THE SLAMMIN' SALMON (2009)

Another excellent comedy by the five-man comedy group Broken Lizard.  This time around the entire movie takes place inside a restaurant called The Slammin' Salmon, named after the owner: retired heavyweight boxer "Slammin" Cleon Salmon. Anyway, Mr. Salmon has lost a bet with the Japanese yukaza and he has to come up with $20,000 cash by tomorrow. So he offers his wait staff a reward of $10,000 to the person who can sell the most that night.  The loser gets a beating. When the wait staff hears this they go nuts and will do anything to win...or, at least, not lose.

This is a great idea for a movie and minus all the crude humor it actually reminds me a lot of the old screwball comedies of the 1930's.  Super-fast pace, mile a minute dialogue, multiple things going on at one time, hilarious one-liners non-stop, great physical humor and a fantastic supporting cast.  The most pleasant surprise though was just how funny Michael Clarke Duncan was.  He was hilarious!  I think every time he was on screen I was cracking up.  His lines were funny, but his delivery was absolutely perfect.

I really like this movie a lot and have enjoyed it many times over the years.  Highly recommended.

GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY (2014)

In 1988, a young Earthling, Peter Quill, is kidnapped by aliens.  Twenty-six years later, Peter, is grown up and dancing across a weird-looking alien planet while listening to his ancient Walkman.  He's grown up to be a bizarre mixture of Marty McFly, Indiana Jones, Han Solo and whatever the hell Kevin Bacon's name was in FOOTLOOSE.  After getting his boogie on, he finds what he's looking for: a metal orb that looks like a larger version of Rosemary's necklace in ROSEMARY'S BABY.  Stuff happens and it ends up that an evil dude (who looks likes what would happen if the bad guy from THE KEEP joined a black metal glam band) wants the orb in order to use it as a weapon to kill everybody.  Later on, Peter crosses paths with some other folks and they end up becoming friends.  Awww.

I've only seen a handful of these Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) films, so I can't really tell you if it's good or not from a comic book fan perspective, but from an entertainment perspective...I liked it.  Quick pace, impressive special effects, good acting, intriguing characters, zero tension.  I would totally watch it again.

The Infinity Saga

Phase One
Part 1 - Iron Man (2008)
Part 2 - The Incredible Hulk (2008)
Part 3 - Iron Man 2 (2010)
Part 4 - Thor (2011)
Part 5 - Captain America: The First Avenger (2011)
Part 6 - Marvel's The Avengers (2012)

Phase Two
Part 7 - Iron Man 3 (2013)
Part 8 - Thor: The Dark World (2013)
Part 9 - Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014)
Part 11 - Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015)
Part 12 - Ant-Man (2015)

Phase Three
Part 13 - Captain America: Civil War (2016)
Part 14 - Doctor Strange (2016)
Part 15 - Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 (2017)
Part 16 - Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)
Part 17 - Thor: Ragnarok (2017)
Part 18 - Black Panther (2018)
Part 19 - Avengers: Infinity War (2018)
Part 20 - Ant-Man and the Wasp (2018)
Part 21 - Captain Marvel (2019)
Part 22 - Avengers: Endgame (2019)
Part 23 - Spider-Man: Far From Home (2019)

Phase Four
Part 24 - Black Widow (2021)
Part 25 - Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings (2021)
Part 26 - Eternals (2021)
Part 27 - Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021)
Part 28 - Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (2022)
Part 29 - Thor: Love and Thunder (2022)
Part 30 - Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (2022)

Phase Five
Part 31 - Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania (2023)
Part 32 - Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 (2023)
Part 33 - The Marvels (2023)