Knives Out (2019)

When a wealthy novelist winds up dead, the police and a highly eccentric detective are brought in to investigate. Through a series of interviews with the dead man’s quirky, narcissistic relatives, the officers realize that just about everyone had reason to kill him. The only person who seems to have no motive is Martha, the author’s nurse. This, coupled with the fact that she is physically incapable of lying (she throws up whenever she thinks about falsehood) leads them to recruit her in their investigation. But what will happen when they realize that Martha has her own secrets she’s been keeping from them? Watch the movie and find out.

See You Yesterday (2019)

Flatbush wiz-kids CJ and Sebastian have done the impossible. They’ve built real, functioning time machines. The catch is that they can only go back for 10-minute stretches before needing to return to the present. So what do they do with their first, incredibly valuable 10 minutes? Humiliate CJ’s asshole ex-boyfriend. They don’t think anything of it at first until they realize that changing the past caused the trajectory of CJ’s brother’s day to shift. And when I say “shift” I mean, he winds up getting killed by police. This devastates CJ, who decides to use her technology to go back and save him. When she does so, however, she discovers that it’s not so easy to correct the past, since every change brings about new, unforeseen consequences.

Avatar (To Infinity Retrospective)

Welcome, brothers and sisters, to the To Infinity Retrospective, a series I created in preparation for Rise Of Skywalker. On the first day of each month, I review a different space opera. Why, you ask? Simple. I do it to send the sky people a message. I do it to tell them that they can’t take whatever they want, that they can be stopped, and that this, this is our land! And what better way to convey that message than through a review of this month’s film, Avatar. What’s it about? Well…

The Perfect Date (2019)

When a friend offers to pay him to take his cousin to homecoming, ambitious high schooler Brooks Rattigan gets an idea. What if he set up an app where girls who need escorts would hire him to be their “perfect date?” Not in the sense that he’d be having sex with them, seeing as that’s super illegal, but in the sense that they can tell him on the app how they want him to dress and behave. Brooks figures that if he makes enough money being a “stand-in” he can afford to pay for Yale, his dream college. But what happens when he winds up falling for one of his clients? Watch the movie and find out.

Captain Marvel (2019)

Crash-landing on Earth in 1995, Vers, an extraterrestrial warrior from the planet Hala, begins to have nightmares, dreams of a life she might have once had. See, she’s been told that she is a Kree soldier, locked in an eternal war with the shape-shifting Skrull, but these dreams suggest that she may have actually once been Carol Danvers, a human air force pilot. Her commander, Yon-Rogg, tells her to ignore these visions, insisting that they are implants put there by the Skrull, who did tamper with Vers’ memories while she was captured. But before she can ask too many questions, Skrulls show up, hoping to catch her again, and she winds up running into a young government agent by the name of Nick Fury, and they all chase each other across the country for… some reason.

The Kid Who Would Be King (2019)

One night, while running away from bullies, young Alex Elliot stumbles into a construction yard. There, he finds a sword lodged in a stone, and being a curious 12-year-old, decides to pull it out. Upon doing so, he discovers some Latin written on the hilt, which, when entered into Google Translate, reads “Sword of Arthur.” Alex is skeptical at first, thinking it impossible for this to be the real Excalibur, but when demonic warriors try to kill him, and an eccentric young man, claiming to be Merlin, tells him that he must assemble a group of knights to stop the evil Morgan Le Fay, or else the world will end, he starts to reconsider.

Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse (2018)

One night, while drawing graffiti with his Uncle, Brooklyn teen Miles Morales is bitten by a radioactive spider. This grants him the ability to climb on walls and jump really high, as well as turn invisible and zap people with venom. In effect, he becomes another Spider-Man. This is a big deal, because, until now, Miles always thought there was just one Spider-Man. And, in a very tragic sense, there is, since Miles witnesses the original, Peter Parker Spider-Man get murdered by a dimension opening portal (long story). So now, in addition to having to take up all the responsibilities of the original Spider-Man, Miles must also contend with several other Spider People, including Spider-Woman, Spider-Man Noir, the anthropomorphic pig Spider-Ham, and the mech-suit-wearing Peni Parker, all of whom have been brought to his dimension by the portal. Can he do it? Watch the movie and find out.

Widows (2018)

When their husbands are killed in a botched robbery, and the gangster they stole from comes demanding reparations, a group of widows are forced to pull off an impossible heist to save both themselves and their families. This involves them finding a getaway car, a driver, codes to a safe, and guns. Lots of guns. They don’t want to kill anyone, but when you’re backed into a corner, who knows what will happen?

Overlord (2018)

It’s the eve of D-Day, and a group of paratroopers are being sent to destroy a German radio tower in France. Before they can get there, however, their plane is shot down, and only five men, Corporal Ford, and Privates Boyce, Tibbet, Chase, and Dawson are left alive. Shaken, but determined to complete their objective, the soldiers make their way to the village where the tower is located and discover some strange, horrifying things. What things, you ask? Well, it would appear that, in the hopes of ensuring their thousand-year Reich, the Nazis have been performing experiments on people to create “thousand-year soldiers.” Yikes. So now, in addition to having to blow up the radio tower, it would appear that the paratroopers have to contend with undead Nazis as well. Charming. Can they do it? Well, watch the film and find out for yourself.

Bodyguard (Season 1, 2018)

One night, while riding the train home with his kids, David Budd, an Afghan war Vet, and Bodyguard, discovers a bomber in the bathroom. After an extremely tense standoff, David manages to talk her down, and save everyone onboard. This leads to him being labeled a hero, and getting a new assignment; protecting Julia Montague, the Home Secretary. Julia’s a very unpopular politician, with plans to introduce a highly controversial, Patriot Act style bill into law, which would basically give Parliament access to everyone’s personal information. As a result, she needs protection from just about everyone, terrorists, organized crime, etc. David doesn’t initially like her, seeing as she’s pro War, and he knows, from first-hand experience, how brutal, and, in some ways, pointless, the conflict is. But after someone tries to assassinate her, they inexplicably start having an affair, and he starts doing some digging of his own, uncovering an elaborate, albeit very silly, conspiracy.