Star Wars: The Last Jedi

Weekend Movies: Serious Bulls**t

The movie event of the year is finally upon us! Gather up the family and head on out to the theaters – that is, if you’re able to get a seat – because, that’s right, Fox’s new animated bull movie is here!

From the creative minds behind the ‘Ice Age’ and ‘Rio’ franchises comes ‘Ferdinand‘, a family feature about a lovable CG bull who’s separated from his family and the adventure he embarks upon to return home. Based on a popular children’s book, it’s already up for two prestigious Golden Globes. The voice cast includes the in-demand John Cena, Bobby Cannavale, out-of-retirement Jeremy Sisto, Kate McKinnon, Anthony Anderson, always-funny Peyton Manning, David Tennant, Gabriel Iglesias and Juanes (that’s plural for “Juan”). Enjoy!

Okay, joking aside. The real attraction this week is the sci-fi flick featuring characters from a galaxy far, far away. Yep, everyone’s favorite aliens are back in ‘Beyond Skyline‘! None of the main cast from the original ‘Skyline’ show up, but the writer-turned-director is back for an R-rated follow-up that somehow didn’t go directly to streaming services. In limited release, the sequel follows a detective (Frank Grillo) whose son is abducted by the alien invaders. More determined than Mel Gibson in ‘Ransom’, he will stop at nothing to get his son back, including boarding an alien ship and kicking ass. Bojana Novakovic and Iko Uwais of ‘The Raid’ co-star.

Okay, okay… The real movie of the weekend is ‘Star Wars: The Last Jedi‘, the eighth episode in the nine-picture ‘Star Wars’ saga. The movie picks up right where ‘The Force Awakens’ left off. To keep it spoiler-free, I’ll only share the plot as it’s set up in the opening scroll: Following the events of ‘The Force Awakens’, the First Order now knows exactly where the rebel base is, so the rebels are in evacuation mode from their hideout. At the same time, Rey has found Luke and you will finally see how Luke reacts to Rey offering up his long-missing lightsaber. New franchise director Rian Johnson does his own thing with the middle chapter in this third trilogy, which may or may not work for you. Die-hard ‘Star Wars’ fans are geeking out about ‘The Last Jedi’, but I’m in the camp that can’t wait to see J.J. Abrams return for Episode IX. Check back next week when I’ll let you know just exactly how I feel about ‘The Last Jedi’.

7 comments

  1. > Yep, everyone’s favorite aliens are back in ‘Beyond Skyline‘! None of the main cast from the original ‘Skyline’ show up, but the writer-turned-director is back for an R-rated follow-up that somehow didn’t go directly to streaming services.

    If I stumbled across it available as a digital ‘still in theaters’ rental, I’d pull the trigger. The first one as pretty bad, and I don’t have high expectations for a second one, but I dig the genre enough to check it out.

  2. aWaRLoCK

    I purchased and watched Beyond Skyline last night on Vudu. I enjoyed it overall. With a discount I applied, I payed $9.99 to own. I don’t typically rent. The story is kinda all over the place, literally all over the world, but the effects are very good. No regrets.

    I don’t expect The Shape of Water to ever show up in a theater near me so I just have to wait for a digital release.

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