I have mixed feelings about that proposed remake. Part of me feels that the whole mafia/gangster/rags to riches crime drama genre has been played out. The other part of me has some curiosity about what a modern day twist would be like with Scarface.

Rags to riches is a constant theme in the world of crime, however there's just no way to make a story of some Mexican immigrant coming to 2020s L.A. as fresh as its predecessors were back in Prohibition times, or the Cocaine Cowboys era, it's old news at this point.

And whereas the original Scarface character was clearly influenced by Al Capone and contemporaries, and Tony Montana on a combination of guys that were if anything, crazier and more colorful than he was, there's no one that really stands out as a model for our 2020s L.A. Tony.

Some low level Cartel lieutenant that few people have heard of? Meh.

On 2nd episode of this 8 episode series on Netflix, made in Iceland. Fantastic!

Watched original first "Terminator" movie on BluRay video.

I've had the first 4 Terminator movies sitting in a box for quite a while -- unopened (now one is opened).

I had seen it before (long ago). I had forgotten the details. My Wife and I enjoyed the video today.

"Terminator" has a fairly linear plot based on an interesting story arc. Terminator #1 is basically an "action shooter" from the first act -- more like a game than a movie.

Why watch now? AMD just released their FidelityFX Super Resolution (FSR) GPU driver. I wanted to try FSR -- just for the heck of it (my GPU does not need FSR to run 4K in my games).

The PC game "Terminator Resistance" (a "shooter") is one of the first to implement FSR (went live with FSR yesterday). I checked the game reviews on-line -- got high ratings -- and said the plot, settings, weapons, etc are faithful to the movies (but not a literal remake of the movies). So, I bought the "Terminator Resistance" game to enjoy and to try FSR.

But, before playing, I want to re-watch the "Terminator" movie series.

I was very pleasantly surprised by how good the story was in "Resistance". The ending of the game is especially very neat for fans of the franchise as it has a clever tie-in with a major scene you see in Terminator 2.

As for the film franchise, everything went downhill after Terminator 2 in my opinion. The first 2 films are scifi classics that are worthy of being watched multiple times. Everything that came out afterwards I watched once and then quickly forgot about.

We watched "T2 Judgement Day" (i.e. Terminator 2) extended cut (~2hr 30min) today.

We enjoyed it. It adds nicely to Terminator 1. I had seen it long ago -- but, did not have the details "memorized".

2 more Terminators in the (above mentioned) box -- T3 and T4.

I'll grant that the ending for T3 was quite good and went against the Hollywood grain but unfortunately the preceding 95% of the movie I found to be pretty forgettable. T4 was just a big mistake in my opinion. The producers shouldn't have even bothered.

Your comments are similar to what I read on-line when I checked two days ago. T1 & T2 good. T3 & T4 fit the sequence but not as good. T5 & T6 turned off one guy to the point that after watching he threw the blurays into the rubbish (he said).

Normally, I would have purchased T5 & T6 to complete the set. But, I didn't because of all the negative comments, We'll watch T3 & T4 soon. That should meet my need to "feel" the Terminator world prior to playing the Terminator Game.

T3 was pretty meh and T6 jumped the shark halfway through.

There are only two good Terminator movies--the first and second. Any time the creator of a fictional work leaves the team producing subsequent works should be a cue to cease consuming those future productions. There's one major exception to this rule: "Aliens." Somehow James Cameron defied the odds and made one of the greatest films in cinematic history.

Taxi for Tobruk. Pre own DVD Amazon $10. Good movie!

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0054425/

We watched "Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines" -- continuing the sequence of "Terminator 1", "Terminator 2" we started less than a week ago.

I liked it. It had no downsides for me. Having seen T1 and T2 so recently, the conversations and details made sense (I let the story "envelop" me to an extent -- as I intend to be "enveloped" by the Terminator game world).

T1, T2, T3 employ non-stop (figuratively speaking), over the top, life and death chase/combat scenes -- punctuated by brief periods that set the table for the next chase. That plot mechanic reminded me of the James Bond movies (we watched all of those 1st to last, in order during the last few months). They say there are only a limited number of "plots" in the world -- the same concepts get used again and again and again and....

