averse to dark themes, I just think this went to far in that direction, imo
I didn't feel I was following the mystery along with the characters really