Entertainment

We are in the middle of “spooky season” in October so expect horror movies for the next few weeks. I am personally extremely excited for this, and I love this time of year. We also have the reemergence from an old horror movie icon in Jigsaw. This is actually the tenth film in the “Saw” series hence the name, if you include a quasi-spin off with Spiral starring Chris Rock and Samuel L. Jackson. If you’ve been reading and going to the movies with me since this column started, you may remember that review. I enjoyed it and it received 4 stars out of 5 rating!

PORTSMOUTH- Thursday, September 28, 2023: The Portsmouth Wind Symphony will open its 31st season tonight at 7:00 pm at the Vern Riffe Center for the Arts on the campus of Shawnee State University. The concert is themed “Reflections on the Ohio” as it will feature Ohio composers and songs referencing the Ohio River.

We are changing gears briefly and leaving horror films and jumping into sci-fi! Next month being October there will be mostly reviews of the new horror movies coming out, so I wanted to take a breather and see this new release. The Creator isn’t biblical, but I did notice biblical overtones which is to be expected given the premise. Essentially, we have a war between A.I. robots and humans. We see the creation of life with the different tiers here and the question is asked numerous times, “What makes someone alive?” I’ll get more into that later but if you’ve seen any movies with robots in them, you’ll know what I mean. Full disclosure, I did not have high hopes for this film. The runtime is over two hours, and I was heading home from work and I wasn’t in the mood for a movie. I did manage to see this in IMAX, and I will say I WAS WRONG!!!! This film is incredible! Spoiler alert. This is getting 4 ½ stars.

Just as we expect the seasons to change around us, the Southern Ohio Museum and Cultural Center is moving forward and cleaning house to display new and exciting artwork in their halls. This time, they’re highlighting an Ohio artist who embodies nature through her work across many mediums.

PORTSMOUTH— Shawnee State University’s Vern Riffe Center for the Arts (VRCFA) welcomes MOIPEI to open the 2023-2024 Performing Arts Series on Thursday, Sept. 14. A musical tour de force set of triples, MOIPEI will perform in the Eloise Covert Smith Theater in the VRCFA starting at 7:30 p.m.

It’s been a long time since we have been able to review a Denzel Washington movie. I was excited to say the least. I can remember seeing his films my whole life and Washington is one of my favorite actors. I was discussing with friend some of the first movies I remember seeing in theaters were with him. Does anyone remember John Q? Such a great movie! Remember the Titans, Glory, Fallen, Man of Fire. I could go on and on. He’s a great actor. That being said I haven’t reviewed the previous two entries in the Equalizer universe. Many of you will know/remember that this started out as a tv show from 1989 starring Edward Woodward. We then cut to 2014 with The Equalizer and The Equalizer II in 2018. These were pre-review days but these films were good. Not great, but good. You will stop when you’re flipping through the channels and watch it, but normally not rushed to see it. I wondered if this film would hold up to the others or be the best of the bunch>

I want to start this review off by stating this film is a HARD R RATING. Be warned. It’s incredibly foul and its dogs say and doing the foul things. Do not take your children or grandchildren under the impression that this is a fun movie about stray dogs on an adventure. However, is it worth a watch? I remember seeing this trailer a few months ago and genuinely laughed out loud as the main character Reggie (Ferrell) is on an adventure to get back to his terrible owner and enact revenge. I have to tread lightly on how many of the specifics I can say here. Hard R like I said. But, I worried that all of the funny scenes were in the trailer and it would cause for a mediocre movie. So was it?

This week we are shifting gears (pun intended) as we get back into the racing world with a professional race car driver that…wait for it…. started out playing video games! There is a competition called GT Academy that ran for 8 years throughout the world. The film explains its creation better than I can, but essentially it started out as a marketing ploy to get people excited about Nissan cars. Their was/is a video game series called Gran Turismo that highlights as a real simulator for sports cars. You can design build, break down, and drive these cars. I can remember them from when I was a child but didn’t play them too much. However, the NASCAR game with the cheat code for paintballs to shoot the other to cars my friends and I played on repeat. When I saw this trailer, I worried it would be another poor attempt at taking a video game and turning it into a movie. I had no idea there was a real story behind it. So how would this stack up to other sports films?

Judging was held on July 18th and 19th at the Scioto County Fairgrounds

We are sticking with the superhero genre this week with The Flash. It should be noted this is an older release. I actually caught it at a 2nd run theater but when I was incredibly excited to see it. We would have the return of Michael Keaton’s BATMAN! I feel like I’ve mentioned this in previous reviews, but I grew up with him as my Batman and have always enjoyed those film. He’s finally back! The Flash is a member of the Justice League (Wonder Woman, Aquaman, Batman, and Cyborg) and this is his first (and probably last) solo film. Sorry, spoiler alerts here. If you stop reading right here, just know I did not love this film. That being said would there be any saving graces with this?