Sunday, January 14, 2024

STAR WARS (1977)

People often never ask me what the single most influential movie in my life is, but, if they did, the answer would be the original Star Wars film from 1977. Not only was I completely obsessed with the original Star Wars trilogy as a kid back in the 1980’s, but even now as an incredibly handsome adult, I’m still obsessed with the original trilogy and the Star Wars Universe as a whole. I own all the movies, I read the novels, I play the games, I watch all the TV shows, blah, blah, blah. And yes, I did cry when Grogu jumped into Mando’s arms.

Long ago, way the fuck off somewhere far away from Earth is a whole other galaxy populated by humans, robots and aliens who seem to love nothing more that killing the womp rat piss out of each other non-stop. As our story begins, a larger spacecraft is chasing a smaller craft. It seems that there is an item (holding top secret information) hidden on the smaller craft that the people on the larger craft want. Shit happens and before you can say "Even if you give 100% of yourself to somebody, it is still only 50% of the relationship", a young farmer, Luke Skywalker, who lives on a nearby planet is rescuing a princess (with the help of some pirates and an old wizard-like dude) and neck deep in an ongoing civil war between the Rebel Alliance and the Galactic Empire! It’s…awesome!

There’s nothing that I can say about STAR WARS that hasn’t already been said a thousand times, but I just want to put out onto the internet a “Thank you.” to George Lucas and everybody involved with the making of this film.  STAR WARS (and the Universe it spawned) has been a comfort to me for my entire life. It is a nice place to retreat to when the trauma and horrors and dishonesty and lies and lies and lies and soul-destroying heartbreak of this reality become too painful to endure.

(And no, I’m not delusional enough to actually believe that George Lucas or anybody besides me will ever read this.)

The Skywalker Saga

Prequel trilogy
Episode I - The Phantom Menace (1999)
Episode II - Attack of the Clones (2002)
Episode III - Revenge of the Sith (2005)

Original trilogy
Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back (1980)
Episode VI - Return of the Jedi (1983)

Sequel trilogy
Episode VII - The Force Awakens (2015)
Episode VIII - The Last Jedi (2017)
Episode IX - The Rise of Skywalker (2019)

Monday, December 4, 2023

SPIDER-MAN: HOMECOMING (2017)

SPIDER-MAN: HOMECOMING is an awesome movie. I’ve always enjoyed the occasional Marvel Cinematic Universe movies that have passed in front of my incredibly handsome eyeballs, but it wasn’t until HOMECOMING that I actually connected emotionally with the characters and story to the point that I have now gone back and caught up with all of the MCU stuff.

In this (the 16th) installment of the MCU, we have a high school dude by the name of Peter “Penis” Parker who is a small-time superhero. Just you’re friendly neighborhood Spider-Man who uses his spider powers and badass superhero suit (provided to him by Tony Stark) to do stuff like stopping a guy from stealing a bicycle and give directions to an old lady. He’s also on the academic decathlon team and likes to hang out with his best friend, Ned. It’s totally awesome and, honestly, the entire movie could have just been about him getting cats out of trees and assembling a Lego Death Star with Ned and I would have been in movie heaven. But, a movie about Spider-Man playing board games with his buddy for two hours would have made about $666 at the box office, so…one evening while on patrol Spider-Man notices a small gang of criminals robbing an ATM with some badass gear made from the alien tech left over from the Battle of New York (in a previous MCU movie). Shit happens and next thing you know, there’s a dude in a high-tech vulture suit kicking Penis Parker’s pecker and spider balls up around his spider ears. It’s awesome. The entire movie is awesome! I’ve seen it like 30 times and I hope to watch it 30 more times before my handsome and chiseled buns shuffle off to that great gay bar in the sky. Twerking, line dancing, voguing, purple lasers and smoke everywhere. It’ll be **** tight, like a Bon Jovi concert.

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 10 - Guardians of the Galaxy (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 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 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)