Dan Says its Alright

 Glorious is a new Shudder exclusive that sees a down on his luck guy become trapped in a rest stop bathroom with a lovecraftian entity talking to him through a cubicle glory hole. The man's past and the beings intentions are gradually revealed as the film progresses with good pacing and interesting back and forth making sure everything is kept ticking along nicely. The moral and existential chats are surface level to say the least and a late character twist isn't exactly needed but its entertaining enough and worth a watch. It certainly doesn't hurt that the potentially world ending demi god is voiced by JK Simmons. New Amazon Prime release Samaritan sees Sylvester Stallone's titular super vigilante have his retirement interrupted by a nosey child neighbour. As you might expect Stallone is easy to buy as a lumbering, over  the hill superhero and Javon Walton is likeable in the child role. Credit also due for trying to put a slight twist on the "good guys are all g...

 Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero (yes they are going with both supers) follows the path laid down by previous instalment Broly in making attempts to be an actual "movie".   That is to say it goes in for some character development and world building. Its a while before we meet any of the regular characters with the first portion of the film focusing on a tiny mafioso type and his quiff sporting henchmen recruiting self professed "super genius" Dr Hedo to help rebuild the Red Ribbon Army. This establishes Super Hero's intent to deliver a story that old school fans can get behind without needing to be up to date with more recent events. The only real mention of last decades worth of TV show and movies being neatly contained in a side plot involving Goku, Vegeta and the newer characters. Dragon Ball is always a mix of the grandiose  and ridiculous. Super Hero spends much more time focusing on the light hearted end of the scale, with Piccolo needing Gohan to step up af...

 For his third featue Jordan Peele turns his attention to the art of filmaking itself and the explotation of those involved. Its unlikely he will ever blow people away like he did with Get Out again (you can only come out of nowhere once) and whether or not this effort is better than Us is a matter of taste, but he's still managing to flip expectations third time round. The film revolves around brother and sister duo OJ (his infamous real life namesake is mentioned) and Keke. OJ is professional and hardworking, desperate to keep their late fathers business going but lacks the people skills to get ahead. Keke is charismatic and would be the perfect foil to OJ but prefers self promotion to helping a family business she was never really made to feel part of. The business in question is providing horses for filming and the use (or misuse) of animals is a recurring theme, including a genuinely harrowing scene involving a sitcom chimp. Scenes like this confirm Peel's ability to make ...

 1998's Fallen sees Denzel Washington face off against a demonic serial killer. It has a great supporting cast including John Goodman, James Gandolfini and Donald Sutherland but its Denzel's show and he is on top form as both suave supercop and, as the scale of what he up against becomes clear, back to the wall (unconventional) family man. Visually, its peak 90's and benifits from being set in the days before all research was done via internet. The ending is either a fun twist or mean depending on your point of view but either way this is a hidden Denzel gem that should be more remembered. 2017 Netflix film Little Evil takes a more comedic approach to the supernatural, with newly married Adam Scott discovering his step son is the Antichrist. Billed as "The Omen meets Sean of the Dead" the desire to ape the latter is clear from the get go but it falls some way short, the fast edits and musical cues so meticulously executed in Edgar Wright's masterpiece coming ...

 Bullet Train starts off like a Guy Ritchie tirbute movie, with a bunch of characters of varying degrees of moral dubiness sharing screen time and firing out witty dialogue. Over the course of the next two hours dead bodies rack up while things escalate to a massively OTT finale. Brad Pitt leads the ensemble cast as newly peace loving former assassin "Lady Bird", looking to ease his way back to work with a simple pick up job. Unfortunately for him the train he boards is full of other dangerous types whose motivations we learn about via flashbacks all of who are entertaining and played well. Amongst others there's a father looking for payback on the person who pushed his son off a roof, a violence loving cartel killer and a scheming young women with big plans. Special shout out to Brian Tyree Henry and Aaron Taylor-Johnson as likeable cockney hitmen Lemon and Tangerine. Pitt himself is effortlessly cool, managing to portrey his bad luck magnet (according to himself anyway)...

 This Russo's action flick has all the ingredients of a top tier spy thriller but will leave you feeling like you've just watched an extended trailer for other films they want to make in the world of the "Grey Man".  Ryan Gosling plays Sierra 6 (yes the Sierras are basically 00 agents with the twist they all used to  be criminals) and is ideal casting as the sort of ass kicking man of few words this type of film is built around. All the archetypes you would expect are also present and played well by a stellar cast. Chris Evans is unhinged antagonist, Billy Bob Thornton is retired mentor, Rege-Jean Page is crooked politicain and Ana De Armas is the good agent caught in the middle. The plot is just as cookie cutter, involving Gossling being hunted by the people he used to work, computer files nobody was meant to see and hostages needing rescued.  Of course, all these things are tropes for a reason and done well (like they are here) equal an enjoyable movie. And the Gre...