I saw a couple of movies last weekend:

1) "88"(2015) -- Neat "Memento" like independent thriller about a girl who enters a fuge state and bad things follow. Very dark, but manages to stay interesting throughout. Katherine Isabel is awesome, as always, and Christopher Lloyd plays a significant role. If you enjoy Tarantino films, you'll like this one. *** out of **** stars.

2) "3 Days to Kill" -- Costner delivers, as usual, in this Luc Besson co-written dramatic thriller. I particularly enjoyed how they melded a father/daughter drama together with a CIA hitman flick. While not quite as strong as Costner's previous "Mr. Brooks"(which is truly an exceptional film), the picture works and was fun to watch. Good movie, overall. *** out of **** stars.

My turd sense is tingling. I haven't seen a stinker in three weeks now, and am due to slip in my screening process I use to weed out the good from trash before I watch, and pluck a bad one from the bin...

I looked up "88" and it has a 4.9 rating on IMDB so it seems you were quite a bit more generous in your review than those IMDB users who voted.


I haven't seen "3 Days to Kill" but I may check it out. That was back when Amber Heard was smoking hot and before she made all of her craziness public.

The thing about IMDB is the reviews can easily be skewed. My process when I dig for movies is as follows, once I have identified a potential candidate:

1) Read the one or two line description. If interesting, then...

2) Look at score

3) Skim review scores and look for a pattern. If I see lots of one star scores with lots of support, discard movie. If I see lots of high reviews with weak support, discard movie. If I see lots of high review scores with support, despite the average rating of the movie being poor, we might have buried treasure.


I generally don't read the reviews, unless I suspect the movie might be contaminated by the woke mind virus, and then I might peak at a few. If you look at (2015)"88"'s reviews, you will notice there are many high scores, but very few reviews, and an abysmal number of total ratings. Typically films such as this are rated down by the woke clods that tend to infect IMDB with their nonsense.

Actually revealing a candidate to start this process with is another task in itself.

This process is how I have uncovered other gems in the past, which at the time were rated extremely poorly such as "Lost River," which when I watched was rated a 4.2 on IMDB! Since then the rating has climbed to a 5.7, and I believe when I saw the movie rated it a solid three stars--which is good, but not great.

The Blastman rating system:

* = poor
** = fair - These movies aren't bad but aren't great, either. You could do worse.
*** = good
*** 1/2 = great and for the most part, must also be rewatchable, and usually beg to be.
**** = best of the best, will stand the test of the time, and can be watched over and over, and even redefine genres and can potentially change popular culture. These are by nature extremely rare.

Agreed and you are then talking about directors like Kurosawa, Kubrick, Spielberg, Fincher, Tarantino and Lynch who each made several movies which fit your description IMHO.

2 movies I saw recently:

Banshees Of Inisherin
Colin Farrel, Brendan Gleason & director Martin McDonagh reunite (e.g. In Bruges) to make a slightly weird Irish tale about 2 guys falling out over not very much. As it's set during the Irish civil war, which is mentioned but not really shown, I tend to think that this is an allegorical tale of the Irish civil war taken down to the scale of 2 people who were previously good friends falling out.
Is a dark comedy, but very dark in places, HIGHLY recommended.

White Noise
Adam Driver & Don Cheadle in a what feels like a Woody Allen-esque comedy drama. Half the movie is about how a family are affected by a toxic train accident event, and the second half is a weird fallout from that. (Fallout as in consequent situations.) I enjoyed it but if you don't like talky existential crises-type situations you might not.

Predator... as I happened to catch the start of it when it appeared on one of our TV channels a few days ago.

Simple. Wonderful. Just the right amount of character development/backstory...ie hardly any.
Ending a bit unbelievable though. He got a long way from that explosion in a very short time, and the choppa found him rather quickly.

Saw it a few months ago. Wasn't expecting it to go where it did. Very enjoyable movie.

Who would have thought back in 1987 that "Predator" would have two future US State governors on the cast?

My wife and I started watching "Fringe" a few days ago. We are about 4 episodes in and it's fairly interesting sort of 'X Files" plot, lots of weird stuff going on with an eclectic FBI team investigating them. We're not hooked yet but I plan on giving it a chance for at least a few more episodes.

Anyone else seen this? Opinion?

The first season of "Fringe" is most absolutely heavily inspired by the X-Files and JJ Abrams has even said as much in interviews. The parallels are unmistakable. Overall I enjoyed the show and the later seasons delve very heavily into an over-arching mythology just like the X-Files did!


My favorite character by far was Walter Bishop which was brilliantly played by John Noble.

I have been avoiding "Banshees of Inisherin" because of the potential of a homosexual angle. These days, given how duplicitous Hollywood is, one cannot be too cautious. Do I have nothing to worry about if I were to give the film a watch?

Yeah, he's a hoot. Was great in "Elementary" as Sherlock Holmes father too.

If you stick with the show until the season one finale you will be pleasantly surprised by who the mystery guest star is......

In Darkest Hour, 1940, after Belgium and Holland surrender, France and England making a final stand in France, Churchill flies to France to meet with the French Prime Minister

That aircraft Churchill is on is wrong

RAF did not get the C-47 Dakota until 1942 and the first ones went to RAF in India

It's called a movie, not a documentary. To be quite honest I can forgive a historical-based film when it makes a mistake with the hardware. What I CAN'T forgive is when a historical-based film changes the motivations of key historical figures or when it outright changes the course of events from what actually occurred in reality.

You'll survive it the topic of a man's love for his donkey is tastefully handled.

Donkey ? tasteful ? how is that possible

You'll see

Bouquet of carrots ? candlelight ?

Jesus. The funniest & best answer to that will get me banned