We'll watch Terminator 4 next/soon. T3 in-episode hints regarding T4 have me looking forward to T4. We'll see.

Alien and Aliens are both science fiction classics which will still be watched by people 100 years from now. I am utterly certain on that. The other films though?


Alien 3 - The director's cut makes this somewhat watchable but overall it's pretty forgettable. Only Charles Dance's performance really stands out for me.


Alien Resurrection - What was Fox thinking here by hiring an avant garde French director?? Ugh.

Prometheus - Pretty cinematography and Fassbender was great. Everything else though like the PLOT and character motivations were laughably bad.

Covenant - Even worse than Prometheus.

I couldn't have summed the film's up better. I like Alien 3 a little more than you seem to but I think only because of the atmosphere in my opinion was good.

Alien 3 was doomed the moment they killed off Newt and Hicks.

Having grown tired of the present, the 1980s returned to my home this weekend and I saw a couple of films:

1) "Dreamscape" -- I saw this back in the day and the film holds up pretty well. The writing is decent, but the film could have been more than it was, so as far as sci-fi goes, this was slightly above average but not anything particularly special. The younger Kate Capshaw was easy on the eyes, as bonus--though I really enjoyed her cute whininess in "Temple of Doom." She was pretty subdued in this picture. ** 1/2 out of ****.


2) "Dead-Bang" -- I'm not sure I ever saw this 1989 film, and if I did, do not recall much from it. Don Johnson did a really good job with the lines and character he was given--and there's some real gems of dialogue that come out of his mouth throughout the film. Some of the other characters, though, I wish had a bit more depth to them, particularly the FBI agent that was tagging along--I feel the writers dropped the ball here and could have fleshed him out better and given him both more dimensionality and purpose, so he was an impactful sidekick, much like Riggs and Murtaugh were in "Lethal Weapon." Alas, this did not happen, and appears they were making this primarily a film about Johnson's character and that is fine. Still, some of the stuff he said truly was golden and begged for a little bit extra to propel this into "Mr. Brooks" territory--which, anyone who wants to know how a crime drama should be shaped to the next level, should watch. Yes, I realize that "Bang" was not a thriller, and more of a drama, but there are certain literary techniques that could have been employed to make it better. Perhaps it sounds like I didn't like the film--not at all. This was a good film that I liked enough to want even more from, and I enjoyed. *** out of **** stars.

It seems the Indy fandom is highly divided on this one. Most of the fans either seem to be absolutely in love with the "Willie Scott" character mostly because of her good looks and the other fans loathe her due to her incessant screaming and whiny attitude.


Concerning "Dead Bang" I've never even heard of it. In fact, all I know from Don Johnson after his Miami Vice days was that 90's show he starred in called "Nash Bridges".

You still haven't seen the "The Hot Spot" I guess. That's a really nice film, as far as seedy films go, that Don stars in.

You only watch that film for Jennifer Connelly.

I think pretty much every teenage boy was in love with her in the late 80's/early 90's.

Watched Terminator 4 "Terminator: Salvation" Director's Cut. 2009 release.

As some have mentioned, this one was not on the same level as the previous 3, for me. A slight "turn off" on the whole series, for me.

While it followed the first 3 logically, it almost seemed like a different story. A mediocre plot. The lead-in scenes were insufficient to "tell the story" that needed telling at that point -- to get me "on the path".

In addition, certain scenes were not clear because I was not sure who some actors were portraying. Over 4 films, some character-parts might have new actors (or, at least, new makeup) -- so, I sat wondering if I was missing something (rather than sit there being immersed). That's where some early scenes needed fleshing out to make clear who I was looking at and why.

Oh well, my quick review is as vague as the movie was to me. EDIT: See EDIT2.

I don't know if I'll be buying the final 2 in the series.

EDIT: I double checked T5 and T6. They are a "reboot" for all practical purposes. I'll stop with T4 -- it at least was part of the original series.

EDIT2: I slept on it. The problem is clearer now. I now see how they went wrong presenting and I went wrong watching. Not worth discussing.